a ball for the puppy.
He turned away from the view, though, after his solicitor had finished speaking. ‘Repeat what you just said.’
‘I said that we know who was behind the kidnapping, Ciro, and I don’t think you’re going to like what you hear.’
* * *
The sun was throwing long shadows on the grass by the time Lara picked up Hero and went back inside the house. All was quiet except for the dull hum of Manhattan traffic outside.
But then she heard a sound coming from the main reception room, and put Hero down in her bed before investigating. She walked in to find Ciro throwing back a shot of alcohol. Predictably, her heart rate increased.
‘I didn’t know you were home.’
Her heart fluttered at the thought that maybe he’d come back early to take her on another excursion. But when he turned around she had to stifle a gasp. He was pale, and she realised he was pale with fury, because his eyes were burning.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Ciro put the empty glass back on the tray with exaggerated care and then he looked back at Lara. She had only the faintest prickling sense of foreboding before he said, ‘So, when were you going to tell me that you and your uncle were behind the kidnap plot?’
Lara’s insides turned to ice. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘I’ve been investigating the kidnap since it happened. I kept hitting dead ends until now. Is it true?’
Lara felt sick. She nodded her head slowly.
Not exactly, but... ‘Yes. My uncle planned it. He didn’t want us to marry.’
Ciro’s lip curled. ‘And so he came up with a lurid plan to have us kidnapped? Or was that your contribution?’
Lara shook her head. She felt as if she was drowning, and moved sluggishly over to a chair where she sat down. ‘I didn’t know anything about it...not until after.’
Ciro looked at Lara. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that after everything he’d been through with this woman she had done it again. The emotion he felt transcended anger. He was icy cold with it. Far worse than heat and rage.
He could feel the livid line of his scar. The phantom throbbing of his little finger. He wanted to go over and haul Lara up to stand. She looked pathetically, unbelievably shocked.
‘I want to know everything. Now.’
He saw her swallow. She was so pale he almost felt the sting of his conscience but he ruthlessly pushed it down. This woman was the worst kind of chameleon. And potentially a criminal.
‘I was forced to marry Henry Winterborne. By my uncle.’
Ciro shook his head. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘I wish it was. My uncle was obsessed with status and lineage. There was no way he was going to allow me to marry you. But it went much further than that.’
Ciro said nothing. He saw Lara clasp her hands together and in that moment had a flashback to how her hands had felt on his buttocks only hours before, squeezing him, huskily begging him for more.
He gritted out, ‘Keep going.’
‘My uncle was in debt. Serious debt. Millions and millions of pounds. He’d run through his fortune—and my trust fund. I was his only hope of saving his reputation and clearing the debt. He’d had us followed from the moment I mentioned you to him. He knew we were serious.’
Ciro said nothing so Lara continued.
‘He knew that I was sheltered...not experienced. He was fairly certain we hadn’t...’
Remarkably, colour stained her cheeks, and it made Ciro feel so many conflicting things that he decided to focus on the anger.
‘Save your blushes, cara. This really is the most intriguing story.’
Lara’s mouth tightened for a moment, but then she said, ‘He sold me—like a slave girl at an auction. To Henry Winterborne, the highest bidder.’
Ciro struggled to take this in. It was such a far-fetched story. He decided to see how far Lara would go towards hanging herself and pretending she was an innocent player. ‘When are you claiming that you knew about this?’
‘I didn’t know until after the kidnapping. That’s when he told me. And that’s when he told me he would kill you if I pursued the relationship.’
‘So you came to the hospital to convince me you’d never wanted to marry me in order to save me? Cara, that is the most romantic thing I’ve heard in my whole life.’
Something occurred to Ciro then, and he went very still.
Then he said, ‘I told you that story in Sicily...about my great-grandmother. About how she couldn’t marry the man she wanted, how he was threatened. You appropriated it as your own... You didn’t even have the creativity to come up with something original. You make me—’
Lara shot up from the chair. ‘It’s true—I swear. That’s just a coincidence. It all happened exactly like I said.’
Ciro forced down his anger. Forced himself to stay civil just for a little longer. ‘So why didn’t you tell me this when you had the chance at the hospital? We were alone—no one to hear you tell me the gory details.’
He held up his hand when she opened her mouth.
‘I’ll tell you why, shall I? Because even though you might not have liked the idea of marrying an old man, it was still preferable to marrying a man of no lineage except a dubious one, hmm?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I would never have wanted to marry that man—not in a million years. He disgusted me.’
‘So why didn’t you leave him? He was in a wheelchair—he could hardly run after you.’
He saw Lara flinch minutely at that and he crushed the spark of emotion when he thought of her being threatened. For all he knew that was an elaborate fabrication.
‘My uncle was alive until three months before Henry Winterborne died. The whole time he held the threat of doing you harm over my head. I had nothing—no money and nowhere to go. I felt guilty because I had put Henry in a wheelchair. And then, after he had the stroke, it was clear he was dying, so I felt even less able to try and leave.’
Ciro snorted. ‘No money? The man was a millionaire.’
Lara avoided his eye. ‘After the accident...he was angry. He gave me nothing.’
Ciro’s fury increased—she was manipulating him again with this wildly elaborate tale. He wasn’t even sure to what end, but he felt sure it couldn’t be as simple as she was making out. And he’d had enough.
Ciro’s voice was low and lethal. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this, Lara, but it serves no purpose.’
