Untouched Until Marriage (12 page)

Numb with misery, she crept out of the nursery. Instead of walking down the corridor to the master bedroom she turned and ran up the stairs leading to the tower. Tears were streaming down her face. She hadn't cried like this since her mother's funeral—great, tearing sobs that racked her frame and made her chest burn. She couldn't face Raul tonight, she thought despairingly. If he realised how much his deception had hurt her, he would also realise that she was in love with him.

But it was likely that when she didn't come to bed he would search for her. She took a ragged breath and glanced wildly around the studio. There was no lock on the door, but maybe she could drag the cupboard across it to prevent him from entering…

‘Here you are. I thought you were going to bed?'

She jerked her head around at the sound of his voice, and her treacherous heart performed its usual somersault at the sight of him lounging in the doorway. His jacket was unfastened, as were the top few buttons of his shirt, revealing several inches of tanned skin and silky dark chest hair. He was so beautiful it was hardly
surprising she had lost her heart to him. But he didn't want her heart—he never had—and to be fair he had not tricked her into marrying him by pretending to love her. It was her own fault that she had hoped and prayed and looked for any tiny sign that she meant something to him. When he had created the studio for her she had thought he had done it because he cared about her, but now she wondered if he had hoped she would become so absorbed in her artwork that she would not realise she was no longer involved in running CC.

Pain ripped through her; and with it a burning, blazing, incandescent rage that she had been so stupid, and he was such a deceitful, lying—

‘Have you taken some painkillers for your headache?' He took a step towards her, frowning when he saw that she had been crying.
‘Cara…?'

‘Don't!'
She put up a hand to ward him off. ‘Don't
cara
me. Don't sound concerned when you couldn't give a damn.'

The tight band around her self-control snapped, unleashing her fiery temper, and driven by hurt and despair she snatched up the tub of orange paint she had blended from powdered pigment earlier that day and hurled it across the room. It hit him squarely on his chest, and he was instantly covered in liquid paint from shoulder to hip, while great splodges spattered both his legs.

For a few simmering seconds he stared at her in utter astonishment before he found his voice. ‘
Madre di Dio!
What's the matter with you? You crazy firebrand—have you gone mad?'

‘On the contrary, I've finally come to my senses and seen what a sly, conniving, treacherous bastard you are.' Libby flung the words at him with the same force with
which she had thrown the paint. ‘Your aunt showed me the clause in Pietro's will—the clause on the second page that I didn't have time to read when you turned up in Pennmar and bullied me into agreeing to bring Gino to Italy.'

‘I did not bully you.' Raul paused as the implication of her words sank in. He had completely forgotten that his aunt had a copy of the will. ‘Why on earth did Carmina show you the will?'

‘Because she hates me,' Libby told him flatly. ‘She was in love with Pietro, and she still believes that I was his mistress. She must have guessed I didn't know about the clause stating that control of Gino's shares would pass to you if I were to marry.'

Panic churned inside her as she realised that Raul's aunt must have also guessed that she was in love with him. If she was that transparent, could Raul have guessed too? she wondered, feeling sick with humiliation.

She stared at him, and her heart splintered when she noted the faintly uncomfortable expression in his eyes. ‘Can you deny that the reason you asked me to marry you was so that you would be able to claim full control of CC?'

‘I don't deny that that was one of the reasons,' he said quietly. He gave a harsh laugh when she paled. ‘What did you think, Libby? That I had fallen in love with you?'

‘
No!
Of course not,' she denied instantly, colour storming into her cheeks. ‘But I thought you loved Gino. You told me you wanted to adopt him.'

‘Both those things are true.'

‘Are they?' Now it was her turn give a mocking laugh. ‘Maybe you just pretended to care for him because you
knew how much I wanted him to grow up in a family and have a father, as I longed for when I was a child?' Her temper soared once more. ‘I know I was wrong to pretend that I was Gino's mother, and I believe that I deserved your anger when you discovered the truth. But all the time you were furious with me for deceiving you, you knew—
you knew
.' Her voice rose shrilly. ‘You were guilty of a far more cruel deception. You cold-bloodedly used my love for Gino to steal his shares.'

