Page 20 of The Rings that Bind


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His rare bout of indecision was steamrollered over by Robert swooping on Rosa and pulling her into an exuberant embrace.

‘You look beautiful, Mrs Baranski.’ He beamed, letting her go but taking her hand and planting a kiss on it.

Robert King was easily in his seventies, and Butterfly Island was but a small part of his empire. King Island, an uninhabited island he also owned, was to be used as a base for Nico’s miners. If the contracts were not signed Nico could forget about mining offshore.

At that precise moment, though, Nico wanted nothing more than to pull the old man away from his wife and tell him to keep his liver-spotted hands to himself.

But of course he did nothing of the sort, and nor did he understand where this primitive, possessive urge had come from. He could only assume the heat of the day had somehow got to him.

Robert made the introductions and then led them through to the restaurant, which was as lush and opulent as the rest of the resort.

* * *

Rosa could not help but wish they were dining outside, in one of the beachside restaurants, where the soft breeze would cool them naturally, rather than inside with the air-conditioning turned on full-blast. She shivered and rubbed her arms, wishing she could move a little closer to Nico and take advantage of his body heat.

Robert looked at Nico. ‘Red or white?’

‘Do you have Pouilly-Fumé on your wine list?’ Nico asked

‘We certainly do.’ Robert clicked his fingers and a waiter, who had been hovering on the sidelines, practically flew over.

‘Do you want white too, Rosa?’ Nico asked pointedly.

Rosa suppressed a smile.

Now that she was seated, and had got over her shock at seeing Robert’s wife, she had started to relax a little.

Somewhere in her imaginings she had conjured up an image of an elderly, yet perfectly coiffured and immaculately dressed lady—a kind of glamorous gran. The reality was markedly different. Laura King, who wasted no time in bragging that she had once worked as a model, was a good forty years her husband’s junior, and stood a good foot taller than him too. She was stunning: ultra-tanned and toned, with long sun-bleached blonde hair that fell in a sheet to a pert derrière enhanced by a tiny gold dress.

In short, she was everything Rosa wasn’t.

From feeling happy with the outfit she had selected, Rosa now felt utterly flat. She could not help but imagine Nico comparing the two women—his rather plain wife seated next to him opposed to the glittery beauty opposite.

Nico wouldn’t have to pretend with Laura. He would want to make love to her for herself, and not out of ferocious pride. The same pride that would not allow anyone to know he had shared a roof with a woman for almost a year without once becoming intimate with her.

He would never have stood Laura up on her birthday.

It made her belly curdle and her blood simmer to know he only thought of her, Rosa, as an asset in his successful life. He wanted to keep this asset, neatly ticked off in the box marked ‘wife’, not because he didn’t want to lose her, per se, but because he didn’t want to lose. Full stop.

He would never want her for herself.

Whatever she wore, however much money she spent, Rosa would never be anything but a distant star compared with Laura’s dazzling sun. Judging from the less than subtle glances being thrown her way, she had a feeling the Amazonian agreed.

‘How long have you two been married?’ Laura asked in a syrupy voice.

‘Eleven months.’

‘Eleven and a half months,’ Nico corrected.

‘Oh, so you’re still newlyweds! And what are you planning for your first anniversary? Something special?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Rosa agreed sweetly. No way would she allow her feelings of intimidation to show. ‘I’m planning to divorce him.’ She cast a quick glance at Nico, to see how he had taken her off-the-cuff quip. His face was set in its usual impassive mask.

Laura squealed with laughter. ‘That is so funny.’

‘Isn’t it? How long have you two been married?’

Laura fluttered her extended lashes at her husband. ‘Three years. It feels like for ever—doesn’t it, darling?’

The conversation went rapidly downhill. Laura completely dominated it, mostly throwing sugar-laced barbs at her husband and casting lingering eyes at Nico when she thought no one was looking. For his part, Robert seemed oblivious to his wife’s behaviour, beaming throughout.

After the main course Laura excused herself to ‘powder her nose’, while Robert insisted there were new guests he needed to welcome.

‘Are you all right?’ Nico asked quietly once they were alone.

‘Me? I’m fine.’

‘She is a little...full-on.’

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