Buch lesen: «Awakened By The Scarred Italian»

CHAPTER ONE

LARA TEMPLETON WAS glad of the delicate black lace obscuring her vision and hiding her dry eyes from the sly looks of the crowd around the open grave. They might well suspect that she wasn’t grieving the death of her husband, the not so Honourable Henry Winterborne, but she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of confirming it for themselves. So she kept herself hidden. Dressed in sober black from head to toe, as befitting a widow.

A grieving widow who had been left nothing by her husband. Who had, in fact, been little more than an indentured slave for the last three months. A detail this crowd of jackals would no doubt crow over if it ever became public knowledge.

Her husband had had good reason to leave her with nothing. She wouldn’t have wanted his money anyway. It wasn’t why she’d married him, no matter what people believed. And he hadn’t left her anything because she hadn’t given him what he wanted. Herself. It was her fault he’d ended up injured and in a wheelchair for the duration of their marriage.

No, it wasn’t your fault. If he hadn’t tried to—

Lara’s churning thoughts skittered to a halt when she realised that people were looking at her expectantly. The back of her neck prickled.

The priest gave a discreet cough and said, sotto voce, ‘If you’d like to throw some soil on the coffin now, Mrs Winterborne...’

Lara flinched inwardly at the reference to her married name. The marriage had been a farce, and she’d only agreed to it because she’d been blackmailed into it by her uncle. She saw a trowel on the ground near the edge of the grave and, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, because she felt like a hypocrite, she bent down and scooped up some earth before letting it fall onto the coffin. It made a hollow-sounding thunk.

For a moment she had the nonsensical notion that her husband might reach out from the grave and pull her in with him, and she almost stumbled forward into the empty space.

There was a gasp from the crowd and the priest caught her arm to steady her.

Unbelievable, thought the man standing nonchalantly against a tree nearby with his arms crossed over a broad chest. He fixed his gaze on the widow, but she didn’t look his way once. She was too busy acting the part—practically throwing herself into the grave.

His mouth firmed, its sensual lines drawing into one hard flat one. He had to hand it to her. She played the part well, dressed in a black form-fitting dress that clung to her willowy graceful frame. Her distinctive blonde hair was tied back in a low bun and a small circular hat sat on her head with a gauzy veil obscuring her face. Oh, he had no doubt she was genuinely grieving...but not for her husband. For the fortune she hadn’t been left.

The man’s mouth curved up into a cruel smile. That was the least Lara Winterborne, née Templeton, deserved.

The back of Lara’s neck prickled again. But this time it prickled with heat. Awareness. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She looked up, shaking off the strange sensation, relieved to see that people were moving away from the grave, talking in low tones. It was over.

A movement in the distance caught her eye and she saw the tall figure of a man, broad and powerful, walking away towards the cars. He wore a cap and what looked like a uniform. Just one of the drivers.

But something about his height and those broad shoulders snagged her attention...the way he walked with loose-limbed athleticism. More than her attention. For a fleeting moment she felt dizzy because he reminded her of... No. She shut down the thought immediately. It couldn’t be him.

Snippets of nearby whispered conversation distracted Lara from the stranger, and as much as she tried to tune it out some words couldn’t be unheard.

‘Is it really true? She gets nothing?’

‘Never should have married her...’

‘She was only trying to save her reputation after almost marrying one of the world’s most notorious playboys...’

That last comment cut far too close to her painful memories, but Lara had become adept at disregarding snide comments over the past two years. Contrary to what these people believed, she couldn’t be more relieved that she’d been left with not a cent of Winterborne’s fortune.

She would never have married him in a million years if she hadn’t been faced with an impossible situation. A heinous betrayal by her uncle. Nevertheless, she wasn’t such a monster that she couldn’t feel some emotion for Winterborne’s death. But mostly she felt empty. Weary. Tainted by association.

The grief she did feel was for something else entirely. Something that had been snatched away from her before it had ever had a chance to live and breathe. Someone. Someone she’d loved more than she’d ever thought it possible to love another human being. He’d been hurt and tortured because of her. He’d almost died. She’d had no choice but to do what she had to save him further pain and possibly worse.

