The muted sounds of London traffic could be heard through the huge windows. It was a palatial lounge, beautifully decorated in classic colours with massive paintings hanging on the walls. The paintings were abstract, and a vivid memory exploded into Lara’s head of when Ciro had taken her to an art gallery in Florence, after hours.
They’d only just met a few days previously, and she’d been surprised enough at his choice of gallery to make him say with a mocking smile, ‘You expected a rough Sicilian to have no taste?’
She’d blushed, because he’d exposed her for assuming that a very alpha Italian man would veer towards something more...classical, conservative.
She’d turned to him, still shy around him, wondering what on earth he was doing with her, a pale English arts student. ‘You’re not rough...not at all.’
He’d been like a sleek panther, oozing a very lethal sense of coiled sensual energy.
The gallery had been hushed and reverential. She could still remember the delicious knot of tension deep in her abdomen, and how she’d thought to herself, How can I not fall in love with this man who opens art galleries especially for me and makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt?
They hadn’t even kissed at that stage...
Ciro’s voice broke through her reverie. ‘Would you like something stronger, Lara? Perhaps some brandy for the overwhelming grief you must be feeling?’
Lara’s nerves were jangling. He’d turned to face her now, and she noticed that he’d taken off the jacket and wore dark trousers and a white shirt open at the throat. Her mouth went dry. She knew how he tasted there. She could still remember how she’d explored that hollow with her tongue—
Stop.
She ignored his question. ‘How long have you lived here?’ Had he been here all this time? Just seconds away from where she’d been existing so miserably?
Lara thought she saw Ciro’s hand tighten on his glass, but put it down to her overwrought imagination. He said, ‘I bought it months ago but the renovations have only just been completed.’
So he hadn’t been living here. Somehow that thought comforted Lara. She didn’t know if she could have borne being married to Winterborne while knowing Ciro was so close. Even the thought of seeing him with another woman coming out of this house made her insides clench. Crazy. She had no jurisdiction over this man. She never had. She’d been dreaming. Delusional.
She lifted her chin. ‘I don’t have time for this, Ciro...whatever it is that you want. I have to be somewhere.’
Evicted. She ignored the fresh spiking of panic.
Ciro lifted his tumbler of golden liquid and downed the lot in one go. For a second Lara wished she’d asked for a drink.
Then he said slowly, ‘But that’s just it, Lara. You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?’
She actually felt the blood drain from her face. How could he possibly...?
‘How can I know?’
He read her mind. Speared her with that dark gaze. Maybe she’d spoken out loud. She felt as if she were slipping under water, losing all sense of control.
He lifted a brow. ‘The guests at the funeral were a hotbed of gossip, but I also have my contacts, who’ve informed me that Winterborne left everything to a distant relative and that as soon as you collect your things from the apartment, you’re out on the streets. As for your trust fund—apparently you’ve blown through that too. Poor penniless Lara. You should have stayed with me. I’m worth three times as much as your dead husband and you wouldn’t have had to put up with an old man in your bed for the past two years.’
Lara’s head hurt to think of how he’d obtained all that information about her trust fund, and her insides churned at the mention of old man.
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