After the bath, which soothed her tender muscles and her skin, Lara got out and dried herself perfunctorily. She pulled on the voluminous terrycloth robe hanging on the back of the door and steeled herself before going into the bedroom.
But it was empty.
She went out through the door and took a deep, shaky breath before going in search of her husband.
* * *
Lara had been a virgin. Innocent. Untouched.
Ciro was feeling such a conflicting mass of emotions and sensations that he couldn’t quite pin down what was most prominent: anger, confusion...or, worst of all, a humiliating level of relief at knowing that he had been Lara’s first lover and not that old man.
With that relief came more confusion and anger, and in the midst of it all was a residual heavy feeling of sexual satisfaction on a level he’d never experienced.
Before, it had been a fleeting thing. Soon forgotten. Much like the women he’d slept with, before. But this satisfaction felt as if it was seared into his bones and as his hunger grew for her again. Already. Insatiably.
There had been a moment out on the terrace, after Lara had said, ‘Please make love to me...’ when for a split second Ciro had been tempted to reject her. As she’d rejected him. And yet even though he might have fantasised about such a moment in the previous two years, when it had been there, right in front of him, he’d been aware of how petty it was.
And also that he didn’t have the strength to reject her. Not when his mouth had been full of her taste and his hands imprinted with the shape of her body.
Madre di Dio.
He heard a noise at that moment.
Lara.
Ciro’s whole body tensed against the inevitable reaction his new bride would precipitate. His new virgin bride.
* * *
Lara tracked Ciro down to a room she hadn’t yet been in. A state-of-the-art modern study with humming computers and shelves full of books and periodicals.
He was standing at a window which looked out over the sea. He’d dressed in low-slung faded jeans and a T-shirt. Bare feet. Messy damp hair. She could see his face reflected in the window. The long white line of his scar. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, which pulled the material of his jeans taut across the perfect globes of his bottom.
Her heart thumped. ‘Ciro...look...’
He turned around and she saw the full extent of his anger on his face. ‘Dio, Lara. How the hell were you still a virgin?’
‘How did you know?’
Even as she asked the question she wanted to kick herself for being so stupid. A man as experienced as Ciro? Of course he’d known. He wasn’t some boorish bully like her first husband had been.
He emitted a harsh-sounding laugh. ‘How did I know? I felt it in your body and there was blood on the sheets.’
A hot wash of humiliation rushed up under Lara’s skin. She hadn’t even noticed the blood. She felt utterly gauche. She pulled the robe around her, tightening it.
Ciro sent her a dark look. ‘It’s a bit late for that.’
Lara noticed a drinks cabinet in the corner of the room. ‘Can I have a drink, please?’ She needed something if this was going to be the tone of their conversation.
Ciro went over and asked tightly, ‘Brandy?’
Lara shook her head. ‘No—anything but that.’
He poured something into a glass, then came and handed it to her. ‘It’s whisky. What do you have against brandy?’
Lara took the glass, relieved that Ciro was distracted from his inevitable questions for a moment. ‘Brandy reminds me of funerals. When my parents and brother died my uncle made me drink some. He said it was for the shock but it made me sick.’
She took a sip of the whisky, wincing at the tart, acrid taste. It slid down her throat and landed in her stomach, sending out a glow of warmth. But she knew it was just illusory and wouldn’t last.