wondered what it would feel like to have this sinfully good-looking, charismatic and utterly arrogant man...jealous.
She shakily dismissed that insane curiosity before it even had time to take root.
‘I don’t have a crush on Mark,’ she told him quietly. ‘Although, he’s just the sort of guy I might have a crush on.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Dio was outraged that they were sitting here having this conversation.
‘I mean he’s a really nice guy. He’s kind, he’s considerate, he’s thoughtful and the kids adore him.’
‘Sounds like a barrel of laughs.’
‘He can be,’ Lucy retorted sharply. ‘He can actually be very funny. He makes me laugh,’ she added wistfully and Dio took a deep, steadying breath.
‘And I don’t?’
‘We haven’t laughed together since...’
Suddenly restless, he stood up and began pacing the room and, this time, he actually took in what he was seeing, all the evidence of classes in progress. He flicked through one of the exercise books lying on a desk and recognised his wife’s handwriting. Ticks, corrections, encouraging smiley faces...
‘So, no crush on the hapless teacher,’ Dio eventually drawled. ‘And is that reciprocated?’
For a moment, Lucy considered throwing caution to the winds and telling him that the hapless teacher was crazy about her. Something dark inside her wanted to see if she could make him jealous, even though she already knew that answer to that one.
‘Mark isn’t interested in women,’ she said baldly. ‘Not in that way. He’s very happy with his partner who works for a legal firm in Kent. We’re just good friends.’
Dio felt a bolt of pure satisfaction and he allowed himself to relax. It had been inconceivable that she had been fooling around behind his back. It was also inconceivable that he would allow her to walk away from him without him first sampling the body that had preyed on his mind ever since he had first laid eyes on her.
Whether she knew it or not, she was his weakness, and he was determined finally to put paid to that. The momentary threat of another man had shown him what he had casually assumed. He had allowed his pride to call the shots, to subdue a more primal instinct to assert himself under a civilised, remote veneer that just wasn’t his style. No more. She was his and he wanted her, never more so than now, when she was stripped of the make-up and the designer clothes, when her raw beauty was on show. Her teacher friend might be gay but it still bothered Dio that the man had even seen her like this, in all her natural glory.
Her talk about some mythical man who was kind and caring, waiting out there for her, had also got on his nerves.
His eyes slid lazily to her face and he watched her for a few seconds in silence until he could see the tide of pink creep into her cheeks. When she began to fidget, he allowed his eyes to drift a little lower, slowly taking in the jeans, the tee-shirt and the jut of her pert little breasts underneath.
‘So...’ he murmured, finding a slightly more comfortable position. ‘At least my woman hasn’t been screwing around behind my back...’
‘Since when am I your woman?’
‘I like you like this.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Unadorned. It’s sexy.’
Lucy went redder. She felt tell-tale moisture seep through her panties, felt an ache down there that throbbed and spread under the unhurried intensity of his gaze.
‘I told you, I’m not interested...’ But she could hear a wobble in her voice and the shadow of a smile that tugged his lips was telling. She straightened and gave herself a stern mental talking to. ‘I’m going to build a life for myself, Dio. A real life—no pretending, no having to talk to people I don’t want to talk to, no dressing up in clothes I don’t like wearing!’
‘Laudable.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘So your plan is to continue your voluntary work here?’
‘Like I said, it isn’t all about money!’
‘But you never qualified as a teacher, did you?’
‘I will as soon as I can and the work I do here will be invaluable experience.’
‘The place is falling down,’ Dio pointed out. ‘You might want to devote your talent for teaching here but, frankly, I doubt this building will stay the course. You may not have noticed, but there’s a bad case of rising damp going on and I’d bet that the plumbing goes back to the Dark Ages.’
‘Mark is doing an excellent job of trying to raise funds.’
‘Really?’
Lucy didn’t say anything for a while and Dio nodded slowly, reading what she was reluctant to tell him.
In hard times, it was always difficult to get well-meaning individuals to part with their cash and certainly, if they were providing a service to the needy, then the parents of those needy children would just not have the cash to give anyway.
The building was collapsing around them and neither of them would be able to stall the inevitable.
‘I never knew you were so...engaged in wanting to do good for the community,’ he murmured truthfully. ‘And I’m willing to lend a hand here.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Lucy dragged her mind away from a brief picture of how her father would have reacted to what she was doing. With horror. He had always been an inveterate snob of the very worst kind. Women were not cut out for careers and certainly not careers that involved them dealing with people lower down the pecking order! A nice job working for a posh auction house might have met with his approval but teaching maths to school kids from a deprived background? Never in a month of Sundays.
To think of the kids not having this facility was heart breaking. She hadn’t been there long, but she knew that Mark had poured his life and soul into trying to make something of the place. And the kids, a trickle which was steadily growing, would be the ones who fared worst.
‘You want to walk away from our marriage with nothing rather than face getting into bed with me.’ Dio didn’t bother to gift wrap what he had to say and he didn’t bother to point out that that kiss they had shared was proof positive that she wasn’t immune to what he had to offer. ‘I can’t help that—but you want this building bought...? Repaired...? Turned into a functioning high-spec space...? No expense spared...? How does that sound to you, Lucy? You see...’ He relaxed, met her bemused gaze coolly and steadily. ‘I want you and I’m not above using any trick in the book to get what I want...’
LUCY WAS APPALLED.
‘What kind of thing is that for you to say?’ she demanded shakily. ‘You’d stoop so low?’
Dio inclined his beautiful
