Secret Love-Child. Kate Walker

bella Lucia,’ Ricardo drawled lazily, strolling across the room to lounge at the end of the bed.

      Propping one hip against the ornately carved wooden bed frame, he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of the jeans he wore with a deep red polo shirt, open at the throat.

      ‘You have no need to panic; you are quite safe. You are in the Villa San Felice, just as you were last night. So one might say that in fact you have come home.’

      ‘Home is not a word I associate with this place!’ Lucy tossed at him as she tried to collect her scrambled thoughts, feeling that panicking was exactly what she should be doing. ‘Nowhere where you are could ever be home to me.’

      She was more aware of her surroundings now. Aware enough to recognise and be thankful for the fact that at least this was just one of the smaller bedrooms in the east wing of the villa. To her intense relief, the heavy wooden furniture and the soft blue curtains and carpet were not the ones she remembered from the room she had shared with Ricardo in her time as his wife. She didn’t feel that she would have been able to hold herself together if she had woken to find herself in their suite.

      ‘So how did I get here? What happened?’

      Ricardo pushed a long hand through the darkness of his hair, disturbing its sleek black strands and his piercing eyes never left her flushed face as he observed every change of expression, every fleeting emotion that crossed it.

      ‘You were taken ill—you passed out. Do you not recall?’

      ‘No…I…’

      But then she did remember everything in a rush. From the moment she had set out on her attempt to get onto the island, to see Marco…

      Marco…

      ‘I fainted,’ she managed, piecing the events back together in her thoughts. ‘And you…’

      The memory of Ricardo’s voice, his cruel words, swirled inside her head, making her feel dizzy just from the thought of it.

       You are one of the biggest mistakes of my life. If not my absolute worst.

      ‘How did I get to be here? Who brought me…’

      ‘I brought you here,’ Ricardo inserted calmly, the smooth tones of his voice sliding into the rising hysteria of hers. ‘And yes—before you ask, I put you to bed.’

      ‘You…’

      If he had slapped her across the face he couldn’t have brought her up sharp any more forcefully than that. Suddenly she became aware of the fact that she was sitting upright against the pillows with the soft comfort of the downy quilt slipping down to fall around her waist, exposing the top half of her body.

      The top half of her body that was now wearing only the thin, plain bra that cupped her breasts.

      ‘You undressed me!’

      Hot blood rushed into her cheeks, then ebbed away again almost at once as she snatched at the coverings, yanking them up to her neck to conceal herself, protect her body from those probing eyes. But just too late to erase the sensation of his searching gaze raking over her skin, flaying off a much-needed protective layer. It was impossible not to remember how he had once used to undress her—undress her so softly, so gently, or at other times almost ripping the clothes from her with such a wild urgency that her heart threatened to burst with just the memory of it.

      ‘I undressed you,’ Ricardo confirmed.

      His beautiful mouth twitched, just once, in an expression that could have been anything—amusement, annoyance, contempt or just plain triumph. Lucy had no idea which, and the hot embarrassment that was flooding her thoughts left her incapable of even trying.

      ‘And why should that disturb you? Surely it was better…’

      ‘Better!’ Lucy interrupted, still struggling with the uncomfortable feeling of being…violated was the only word that came to mind. She knew that Ricardo would dismiss it as being exaggerated and overblown, and deep down she knew that it was. But it was how she felt all the same at just the thought of those long tanned hands unbuttoning her shirt, sliding it from her, taking her jeans…

      ‘And tell me just why it’s better to have you manhandle me…’

      ‘I did not manhandle you!’

      She’d caught him on the raw there, sending sparks into the darkness of his eyes and making him bite out the words in a tone of barely controlled fury that had her flinching back against the pillows and pulling the duvet even more tightly around her in spite of the warmth of the sun that was coming in through the narrow arched window. Beyond that window she could hear the calm blue waters of the lake lapping lazily against the stony shore and then ebbing back again with a faint sucking sound as they pulled against the tiny pebbles. It seemed unnaturally loud in the dangerous silence that descended before Ricardo drew in a long harsh breath.

      ‘I have never ‘manhandled’ a woman in my life and I do not intend to start with my wife. Because surely that is the point here—that I—as your husband—performed this duty for you myself rather than leave it to a stranger.’

      ‘You are not my husband!’

      Lucy wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for Ricardo’s expression to grow any more glacial or for the cold anger in his eyes to burn any more savagely but clearly her words had provoked him into darker fury as he flung a glance of bitter recrimination in her direction.

      ‘We took the vows,’ he declared icily. ‘We were married.’

      ‘But only to make sure that our son was born legitimate with two married parents to be named on his birth certificate. Beyond that, the whole thing meant nothing—and the vows less than nothing. I didn’t want to marry you and you…’

      ‘I wanted you as my wife.’

      ‘Because I was Marco’s mother. Oh, come on, Ricardo, are you telling me that if I hadn’t got pregnant you would still have asked me to marry you?’

      ‘No…’

      ‘No.’ She tried to make it sound as if his answer satisfied her, but the truth was that there was no satisfaction to be found in the single word. ‘I thought not.’

      ‘I wanted you…’

      ‘Oh, I know…’ She couldn’t keep the bleakness, the bitterness from her voice. ‘You made that only too plain. But you could have had me in your bed without tying yourself—without tying both of us—down to marriage. But I got pregnant and that trapped us, Ricardo. Trapped us in a marriage that neither of us wanted.’

      It was weak, it was foolish—it was downright masochistic—but all the same she couldn’t stop herself from pausing, waiting just a second, just long enough for her stupidly vulnerable heart to give a couple of unsteady, jerky beats just in case Ricardo actually thought about denying that statement.

      Well, if she’d hoped it might happen then she was destined for disappointment. He remained stubbornly silent, forcing her to go on.

      ‘And now I want to get out of it. We both want to get out of it. Which is why it’s not…appropriate…for you to…’

      ‘For me to do what?’ Ricardo cut in, satire burning in the words. ‘Not appropriate for me to help a woman who is evidently unwell and who has fainted at my feet? Not appropriate to pick her up and carry her inside, put her into a comfortable bed—and perhaps remove her outer clothing so that she may sleep more comfortably? I think that only you would assign some sort of sexual motive to that.’

      His cynicism lashed at her, making her flinch inwardly. Her face was burning once more but this time with a very different sort of embarrassment. Hearing it like that, it did sound so perfectly innocent. Did she really think that she was so sexually irresistible that he was unable to keep his hands off her?

      If she had been foolish enough to even consider any such thought then his