Читать книгу Italian Maverick's Collection - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 70

Оглавление

CHAPTER TEN

‘A WEEKEND?’ Raoul’s ebony brows almost hit his hairline as he watched Lara close the lid on another suitcase.

Lara turned, her heart skipping a beat as she met his smiling eyes. ‘I’m nearly ready. It’s not all mine—I have presents for everyone.’

Raoul crossed the room and sat on the bed, causing a pile of neatly folded silky underwear in rainbow colours to slide to the floor. He hooked a provocative thong and swung it on his finger.

‘Do you mind? I spent...ooh!’

She landed with a throaty giggle on his lap. Framing her face, he kissed her deeply. When he finally drew back she laid her face on his shoulder, inhaling the warm scent of his skin as she looped her arms around his neck.

She focused on the moment and felt happy, though not totally relaxed. If she did that she might fall off the emotional tightrope that she’d been walking for the last few months. It was simply a matter of focusing on what she had, not on what she longed for. So long as she didn’t expect too much, this could work.

And she had a lot to be thankful for: the baby growing inside her, the anticipation of motherhood, which she had never expected to feel so right.

‘I need to finish packing.’

Raoul let her disentangle herself and lay back, hands behind his head, watching her finish her packing.

‘Won’t your mother and sister be hurt you haven’t told them until now?’ He had fallen in with Lara’s decision to keep her pregnancy a secret from everyone including her family, actually especially her family, despite the fact it had always made him uneasy.

He still didn’t understand it.

He felt the bed give slightly and heard her troubled little hitch of breath as she climbed onto it beside him. She tucked her feet under her as she adopted a kneeling position, looking down on him with her hair falling in a glorious fiery cloud around her face.

‘I told you, I’m not ashamed.’ She brushed her lips over his then, anchoring her hair with her forearm, and added, ‘But I’m not the only one having a baby. Lily is pregnant.’ Her sister’s due date was approaching fast.

‘Then surely that gives you something else in common.’ Beyond the fact they were virtually identical to look at. It still bewildered him how his reaction to two women with the same face and body could be so totally different. One made him yawn...no, that wasn’t fair, or even strictly true.

Lara’s twin sister was not boring, she simply wasn’t Lara, who ignited an insatiable desire in him that seemed to bypass every logic circuit.

His feelings for her might go deeper than desire? He pushed away the question, knowing that there was a limit to how many times it would go away unanswered.

How long could he keep dodging the issue?

Was he going to allow Lucy’s poison to reach out from the grave and infect his future?

He closed down the internal dialogue—things were all right, better than all right, as they were. Why meddle with something that was working?

‘Lily is facing being a single parent. Her situation couldn’t be more different than mine and I don’t want to make her feel—’

Raoul looped a hand casually around the back of her head, rubbing a caressing thumb across the angle of her jaw. He drew her down, pressing a hard, hungry kiss to her lips.

‘You’re a good sister.’ He landed a kiss on the tip of her nose as she pulled away. Shaking her hair back, she laughed, a hard little sound that drew a frown from Raoul.

‘Care to share the joke?’

‘I’m not the good twin, that’s Lily.’

She turned her head sharply, causing her hair to fall in a concealing curtain across her face. That she didn’t want to make Lily feel bad had been true and it still was, but the real reason Lara was delaying the moment was not to spare her twin’s feeling but her own.

They definitely weren’t the type of twins that had some kind of psychic bond, it was just that her sister had the ability to instinctively ask the right questions—all the questions Lara was avoiding. She knew the conversation was inevitable but it was one she wasn’t ready to have, or she hadn’t been until now.

At the wedding she had kept Lily at arm’s length for that very reason. She had known that Lily had been hurt but she also knew that her sister would never understand what she was doing... Who would?

She’d gone away to lose her virginity with one man and ended up falling in love and marrying another, and in the end neither man had loved her even the slightest bit.

Her hungry emerald stare shielded by a heavy fringe of lashes moved over her husband. There was bewilderment mingled in with the need and love that swept over her in a tidal wave of emotion.

The truth, or rather the public lie their relationship was based on, never went away, but there were some days when it remained a whisper in the back of her mind.

Admitting to her twin that their marriage had been a lie from the beginning and the only reason they were together was the baby would turn that whisper into a shout.

