The Undoing of de Luca (15 page)

‘Hello, there.’ Her voice came out in a husky murmur that she’d never used before. She dropped her beaded clutch on the bar and slid onto the stool next to Larenz.

He turned, his eyes widening and then narrowing as he took in her appearance, from her tousled hair to her red pouty lips, to the dress that hugged her body, finally ending on her feet, one stiletto now dangling from one newly pedicured toe.

His mouth tightened. ‘Nice shoes.’

Ellery beckoned to the bartender with one finger—she’d had her nails done too—and let her lips curve in a provocative smile. ‘Why, thank you.’

‘I didn’t really take you for having a thing about shoes,’ Larenz said. He took a long swig of his drink. The bartender came over and Ellery ordered the first cocktail she could think of—a screwdriver. Larenz’s eyebrows rose but he made no comment.

‘Well,’ she said, jiggling her foot so her stiletto dangled a bit more, ‘there are a lot of things you don’t know about me.’

‘So it would appear.’ He glanced at her again, looking even more displeased with her appearance. Ellery felt a stab of frustration; what did he
want
? She was showing him she understood just what kind of relationship—for lack of a better word—he expected, and it still didn’t satisfy him. She wondered if she ever could.

‘So what did you get up to today?’ Larenz finally asked, and she gave a little shrug.

‘Lunch, shopping.’

‘You made good use of my accounts, I see.’ He didn’t sound particularly annoyed but, even so, Ellery didn’t feel like pointing out that she’d spent her own money. Suddenly it didn’t matter. Larenz was making her feel as ridiculous as a little girl playing at dressing-up. Her cocktail arrived and Ellery took a sip. She just kept herself from making a face; she didn’t normally drink hard alcohol and it tasted bitter.

Larenz shook his head slowly. ‘Why are you doing this, Ellery?’

‘Doing what?’

He gestured to her outfit. ‘Dressing like this. Acting like this. Like a…a femme fatale!’

‘Really, Larenz,’ Ellery murmured, ‘you give me too much credit.’ She let out a husky little laugh that had several men’s heads turning.

‘Stop it,’ Larenz bit out. ‘Stop pretending. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove to me, but it isn’t working. It isn’t,’ he finished coldly, ‘enticing. At all.’ Then, without another word, he got up from his stool and left the bar.

Ellery sat there alone, her made-up face flushing with humiliation. She felt curious and even pitying stares and, taking a deep shuddering breath, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her drink and said to nobody in particular, ‘Cheers.’

Then she took a long swallow before erupting into a fit of coughing as the vodka burned down her throat.

Up in the suite, Larenz paced the room as desperate and angry as a caged panther. He didn’t even know why he was so angry, why seeing Ellery like that sent him into such a rage.

The dress and make-up—hell, even the shoes—had all been high quality, well made. She’d looked sophisticated, sexy.

Coy.
Like all the other women he’d taken to his bed. And, Larenz realized with a savage lurch of despair, he didn’t want to put Ellery in that category.

Ellery was different.
He
was different when he was with her. And when she’d sashayed into the bar and spoken to him in that husky, honeyed voice he’d felt as if she’d cheapened what was between them, made it no more than a…a
fling.

Yet it was a fling. He’d made it clear; they had a week together and that was all. He didn’t
do
relationships, he wasn’t looking for love.

If Ellery had been sending him a message, he should have been relieved to receive it.

Not furious.

Not
hurt.

Fury rushed through him—fury at himself for allowing himself to care. To feel. He was breaking more rules, the most important rule of all.

Never let your heart become involved.

Ellery let herself into the suite quietly, glad at least that Larenz had given her a key that morning. She had no idea what to expect. The living room was dark, as was the bedroom. Had Larenz gone? she wondered. Checked out? Had she driven him away for good?

Perhaps it was better that way, Ellery thought wearily. She kicked off her heels, careless of them now. She didn’t have a thing for shoes. She didn’t have a thing for dresses or make-up or any of this. She realized she’d been pretending, playing a part because she’d thought—mistakenly, stupidly—that it was what Larenz wanted. That it was what
she
wanted.

She’d dressed like this, acted like this to convince herself more than Larenz that she understood the terms. The rules.

