The Undoing of de Luca (10 page)

She set her chin and threw her shoulders back as she went for the broom and dustpan. None of this, she told herself, should come as a surprise. This was what she’d expected, even wanted, when she’d allowed herself to kiss Larenz. A night of pleasure, a chance to forget—for a moment.

Now she was just dealing with the remembering. And the regret.

Ellery bent to her task of cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, allowing the menial nature of the chores to numb her mind and keep the thoughts at bay.

She’d risen to empty the dustpan in the rubbish bin when she caught sight of her face in the darkened windowpane. Her face was ghostly pale, her hair streaming over her shoulders in a pale river. Just like the doomed Lady of Shalott. Then, unable to stop herself, Ellery let the tears trickle slowly down her cheeks.

Alone in his bedroom, Larenz let out a moody sigh, the sound entirely at odds with the sleepy satiation stealing through his body.

Yet, even as his body tingled and remembered and longed for more, his mind was coldly listing all the reasons to walk away from Ellery Dunant right now.

Tonight had been a mistake. A big one. He chose his bed partners carefully, made sure they knew exactly what to expect from him: nothing. Nothing beyond a night of pleasure, maybe a week. Yet when Ellery had snuggled into his arms, when he’d felt the way she’d fitted so perfectly, he’d realized she would expect a good deal more than that. He’d felt it in her soft, pliant body, in the satisfied little sigh she’d given.

In the fact that she had been a virgin. Larenz hadn’t expected
that
; she had to be in her mid-twenties at the least. Yet she’d chosen to give herself—her innocence—to him? On the floor of her own wrecked home?

Larenz turned away from the window, unable to deal with or even accept the scalding sense of shame that poured through him. He didn’t bed virgins. He didn’t take them on the worn floors of their ancestral homes.

He didn’t break their hearts.

Yet, alone in his bedroom, conscious of the creak on the stair, Larenz realized he might have done just that. Or he would, given time. He had no intention of sticking around for Ellery Dunant to fall in love with him, to think of him as Sir Lancelot to her tragic Lady of Shalott. There was no happy ending to that story, and there wouldn’t be one here, either. Larenz knew very well that happy endings like the one Ellery was undoubtedly envisioning didn’t exist. He knew it from the hard reality of his own life, his own disappointments…and he had no intention of experiencing that kind of rejection again. He would never give himself the opportunity.

Yet, even as he made these resolutions, his face set in grim lines, Larenz couldn’t quite keep his mind from picturing Ellery’s violet eyes, from his body remembering how soft and silken she’d felt in his arms. And he couldn’t keep both his mind and body from wanting more.

Ellery Dunant was a luxury—and a liability—he couldn’t afford. Resolutely, Larenz closed his mind from thinking about her. From remembering how she felt in his arms. Even so, sleep remained a long way off.

Chapter Six

T
HE
next morning Ellery awoke to bright sunlight and a hard, glittering frost covering the ground. She rose from the bed, groggy and dazed. She must have slept, although she did not feel like she had. She certainly did not feel rested.

She fumbled for her clothes, trying to shake the fog that enshrouded her since Larenz had left her last night. She told herself she had no reason to feel this way; she had surely expected no more. She shouldn’t feel
hurt.

Dressed, her hair pulled into a tight bun—no Lady of Shalott for her this morning—Ellery headed downstairs. She had no idea whether Larenz would expect or even want breakfast, but she had every intention of keeping this morning as normal as possible. Even if the very idea made something inside her shrivel.

She paused on the threshold of the kitchen; all vestiges of the evening before had been cleaned away by her own hand just a few short hours ago. The kitchen suffocated her with its normality, for it looked as if nothing had changed. As if
she
hadn’t changed. Yet Ellery knew she had; she felt it in the slight soreness between her thighs and the far more persistent ache in her heart. She hadn’t expected that.

With grim determination she set about cracking eggs and slicing toast. She wondered if Larenz would even come downstairs. Had he gone? The house echoed emptily around her.

She wouldn’t think about him, she told herself. She wouldn’t think about him at all. She’d fill her mind with the trivial details of her day, with the to-do lists and DIY worries that had occupied her until he’d come into her life—there, she was thinking about him again. Ellery groaned aloud.