And she couldn’t bear the thought of Lily looking at her with pity.

Her words were more revealing than she knew. Raoul felt a slug of anger and an image flashed into his head of a younger, more vulnerable Lara being asked why she wasn’t more like her sister.

‘Just because you’ve been assigned a role,’ he roughed out softly, ‘doesn’t mean you have to live up to it.’

Her startled eyes flew to his face. ‘Nobody ever did that.’ There was defensiveness in the tilt of her chin as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

He angled a sceptical brow. ‘I’m not saying it was deliberate.’ He tried a different tack. ‘Has it occurred to you that you’re not so wild and she’s not so sensible? Just that you’re very different people?’ He didn’t want to encourage his Lara to compare herself to her twin all the time.

His...?

The possessive trend of his thoughts made him tense. A figure of speech, soothed the voice in his head. And what man with an honest breath in his body wouldn’t like the idea of Lara being exclusively his?

‘You think I’m not so wild?’

Her teasing was rewarded with a lustful growl. He curved a possessive hand across the back of her head and she went with it, allowing her body to fall across him as his mouth moved across hers in a slow, seductive kiss.

Several minutes later she sat back, pink-cheeked and dishevelled. ‘I have to finish my packing.’

‘What’s stopping you?’ he asked innocently.

Ten minutes later she clicked closed the lock on her overnight bag and gave a last glance around the room.

‘I’ll go tell Vincenzo we’re ready—finally.’ He huffed an irritated curse, fished out his phone and, glancing at the caller ID, signalled to Lara to go ahead.

By the time he had joined her she was already ensconced in the back seat of the limo. Raoul slung the case in the open boot and nodded to the driver before he slid in beside her.

He could sense her excitement.

‘You miss your family?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’ She pressed a hand to her stomach. ‘Especially now.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ Lara stretched forward to relive the nagging ache in her back. She had read all the books and she knew this was normal. But she also knew the warmth, the spreading stain were not...

‘Raoul...!’

He turned his head in alarm, then slowly followed the direction of her fixed stare.

For a few heart-thudding moments he was paralysed as he stared down at the crimson stain on her skirt and the seat, dripping onto the floor.

Lara whimpered. ‘Something’s wrong.’ It provided the impetus for him to react.

Curling his hand over hers, he turned his head to yell at the driver, who threw the car into a screeching one-eighty-degree turn and set off at speed, ignoring the numerous horn blasts of complaint that followed him.

‘Don’t worry. Vincenzo drove tanks in the military. We’ll have you there in five minutes.’ Would five minutes be quick enough? There was so much blood. He looked away from it, focusing on her face, her white, tragic, pain-filled face, while he tried to channel calm.

Inside, Raoul didn’t feel calm. He felt an icy fist clawing in his belly, tightening, spreading cold and fear... Could anyone lose that much blood and survive? Of course she could; this wasn’t the Dark Ages—women didn’t die this way any more. They could transplant hearts and rebuild shattered limbs...but there was so, so much blood!

‘Faster!’ he flung over his shoulder to Vincenzo, who was already breaking speed limits in a major way.

‘Is the baby all right, Raoul...?’

Wishing he could take away the fear in her shadowed eyes, he took her hands between his; they seemed so small and white, and they were cold, so very cold.

He had never felt so helpless in his entire life.

He shook his head. ‘Don’t talk now, cara, save your—No, don’t close your eyes, Lara, Lara, stay with me, cara.’ His voice cracked as he pleaded, ‘Stay with me!’

The lashes that lay against her waxen cheeks lifted and Raoul exhaled a gasp of relief. ‘I’ve made such a mess of your lovely car.’

He swore with soft, savage fluency and lifted her hands to his lips, kissing her individual fingertips. ‘I’ll send you the bill.’ He lifted his head in response to the driver’s voice. ‘We’re here!’ he said to Lara, whose eyes had begun to flutter closed once more. ‘Everything will be all right, just hold on.’

* * *

‘Who do you think you are? You can’t park here! This space is reserved for ambulance emergencies.’

Raoul responded to the officious instructions in the same language, slicing out in a steel monotone, ‘Can’t you see it is an emergency? Get me a doctor! Now!’