Yet now, disheartened and weary, she didn’t care any more. It was all too confusing, too complicated. Even if he made her body sing, her heart was miserable.

She wanted to go home. Except she wasn’t even sure where that was any more.

She flicked on the light in the bedroom, glancing out of the doors to the terrace as she did so. She stiffened, for a lone figure stood by the railing, hands clenched, head bowed.

Larenz.

Without considering what she was doing or why, Ellery opened the doors and stepped out into the cool night.

Chapter Nine

L
ARENZ
must have heard the door open but he didn’t turn. He didn’t even move.

Ellery surveyed him for a moment, surprised by the calm that had stolen over her, replacing her earlier resignation. She didn’t care any more so it no longer mattered what she said. This was the secret, she thought. This was what she’d wanted all along. Not to care. If you didn’t care, you couldn’t get hurt. She drew a breath. ‘If you wanted to make a scene, that was one way to do it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She shrugged, even though Larenz hadn’t turned and couldn’t s ee her. ‘I didn’t realize buying a dress would annoy you quite so much.’

‘And shoes.’

She thought she heard a thin thread of amusement in his voice and she chose to match his tone. ‘Oh, was it the shoes? I wondered if the heels were too high.’ She came to join him by the railing, gazing out at the Georgian buildings of Belgravia with a sense of cool detachment.

‘I’m sorry, Ellery.’ His head still lowered, Larenz turned to look at her. ‘I acted like an ass.’

Ellery let out a sigh. She supposed she’d wanted an apology but, now that she had it, it didn’t seem to matter or mean very much. ‘I’m sorry too, I suppose,’ she said after a moment. ‘I don’t get what it is you’re trying to tell me, Larenz. I’m not…good at this.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that I’ve never had this kind of no-strings affair before.’ Of course he knew that; he knew she’d been a virgin. Still, Ellery tried to explain. ‘I agreed to this week because, like you, I’m not interested in a relationship. I’m happy alone.’ The words sounded hollow but Ellery continued anyway. ‘I just don’t understand how flings—’

‘Don’t use that word.’

‘Flings?’ She shrugged. ‘Fine. Whatever this is…between us…I don’t understand how it works. What I’m supposed to do.’

‘I just want you to be yourself,’ Larenz said in a low voice.

‘And yet when I was myself, you stayed in the living room all night,’ Ellery replied a bit sharply. ‘I think I know enough to realize that when you take your lover to London, you don’t sleep on the sofa.’

Larenz let out a long weary sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘you don’t.’

‘So what’s going on, Larenz?’ Ellery asked quietly. ‘Why did you get so angry? I thought I was playing by the rules.’

‘Forget the rules.’ Larenz cut her off, his voice nearing a savage roar. ‘Forget the damn rules. Why do there have to be rules?’ He turned to her and, in the sickly yellow lights from the buildings around them, Ellery thought she saw a trace of desperation in his eyes. He pulled her to him, the movement abrupt and almost rough. ‘There are no rules between you and me,’ he said against her mouth, and then he kissed her.

Ellery was too startled by the kiss to respond at first, and her mouth stayed slack under his as his words echoed through her.
There are no rules between you and me.

Before she could consider that snarled statement or what it meant, her body had kicked into gear and she responded to the kiss in instinct and need, her arms coming around Larenz’s shoulders, pulling him closer to her.

Larenz kissed her like a drowning man, and her touch was his only anchor. In all the times he’d kissed her, she’d never felt so needed. So necessary. And so she kissed him, imbuing it with all the hope she felt, hope that now buoyed up within her even though, moments ago, she’d been as near despair as Larenz seemed to be.

He swept her into his arms in one easy movement and Ellery couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You know, you do the Rhett Butler thing very well,’ she murmured. ‘I haven’t been carried so much in my life.’

‘Sometimes grand gestures are needed,’ Larenz replied and took her into the bedroom.

After that, there was little need for words.

Ellery must have dozed after they’d made love, for when she awoke, slowly, blinking in the darkness, she saw it was near ten o’clock at night. Too late for the dining room but, as her stomach gave a rumble, she realized she was starving.

Next to her, Larenz stirred—he must have slept, too—and lifted his head to glance at the clock. When he saw the time he groaned and fell back on the pillows.

‘I take it we missed our dinner reservation?’ Ellery teased, and he smiled and reached for the telephone on the bedside table.

