‘How long have you got?’ She shook her head, recognising that he had hit the nail on the head earlier—her thoughts really could be described as melodramatic. She forced them back to the real problems they faced and looked at him. ‘How about the fact that we’re both sitting on a beautiful beach and wishing we could be anywhere else on earth but here?’
‘Is that what you wish?’
No. She wished for the impossible. That his face would soften with love and not just longing. That their baby had been conceived amid the flow of some emotion other than a wild and unstoppable desire. But that was like a child wishing for make-believe.
‘I’m trying to imagine the future,’ she said desperately. ‘And I just can’t.’
‘But no one ever can, Lucy,’ he said quietly. ‘And you shouldn’t even try. It rarely turns out as you imagine it to. It’s the present you have to hang on to.’
Maybe that was even more difficult. This was the present, and she was all over the place, not knowing how to react or what to say. Unsure whether it would be right or wrong to succumb to him physically—whether that would improve their relationship or simply make her more aware of its glaring deficiencies.
‘We don’t even know one another!’ she said desperately. ‘Not really.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘If you presented that problem to a third party, then they would say that the obvious solution is to try.’
‘How?’
‘You could start by not turning your back on me in bed. By not flinching when I come close to you.’
They were talking, she realised, at cross purposes. She was talking about peeling away all the layers that people protected themselves with—especially in his case—to find the real person who lay beneath.
Guido, on the other hand, was talking about something entirely different. ‘It isn’t just about sex!’
‘But isn’t sex a good place to start? To hold one another, to feel close to one another?’
It wasn’t real closeness, but would it do? Wasn’t it better to have something which masqueraded as intimacy rather than no intimacy at all?
Lucy nodded as she came to a decision, swallowing down the lump of apprehension which had stuck like an acrid rock in the back of her throat. She struggled to find the words which would allow her to keep her dignity—maybe even make him think that the Lucy who had enjoyed sex without involvement hadn’t been real either. ‘Very well,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll consent to having sex with you.’
A look of indescribable fury crossed over his face, making him look like the devil incarnate. ‘You’ll consent?’ he questioned incredulously. ‘You will consent to having sex with me?’
‘I didn’t mean it the way it came out!’
‘Oh, on the contrary, Lucy,’ he said icily. ‘I think that’s exactly what you meant.’ He scrambled to his feet, the sun behind him making him into a forbidding silhouette which dominated her horizon. She couldn’t see his face now, but she didn’t need to—the bitter quality of his voice spoke volumes.
‘Well, you must forgive me if I decline your delightful offer. I have never had a woman who has to endure sex with me, and I have no intention of starting now.’
‘Guido, listen—’
‘No, you listen!’ He cut through her words, and for the first time she saw him as truly and ominously imperious. A distant and powerful prince with everyone in the world eager to do his bidding. ‘I told you when you agreed to marry me—’
‘Agreed?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘You mean when you forced my hand?’
‘I told you,’ he continued furiously, ‘that the terms of the marriage itself would be up to you. So if you’re planning to act like a Victorian wife and lie back and think of England—you can forget it! Either I have a warm and giving woman in my bed, or none at all!’
‘And if none at all?’ she questioned steadily. ‘Are you planning to seek your comfort elsewhere?’
He bent down then, and now she could see his face. She could almost feel the fierce heat from the hot and angry fire in his eyes.
‘What do you think, Lucy?’ he hissed. ‘That I’ll settle for a life of celibacy?’
She stared at him unhappily. They had reached, she realised, a stalemate.
CHAPTER TEN
THEY cut the honeymoon short, of course. They had to—for the sake of their sanity.
After their bitter row on the beach, a state of silent and frozen warfare descended, which made their enforced proximity almost unbearable.