The Innocent's Secret Baby(19)

     



 

'How arrogant of you to assume your guests have no cause for complaint.'

'They don't.'

And as she fought for her belief that all things might be possible, that  their slice of time might lead to more, his words thwarted her.

'Why risk spoiling something wonderful?' Raul asked, but when Lydia didn't answer he lay there asking himself the same thing.

Why would he even risk suggesting that she stay?

But didn't guests extend their stays all the time?

Only Lydia wasn't a guest.

He climbed from the bed and attempted to get life back to normal.

'I'm going out for a little while,' Raul told her. 'I'll bring back breakfast.'

Only 'normal' seemed to have left-for Raul never brought back breakfast, and he certainly didn't eat it in bed.

But he had made plans yesterday when she had walked out in that dress.  He had sworn to give her the best of Venice, and now it was time to  execute that plan.

Then things could get back to normal-once she had gone his head would surely clear.

Lydia, he decided, wasn't a guest-she was in fact a squatter who had taken over his long-abandoned heart.

'You'd better call soon to transfer your flight.'

'I will,' Lydia said, glad that he was going out for breakfast. She just  needed the space, for the air between them had changed. And she was  cross with Raul that he should be able to see her off on a plane after  the time they had shared.

And he was cross that he was considering otherwise-that he was still considering asking her to stay.

Raul shot her an angry glance as she watched him dress, but she didn't  see it. Lydia was too busy watching as he pulled on black jeans over his  nakedness.

He looked seedy and unshaven, and he was on the edge of hardening again,  and she fought not to pull up her knees as lust punched low in her  stomach.

He pulled on black boots, although it was summer, and then turned to  reach for his top. She saw the nail marks on his scarred back and the  injury toll from yesterday started to surface.

She was starting to feel sore.

Deliciously so.

'Go back to sleep,' Raul suggested.

He went to walk out, but his resident squatter did what she always did  and niggled at his conscience. And so, rather than stalk out, he went  over and bent down and gave her a kiss.

* * *

They were arguing, Lydia knew.

And she liked it.

His jaw scratched as he fought with himself to remove his mouth and get out, and then her tongue was the one to part his lips.

And that perfunctory kiss was no more.

Hellcat.

She made him want.

He was dressed and kneeling on the bed, kissing her hard, and she was arching into him.

His hand was rough through the sheet, squeezing her breast hard, and she wanted him to whip the sheet off.

Her hand told the back of his head that.

Lydia wanted him to unzip himself and to feel rough denim.

And so he stopped kissing her and stood.

Raul liked her endless wanting.

And he liked it that he wanted to go back to bed.

And that was very concerning to him.

Yes, he needed to think.

'Why don't you go back to sleep?' Raul suggested again, his voice even  and calm, with nothing to indicate the passion he was walking away from.

Apart from the bulge in his jeans.

She gave a slightly derisive laugh at the suggestion that she might find it possible to sleep as he walked to the door.

Raul took the elevator down and, as he always did on a Sunday, drove the  speedboat himself. He took it slowly. The sky was a riot of pink and  orange, and there was the delicious scent of impending rain hanging  heavily in the air.

Her gift would be arriving soon, and Raul badly needed some time alone to think.

Restare.

Stay.

He had almost said it out loud last night but had held back, worried  that he might regret it in the light of day. Yet the light was here and  the word was still there, on the tip of his tongue and at the front of  his thoughts.

Usually he would take breakfast at his favourite café and sit watching  the world go by, or on occasion chat with a local such as Silvio.

Not this morning.

He wanted to be home.

On a personal level Raul had never really understood the pleasure of  breakfast in bed. He always rose early and, whether home or away, was  dressed for the first coffee of the day and checking emails before it  had even been poured.

On a business level Raul had both examined and profited from it. There  was a lovers' breakfast served at his hotel here in Venice, and a  favourite on the menu was the baci in gondola-sweet white pastry melded  with dark chocolate.

Raul was at his favourite café and ordering them now-only this time he  was asking them to be placed in one of their trademark boxes and tied  with a red velvet ribbon.         

