Chapter Three #2
Two years ago, he hadn’t told Dulcie that he was the son of a duke or that his family owned a castle. And not only because, unlike the rest of his family, he rarely used his title. He’d learned that people changed when they found out those facts.
But his reasons for not telling her were more complicated than that.
Shortly before they’d met and after years of simply playing at being the heir, Edo had decided he wanted to step up for real.
In consequence and for the first time in what felt like for ever, Ettore had slipped the leash and his security detail and escaped to Paris.
His plan had been to be himself. To find out what that meant.
Instead, he’d found Dulcie.
And it had felt like fate. His mind had been made up.
Marrying her was the impetus he’d needed to walk away from a life in a gilded cage that felt narrow and not his own.
All they’d needed was each other. Only then Oscar had appeared, and his new wife’s focus had switched to her brother, and he had panicked, and in his panic he had pushed her to choose between them.
She had chosen Oscar and ended their marriage.
And it had been as if some great foundation stone had been smashed. Two months later Edo and his mother had been in the family mausoleum, and it was his sister, Fia, who had left the castle. He had been left to pick up the pieces. He was still picking them up now.
But there was no need to share any of that with Dulcie. Some of it was beyond her pay grade and the rest she would find out after she had signed the relevant paperwork.
‘It was a good year.’
He moved in the opposite direction to her, still keeping her at the edge of his vision, not crowding her as he had in Cambridge, giving her space. A planet orbiting a sun.
Years of managing his family had taught him better than any business qualification how to negotiate his preferred outcome but seeing Dulcie in Cambridge had made him forget everything he knew.
All he had been able to think about was that she was there and that she was no longer his, and he had felt so angry and thwarted, and she had felt his anger and fled.
So now he waited. Made himself wait for her to bat the ball back over the net.
‘So why do you need a wife?’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes locking onto his, the blue of the irises bright and clean-edged like the feathers on a jay’s wing.
‘That is why you want to stay married to me, isn’t it?
And it must be something important to drag you all the way to England to come and find me.
I mean, you’ve managed to avoid doing that for two years. ’
She was smart. Smarter than many people probably gave her credit for, and by people he meant mostly men. Most likely they clocked the hair and the mouth and the curves.
He had, he thought, remembering the moment when she had stumbled into the airport with her suitcase wearing a pale blue cardigan and heeled sandals that had probably looked perfect for a late spring break in Paris but had been woefully inadequate for the unseasonal storm whipping its way through the city.
A storm had whipped its way through his body at the sight of the sodden fabric clinging to her skin. With her hair falling in wet strands over her shoulders and her unsteady gait, she had looked like a mermaid who had swapped her tail for legs.
And she had been holding a cuddly toy and all he’d been able to think was that he was too late. She’d had a baby. Had a partner.
She’d glanced up at the departure board, frowning, and he’d seen her shoulders rise and rise.
And then she’d turned and scanned the concourse, her blue eyes narrowing on a distant coffee concession, then back to a passing air steward.
Even at that distance he’d known her eyes would be the drowning blue of the ocean.
He’d been on his feet and on his way towards her before he’d remembered he didn’t know her.
Marrying her hadn’t changed that fact.
It was only then that he realised that Dulcie was staring at him assessingly, and that he had no idea how much time had passed since she’d asked her question.
‘My father is ill. He’s an old man and his heart is failing. I can’t change that. And he’s had a good life.’ A tumultuous life might be a better description. ‘I think he would say that he has done everything he set out to do.’
‘But he wants to see you married.’
Smart, he thought again.
He nodded.
It was easier to confirm a lie than to be the one to tell it in the first instance. But if he told her that he needed a wife to satisfy some ancient, irrational clause about inheritance it would simply throw up questions with answers that would lead onto more questions.
There was a sudden stiffness to her face.
‘Then you’re doing this for your father?’ There was a bitterness to her voice, and he knew that she must be thinking about the choice he had thrust upon her two years ago.
But this wasn’t just about his family. Letting the castle and the estate pass to his uncle or his cousins would be like setting fire to six hundred years of history. Not to mention the people who worked for him and relied on the estate for their income and, in some cases, their homes.
He had sympathy for Oscar, but Dulcie had instantly prioritised her brother over him, which hurt.
It sounded petty, and it was, shamingly and uncharacteristically so.
Because he was not a petty man. He had learned to live with his parents’ favouritism for his siblings because you didn’t choose your family.
But what man could stand to be sidelined in his marriage?
‘You think I’m a hypocrite.’
She didn’t bother to disagree, just stared at him in silence. Then, after a long pause, she said slowly, ‘I’m sorry. About your father.’ She hesitated. ‘Does he know about us? Was that why you came to find me? Was it his idea?’
Ettore felt his chest tighten. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘He doesn’t know.’
And really, what was there to know? He and Dulcie were married for five weeks and six days. And how was he to tell it? He didn’t have the vocabulary to describe a marriage that had imploded without warning. Nor an inclination to share the truth. That his wife had chosen her family over him.
‘It seemed a little indulgent.’
She blinked. ‘Indulgent?’
‘It would have stirred up a lot of questions and emotions for no reason. The marriage was over.’ In truth, it had barely begun. ‘Are you saying you told your family?’ he said after a moment, his throat constricting.
Because she hadn’t told Oscar. And she could have. They were still together then, still planning for a future.
Or perhaps she wasn’t.
He could still remember the moment when he realised that she hadn’t and didn’t want to tell her brother that she was married.
