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CHAPTER TWELVE

Eight months later

IT HAD BEEN Lara’s idea to revive the masked ball that had last been held at the palazzo twenty years before. If anyone had asked him his opinion, and they hadn’t, Raoul would have pointed to the high wall that surrounded the property and said it had been built for a reason—to keep people out.

But she was so fired up about it that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw a damper on her enthusiasm. His agreement to the scheme had been taken as read, though there had been several times since when he’d wished he had objected, not least when an army of caterers, musicians and assorted staff who were required for the smooth running of such a social event invaded his home.

Still, it looked as if the hard work had paid off. The night seemed to be a roaring success.

Raoul could hear his wife’s throaty laugh from across the room. Her head was thrown back to reveal the lovely line of her swan-like throat, and the emeralds that had been dug out of the vault for the occasion lay glinting against the pearlescent skin of her breasts. That had been their first row tonight—the dress too revealing, too everything.

His thoughts slid back to when she had walked through from her dressing room carrying his mask in one hand, hers in the other.

The cut of the black dress had drawn a spontaneous low, feral groan from his throat; once he had started breathing again all he could think about was peeling it off.

‘You can’t wear that!’

In retrospect Raoul could see that he could have dealt with the situation better, but then hindsight was a marvellous thing.

The smile left her lovely face and her chin went up as she tossed his mask across. He lifted a hand automatically to catch it.

‘You want to dictate what I wear?’

Hell, there was the quiet voice, the one that generally preceded a redheaded meltdown. He felt an answering flare of temper aggravated by extreme sexual frustration.

‘Do you always have to get your own way?’ he countered, thinking of all the times he had let her have it. You’re in danger of turning into a lapdog, Raoul.

‘Have you ever heard of compromise? Or patience?’

‘I beg your pardon! And if I am a male, controlling jerk for wanting my wife not to wear something that could get her arrested—’

Her magnificent eyes flashed green fire up at him and her even more magnificent bosom swelled with wrath. ‘You think I look like a hooker?’

‘Do not put words in my mouth.’

‘It’s not my fault if some men have one-track minds!’

Raoul hooked a hand around her back and felt a deep responsive quiver run through her body as she dropped the hand-painted antique mask. ‘I’m not some men, I am your husband.’ The argument, the real cause, the hundreds of guests about to arrive burned away in seconds as the heat of primitive need consumed him.

‘Shall I help you out of it...?’

He took her throaty little whimper as a yes and started to slide the zipper of the scandalous dress down. The image in his head of it falling in a silken puddle at her feet vanished as she suddenly stiffened and pulled away and, with hands raised above her head, began to struggle frantically to pull the zipper back up.

‘You think all you have to do is get me in bed and I’ll agree to anything!’ she charged furiously.

Nerve-shredding frustration gnawed at him as he walked towards her. His control was perilously close to snapping. It must have been reflected on his face because Lara, matching his steps, backed away until her back was pressed into the canopy of their four-poster bed.

‘It’s getting you there, cara, that can be problematic.’

‘You arrogant—’ she gasped, her voice vanishing as they faced one another, panting, their mingled breaths crystallising into an electrical charge that vibrated in the air around them.

‘Lara, I’m—’

She was leaning into him, her luscious lips a breath away from his, when a loud tap on the door made her blink like someone waking.

‘Come in!’ she yelled, before adding a warning, ‘Hush!’ as Raoul swore.

‘Sorry to disturb you, but the caterers have a problem with the ice sculptures. They say they can’t work with—’

Raoul’s groan drowned out the rest of the woman’s words. He didn’t have a clue who she was but he’d seen her about the place the past week.

Lara shot him a cold glance. ‘Don’t worry, Sara, I’ll come and have a word, just give me a moment, would you?’ She waited until the door shut before she rounded on Raoul. ‘Do you have to be so rude?’

‘Me!’

‘Yes, you! Would it kill you to smile? You make her nervous.’

‘I don’t seem to make you nervous.’

‘You make me—!’ She gave a little gasp that drowned out whatever it was she was going to say.

He found his anger shifting, giving way to reluctant concern as he realised how fragile she was looking. Her make-up might hide the shadows underneath her incredible eyes but it didn’t disguise the sharpness of her delicately carved collarbones.

‘Have you ever heard of delegation?’

Her determination to be involved in every aspect of this charity ball meant that there had been times when he had made time to be with her, and, rather than appreciate the effort he was making, she’d stood him up, for a florist! Oh, and, how could he have forgotten? A bottled-water supplier!

He liked to think his ego was fairly resistant but rain check...?

It wasn’t that he felt neglected, it was not as though he expected her to be at his beck and call—the idea was laughable—but the dark shadows under her eyes were not. But as much as Raoul found the entire thing a pain, he couldn’t help but admire the way she’d thrown herself into it.

