Lizzy stepped a little closer to him, her voice a hurried confiding whisper aimed at the taut solid skin at his throat. ‘It’s silly.’
‘What is?’
‘The rest of this.’ Her eyes gave a quick restless flick of the waiting crowd. ‘If we’re supposed to be leaving, won’t they all be leaving too?’
‘You want me to throw our guests out?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘Your guests,’ Lizzy corrected.
‘Watch it, cara,’ he warned quietly. ‘You don’t want to talk yourself into yet another tight corner with me—especially with so many witnesses.’
‘All I’m saying is that we might as well stay—’
He moved so smoothly she didn’t sense it coming. One second he was smoothing the jacket across her shoulders, the next his long fingers crushing the slender bones, and with a controlled strength he pulled her tight up against his chest and the rest of her argument was being thoroughly crushed by the kind of kiss that locked the breath in her throat.
She was only dimly aware of the murmuring ripple that spread around the hallway as the first tense quiver to hit her in days made its fierce stroke down Lizzy’s front. Pleasure flared out from its edges, sending her hands up to press hard against his chest in an attempt to push him away. But he was going nowhere and neither was the kiss, the heated force of it sending her body into a straining arch against him. The so carefully draped jacket slithered from her shoulders to land on the ground by her feet and his arms folded her even closer—someone murmured something mocking, someone else uttered a dry laugh.
Luc eased the pressure on her mouth by slow degrees and with tender stroking caresses. ‘The show must go on, cara,’ he murmured softly.
Too shaken up by the whole public reminder, Lizzy just swallowed tensely and nodded. Then the slow-rolling swell of applause took off around the gathering as Luc was stepping back.
Stooping down to recover her fallen jacket, he tossed it casually over his shoulder as he straightened again, then turned to offer their audience a wry mocking bow. Laughter joined in with the clapping. Lizzy kept her eyes lowered and hated the wild blush that burned her cheeks.
It wasn’t until he’d captured her hand and led her outside and she saw the helicopter standing on the lawn again that she remembered her father.
She turned quickly to Luc. ‘I can’t leave here without seeing my father.’
He tensed beside her. ‘He has already left here to catch his flight back to Gatwick,’ he informed her coolly.
For a whole minute Lizzy couldn’t breathe. The sense of rejection was so total she just stared blindly at Luc as the colour slowly drained from her face.
With a soft curse, he drew her across the lawn and bundled her into the helicopter. A few minutes later and they were rising up above the temporary wall of white canvas and swinging round to face the lake where a whole armada of different sailing crafts clustered a short way out from the jetty, with their army of little media people scrambling, no doubt to get a picture of them leaving.
Beside her Luc made a tense, restless movement with his body. ‘Ignore them,’ he rasped. ‘They will soon get tired of playing this game and move on to the next sensation.’
Oddly enough she didn’t care any more how many silly photographs they managed to snatch.
‘He left without saying goodbye to me,’ she whispered.
That was what mattered.
‘He has a business to rescue.’ He didn’t even try to pretend he did not know who she meant. ‘You must accept that Hadley’s has to take priority with him right now.’
Oh, yes. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for that very thin excuse.’
After that they finished the journey to the accompanying sizzle of his frowning impatience and her numbed silence. Lizzy stared out of the window as they skimmed over the top of the glistening blue lake. An hour later they were crossing the tarmac at Linate Airport to a private jet wearing the De Santis logo on its shiny white fuselage.
The interior was a luxurious statement to corporate living. Luc saw her seated, said something to a hovering steward, then strode off to check with his pilot.
Two minutes later he was back, and the engines were running. He took the chair next to Lizzy and clipped home his seat belt, instructing her to do the same thing.
They took off into pure blue skies and she still hadn’t got a clue as to where they were going. In truth she just didn’t care. Today had been the worst day of her life and right now she felt like a traffic accident, one of the walking wounded that functioned by sheer instinct and nothing else.
‘I sent him away while you were changing,’ Luc rasped out suddenly, bringing her face around to stare at him.
He was lounging in the seat beside her, the absolute epitome of casual nonchalance, but Lizzy saw the tension around his mouth.
‘Why?’ she breathed.
His golden eyes flickered over her. ‘He upset you.’
He upset her? ‘He’s my father,’ she snapped out. ‘He’s allowed to upset me!’
‘I am your husband,’ he countered. ‘I am allowed to remove all upset from your life.’
Lizzy threw him a look of burning dislike. ‘You upset me. Does that mean you’re going to remove yourself from my presence?’
‘Not while we are flying at ten thousand feet.’ He grinned—then stopped grinning and sighed instead. ‘Stop spitting hatred at me, Elizabeth, and explain to me why your father believes he can treat you the way that he did today.’
So she told him about her mother in a cool, flat, dignified voice, unaware that he watched every fleeting expression that passed across her face because she refused to look at him as she talked.
‘So you see,’ she concluded, ‘he sees his worst fears for me materialising in our wedding today.’
The steward arrived then with coffee and sandwiches, bringing a halt to the conversation while he transferred everything from a tray to the low table in front of them. Luc waved the steward away when he went to pour out the coffee and leant forward to do it himself.
‘Do you look like your mother?’ he asked curiously.
Lizzy nodded. ‘I’m like this constant reminder to him of what she did.’
He handed her a cup of warm dark coffee. ‘And where is she now?’
‘She—died, two years ago.’ Her voice had turned so husky she took a sip at the coffee to cover it up—then frowned at the bitter sweet taste. ‘You’ve put sugar in this.’
‘You don’t take sugar?’
‘No,’ she said—then, curiously, ‘Do you?’
Sitting back in his seat, he took a sip from his own cup. ‘We don’t know very much about each other, do we?’
No, Lizzy thought bleakly, we don’t. ‘Well, do you take sugar in your coffee or don’t you?’ she demanded.
‘Strong, black and sweet,’ he answered, then turned his head to look at her, his golden eyes darker than usual and reflecting an expression she could not quite read.
But she felt it make its old strike at her solar plexus and frowned as to why it had. They couldn’t be discussing a safer subject unless they switched to the weather.
‘It seems to me, cara,’ he then said ruefully, ‘that your family is as dysfunctional as mine, which makes us more in tune than you would like to think.’
Opening her mouth to argue with him, she closed it again, because she realised he was probably