She left the eggs bubbling on the stove and went to fetch the two pints of milk the local dairy delivered every other day. As she opened the kitchen door, the sunlight hit her in the face, a brilliant yet cruel reminder that nothing had really changed over the course of one night, even if she had; if anything, the weather had just got better.

‘Good morning.’

Ellery whirled around, the pints of milk clutched to her chest nearly sliding from her suddenly nerveless fingers. She tightened her grip and swallowed dryly. Larenz stood in the kitchen, dressed in a navy-blue suit, a coat hanging over one arm. He was, Ellery knew, coming to say goodbye.

Larenz gazed at Ellery, the milk clutched to her chest, the sun creating a golden nimbus around her cloud of pale hair. She looked like something out of a Constable painting, with the sunlight pouring in from the half-opened kitchen door, the wild gardens and crumbling brick wall visible behind her.

Her eyes were wide and shocked, the same colour as the shadowed circles underneath them. Of course, she couldn’t have got very much sleep last night. Neither had he.

Still, despite his resolve to leave this morning, leave this woman and all her unnecessary and unwanted complications, he found himself now standing there, speechless, a growing tightness in his chest. Ellery looked so lovely, so fragile and yet with an inner strength he knew she possessed, radiating out from her despite the hurt and pain hiding in her eyes.

He’d hurt her. This was what happened when you opened yourself up to anything more than brief physical pleasure. You got hurt. He’d taken something from her, something precious, and he would hurt her now, by leaving. Even if he didn’t want to hurt her…even if he didn’t want to leave.

Even if the thought of leaving hurt
him.

‘Good morning,’ Ellery replied. She aimed for a brisk tone and just about managed it. She kicked the door closed behind her and put the milk in the fridge. She tried to think of something to say, but even the usual banal inanities seemed loaded with meaning:
sleep well
? didn’t have quite the right ring. ‘It’s a beautiful day out,’ she finally said, now sounding perhaps a little too brisk. She turned to the eggs; they’d overcooked and gone rubbery. ‘Would you like the full fry-up this morning?’

Larenz hesitated and Ellery braced herself. Of course he didn’t want a full breakfast, she told herself furiously. Not like yesterday morning, when he’d asked her to share his breakfast, when she’d still been an interesting and unknown challenge. Now he just wanted to leave.

‘If you’re making it,’ he finally said, his tone neutral, but Ellery heard pity.

‘If you’d rather just have coffee,’ she told him with a bright, rather glittering smile, ‘that’s fine. The eggs look a bit overcooked, anyway.’

Smiling faintly, Larenz glanced in the pan. The eggs had congealed to its bottom. ‘How about a compromise? Coffee and toast.’ He paused. ‘If you’ll join me.’

She threw him a startled glance; he smiled, his face so very bland. How good he was at wiping away all expression, she thought resentfully. She had no idea what he was thinking, and she had an awful feeling that she was all too transparent. ‘Very well.’ She poured two mugs of coffee and fetched the toast. Larenz hung his coat over a chair and they sat across from each other, the awkwardness palpable, unbearable.

Ellery took a sip of coffee and burned her tongue. ‘You’re off?’ she enquired in that same awful brisk voice. ‘I don’t even know where you live. Are you returning to Italy or…’ She let the sentence trail away for it occurred to her that perhaps he didn’t want her to know where he lived. She hardly wanted to come across as some sort of stalker.

‘I divide my time between Milan and London,’ Larenz replied quietly. He hadn’t touched his toast or coffee; he simply stared at her across the length of the table, his expression solemn now and perhaps even a little sorrowful.

Ellery took a bite of toast. It tasted like dust in her mouth. ‘Sounds lovely,’ she finally managed after she choked it down. ‘Quite the jet-setting lifestyle.’

‘Quite.’ Larenz lifted his coffee mug, then placed it back on the table without taking a sip. ‘You could come with me.’

Ellery stared at him, sure she must not have heard him correctly. ‘Pardon?’ she said politely, and waited to hear what he really must have said.

‘You could come with me,’ Larenz said again, and he sounded surprised, as though he hadn’t expected to say it. Staring at him, Ellery was quite sure he hadn’t.

She shook her head slowly, confusion and hope warring within her. ‘Come with you? Where?’