Any inclination to argue the point faded as Raoul emerged and his interrogator saw Lara, who was drifting in and out of consciousness. He turned and shouted; in response two figures and a trolley appeared. They had transferred Lara to it when a doctor arrived and began to take charge.

The questions he shot at Raoul were reassuringly concise and to the point. In comparison, his own response seemed painfully slow as his tongue struggled to keep pace with his brain.

‘I’m afraid you can’t go beyond this point. Please take a seat.’

At the prospect of Lara being wheeled through those big double doors, away from him, something close to panic slid though Raoul. Then, as if she sensed what he was feeling, the little hand in his tightened and Raoul shook his head, barely recognising his own voice as he responded, ‘No, I will not.’

The comment didn’t throw the nurse, who made the request more firmly but still politely. She gave an understanding smile that made him want to yell at her—he didn’t want smiles, he wanted someone to do something.

‘I’m afraid, sir, that you—’

Raoul was afraid too, very afraid as the fingers in his suddenly went limp.

‘Lara!’ His yell of anguish diverted attention from him to Lara. It seemed to him that she was barely breathing. ‘Do something!’

They were doing things, pushing him out of the way to get to the unconscious figure. When the doors swung shut moments later, leaving him standing the wrong side, he didn’t move. He just stood there, hands clenched and white at his sides, feeling the weight of paralysing helplessness bearing down on him.

Raoul had lost count of the number of people who had walked through the door but on each successive occasion he braced himself only to experience a massive anticlimax as they walked on by. He was pretty much resigned for more of the same when a tall, grey-haired figure still wearing scrubs pushed the door open.

The man walked straight up to him and held out his hand. The grasp was reassuringly strong. ‘I’m your wife’s surgeon. She came through the operation well.’

It wasn’t until the older man released his hand that Raoul realised his own was shaking. The screaming tension that held his body rigid released itself in a slow sibilant sigh.

The man looked at him with sympathy. ‘You must have questions.’

‘It happened so quickly.’

The doctor inclined his head. ‘If you’d like to come through to my office...?’

* * *

Lara was dimly aware of being moved from the car to the trolley, but it all had a nightmarish quality. But the nightmare was not real, not while she had hold of Raoul’s hand. So she held on tight as she was whisked along corridors, aware of the blur of faces, the glare of lights overhead hurting her eyes, hearing snatches of the buzz of conversation going on around her.

Then there was just black.

‘No, leave it, Lara.’ Fingers cool and firm stopped her pulling at the thing taped to her hand.

She knew the voice, the touch; she opened her eyes and Raoul was still holding her hand.

She was grateful he didn’t wait for her to ask.

‘They couldn’t save the baby.’

She had known already, but hearing it made it real. ‘What did I do wrong?’

It was not the response that he had anticipated but before Raoul could react to it a figure strolled into the room. The scrubs were gone and he was dressed in an open-necked shirt; it was only the badge he wore and the stethoscope protruding from his pocket that pronounced his medical status.

‘You did nothing, Mrs Di Vittorio,’ the doctor said firmly in his perfect English. ‘Many mothers experience irrational guilt after a miscarriage.’ He addressed his remark to Raoul and, after glancing at the chart at the foot of Lara’s bed, walked around to stand closer to her head.

‘And there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.’

‘But I was nearly twenty weeks. I thought after the first twelve—’

‘Miscarriages in the second trimester are not as common as those in the early weeks,’ he agreed gently. ‘But they do happen.’

‘Why?’ Lara forced the question past the aching occlusion in her throat.

‘Many reasons. In your case, I’m afraid that the baby actually died a little time ago...’

‘No!’ Adrenaline of denial giving her a surge of strength, Lara struggled into a sitting position, wincing as the needle in her arm caught in her hair as she pushed it out of her face.

‘It’s not possible, I’d have known!’

The doctor placed a compassionate hand on her arm and, watching him, Raoul thought, He knows what to do, so why don’t I?

She wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t dragged her into his life. It had all been about him and his needs; his motivations had all been selfish and this was the result. Self-loathing tightened in his gut. She was better off without him.

‘Did you have a bleed...something slight perhaps?’

Lara looked at him blankly for a moment and then blinked. ‘No...yes...’ She nodded, remembering the morning... If she had told someone, sought medical advice and not just put her symptoms into a search engine, maybe her baby would be alive.

