‘That’s it?’
And she did know how to hurt him!
‘I think we both know I was never going to be leaving Italy a virgin. It was you or Bastiano. I chose you.’
He stood there silent, Raul did not ask why, yet Lydia answered as if he had.
‘Bastiano isn’t what I want.’
‘And what is?’
‘Money.’
‘He has that.’
She screwed up her nose. ‘I want old money.’
‘I see.’
‘If I’m to marry for money I’d at least like a title.’
‘You’re a snob.’
‘I have every right to be.’
‘And a gold-digger,’ Raul said.
‘Yes!’ Lydia smiled a black smile. ‘I’m a snob and a gold-digger, and some Sicilian who just made good doesn’t really do it for me.’
‘You make no sense, given the way you screamed last night.’
‘We’re talking about Bastiano,’ Lydia said. ‘As you pointed out—he wanted marriage and a nice trophy wife. I, on the other hand, wanted sex.’ She ran a finger along his jaw and taunted him and it felt so good. ‘For a one-night stand, you were the far better option. What I really want is a gentleman.’
‘Well.’ He gave a black smile and removed her hand from his face. ‘I don’t qualify, then.’
‘No.’
He dropped all contact, and as she turned and walked away suddenly Lydia wasn’t so brave.
As she bent to retrieve her red dress and picked it up from the floor, it felt as if she was waving a flag to a very angry bull, though Raul did not move.
His hackles were up. Raul could fight dirty when he chose—and he was starting to choose to now.
He looked at her slender legs and her hair falling forward and knew she could feel his eyes on her body as she pretended to concentrate on folding the dress as she bent over the open case.
She was pink in the cheeks and her ears were red, and as his eyes took in the curve of her bottom he knew she was as turned on as he was.
Tension crackled between them and she could almost picture his hands pulling up her robe.
It was bizarre.
He made filthy thoughts mandatory, gave anger a new outlet, and she recalled his promise that angry sex could wait.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘once you leave, you’re gone. I don’t play games, and I don’t pursue...’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
He walked over—she heard him but did not turn around. She must have folded that dress twenty times when his hand came to her hip. Just a small gesture, almost indicating that she should turn to him, but Lydia resisted.
‘Hey, Lydia,’ he said, and he bent over her and spoke in that low, calm voice, while hard against her bottom. ‘When you find your suitably titled Englishman, don’t think of me.’
‘I shan’t.’
‘It would not be fair to him.’
‘You really—’ She stopped, and she dared not turn around, for now one hand moved to her waist and the other to her shoulder, and there was a desire in Lydia for the sound of his zip, but it never came.
‘When you’re in bed,’ Raul said, and she held on to the bed with cheeks flaming, ‘and he says, “Is that nice, darling?” or “Do you like it like that?”’ He put on an affected tone. ‘Try not to remember that I never needed to enquire. And,’ he added cruelly, ‘when you lie there beside him, unsated, and you do think of me...’
‘I told you—I shan’t.’
‘Liar.’
He pressed into her one more time and then pulled back and let her go and she straightened up.
She was a bit breathless.
Oh, and still angry.
She pulled off her robe and he did not avert his eyes. He watched as she pulled on knickers, and watched as she put on her bra.
And he watched as she pulled on the taupe dress—the one with the buttons.
Bloody things!
As she struggled to dress he walked over—but not to her. This time he picked up the statue and tossed it into her case.
‘I don’t want your stupid statue.’
‘I thought you were a gold-digger,’ he pointed out. ‘Sell it.’ Raul shrugged. ‘Or hurl it out of the window of your turret in frustration when your fingers can’t deliver.’
‘Oh, please,’ Lydia sneered. ‘You think you’re so good.’
‘No,’ Raul said. ‘I know that we were.’
He did.
For he had never experienced it before—that absolute connection and the erotic bliss they had found last night.
She snapped her case closed and, rather annoyingly, set the security code on the lock.
