Betrayal (58 page)

'Any last words, Mrs Gueras?'

'No.'

'You know what they say, "it's better to have loved and lost… "' And he began to pull her the last few yards to the water's edge.

It wasn't true, she thought despairingly. She didn't want to die after such a short time with Renato. A short time that she'd allowed to be spoilt by her precognition of this moment. It took every ounce of willpower that she possessed to stop herself from weeping.

When she understood that he was going to drown her, she thought that it wouldn't be too hard to get it over quickly. She'd simply give herself up to the water and let her lungs fill as speedily as possible, but the moment he pushed her head beneath the cobalt blue sea she instinctively began to fight, kicking out with her legs and hitting him repeatedly with her one free arm as her body refused to accept what her mind had decided.

The struggle was intense and silent except for the occasional gasp when Lisa's head surfaced for a few vital seconds, or Bishop's rasping breaths as he tried to keep her immersed despite the nauseating pain in his groin where she'd kicked him.

To Lisa the struggle didn't seem silent at all. There was a continual rushing in her ears and her heartbeats were thunderously loud. At first, while Bishop was recovering from her initial attack, she'd thought it might be possible to break away from him, but her hopes faded as his strength returned.

Coughing and retching, she surfaced for what she thought was about the fourth time and could no longer see anything except a red mist that was darkening all the time. She could feel her body weakening, her limbs growing heavy and sluggish, and suddenly she was incredibly tired.

Bishop, glancing anxiously up the beach in case the children had raised the alarm, felt her body going limp and directed all his energy into one final attempt at finishing her off. They were both over waist deep in the water now and it was easier for him to immerse her head. When his hands pressed down on the long, sun-streaked hair there was no resistance and he bared his teeth in an expression of triumph, knowing that this time when she came to the surface she'd be dead and out of his life forever.

He'd waited so long for this moment that he became lost in the sheer pleasure of watching the tiny bubbles, their surfacing slowing down as Lisa ceased breathing. This was a mistake because, involved in the intense almost sexual pleasure that her dying moments were giving him, he ceased listening to anything but the sighing escape of the bubbles and only heard the sound of the motor boat when it was nearly on him.

Renato, who was standing in the front of the boat, launched himself straight at the startled Bishop before it had even cut its engine, his shout of rage reverberating round the cove.

Swearing furiously Bishop pushed harder on Lisa's head but then the Italian's hands were on him and he had to release her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her drift to the surface, and noting that there was no sign of life in her body he laughed as the giant Italian grabbed him by the collar, lifting him clear of the water.

'Too late, Renato!' he gloated. 'For once the cavalry didn't arrive on time! She's dead. See for yourself.'

Renato's grip didn't loosen but he glanced to where his men were pulling Lisa aboard, turning her face down and trying to clear her lungs of water. Bishop stayed motionless in the huge hands, knowing full well that he was going to die but totally uncaring because at last he'd achieved his five-year ambition to kill the woman who'd ruined his entire world.

'The signora lives!' shouted one of the bodyguards.

Suddenly it was Renato's turn to smile. 'Poor Bishop! You will go to your death knowing that once again you failed, as you have been failing ever since Neal Gueras died.'

Bishop twisted and turned, his face contorted with disbelief. 'She can't be alive! Not after all that time!'

Renato turned the smaller man to face the stationary boat. There was the sound of coughing and retching and then, before Bishop's disbelieving eyes, Lisa was slowly assisted to a sitting position by one of the men. She stared across the water at him, shaking her head to clear her vision.

'See, she lives, but now it is your turn!' snarled Renato, and with amazing ease held Bishop away from him with his left hand before landing a crushing right-handed blow to his chin that knocked him unconscious . Then, with almost insulting casualness, he held the body under the water until he knew that any struggle for life must be over. He pulled the dead body to the surface, looking down at the features that even in death were hard and uncompromising, and a great weight was lifted from his shoulders. One of the bodyguards surfaced next to him and swam gently away, towing the body behind him.

