A Tainted Beauty

Some deeply buried shred of compassion implored Ciro to offer her sympathy for having been jilted. Some small inner voice called to him and asked whether her experience might have affected the way she had subsequently behaved with him. But his sense of being wronged was so great that he did not heed it. The pain in his heart was far too strong to contemplate any easy forgiveness towards her. He had been brought up to suspect the motives of women and Lily Scott had just reinforced his judgement. ‘And did he thrill you?’ he questioned, walking towards the bed and towering over her as he finished buckling his belt.

Lily stared up at him, her heart beating with a mixture of fear and excitement—wanting more than anything that he would just take his trousers off again and get back into bed with her and… and…

‘Did he, Lily?’ he demanded, his heated question breaking into her shockingly erotic thoughts. ‘Did he thrill you? Did he make you come when he touched you?’

She knew that she should answer his outrageous question truthfully. That there could now be nothing but complete honesty between them, if there was to be any chance of salvaging this. Who was to say that something good couldn’t rise from the ashes of this terrible showdown they’d had? But not at any cost. Because there was no way she could answer something like that with any degree of dignity. And besides, she wasn’t able to give him the only answer he wanted to hear. ‘I don’t think you have an

y right to ask me something like that,’ she said quietly.

He turned away, sick with disgust at himself—and sick with jealousy, too—her refusal to answer telling him everything he needed to know. Because he had wanted her to blurt out that she had never known pleasure before him. That no other man had made her cry out in helpless rapture. But they had, hadn’t they? This man Tom. The man who had abandoned her. Who had taken the virginity which should have been his to take.

‘I should have listened to Giuseppe,’ he said bitterly.

Lily’s ears pricked up at the mention of the cousin who had looked at her so assessingly, his blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Why, what did he say?’

He shook his head. ‘That you sounded too good to be true. But I blocked my ears to it all.’ His laugh was bitter. ‘And I fell for your pretty play-acting. Your outraged behaviour when I pushed you up against the car when the reality was that you were gagging for it.’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘How dare you say that?’

‘Because it’s true!’ All true, he thought grimly. His pure and prim Lily had been nothing but an illusion—a woman he’d conjured up from the depths of some bizarre fantasy. He felt the cold clamp of a nameless emotion as it closed round his heart, sealing up cracks which had started to appear when he’d met her. Slipping on his socks and shoes, he picked up his jacket from where he’d flung it over the chair, then hunted around until he had located his car keys.

The jangling of metal brought Lily to her senses. ‘Where are you going?’ she questioned.

‘Out!’

‘Ciro—’

‘Before I say or do something I may later regret,’ he said, turning away from her distress and from those blue eyes which were now brimming with unshed tears. Wrenching open the door, he slammed his way out of the suite.

Lily’s heart was pounding so hard that she lay back weakly against the pillows, her eyes fixed on the closed door, praying for him to come back. To take her in his arms and to tell her that he was sorry he’d lost it. To tell her that he’d been unreasonable and could they please just forget it had ever happened and start over.

He didn’t, of course. The minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness until an hour had passed, and then another. Through the open shutters she could hear the faint drift of music and laughter. And the irony didn’t escape her that downstairs people were still celebrating their wedding, while upstairs the bride lay alone in the honeymoon bed.

She glanced at the ornate clock hanging on the far wall to see that it was well past midnight. Where was he? It dawned on her that he could be in any one of a hundred places she didn’t know about. Because she knew so little of his life here. And in that moment, Lily realised how alone she was. Alone in a strange city, having married one of its major players—and then been abandoned by him in the most bitter of rows.

What the hell was she going to do?

For a moment her fingers twisted at the sheet, her mind spinning with possibilities until she came to a sudden decision, motivated by something which had defined her life so far. Something called survival.

Was she going to lie there feeling sorry for herself because Ciro D’Angelo had judged her so negatively? No way. Just because she’d let all his harsh accusations wash over her, didn’t mean she had to continue being a mindless victim. She picked up her phone and punched out his number, but wasn’t surprised when it went straight through to voicemail. She left a message in a surprisingly calm voice—saying that she didn’t think it was a good idea to go driving in the middle of the night when he was clearly in such a volatile mood. And could he please just let her know he was safe.

Half an hour later, a stark two-word text came winging back.

I’m safe.

And that was that. Lily was left in the vast suite without a clue where he was, or when he’d be coming back. It promised to be a long night. She had nowhere to go, she realised as she slithered into the warmth of an oversized bathrobe—and no one she could talk to. All the people closest to her were here at the hotel—but she could hardly go knocking on Danielle’s door in the middle of the night to tell her that she’d been deserted by her new husband. Apart from the shame of admitting something like that, wasn’t there still part of her which was hoping that once Ciro had calmed down they could talk about this like adults and maybe get round it?

Yes, she’d been wrong not to tell him about her past—but surely he could understand why she had allowed herself to be swept along by the romance and security he’d been offering her? He’d said he wanted to help her, and he had gone all out to get her to agree with him. Did that count for nothing—and was he now going to deny the existence of the lightning flash of attraction which had hit them both? Surely their future didn’t have to be governed by something as unimportant as her virginity.

But it was important to him, she realised. It was important in a primitive way which most men wouldn’t admit to. In the same way he’d admitted to all that stuff about wanting a wife who would always be waiting for him.

She must have fallen asleep because when she awoke, the suite was filled with the pale apricot light of dawn. Slowly she sat up in bed, her heart almost leaping out of her chest when she saw the dark figure who was seated at the other side of the room, silently watching her. He had removed his jacket and wore his white shirt and dark wedding trousers. But his feet were bare, his eyes were blank and his mouth was tight and unsmiling.

Suppressing a shiver, Lily ran her hand through the mussed tangle of her hair. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Out.’

She didn’t react. So was this how it was going to be from now on? She wanted to hurl herself at him, to demand to know whether he had sought refuge in the arms of another woman. Someone who would soothe him and be indignant that he’d been short-changed by his bride. But Lily knew that misplaced emotion and unfounded fears weren’t going to help her at a time like this. That if there was any hope of salvaging this whole mess, then she needed to be calm. To show him that she could still be strong. More importantly, that she cared about him. ‘I was worried about you.’