moment when Ricardo sent her packing? When her all too brief idyll with her little son came to an end and her husband made sure that she left the island?
And if she did, then would she ever see her baby again?
‘No…’
Her hands went out to the child in his father’s arms, but at that moment the door opened and the nanny she had seen before stepped into the room. After a brief conversation in Italian, too rapid for her to catch, Ricardo passed the little boy to Marissa and turned to Lucy. Something about the look on her face must have hit home to him because, as he took her elbow to turn her away towards the door, he bent his head and spoke swiftly, close to her ear.
‘I promised,’ he said roughly and just for a moment she stared at him, not quite understanding.
But then her memory cleared and she had a sudden rush of recollection. Ricardo saying, ‘You will see him again,’ and the conviction in his words that had had her believing him on that when she couldn’t trust him on anything else.
And so she didn’t fight but let herself be led from the room, with a long lingering glance back at the little boy who had taken over her heart without a chance of ever letting go.
He had always had her love, of course. It was just that her illness had blurred that love and preyed on her fears of not being a good enough mother. The thoughts she had experienced had been the depression, not the reality. She could see that now. But, at the time, lost and lonely, even if never alone, she had not been able to cope.
Now she knew the depth of her love, the way it had always been there underneath all the horror and the misery. So how would she cope if Ricardo was once more going to deny her access to her child? Could he do that? And, if he did, then how would she ever be able to afford to fight him in the courts if she had to?
‘Where are we going?’
‘Just here…’
Ricardo pushed open a door to his left, in a position that Lucy recognised. Her heart sank as she walked into the room he had opened, the setting making it plain that her husband had nothing kind or considerate on his mind. His island home’s office, with its dark wood furniture, the big L-shaped desk, the array of computer equipment, was a place for business deals, for cold-blooded decisions with nothing of the heart about them.
‘Wouldn’t you like to sit down?’ Ricardo waved a hand in the direction of a chair, one of three gathered around a small coffee table set in the window overlooking the bay.
‘Will I need to?’
His beautiful mouth twisted at the sharpness of her response and he met her attacking tone with a half shrug of one of his broad shoulders.
‘It depends on how you’re going to react to getting everything you wanted.’
‘What?’
That nearly did take her legs from under her and she had to reach out for the back of a chair to support herself as the shock hit home.
‘You’d do that?’ Her voice shook in disbelief.
‘Why not?’
This time he shrugged both shoulders, dismissing her stunned question as totally unimportant.
‘It’s only money. And I can soon make more.’
Only money.
Lucy’s fingers had to clench tight over the back of the chair to keep her from letting her trembling give her away. And at the same time she felt her jaw tighten hard against the impulse to let a cry of distress escape. Of course. Only money. Did she really think that Ricardo was going to let her walk out of here with Marco? Simply hand the baby over to her and let her go?
Never in a million years.
But she had hoped for something. For a hint of recognition that he had recognised how ill she had been to leave her child, that he had seen how she cared for her little boy. A suggestion that he would let her see Marco—have some sort of access to the baby.
‘In return for a quick and quiet divorce, I will give you a small fortune,’ Ricardo stated bluntly. ‘Enough cash to keep you in luxury for many years, without raising a hand to do a thing.’
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