A faint sheen now glossed Luca's golden skin. 'Not a very pretty objective...when I think back to that now, I am very much ashamed. You have made such a valiant struggle to survive against all the odds.'
Darcy shook her pounding head with a little jerk. She felt as if she was dying inside, and now she knew what was really the matter with her—could no longer avoid knowing. She had fallen in love with him. How else could he be hurting her so much? She turned almost clumsily away from him, a mess of raw, agonised nerve-endings, and sank down onto a sofa. 'I slept with you,' she muttered, suddenly stricken.
'I definitely don't think we should touch on that issue right now,' Luca contended without hesitation. 'I'm sinking faster than a rock in a swamp as it is. What I want to do now...what I need to do...is make amends to you in every way possible.'
'I hate you...' And she did. She hated him because he didn't love her, because he had made a fool of her, because she had made a fool of herself and, last but not least, because she could not bear the thought of having to struggle to get over him again.
'I can live with that.'
'I want to go home.'
'Of course. The jet is at your disposal. When were you thinking of leaving?'
'Now—'
'It wouldn't be a good idea to get Zia out of bed.' Since Darcy was still staring numbly at the rug beneath her feet, Luca hunkered down in front of her. 'Shout at me...hit me if it makes you feel better. I don't know what to do when you're quiet!' he murmured fiercely.
'I'll leave first thing in the morning,' Darcy swore.
Luca reached for her tightly coiled hands. 'When do you want me to fly over?'
Darcy focused on him for the first time in several minutes but said nothing, her incredulity unfeigned.
Brilliant dark eyes glittered. 'You're stuck with me for the next six months,' Luca reminded her gently. 'Surely you hadn't forgotten that...had you?'
Darcy had. Her brain felt as if it was spinning in tortured circles.
Luca contrived to ease up each small coiled finger during the interim, and gain a hold on both of her hands. 'I promise to fulfil our agreement. No matter what happens, I will not let you down.'
Darcy snatched her hands back in a raw motion of repudiation. 'I couldn't stand it!'
'I have tried to express my remorse—'
'I don't think you have it in you to feel remorse!' Darcy condemned abruptly, her oval face flushing with a return of healthier colour as she got her teeth into that conviction. 'You're sneaky, devious...and I can't abide sneakiness or dishonesty. The only two things in life that excite you are sex and money.'
A dark rise of blood had delineated the savagely taut slant of his cheekbones. 'Once there was a third thing that excited me, far more than either of those.'
'What?' she gibed with a jagged laugh as she sprang upright, no longer able to stand being so close to him, terrified her fevered emotions would betray her.
'The prospect of taking revenge? Gosh, I should be flattered! Was that stupid bloody ring really worth this much effort?'
Luca vaulted back to his full commanding height, but with something less than his habitual grace. 'No...' It was very quiet.
'And do you want the biggest laugh of all?' Darcy slung shakily at him, green eyes huge with pain, her slender body trembling with the force of her feelings. 'I fell like a ton of bricks for you that night, only I didn't realise until it was too late. I even tried to find my way back to your apartment but I couldn't! What a lucky miss! You'd have had me arrested for theft before I'd cleared the front door!'
Luca looked poleaxed, as well he might have done. Darcy hadn't meant to spill out such a private painful truth, but she flung her head back with defiant pride, meeting the sheer shock in his spectacular dark eyes without flinching.
'You went to the Ponte della Guerra,' he breathed with ragged abruptness, catching her by surprise. 'No...please tell me you didn't!'
'While you were ferreting like a great stupid prat round your empty safe!' Taking a bold stance, Darcy stalked to the door. 'Don't you dare show your face at the Folly for a few weeks!'
'As we are supposed to be a newly married couple that might arouse suspicion,' Luca pointed out flatly.
'Luca...you're not seeing the whole picture here!' Darcy informed him with vigour. 'A honeymoon that lasts less than three days has obviously been a wash-out! An absentee workaholic husband completes the right image for a marriage destined to fail. And when you do come to visit, and everyone sees how absolutely useless you are at being my strong right arm, nobody's going to be one bit surprised when I dump you six months down the line!'
CHAPTER TEN
Darcy closed the glossy magazine with a barely restrained shudder, undyingly grateful that Luca would never read the interview she had given. At her request, the magazine had faxed the questions to her. After carefully studying some old magazines to see how other women had talked in similar interviews, Darcy had responded to those questions with a cringe-making amount of slush and gush.