A streaking tear slid down her cheek.
Impatiently, she brushed it away and walked around the last corner. With unerring memory, she stepped up to the wall and poked her hand under the ivy. A large metal ring, one that was never removed from the lock, clanged as she pushed.
And stepped into her childhood haunt.
The enclosed, secluded garden appeared exactly as she'd left it. She vividly remembered the last time she'd been here. A crying seventeen-year-old. Trying desperately to hold the devastation in until she got far, far from him and his rejection.
A rejection that no longer stung, surprisingly.
All she experienced now, as she closed the stone door behind her, was a bittersweet tug in her heart for that girl she'd once been. So headstrong, so sure of her love, so positive she'd get her happy ending.
What a silly, too-too-young girl.
Sighing, she walked to the center of the walled garden. There was still light enough to see the colors of the roses climbing their vines, covering the walls. Plush pink and ruby red and brilliant blue. The lone tree stood in the middle of the patch of grass, a tall oak, aged and sturdy. She touched the rough bark, remembering the precious moments spent here. The times she shared her girlish secrets with him, the times he laughed at her jokes.
The pain her memories caused caught her by surprise. She'd expected the pain to come from the last memory, the memory that had destroyed her dreams. Instead, the pain flowed out of the memories of happier times. Times she'd forgotten purposefully. Memories she'd pushed away as figments of her imagination.
Yet they were so real as she stood in the spot where she'd loved so fiercely.
She missed the boy who made her laugh. She missed his laugh as he teased her. She missed his silly jokes and the way his eyes blazed with unconcealed joy when he looked at her. She missed his crazy...
Crazy. His words came back to her.
Turn myself into a crazy man.
Lara leaned on the tree and stared blankly at the row of roses along the wall softly dancing in the wind. Was that what he had meant? That he wasn't willing to be the spontaneous, enchanting boy she'd once known? The boy who dared to be crazy and take chances and risks. The boy who acted from the heart, not the head.
Isn't that what she'd been doing when she poked and prodded him with her words? Hadn't she admitted to herself, more than once, this was what she was doing?
Trying to drive him crazy.
What had he said? She leaned her head against the rough bark.
I'm not willing.
Not willing to be crazy. Not willing to lead with his heart and risk being spontaneous. Not willing to do anything except carefully court her under the surveillance of his family and hers until she eventually laid out her secrets for his distant inspection. Then he would marry her and put her in a box and she would end up with another husband who saw her as an object to dust off when needed.
"No. Never."
Her words drifted in the air, filled with certainty.
She hated this, this man he'd become. Beyond the fact she wanted no man at all right now, Dante was the last man she would ever get involved with. Because he wouldn't ever be crazy in love with her and give her the passion and the life she knew she wanted and needed and deserved.
"He's never going to be the man for you," she whispered to herself. "Not then. Not now."
Another lone tear dribbled down to her chin. She didn't wipe it away this time.
Then why did her body rebel against this sure knowledge her mind knew? For the first time in years, for the first time since her innocent crush on Dante, she came alive sexually around a man. There'd been an insatiable need inside her to nuzzle into his neck while they danced. Even the imprint of his hand on her thigh, as he pushed her down in her seat at the wedding dinner, still tingled with delight. The fact he was enforcing his will on her at the time had done little to stop the tightening of her nipples or the wash of wet between her thighs.
This was perilous, far too perilous. Because if she ever acted on her desire, if she ever let him go beyond kisses, he would find out another one of her secrets. A secret she didn't want anyone to know, but above all, not Dante.
Because he would pity her. He would think, again, she wasn't anything more than a child.
"You have to find something to drive him away for good," she stated under her breath.
Before it was too late and he drew her in with his body and need.
"Ah," he said from behind her. "I thought I might find you here."
Jerking around, she stared in utter dismay at his enigmatic face. "Go away."
He closed the stone door behind him and leaned against the ivy, his tux unbuttoned, hands in his pockets. "When I last checked, I owned this garden."
"Then I'll go." She walked with a resolved air right up to his relaxed body. Still, she couldn't make herself invade his personal space. Getting too close was a deadly trap.
She glared at him.
His mouth quirked.
"Move."
His brows arched.
With a sound of disgust, she twirled and marched away from him. He couldn't keep her here forever. He was the host of the party. He had to leave soon. She moved behind the tree, blocking him from her sight.
He would leave. Eventually.
She sensed him, sensed him, God help her, move to her side.
"You do not appreciate my dancing abilities?" His voice was laconic.
Ignore him.
"I cannot remember a time when a woman left me on the dance floor so abruptly. Or left me at all." He strolled a few paces and turned to face her. "A remarkable experience."
She would not meet his eyes.
"My family. My neighbors. My business acquaintances." His voice wrapped an edge of hostility around each word. "Everyone looking at me. Then talking."
Her tongue leapt to action. She tried to still the words, but they tumbled forth. "Poor Dante."
His mouth turned down, a grim line. "Be careful. You are pushing me too far."
"You don't scare me." She knew it as a lie, yet her pride demanded she keep going at him. She even managed a short laugh after the lie and noted with stupid satisfaction that he tensed. For a moment, she was sure he would pounce.
A thrill of pleasurable terror raced through her.
But then he turned, a sharp motion, and paced away from her to lean on the stone wall once more. "Time to cut to the chase," he said, his tone mild.
How did the man do that? She'd sensed his sudden surge of frustration, an almost visible wave of aggravation. And then, nothing. How could he possibly think this would be attractive to her? That she would have any desire to spend the rest of her life with a man who stifled every emotion until all he exuded to the world was bland disinterest and haughty arrogance?
"I don't know what you mean."
"There is something between us." His black stare was pinned to her face. "A spark."
"A spark of dislike."
"Keep telling yourself that. However, eventually you will see what it actually is."
Folding her arms in front of her, she turned her back to him, avoiding his gaze.
"There is a bond between us no one can break. Not even us."
His words arced between them, adamant and assertive. Alluring seduction slid through every consonant and vowel. He made no move toward her, and yet she could almost feel the silken tangle of his desire reach out and wrap around her.
"We have nothing between us but dislike."
He stood silent, a shadowy form in the deepening dusk.
"All we do is argue." She turned to look at him. "All we do is disagree."
"Bella, how quickly you forget. That is not all we do."
Lara was glad for the darkening night because it hid the blush sliding across her face. "We won't be doing anything together anymore."
"It is time you faced reality. Time you faced the truth."
"Your take on reality. Your version of the truth."
"Si." The beginning glimmer of moonlight gilded his tight jaw. "But it is yours too, whether you acknowledge it or not."
"My reality is I want to be left alone."
His deep voice came from the shadows, brutal and hard. "I am not going to allow your dead husband to stand in the way of what we could have."
"Back off," she choked. This was too much. How could she explain to him that it wasn't merely Gerry standing between them? There were other secrets, other wounds. And more than anything, what he'd become stood between them. "You have no right to keep coming at me when I've so plainly told you I'm not interested."