‘To London, and then to Milan,’ Larenz stated matter-of-factly. He seemed to have recovered from his surprise. ‘I have some business to do, but it could be…nice…to have company. It might do you some good, too. You don’t have any guests booked for the next week or so, do you?’

‘No, not yet,’ Ellery said after a moment. The words
week or so
seemed to echo through her mind. Was that as long as this…affair…would last? ‘I teach at the local school,’ she added. ‘But it’s actually half-term this week.’

‘Then why don’t you come with me?’ Larenz smiled and took a sip of coffee. ‘You could use a break, I’m sure, and we could hammer out the details of the fashion shoot—’

‘The fashion shoot?’ Ellery repeated in disbelief. ‘You still want to have it here?’

‘Of course. My head of PR is quite set on this place.’

She shook her head slowly. The idea of a fashion shoot at Maddock Manor made no sense to her, but it hardly seemed relevant now. ‘So you want to bring me to London and Milan to discuss business,’ she said a bit flatly. ‘Surely a week’s trip isn’t necessary for that.’ She heard the slight edge to her voice as she added, ‘You could just take me out for dinner.’

‘I could,’ Larenz agreed, smiling faintly, ‘but this trip isn’t about what’s necessary.’ He put down his mug and met her gaze directly, with an open honesty she hadn’t been expecting, a vulnerability that reached right down inside her and grabbed her heart.

No. Don’t reach me. Don’t touch me like that, with your eyes. Don’t make me hope, don’t make me fall
—

‘I want you to come with me because I want to be with you,’ Larenz said steadily. ‘What happened between us last night—it was good.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Wasn’t it?’

Ellery looked down. ‘Yes, it was,’ she whispered. It seemed such a simplification of the night they’d shared, not to mention the pain and sorrow she’d felt afterwards, but she could hardly voice that sentiment.

Larenz rose from the table, coming around to her side. He reached down and took her hand, tugging her upwards. Ellery didn’t resist. She stood up, savouring his closeness, the scent of his aftershave, the heat and strength of him. He’d already become familiar. He laced his fingers with hers. ‘Come with me, Ellery.’

‘For a week?’ she said, and Larenz paused.

‘Yes.’ He spoke steadily, flatly. ‘That’s all I have to offer.’

So those were his terms. A week, take it or leave it. A week, and then he would leave her for ever and she would return here, to the half-life she’d made for herself. Ellery knew she should say no. Agreeing would be opening herself up to all sorts of pain, hurt, sorrow. A week of being used, because surely that was all it was? A week was not a relationship.

She opened her mouth and yet still she didn’t speak. The definite
no
didn’t come. For, despite every logical reason to refuse, she still
wanted
to go. She wanted to escape this house and her life, and she wanted to be with Larenz.

‘Ellery?’ Larenz prompted gently, and she remembered how he’d let her decide last night. He’d waited then, and he was waiting now.

What if it didn’t have to be like that? she wondered suddenly. What if she made these terms hers, instead of just Larenz’s? She wasn’t interested in love. She didn’t even want a relationship; she’d kept herself from such things on purpose, out of self-protection.

What if
she
decided on a week’s fling? What if she was in control?

The thought was powerful. Persuasive. Her mother had been at her father’s whim, waiting hopelessly for his return, for his careless favour. Yet Ellery didn’t have to be like that. She could take this week, enjoy it to the full, and when it was over she could be the one to walk away, her heart intact.

This, she thought suddenly, could be just what she needed. In so many ways.

She squeezed Larenz’s fingers. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll go with you.’

Larenz waited in the kitchen as Ellery went to pack. He felt restless, edgy and even a little hopeful. A strange mix. He had no idea why he’d asked Ellery to come with him to London. He’d had no intention of doing so; he’d been coming to say goodbye.

And then he’d found himself saying something else instead, and wanting it. Wanting her.

The thought was just a little bit alarming.

Of course, it didn’t have to be. He’d made it very clear to Ellery what his terms were, what this week would mean—and especially what it wouldn’t mean. And even if he’d broken all of his rules—bedding a virgin and mixing business with pleasure—he wouldn’t break that one.

After a week, it was over. After a week, he would leave.

They left right after breakfast. It felt strange to pack a single case—she had few dressy clothes left over from her London days—and then to lock up the Manor, leaving it emptier than ever.