‘I really like the interior of the marquee, but I’m not sure now about the flowers. I think I want to change them,’ Angelina Forrester informed her. ‘I love the drama of having black. Perhaps if we changed things so that the tablecloths are just barely cream and the flowers black…you know, very heavy and oriental-looking. Sort of passionate and dangerous!’
Carly’s heart began to sink as she recalled the trouble and the expense they had gone to in order to comply with Angelina’s initial demand for scent-free blooms.
‘Bloody hell, Angelina, does it matter what colour the bloody flowers are?’
The Famous Rock Star looked and sounded angrily impatient, and Carly could see the pink tinge of temper creeping up his wife’s perfect complexion.
‘Perhaps if we added one or two dramatic dark flowers to the table decorations?’ Carly suggested calmingly, mentally deciding that if Angelina agreed to her suggestion the extra flowers would have to be artificial—or sprayed. No way was there time to source black-petalled flowers for tomorrow night! She would need to speak to the florist as well…
‘Well…I’d have to see what you mean…’ Angelina hesitated.
The Famous Rock Star swore crudely. ‘All this because you’ve changed your mind about your bloody dress!’
The pink tinge had become distinctly darker.
Discreetly Carly excused herself, explaining that she needed to speak with the hired entertainers.
Arms folded over his black-clad chest, his long chino-covered legs stretched out in front of him, Ricardo propped himself up against a nearby wall and watched her.
She had good people-managing skills, and she was able to establish a genuine rapport with those she worked with. She treated them well, and with respect, and they in turn were obviously prepared to listen to what she had to say. But he didn’t want her as an employee. He wanted her as a woman. He wanted her exclusively and permanently as his woman. He had, he admitted, fallen deeply and completely in love with her.
He heard a burst of laughter from the mainly male group surrounding her and immediately his muscles contracted on a primitive surge of male jealousy.
He was halfway towards her before Carly became aware of his presence, alerted to the fact that something was happening by the sudden silence from those around her.
She turned round and saw Ricardo striding towards her, and her heart turned over inside her chest with need, her whole body going boneless with the pleasure of just looking at him.
‘I thought you might be ready for some lunch.’
‘Yes, I am. I think there’s a sort of workers’ canteen affair set up somewhere.’
Ricardo shook his head and then took hold of her arm, deliberately drawing her away from the others.
‘No. Not here. I was thinking of somewhere more…private.’
She knew he could feel the betraying leap of her pulse because his thumb was resting on her wrist.
‘Yes!’ she told him unsteadily. ‘Yes.’
Their clothes lay abandoned on the bedroom floor—Ricardo’s tee shirt and her top, his chinos and her cut-offs, the smooth plain Calvins in which he could have posed as effectively and even more erotically than any male model—or so at least Carly considered—her bra, and finally the tiny side-bow-tied silky thong he had given her only yesterday. A gift for her that he would ensure brought pleasure to them both, he had told her seductively.
They lay skin to skin, Ricardo’s hands slowly shaping her whilst she lay in the luxurious sensual aftermath of their earlier urgent coupling.
‘You’re quiet,’ Ricardo murmured.
‘I’m just thinking about how perfect this is and how happy I am,’ Carly admitted.
Ricardo looked at her, and then cupped her face and kissed her.
‘So you’re ready to accept that we do have something special, that it isn’t just sex, then?’ he said softly.
He reached for her hand and twined his fingers through hers, holding it—and her—safely. She had fought so hard to deny what she felt, but today, lying here in the sun with him, she knew that she couldn’t deny her love any longer.
‘I…Ricardo, I…I do feel emotionally connected to you.’
‘“Emotionally connected”?’ Ricardo queried, shaking his head as he continued tenderly, ‘Is the word “love” really so very hard to say? Or are you waiting for me to say it first?’
Without waiting for her to reply he kissed her gently, saying, ‘I—love—you—Carly,’ spacing out the words between kisses.
There could be no greater happiness than this—no greater sense of belonging, no deeper trust or awareness of being loved, Carly decided as she let him walk into her heart.
‘Ricardo, we ought to get dressed.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m supposed to be working,’ she reminded him, trying to sound as though she meant it.
‘Mmm…’
Ricardo had slid his hand into her hair and was kissing the sensitive little spot just beneath her ear. But it was too late. Her own reminder to herself that she should be working had made her uncomfortably aware that sh
e still had not dealt with the problem of Nick forging her signature.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. What makes you think that there is?’
‘You’re anxious and tense, and you’re avoiding eye contact with me,’ Ricardo told her wryly. ‘So much for me hoping that you’d finally let me in past the barricades.’
‘No, it isn’t anything to do with that,’ Carly assured him.
‘Then what is it to do with?’
He had caught her neatly with that one. There was no point in her trying to pretend now that she wasn’t worrying about anything.
‘It’s…It’s something that doesn’t only concern me, Ricardo.’
‘The business?’ he guessed.
Carly nodded her head.
‘You’re a potential client, and…’
He reached for her and looked into her eyes. ‘I thought we’d gone way beyond that. What we have means that our personal bond with one another comes way, way before our loyalties to anything or anyone else. Surely you know that you can trust me?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
Hesitantly, she started to explain.
‘You mean to say that he’s forged your signature so that he can steal from his own wife?’ he said incredulously.
‘I don’t know that, but it does look that way. I’m just so worried about what I should do. If I tell Lucy she’s going to be so hurt, and she may not even believe me. I’ve been in touch with the bank and told them that no cheques are to be allowed through the account for the time being, so at least that should stop him from drawing any more.’
‘How much has he taken?’
‘A lot. In fact so much that the company just won’t be viable by year-end unless Lucy makes up the shortfall from her trust fund.’
‘So as of now the business is a sitting duck for any lurking predator?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it is. Although I hadn’t thought of it in that way,’ Carly admitted. ‘My concern has been for Lucy and how this is going to affect her.’