experiment for him.’
Lucy bristled. ‘Are you implying that that’s what it’s been for me?’ she demanded, sinking her teeth into her sandwich and chewing angrily on it.
‘I never noticed just how cute you are when you’re angry,’ Dio murmured. ‘But then, anger didn’t score high on the list of required emotions in our marriage, did it?’
It surprised him just how much he was enjoying himself. Was it the bizarre novelty of the situation? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to waste time with pointless questions. He was in very little doubt that as soon as he had had her, as soon as he had slept with her, he would regain healthy perspective on just the kind of woman she was, at which point he would bid farewell to his manipulative wife. But in the meantime...
Lucy lowered her eyes, reminded of just how hollow and empty their marriage had been, and then further reminded of all the high hopes and girlish dreams that had driven her to marry him in the first place.
‘I find working with these kids fulfilling,’ she told him, ignoring his barb. ‘Much, much more fulfilling than making stupid small talk to people I don’t like and barely know. Much more fulfilling than going to the opening of an art gallery or a society wedding.’
Privately, Dio couldn’t have agreed more. One of the more odious things he had to do in his steady, inexorable rise to the very top of the pecking order was attend events he couldn’t give a damn about. But it came with the job and he was too much of a realist to think otherwise.
Funnily enough, it had never occurred to him that his well-bred wife would ever have found that side of life a bore. In fact, he would have thought that that might have been one of the many things she enjoyed about the position into which she had cleverly manoeuvred herself.
Now he looked at her with a frown, trying to work out the little inconsistencies he was beginning to spot underneath the polished veneer he had always associated with her.
‘It’s going to be all round the neighbourhood that a big shot investor has taken an interest in our little local after-school club.’
‘Not just any old big shot investor, though.’
‘What am I supposed to say?’ she demanded, pushing her plate to one side, making sure to keep her voice low and calm because people were beginning to filter into the café now and curious looks were being directed at them.
‘You could tell them that you didn’t care for the terms your big shot investor demanded.’
‘You should never have followed me!’
‘You know you want me...’
‘I beg your pardon!’
‘Shocking, isn’t it?’ He leant back in the chair and was amused when she leaned forward, all the better to make sure that their conversation wasn’t overheard. ‘You don’t want to face up to it, but let’s cut to the chase. You’re hot for me.’
‘I am not!’
‘Would you like to put that to the test?’ He cast his eyes round the small café and the curious faces. ‘Why doesn’t the hot shot investor apply a little physical pressure...? Hmm...? How about I reach across this table and kiss you? Remember that kiss? How about we have a repeat performance right here? Right now? Then we could take a vote...find out how many people agree with me that you’re attracted to me...’
‘You took me by surprise when you kissed me!’ Patches of red had appeared on her cheeks. She knew that she didn’t look like the calm, composed teacher everyone around here expected her to be. She looked just like she felt. Hassled, overwhelmed, confused.
Excited...
‘So this time you’ll be prepared. We can both gauge just how much you can withstand what’s simmering between us.’
‘There’s nothing simmering between us!’ Desperation threaded her voice.
‘Of course there is.’ Dio dismissed her in a hard, inflexible voice. ‘And it’s been there all the way through our sexless marriage.’
‘Shh!’
He ignored her frantic interruption. ‘I’ve seen the way you’ve looked at me when you thought you weren’t being observed. You may have connived your way into marriage, and then pulled back once you’d got me hooked, but you still can’t quite help what you feel, can you?’
Lucy rested her head in her hand and wondered if she could just wish herself some place else.
‘Tell me...did you find it offensive to think of me in terms of being your lover?’
She looked at him, horrified. ‘How can you say that? What are you talking about?’
‘We couldn’t have come from more opposite sides of the tracks,’ Dio said drily. ‘Did you imagine you might catch a working class infection if you got too close to me?’
‘I’m not like that! We didn’t have a proper marriage and I wasn’t going to...to...’
He waved aside her half-baked, stammering explanation with an air of sudden boredom. ‘Not really interested in going down this road,’ he drawled. ‘The only thing I want is you, my beloved wife. I want to feel your naked body writhing under me. I want to hear you scream out my name and beg me to bring you to orgasm.’
‘That’ll never happen!’
‘Oh, it will. You just need to give the whole thing a little bit of thought and stop pretending that it’ll be any great hardship for you. It won’t be.’
‘And you know this because...?’ She was aiming for snappy and sarcastic; she got reedy and plaintive.
‘Because I know women. Trust me. It won’t be a hardship. And just think of the rewards... Fat alimony allowance...your little school shiny and well-equipped...grateful parents and happy little children... Could there be a better start to your wonderful bid for freedom...?’ He leaned forward so that they were both now resting their elbows on the table, their faces close together, locked in their own private world. ‘In fact, I have a splendid idea. Let’s take our honeymoon, Lucy. Two weeks. After that, I have to be in Hong Kong to close a deal on a company buyout. I’ll head there and you can... Well, you can begin your life of independence. How does that sound...?’
PREY TO WARRING EMOTIONS, Lucy was left to consider her options for three days while Dio disappeared to Paris for an emergency meeting with the directors of one of his companies over there.
By her calculation, that left eleven days of honeymoon time before he vanished across the Atlantic to Hong Kong.
She knew that she had been cleverly but subtly outmanoeuvred.
For a start, the story of the brand new school spread like a raging wild fire. He had played the ‘hot shot investor’ to perfection. Now, as far as everyone in the neighbourhood was concerned, ordering computers, stationery and getting the builders in was just a little formality because everything