But then, that was Lara. She never did anything at less than full throttle, he brooded, floating a glance over her sleek, sexy outfit. His opinion that the outfit was not fit for public consumption did not stop his blood heating and his body hardening. He frowned, imagining that he wouldn’t be the only man she had this effect on tonight.

‘What are you going to do, serve the soup and conduct the orchestra?’

His disdain brought an angry flush to Lara’s cheeks. Not breaking eye contact, she lifted her chin to a determined angle. ‘I want everything to be perfect. Would it have been too much to expect a little support?’

She had no intention of admitting that there had been many times when she’d wished she’d never started it.

Even if the person she was doing it for wasn’t impressed... She blinked away the thought. This wasn’t about impressing anyone, this was about charity.

‘Why? What does it matter? People will get drunk and say things they regret the next morning. You’re not being judged. It’s all in your mind,’ he said, tapping his own head.

‘You just criticised the way I look.’ She took a step towards him and lifted her chin. ‘I’d call that judging, caro.’

She curled her fingers around the ornate handle of her mask and held it up. It covered the upper half of her face, leaving her lush, crimson-painted lips and rounded chin visible while through the slits her eyes sparkled like the green gems around her neck.

‘I may not be able to make a baby but I can damned well organise a party!’ Her defiance melted away as her words hung there in the air between them.

She was acting as though she’d just made some great reveal. But Lara was not telling Raoul anything he didn’t already know. The timing had said it all. She had picked up the masked-ball baton and hit the ground running a day after their last big fight about IVF.

With a sigh, Lara dropped her hand. What good was there in hiding behind a mask when she’d just volunteered all her insecurities? Thanks to her big mouth. It would take more than some papier mâché to hide them now.

The siren had vanished, her face stripped bare of provocation; it was impossible not to feel her pain.

‘Nobody has said you...we...can’t have a baby.’ He had humoured her with the tests but he might as well not have bothered. They had been given the all-clear, but every month her wild optimism gave way to dark depression. The cycle was relentless.

‘Then why hasn’t it happened?’

He closed his eyes at the constant cry. ‘Maybe,’ he ground out, ‘because you are constantly so uptight! Relax and forget about it for a minute, stop taking your temperature every five minutes. Stop obsessing about getting pregnant and it might happen.’

Lara compressed her lips. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one waiting for someone to call time on the marriage if she failed. It would be easy for him, he had no emotional investment in it, he could just shrug and walk away, find someone else to continue the genetic line. It was his line, not hers, that was important here.

She was not denying that he had put time and effort into their marriage, more than she had expected if she was honest, but he hadn’t put his heart into it.

But she couldn’t cry foul. She’d known what she was getting into, had agreed to it all with her eyes open, and he had never pretended he wanted anything other than a baby. The voice of reason in her head made her fling out bitterly, ‘I’m not even sure you have a heart!’

This seemingly disconnected and unreasonable accusation made his sympathy shrivel and his paper-thin patience come closer to vanishing totally as he drawled, ‘I didn’t think it was my heart you were interested in.’

The irony of complaining about being treated like a sex object by a gorgeous and desirable woman was not wasted on him. He was sure that most men would envy his position and while there were many plus points—he had no problem with the fact that she couldn’t seem to get enough of him, that she melted at his touch—he couldn’t quite rid himself of the suspicion that was nagging at the back of his mind: was her desire real, or was it just the right time of her cycle?

You’re just never satisfied, are you, Di Vittorio? What the hell do you want—love...? On that grounding mental observation he took a deep breath and decided to be reasonable. He might even wear the damned mask!

‘Anyone would think you’d like for me to fail!’

Reason forgotten, he’d chucked his mask out of the window and hadn’t responded to the accusation. To do so would have been to throw himself into an emotional minefield.

Instead, he had let her leave, her sweeping exit only spoiled by the fact that she’d had to come back for her shoes, which rather ruined the dramatic effect.

As he thought back on it now the memory twitched his lips into a half-smile that flattened out as the internationally renowned singer came to the end of the number she had been belting out, and above the applause that followed another peal of husky laughter reached him.

He swore, causing several of the nearest masked faces to turn.

Great, now he was the one raising brows while his wife flirted with just about every man in the room. Well, enough was enough!

On the specially constructed stage, the singer took another bow and in turn applauded the musicians. Raoul tuned out her voice as she bent to the microphone and explained why one of the charities this event was raising money for was so close to her heart.

That had been the response to his every negative comment about this event—but it’s for charity.

On stage, the singer went on to speak of a change in mood that brought a spatter of anticipatory applause. He craned his neck to catch sight of his Lara. Ice slid into his eyes as he stared over the heads of people at his wife just as the guy she was with leaned in to say something in her ear. Raoul recognised him as the son of a media tycoon whose idea of a day’s work was giving an interview to a magazine about the stress involved in being him.

Raoul could recall being seated next to him at a dinner once and having been narcoleptic with boredom before the main course was served.