‘It’s not the right time.’ That was what she’d said after having introduced him to Oscar as her boyfriend, but if not then, when? It had been impossible to ignore, like a stone in a shoe. It was true that he hadn’t told his family at that point but, clearly, he would have done so.
Dulcie’s hesitation had made him question himself. He’d had to know for sure what he meant to her.
And she’d told him.
Now her gaze stayed steady, but her voice was scratchy when she answered. ‘Like you said, there was no point. It was easier just to forget it ever happened.’
It: their marriage, and, by association, him.
‘Until now,’ she added, and their eyes locked.
‘Until now,’ he agreed.
‘So how do you see this working?’
Good question, he thought. How did he see it working? But the answer was not something he had given much thought to until he’d opened his mouth yesterday and said something completely different from what he’d been planning to say.
‘I suppose we would act as man and wife,’ he said finally, a pulse beating in his hand as if his heart had momentarily relocated from his chest.
Man and wife. The words made him think of damp skin and soft lighting and a tangle of bedsheets and, gazing down at Dulcie, he saw that her pulse was beating in time with his and a flush of colour was contouring her cheekbones.
‘In public,’ he clarified, although there must be something wrong with him because it was hard not to stall his reply so he could watch a flush of pink seep down over the smooth pale underside of her jaw.
‘In private, we would simply be ourselves.’
He had no idea what that meant but she let it pass.
‘And the money?’
Given that it was his idea to pay her, her question stung more than it should, and he suddenly wished that he had never mentioned money.
He held her gaze. ‘Do you have a figure in mind?’
‘I thought you would. You’re the one putting a price on our marriage.
’ She stared straight back into his eyes.
‘Like you said, I’m going to have to give up my jobs and pay my rent.
And I looked into the kind of clinics that do residential rehab, and the Dymphna Clinic looks like the best fit for Oscar.
It’s more expensive but I want the best for him.
’ Her eyes found his, blue, unblinking, challenging him to refuse. ‘I’ll let you do the maths.’
And perhaps there was something wrong with him because he would have paid ten times what it would cost him to get her to smile at him then.
‘I can do that.’
‘And just so we’re clear, it’s going to be a loan, not a gift. I’ll set up a standing order to your account.’ She stared at him steadily. ‘It might take some time, but I’ll pay back every penny.’
That stung too, more so than if she had accepted his money unquestioningly. Which made no sense whatsoever.
Clearly he was still processing her sudden change of heart. ‘Anything else?’
She bit her lip. ‘Then there’s the marriage licence. How are we going to explain that we got married two years ago?’
‘It’s probably best if we stick as close to the truth as possible. Let’s say that we argued and you stormed off—’
‘I didn’t storm off.’ She frowned. ‘We were in my flat—’
‘Fine, then I will storm off in our “pretend” past.’
She lifted up her chin. ‘Good. Because storming off suits you better. In our “pretend” past.’ There was a rasp to her voice now. ‘And then you realised you made a big mistake and came looking for me.’
Now it was his turn to shake his head. ‘We bumped into one another by chance, and it all started up again.’
What exactly did he mean by ‘it’? But he didn’t need to ask the question.
He could feel ‘it’ skating over his skin and in the low thud of hunger in his stomach. And he was certain, without having any kind of proof, that Dulcie was feeling it too.
It had always been that way, their bodies communicating without language. But this wasn’t their story, it was make-believe. And yet it felt real, and that faint tremor beneath her skin and the flush across her cheeks looked real too.
Because he knew her desire as well as he knew his own.
For a moment, they stared at one another, his pulse reverberating inside him so loudly he was surprised she couldn’t hear it.
‘And you think that’s believable?’
There were pink smudges on her cheeks shaped like thumbprints, just as if he had touched her there, and for a few half-seconds they stared at each other in the shifting silence shimmering around their too tense bodies.
And then he stepped closer, close enough that he could feel her warm breath and watch her eyes cling to him as he moved.
‘It’s not a question of whether I believe it. It either is or it isn’t.’
‘And is it?’
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ he said, and he brought his mouth down on hers and he felt her body stiffen, her hands press against his chest except she wasn’t pushing, she was pulling him closer.
He felt his body harden and he parted her lips, deepening the kiss, his hand flattening against her spine, and he was on the verge of tilting her head back and moving to kiss her throat when he heard the sound of his bodyguards’ voices in the adjoining room.
It was enough to shatter the spell he was under. Loosening his grip, he broke the kiss and Dulcie edged away from him, her blue eyes wide and shocked.
‘I think we can pull it off, don’t you?’
Without waiting for her response, he turned and walked over to a marble-topped console table and picked up an envelope. ‘I have a contract for you to sign. Once it’s signed, I’ll transfer the money to your account. And you’ll need a ring,’ he added after a moment.
Her pulse nudged the skin at the base of her throat. ‘I still have the one you gave me.’
She had?
The air seemed to thicken around him, and he wanted to ask her why. But he still had his ring too and cross-examining Dulcie might legitimately require him to explain his motives for hanging onto it. Better simply to move on.
‘And I have the one you gave me.’
There was a beat of silence and then she said in that light, clear voice that he found so fascinating, ‘So what happens now?’ She had recovered her composure, but he could still see the faint flush of colour along her collarbone.
He took his time, wanting to enjoy the storm still swirling in her eyes. ‘We restart our married life together,’ he said softly.
And this time it would be on his terms.