Alarmed by his silence, Kerry closed her hands together tightly. ‘Luciano…?’
‘I am considering selling—’
‘But you promised—’
‘That was over a week ago and you said no. I believe I’m at liberty to do as I like with my own property,’ Luciano pointed out smoothly. ‘But I stand by my assurance that if you stay in my life I’ll take care of your grandparents’ needs.’
He was reneging on his original proposition. Kerry decided that that was a judgement on her and exactly what she deserved for sinking low enough to even think of accepting that degrading offer to become his weekend trollop. Tears burned at the backs of her eyes and all over again she hated herself for the mistakes she had made, but all of a sudden she hated him even more! He had moved the goalposts when he had no right to do so!
Thrusting unsteady fingers through the vibrant curls clustered on her brow, Kerry gave him a furious look of condemnation. ‘Shall I tell you something? Dismal as it is to appreciate that a guy can still be so narrow-minded, you had more respect for me before I slept with you than you have now!’
‘Santo cielo—’
‘No, you needn’t bother spluttering Italian at me because I know what I know!’ Kerry slammed back at him in angry reproach. ‘I didn’t ask for anything and I didn’t expect anything from that night I spent with you. But you couldn’t leave it at that. No, you were too worried that I might have expectations. So, you put me down and treated me like some gold-digger who was only with you in the first place for your money!’
‘That is not how I behaved—’
‘Don’t you dare try to tell me that you didn’t do what you did do!’ Kerry railed back in passionate protest. ‘You insulted me, you hurt my feelings, and you threw back what I gave for free in my face!’
Luciano was pale beneath his bronzed skin, his dark golden eyes hooded, his strong jawline clenched. ‘To date you’ve asked for everything that’s happened here—’
‘And how do you make that out?’
‘You stayed on after the repossession. Of course, I would’ve come and found you even if you hadn’t,’ Luciano acknowledged with brooding dark humour. ‘But you didn’t put me to that inconvenience.’
‘Well, it’s never too late to learn my lesson, is it?’ Kerry was further mortified by that reminder. ‘I can move out just as quickly!’
Luciano swore under his breath and strode forward to close a staying hand over her slight forearm. ‘That’s not what I want—’
Kerry yanked herself free. ‘Maybe what you want doesn’t carry the weight you think it ought to—’
Shimmering dark golden eyes assailed hers. ‘If you walk away from me again, that’s it! If I feel more comfortable now with a relationship that I more or less pay for, who are you to say that’s wrong? Surely you’re not trying to pretend that once you gave me something better, something more permanent?’ he derided with harsh emphasis. ‘I’ve had five years to think about how much your love was worth once romance gave way to reality—’
At that hard statement, Kerry’s tummy knotted. ‘You’re not being fair…I thought you’d been unfaithful—’
‘Why can’t you just be honest? Five years ago you put your pride, your family, your reputation, everything before me where I put you first and I can’t forget that. But no way will I let you put a pile of ancient bricks ahead of me in importance as well!’ Luciano growled with raw clarity. ‘So let’s leave the castle out of our deal and see where that takes us.’
‘That’s where we differ.’ Her gaze dropped from his to conceal her pain but her voice was torn by strain. ‘I don’t want to feature as part of some ‘‘deal’’.’
‘That’s the only way you can be with me. It’s your choice. After I’ve dealt with business in London, I’m flying on to Italy.’ Breathtakingly handsome face taut with stubborn purpose, Luciano settled grim golden eyes on her. ‘You’ve got forty-eight hours to make your mind up and then I get on with my life with or without you.’
Chagrined colour drenched her cheeks and then receded again. To an ultimatum that blunt there could only be one answer and Kerry lifted her red-gold head so high that her neck muscles ached at the stress she was putting on them. ‘You can bet on it being without me.’
Bitter frustration thundered through Luciano but he was as angry with himself as he was with her. For some inexplicable reason he had gone from being a male who rarely put a verbal foot wrong with a woman to a male who could barely open his mouth without causing offence. He knew when non-negotiable commands worked and when they didn’t. Ensuring that Kerry had no room to manoeuvre even to save face had only made a negative response more likely.
On wobbly knees, Kerry marched herself out of the library. Outside the door, she stopped and hugged herself, suddenly cold to the marrow. What was she doing? What was she playing at? She loved him but love was not an excuse to make a stupid sacrifice of herself. But what was he doing? What was he playing at? That night she had lain in his arms he had been tender—yet, since then? Even by the next morning he had been backing off again, raising the barriers, imposing offensive limits…like a guy on the run? A guy who might be scared of getting hurt again?
Her strained eyes brightened and then dulled again. She could not imagine Luciano being afraid, for his life had always been tough. Once that knowledge had been the secret strength that helped her bear the thought of his being in prison: she had believed that, no matter what, he would survive. Yet she had never allowed herself to consider how he might be altered by that ordeal.
He had changed in more than the superficial ways which she had noted when she first walked into his impressive London office. Although he was more open about his emotions than he had ever been during their engagement, that seeming candour was deceptive, for he was infinitely harder and colder. As he withdrew even Ballybawn from the uncommitted sexual ‘deal’ he had originally suggested, it was almost as though he preferred to demand terms that she would refuse. After all, she was not some fancy-free single woman able to fly off at a moment’s notice to Italy, and within weeks her grandparents would need her on a daily basis again. Possibly, Luciano believed that a few weeks would suffice to conclude his interest in her. Painfully conscious of her own vulnerability, she was scared that she could no longer rely on her own judgement, for her stepsister had hit a bull’s-eye when she warned Kerry that Luciano would eventually turn on her too.
When the phone rang in the sitting room, Kerry answered it in an abstracted mood. The first sentences voiced by the caller confused her until she recognised the man’s name, and then a weird little shiver ran down her spine. It was the solicitor phoning in response to her own written enquiry about her mother little more than a week earlier.
‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’
‘I can confirm that, as you feared, your mother did pass away some years ago,’ the solicitor told her with measured clarity. ‘But I do have more positive news for you. You have relatives on your mother’s side—’
‘I know all my relatives.’ Heavy disappointment had made Kerry’s shoulders slump, for, although she had guessed that her mother had to be dead, an obstinate little spark of hope had stayed lit.