house, and she knew the security men must think she was mad, taking such a long way round to go to the shops.
Ciro had issued her with a credit card, and Lara had swallowed her pride and taken it. After two years of feeling trapped, due to her lack of personal finances, she was embarrassed at being beholden to someone else. More than ever she wanted to make her own money. Be independent.
And yet there was something about Ciro handing her some economic freedom that made her feel emotional. A man who had a lot less reason to trust her than her previous husband was trusting her with this.
She’d also got to know the staff who worked in the house: the housekeeper was called Dominique, and there was a groundsman/handyman called Nigel. Dominique hired in staff as and when it was required for entertaining or cleaning, she’d told Lara. But as yet Ciro hadn’t actually ever entertained in the house.
Fleetingly Lara wondered again at the coincidence that had Ciro’s new house right around the corner from where she’d been living.
One evening it was Dominique’s night off—she lived close by, so didn’t stay over at the townhouse—and Lara went into the kitchen, feeling restless.
She’d always loved to cook, so when Henry Winterborne had maliciously turned her from wife into housekeeper she’d welcomed it, far preferring to be in the kitchen than to share space in his presence.
She’d learnt to cook in the first instance from her parents’ housekeeper—a lovely warm woman called Margaret, who had been more like a member of the family than staff. And then over the years she’d continued to cook...usually surreptitiously, because her uncle hadn’t approved of her doing such a menial thing.
‘You were not born to cook and serve, Lara,’ he’d said sharply.
No, she thought bitterly, she’d been born so he could exploit her for his own ends.
She shook her head to get rid of the memory and looked around the gleaming kitchen, instinctively pulling out ingredients from the well-stocked cupboards and shelves.
As she cooked from memory she felt a peace she hadn’t experienced in weeks descend over her. She tuned the radio to a pop station and hummed along tunelessly.
In a brief moment of optimism she thought that if things continued as they were going, and if she could maintain her distance from Ciro, she might actually survive this marriage...
* * *
Ciro had returned home early, to change for a dinner event. He was irritable and frustrated—which had a lot to do with the workload he’d taken on and the fact that he’d barely seen Lara since that first night in London.
Somehow she was always conveniently in bed when he got home, and he was not about to reveal how much he wanted her by waking her up like some kind of rabid animal to demand his conjugal rights.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see on his arrival this afternoon, but it involved an image along the lines of Lara being ready and waiting for him to take her to his bed when he got in.
He set down his briefcase in the hall and loosened his tie. For the first time in his life a woman wasn’t throwing herself at Ciro.
He scowled. The second time in his life.
The first time had also been with Lara. She’d been like a skittish foal around him when they’d first met. It had taken him weeks of seducing her on a level that he hadn’t had to employ for years. If ever.
After she’d revealed herself so spectacularly, and walked out of his hospital room, he’d put it down to being part of her act, but now he had to acknowledge that she had been a virgin. She hadn’t lied about that. At least.
He was about to head up the stairs when a smell caught at his nostrils. A very distinctive smell. Delicious. Mouth-watering. Evocative of his childhood.
He went towards the kitchen, expecting to find Dominique cooking, but when he opened the door it took a second for his eyes to take in the scene.
Lara was bent down at the open oven door, taking something out. She was dressed in jeans and a loose shirt. Bare feet. Her hair was up in a messy knot, and as she turned around with the dish in her hands he saw how the buttons of the shirt were fastened low enough to give a tantalising glimpse of cleavage.
Tendrils of hair framed her face and flushed cheeks. He heard the music. Some silly pop tune. Then realised that Lara was smiling, bending down to sniff the food in the dish. Lasagne, he guessed. It reminded him of the famous lasagne his nonna used to make when he was small, hurtling him back in time.
Ciro was rendered mute and frozen, because he couldn’t deny the appeal of the scene, nor that it had already existed in the deepest recesses of his psyche, even as he would have denied ever wanting such a domestic scenario in his life. At least until he’d met Lara that first time around and suddenly his perspective had shifted to allow such things to exist.
She’d cooked for him one evening; a spaghetti vongole. So mouthwatering that he could still recall how it had tasted, and the look of uncertainty on her face until he’d declared it delicious.
He’d totally forgotten about that until now.
At that second she looked up at him, catching him in a moment between past and present. Between who this woman was and who she wasn’t.
Ciro felt as if there was a spotlight on his head, exposing every flaw—and not just the very physical ones. His scar felt itchy now, compounding his sense of dislocation and exposure. The scar that didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Lara looked as frozen as he felt. ‘Cooking.’
‘For who? Your imaginary friends?’
Ciro didn’t have to see the rush of colour into Lara’s cheeks to know he was being a bastard, but this whole scenario was unacceptable to him on a level that he really didn’t want to investigate too closely.
Lara cursed herself for having given in to this urge to do something so domestic, but she refused to let Ciro’s palpable disapproval intimidate her. She wouldn’t let another man tell her she couldn’t cook.
‘It’s lasagne, Ciro, not some subversive act.’
A suspicious look came over his face as he advanced into the kitchen. ‘Why are you doing it, then? Angling to forge a more permanent position in my life by showcasing your domestic skills? As if they might hide your true nature?’
Lara pushed the dish away from the edge of the island, curbing the urge to lift it up and throw it at Ciro’s cynical head. She said through gritted teeth, ‘I really hadn’t thought about it too much. I merely wanted to cook. It’s Dominique’s night off—how else am I going to feed myself?’
Ciro was so close now that Lara could see his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. They should have diminished his extreme masculinity. They didn’t.
Feeling exasperated now, as well as jittery that Ciro was so close, Lara said, ‘You’ve been out for dinner every night, Ciro. Did you really expect that I’d be sitting here pining away for your company?’
