there unconscious and he had had to kneel beside her, checking her pulse, her breathing, her temperature. Knowing that he had to take her somewhere more comfortable, he had had to bend to lift her up…
And that was when everything had changed.
‘No, I didn’t say,’ Lucy flung at him now. ‘Are you saying you want to know what happened? Do you really…’
She had to break off the question as a knock came at the door. Of course—Tonia with the food he had told her to prepare for Lucy. Food it was obvious she needed.
‘Eat your breakfast,’ he commanded gruffly. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
‘I want to talk now…’ Lucy protested, struggling to sit up enough to take the tray on her knees without letting the covers fall down at the same time.
The sudden pretence of modesty set his teeth on edge so that with a muttered imprecation under his breath, he strode to the wardrobe and wrenched open the door. Snatching a white robe from a hanger inside, he tossed it in Lucy’s direction, gesturing to the maid to leave at the same time.
‘You need to eat.’
Now she was trying to pull on the robe while still balancing the tray.
‘Dio santo!’
Clamping his jaw tight shut against the irritation that almost escaped him, he lifted the tray again, carrying it to the small table set in the bay window and dumping it down. Then he moved back to the bed, taking the robe from her while she still struggled with it and holding it open for her to get into it.
‘If it will speed up the process, I assure you I am not looking,’ he told her satirically when she still hesitated.
He didn’t have to look—the memory of every inch of her body was etched onto his brain. And not just from last night, when he had taken the shirt and jeans from her unconscious body. No, the memories he had were from the time when they had been together. When her warm, smooth skin and long slender limbs had been a source of endless delight. When he had known the scent of her, the taste of her, every intimate inch of her.
Six months had not been long enough to erase the memories that could still torment him. And last night just knowing that she was back in his life had badly disturbed his sleep, making him twist and turn in the grip of erotic dreams. Eventually he had woken in a tangle of bedclothes, soaked in sweat and breathing as hard as if he had run a marathon.
So now, even with his closed lids concealing his eyes, he could still see her in his thoughts, still feel the heat of her body as she slipped into the robe he held for her. And the soft slide of her hair over his fingers as she flicked it back, the clean, deeply personal scent of her skin, intensified by the warmth of the bed she had just left, was a sensual torment, hardening his body into tight and aching demand in an instant. He couldn’t stay in the room a moment longer and not give in to the hot demands of his body.
As soon as Lucy had shrugged the robe up over her shoulders and was reaching for the belt he seized the opportunity to head back to the table, pulling out the chair with an unnecessary flourish.
‘Eat,’ he commanded. ‘And then get dressed.’
He knew that he had stunned her, could feel the focus of her eyes on the back of his neck as he headed for the door.
‘But you said that we have to talk.’
‘Later,’ he tossed over his shoulder at her. ‘Get some food inside you and get dressed, then we’ll take things from there.’
‘Dressed?’
Her voice was sharp in a way that was disturbingly close to the edge on his own tongue, shaking him right to the core with the suspicion that she too might have felt the fiercely heated tug on her senses that he had experienced just a few moments before.
‘Dressed in what? At least have the courtesy to tell me where you’ve put my clothes.’
‘You’ll find all you need in there…’
A wave of his hand indicated the large, carved wooden wardrobe set against the far wall but he still did not let himself pause, didn’t even glance back to see if she had registered his response. He needed to get out of here, get himself back under control. Giving in to his most primitive male urges right now would be the worst possible mistake he could make.
But, madre di Dio, he was tempted…
‘I’ll be back in twenty minutes,’ he warned on his way out of the door. ‘Be ready.’
I’LL be back in twenty minutes, Ricardo had said. Be ready.
And the be ready had been a command, one that his tone had told her that he expected to have obeyed without question.
A swift glance at the clock told Lucy that well over half of that time was already up and she was no nearer to obeying that autocratic command to be ready than she had been in the moment that Ricardo had strode from the room, obviously not wanting to spend a moment longer in her company than he had to.
At first she’d done as she was told and eaten her breakfast—rather mutinously perhaps, but she’d been really hungry and the savoury frittata had looked and smelled wonderful, as had the coffee and freshly baked bread. It had been too long since she had eaten and after just one bite even the concern over just what Ricardo had planned for her faded in the face of her appetite and she’d wolfed down everything that was on her plate.
She would have liked to have lingered over a second cup of coffee, but already the time was passing and she still had to shower and dress. Just the thought of Ricardo arriving while she was still in the shower was enough to send her rushing into the bathroom and switching on the water.
She felt so much better when she was washed and refreshed, her hair clean and combed clear of the knotty tangles that the wind on the lake yesterday had whipped it into.
She must have looked a real sight, she reflected as she fastened a towel around her and padded back into the bedroom, glaring at her reflection in the big mirror on the door of the wardrobe. With her tangled hair and too pale face without even a trace of make-up, it was no wonder that Ricardo had barely spared her a glance.
She looked nothing like the woman he had married. The woman who, well aware of the fact that she was not the sort of woman that Ricardo Emiliani was usually seen with in the gossip columns of the celebrity magazines, had made sure that she always looked her best for him.
And, if she had needed any extra push in that direction, then the conversation she had overheard in the Ladies at a party shortly after her wedding had made certain that she stuck to her resolve. Hidden in one of the cubicles, she had heard the sneering tones of one of the female guests.
‘Not his usual type, is she?’
‘Not at all,’ another woman had answered. ‘But she’s been clever. She trapped him by getting pregnant. He’d never have married her otherwise.’
‘Not clever enough. Everyone knows he’s just waiting till the baby’s born and then he’ll
