Bartering Her Innocence (12 page)

She sighed as the light curtains puffed in the breeze and floated around her. The evenings were distinctly cooler now, clouds more frequent visitors to the skies blocking the moon and sun, the wind picking up and carrying with it the scent of a summer in decline. She stood there at the open windows and drank it all in, building an album in her mind of the scents and sounds and sights that she would be able to pull out and turn the pages of when she was home.

Next week.

Anguish squeezed the air from her lungs.

Suddenly it was all too soon.

She heard a movement behind her. She heard a noise like something tearing and she made to turn her head.

‘Don’t turn,’ he instructed.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What I knew I had to do when I saw you standing framed in the window,’ he said, and something in his voice gave her a primitive thrill, a delicious sense of anticipation that made her turn her face back towards the darkened canal. ‘Keep watching the water, and the water craft.’

‘As you wish,’ she said, a smile curling her lips as she felt the heat at her back as he came close and joined her on the balcony, a smile that turned distinctly to thoughts of sex when she felt him hard and ready between them. She sighed at the feel of him. God, she would miss this. She put a hand to the nearest curtain, meaning to pull it closed.

‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘Leave the curtains. I want your hands on the balcony.’

And with a rush of sizzling realisation, his meaning became crystal clear. ‘But we can’t...not here...not on the balcony...with the boats.’

He dropped his mouth to the curve of her neck, kissing her skin, his teeth grazing her flesh, stoking a fire that burned much, much lower. ‘Yes. Here, on the balcony. With the boats.’

She gasped. ‘But—’

‘Keep watching,’ he said when she tried to turn, to remonstrate, but he was right behind her and she was pinned up against the cool marble balustrade, cool at her front, hot where he pressed against her back, as another craft chugged slowly by. ‘They can’t see us,’ he said, as she felt the slide of her gown up her calves, his fingertips tickling the sensitive skin at the back of her knees, making her shiver in her secret pleasure. ‘Even if anyone looks, all they will see will be shadows at a window. One shadow, where you and I join.’

The craft disappeared, the chug of its engines replaced by the slap of water against the foundations as air curled around her legs and his fingers eased the silk of her gown higher to find the cleft between her legs and slide one long finger along that sensitive seam, teasing with just a whisper of a touch, making her nerve endings scream with impatience.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered against her throat, his teeth grazing her skin, his finger delving deeper, and it was all she could do to keep her knees locked in place and not sag boneless to the balcony floor.

Unfair, she thought on a whimper as she felt herself being angled over the balustrade, felt the delicious press of his hardness at her very core, that he could do this to her, reduce her to a mass of tangled nerve endings that spoke the same message—need. Pure and simple, unadulterated need.

For she needed him inside her just as she needed the oxygen in her lungs. Needed him inside her and all around her just as she needed the sun and moon and sky.

He gave her what she needed, pressing into her in one fluid stroke that filled her in all the places that ached but one. Because there was no filling the ache in her heart.

For in a few short days she was leaving. And she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

Couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Luca.

God help me, she thought, as he moved inside her, taking her once again to that amazing place, a tear sliding unbidden down her cheek, but this was more than just need.

I love him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

H
ER
period arrived midway through the next day and Tina couldn’t suppress a bubble of disappointment. Now there was a way to celebrate their final few days together.

Not.

But there was an upside of course, she reasoned, because at least it meant that this time she wouldn’t be going home with any surprises.

And why that thought didn’t please her more than it did made no sense at all.

She rested her head against the bathroom mirror, feeling the familiar ache deep inside, a niggling question she’d been avoiding all the time she’d been in Venice now gnawing at her to be noticed.

Should she tell Luca about their lost baby?

It had been so easy to avoid the question at first, when she’d thought she’d never see him again. It had been easy when she’d arrived in Venice, and when mutual resentment and a deal the devil would have been proud of had been the thing that bound them together. It had been so easy to ask herself what would be the point of rehashing the past by telling him? What purpose would it serve? It wasn’t as if she owed him after what he had done.