     



 

It was to be a true lovers' breakfast, because he did not want maids  intruding, and he wanted his coffee stronger and sweeter than usual  today.

Raul wore the barista's eye-roll when he also asked for English Breakfast Tea.

'Cinque minute, Raul,' the waitress told him.

Five minutes turned into seven, and he was grateful for the extra two, but even when they had passed still the thought remained.

Restare.

He wanted a chance for them.

* * *

Lydia lay, half listening to the sounds of Venice on a Sunday morning, and thought of their lovemaking.

It was still too close to be called a memory.

Yet it would be soon.

Unless she changed her flight times.

What if she told him she couldn't get a flight out of Venice until tomorrow?

Lydia got out of bed and pulled on a robe and found her phone. Even as  she plugged it in to charge it Lydia knew she was breaking the deal they  had made-simply to walk away.

Only it wasn't that simple.

This felt like love.

It was infatuation, Lydia scolded herself.

He was the first person who had shown an interest...

Only that wasn't so.

There had been others, but she had chosen to let no one in.

'Signorina...'

There was a knock at the door and Lydia opened it and smiled at the friendly face of a maid, who said her name was Loretta.

'You have a delivery.'

'Me?' Lydia checked. 'But no one knows that...' And then her voice  trailed off, because the name on the box was indeed hers, and as she  took it Lydia felt its weight.

There were stickers saying 'Fragile' all over the box and Lydia was trying to reel herself in.

The word was the same in both Italian and English, and she wanted to peel the stickers off and place them on herself.

She was too fragile for this much hope.

Lydia took the box out to the balcony to open it.

It didn't matter that it had started to rain. She needed air, she truly  did, because as she peeled back layers of tape and padding, the hopes  she had been trying not to get up soared, for there, nestled in velvet,  was the art they had seen made.

It was exquisite.

Dark gold it was shot through with colour, red and crimson, and she ran  her fingers along the cool glass and recalled the way Raul had held her  last night.

It was more than a gift, and far more than the once-promised morning-after present, surely-it felt like a diary of them.

The kisses and caresses...the oblivion they had found...the melding of  two bodies. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, let alone  been given.

How could she even hope to hold on to her heart? Lydia thought, and then  she looked out on the canal and there he was, steering the boat with  ease, the man she loved.

Loved.

Her own admission scared her.

Raul didn't want her love.

She felt that if he so much as looked up he might read her, so Lydia  gathered the box and the statue and went back into the room and  attempted to reel herself in.

It was a gift.

An exceptionally generous gift.

It didn't necessarily mean that he felt the same and she had to remember that.

She was trying to hold on to that thought so hard that when her phone rang, unthinkingly Lydia took the call.

'You fool.'

That was how Maurice greeted her, and Lydia pulled the phone back from  her ear, about to turn it off, because she refused to let him ruin this  day.

But, having called her a fool, Maurice then asked her a question.

'What the hell are you doing with Raul Di Savo?' Maurice asked.

'That's not your concern.'

He'd never told her his surname, though she had seen it on the business card he had given her.

More concerning was how Maurice had known. But, unasked, he told her. 'There are pictures of the two of you all over the Net.'

'Us?'

'Have you any idea of the fire you're playing with? He's using you, Lydia.'

That much she knew wasn't true.

Lydia looked at the statue he had bought her, the most beautiful gift  ever given, and she recalled not just Raul's touch but how even without  words he made her feel good about herself.

Even if their time was to be fleeting, for once in her life someone had truly liked her.

That was the real gift.

'He isn't using me,' Lydia sneered, utterly confident in that statement.

She had gone willingly, after all.

And then everything changed.

'He just wants to get at Bastiano.'

She was so sick of hearing that man's name. 'What the hell does  Bastiano-' And she stopped, for in that second Lydia answered her own  question.

Even before Maurice told her outright, Lydia already knew.

'They were friends until Bastiano had an affair with his mother. Raul  has sworn to make him pay slowly... Screwing you was mere revenge.'