‘What was he doing here?’ Lucca demanded harshly the instant the door closed on Fabian’s exit.
Vivien fell still, a dangerous light brightening the sadness in her eyes. ‘Fabian came here to tell me that he wanted to marry me,’ she admitted quietly.
‘Ha…bloody…ha,’ Lucca pronounced, unimpressed.
Anger came out of nowhere and roared through Vivien like an energising tidal wave. ‘Do you have a problem believing that another man might value me enough to ask me to be his wife?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘NO, I don’t have a problem crediting that someone else might propose to you,’ Lucca drawled, smooth as glass. ‘I did it myself once.’
Vivien flinched. It was an injudicious reminder that summoned up memories of one of the most wonderful days of her life and made her all too miserably aware of how far they had travelled from that point. Three years had passed since Lucca had flown her to France to watch one of his racehorses win at Longchamp. Afterwards, he had proposed over champagne and strawberries and an exquisite diamond ring had been slid onto her finger. She had been so happy she’d cried.
‘I bet you wish you hadn’t,’ Vivien said facetiously.
‘I could never unwish Marco—’
‘But when I was carrying him, you would’ve done like a shot!’
‘I refuse to rise to that bait. We both made wrong assumptions on that score—’
‘You just can’t admit even now that you might have been in the wrong,’ Vivien condemned britily.
His wide, sensual mouth compressed. ‘Let’s concentrate on Professor Garsdale. Did he really ask you to marry him?’ Lucca enquired, as though that were quite the weirdest and very possibly the most comic thing he had heard since time began.
Vivien jerked her chin in stiff acknowledgement. ‘I fail to see why that should amuse you.’
‘Do I seem amused?’ The glitter of gold in Lucca’s stunning gaze was bright as the heart of a fire. ‘You have got me wrong. I’m astonished by Garsdale’s nerve and surprised you didn’t throw him out of the house. Or was his short stay the result of your request that he leave?’
Her teeth gritted together. ‘Most women would regard a marriage proposal as a compliment. I can’t see why you would think I’d be tempted to show Fabian the door over the head of it!’
‘You must be very obtuse.’
‘I don’t think so. You’re being incredibly rude.’ Vivien could hear her own voice rising in spite of her desire to remain cool in the face of all provocation. ‘Fabian is very respected in academic circles and he has been a very good friend to me.’
‘He also happens to be easily old enough to be your father. Possibly you have reached the conclusion that I was a little too exciting for you,’ Lucca murmured, offering that tantalising opinion in a drawl as soft as silk. ‘But opting for the equivalent of a quiet space in a twin coffin seems rather premature for a woman who is only twenty-seven years old.’
The burn effect of his whiplash tongue sent a painful flush climbing up Vivien’s slender throat. ‘I suppose you think it’s clever to be smart at Fabian’s expense.’
‘Don’t you find it strange that the professor left you here alone with me without a murmur?’
‘Fabian is too mature and too dignified to stoop to any other kind of behaviour!’
Lucca vented a not very pleasant laugh. ‘Is that what you call it? I would have said his hasty departure had much more to do with self-preservation. He didn’t want to risk a scene and he didn’t want to rile me either.’
Vivien thrust up her chin, her anger steadily mounting. ‘You’ve got no right to imply that Fabian might be a coward.’
His brilliant golden gaze was heavily sardonic. ‘Stop trying to send me up, Vivi. You wouldn’t even consider marrying a guy like that after me!’
‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’ The sound of that pet name was like salt rubbed in an open wound. Once that name had been a term of affection and intimacy. Now it was only a cruel aide-mémoire to all she had lost. She honestly did not know how she had been tempted into the indiscretion of telling Lucca that Fabian had asked her to marry him. But having done it, she would have loyally defended Fabian to the death. Lucca’s derisive remarks only added a more bitter edge to emotions that were already threatening to get out of her control.
His lean, strikingly handsome face clenched hard. ‘No, you wouldn’t marry him,’ he breathed almost harshly, answering his own arrogant question. ‘You deserve better than a guy I can laugh at.’
‘Sticks and stones. You’re so wrong about Fabian!’ Vivien slung him a tempestuous look of condemnation, dimly wondering why she was so angry with him. ‘I don’t think he would ever make me as unhappy as you did—’
An ebony brow elevated, questioning that statement. ‘I doubt that very much. You’re full of passion and he acts like a very cold fish.’
‘When I was no longer flavour of the month, there was nobody colder than you. Fabian isn’t volatile and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever refer to him as a womaniser!’