The Vengeful Husband(46)

The door closed again.



Wow... Darcy thought again helplessly. He's so passion­ate when he drops the cool front. He slams doors like I do. He's a suspicious toad, so used to wheeling and dealing he can't take anything at face value. But he also thought she had put one over on him, she registered. The beginnings of a rueful smile tugged at the tense, unhappy line of her mouth.



What was the matter with her? she questioned as she slid out of bed. Why was she thinking such crazy thoughts? Why did she feel sort of disappointed that Luca was plan­ning to leave her? Why wasn't she feeling more cheerful at that prospect? She stared down at the empty chair where she had draped her clothes the night before.



With a frown, she finally noticed that her open suitcase had disappeared as well. She wandered into the dressing room and tugged open the unit doors to be greeted by male apparel on one side and on the other unfamiliar female garments.



Pyjama-clad, she knocked on the bathroom door. No an­swer. She opened it. He was in the shower.



'Where are my clothes, Luca?' she called. The water went off. He rammed back the doors of the shower cubicle.



'I got rid of them,' Luca announced, raking an impatient hand through his dripping black hair and snatching up a towel.



'Rid of them?'



'Rather drastic, I know, but surely not a sacrifice?' Luca gave her an expectant look. 'Since you need lessons on how to dress. Porca miseria!' He grimaced, watched her face pale and telegraph hurt disbelief.



'That was tactless. But I just thought it would be easiest if I simply presented you with a new wardrobe. The clothes are in the dressing room. You won't even need to go shopping now.'



Darcy's eyes prickled with hot, scratchy tears. She was appalled. Never had she felt more mortified. This was a member of the opposite sex telling her she looked abso­lutely awful in her own clothes, telling her that he, a man, knew more than she did about how she should be dressing. 'How could you do that to me?' she gasped strickenly, and fled.



'It's a gift...a surprise...most women would be over the moon!' Luca fired back accusingly.



'Insensitive pig!' A sob tearing at her throat, Darcy threw herself back on the bed.



The mattress beside her gave with his weight.



'You have a beautiful face and an exquisite slender shape...but your clothes are all wrong,' Luca breathed huskily.#p#分页标题#e#



Darcy was humiliated and outraged by such smooth bare­faced lying. She knew better than anyone that she wasn't remotely beautiful! Flipping over in a blind fury, she raised her hand and dealt him a stinging slap.



'Not...most...women,' Luca muttered half under his breath, like somebody learning a very difficult lesson. With a slightly dazed air, he pressed long, elegant fingers to the flaming imprint of her fingers etched across one hard cheek­bone and blinked.



Instantly, Darcy crumbled with guilt. 'I'm sorry...1 shouldn't have done that,' she muttered brokenly. 'But you asked for it...you provoked me...go away!'



'I don't understand you—'



'I hate you...do you understand that?'



Darcy coiled away from him. She hurt so much inside she wanted to scream to let the pain out. She hugged herself tight. When Luca put a hand on her shoulder, she twisted violently away. When he reached for one of her hands, she shook him off.



'I actually liked you before I realised who you were!' she suddenly slung at him in disgust. 'I actually trusted you! Gosh, I've got great taste in men!'



'Haven't you already got what you wanted from me?' Luca raked back at her in cold anger. 'I have promised you my financial backing for the duration of our marriage. Your problems are over.'



Darcy regarded him with bitter outrage. 'I'm not some­thing you can buy with your money.'



Luca shot her an icy unimpressed appraisal. 'If you're not...what are you doing in my bed?'



There was no answer to that question. She couldn't even explain that to her own satisfaction, never mind his. And that he should throw her sexual surrender in her face made her curl up and die deep down inside.



She listened to him dressing, and she was so quiet she barely breathed.



Luca forced himself under her notice again by coming to a halt two feet from the bed. Clad in a lightweight beau­tifully cut pearl-grey suit, he looked absolutely stupendous, but icily remote and intimidating...like someone who ate debtors five to a plate for breakfast.



But now she knew that his black hair felt like silk when she smoothed her fingers through it, that his smile was like hot sunlight after the winter and that even his voice trickled down her spine like honey and made her melt, she thought in growing agony.



'This is not how I thought things would be with us. I'm civilised...I'm very civilised,' Luca informed her with un­feeling cool. 'We're supposed to be skimming along the surface of things and having a great time in bed. So tell me who bought the Adorata ring and we'll get that little complication out of the way. Then there is hope that peace will break out.'