The Vengeful Husband (The Husband Hunters 2)

'Shut up!' Darcy moaned with effort.

'You said that too.'

She stared up at him, at a peak of such extraordinary excitement she was ready to kill him if he didn't move.

And Luca vented a hoarse laugh. He knew how she felt. And his own struggle to maintain control was etched in his taut cheekbones, the sheen of sweat on his dark skin and the ragged edge to his voice. With a muffled groan of ur¬gent satisfaction, he drove deeper into her yielding body. Her heart almost burst with the force of her own frantic response.

Mindless, she clung to him as he took her with a wild vigour that destroyed any semblance of control. Her release brought an electrifying explosion. As the paroxysms of un¬controllable pleasure overpowered her, her nails raked down his damp, muscular back. Luca cried out her name and shuddered over her, as lost in that world of physical sensation as she was.

The most unearthly silence reigned in the aftermath of that impassioned joining.

Luca disentangled himself and rolled over to a cooler part of the bed. Darcy stared fixedly at the footboard. Even before the last quakings of sated desire and intense pleasure faded, she felt rejected.

So you slept with him, a little voice said inside her blitzed brain.

Did you do it to make this a real marriage that couldn't be annulled? Did you do it to hang onto the Folly? Or did you do it because you just couldn't summon up sufficient will-power to resist him? After all, you knew how fantastic he would be.

Darcy flipped her tousled head over to one side to anxiously scan Luca. He looked back at her, his strikingly handsome face taut but uninformative, expressive eyes screened. Darcy's throat closed over.

At that moment she wanted very, very badly to believe that she had sacrificed her body for the sake of her home. It might have been a morally indefensible move, but her pride could have lived with such a cold-blooded decision...

It would be an infinitely greater challenge to co-exist with the ghastly knowledge that she had made love with Luca because she found him totally and absolutely irre¬sistible, even when she ought to hate him... but, unhappily for her, that was the dreadful truth. And any denial of the fact would be complete cowardice.

It was equally craven to lie in the presence of the enemy behaving like a victim, drowning in defeat and loss of face. Darcy flinched from an image infinitely more shameful to her than any loss of control in Luca's arms. It was unthink¬able to let Luca guess that making love with him could reduce her to such a turmoil of painful vulnerability.

'Right,' Darcy said flatly, galvanised into action by that awareness and abruptly sitting up with what she hoped was a cool, calm air of decision. 'Now that we've got that out of the way, perhaps we can talk business.'

'Business?' Luca stressed in sharp disconcertion, com¬plete incredulity flaring in his brilliant dark eyes.

CHAPTER EIGHT

'BUSINESS,' Darcy confirmed steadily.

'We have no mutual business interests to discuss,' Luca delivered rather drily.

'That's where you're wrong.' Her eyes gleamed at that dismissive assurance. 'As you were so eager to point out yesterday, the Folly estate is still on the brink of bank¬ruptcy.' She breathed in deep.

'I only married you because I assumed that my bank manager would increase my over¬draft limit once I explained to him about my godmother's will. However...he refused.'

From beneath dense ebony lashes, Luca surveyed her with something akin to unholy fascination.

'So as things stand,' Darcy recounted tautly, 'not only am I in no position to re-employ the staff laid off after my father's death, but I am also likely to have my home re¬possessed before that six months is even up.'

'One small question,' Luca breathed in a slightly strained undertone. He was now engaged on a fixed surveillance of the elaborate plasterwork on the ceiling above. 'Did you happen to mention my name to your bank manager?'

'What would I have mentioned your name for?' Darcy countered impatiently. 'I told him that I'd got married but that my husband would be having nothing to do with the estate.'

'Honesty is wonderful, but not always wise,' Luca re¬marked reflectively. 'I doubt that you need worry about any imminent threat of repossession. If you're only a little be¬hind on the mortgage repayments, it's unlikely.'

'I disagree. I've had some very nasty letters on the sub¬ject already. Heavens, I'm scared to open my post these days!' Darcy admitted ruefully, thrusting bright curls from her troubled brow.

'Tell me, in a roundabout, extremely clumsy way, is it possible that you are trying to work yourself up to asking me for a loan?' Luca enquired darkly.

'Where on earth did you get that idea? I wouldn't touch your money with a barge-pole!' Darcy told him in indignant rebuttal.

'But I need to go home to visit all the other fi¬nancial institutions that might help. I have to find some¬where prepared to invest in the future of the Folly!'