was not possible, he told himself as he led her along the path towards the stone steps leading down to the beach. It was impossible, he knew, but still he had needed to check. There had been nothing in the room to say anyone had been there, let alone her. There was no way it could be possible. Katia was his ghost, his nightmare.
Although not his only nightmare now.
For now he had another one, and this one was of his own creation.
He’d headed off her questions when he’d met her at the bottom of the stairs. He’d been expecting a fight, or at least some kind of remonstration about her having been expected to sleep alone. It had to come at some time. It would come. Nothing was surer.
And all he was doing now by taking her to lunch and treating her as she deserved to be treated was delaying the inevitable, hoping to draw out this time with her as long as possible. She had to believe this marriage was real, at least until Garbas was put away for good.
But there was a far more selfish reason for wanting to be with her—because it was impossible to abandon her completely, even though he knew that, the way he burned for her, it would be a safer course of action to do so. Maybe this way would draw the pain out longer, cause them both unnecessary torture, but there had to be some benefit for doing what he was doing for Umberto, some pay off other than knowing she was safe from the likes of Garbas.
He wanted her near. He knew he was playing with fire, but he wanted that pay off. He wanted more of those moments with her to remember and to hold with him for ever long after she’d discovered what he was really like or why he had really married her and was long gone. For she would leave him, that was for sure.
And that knowledge alone was enough to clamp his gut.
‘I thought your family used to live in Barcelona.’ They were halfway down the path to the beach before she spoke—maybe because he’d taken off like the devil himself. ‘I’m sure we visited you all there one year.’
He turned, wondering how much she remembered. ‘We did.’
‘You don’t live there now?’
‘No.’
‘You sold it?’
He wished. As it was, he could barely remember that night long ago when he had been so furious with the world and the hand it had dealt him, so unprepared for dealing with his own inadequacies. ‘I lost it in a card game.’
‘Oh.’
‘You win some, you lose some.’ The phrase came nowhere near to describing the pain he’d felt on losing the property at the time. He’d thought himself indestructible. Invincible. That had made him the worst kind of fool. Even now his failure, his sheer recklessness, appalled him. The knowledge of those wasted years was like a millstone around his neck, weighing him down. He had learned to rationalise his loss since then, see it for what it was, a moment in time when he’d made both some bad decisions and some good. But it didn’t make him feel any better about it.
‘Like your apartment in Venice?’
He shrugged, wishing himself a past that was one whole lot more glorious. ‘Exactly like Venice.’
‘And this place? Another card game? Another win?’
He looked back over his shoulder, up at the castle that imposed itself on the clifftop almost as if it were part of it. He realised the truth, maybe for the first time in his life, and only because of what he was doing to her—he hated this place.
Was that why he had brought her here? Not from some noble desire to keep her safe, but so he might taint thoughts of her with this toxic castle and its toxic memories? So it might make it easier when she left?
Or because it was easier for him to remember why he was wrong for her? Because a man who did not hold out a hand to a woman in desperate need …
She deserved better.
She was like a breath of fresh air in a stale room. She was a candle glowing in a dark cave.
And it crushed him like a weight on his chest that, for all he had given her, he might be the one to extinguish that light.
‘Another win,’ he conceded, although it hardly seemed a win now when it was the last place he wanted to be with Gabriella. She should be somewhere far more deserving of her company right now. Somewhere light, beautiful and free from the darkness of the past. And she should be with someone far more worthy.
But she was with him now, and there was a picnic waiting, the curve of sand in the cove lying inviting below. If he could not give her happiness, he could at least give her a taste of what she deserved.
He turned, holding out his hand to her as they negotiated the first of the uneven stone steps down to the beach, and she smiled her thanks, her hand warm and surprisingly strong in his. Surprisingly addictive. He wished it could be more than just her hand he held, and for a moment he just looked at her.
The soft breeze tugged at her fringe over those smiling, brandy-coloured eyes, toyed with the skirt of her white sundress, kicking up the hem around her long, tan legs. For a moment he almost forgot himself and thought about taking her into his arms and crushing her to him, wanting to possess her in every sense of the word.
‘Raoul,’ she whispered. He saw her mouth form the word and for the first time he noticed how good his name looked on her lips.
And he turned away, setting off down the stairs, knowing he could not afford to notice such details, knowing there was no point to it. But he would accept her smiles and laughter. He would take them and store them away in a special place in his mind so that, once she was gone, he could take them out, dust them off and remember how precious it had been to have her if only for such a short time …
The beach was as protected as Natania had promised, the cove acting like a sun trap, the air still and surprisingly warm. Gabriella kicked off her sandals and wiggled her toes in the sand. Delicious.
Just like Raoul’s gaze had been moments before. She was still half-breathless with its impact, still dizzy with the anticipation and the desire.
He wanted her. And that knowledge made her body bloom in readiness. Was that why he had brought her here, to seduce her on the sandy shore today, before they joined as a married couple tonight?
The cove was larger than you could tell from the castle, full of secret grottoes hidden behind giant boulders so they were utterly private. She glanced up at the castle where it sat heavy and imposing on the cliff, recognising it from the painting in the hall near her room. She mentally counted rooms, working out which one was her bedroom, checking out the angles from where the kitchen must be, frowning when she noticed the turret.
‘What’s that room?’ she asked. ‘The one with the turret?’
He shook his head without bothering to look that way. ‘Nothing. A store room.’
‘It must be somewhere over that locked door. Are there stairs inside?’
‘Perhaps. It is not something I bother to think about. Do you want to eat?’
She squeezed her eyes against the light and put a hand up to shade her brow, trying to make out details. ‘The view from there must be wonderful.’
