away. It was a butterfly design; she’d always had a sentimental thing about butterflies, and her mother had used to buy her presents with butterfly motifs. Seeing this now was like some kind of sign, and Lucy had to fight back the tears.
The wings of the design glistened with what she could only assume were tiny diamonds, and three delicate silver strands linked it on each side to the catch.
She pointed with a trembling finger. ‘I like that one.’
A startled gasp of disbelief came from the sales assistant, clearly seeing her month’s worth of commission disappearing down the drain.
‘That one?’
Ari had heard the exchange and was behind Lucy, looking over her shoulder. She tensed as the fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck.
The sales assistant couldn’t keep the pain out of her voice. ‘Well, yes, it is a nice piece …’ She laughed nervously, ‘If you like something more … subtle … and the designer is local. But really …’
Lucy heard a scathing, ‘Less than one thousand euros? I don’t think so …’ come from behind her, and then she felt his mouth close to her ear, so only she could hear which he said. ‘I think I want a lot more than a two-night stand Lucy, mou, so I think you’re worth a lot more than that …’
Before she knew it Ari had arrogantly picked out a completely different necklace, with a huge sapphire stone surrounded by diamonds, and the ecstatic sales assistant was wrapping it up efficiently before they changed their minds.
Outside the shop, Lucy broke desperately from Ari’s grasp, but he caught her again effortlessly and swung her round. She closed her eyes and to her utter horror could feel tears welling. She couldn’t stop one from slipping out. She felt a tense stillness come into his body.
‘Lucy …’ He sounded exasperated now. Lucy didn’t doubt that he’d moved women to tears after buying them jewellery before, but for entirely different reasons.
Ari took hold of Lucy’s arms. They felt slender and fragile under his hands. He saw the tear slip down the pale softness of her cheek and cursed himself silently, feeling like an absolute heel when he didn’t even know why. He’d just spent a fortune on her! And in his experience money equalled a satisfied woman. He was floundering badly, had never been in this place before, and had certainly never expected a reaction like this. She looked almost green.
Seeing her still holding onto that crazy bunch of flowers, Ari grabbed them out of her hand and passed them to a woman strolling past. He was unaware of her gasp of delighted surprise as she took them, entirely focused on Lucy again. More tears were slipping down her cheeks. He was used to women’s histrionics, but this was different. She was doing it so silently. And he could tell that she hated that she was crying.
‘Lucy … look—’
She seemed to come to life and lifted a hand, knocking aside one of his as she wiped her cheek. Finally she opened her eyes, and their swirling depths made him want to pull her close. But everything about her screamed stay back.
Her voice was heart-achingly husky. ‘I’ve never been so hu … humiliated in all my life.’
Ari raked a hand through his hair. He wanted to go back to when he’d seen Lucy in the street, taken her in his arms and kissed her, and start all over again. But when she’d pushed him away and then said those things about the flowers he’d lost all perspective. Without wanting to look too closely at why, he just knew it had something to do with her reference to those other women. That this was exactly the same … A small voice crowed, Wasn’t it?
Lucy couldn’t look up at Ari any more. She broke free and started to walk back towards the hotel. She could see it in the distance; they were closer than she’d thought. She felt numb.
When she felt Ari take her hand again she stopped dead and took a deep breath before turning around. ‘Look—’
‘No, you look.’
She did—right up at him, emotion still swirling dangerously in her breast. She’d never felt so vulnerable, like every one of her childhood fears was being taken out and exposed to the harsh sunlight.
Ari felt tight. ‘Those women in London—the flowers … They weren’t one-night stands. They were pathetic attempts to negate your effect on me and to keep up appearances.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I’d agreed with Parnassus that it might help distract people from investigating the merger if I was seen to be out and about as usual.’
Lucy’s head went into mind-melt.
‘I’m sorry for leaving you so abruptly the other morning. I’m sorry for the flowers, and I’m sorry for dragging you into that shop and forcing you to choose something you didn’t want.’ Even now he couldn’t understand her reaction, or why he was explaining himself when he never had before. And he couldn’t really believe he’d felt compelled to defend his actions in London. But he wanted Lucy more than he wanted to understand right then …
Fresh tears threatened and Lucy wailed inwardly, Don’t be nice! I can’t handle nice.
She pursed her lips even as her anger drained away spectacularly. He hadn’t slept with those women? She felt very wobbly and vulnerable, and knew her words lacked impact. ‘Your behaviour was unforgivable. Spending that kind of money just to make a point is disgusting.’
His face tightened. He held up the bag. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’
Lucy felt wrong-footed by his immediate response. The Ari she’d thought she knew was morphing out of all recognition. She thought for a second. ‘I don’t think that lady in the shop deserves commission when she couldn’t be bothered to promote local talent. I don’t know … it’d be nice to give it to someone who’d really appreciate …’
She looked around. In the thronged square, back at the jeweller’s shop, she could see a young couple clearly in love, looking wistfully through the window at the engagement rings. Lucy could see the pain on the young man’s face at his girlfriend’s quickly disguised yet crestfallen expression as they walked away. She glanced up at Ari and could see that he had followed her gaze and witnessed the little exchange.
She saw his jaw clench. He let her hand go and strode through the crowd to the young couple. Lucy saw the conversation, saw Ari gesture back to her with a rueful smile and hand the young man the elaborately wrapped box. The young couple’s faces were shocked as Ari walked back to Lucy and took her hand again.
He led her away, but looked back for a moment and said, ‘Satisfied now?’
Lucy nodded jerkily. She couldn’t quite believe he’d done that, and asked a little shakily, ‘How … how much was it worth?’
He tossed back a figure and she felt the colour drain from her face. She bit her lip and said quietly, ‘Oh, well, it’ll buy them a nice engagement ring … or three.’
She felt the earth shift as she realised she was seeing a completely different side to Ari. She was very much afraid that she’d stuck her head into the lion’s mouth and he was about to bite down—hard.
By the middle of the following week Lucy was as drunk as she’d ever felt, and all without touching a drop of alcohol. She couldn’t stop her mind drifting back to