‘I have not stolen his shares,' Raul said sharply. ‘I admit I wanted full control of CC until Gino was eighteen, but only so that I could take the company forward and ensure that there
is
a company for him to inherit in the future.' He sighed. ‘I don't wish to be disloyal about my father but he had allowed the company to stagnate. I knew we were in danger of losing our position as a world leader in the cosmetics market if we did not expand our product range and diversify into new areas of growth such as the perfume range we're about to launch, and I believed I needed to have full control of CC to implement my plans. ‘
Dio
, Libby,' he growled savagely when she said nothing, just looked at him with angry accusation in her eyes. ‘Can you blame me for wanting to protect the interests of the company I had expected to inherit? I was shocked beyond words when I learned that I would have to discuss every business plan with a woman who at that time I believed was my father's lap-dancer mistress. You were prepared to do anything to keep Gino, including deliberately fooling me into believing you were his mother. By the same token, when I realised you had not read that clause in Pietro's will, I seized the opportunity to claim Gino's shares.'

He paused, and felt as though his heart was being squeezed in a vice when he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. ‘Like I said, gaining control of the company was
not
the only reason I married you. Gino was certainly an important factor—I love him as much as if he was my own child, and my greatest wish is to adopt him.'

‘So you say,' Libby muttered scathingly. ‘How can I ever believe you or trust you now?' She jerked backwards when he took a step towards her, closing her eyes in despair when the familiar musky scent of his cologne drifted around her. ‘Stay where you are. I can't bear to be near you.'

Raul's jaw tightened. ‘We both know that's not true. The sexual attraction between us was white-hot from the start. We've never been able to keep our hands off each other. Even when I thought I had good reason to despise you, I wanted you with a hunger I have never felt for any other woman. The prospect of having you share my bed every night was another very good reason for marrying you.'

He had married her for sex. Well, she'd known that, Libby reminded herself. So why did hearing him say it feel as if he had stabbed her through the heart? She stared at him wordlessly when he shrugged out of his paint-spattered jacket and dropped it on the floor, panic coiling inside her as he began to undo his shirt buttons.

‘What are you doing?' she demanded shakily. Was he intending to prove that the sexual alchemy between them was as fierce as ever? However much she told herself that she hated him, her traitorous body was pathetically weak, and she was terrified she would be unable to resist
him. ‘As far as I'm concerned our marriage is over,' she flung at him bitterly. ‘I won't be sharing your bed this night or any other.'

His trousers hit the floor, and she moved her eyes helplessly over his broad, muscular chest, covered in a mass of dark hair that arrowed down over his abdomen and disappeared below the waistband of his boxers.

His eyes narrowed on her flushed face. ‘I could very easily make you eat your words,
cara
,' he drawled, but then to her surprise—and, although she despised herself for admitting it, her disappointment—he turned back to the door.

‘Where…where are you going?'

‘To have a shower. I can't walk through the house dripping paint everywhere. We will finish this conversation downstairs in ten minutes. Don't make me have to come and get you, Libby,' he warned her in a deceptively soft tone that made her realise his anger was tightly controlled.

What reason did he have to be angry? she brooded bitterly when she made her way slowly down the tower staircase a few minutes after him. He was the one who had deceived her; he was the one who had broken her heart. But of course he did not know that, and somehow she must hide her hurt from him.

To her relief the bedroom was empty, but the sight of the huge bed where he had made love to her so passionately, and lately with such tenderness, brought more tears to her eyes. How could she remain married to him, loving him as she did, but knowing that she would never be anything more to him than a convenient sex partner?

She could not sleep in here tonight. She dared not face him again until she had regained some semblance of control over her emotions. Brushing her hand impatiently over her wet face, she spun round—but before she could reach the door Raul appeared, his dark hair still damp from his shower, his black robe belted loosely around him.

