leaned even more negligently against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. Lucy supposed that the position was meant to make him look more relaxed, totally at his ease. Instead, it had exactly the opposite impression. A shiver ran down her spine at the feeling that he was watching her intently, waiting for her to take a false step, make some mistake that she had no idea would actually be a mistake.
Or perhaps she had already made it and didn’t even realise it. With Ricardo standing there in the darkness, looking like judge and jury all rolled into one, she had the terrible feeling that she had been tried and found guilty and she didn’t know quite what she had done.
‘No one would have taken you. My staff have been told not to take you anywhere. Not unless I give them specific instructions.’
Not just tried and found guilty, but tried, condemned—and imprisoned. The shiver at Lucy’s spine turned into a full blown shudder and she grabbed at the balcony as her legs felt suddenly unsteady beneath her.
‘Are you saying I can’t leave?’
‘That is exactly what I’m saying. Until I give permission for you to go, then you stay here.’
‘I thought you wanted me out of your life.’
She might be worried—definitely on the verge of nervous—but she was damned if she was going to let it show. So she put the note of challenge back into her voice, lifted her chin as high as it would go and made herself meet the cold darkness of his eyes.
‘After all, wasn’t that the reason why you came to find me in the first place? “Tell me what you really want—and you can have it.”’ She quoted his own words back at him. ‘“Anything, so long as you get out of my life”.’
‘…and never come back,’ Ricardo completed, making her wince inwardly at the sound of the words. ‘Remember? That was the important bit. This time I want you gone—out of my life for good.’
He really must hate her, Lucy reflected miserably. And it was shockingly disturbing to find such revulsion directed at her, spiced with bitter venom.
‘Hate you?’ Ricardo echoed and, to her horror, she realised that she had actually spoken her thoughts out loud.
‘Hate you?’ he repeated. ‘No, cara, not hate. I don’t care enough about you to do that. But I do know a mistake when I see one and you—’
He unfolded his arms and one long finger came up, gesturing to indicate her slender form with a controlled savagery that made a nonsense of his denial of hatred.
‘You are one of the biggest mistakes of my life. If not my absolute worst.’
The shaking in Lucy’s legs was growing worse. Surreptitiously, she pressed her hand down harder on the rough stone of the balcony, needing the extra support to keep her upright. After a day of emotional shocks and changes, it seemed that her strength had been drained away, leaving her fuzzy-headed and unsteady on her feet.
‘You know, that really doesn’t make any sense,’ she managed.
‘No?’ Ricardo scorned. ‘And why not?’
‘If I’m—’ she had to drag in a gasping breath in order to give herself the strength to speak the hurtful words. ‘—the biggest mistake of your life. One you want out of here for good. Then why—why—are you keeping me a prisoner here?’
‘Hardly a prisoner…’
‘But you’re making sure that I can’t leave! Which amounts to the same thing. And why would you do that if you feel I was such a mistake in your life?’
It was the question he’d been asking himself all day long, Ricardo acknowledged privately. And the fact that she was asking it now too didn’t make it any easier to answer.
He had never seen his relationship with Lucy as going anything beyond the hot, passionate nights they’d shared in his bed. But once he had found out she was pregnant then everything had changed. Their marriage had been for the baby and nothing more.
No, correction, their marriage had been for the baby and the hot blazing sex that had led them to create that baby. The hot, passionate sex that was the glue that had held them together in the place of anything else. And that he had thought would hold them together until they could put something else in its place.
Because, OK, they had rushed into marriage purely for convenience and to ensure that Marco was legitimate. But surely, when the baby was born, they could have taken some time to get to know each other properly. To find out if there was anything more than that blazing passion that had yoked them together from the start.
But Lucy hadn’t stayed around long enough to find out if that was the case. No sooner had Marco been safely delivered than she had launched herself into a lifestyle from which he—and the baby—were totally excluded. She had been out on the town every day, spending money like water, bringing home innumerable carrier bags of clothes, shoes, make-up. Most of which she had never worn or used. She had moved into a separate room, had had to be cajoled into seeing her son, was blatantly reluctant to care for him, leaving him instead to the care of his nanny almost twenty-four hours a day.
Then, within six weeks, she had simply walked out. Leaving a heartless note that made it plain just what she had wanted out of the marriage. It hadn’t been Marco—and it most definitely hadn’t been a life with Ricardo. All she had wanted was the lifestyle, the luxury, that his wealth had brought.
I gave you the son you wanted and almost a year of my life. Think that’s quite long enough. You can have Marco—after all, he’s the only reason we went through this farce of a marriage—and I’ll have my freedom. I’ll be in touch about the divorce.
And now here she was. Just as she had promised. She had come back into his life for the sole purpose of doing just that—talking about the divorce. And, of course, just how much she was going to get in her settlement.
He detested her. He hated who she was, what she’d done. So why in the devil’s name would he try to keep her with him any longer than he had to?
‘We haven’t talked about the divorce. About what you want out of it.’
Had he actually touched a nerve there? Was it possible that she could be affected by what he had said? Certainly it looked as if some sort of a light—the light of challenge and defiance had gone out of her eyes. Or was it merely some trick of the moon that had taken that from her gaze in the same way that it seemed to have drained the colour from her face?
‘When we have an agreement, then you can go. I’ll have Enzo bring the launch around and you can be back on the shore in less than fifteen minutes. I’ll even give you an advance on your settlement so that you can book yourself into a decent hotel—providing you get the first plane from Verona Airport tomorrow morning.’
Once again it seemed that he had caught her on the raw. She actually flinched, wincing away from his words. A frown creased the space between his brows but, just as he was leaning forward in some concern, her head came back up again, blue eyes flashing defiance.
‘No!’
Just for a moment she looked almost as if the force of her refusal had taken her by surprise as much as him. Those clear, bright eyes seemed to go out of focus for a second,
