‘You’re not going to revive this dump and you’re not interested in what I do here, anyway!’
Dio looked at her long and hard, hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
‘I’m going to disagree on both counts,’ he told her softly.
Lucy’s eyes fluttered and she looked away hurriedly. The dark, naked intent in his gaze was unsettling. She decided that showing him around the school, what little there was of it, was a better option than standing here and having to brave the full frontal force of his personality.
She gave a jerky shrug and directed him to the exercise books on her desk. This was the main classroom, where she and Mark did their best to accommodate the children, whose abilities varied wildly, as did their ages.
She warmed to her subject.
Dio saw what had been missing all these months. She had presented a beautiful, well-educated, cultured mask to the outside world but the animation had gone. It was here now as she talked about all the wonderful things the school was capable of providing; how much the considerate, funny and thoughtful Mark had managed to do with minimum help and almost no funding. Her eyes glowed and her cheeks pinked. She gestured and he found himself riveted by the fluid grace of her hands as she spoke.
There were several rooms on the ground floor. The building was like the Tardis, much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside.
‘Volunteer teachers come whenever they can,’ she told him, leading the way into another small room. ‘Mark has managed to get a rota going and several subjects are now covered by experts.’ She looked at Dio and her voice softened. ‘You wouldn’t believe the conditions some of the kids who come to us live in,’ she explained. ‘The fact that they’re brought to us in the first place shows a great deal of parental support but there are stories of almost no food, noise pollution from neighbours, overcrowding in small flats...the list goes on.’
Dio nodded and let his eyes drift over that full mouth, the slim column of her neck, her narrow shoulders. Vanilla-blonde strands of hair were escaping the confines of the ponytail and the way they wisped around her face made her look incredibly young, barely a teenager.
‘How safe is it?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Huh?’
‘What are the safety procedures around here? Is there just the pair of you working here? And have you been working at night?’
‘Are you telling me that you’re concerned for my welfare?’ Lucy’s voice was mocking.
‘Always.’
She felt the steady thud of her heart banging against her rib cage. His face was so serious that she was momentarily deprived of the power of speech and, when she did rediscover her vocal cords, she could hear a thread of jumpiness in her voice as she explained that neither of them worked nights and the place was always busy with people coming and going during the handful of hours in which they did work.
‘Be that as it may,’ Dio continued, ‘now that I know where you spend your time, and what you get up to when I’m not around, you’re going to have two of my guards close at hand whenever you come here—and, Lucy, that’s not negotiable.’
‘You used to say that you didn’t agree with men who felt that they had to surround their wives with bodyguards!’
‘You wouldn’t require a bodyguard if you spent your time doing your nails and shopping...which was what I thought you got up to in your spare time.’
‘What sort of impression is that going to give?’ Lucy cried, feeling the wings of her freedom being clipped and resenting it even as she warmed with forbidden pleasure at the thought of him wanting to protect her.
To protect his investment. She brought herself back down to earth with a sobering bump. An investment he was keen to look after now that he wanted to take full advantage of it before he consigned it to the rubbish bin.
‘I’ve never cared about what other people think. So, how many classrooms are there in this place and what’s upstairs...?’
‘I can’t have great big, bulky men lurking around. They’ll scare off the kids.’
‘I doubt that in this neighbourhood.’
‘Stop being provocative, Dio!’
‘If you think I’m being provocative, then how would you describe yourself?’ He strolled towards her and she found herself nailed to the spot, mesmerised by the casual grace of his movements.
‘I’m just...just trying to tell you that I don’t want to...to...stand out when I come here.’ Perspiration beaded her upper lips as he curled a strand of wayward hair around his finger. ‘What are you doing, Dio?’
‘I’m talking to you. You can’t object if your soon-to-be ex-husband takes a little interest in the safety and wellbeing of his wife, can you?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘No?’ He looked perplexed. ‘Then what did you mean?’
‘You... I...’ Her sluggish brain could not complete the remainder of her thoughts. Her body felt heavy and lethargic. Right now, she yearned for him to touch her in other places; she absolutely yearned for him to take her to all those places he frequently took her to in her dreams.
She had to exert every ounce of willpower to drag herself physically out of his mesmerising radius, stepping back and sucking in a lungful of restorative air.
‘It won’t work having great big guys standing on either side of me. Plus, when I come here, no one knows who I am.’
‘You’re not recognised?’ Dio frowned and she allowed herself a little smile.
‘Why would anyone recognise me? I dress like this, in jeans, tee-shirts and jumpers, and I scrape my hair back and I don’t wear tons of make-up and expensive jewellery.’
He heard the derision in her voice and was struck, once again, at hidden depths swirling just out of sight.
It confused him and that was a sensation he was not accustomed to dealing with. Least of all in a woman whose motivations had left him in no doubt as to the sort of person she was. Not one with hidden depths, for starters.
He raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head impatiently, clearing it of the sudden fog of doubt that had descended.
Did she enjoy the novelty of pretending to do good undercover? Was that it?
‘Now, you were asking about the other rooms downstairs.’ She briskly took him on the tour he had requested. More rooms with more low bookshelves and a scattering of stationery. She could have equipped the entire school with computers had she so desired simply by flogging one of the items of jewellery locked away in the safe in her bedroom. But she had chosen not to and he presumed that that was because she wanted, as she had told him, to keep her identity under wraps. To keep the extent of her wealth under wraps.
And yet how did that make sense?
She had been a Bishop, through and through. Surely the last thing she should have wanted would be...this.
He looked around at the shabby walls which someone had optimistically painted a cheerful yellow, similar to the walls in the hallway. Nothing could conceal the wear and tear of the fabric of the building, however, and the fact that it was practically falling down.
‘Mark should be back shortly.’ She ended the downstairs tour in a room that was very similar to the others he had been shown. ‘If you’re really interested, you can ask him whatever questions you like.’
‘Think I’ll pass on that one.’ He leaned against the wall and looked at his wife whose face had become smudged with pencil at some point during their tour. ‘I wouldn’t want to have to administer smelling salts because he has a fainting fit seeing