Renato swam powerfully to the boat then climbed aboard and folded the trembling Lisa in his arms. 'It is truly over,' he murmured, wiping her face with a towel. 'He will never trouble us again.' The boat edged its way to the beach and he climbed out with Lisa in his arms before sending it back to collect the other bodyguard and his dead companion .

'Dispose of it in the cross-currents,' he instructed in Italian. They nodded, moving away until finally there was no one left but Renato and Lisa. He carried her up the beach and laid her on the sand mat where she'd been before Bishop arrived. For a time she kept her eyes closed, but when she opened them she looked up at him with such an expression of love that the breath caught in his throat.

'I thought you were going to die,' he muttered, his hands holding hers as he rubbed them absent-mindedly. 'When the children told their nanny she thought it was a game. That's why we took so long.' 'At first I thought I was going to die too. It was strange. I wanted to live but it seemed more important that the children escaped. After all, I've had twenty-five years, and a fine mess I've made of most of them! The children are only just beginning.'

He traced her jawline with a finger and eased some of her wet hair back off her forehead. 'Weren't you afraid?'

'Terrified, yet it was something I'd been waiting for. I didn't know that Bishop would come to the beach today but for the past year I've been expecting something to happen. I always knew that it wasn't over.'

'It should never have happened! Our security was lax.'

'It had to happen one day. You couldn't keep me in a glass case, even if that was what you wanted. Do you know the worst thing about it all?'

'Tell me.'

'I kept thinking that we hadn't had enough time. That was what upset me most, not the prospect of dying but the loss of what we've shared. When I realised I was never going to see you again, I… That was when I nearly broke down. It would have been such a waste.'

And now she did begin to cry. He bent closer to her, kissing the tears from her cheeks as she sobbed against his chest, and when she started moving against him he knew that finally she wanted him as passionately as he had always wanted her.

She was no longer passive but instead making her need obvious, whispering to him to love her and as he covered her body with his own and gently slid his hand up her leg, she cried out with desire; arching her body against his, trying to hurry his slow movements so that she could be utterly possessed and lose herself in the safety and pleasure of his love.

Afterwards, lying with her head on his shoulder, Lisa turned her head and studied this man who'd finally given her the courage to become a woman. She still found if difficult to believe that anyone so handsome should be totally selfless, taking pleasure from the happiness of those he loved rather than expecting them to make him happy, as was usual with highly attractive men.

Sensing that her eyes were on him he slowly lifted his heavy lids and smiled into her face, only inches from his own. 'What is the matter? I am looking old perhaps, because my young girlfriend is wearing me out?'

'Don't fish for compliments.'

'What is this "fish for compliments"?'

'You know perfectly well you look disgracefully young and attractive, and you're trying to make me tell you as much!'

He grinned. 'Perhaps I like to hear it because I cannot believe that you are still here with me, despite my grey hairs!'

'I like your grey hairs, they're very distinguished.'

'My father was grey before he was thirty. I am doing better than that.'

'He's still attractive.'

'Ah, it is my father you really love!' 'You've guessed it! Renato… '

He sat up, leaning on one elbow. 'Si?'

'I don't know how you'll feel about this but… I'm pregnant.'

His liquid eyes widened and he looked questioningly at her. 'You're sure?'

'Absolutely sure.'

His face lit up. 'Then I am the happiest man in the world! How can I ever tell you what this means to me. Luciano is a lovely boy and will always be special because he was my first child, but for his mother I felt very little. The marriage was arranged and we were not well suited. To have a child by the woman one loves—this, I think, is the greatest miracle that can happen.'

'I'm glad you're pleased.' 'You are not?'

She flushed. 'Of course I am. I'd begun to wonder if there was something wrong with me. We've been together over a year and I've never taken any precautions.'

'You too wanted a child of our own?'

'Yes. It will be the first time I've loved the father of my child. That's terrible, isn't it? I wonder what kind of a woman it makes me?'

