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Her body tingled. She was surrounded by silence, and she had a feeling she’d never had before. Of being far from civilisation, because she didn’t need a map to know there was nothing for miles in every direction.
She shivered. There was nothing here except forced intimacy with the man standing beside her, and that thought made the darkness and the heat and the silence press in on her so that it was suddenly difficult to breathe.
A slight middle-aged woman with long, greying hair in a ponytail stepped forward to greet them with a smile on her face. ‘Buongiorno, Signor Winslow, Signorina Dempsey,’ she said. ‘I hope you had a pleasant flight.’
‘There was a little turbulence, wasn’t there, darling?’ Trip turned to her and gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘But nothing we couldn’t handle.
‘Lily, this is Valentina. She’s the housekeeper and estate manager. Anything you need or want, start with her. Except tonight.’ He turned towards the older woman. ‘Thanks, Valentina. I can take things from here.’
As they walked through the hall, Trip turned towards her. ‘I’ll let you get settled in and then we can have something to eat.’
Eat? How could he think about eating?
Lily stared at him blankly, suddenly light-headed. In the car, when she had agreed to marry him, it hadn’t felt real. But now it did. It was actually happening, only this was just the beginning.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said coolly. ‘I want to lie down. And don’t for one minute think that you’ll be lying beside me.’
He raised an eyebrow but all he said was, ‘I’ll show you to your room.’
Heart pounding with misery and exhaustion, she followed him upstairs, her pulse accelerating wildly as he led her into a charming bedroom with a beautiful carved four-poster bed.
‘This is where you’re sleeping.’
She froze as he turned to face her. There was enough space between them to park a car and yet the taut, masculine power of his body was too close for comfort.
‘There’s a bathroom through there, and this is the dressing room.’ As he stepped forward a light clicked on softly overhead and her eyes narrowed, not on Trip, but on a jacket hanging from the rail. She had one just like it—
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the other clothes that had been neatly folded and hung.
‘Where did you get these?’
‘Your mother had them sent over to my apartment before we left.’
Another betrayal. Wincing inwardly, and needing distance from his disturbingly piercing gaze, she backed out of the dressing room into the bedroom and walked towards the floor-to-ceiling picture window.
The drapes were open and she stared through the glass. Her eyes felt hot. It was strange to think that this was the same sun that she had watched set in New York yesterday afternoon. It seemed so much brighter, like a sun in a dream. Her fingers bit into the skin of her wrist. If only she could pinch herself awake from the nightmare that was engulfing her.
‘You know it’s not just me, Lily.’
Trip was standing behind her. She could see his reflection in the window, but she would have known he was there even if she’d been blindfolded. That thread again.
Their eyes met in the glass and she saw his pupils flare, felt it like a flicker of heat low in her belly, impossible to ignore, imperative to resist.
‘Everyone wants this for us. You wanted it too. Wanted me.’
She felt something rough-edged scrape inside her and she wanted to back away, hide in the dressing room, but there would be no point. She couldn’t hide from the truth, from that heat pulsing across her skin and the tightness inside her. And it was true. She had wanted him.
More than wanted him.
In those hours when they had been alone in her apartment he had been essential to her. Like air and water and sunlight. It had been beautiful too and even though she’d known it would end, could never be anything more than it was, it had been hers, and it had worked, the raw sensuality, that hunger, being wanted like that. Only now he was making the memory of it ugly.
‘The idea of it, yes,’ she said coolly, without bothering to turn around. ‘But most women have any number of romantic fantasies in their head and the trouble with fantasies is that they’re always a bit of a let-down.’
For a moment he didn’t reply, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, square box.
Her heart gave a little jerk as he opened it and she stared down at the huge marquise diamond surrounded by smaller sapphires. ‘But this isn’t a fantasy. It’s a means to an end. We need to be engaged. Both of us. Which is why, from now on, you need to wear this.’
He held out the ring and as if hypnotised, she took it and slid it onto her fourth finger.