But now, after these last weeks with him, she wondered how long she could avoid telling him—that there was a headstone on a grave in Australia with his child’s name on it.

How could she not tell him?

Wouldn’t she want to know if their positions were reversed?

Wouldn’t she have a right to know?

She peeled herself away from the bathroom mirror and drifted through the bedroom. Strange, she mused, how love could change your view on the world.

Because suddenly there were no more reasons to avoid the truth. She wanted Luca to know everything.

And even though the news would no doubt come as a shock and he would be entitled to be angry at her for not telling him earlier, she didn’t want secrets between them.

Not any more.

She’d lived with this secret too long.

As for her love? Well, that would hardly be welcome news either—for had Luca once tried to talk her out of booking her flight home?

That was one secret she could keep.

Besides which, she would have more than enough trouble working out how to tell him the first.

* * *

Luca scanned the papers and swore out loud. His assistant came running. ‘I thought you said you’d checked these signatures!’ he yelled. ‘Didn’t you notice there was one missing?’

The assistant dithered and flapped and promised to fix whatever was wrong right away and Luca swept his offer aside and snatched up the papers himself. ‘I’ll do it!’ he growled. He could do with a walk. He’d been in a hell of a mood all day and he couldn’t really put his finger on why.

Yes, he could!

He didn’t want her to damned well go, that was why. She’d melted into his arms last night on the balcony as if she’d been made of honey, golden and sweet, and he’d never wanted to let her go.

But he had to. He had no choice. There was no other choice.

And in a way he was grateful for his flustered assistant for finding him something to legitimately take his anger out on, because he’d been spoiling for a fight ever since he’d left Valentina this morning.

What better reason? Because without Lily’s signature in that spot on that contract, the palazzo was still legally hers, regardless of all the other papers that had been signed and countersigned. Regardless of the fact that his people had been working on the palazzo to shore it up and get it stable before the real work began. And despite the fact that she now owned the apartment lock, stock and barrel.

Maybe it was his fault for taking too much time off lately to spend with Valentina and trusting his staff to do the jobs they should, and that thought didn’t make him any happier.

He needed that signature.

Carmela let him into the apartment and showed him to the
salone
, where he paced its length while he waited. He glanced at the caller ID when his cellphone rang and pressed the receive button. ‘Matteo.
Sì!
’

He grunted when Matteo complimented him on the photograph of him and Valentina at the opera in the online papers this morning. He didn’t want to be reminded of Valentina, even if his plan to have their romance followed by the papers and have them openly speculating about the possibilities of a new Barbarigo bride had worked supremely well. ‘But that’s not why I’m calling,’ Matteo continued. ‘I was wondering if you and Valentina would come to dinner on Friday evening.’

‘
Sì.
I can make it, but Valentina will be gone by then.’

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘Home.’

‘A shame. So when is she coming back?’

‘Never.’

‘Why? I like her, very much. It’s time you settled down, Luca. She seems perfect for you.’

Luca laughed. ‘Forget it, Matteo, I’m not looking for a wife. Least of all someone like Valentina.’ He tried to remember why. Tried to dredge up all the reasons why it had once seemed so true. Tried to bundle them all up into some kind of argument that might convince his cousin. Failed, and changed tack. ‘This is sport, nothing more. Rest assured, she won’t be in Venice come Friday. I’m making sure of it.’

He heard a polite cough behind him and turned. ‘You wanted to see me?’ Lily offered, one eyebrow arched, her fingers laced elegantly together in front of her.

He cut the call and slipped his phone into his pocket and pulled out an envelope from another. ‘I have some paperwork for you to sign,’ he said, wondering how much she’d heard. ‘It seems you missed a signature before.’

