‘What I mean is I am fully aware of the situation.’ Her voice was surprisingly cold, clear. ‘I have agreed to try for this baby with you, Rafael, not to resurrect our marriage.’
Rafael swung round to face her, thunder in his eyes. ‘As long as we both know where we stand.’
‘I’m sure we do. You have made your feelings towards me perfectly clear.’
‘And yours towards me.’
‘Yes.’
Lottie flinched. Her big black lie. Impossible to remove now. It was stitched into the fabric of Rafael’s being. It was there in every twitch of his muscles, every hitch of his shoulders, every coal-black stare of his eyes.
With a couple of strides he was before her again, glowering down on her defensive body. Lottie faced the wall of his hostility, watching him struggle to control his breathing, his temper, his dislike of her. Struggling with all the things he would not say.
Finally he stepped back, his eyes refusing to leave her face.
‘Then I am glad there is no confusion.’
* * *
Rafael drained his brandy glass and banged it down on the coffee table in front of him, the emotional roller coaster ride of the evening still wreaking havoc on his body. He ran a hand over his forehead, the ridge of his scar a timely reminder of the accident that had started all this.
He should have been feeling elated. If nothing else he had managed to persuade Lottie to agree to using their frozen embryo. Now he needed to get things moving before she changed her mind—or, worse still, went back to England, met someone else, forgot all about him. He had been fortunate, he had to concede, that that hadn’t already happened. That she hadn’t already taken up with some uncomplicated young man and started living a happily-ever-after that certainly didn’t include him. But his investigations had revealed nothing apart from that slimeball of a boss at the gallery where she worked.
He flexed his fingers. There was a guy asking for a punch on the nose if ever there was one. But even if she was unattached now he had had no way of telling for how long. He’d had to act fast.
But not in the way he just had. Dio... His hand came down over his eyes. What the hell had he been thinking of, pressing himself up against her like a horny teenager? Displaying, oh, so physically, just how easily she could still turn him on? Because she did, didn’t she? Every little maledetto thing about her sent his logical brain into a tailspin south. And to the trouble that was waiting for him there.
Though it hadn’t just been him. The memory of the way Lottie had responded still pulsed through his veins. Had that been deliberate? A test to see what it would take to make him react? If so, he had shown himself to be the weakest of creatures. She had eventually swept from the room, seemingly not able to get away from him fast enough, presumably gloating with the satisfaction that she could turn him on just like that, just the way she always had.
Well, enough. Getting up from the sofa, he stretched back his shoulders, circling them up and around to ease the stiffness, almost enjoying the physical pain that shot down one side of his body. He had to resist, be strong. Moving over to the fireplace, he caught sight of his battered reflection in the enormous gilt mirror, demonstrating yet again the mess he had made of his life. He looked away quickly, only to be confronted by the carved marble cherubs on either side of him, mocking him with their adoring faces.
Sometimes it felt as if the whole world had it in for him.
* * *
The next morning dawned bright and clear and Lottie witnessed every stage of it. After a few fitful hours of sleep she had given up and spent what was left of the night huddled on the window seat, her duvet pulled around her. There she had watched the starlit night giving way to the first flush of pink, the curved sliver of the sun making its miraculous appearance, rising with surprising speed until it hung above its unmade bed, ready for the day.
Those silent hours had given her plenty of time to go over everything—over and over, until she had thought her head would burst with it. But now, up and dressed, warmed by the coffee from her otherwise untouched breakfast tray, she found her mind was surprisingly clear and she knew what she had to do.
Pulling her phone out of her bag, she first texted her friend and flatmate Alex, spelling out that she planned to stay at Monterrato ‘for a few weeks more’. There was no way Alex would be up yet, so at least she was excused having to speak to her and face the barrage of questions that this breezily worded statement would no doubt produce.
Pressing ‘send’, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Alex’s reaction, already envisaging her colourfully worded reply.
The next one was more difficult. Informing Ibrahim, her boss at the gallery, that the ‘three or four days’ she had taken off work to come here might actually now be more like three or four weeks was not going to go down well. He was prone to bouts of hysteria at the best of times and this was undoubtedly going to ramp up his rage levels. Still, it had to be done. So, punching his number into the phone, Lottie tucked her hair behind her ear, cleared her throat and waited for the soothing buzzing of the connection tone to be shattered by his familiar bark.