As she bumped it from the bed he kicked off his boots and got on. Raul lay on the rumpled sheets and reached for his cake box and took out his phone.
She could see herself out, Raul decided.
The private jet was closed.
Lydia stood there for a moment. It was hard making a dignified exit when you didn’t know the way out.
‘Is there a street entrance?’ Lydia asked, and watched as he barely glanced up from his phone.
‘Yep.’
Raul opened the box of pastries and selected one, took a bite as he got back to his phone.
Lydia could find it herself.
‘You can see yourself out.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALL ROADS LED to Rome.
But today Raul hoped that Rome would lead him to Lydia.
Raul could not get her out of his mind.
Disquiet gnawed and unfinished business reared up and he simply could not let it go.
Summer was gone.
As he walked past the café where they had shared breakfast Raul looked up to the dark clouds above and it looked as if the sky had been hung too low.
It had felt like that since Lydia had gone.
Autumn had arrived, and usually it was Raul’s favourite time of the year.
Not this one.
He missed her, and Raul had never missed anyone, and he just could not shake off the feeling.
It was something he could not define.
Even if the tourists never really thinned out in Venice, La Serenissima had felt empty rather than serene. Here in Rome the locals were enjoying the slight lull that came with the change. Back in Sicily the vines that threaded the valley would be turning to russet...
Raul never went back.
Not even in his head.
Yet he was starting to now.
Lydia had been right—perhaps he should go back.
If this visit to the Grande Lucia did not work out as he hoped, then Raul would be making his first trip back to Casta since the will had been read.
The doorman nodded as Raul went through the brass revolving door, and he stood for a moment remembering their brief time there.
But that was not right. It didn’t feel brief—if anything it was the most examined part of his life.
Lydia was the most contrary person he knew.
Cold and guarded...warm and intense.
And, although they had both agreed to a one-night stand, he still could not make sense of that morning.
That kiss before he had left to get breakfast had held promise, but Raul had returned to a stranger and he had to know why.
But he didn’t even know her surname.
Raul knew some of the darkest most intimate parts of Lydia, and yet her full name he did not know.
Nor where she lived.
Usually those details did not matter to him.
Oh, but they did now.
He had searched, and so had Allegra.
There were a surprising number of castles in England, and there were many that were used for weddings.
They had got nowhere.
Allegra was working her way through them all and had flown over to England three times.
And now Raul was in Rome.
Back at the Grande Lucia, where it had all started.
Now that Raul was showing no interest in purchasing the hotel he was having trouble getting through to Sultan Alim.
And so he was here in person.
But trouble remained in the shape of the young receptionist.
‘Sultan Alim is only available by appointment.’
‘Call and tell him that Raul Di Savo is here.’
‘As I said, he only sees people by appointment. We don’t disturb him with phone calls.’
She was as snooty and as immutable as he demanded that Allegra should be if someone—anyone—tried to invade Raul’s time.
‘Is he even in the country?’ Raul asked, but that information was off-limits.
‘He would prefer that we do not discuss his movements. I shall let him know you were here.’
Now what?
Did he sit in the foyer and wait for a royal sultan who might already be back in the Middle East? Or warn the poor receptionist that if she valued her job she should let Alim know...
And then Raul saw someone who might be able to help.
She was walking through the foyer carrying a huge display of roses.
Gabi.
The indiscreet wedding planner!
‘Hey,’ Raul said.
‘Hi.’
He had forgotten how to flirt—even for gain.
‘Gabi?’
‘Oh!’ She stopped. ‘You were in the ballroom when Alim...’ Her voice trailed off.
There had been something going on that afternoon. Raul knew it. He hadn’t given it much thought until now.
‘I’m hoping to meet with him.’
‘Good luck!’ Gabi rolled her eyes. ‘He’s back home.’
‘Oh!’
‘For his wedding.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m planning it, actually.’
She looked as if she were about to cry.
‘Can you let him know I need to speak with him?’
‘I’m a wedding planner,’ Gabi said. ‘I don’t get access to the Royal Sultan.’