Any money left to her by her parents had been long gone before she’d ever had a chance to lay her hands on it. ‘It was never about the money.’
Ciro’s mouth tightened. ‘No. It was about class.’
No, Lara thought, it was about blackmail and coercion.
But, yes, it had been about class too. Albeit not for her; she couldn’t have cared less about class. She never had. Not that Ciro would ever believe her. Not after the way she’d convinced him otherwise.
She clamped her lips together, resisting the urge to defend herself when she knew it would be futile. She hardly knew this person in front of her, even though at one time she’d felt as if she’d known every atom of his being. He’d disabused her of that romantic notion two years ago. Yet, she couldn’t deny the rapid and persistent spike in her pulse-rate ever since Ciro had revealed himself. Her body knew him.
Something caught her eye then, and she gasped. His right hand...the one holding the glass...was missing a little finger.
He saw where her gaze had gone. ‘Not very pretty, eh?’
Lara felt sick. She remembered Ciro lying in that hospital bed, his head and half his face covered in bandages...his arms... She’d been too distraught to notice much else.
‘They did that to you? The kidnappers?’ Her voice was a thread.
He nodded. ‘It amused them. They got bored, waiting for their orders.’
Lara realised that he was different. Harder. More intimidating. ‘Why am I here, Ciro?’
‘Because you betrayed me.’ He carefully put down the glass on the silver tray. And then he looked at her. ‘And I’m here to collect my due.’
My due. The words revolved sickeningly in Lara’s head.
‘I don’t owe you anything.’ The words felt cumbersome in her mouth.
Liar, whispered a voice.
‘Yes, Lara you do. You walked out on me when I needed you most, leaving me at the mercy of the press, who had a field day reviving all the old stories about my family’s links to the Mafia. Not only that, you left me without a bride.’
A spark of anger mixed with her guilt as she recalled the lurid headlines in the aftermath of the kidnapping and her subsequent engagement to Henry Winterborne. She focused on the anger.
‘You only wanted to marry me to take advantage of my connections to a society that had refused you access.’
Ciro hadn’t loved her. He’d wanted her because at first she’d intrigued him, with her naivety and innocence, and then because of her connections and her name.
Over the last two years, with the benefit of distance and hindsight, Lara had come to acknowledge how refreshing someone like her must have been for someone as jaded as him. She’d been so trusting. Loving.
If they had married it never would have lasted. Not beyond the point where her allure would have worn off and he would have become disenchanted with her innocence. Not beyond the point at which her name and connections would have served their purpose for his ambitions. Of that she had no doubt.
Of course he wasn’t going to forgive her for taking all that away from him. He was out for revenge.
For a heady moment Lara imagined telling him exactly what had happened. How events had conspired to drive them apart. How her uncle had so cruelly manipulated her. She even opened her mouth—but then she remembered Ciro’s caustic words. They resounded in her head as if he’d said them only moments ago.
‘Don’t delude yourself that I felt anything more for you than you felt for me, Lara. I wanted you, yes, but that was purely physical. More than all of that I wanted you because marrying you would have given me a stamp of respectability that money can’t buy.’
Ciro’s voice broke through the toxic memory as he said coolly, ‘I prefer to think of it as a kind of debt repayment. You said you’d marry me and I’m holding you to that original commitment. I need a wife, and I’ve no intention of getting into messy emotional entanglements when you’re so convenient.’
Lara’s blood drained south. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Is it? Really? People have married for a lot less, Lara.’
She looked at him helplessly, torn between hating him for appearing like a magician to turn her world upside down and desperately wanting to defend herself. But she’d lost that chance when she’d informed him coldly that she’d never had any intention of going through with their marriage because she was already promised to someone else—someone eminently more suitable.
She’d told him that it had amused her to go along with his whirlwind proposal, just to see him make a fool of himself over a woman he could never hope to marry. She’d told him all her breathy words of love had been mere platitudes.
She’d never forget the look of pure loathing that had come over his face after she’d spoken those bilious words. That had been the moment when she’d realised how deluded she’d been. And on some level she’d been glad she was playing a role, that at least she knew how he’d really felt.
He was almost killed because of you.
Lara felt sick again. He hadn’t deserved that just for not loving her. And he hadn’t deserved her lies. He’d saved her from the kidnappers. He’d offered up his life for hers. And then she’d learned she’d never really been in danger. He didn’t know that, though. And right now the thought of him ever finding that out made her break out in a cold sweat. However much he hated her already, he would despise her even more.
Suddenly a ball of emotion swelled inside her chest. Lara couldn’t bear it that Ciro thought so badly of her, even if it was her fault that she’d convinced him so well. Seeing him again was ripping open a raw wound inside her, and before she knew what she was doing she took a step forward, words tumbling out of her mouth.
‘Ciro, I did want to marry you—more than anything. But my uncle...he was crazy...he’d lost everything. He didn’t want me to marry you—he saw you as unworthy of a Templeton. He forced me to say those awful things... They were all lies.’
Lara stopped abruptly and her words hung in the air. The atmosphere was thick with tension. Taut like a wire. Ciro was expressionless. She could remember a time when he’d used to look at her with such warmth and indulgence. And love, or so she’d thought. But it hadn’t been love. It had been desire. Physical desire and the desire for success.
He lifted his hands and did a slow and deliberate hand-clap, the sound loud in the room. Lara flinched.
He shook his head. ‘You really are something, Lara, you know that? But the victim act doesn’t suit you and it’s wasted on me. You really expect me to believe you were coerced into marrying a man old enough to be your father and rich enough to pay off the national debt of a small country? You forget I’ve seen your extensive repertoire of guises, and this innocent, earnest one is overdone and totally unnecessary.’
Her belly sank. She’d known it was futile to try. How could she explain how her uncle had manipulated and exploited her for his own gain since the moment he’d taken over her guardianship after her parents had died? The extent of his ruthlessness still shocked her, even now.
And she should recognise ruthlessness by now. She should have known Ciro hadn’t been making idle threats two years ago. After all, he was Sicilian through every fibre of his being. He came from a long and bloody tradition of men who meted out revenge and punishment as a way of life, even if they had tried to distance themselves from all that in recent generations.
Ciro had told her once that his ancestors had been Moorish pirates and she could well believe it. She could see that he’d been wounded beyond redemption—not in his heart,