'What's that supposed to mean?' Darcy snapped defen¬sively.
'You'll find out. Sloth in the vanity department won't be a profitable proposition.'
His frowning attention falling on the large framed photo, Luca strode across the room to lift it from the cabinet. There was a stark little silence. He was very still, his chis¬elled profile clenched taut.
'You sleep with a picture of Richard Carlton by your bed?' he breathed a tinge un¬evenly, a slightly forced edge to the enquiry that thickened his accent.
'Why not...? We're still very close.' Darcy saw nothing strange in that admission, particularly when her mind was preoccupied with more pressing problems. She drew in a sharp breath. 'Luca...I don't know what's going on here. This whole situation is so crazy, I feel...I feel like Alice in Wonderland after she went through the looking glass!' 'You astonish me. In every depiction I have ever seen Alice sported fabulous long curly hair and a pretty dress. The resemblance is in your mind alone.'
Darcy groaned. 'Now you're being flippant. From my point of view you are acting like a man who has escaped from an asylum—'
'That is because you have an extremely prosaic outlook,' Luca delivered softly. 'You cannot grasp the concept of revenge because you yourself would consider revenge a waste of time and effort. I too am practical, but I warn you,
I also have great imagination and a constitutional inability to live with being bested by anyone. Setting the police on your trail wouldn't have given me the slightest satisfac¬tion—'
'The...the police?' Darcy stressed with a look of blank astonishment.
Luca flicked her a shrewd, narrow-eyed glance, eyes black and cold as a wintry night. 'You play the innocent so well. I can ever understand why. You were far from home. You felt secure in the belief that you would never be identified, never be traced, never be punished for your dishonesty—'
'I don't know what the blazes you're talking about!' Darcy spluttered. 'My...dishonesty?'
'But you miscalculated...the role of victim is not for me,' Luca declared. 'And now it's your turn to savour the same experience. A flare for the prosaic will be of no ben¬efit whatsoever in the weeks to come.'
'I've got a lot more staying power than you think!' Darcy fired back, determined to stand up to him. 'So why don't you tell me why you're making crazy references to the police and my supposed dishonesty?'
Luca sent her a winging glance of derision. 'Why waste my breath? I prefer to wait until you get tired of pretending and decide to make a pathetic little confession about how temptation got the better of you!'
'I can hardly confess to something I haven't done!' Darcy objected in vehement frustration.
Ignoring that fierce protest, Luca lifted up a sheet of the fax paper, directing his attention to the business address of the stud farm at the top. 'Carlton's place,' he registered grimly. 'So it was Carlton you got in touch with.'
'I didn't tell Richard anything...I just wanted to know who you really were—not an unreasonable wish when I find myself married to a man who hasn't told me one single word of truth!' Darcy shot at him in ringing condemnation.
'But you couldn't wait to get married to me,' Luca reminded her with gentle irony. 'And, I, who have never felt the tiniest urge to give up my freedom, was equally eager in this instance to see the legal bond put in place.'
'Because now you think you've got me where you want me.'
Luca regarded her with hard intensity. His arrogant dark head tipped back. Eyes hard as diamonds raked her defiant face.
'Carlton's still your lover, isn't he?'
'That's none of your business...in fact if I had a lover for every different day of the week, it would be none of your business!' Darcy slung back.
'No?' Luca said softly.
'No!' As her temper rode higher, Darcy was indifferent to the menace of that velvet-soft intonation.
Luca shifted a lean dark hand with fluid grace and elo¬quence. 'Even the suspicion that you could be contemplat¬ing infidelity will be grounds for separation. You see, al¬though I have laid it all before you in very simple terms, you still fail to appreciate that I hold every card. You can¬not afford to antagonise a husband you need to retain.'
Darcy shivered with anger, outraged by that, 'very sim¬ple terms', which suggested she was of less than average intelligence. 'The price could well be too high—'
'But it has to be high, and more than you want to pay...how could I enjoy this otherwise?' Luca countered, the dark planes of his strikingly handsome features bearing a look of calm enquiry.
As her green eyes flashed with sheer fury, Luca shot her a provocative smile.
In that instant, Darcy lost her head. Temper blazing, she stalked forward and lifted a hand with which to slap that hateful smile into eternity. With a throaty sound of infuri¬ating amusement, Luca sidestepped her. Closing two strong hands round her narrow ribcage, he lifted her clean off her feet and tumbled her down onto the bed behind her.