‘I spoke to Valentina yesterday,’ she said, ignoring him as he placed the paper down on a nearby desk and held out a pen for her. ‘Her flight is on Monday. What exactly is this “sport” you are planning?’

‘Who says I was talking about Valentina? Now, if you would just sign here...’

‘I heard what you said. What game are you playing, Luca?’

‘Just sign the form, Lily.’

‘Tell me. Because if you are planning on hurting my daughter...’

‘You expect me to believe you, of all people, care? You, who shipped her out here to bail you out of the mess you’d made of your own life? You, who would sell your daughter to the devil if it profited you?’

‘Guilty,’ she said, ‘on all charges,’ surprising him with her easy admission. ‘But these last few weeks I’ve got to know my daughter properly, and I like her. I like her a lot, so much so that I will miss her terribly when she’s gone. And I know I have no right to even ask, but I so wish she did not have to go.’

The world had gone mad! Nothing was as he had thought it would be. Nothing was how it should be. Valentina was going. He should feel happy. He would be happy. Just as soon as this black cloud lifted from his shoulders.

But Lily, he’d expected to be happy too—a new house, money, a new man—the Lily he knew should not need her daughter’s presence a moment longer. And yet here she was practically despairing that she was leaving.

What the hell was happening?

‘Promise me you won’t hurt her, Luca,’ Lily inserted into the weighted silence. ‘Please promise me that.’

And the frustrations of the last twenty-four hours—the news that Valentina was leaving—a night at the opera with a woman who looked like a goddess followed by a night of exquisite love-making—the missed signature—all coalesced to form one molten rage. ‘I’m not promising anything!’

‘But she doesn’t deserve to be hurt. She’s done nothing—’

‘You’ve got no idea what she did! This is no more than she deserves!’

And her mother grew claws before his eyes. ‘Oh, I’d say it’s clearly much less than she deserves, after the misery you put her through.’

‘What are you talking about? I gave her the best night of her life!’

‘You clearly gave her one hell of a lot more than that!’

The thump in his temples thundered out a warning that pieced together in ugly sequence in his brain. ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’

She shook her head, hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. If you don’t know, then maybe there’s a reason for that.’

A reason for not knowing?

Not knowing
what
?

What the hell had he given her?

Why wouldn’t he be told?

Unless...

And as his blood surged loud in his ears, a drum call to war, a drum call to action, the thumping beat of his heart pounded out the only possible answer and he felt sick to his very core.

‘Are you saying Valentina was pregnant—pregnant with my child?’

Lily stiffened where she stood, but her eyes were wide and fearful, the fingers of one hand clutching at her throat. ‘I didn’t tell you that.’

He turned, already on his way out. Already with one mission in mind.

‘Luca—wait! Listen to me!’

But there was no waiting. No listening. Because for three weeks he had harboured this woman in his house, treated her like a princess, made love to her like she actually meant something, and all the time she had been harbouring the ugliest of secrets.

Had she been laughing all this time? At him not knowing? At him, thinking he had the upper hand when all the while she’d already exacted her revenge in the worst possible way?

Now it was time to find out the truth.

The truth about what she had done to his child!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

H
E
FOUND
her curled into a window seat tapping away on the laptop, her hair hanging loose, the ends flicking free around her face, and wearing
gelato
-coloured clothes, looking like innocence personified.

Innocence?

Oh no.

He felt like growling.

Once he might have been taken in. But not now.

Because now he knew better.

She looked up as he approached and an electric smile like he hadn’t seen before lit up her face for just a moment, until she blinked and the smile turned to a frown. The laptop got forgotten on a cushion beside her as she sat up. ‘What’s wrong, Luca? Why are you home so early?’

‘All this time...’ He dragged in air, needing the time and the space to get the words out in the order he wanted when so many were queued up ready and willing to be fired off. ‘All this time, I never imagined you were capable of such a thing.’ He shook his head from side to side as he looked at her, seeing a new Valentina where once he had seen a goddess, seeing finally the spiteful, vengeful bitch that she really was. ‘When were you planning on telling me? Or was it your dirty little secret?’