Swallowing back the constriction in her throat, Lara finally turned away from the grave and started to walk towards where just a couple of cars remained. She wasn’t paying for any of this. She couldn’t afford it. As soon as she returned to the exclusive apartment she’d shared with her husband there would be staff waiting with her bags to escort her off the premises. Her husband had wanted to maintain the façade as far as the graveside. But now all bets were off. She was on her own.

She clamped down on the churning panic in her gut. She would deal with what to do and where to go when she had to.

That’s in approximately half an hour, Lara!

She ignored the inner voice.

One of the funeral directors was standing by the back door of her car, holding it open. She saw the shadowy figure of the driver in the front seat. Once again she felt that prickle of recognition but she told herself she was being silly, superstitious. She was only thinking of him now because she was finally free of the burden that had been thrust upon her. But she couldn’t allow her thoughts to go there.

She murmured her thanks as she sat into the back of the luxurious car. It was the last bit of decadence she’d experience for some time. Not that she cared. A long time ago, when she’d lost her parents and her older brother in a tragic accident, she’d learnt the hard way that nothing external mattered once you’d lost the people you loved most.

But clearly it hadn’t been enough of a lesson to protect her from falling in love with—

The car started moving and Lara welcomed the distraction.

Not thinking of him now.

No matter how much a random stranger had reminded her of him.

Unable to stop her curiosity, though, she looked at the only part of the driver’s face she could see in the rear-view mirror. It was half hidden by aviator-style sunglasses, but she could see a strong aquiline nose and firm top lip. A hard, defined jaw.

Her heart started to beat faster, even though rationally she knew it couldn’t possibly be—

At that moment he seemed to sense her regard from the back and she saw his arm move before the privacy window slid up. Cutting her off.

For some reason Lara felt as if he’d put the window up as a rebuke. Ridiculous. He was just a driver! He’d probably assumed she wanted some privacy...

Still, the disquieting niggle wouldn’t go away.

It got worse when she realised that while they were headed in the right direction, back to the Kensington apartment she’d shared with her husband, they weren’t getting closer. They were veering off the main high street onto another street nearby, populated by tall, exclusive townhouses.

Lara had walked down this street nearly every day for two years, and had relished every second she wasn’t in the oppressively claustrophobic apartment with her husband. But it wasn’t her street. The driver must be mistaken.

As the car drew to a stop outside one of the houses Lara leant forward and tapped the window. For a moment nothing happened. She tapped again, and suddenly it slid down with a mechanical buzz.

The driver was still facing forward, his left hand on the wheel. For some reason Lara felt nervous. Yet she was on a familiar street with people passing by the car.

‘Excuse me, we’re not in the right place. I’m just around the corner, on Marley Street.’

Lara saw the man’s jaw clench, and then he said, ‘On the contrary, cara. We’re in exactly the right place.’

That voice. His voice.

Lara’s breath stopped in her throat and in the same moment the man took off the cap and removed his sunglasses and turned around to face her.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, stupefied. In shock. Time ceased to exist as a linear thing.

His words from two years ago were still etched into her mind. ‘You will regret this for the rest of your life, Lara. You belong to me.’

And here he was to crow over her humiliation.

Ciro Sant’Angelo.

The fact that she’d said to him that day, ‘I will regret nothing,’ was not a memory she relished. She’d regretted it every second since that day. But she’d been desperate, and she’d had no choice. He’d been brutalised and almost killed. And all because she’d had the temerity to meet him and fall in love, going against the very exacting plans her uncle had orchestrated on her behalf, unbeknownst to her.

If she was honest with herself, she’d dreamed of this moment. That Ciro would come for her. But the reality was almost too much to take in. She wasn’t prepared. She would never be prepared for a man like Ciro Sant’Angelo. She hadn’t been two years ago and she wasn’t now.

Panic surged. She blindly reached for the door handle but it wouldn’t open. She tried the other one. Locked. Breathless, she looked back at him and said, ‘Open the doors, Ciro, this is crazy.’

But nothing happened. He responded with a sardonic twist of his mouth. ‘Should I be flattered that you remember me, Lara?’

