shapes and stick-like fingers. Her parents had been immensely proud of that picture, but in fact art had been just about the only thing that had eluded her. She had a mind more attuned to the logical.
Ironic, she thought now, that her life, which had been cheerfully pacing towards the most logical conclusion in the world—a degree in the subject she had adored, a career helping people—had petered out into the most irrational ending.
That made her think of Jeremy, and she swallowed down the bitter resentment rising up her throat.
In less than one hour’s time she would be his wife, and there was little point in constantly whipping herself with the insanity of it when there was nothing she could possibly do to remedy the situation.
She heard another knock on the door and stiffened in alarm. Surely not her father. Surely not yet. She looked at her watch, which showed that she still had at least forty-five minutes left of freedom, and said, ‘Yes? Come in!’
If was probably her mother with some detail that needed sorting out, or eIse Abigail, the least tactful but closest of her childhood friends, who would no doubt launch into another lecture on the stupidity of the marriage.
‘Fine,’ she had said when Isobel had told her about Jeremy. ‘Throw your life away on that worm! Throw away your hopes of being a doctor! And while you’re about it, why don’t you fling yourself under the nearest bus as well?’ Abigail was studying drama and had cultivated a theatrical way of talking. ‘I shall never mention another syllable on the subject again!’ But she had continued to expound on the theme whenever they had met, and Isobel assumed that she was about to recommence.
It wasn’t Abigail. It wasn’t her mother. It was the last person in the world she wanted to face, but face him she did, defiantly across the length of the room.
‘So,’ he said, strolling into the room and shutting the door behind him, ‘the bride is ready.’ His voice was sneering, his expression hard and contemptuous.
‘What are you doing here?’ Isobel asked. Her heart was beating quickly, making her feel giddy and deprived of air. He had always had this sort of dramatic effect on her, as if his presence threw her system into some weird kind of overdrive.
‘Didn’t you think that I’d turn up?’ Lorenzo smiled humourlessly. ‘Why, Isobel, my dearest, I’m the best man.’
‘Yes.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘But you should be downstairs, with everyone else.’
What she really meant was that he should be anywhere else, but not here, not in her room. She couldn’t bear this game of cruelty he had played ever since he had found out about Jeremy, even though she could understand it.
‘I never thought you’d do it,’ he bit out, advancing towards her. ‘When you told me five months ago what you were planning, I thought that it was a joke, some kind of mad joke.’
‘No joke, Lorenzo.’
His hands shot out, grasping her arms, and she winced in pain.
‘Why? Why, damn you!’
‘I told you…’
‘You told me nothing!’ He flung her away and walked towards the dressing-table, resting on it with clenched fists.
Isobel followed him, stared at his back, the downbent head, and struggled not to put her arms around him.
Presently he turned around and faced her, his face dark and savage.
‘Why are you doing this, Isobel? You’re not in love with Jeremy Baker.’ There was a sneer in his voice and she answered quickly, to avoid the subject of love.
‘How can you speak about him in that tone of voice? I thought he was your friend!’
‘We both know him,’ Lorenzo bit out. ‘He’s unstable, reckless. You told me so yourself. Wasn’t that one of the reasons that you stopped seeing him, even as a friend, after he went to work for your father? He frightened you. You were glad to be at university.’
‘You frighten me too,’ she said, ‘when you’re like this.’ They stared at each other. He was furious and his fury, she knew, was given edge by his frustrated bewilderment at the situation. She looked at him, at the whip-hard strength of his body, the dark, sexy good looks which had turned every girl’s head at school when he had joined years ago. He had only been sixteen at the time, but already his face had held promise of the powerfully striking man he was to become.
‘I am trying to be reasonable, Isobel,’ he said in a voice that didn’t sound reasonable at all. ‘I am trying to work out whether there’s something here I’m missing or whether you need to be carted off to the nearest asylum in a strait-jacket.’
His eyes narrowed on her, curiously light eyes that were especially striking given the darkness of his hair and the olive tint of his skin. He was Italian, the son of emigrants who had settled in England, choosing their spot carefully so that their brilliant and gifted only son could be sent to one of the finest private schools in the country. He had easily gained a place on a scholarship and had landed among the students, bright enough but mostly with rich backgrounds, like a leopard in a flock of sheep.
He was different from them all, and he had never seemed to give a damn. He hadn’t needed to. His brains were enough to guarantee respect. At sixteen, he possessed a formidable intellect that, it was whispered, outranked some of the professors. His mind was brilliant and creative, and his drive to succeed was formidable. Nothing since had changed.
‘I know what I’m doing, Lorenzo,’ she whispered, looking away to her hands which were clasped in front of her.
‘You damn well don’t!’ he roared, and she glanced nervously at him and then at the door.
‘You’ll bring everyone rushing up to see what’s going on!’
‘And I’ll tell them exactly what I’m telling you now! That you’ve gone off your rocker!’
‘You don’t understand!’ she retaliated, and he moved towards her.
‘What don’t I understand?’ He stood in front of her, staring down.
For a second she didn’t have a clue what to say. From the start there had been a thread of suspicion underneath his anger at her decision and she realised that her words, spontaneously spoken, had tightened the thread. She couldn’t afford for that to happen. He was too clever by half for him to be allowed a glimpse of the truth behind the black farce.
‘I care about Jeremy,’ she said, not meeting his eyes, and he tilted her chin up in a rough gesture.
‘Like hell you do.’ His hand moved from her chin to coil into her hair so that she was forced into looking at him. ‘There’s only one person you care about. Would you like me to prove it to you?’ His mouth twisted into a smile but there was nothing gentle in it.
‘Lorenzo, don’t!’
‘Why? Are you frightened?’
‘No, of course I’m not frightened!’ She tried to laugh but it came out as a choked sound. ‘I am going to marry him,’ she said, placing her palms on his chest and feeling his masculine energy whip into her like an electric current.