The blood drained from her face, guilt leaching her face. ‘Luca?’ And from where he was standing the pathetic whimper of his name on her lips sounded like a confession.

He shook his head, blood pounding in his temples, pounding out a call to war, the sound stealing the volume from his voice until his words came out rasping against the air. ‘You don’t even try to deny it!’

Her hand plastered over her mouth. More denial.
More proof.

‘Luca,’ she implored from behind her hand as the tears started to fall. He was unmoved. Of course there would be tears. He’d expected them. Because she had been found out for what she really was.

‘How long,’ he demanded, ‘were you going to keep it a secret?’

‘Who told you?’ she asked. ‘Was it Lily?’

And her words damned her to a hell worse than anything he could devise. He felt sickened by her confession. Sickened that the denial he hadn’t realised he’d been secretly hoping for did not materialise.

Sickened that she could have done such a thing.

‘Does it matter?’ He strode away, unable to look at her for a moment longer, clawing fingers through his hair until his scalp burned with the pain. And still it wasn’t enough. Then he spun back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She looked as if she’d lost her place in the world.

She looked as if she was wondering what had gone wrong.

She looked as guilty as hell.

‘I was going to!’

‘Like hell!’

‘I was!’ And then she was up from the couch, clutching at his arm. ‘Luca, you have to believe me, I was going to tell you. I know I hadn’t before, but I decided this morning that you should know.’

‘This morning! How convenient! What a shame someone else got there first.’ He brushed her hand away. ‘I don’t want anyone like you touching me. Not after what you’ve done.’

She blinked up at him, all big golden
fake
eyes. ‘But you wouldn’t have wanted to know, surely? You wouldn’t have wanted to know I was pregnant, not after the way we’d parted.’

He looked down at her with all the hate in the world on his face. ‘I might at least have wanted a say in how our baby met its end. Don’t you think I was entitled to at least that much?’

Tina stopped and stared, sideswiped by the ugliness of his words. She’d been defending one charge—that she had never told him about their child, a charge she’d known would be difficult enough. But suddenly the argument, like the ground beneath her, had shifted again and Luca was accusing her of...what?

‘What are you saying? What exactly are you accusing me of?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know! Because you know what you did. You murdered my child!’

The clocks stopped, while the magnitude—the sheer injustice—of his allegation rolled over her like waves upon a beach, dumping her head first into the sand, only to come up barely alive, barely breathing.

‘No,’ she muttered, from that vague, shell-shocked place she was. ‘No, that’s not how it was.’

‘You as much as admitted it!’

‘No! Our baby died.’

‘Because you made it happen!’

‘No! I did nothing! I know I didn’t tell you about our baby, but I did nothing—’

‘I don’t believe you, Valentina. I wish I did, but you damned yourself when you pretended you were going to tell me today. You never made any effort to tell me. You were never going to tell me.’

‘Luca, listen to me, you’ve got it all wrong.’

‘Have I? I curse myself for taking a woman like you back into my bed, knowing now what you did that first time. Knowing what you might be capable of again.’

‘I had a miscarriage! Our baby died and it was nothing to do with me. Why won’t you listen to me?’

‘A miscarriage? Is that what they call it where you come from?’

‘Luca, don’t be like this. Please don’t be like this. I could never do such a thing!’

But dark eyes bore coldly down upon her, judge, jury and executioner in two deep fathomless holes. ‘Then why did you?’

And she knew there was only one card left to play.

‘I
love you,’ she said, hoping to reach some part of him, hoping to appeal to whatever scrap of his heart might hear her pleas. Might believe her.

She didn’t know how he would respond. Disbelief. Horror. Indifference. She braced herself for the worst.

But the worst was nothing she could have imagined. He laughed. He threw back his head and laughed, and the sound rang out through the palazzo, filling the high-ceilinged room, reverberating off the walls. A mad sound. A sound that scared her.

