had tied the knot.
She had thought that he was being a gentleman, respecting her wish to wait until they were married before having sex. She had been too embarrassed to tell him that she was still a virgin, and anyway the subject had not arisen.
Instead, he had been stringing her along. She had stopped day dreaming about him but the day dreams were rearing their heads once again and she couldn’t stop them.
How was she supposed to travel to some unknown destination? They could be going to the Arctic, the Caribbean or a city somewhere. Had he even decided or was he going to let his assistant choose where they went?
And what was it going to be like when he returned to the house?
The knowledge that they would be cooped up together for the better part of a fortnight would lie between them like a lead weight...
Wouldn’t it?
She was a bundle of nerves as evening drew round. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t dress up for his arrival. Usually, she never dropped the role unless she was on her own. Usually he saw her formally attired, even when she was in casual clothing.
But things were different and she had defiantly chosen to wear a pair of jeans and a faded old tee-shirt from her university days. Nor was she plastered with make-up and she hadn’t curled her hair. Instead, she was a make-up-free zone and her hair hung heavily just past her shoulders, neatly tucked behind her ears.
She was in the same place as she had been when she had confronted him with talk of divorce, standing in the drawing room. And she was just as jumpy.
And yet, staring through the window into the, for London, relatively large garden with its row of perfectly shaped and manicured shrubs, she didn’t hear him until he spoke.
‘I wondered if you would wait up for me.’ Dio strolled into the drawing room, dumping his jacket, which he had hooked over his shoulder. It had been a tiresome flight, even in first class, but he felt bright eyed and bushy-tailed now as he flicked his eyes over her.
He’d half-expected her to go into a self-righteous meltdown between speaking to her on the phone and showing up at the house. She was very good at adopting the role of blameless victim. He guessed that the lure of money was irresistible, however. She might play at her volunteer work and make big plans to teach but teaching didn’t pay nearly enough for her to afford the sort of lifestyle to which she had always been accustomed.
Cynicism curled his lips when he thought that.
‘Drink?’
A feeling of déjà vu swept over Lucy as she helplessly followed him into the kitchen, although this time she had eaten, and she expected he would have as well, so there would be no pretend domesticity preparing a meal.
‘I thought we could chat about plans for tomorrow,’ she began valiantly. ‘I need to know what time we will be leaving. I... I’ve packed a couple of things...’ He looked drop-dead gorgeous and she could feel the electricity in the air between them, sparking like a live, exposed wire. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
And the way he was looking at her, his pale eyes skewering her, brought her out in a nervous wash of perspiration.
She wanted crisply to remind him that their arrangement was for the honeymoon period, which technically would only start when they reached wherever they were heading, and so for tonight they would retreat to their separate quarters as per normal. However, her tongue seemed to have become glued to the roof of her mouth.
‘Have you been thinking about me?’ Dio asked lazily. ‘Because I’ve been thinking about you.’ And marvelling that it had taken them this long to get where they were now, but then again the whole question of the penniless divorce had driven the situation.
He walked slowly towards her and she gave a little nervous squeak. ‘I thought we were going to...er...well, when we were away...’
‘Why stand on ceremony? The honeymoon’s been cut a little short by my unexpected meeting in New York anyway, so fair’s fair, wouldn’t you say? I don’t want to be short-changed on time. If I’m to pay for two weeks, then I want my two weeks, or as good as...’
The last thing Lucy was expecting was to be swept off her feet. Literally. The breath whooshed out of her body as she was carried out of the kitchen. She felt the thud as he nudged the door open with his foot and then she was bouncing against him, heart racing as he took her up the stairs.
To his bedroom, which she had been into many times before. It was a marvel of masculinity. The colours were deep and rich, the furniture bold and dark with clean lines. Even with her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she could visualise it. Once, when he had gone away, leaving the house a lot earlier to catch a transatlantic flight, she had gone into the bedroom to air it before the cleaner came and had remained frozen to the spot at the sight of the rumpled bed, still bearing the impression of where he had been lying. She could remember tentatively touching it and then springing back because it had still held the lingering warmth of his body.
It had shaken her more than she had thought possible.
He dumped her on the bed and then stood back, arms folded, for once lost as to what his next move might be.
He had been fired up with confidence downstairs, when he had hoisted her into his arms like a true caveman and brought her to his bedroom. But now...
She looked unimaginably beautiful and unimaginably fragile, her eyes wide and apprehensive, making him feel like a great, hulking thief who had snatched her from her bed and carried her off to his cave so that he could have his wicked way.
Dio raked his fingers through his hair and moved to the window where he stood for a few seconds, looking outside, before snapping the wooden shutters closed, blocking out the street light.
Lucy stared at him from under her lashes. Her heart was still pounding and the blood was still rushing through her veins, hot and fierce. She wanted him so badly right now that she felt like she might die of longing, yet he was just standing there, looking at her with brooding stillness.
Maybe he had come to his senses, she thought.
Maybe he had realised that you couldn’t just bargain with someone’s fate the way he had with hers. Maybe he had seen the light and come to the conclusion that to blackmail someone into sleeping with you just wasn’t on.
And if that was the case then why wasn’t she feeling happier? Why wasn’t she sitting up and making a case for having her divorce without a bunch of stupid stipulations? Why wasn’t she striking while the iron was hot, trying to locate Mr Decent who must surely be there hiding behind Mr Caveman?
She wasn’t feeling happier because she wanted him, simple as that.
Maybe if he had never mentioned sleeping with her, had never looked at her with those amazing, lazy, sexy eyes, she would have walked away from their marriage with her head held high and all her principles burning a hole inside her.
But he had opened a door and she wanted that door to remain open. She wanted to enter the unexplored room and see what was there...
She stirred on the bed then pushed herself backwards so that she was propped against the pillows, which she arranged under her, her vibrant blonde hair tangled around her flushed face.
