The Vengeful Husband (The Husband Hunters 2)

And for the very first time she recognised the raw, angry bitterness he had until now contrived to conceal from her. He was very proud, hugely self-assured. The discovery that the ring had gone could scarcely have failed to dent his male ego squarely where it hurt most. Heavens, what an idiot he must have felt, she registered, with a belated flood of understand¬ing sympathy

'Luca,..' she breathed awkwardly. 'I—' Luca vented a harsh laugh.

'You were clever, but not clever enough,' he murmured with a grim twist of his mouth. 'I was a very conservative guy, I was twenty-eight and I had never felt anything very much for any woman. But with you I felt something special—'

'S-something special?' Darcy broke in helplessly. Derision glittered in the look he cast her intent face. 'You could have got so much more out of me than one night if you'd stayed around.'

'I don't think so,' Darcy whispered unevenly, desperately wanting to be convinced to the contrary. 'I was playing Cinderella that night.'

'Cinderella left her slipper behind...she didn't crack open the Prince's safe.'

'But it wasn't real...those hours we spent together,' she continued shakily, still praying that he would tell her dif¬ferent, and all because he had said those two words 'some¬thing special'.

'You said all the right lines; I succumbed... Yes, well, maybe I more than succumbed. I guess I was a bit more active than that, but you had no intention of ever seeing me again...' She shrugged a slight shoulder jerkily, no longer able to meet his shrewd gaze, and plucked ab¬stractedly at the sheet. 'I mean...I mean, obviously you never had the smallest intention of showing up on the Ponte della Guerra the next day.'

'You remember that?' Luca said, with the kind of sur¬prise that suggested he was amazed that she should have recalled something so trivial.

Darcy remembered standing on that bridge for hours, and she could have wept at the memory. If there ever had been a chance that he would turn up, there had been none what¬soever after he had realised that he'd been robbed that same night.

So it was all his fault. All her agonies could be laid at his door. And why was she thinking like this anyway? He couldn't possibly find her beautiful. Though he had be¬haved as if he did that night. True, she had looked really well, but surely his standards of female beauty had to be considerably higher?

'I have bright red hair,' Darcy remarked stiltedly.

'I could hardly miss the fact, but it's not mere red, it's Titian, and I'd prefer to see a lot more of it,' Luca proffered after some hesitation.

'But you must've noticed that I have a...a snub nose?'

'Retrousse is the word...it's unusual; it adds distinction to your face... Why am I having this weird conversation with you?' Luca demanded freezingly. He strode to the door, glanced grudgingly back over one broad shoulder. 'I'll see you later.'

Emptied of his enervating presence, the room seemed dim and dull.

But Darcy lay where she was. Luca liked her nose; he liked her hair. What everybody else called skinny, he called 'slender'. Strange taste, but she knew she wouldn't have the heart to tell him that. So Luca, who resembled her every fantasy of physical male perfection, could get the hots for a skinny redhead with a snub nose. That fact was a revela¬tion to Darcy. No wonder he was annoyed with himself, but all of a sudden she wasn't annoyed with him at all.

He hadn't made love to her just out of a desire for re¬venge. No, he wasn't as self-denying as that. Luca had re¬ally wanted to make love to her. There was nothing false about his desire for her. Everything he had said in bed must have been the truth...even the part about no other woman being able to satisfy him since?

Something special? Why did she feel so forgiving all of a sudden? Why was her brain encased in a fog of confusing emotion? That wretched, hateful ring that had been stolen, she reflected grimly. Take that problem out of their rela¬tionship and how might Luca behave then? But even if she contrived that miracle, exactly how would he react to the news that the toddler from hell was his daughter?

It was early days yet, Darcy decided ruefully. A lot could happen in six months. Telling him that he had fathered a child the night of the ball might presently seem like an impressive counter-punch, but she didn't want to use Zia like a weapon in a battle which nobody could win. In fact, she conceded then, unless their marriage became a real marriage, she was pretty sure she would never tell Luca that Zia was his child. What would be the point?

Right now she had much more important things to con¬sider: the Folly estate and how she planned to save it in the short-term. Borrowing money appeared to be out of the question. And accepting Luca's financial help would choke her. So was she going to have to steel herself to sell some of the Folly's glorious Tudor furniture at auction? If she did so, the pieces could never, ever be replaced. But what alternative way did she have of raising the cash to keep her home afloat over the next six months?