‘Perfect,’ he said, when the fit had passed. ‘That’s just perfect.’

‘Luca? I don’t understand. Why is that so funny?’

‘Because you were supposed to fall in love with me. Don’t you see? That was all part of the plan.’

Ice ran down her spine, turning her rigid. ‘Plan? What plan?’

‘You still can’t work it out? Why do you think I asked you here?’

‘To pay off my mother’s debt. On my back. In your bed.’ The words came out all twisted and tight, but that was how she felt, like a mop squeezed and wrung out and left out to dry in a twisted, tangled mess.

‘But it wasn’t only her debt,’ he said in a half snarl. ‘It was your debt too. Because nobody walks out on me. Not the way you did. Not ever.’

‘All of this because I slapped you and walked out?’ She was incredulous. ‘You went to all this trouble to settle the score?’

‘Believe me, it was no trouble given Lily’s predilection for spending.’

‘So why,’ she asked, her hands fisting, her throat thick, but damn him to hell and back, she refused to give in to the urge to cry, not before she knew all of the awful truth, ‘why did you want me to fall in love with you? Why was that part of your so-called plan?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that’s the best bit. ‘Because once you fell in love with me, it would make dumping you so much more satisfying.’

‘But why, when I was leaving anyway?’

‘Do you think I was planning to wait until your flight to cut you loose? Not a chance. And now, after finding out the kind of person you really are, I’m glad to see the back of you.’ He dragged in air. ‘What a fool I was. To think I let you back into my life after what you’d done. What were you hoping this time? To do it all again? To go home with another child in your belly—another child on whom you could exact your own ugly revenge?’

She blinked against the wall of hatred directed her way, as his words flayed her like no whip ever could. They scored her and stung her and ripped at her psyche.

And there was nothing she could say or do, nothing but feel the weight of her futile love for this man sucking her down into the depths of one of Venice’s canals. Knowing there would be no rescue.

‘I’ll go, Luca. You clearly want me gone and I don’t want to stay so I’ll pack up and leave now and consider myself duly dumped.’

She walked to the door, holding her head, if not her heart, high. And then she turned. ‘There’s one more thing I should have told you about our baby. Add it to my list of crimes if you must, I don’t care. I named him Leo.’

* * *

He wandered the palazzo like a caged lion. He felt like a caged lion. He wandered through his bedroom, he wandered past the windows where they’d made love, he wandered out of his home and out through the
calles
of Venice, past the scaffolding around Eduardo’s old palazzo, where the engineers and builders were already hard at work shoring up the foundations, and back again and still he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Still she was gone.

But he’d got what he wanted, hadn’t he? He still wanted her gone, given what she had done.

He’d got what he had wanted all along. He’d got rid of her. He’d got even.

So why the hell wasn’t he happy now she was gone?

Why was he so miserable now she was gone?

Damn the woman! He’d almost wanted her to stay. He’d almost figured she’d meant something to him before her betrayal. He’d almost factored in a measure of longevity before he’d learned the truth about what she really was. He didn’t want to think about the kind of person she really was.

He got back to his study and looked at the file someone had placed on his desk while he’d been away. A file he’d asked for. A file that bore a name tag he wasn’t sure he entirely recognised.

Leo Henderson Barbarigo.

Why did that name send shivers down his spine? And then he opened the file and read and realised why he’d felt so sick all this time.

Because it was true that mad in that night of love-making that he and Valentina had conceived a child.

A son.

Because it was true that the child had been lost.

Their son.

But not because Valentina had brought an end to that pregnancy, as he’d so wrongly accused her of.

Valentina had been speaking the truth.

Oh God, what had he done?

Suddenly all the injustice in the world swirled and spun like threads and blame and hope all intermingled and tangled.

And he hoped to God it was not too late to do something to make up for it.