Not that Lara seemed bored. Her eyes sparkled, the emeralds sparkled, the guy touched her arm...and he heard a snapping noise in his head. Blood pounding in his ears, he crossed the room, his progress impeded by the fact that manners meant he couldn’t just push his guests out of the way.

He responded with a grunt to a couple of greetings and then the effort became too much and he adopted a selective deafness policy.

Lara laughed, even though she hadn’t actually heard the punchline of the joke. She was really working hard at this hostess thing but, heaven help her, there were limits. This man was monumentally boring.

‘Sorry, duty calls.’ Lies were a lot easier when you had a mask to hide behind.

It was odd, but the more miserable she felt, the easier it became to laugh and act as if she were having a great time. And she would have a great time, she told herself, even if it killed her, which it just might. Or perhaps Raoul might—In the periphery of her vision she could see his dark head as he made his way towards her.

Across the sea of faces their eyes met. He was the only person in the room not wearing a mask, and as their glances connected she was very glad of her own to hide behind. Something close to panic broke free as he continued to weave his way through their guests. He not only moved with the elegance of a jungle cat, but he projected the same lethal grace you associated with that animal. It was all she could do not to run.

Lara took a deep breath, told herself she was being ridiculous, and turned back to the boring man who still hadn’t got to the punchline of his next story. She struggled to pick up the thread of his conversation while wondering how this young man managed to say so much without actually saying anything at all.

* * *

Raoul reached her side just as the band struck up the opening bars of the famous hit. An expectant hush descended on the room as all eyes turned to the stage. Though not quite all eyes.

Raoul’s were on her.

Raoul extended an arm towards Lara. ‘My dance, I think.’ He slid a look towards the other man who had faded away in Lara’s mind the moment Raoul appeared, and in fact was already backing away looking distinctly uneasy.

Lara didn’t blame him. If a wolf could smile it would have copied Raoul’s.

‘I don’t want to dance.’

The singer’s husky, mellow tones filled the room as couples around them began to gyrate and twirl.

‘And I don’t care what you want. This is about what I want.’

She pulled in a tense breath as he tugged her into his arms. He was an excellent dancer and she was swept along by the slow, sexy beat of the music and the thrill of being in his arms—that part never lessened. Lara wasn’t aware of his intention until he danced her straight out of one of the big double doors that had been thrown open earlier.

The ribbons attached to her mask fluttered in the breeze as they stepped outside.

She spun around to face him, still clutching the exotic mask to her face. ‘Will you take that damned thing off?’ He took hold of her wrist and pulled the mask down, anchoring her arm to her side and jerking her towards him.

Without her shield Lara felt exposed under the ravaging intensity of his glittering stare.

‘Dio, but you’re so beautiful.’

She felt him shudder, a deep ripple of movement that exploded through his body.

His mouth, not hard but sensuous, his firm lips warm and seductive, moved over hers, his tongue sliding between her parted lips. When his dark head lifted his intense stare made her dizzy. ‘Raoul, you can’t, people are staring.’

‘Can’t a man kiss his wife?’

There was kissing and there was kissing, and that had definitely been the latter!

‘I’m jealous.’

The abrupt declaration made her stare. He had never said anything like that to her before.

‘Wasn’t I meant to be?’

The question made her eyes wide. She opened her mouth to hotly deny the question and closed it again. Wasn’t there an element of truth in what he said?

‘You don’t make me sound like a very nice person,’ she returned, hurt quivering in her voice.

‘I don’t want nice! I want not to be pushed away, treated like the enemy. We do not seem to be making each other happy, Lara.’

Lara felt the tears press at the back of her throat.

‘The only place we don’t fight is in bed.’

She took a deep breath, her hostility falling away as she felt a sob rise in her throat. She had always known this would happen, she just hadn’t expected it to be here, now.

‘So you are saying you want a divorce? I think you might have chosen a less public place.’

‘This is not a public place, it is my home.’

‘You didn’t want any of this, did you? I knew it and I still went ahead and—I’m sorry.’ Just like the baby. ‘I just wanted to do something that I could control...and if I don’t fill the time I think about—’ She lifted her hand to her head. ‘It just doesn’t stop.’

‘I understand,’ he said gently. ‘I really do, but, Lara, we have to get on the same page with this thing. After all we both want the same thing, don’t we? I don’t want a divorce.’

Thinking of the way she’d been behaving, Lara wondered why not.

Raoul stood there wondering the same thing himself. What had happened to his safe compartmentalised life?

‘Couldn’t we take a day off from the baby thing? Does it have to dominate everything?’

Of course it had to dominate everything—it was the only reason they were together. Lara bit her tongue to stop herself blurting it out.

‘I suppose so, but this is—’

‘I know, for charity.’

‘I’m sorry, I really am, I just got carried away, the dress...’ The truth was she had not felt comfortable with so much flesh exposed all night.

‘Are your hostess duties over for the evening?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Then how about we slip away and have our own little party?’

‘I’d like that.’