'What?' she gibed with a jagged laugh as she sprang upright, no longer able to stand being so close to him, ter¬rified her fevered emotions would betray her.

'The prospect of taking revenge? Gosh, I should be flattered! Was that stupid bloody ring really worth this much effort?'

Luca vaulted back to his full commanding height, but with something less than his habitual grace. 'No...' It was very quiet.

'And do you want the biggest laugh of all?' Darcy slung shakily at him, green eyes huge with pain, her slender body trembling with the force of her feelings. 'I fell like a ton of bricks for you that night, only I didn't realise until it was too late. I even tried to find my way back to your apartment but I couldn't! What a lucky miss! You'd have had me arrested for theft before I'd cleared the front door!'

Luca looked poleaxed, as well he might have done. Darcy hadn't meant to spill out such a private painful truth, but she flung her head back with defiant pride, meeting the sheer shock in his spectacular dark eyes without flinching.

'You went to the Ponte della Guerra,' he breathed with ragged abruptness, catching her by surprise. 'No...please tell me you didn't!'

'While you were ferreting like a great stupid prat round your empty safe!' Taking a bold stance, Darcy stalked to the door. 'Don't you dare show your face at the Folly for a few weeks!'

'As we are supposed to be a newly married couple that might arouse suspicion,' Luca pointed out flatly.

'Luca...you're not seeing the whole picture here!' Darcy informed him with vigour. 'A honeymoon that lasts less than three days has obviously been a wash-out! An absentee workaholic husband completes the right image for a mar¬riage destined to fail. And when you do come to visit, and everyone sees how absolutely useless you are at being my strong right arm, nobody's going to be one bit surprised when I dump you six months down the line!'

CHAPTER TEN

DARCY closed the glossy magazine with a barely restrained shudder, undyingly grateful that Luca would never read the interview she had given. At her request, the magazine had faxed the questions to her. After carefully studying some old magazines to see how other women had talked in simi¬lar interviews, Darcy had responded to those questions with a cringe-making amount of slush and gush.

Anyway, Luca was in Italy, and men didn't read those sort of publications, did they? The sizeable cheque she had earned for that tissue of lies about her blissfully happy mar¬riage and her even more wonderful new husband was more than sufficient compensation for a little embarrassment. With the proceeds she would be able to bring the mortgage repayments up to date, settle some other outstanding bills and put the Land Rover in for a service.

It had been two weeks and three days since she had seen Luca. Every day, every hour had crawled. She felt haunted by Luca. Having him around to shout at or even ignore would have been infinitely more bearable. She ached for him. And she was angry and ashamed that she could feel such an overpowering need and hunger for a male who had entered her life only to harm her.

Impervious to all hints, and beautifully well-mannered to the last, Luca had seen them off at the airport. Zia had actually burst into tears when she realised that he wasn't coming with them. Lifting the little girl for a farewell hug, Luca had looked strangely self-satisfied. But seeing those two dark heads so close together had had a very different effect on Darcy.

The physical resemblance between father and daughter was startling. The Raffacani straight nose and level brows, the black hair and dark eyes...Darcy was now confronting unwelcome realities. Zia had the right to know her father. And Luca had rights too—not that she thought he would have the slightest urge to exercise them.

But if she didn't tell Luca that he had a daughter, some day Zia would demand that her mother justify that decision. And the unhappy truth was that her own wounded pride, her craven desire to avoid a traumatic confession and her pessimistic suppositions about how Luca might react, were not in themselves sufficient excuse for her to remain silent.

Richard had phoned in the week to say that he would come down for a night over the weekend with his current girl¬friend. Darcy had been looking forward to some fresh com¬pany, but unfortunately Richard arrived on Friday after¬noon, just as she was on her way out with Zia. He was alone.

Tall, loose-limbed, and with a shock of dark hair and brown eyes, Richard immediately made himself at home on the sagging sofa by the kitchen range. 'If you're going out, I intend to drown my sorrows,' he warned, his mobile fea¬tures radiating self-pity in waves. 'I've been dumped.'

Darcy almost said, Not again, which would have been very tactless. Managing to bite the words back, she gave his slumped shoulder a consoling pat. He was like the brother she had never had, and utterly clueless about women.

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