She might have laughed at that moment if she hadn’t been so stunned. Ciro Sant’Angelo was not a man easily forgotten by anyone. Tall, broad and leanly muscular, he oozed charisma and authority. Add to that the stunning symmetry of a face dominated by deep-set dark eyes and a mouth sculpted for sin. A hard jaw and slightly hawkish profile cancelled out any prettiness.

He would have been perfection personified if it wasn’t for the jagged white ridge of skin that ran from under his right eye to his jaw. She could only look at it now with sick horror as the knowledge sank into her gut: she was responsible for that brutal scar.

He angled the right side of his face towards her, a hard light in his eyes. ‘Does it disgust you?’

She shook her head slowly. It didn’t detract from his beauty, it added a savage element. Dangerous.

‘Ciro...’ Lara said faintly now, as the truth finally sank in, deep in her gut. This wasn’t a dream or a mirage...or a nightmare. She shook her head. ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’

I want what’s mine.

The words beat through Ciro Sant’Angelo’s body like a Klaxon. His blood was up, boiling over.

Lara Templeton—Winterborne—was here. Within touching distance. After two long years. Years in which he’d tried and failed to excise her treacherous, beautiful face from his mind.

A face he needed to see now more than he needed to acknowledge her question. ‘Take your hat off.’

Her bright blue eyes flashed behind the veil. He could see the slope of her cheek down to that delicate jaw and the mouth that had made him want to sin as soon as he’d laid eyes on it. Full and ripe. A sensual reminder that beneath her elegant and coolly blonde exterior she was all fire.

Her lips compressed for a second and then she lifted a trembling hand—another nice dramatic touch—and pulled off the hat and veil.

And even though Ciro had steeled himself to face her once again she took his breath away. She hadn’t changed in two years. She was still a classic beauty. Finely etched eyebrows framing huge blue eyes ringed with long dark lashes... High cheekbones and a straight nose... And that mouth... Like a crushed rosebud. Promising decadence even as her eyes sent a message of innocence and naivety.

He’d fallen for it. Badly. Almost fatally.

‘Not here,’ he said curtly, angry with himself for letting Lara get to him on a level that he’d hoped to have under control. ‘We’ll talk inside.’

Inside where? Lara was about to ask, but Ciro was already out of the car and striding towards an intimidating townhouse. Her door was opened by a uniformed man—presumably the real driver?—and Lara didn’t have much choice but to step out of the back of the car.

As she did, she noticed two or three intimidating-looking men in suits with earpieces. Security. Of course. Ciro had always been cavalier about his safety before, but she could imagine that after the kidnapping he’d changed.

The kidnapping.

A cold shiver went down her spine. Ciro Sant’Angelo had been kidnapped and brutally assaulted two years ago. Lara had been kidnapped with him, but she’d been released within hours. Dumped at the side of a road outside Florence. It had been the singularly most terrifying thing they’d ever experienced and she’d been the reason it had happened.

For a moment Lara hesitated at the bottom of the steps leading up to a porch and an open front door. She could see black and white tiles in the circular hallway. A grand-looking interior.

‘Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting.’

One of the suited men was extending his arm towards the house. He looked civil enough, but she imagined it was a very superficial civility.

She went up the steps and through the door. A sleek-looking middle-aged woman approached her with a polite smile. ‘Miss Templeton, welcome. Please let me take your things. Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting for you in the lounge.’

Numbly, Lara handed over her hat and bag, barely even noticing the use of her maiden name. She wore a light cape-style coat over her shift dress and she left it on, even though it was warm. She followed the woman, not liking the sensation that she was walking into the lion’s den.

The sensation was only heightened when she saw the tall figure of Ciro, his back to her as he helped himself to a drink from a tray on the far side of the room.

‘Would you like tea or coffee, Miss Templeton?’

Lara shook her head at the question from the woman and murmured, ‘No, thanks.’ The housekeeper left the room.

The muted sounds of London traffic could be heard through the huge windows. It was a palatial lounge, beautifully decorated in classic colours with massive paintings hanging on the walls. The paintings were abstract, and a vivid memory exploded into Lara’s head of when Ciro had taken her to an art gallery in Florence, after hours.