The combined weight of what ifs and guilt felt as if it were crushing her.

‘As I have explained to your husband, you had what is termed a failed miscarriage. The complication came when an infection took hold, which caused the haemorrhage. Luckily we caught you before sepsis set in—that could have been very serious indeed. Look, I’ll leave you two to talk, but not for long. You need to rest and, as I told your husband, all being well you can go home in the morning.’

Lara watched the door close; the gentle click echoed in her brain, over and over.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ she said, dropping her head back on the pillow.

‘They gave you pain relief, I think.’

‘No, not that sort of feeling.’ She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘I don’t feel anything.’ She emphasised, ‘I’m empty, it’s like a vacuum.’

His eyes met hers, and the expression in them was guarded. Without warning, anger rushed into the vacuum she had spoken of, bubbling up.

‘Say what you’re thinking. You might as well, because it’s obvious. The only reason we’re together was the baby and now there is no baby, so there’s no reason for us to be together any more. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene!’ she shrilled, to the private room, empty but for the two of them, before her eyes filled with tears.

The sight made Raoul surge forward but Lara held up her hands as if to ward him off as she hissed, ‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!’

Raoul subsided back into the chair pulled up beside the bed and dragged a hand through his dark hair. ‘I feel sorry...no, sad for us.’ And it was true—alongside the guilt that he carried like a second skin there was a sense of profound loss.

His response threw her, but only for a moment before she shook her head and choked out bitterly, ‘There is no us. You’re probably glad this happened!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I appreciate that I wasn’t the one who...the one who...’ Came close to losing my life. He couldn’t say the words but the acknowledgement of it added another layer to his guilt. ‘The one who went through the physical trauma, but the baby was mine too. We will both grieve, so doesn’t it make sense to you that we go through it together?’ It was a logical response, he told himself. ‘Who is better placed than me to know what you’re feeling?’

Her lips quivered. ‘I never thought I’d feel this way, but I wanted this baby... I really wanted this baby and it’s fine, I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘I wanted this baby too.’

‘Because you feel responsible, that’s all.’

‘I don’t want to be the last Di Vittorio. I have been surrounded by so much death and misery. A baby... I have been able to look into the future for the first time in years.’

‘I didn’t know you felt that way...’

He gave an odd laugh. ‘Neither did I. Look, life has kicked you, Lara, but you are strong, you will recover. I really don’t think you should make any decisions until then. Let me take care of you.’ It’s the least you can do, mocked the voice in his head, considering it’s your fault she’s lying there.

‘And when will that be?’

‘I wish I could tell you.’

‘And what then?’ she asked dully, thinking that if they were going to split up anyway, if he was just waiting until she was stronger, what was the point? She’d never be that strong. It was always going to hurt, so why not get the hurting over in one go?

‘That depends on what you want. The doctor says there is no reason we can’t try again.’

‘You’re suggesting...’

‘I’m suggesting we wait and see. Or would you rather go home to your family?’

Lara thought about seeing her sister with a healthy baby growing inside and shook her head.

‘And if it makes you feel better to yell at me, blame me, that’s fine. We will move on, and next time things—’

‘Next time if we...things could go wrong again.’

The fear in her voice felt like a hand tearing at his chest.

‘It’s too soon, just focus on getting better.’

She didn’t hear him. Lara was sound asleep.

* * *

The next morning, packed and waiting when he arrived, she was speaking on the phone. Conscious he was listening, she wound the conversation up as quickly as possible. ‘Bye, Mum, and sorry, speak soon, give my love to Lily.’

‘So when is she coming?’

Lara didn’t meet his eyes. ‘She isn’t,’ she said brightly.

He tensed. ‘So you are going there?’ He was afraid that if she went, she might not come back.

Raoul’s philosophy in life had always been simple: predict possible outcomes before they happen and plan accordingly. It had helped him survive his marriage from hell and now, for the first time, he could think of no plans, not one. Denial was the only option.

‘No.’ This response was even less distinct.

What the hell was going on? ‘Lara, will you look at me?’

With a heavy sigh Lara lifted her head, shaking back the curtain of burnished hair. ‘Don’t look at me like that. If you must know, I haven’t told her.’

Raoul, who had been reaching into his pocket to switch off his own vibrating phone, let his hand fall away and just stared at her.