‘I'm going to sleep in one of the other bedrooms,' she said stiffly, and then gave a startled gasp when he scooped her into his arms and strode towards the bed. ‘Put me down, Raul. Let me go.' It was a cry from the heart, and the wobble in her voice tore at his insides. ‘I can't,
piccola
.' His refusal was heartbreakingly gentle, and her tenuous hold on her emotions cracked.

‘You have to,' she wept, burying her face in her hands and rocking back and forth on the edge of the bed. ‘I can't bear to be your wife any longer.'

Raul felt as though he had been kicked in the gut. Witnessing Libby's distress was sheer torture, but he knew that if he followed his instinct to haul her into his arms and kiss away her tears she would fight him like a wildcat.

‘Listen to me,' he said urgently, hunkering down beside her. ‘I need you to read something, and then, if you still feel the same way, I will—' He broke off, feeling as though an arrow had pierced his heart as he contemplated the utter bleakness of his life without her. ‘I don't know what I will do,
cara mia
,' he admitted roughly.

Libby stared blindly at the document he had placed in her lap. ‘I don't want to read it. I'll probably miss something important anyway—I'm good at that,' she said bitterly. ‘You read it to me.'

‘You don't trust me,' he said regretfully. ‘I need you to see it with your own eyes.'

He moved to stand by the balcony window, staring out at the moonlight dancing across the lake, his heart slamming in his chest. Libby picked up the document and forced herself to concentrate on the few brief paragraphs.

‘I don't understand,' she mumbled, after reading the page three times. ‘It says that even though I am married you are returning control of Gino's shares in Carducci Cosmetics to me until he is eighteen.' She shook her head. ‘If you went to all the trouble of marrying me so that you could claim full control of CC, why have you returned half the control back to me? It doesn't make sense.'

‘Doesn't it,
cara
?' Raul's voice sounded curiously constricted. ‘Can you really think of no reason why I might have revoked that damn clause? Look at the date at the top of the page.'

Libby stared at it uncomprehendingly. ‘But that was two weeks after our wedding.' She stood up, her eyes locked on Raul's hard profile, and she suddenly had the strangest feeling that he was deliberately avoiding meeting her gaze. ‘Why did you do it, Raul?' she whispered. ‘You had full control of CC—the thing you wanted most in the world—so why give it up?'

‘Because I discovered that I wanted something infinitely more precious than control of the company.' At last he turned to face her, and Libby caught her breath at the raw emotion blazing in his eyes. ‘I discovered that I wanted you to love me—as I love you,
tesoro
.'

Silence stretched between them, simmering with tension. At last Libby shook her head. ‘You don't.' There
was no quaver of doubt in her voice. She could not allow herself to be swayed by the tenderness in his rueful smile, or the fierce urgency in his eyes as he strode towards her and caught hold of her hands. ‘You said love is an illusion, and that you would never fall in love after your bitter divorce from your first wife. You married me to claim control of CC—and maybe because you do really care for Gino,' she acknowledged slowly.

‘I swear that I love him,
cara
, and I will care for him and protect him as his father—
my
father—would have done. You stole my heart from the first, Libby,' he said roughly, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘I was drawn to you from the moment I laid eyes on you, but I hated myself for wanting my father's mistress. Marriage seemed the ideal solution—it would give me control of the company and you in my bed—but even before our wedding day I knew it was more than that. You fill my world with colour and laughter and a joy that I had not known it was possible to feel. My life will be a grey and lonely place if you leave me.'

Could it be true? Could she believe him? Libby's heart was pounding so hard that it hurt to breathe and her hand trembled as she reached up and touched his damp eyelashes. ‘Raul…?'

‘I was planning to tell you about the clause in the will, and that I had reversed it,' he admitted gruffly. His throat ached, and it was hard to get the words out. ‘I want us to make decisions about CC together, and build a successful company for Gino. But every day I kept putting it off. I was afraid you would realise I had fallen in love with you once you learned that I had returned Gino's shares to you, and I was scared you didn't feel the same way.'