They’d only just met a few days previously, and she’d been surprised enough at his choice of gallery to make him say with a mocking smile, ‘You expected a rough Sicilian to have no taste?’

She’d blushed, because he’d exposed her for assuming that a very alpha Italian man would veer towards something more...classical, conservative.

She’d turned to him, still shy around him, wondering what on earth he was doing with her, a pale English arts student. ‘You’re not rough...not at all.’

He’d been like a sleek panther, oozing a very lethal sense of coiled sensual energy.

The gallery had been hushed and reverential. She could still remember the delicious knot of tension deep in her abdomen, and how she’d thought to herself, How can I not fall in love with this man who opens art galleries especially for me and makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt?

They hadn’t even kissed at that stage...

Ciro’s voice broke through her reverie. ‘Would you like something stronger, Lara? Perhaps some brandy for the overwhelming grief you must be feeling?’

Lara’s nerves were jangling. He’d turned to face her now, and she noticed that he’d taken off the jacket and wore dark trousers and a white shirt open at the throat. Her mouth went dry. She knew how he tasted there. She could still remember how she’d explored that hollow with her tongue—

Stop.

She ignored his question. ‘How long have you lived here?’ Had he been here all this time? Just seconds away from where she’d been existing so miserably?

Lara thought she saw Ciro’s hand tighten on his glass, but put it down to her overwrought imagination. He said, ‘I bought it months ago but the renovations have only just been completed.’

So he hadn’t been living here. Somehow that thought comforted Lara. She didn’t know if she could have borne being married to Winterborne while knowing Ciro was so close. Even the thought of seeing him with another woman coming out of this house made her insides clench. Crazy. She had no jurisdiction over this man. She never had. She’d been dreaming. Delusional.

She lifted her chin. ‘I don’t have time for this, Ciro...whatever it is that you want. I have to be somewhere.’

Evicted. She ignored the fresh spiking of panic.

Ciro lifted his tumbler of golden liquid and downed the lot in one go. For a second Lara wished she’d asked for a drink.

Then he said slowly, ‘But that’s just it, Lara. You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?’

She actually felt the blood drain from her face. How could he possibly...?

‘How can I know?’

He read her mind. Speared her with that dark gaze. Maybe she’d spoken out loud. She felt as if she were slipping under water, losing all sense of control.

He lifted a brow. ‘The guests at the funeral were a hotbed of gossip, but I also have my contacts, who’ve informed me that Winterborne left everything to a distant relative and that as soon as you collect your things from the apartment, you’re out on the streets. As for your trust fund—apparently you’ve blown through that too. Poor penniless Lara. You should have stayed with me. I’m worth three times as much as your dead husband and you wouldn’t have had to put up with an old man in your bed for the past two years.’

Lara’s head hurt to think of how he’d obtained all that information about her trust fund, and her insides churned at the mention of old man.

Any money left to her by her parents had been long gone before she’d ever had a chance to lay her hands on it. ‘It was never about the money.’

Ciro’s mouth tightened. ‘No. It was about class.’

No, Lara thought, it was about blackmail and coercion.

But, yes, it had been about class too. Albeit not for her; she couldn’t have cared less about class. She never had. Not that Ciro would ever believe her. Not after the way she’d convinced him otherwise.

She clamped her lips together, resisting the urge to defend herself when she knew it would be futile. She hardly knew this person in front of her, even though at one time she’d felt as if she’d known every atom of his being. He’d disabused her of that romantic notion two years ago. Yet, she couldn’t deny the rapid and persistent spike in her pulse-rate ever since Ciro had revealed himself. Her body knew him.

Something caught her eye then, and she gasped. His right hand...the one holding the glass...was missing a little finger.

He saw where her gaze had gone. ‘Not very pretty, eh?’

Lara felt sick. She remembered Ciro lying in that hospital bed, his head and half his face covered in bandages...his arms... She’d been too distraught to notice much else.

‘They did that to you? The kidnappers?’ Her voice was a thread.

He nodded. ‘It amused them. They got bored, waiting for their orders.’