‘Room service it is, then.’

They ate in bed, feeding each other bits of this or that, for Larenz had seemed to order at least a dozen dishes.

‘We’ll get crumbs all over the sheets,’ Ellery protested, laughing, and Larenz just gave her a wicked smile.

‘I can think of worse things. Besides, I don’t intend for us to do much sleeping.’

Yet eventually—nearing dawn—they did sleep, Ellery’s head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped protectively around her. As she tumbled slowly into sleep, Ellery found herself wondering how everything had changed—for it surely had—and how, when only hours before, things had felt so confused and unhappy and
wrong
, they could now feel so wonderfully right.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she refused to think about it any more. For surely that could only lead to doubt, and then to fear.

No, she would trust whatever had happened, whatever had changed, and she would enjoy this precious new bond with Larenz…for however long it lasted.

The next morning Ellery awoke in Larenz’s arms as he dropped a kiss on her head and said, ‘Wake up,
dormigliona.
We need to catch an eleven o’clock flight to Milan.’

‘What?’ Ellery struggled towards consciousness; several nights in a row of only a few hours’ sleep—if that—had left her feeling groggy and disorientated.

Larenz, she saw a bit resentfully, pushing her tangled hair behind her ears, looked fresh and energised.

‘I have a business meeting late this afternoon,’ he told her as he headed towards the en suite bathroom. ‘And then a party this evening for the launch of Marina. I want you to wear one of its signature gowns.’

‘You do?’ Ellery drew her knees up to her chest, her mind spinning and her heart thudding at the sudden turn of events.

‘Yes, so get dressed!’ He popped his head out of the bathroom door. ‘The shower is big enough for two, you know.’

Two hours later, they were sitting comfortably in first class as the jet rose into a dank grey sky, breaking though the clouds to dazzling blue. It was an apt metaphor for her own life, Ellery reflected as she gazed out of the window, for she felt as if the clouds and cobwebs enshrouding her own mind and heart had been swept clean away. For now. She slid a glance at Larenz, who was reading the paper. He looked, Ellery thought, rather adorably serious, yet he must have felt her eyes upon him for, after a few seconds, he glanced up, smiled and reached for her hand.

They remained holding hands as Ellery settled into her seat and watched the last of the clouds disappear below them, no more than forgotten wispy shreds.

Once in Milan, Larenz ushered Ellery into a waiting limo; within minutes they were speeding away from Milan’s Linate Airport towards the city centre.

‘I have a suite at the Principe di Savoia,’ Larenz told her. ‘I’ll need to go straight to the office but I’ve booked a set of spa treatments for you this afternoon.’ He touched her hand briefly. ‘I want you to feel completely pampered.’

‘I already do,’ Ellery murmured. Larenz smiled and squeezed her hand.

The limo pulled up in front of the impressive white facade of the Hotel Principe di Savoia, one of Milan’s oldest and most luxurious hotels. And Larenz, Ellery soon found out, had the most luxurious suite.

He hadn’t even got out of the limo when it pulled up to the hotel, so Ellery was escorted to the Presidential Suite on her own. She stood in the centre of the living room, turning in slow circles as she took in the panelled ceiling, the priceless art work and the windows that overlooked the suite’s private swimming pool with its muralled walls and marble pillars, the dolphin mosaics giving it the look of a decadent Roman bath.

In the bedroom, her feet sank into the cushy comfort of a plush carpet that had clearly been modelled on the Aubusson design; this one, however, wasn’t threadbare like Maddock Manor’s.

Amazed, laughing, Ellery fell onto the king-sized bed, revelling in the wondrous luxury, only to sit bolt upright when a knock sounded at the door of the suite.

She opened it to find a sleek-looking young woman smiling at her. ‘Signorina Dunant? I am here to begin your spa treatments.’

Ellery had never had any kind of spa treatment; the entire notion was alien to her and conjured vague images of something halfway between pleasure and pain. She soon found out she’d been quite wrong.

Stretched out by the Pompeiian-style pool, she had an hour-long massage that nearly put her to sleep, followed by a set of facials and waxings and mineral therapies that left her feeling as shiny and sleek as one of the dolphins depicted in the mosaic. Every inch of her glowed or even sparkled.