* * *
Within hours Lara was sitting on Ciro’s private jet, being flown across Europe to Rome. She’d just declined a glass of champagne and now Ciro asked from across the aisle, ‘Don’t you feel like celebrating, darling?’
She looked at him suspiciously. He was taking a sip of his own champagne and he tipped the glass towards her in a salute. He’d changed into dark grey trousers and a black polo shirt. He looked vital and breathtakingly handsome. From this angle Lara couldn’t see the scar on the right-hand side of his face—he looked perfect. But she knew that even the scar didn’t mar that perfection; it only made him more compelling.
‘Surprisingly enough, not really.’
She’d wanted to sound sharp but she just sounded weary. It had been a long day. She couldn’t believe the funeral had been that morning; it felt like a month ago. She’d changed out of her funeral clothes into a pair of long culottes and a silk shirt which now felt ridiculously flimsy.
Ciro responded. ‘Your marriage to Winterborne might have left you destitute, but fortunately you still have some currency for me. You must have displeased him very much.’
Lara had a sudden flashback to the suffocating weight of the drunken Henry Winterborne on top of her and the sheer panic that had galvanised her into heaving him off.
She swallowed down the nausea and avoided Ciro’s eye. ‘Something like that. Maybe I will have that champagne after all...’ she said, suddenly craving anything that might soothe the ragged edges of her memory.
Ciro must have made a gesture, because the pristine-looking flight attendant was back immediately with a glass of sparkling wine for Lara. She took a sip, letting it fizz down her throat. She took another sip, and instantly felt slightly less ragged.
‘Here’s to us, Lara.’
Reluctantly she looked at Ciro again. He was facing her fully now, and she could see the scar. And his missing finger. And the mocking glint in his eye. He thought he was unnerving her with his scars, and he was—but not because she found them repulsive.
He was holding out his glass towards her. Lara reached out, tipping her glass against his, causing a melodic chiming sound which was incongruously happy amidst the tension.
It was a cruelly ironic echo of another time and place. A tiny bustling restaurant in Florence where they’d toasted their engagement. Lara could recall the incredible sense of love she’d felt, and the feeling of security. For the first time in her life since her parents and her brother had died she’d felt some measure of peace again.
A sense of coming home.
The sparkle of the beautiful ring Ciro had presented her with had kept catching her eye. She’d left that ring in his hospital room when she’d walked out two years ago.
As if privy to her thoughts, Ciro reached for something in his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. Lara’s heart thudded to a stop and her hand gripped the glass of wine too tight.
Ciro shrugged. ‘Seems an awful waste to buy a new ring when we can use the old one.’
A million questions collided in Lara’s head at once, chief of which was, How did he still have the ring? She would have thought he’d thrown it away in disgust after she’d walked out.
He started to open the box, and Lara wanted to tell him to stop, but the words stuck in her throat. And there it was—revealed. The most beautiful ring in the world. A pear-shaped sapphire with two diamonds on either side in a gold setting. Classic, yet unusual.
Lara looked at Ciro. ‘I don’t want this ring.’ She sounded too shrill.
Ciro looked at her. ‘I suppose you hate the idea of recycling? Perhaps it’s too small?’
‘No, it’s not that... It’s...’ She trailed off ineffectually.
It’s perfect.
Lara had a flashback to Ciro telling her that the sapphire had reminded him of the colour her eyes went when he kissed her... That was why she didn’t want it. It brought back too many bittersweet memories that she’d imbued with a romanticism that hadn’t been there.
She managed to get out, ‘Is this absolutely necessary?’
Oblivious to Lara’s turmoil, Ciro plucked the ring out of the box and took her left hand in his, long fingers wrapping around hers as he slid the ring onto her finger, where it sat as snugly as if it had never been taken off.
‘Absolutely. I’ve already issued a press release with the news of our re-engagement and upcoming marriage.’
There was a sharp cracking sound and Lara only realised what had happened when she felt the sting in her finger. She looked down stupidly to see blood dripping onto the cream leather seat, just as Ciro issued a curt order and the flight attendant took the broken glass carefully out of Lara’s grip.
She was up on her feet and being propelled to the back of the plane and into a bathroom before she’d even registered that she’d broken her champagne glass. Ciro was crowding into the small space behind her, turning on the cold tap and holding her hand underneath.
The pain of the water hitting the place where she’d sliced herself on the glass finally made her break out of her shocked stasis. She hissed through her teeth.
‘It’s a clean cut—not deep.’ Ciro’s tone was deep and unexpectedly reassuring.
He turned her around to face him and reached for a first aid kit from the cabinet above her head, pulling out a plaster which he placed over the cut on the inside of her finger with an efficiency that might have intrigued Lara if she’d not been so distracted.
He said with a dry tone, ‘While I will admit to relishing your discomfort at the prospect of marrying me, Lara, I’d prefer to keep you in one piece for the duration of our union.’
Lara’s finger throbbed slightly, and just when she was going to pull her hand back he stopped her, keeping her hands in his. He was frowning, and Lara looked down. He was turning her hands over in his and suddenly she saw what he saw. She tried to pull them back but he wouldn’t let her.
The glittering ring only highlighted what he was looking at: careworn hands. Hands that had been doing manual work. Not the soft lily-white hands she used to have. Short, unvarnished nails.
Suddenly he let her hands go and said curtly, ‘You’ve been neglecting yourself. You need a manicure.’
Lara might have laughed if the space hadn’t been so tiny and she hadn’t been scared to move in case her body came into contact with Ciro’s. Panic rose at the thought that Ciro might kiss her. She didn’t need her dignity battered again.
She scooted around him and into the relative spaciousness of the plane’s bedroom, hiding her hands behind her back. She wasn’t unaware of the massive bed in the centre of the room but she ignored it.
‘You could have told me you were putting out a press release. This affects me too, you know.’
Ciro looked unrepentant. ‘Oh, I’m aware of that. But as soon as you agreed to marry me you set in motion a chain of events which will culminate in our wedding within a week.’
‘A week!’ Lara wanted to sit down, but she didn’t want to look remotely vulnerable. So she stayed standing.
Ciro shrugged. As if this was nothing more to him than discussing the weather. ‘Why not? Why drag it out? I’ve got a busy schedule of events coming up and I’ll need you by my side.’
Lara felt cornered and impotent. She’d walked herself into this situation after all. ‘Why not, indeed.’
A knock came on the door and a voice from outside. ‘We’ll be landing shortly, Signor Sant’Angelo.’
Ciro