Lara realised that he was different. Harder. More intimidating. ‘Why am I here, Ciro?’

‘Because you betrayed me.’ He carefully put down the glass on the silver tray. And then he looked at her. ‘And I’m here to collect my due.’

My due. The words revolved sickeningly in Lara’s head.

‘I don’t owe you anything.’ The words felt cumbersome in her mouth.

Liar, whispered a voice.

‘Yes, Lara you do. You walked out on me when I needed you most, leaving me at the mercy of the press, who had a field day reviving all the old stories about my family’s links to the Mafia. Not only that, you left me without a bride.’

A spark of anger mixed with her guilt as she recalled the lurid headlines in the aftermath of the kidnapping and her subsequent engagement to Henry Winterborne. She focused on the anger.

‘You only wanted to marry me to take advantage of my connections to a society that had refused you access.’

Ciro hadn’t loved her. He’d wanted her because at first she’d intrigued him, with her naivety and innocence, and then because of her connections and her name.

Over the last two years, with the benefit of distance and hindsight, Lara had come to acknowledge how refreshing someone like her must have been for someone as jaded as him. She’d been so trusting. Loving.

If they had married it never would have lasted. Not beyond the point where her allure would have worn off and he would have become disenchanted with her innocence. Not beyond the point at which her name and connections would have served their purpose for his ambitions. Of that she had no doubt.

Of course he wasn’t going to forgive her for taking all that away from him. He was out for revenge.

For a heady moment Lara imagined telling him exactly what had happened. How events had conspired to drive them apart. How her uncle had so cruelly manipulated her. She even opened her mouth—but then she remembered Ciro’s caustic words. They resounded in her head as if he’d said them only moments ago.

‘Don’t delude yourself that I felt anything more for you than you felt for me, Lara. I wanted you, yes, but that was purely physical. More than all of that I wanted you because marrying you would have given me a stamp of respectability that money can’t buy.’

Ciro’s voice broke through the toxic memory as he said coolly, ‘I prefer to think of it as a kind of debt repayment. You said you’d marry me and I’m holding you to that original commitment. I need a wife, and I’ve no intention of getting into messy emotional entanglements when you’re so convenient.’

Lara’s blood drained south. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is it? Really? People have married for a lot less, Lara.’

She looked at him helplessly, torn between hating him for appearing like a magician to turn her world upside down and desperately wanting to defend herself. But she’d lost that chance when she’d informed him coldly that she’d never had any intention of going through with their marriage because she was already promised to someone else—someone eminently more suitable.

She’d told him that it had amused her to go along with his whirlwind proposal, just to see him make a fool of himself over a woman he could never hope to marry. She’d told him all her breathy words of love had been mere platitudes.

She’d never forget the look of pure loathing that had come over his face after she’d spoken those bilious words. That had been the moment when she’d realised how deluded she’d been. And on some level she’d been glad she was playing a role, that at least she knew how he’d really felt.

He was almost killed because of you.

Lara felt sick again. He hadn’t deserved that just for not loving her. And he hadn’t deserved her lies. He’d saved her from the kidnappers. He’d offered up his life for hers. And then she’d learned she’d never really been in danger. He didn’t know that, though. And right now the thought of him ever finding that out made her break out in a cold sweat. However much he hated her already, he would despise her even more.

Suddenly a ball of emotion swelled inside her chest. Lara couldn’t bear it that Ciro thought so badly of her, even if it was her fault that she’d convinced him so well. Seeing him again was ripping open a raw wound inside her, and before she knew what she was doing she took a step forward, words tumbling out of her mouth.

‘Ciro, I did want to marry you—more than anything. But my uncle...he was crazy...he’d lost everything. He didn’t want me to marry you—he saw you as unworthy of a Templeton. He forced me to say those awful things... They were all lies.’

Lara stopped abruptly and her words hung in the air. The atmosphere was thick with tension. Taut like a wire. Ciro was expressionless. She could remember a time when he’d used to look at her with such warmth and indulgence. And love, or so she’d thought. But it hadn’t been love. It had been desire. Physical desire and the desire for success.