‘You haven’t told her?’ She couldn’t possibly mean what it sounded like.

‘Well, I hadn’t told her I was pregnant, so I could hardly tell her I’d lost a baby she didn’t know existed.’

She screwed up her mouth, digging her teeth into her full lower lip as she pushed her hair behind her ears. The motion drew attention to the plaster on the back of her hand; the sight of it was an unwelcome reminder of the events of yesterday.

The flash of exasperation that tautened his sculpted features gave way to something between panic and tenderness as he watched a tear trace its way down her pale, smooth cheek.

Lara brushed the moisture away angrily and yelled, ‘Don’t look at me like that. It’s my decision and if you go behind my back and tell them I’ll never ever forgive you!’ Her chest heaving with the strength of the emotions that were tearing her apart, she poked a finger at him and added a quivering postscript, ‘I mean it, Raoul!’

‘So I see.’

Anger she could have dealt with, but the half-quizzical smile that suggested he was pleased she was yelling at him drove a stake through her carefully crafted façade, cracking it wide open.

‘Lily won’t tell me who the father is, so she’s keeping secrets too.’ The hurt she hadn’t even admitted to herself quivered in Lara’s voice and she rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms.

Raoul pulled off the jacket he was wearing and laid it across her shoulders, not fighting the impulse that made him kiss the top of her glossy, burnished head.

Lara lifted her head and sniffed. Her beautiful eyes were red-rimmed and swimming, her full lips quivering. ‘I w-want to be happy for her.’ She swallowed hard and bit her lip. ‘But I’m not a nice person. I just keep thinking, why should she get a baby and not me...why my baby...?’ She bent her head again and covered her face with her hands, mumbling through her fingers, ‘I must be a bad person.’

Her muffled words threatened to break through his control. Holding her would make him feel one hell of a lot better, but was it what she needed at the moment?

‘Self-pity,’ he drawled, ‘doesn’t suit you, cara. That’s better,’ he approved warmly when her hands fell away and she shot him a teary but angry glare. ‘I’m sorry that things are not good between you and your sister,’ he added softly.

She sniffed and explained with husky, hard-won composure, ‘I miss... I mean, I don’t know what she’s thinking or anything but we never used to hide things from one another, we shared.’ She gave a loud sniff and made a pathetic attempt to smile that just about broke his heart. ‘You don’t want to hear this.’

It was true, he didn’t, because he didn’t enjoy feeling guilty. A major contributing factor in the situation that had led to the deterioration in the relationship between Lara and her twin must have been his insistence she not divulge the true circumstances behind their marriage. Hell, who was he kidding? This was his doing!

Since he’d walked into Lara’s life he’d done nothing but cause her heartbreak and pain.

‘If you like I could speak to her?’

‘You!’ Her incredulity at the casual offer was almost as great as Raoul’s own. ‘What would you say?’

He stayed silent because quite frankly he didn’t have a clue and he had no idea what had driven him to make such a pointless gesture.

How about guilt?

‘There’s been no falling out as such...it’ll be fine,’ she insisted dully. ‘I’m just feeling a bit fragile.’

‘You’re allowed.’ His jaw clenched.

The trouble with Lara was she didn’t cut herself any slack. Plus, she never asked for help, which, combined with her bloody-minded attitude, meant that if you did make a suggestion she was pretty much guaranteed to do the opposite. A ‘no comment’ policy was the safest bet—though not always the most fun.

A quiet life was overrated.

His half-smile faded as he realised what he was doing—remembering make-up sex when she was some place close to hell. You’re a shallow bastard, he thought.

Yes, she could be a total pain, outspoken, bolshie, opinionated...but he would have welcomed being on the receiving end of any or all of these undesirable qualities if it meant banishing the haunted look from her eyes.

Lara shook her head. ‘Look, I know it’s fashionable but I really don’t need talking therapy.’

She had already rejected the clinic’s offer to put her in contact with a grief counsellor. She really couldn’t see how talking about something so personal, exposing her innermost feelings to a total stranger, would make anything better. No, Lara thought, she would do what she always had done with painful emotions and memories—she was going to build a great wall, shut them behind it and get on with her life.

‘I just want to go home.’

Italian Maverick's Collection

Подняться наверх