'More honest than many, that's all!' 'Will you still love me when I'm fat?'

'Even more than I do now, because there will be more of you to love! I ask only one thing,' he added quietly, 'but it is important to me.'

Conditions, she thought despairingly. There always seemed to be conditions. 'What's that?' she asked as lightly as she could.

'It is nothing so terrible! All I ask is that you never change.'

A huge wave of relief swept over her. He truly did accept her as she was and loved her without demanding anything more than she could give, enough to let her feel free. It was the first time in her entire life that anyone had loved her solely for what she was and as Renato stood up and shook the sand from his body she thought back to her childhood.

For the first time it didn't hurt so much. She could even understand Simon and Stephanie a little more. In their own way they too had been victims of the Gueras organisation, and under such intense pressure she could understand how Simon might have hoped to achieve a measure of freedom through her marriage.

'We'll go back to the house now,' he said gently. 'It is time for us to change for dinner. The children will want to talk about their exciting adventure when they escaped from the bad man on the beach! Alexi and Jessica think it was one of Luciano's games. Naturally he and Rebekah understand more and they will need assurances that the man has gone forever.'

'What will we tell them?'

'That he drowned,' said Renato briefly and turned away, walking briskly up the path to the villa, obviously wanting to leave the memories of this final murder behind him.

In the early hours of the morning, after the children had been calmed, congratulated and allowed to have dinner with the adults, Lisa and Renato lay awake in the king-size bed, fingers loosely intertwined after their lovemaking.

'Will I ever forget it all? ' she asked quietly. 'Can I possibly wipe it from my mind? Those years with Toby and Neal. The way Toby drank and what he did to me. The fear that seemed to grow the longer Neal and I were married, and silly little incidents that still terrify me, like the time he made me ride a horse in front of you. When am I going to be free of all that?'

He thought carefully for a moment. 'Perhaps you will not forget. There are some things that one always has to live with, but it does not matter. All that has happened to you in the past has made you the woman you are, the woman I love and want to marry. I think that if you accept everything in this way, positively, realising what you have learnt from your mistakes, then it will not matter so much. Eventually you will, I think, come to terms with it. That in itself is a kind of freedom.'

'Also you have grown stronger and accomplished much during these years. There is Jessica, scarcely recognisable as the terrified creature I saw at the dinner party so long ago; Alexi, growing into a fine little boy; Rebekah who is happy and bright; and my own son who adores you. All these children are better for what you have done. They will grow up undamaged because even in the midst of your worst times you cared for them and their needs.'

'Yes,' she murmured. 'There have been good times with the children.' 'And now I will ask you properly, because it is something you never took seriously before. Will you become my wife, Lisa?' To his intense disappointment she still hesitated, her eyes clouded with uncertainty. 'There is nothing more I can offer to assure you of my love. If you do not trust me now then I think you never will, but since you are not sure… '

Moved by the misery in his voice she looked at his bewildered expression and her eyes cleared as she moved closer to his body. 'Of course I trust you, Renato. I trust and love you more than I'd ever have believed possible.'

'But still you hesitate.'

'Only because I don't know how I can ever make you as happy as you've made me.'

'If you marry me there is nothing more I could wish for. You are all I have ever wanted.'

At last she believed him. 'Yes,' she murmured, her breath warm against his neck, 'I'll marry you. Will we live happily ever after?'

'But of course! That is the way it is for Bellini wives!' he laughed. She fell asleep lying in his arms and never dreamt of Toby, Neal or Bishop again.

It was different for Renato. From time to time in the years to come he would look back, although he never mentioned this to his radiant and self-confident wife. He looked back to his time in England and reminded himself that he'd killed twice in order to secure the safety of the woman at his side; but although the deaths lay heavily on his conscience, never to be mentioned until his final death-bed confession, he knew that there was nothing he would wish to change because no price had been too high in order to secure his life with Lisa.