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If she had only known how appropriate that nickname would come to be, she would have turned and run, as far and as fast as she possibly could. But now she was two years older, she’d been tested by life, been down some long, dark tunnels and had reached the other side. Perhaps she was still bruised and bloody, with scars barely healing over deep wounds she’d endured, but she was standing, and she wasn’t going to let anyone knock her down again.
But there was a huge difference between feeling that and actually challenging someone like Raoul Cardini to come right out and say exactly what his plans were. Especially when she didn’t know how much danger her whole family was in.
She was aware of the way Ciara had reacted last night when she’d learned that Raoul was their guest, staying at Blacklands for the days leading up to the wedding. She had been subdued all through the evening and this morning; something was clearly upsetting her sister. She looked distracted and unusually unsure of herself, her eyes slightly puffy from lack of sleep in a way that concerned Imogen.
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle O’Sullivan,’ Raoul inserted smoothly, strolling out of the tack room with lazy grace. Ciara shot a swift, strangely nervous glance in his direction.
‘Morning,’ she muttered almost inaudibly, her hazel eyes focused on Imogen’s face. ‘So, what do we have left to do today, Immi?’
‘Perhaps you can give me a guided tour of the stud that Imogen is apparently too busy to manage today,’ Raoul put in, something in his lazy drawl scraping uncomfortably over nerves that were far too close to the surface of Imogen’s skin. And Ciara’s too, it seemed.
It was definitely an appeal for help that Ciara turned on her now—a plea to be rescued from heaven knew what—but it obviously had something to do with Raoul Cardini. Just what had frightened her sister so badly? Could it be that Raoul had come here not just for the business deal he had described, but perhaps for something to do with Ciara’s past? Perhaps to do with the reason her job as a nanny had ended so rapidly, which her sister had refused to reveal to her? Imogen wished she’d had more time to get to know Ciara properly before the threat of total ruin had brought this wedding on them.
‘There’s plenty still to do,’ she managed over-breezily. ‘We have to sort out that hemline on your bridesmaid’s dress…’
Imogen had made the right move. Immediately some of the tension left her sister’s face and she almost smiled.
‘And you promised Geraldine you’d help her with the name cards for the table.’
Raoul would never know just what a fiction that one was. Adnan’s mother was totally in charge of every preparation for the reception and she would give anyone who tried to intervene very short shrift indeed. But the glance of gratitude from Ciara made the lie worthwhile. Her sister was already turning towards the door, looking like a rabbit that had just been released from a trap,
‘I hope you have a good day, Mr Cardini,’ Imogen tossed in his direction, not quite having the nerve to meet his stony glare, though she hoped her rather breathless tone could be taken for airy and unconcerned. ‘I’ll ask one of the grooms to give you the tour, if you like.’
The tour of the part of the business they’d be happy to show him, and not the one he’d obviously been angling for. The one that wouldn’t let him pry into secrets that were none of his business. So far they’d managed to hide just how bad things were; she didn’t want Raoul finding out more.
‘Oh, don’t bother.’
That lazy voice was back but she could catch the thread of steel that ran through it like a warning rumble of thunder before a storm broke.
‘I’m sure I can manage on my own. You can find out the things you most want to know that way.’
It was meant to sound casual, indifferent, but there was so much more in his voice. The growing storm was coming nearer, dangerously so. She would have to find out just what was happening with Ciara and figure out how she could proceed from there. And she’d have to make sure that, whatever Raoul had in mind, he didn’t get a chance to put it into action.
This sleek, elegant man with the closely cropped black hair, the burning golden eyes above lean, bronzed cheeks and the arrogant tilt to his proud head was so very different from the man she had met on that magical holiday. The young, carefree, raw and sexy Raoul with the suntanned skin, bare feet and over-long hair was the man she had fallen in love with. The man who had broken her heart. Then his friend Rosalie had warned her that Raoul was not all he seemed, but she’d been so deep in love she’d ignored it. Or at least hadn’t listened to it properly. So she’d been stunned to find that her own teasing nickname for him was the very one that was used in the international business world to describe his ruthless, cold-blooded determination to make a profit.
