Michelle Reid - Mediterranean Tycoons

It was truly pitch-dark out there but she caught the frothing white roll of a wave as it came into shore. It wasn’t far away, perhaps a few hundred yards at most. And as her eyes grew more used to the darkness she managed to make out the shape of a white-painted gazebo not far from the beach.

It was then as she strained to focus on it that she captured a brief glimpse of Luc’s face. He was standing beside the gazebo, nothing more than a shadowy bulk.

‘You will get bitten by mosquitoes if you stay out here for much longer,’ his cool voice drifted up to her.

‘Don’t be such a spoilsport or I’ll go and find myself a large bottle of brandy and enjoy myself.’

He laughed; it was deep and sardonic. ‘I might join you.’

This was crazy. Lizzy sighed. ‘Is all of this macho sulking because I’ve spoiled your honeymoon plans?’ she demanded. ‘Because if it is I hope you are enjoying yourself!’

With that she turned and walked back into the bedroom closing the window with an angry click.

He arrived through the bedroom door as she was fastening her damp hair back with pins. Pushing a wide shoulder against the door frame, he slid his hands into his trouser pockets.

Tall, dark, handsome—sexy. Lizzy wanted to take her eyes off him but the flair that was happening in the pit of her stomach was stopping her from looking away.

‘Do we try to bring this crazy marriage back on track or do we crack open the brandy bottle?’ he asked in a cynical mocking kind of voice.

‘Crazy just about says it.’ Lizzy shrugged, turning away so she could put down her comb. ‘I think the only reason we made it this far was because we hardly made contact during last week.’

‘Hell of a week for me, cara. I was juggling weddings and brides and fathers-in-law and the media.’

‘Thank God for pre-prepared honeymoons in paradise, then.’

It was out before she could stop it, but it wasn’t just what she said but the way that she said it that made her go still with her shoulders slumping wearily, and made him as silent as the grave.

‘This isn’t going to work,’ she whispered shakily. ‘I think I want to go h-home.’

‘To your unforgiving father?’

Oh, that was just deliberately cruel! Lizzy winced. He released a heavy sigh.

‘Bianca wanted to visit her relatives in Australia so we were going to spend our honeymoon living out of a hotel that overlooked the opera house,’ he informed her flatly. ‘She would not have liked it here—too quiet, and there is nowhere for her to show off and shine. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you all about her Sydney plans, since she informed me that she tells you everything.’

‘As we both now know, Bianca didn’t always tell the truth,’ Lizzy murmured, referring to the huge act her friend had put on while planning to run away with Matthew. ‘I’m—sorry,’ she said then, ‘for constantly jumping to the wrong conclusions.’

Luc just grimaced, as sombre as hell now. ‘Nina has prepared us a light supper. Would you prefer to eat here or downstairs?’

End of subject, Lizzy recognised, her gaze drifting over to the romantic table set for two. ‘Downstairs I think,’ she said as she looked back at him.

He just nodded and straightened up from the door. ‘Five minutes, then,’ and he walked away—and if he glanced at the table by the window, Lizzy didn’t see him do it.

Five minutes later she walked down the stairs to find Nina waiting for her. ‘Signor Luc is in the small dining room, signora,’ she said. ‘I will show you the way.’

He was sitting at a round dining table idly pinching prawns from a steaming bowl of pasta while he waited for her to arrive. Another red hibiscus flower stood in a tiny white vase in the centre of the table and the candlelight came from several sources, flickering across the white tablecloth and against fine crystal wineglasses and his lean dark face.

He came to his feet when he saw her hovering in the doorway, his golden eyes shadowing over as he scanned them down the short dusky mauve empire-line dress she’d decided to wear. Nerve-ends fluttered in response to his sombre scrutiny, and Lizzy hated the self-conscious bloom she felt warm her cheeks.

It didn’t help that everything about him was so sense-crushingly elegant. Somehow in the last five minutes he’d managed to change into a white shirt left open at his throat and a pair of black silk trousers that accentuated the powerful length of his legs.

‘Pre-planning,’ he said, using her word from earlier with a dry cut to his voice.

‘I wish you would stop reading my mind,’ Lizzy complained as she walked forward.

‘Your face is—expressive.’

Oh, I really needed to know that, Lizzy thought helplessly and muttered a husky thanks when he politely held her chair for her.

‘I know you are probably not hungry,’ he said in a lighter voice as he returned to his own seat. ‘But try to eat some of this for Nina’s sake. I think she’s confused enough about what’s going on between us, without us offending her by rejecting her food.’

Lizzy nodded. She had seen the anxious expression on the housekeeper’s face when she’d come down the stairs. For a honeymoon couple supposedly so wildly in love with each other they’d been willing to take on the censure of the world just to be together, the way they were behaving had to look strange.

So, on a deep breath that pulled in a bit shaky, she reached out for the bowl of pasta and spooned a few helpings onto his plate, then did the same for her own. Luc produced a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket set by his chair and popped the cork.

‘More pre-planning?’ Lizzy mocked.

He just sent her a brief smile as he poured frothing foam into two crystal flutes. ‘You don’t touch this until you have eaten some pasta,’ he instructed.

Lizzy uttered a small laugh. ‘You sound like my father.’

He stiffened. ‘That was not my intention.’

Staring at the carved lines on his face, she realised that she’d touched that raw nerve again in this man with nerves made of steel.

He didn’t like to be compared with her father, she realized. It offended him. Nor did he always recognise a tease.

And he didn’t like virgins.

The supper continued in near silence after that, his withdrawal from the sparring arena as obvious as the stern expression he wore on his face. And Lizzy had killed her own chances of managing light conversation when she’d let herself remember what was supposed to come next.

Her main problem being—she didn’t know what came next. She’d known on the flight over here. For the whole week before the flight over here she’d known exactly what was going to come next because Luc had spelt it out to her in cool, precise language.

Marriage, sex, babies—little De Santis cubs.

‘It’s late.’ She stood up, with no idea why she picked that precise moment to throw in the keeping-up-appearances towel. ‘I think I’ll—go to bed.’

She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her, feel his sombre mood. And he didn’t say anything, just sat there lounging in his seat twisting a champagne flute between his fingers as he watched her make her retreat.

The pale blue curtains had been drawn across the window and the intimate table for two had been cleared. The bed had been turned down and the lights in the room had been reduced to a misty glow either side of the bed. As she stared at the bed Lizzy hugged herself and shivered as if she were standing in the coldest place on earth.

Slipping out of her clothes and into the smoothest white silk nightdress she’d ever run her fingers over, she tugged pins out of her hair until her scalp stung with the angry, frustrated violence she used.