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Put like that, so baldly, didn’t explain her lifelong need to earn her father’s approval and once having got it how she hadn’t wanted to let it go.
Lisa shook her suddenly aching head. She wished she hadn’t emptied that first glass so rapidly, wished she hadn’t started this. ‘It wasn’t quite like that. You make me sound really hard-hearted. Ben and I never loved each other.’
Automatically, she glanced down at her ringless finger. ‘We’ve always been fond of each other and I suppose we just drifted into the idea of marriage.’ A tiny shrug. ‘Actually, it was Ben who convinced me that letting Lifestyle fold wouldn’t be the end of the world for our parents, or for the staff. That I could tell you where to put your “demands” with an easy conscience.’
But she hadn’t, had she? A tide of warmth spread through the entire and towering length of Diego’s body as he stood up from the table and held out his hand to her. Which must mean she had come because she wanted to. Which, in turn, meant that she still felt something for him. Madre de Dios! If the past could be forgiven, the bitter years erased, then…
‘I was on the point of phoning you,’ she told him as they reached the sun-drenched pavement and fell in step. ‘And telling you I’d changed my mind and the deal was off, when my father told me he’d already had a meeting with you. I don’t know what you said to him but he’d got the idea that your rescue package had everything to do with our knowing each other in the past.’
Her mouth curved in a wry smile, aware that her tongue was still running away with her. ‘He told me I’d finally made up for not being the son he’d always wanted. Call me a fool if you like—I probably deserve it. But I couldn’t tell him the whole thing was off and have him go from being indifferent to me to actively hating me, could I?’
Suddenly, for Diego, the sun went in. His blood ran cold then burned with fire. Imbécil! Had he no more sense than he’d had five years ago? Of course she hadn’t agreed to come because she still wanted him, cared something for him!
She’d as good as sold herself to him for a period of time to earn her father’s approval.
He put his jealousy of the other man—her own father, for pity’s sake—down to anger, gritted the hard clean line of his jaw, the bitterness flooding back, and decided to take full advantage of what he’d bought and paid for.
Lisa.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVERYTHING had changed; she knew it had. The smallest shake of the kaleidoscope and a new pattern emerged. Pausing at the head of the wide stone staircase, wearing the ice-blue chiffon slip dress Diego had picked out for her, Lisa pinned down the defining moment.
It had come when she’d explained exactly why she’d agreed to his blackmail, back in Marbella that morning, when Buck’s Fizz rapidly hitting an empty stomach had loosened her tongue.
To an onlooker the change in him might have been too subtle to cause comment. But to her, finely attuned to everything about Diego Raffacani, it had hit her like a ton of bricks.
Autocratic didn’t come near to describing the way he’d stalked the pavements as if he owned the whole town and everyone and everything in it. His dark head high, his handsome face wearing the slightly contemptuous, highly assured expression of a man who knew his smallest whim would be immediately and fawningly catered to, he had ushered her through the plate glass doors of a high fashion boutique, the exclusive sort that had made Lisa feel immediately awe-struck and very out of place in her worn jeans and bright pink top.
And she had simply, weakly, let it all happen. Attended by a tall, pin-thin gushing thirty-something with a permanent soulless smile, Diego had lounged back in a silk-covered baroque-style chair while garments of unbelievable style and quality had been paraded for his lordly nod of approval.
Two hours later a fresh faced youth, wearing a formal light grey suit and an aura of his own importance, had carried an armload of classy carriers and boxes to Diego’s car. Lisa had thought let him waste his money if he wants to, and almost had hysterics.
After a late lunch during which little was said and even less eaten they had begun the long drive back to the old monastery. Gripped with a strange foreboding, due to the new cold-edged authority she detected in him, the sense that he saw her as a mere puppet, bought and paid for and designed to perform whenever he pulled the strings, she couldn’t regret having opened up to him, not only about her relationships with her father and Ben but her reason for agreeing to his demands in the first place.
It had been a release of sorts, she decided as she began the lonely journey down to the main dining hall. And it was high time Diego opened up too. Ever since they’d met up again they had both been skirting around too many secret thoughts. Condemnatory thoughts coming from both directions, she supposed. Whatever, it would be better if they were spoken.
Manuel had carried the mountain of carriers up to her rooms on their return and Diego had broken his silence to tell her, ‘Wear something beautiful. Tonight we eat in the formal dining hall and I like my possessions to be easy on the eye.’
His possession!
Earlier today that would have made her shudder; now she was able to take it in her stride. And she’d done as he’d asked, picked out this dress from the dozens of garments that Rosa, Manuel’s pretty wife, had taken from the tissue-packed carriers and hung in the walk-in wardrobe.
High heeled court shoes covered in a matching ice-blue silk gave her much needed extra height. She’d brushed her hair until it fell around her shoulders like a pale blonde waterfall, caught back from one side of her face with a tiny jet clip, and gone to town with her make-up.
He couldn’t accuse her of being an eyesore, although by the time she’d finished with him he’d probably accuse her of being a pain in the neck. Things couldn’t go on as they were. And tonight she was going to make damned sure that they didn’t!
Previously they’d taken their meals in the inner courtyard or in the small, homely breakfast room that overlooked the front terraces and the sweeping views of the mountains. If he’d chosen the formality of the great dining hall to humble her he wasn’t going to succeed, she vowed as she opened the heavily carved double doors.
It was an impressive room by any standards, the carved vaulted ceiling soaring way above, lit by massive wrought metal chandeliers, the frescoed walls punctuated by narrow arched windows, the immense glossy-as-glass table set with two places, one at either end.
Biting back the flippant comment that they would need walkie-talkies to converse with each other, Lisa walked forward, high heels tapping out a confident tattoo on the wide polished boards. Diego rose from the carved chair at the head of the table, a glass of what looked like whisky in one hand.
Dressed formally, he all but took her breath away. Elegant, immaculate and as cold as charity.
During his measured approach his heavily veiled eyes made a lengthy assessment, from the silky fall of her hair, over slender shoulders that the narrow straps of her dress left bare, the pert swell of her breasts and down to the slender length of legs made elegantly longer by the just above the knee hemline and spiky heels.
It was difficult not to squirm beneath that expressionless scrutiny but Lisa just about managed it, nearly sagging with relief when he dipped his head, maybe in approval, maybe not, and turned to walk to a plain oak side table set near the hooded hearth where logs burned brightly against the evening chill of this immense stone room. Then she stiffened when he returned with a flat leather-covered box in his hands and told her, ‘Not knowing what colour you would choose to wear, I decided diamonds would be the safest selection.’
