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‘Like I said before, it is a very pretty part of the country,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And Julia did say that she and Silas are hoping that ultimately they will be spending more time here. Of course when Julia’s grandfather dies Silas will inherit the title and the house, but they both want their children to grow up knowing their English heritage as well as their American heritage.’
She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. It had been a good evening, with the three men getting on as well as the women did themselves. There had even been whole moments when she had almost managed to persuade herself that she and Marcus were a normal soon-to-be married couple.
She certainly wished that they were. Just as she wished that right now they were going back to their hotel suite as genuine lovers who just couldn’t wait to be alone together.
Lucy had fallen asleep within minutes of them leaving her friends, and as he brought the car to a halt in the hotel car park Marcus turned in his seat to look at her. He would be glad when she was safely married to him and he could once again focus his attention on the bank, instead of constantly having to be on his guard in case Lucy tried to change her mind and refuse to go through with their marriage.
He reached out and touched her arm, saying calmly, ‘Lucy—wake up. We’re here.’
‘Marcus?’ Emotion illuminated her whole face as she looked back at him. Suddenly Marcus felt as though he had been kicked in the chest and deprived of the ability to breathe. Something—a feeling—a need—roared through him, threatening to blast apart the fixed standing stones of his beliefs.
Oblivious to what was happening to him, Lucy continued sleepily, ‘I was just dreaming about you and…’
‘And?’ Marcus probed, his voice rusty as he fought back an unfamiliar urge to take hold of her and go on holding her, so that he could satisfy his need to physically experience the reality of her.
‘Nothing.’ Lucy shook her head, but she could feel her face going a betraying shade of pink. It was obvious that Marcus had guessed just what she had been dreaming, too, because all of sudden there was a very definite gleam in his eyes.
‘Do I take it from that pretty pink flush that it was the kind of dream I would enjoy turning into reality?’ he asked, as his own body responded to the desire he could see in her eyes.
It took Lucy several speeded-up heartbeats to recognise that Marcus was actually flirting with her, and several more to take a deep breath, jettison her pride and answer him boldly. ‘Well, I would certainly enjoy you doing so, Marcus. Marcus!’ she protested breathlessly, as suddenly he kissed her so fiercely that she could hardly breathe.
‘Come on,’ he commanded, releasing her and then getting out of the car and going round to open the passenger door for her.
Their journey from the car to their suite was accomplished in between so many kisses that Lucy felt half delirious with desire by the time they reached their room. Holding her within one arm, Marcus continued to kiss her while he inserted the key in the lock and turned the handle.
A fire was burning in the hearth, the maid had been up and closed the curtains, and the room itself smelled of pine logs and warmth and intimacy.
‘Marcus…’ she whispered eagerly.
‘Mmm?’
‘Hurry.’
‘Like this, do you mean?’
He was touching her, despite the fact that they were both still fully dressed, so that her whole body convulsed.
‘My clothes…’ she protested, wanting to be rid of them. But her body was telling Marcus that it didn’t want to wait—and, he realised fiercely, neither did his own.
He took her quickly and hotly, there and then, in the shadowy bedroom, compelled and driven by his need to possess her and make her his in a way that was totally outside anything he had ever previously experienced.
She loved what he was doing—and the way he was doing it, Lucy thought dizzily as she wrapped her legs around him and felt the swift surges of pleasure grip her. Later there would be time to undress, to pleasure one another more slowly and thoroughly, but right now this was exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it. How she wanted him.
She still couldn’t fully take it in that that a few weeks from now she would actually be Marcus’s wife. Lucy took a gulp of her espresso and reminded herself sternly that the reason she was here in her office was to work, and not to think about the many and varied pleasures of becoming Mrs Marcus Carring. Pleasures which, right now, were suppressing the doubts that had been tormenting her. It was, after all, an undeniable truth that those pleasures were so many and so varied that it was almost impossible for her not to fantasise about them. And so…
Hastily she forced herself to concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing—namely, updating her client files and dealing with her other paperwork. The slow trickle of new business had now become a sporadic drip—little more than sympathy and family-generated events. Which was a problem, of course, so far as securing enough future income to finance her Prêt a Party debts was concerned, but not so much of a problem when she thought of the amount of time it would free up for her to get used to being married. In fact, if it wasn’t for the wretched debts Nick had left her, she could have been very happy, slowly rebuilding her business on a much smaller and more containable scale.
Lucy had another gulp of her favourite caffeine fix and idly scanned the huge double-page spread of photographs from Nat’s christening which, true to form, Dorland had used as his centrepiece for that week’s A-List Life. There was one especially good photograph of her holding her new godson, with Marcus standing at her side.
Marcus. She was doing the right thing in marrying him, she told herself firmly.
There was a loud knock on her half-open office door and she swung round eagerly, hoping to see Marcus, although he had told her that he was driving to Manchester today to see a client.
‘Lucy. Good, I hoped you would be here.’
Andrew Walker.
Lucy stared at her unexpected and definitely unwanted visitor in apprehensive dismay, unable to say anything more than an uncomfortable, ‘Oh! Andrew. You did get my letter, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Lucy. I got your letter,’ he confirmed, walking past her to stand in front of the window, so that her expression was plainly revealed to him whilst he was just a fuzzy dark blur against the sunlit windows.
‘I was very sorry to learn that you no longer wanted to proceed with our plans. In fact I was so disappointed that I thought I’d come and see you to see if I could find a way to persuade you to change your mind.’
Was she imagining it, or was there a subtle threat in those calmly spoken words? Lucy could feel the sharp hammer-blows of her heartbeat as it mirrored her fear.
‘I explained in my letter, Andrew. I’m getting married and—’
‘Yes, indeed. To Marcus Carring, I believe.’
‘Yes,’ Lucy acknowledged. ‘Yes. And once we are married Marcus wants to become my partner in Prêt a Party.’ That should convince Andrew Walker that it wasn’t just her he had to contend with now, even if she was in reality fibbing to him.
‘Really?’
There was something in the way Andrew Walker was looking at her that made Lucy feel afraid.
‘You know, my dear, you are turning down a wonderful business opportunity here. And as for allowing your hu
sband to be to become your partner…One never knows these days what the future of a marriage will be. Modern marriages are such very flimsy constructions at the best of times, don’t you think? A sensible woman might think it a good idea to maintain her own financial independence from her husband.’
Lucy only just managed to stop herself from gasping out loud. Had Andrew Walker somehow read her mind? What he had just said echoed everything she had been saying to herself.
‘My partners and I are prepared to make you a very generous offer to buy into Prêt a Party, Lucy, and I can give you my assurance that everything will be dealt with very discreetly. The cash could be paid into an overseas bank of your choice, should you want that, and no one apart from ourselves need ever know anything about the whole transaction.’
If she hadn’t known the truth about him she would have been very tempted to accept what he was offering her, Lucy recognised. Because, despite the fact that Marcus physically desired her, her fear that without love their marriage could not survive would not go away. It was that fear that had prevented her from accepting Marcus’s offer of finance and his suggestion that he came into the business, and that fear, too, that made her want to keep Prêt a Party under her own control and not share it with a husband.
But Andrew Walker’s statement had reminded her of everything Dorland had said to her.
‘No, I suppose they needn’t—including those poor wretches whose lives you’ve ruined to get the money in the first place,’ she burst out impetuously. ‘I know all about why you want Prêt a Party, you know—and what you’re doing.’
There was a small, tight silence and then Andrew Walker said sharply, ‘Do you indeed?’
She had made another mistake, Lucy realised. And a very bad one.
