A Night In His Arms. Annie West
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pale throat, forcing her proud head back...but no. Rough justice held no appeal.
He wouldn’t break the Volpe code of honour, even when provoked by this shameless liar.
‘Now who’s playing semantics? Sandro was off balance when you shoved him against the fireplace.’ The words bit out from between clamped teeth. ‘The knock to his head as he fell killed him.’ Domenico drew in a slow breath, clawing back control. The men of his family did not give in to emotion. It was unthinkable he’d reveal to this woman the grief still haunting him.
‘You were responsible. If he’d never met you he’d be alive today.’
Her face tightened and she swallowed. Remarkably he saw a flicker of something that might have been pain in her eyes.
Guilt? Regret for what she’d done?
An instant later that hint of vulnerability vanished.
Had he imagined it? Had his imagination supplied what he’d waited so long to see? Remorse over Sandro’s death?
He catalogued the woman beside him. Rigid back, angled chin, hands folded neatly yet gripping too hard. Her eyes were different, he realised. After that first shocked expression of horror, now they were guarded.
The difference from the supposed innocent he’d met all those years ago was astounding. She’d certainly given up playing the ingénue.
She looked brittle. He sensed she directed all her energy into projecting that façade of calm.
Domenico knew it was a façade. Years of experience in the cutthroat world of business had made him an expert in body language. There was no mistaking the tension drawing her muscles tight or the short, choppy breaths she couldn’t quite hide.
How much would it take to smash through to the real Lucy Knight? What would it take to make her crack?
‘If you admitted the truth you’d find the future easier.’
‘Why?’ She tilted her head like a bright-eyed bird. ‘Because confession is good for the soul?’
‘So the experts say.’
He shifted into a more comfortable position as he awaited her response. Not by a flicker did he reveal how important this was to him.
Why, he didn’t know. She’d already been proven guilty in a fair trial. Her guilt had been proclaimed to the world. But seeing her so defiant, Domenico faced an unpalatable truth. He realised with a certainty that ran deep as the blood he’d shared with his brother that this would never be over till Lucy Knight confessed.
Closure, truth, satisfaction, call it what you would. Only she could lay this to rest.
He hated her for the power that gave her.
‘You think I’ll be swayed by your attempts at psychology?’ Her mouth curled in a hard little smile he’d never seen in all those weeks of the trial. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Signor Volpe. If the experts couldn’t extract a confession, you really think you will?’
‘Experts?’
‘Of course. You didn’t think I was living in splendid isolation all this time, did you?’ Her words sounded bitter but her expression remained unchanged. ‘There’s a whole industry around rehabilitating offenders. Didn’t you know? Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists.’ She turned and looked out of the window, her profile serene.
Domenico fought the impulse to shake the truth from her.
‘Did you know they assessed me to find out if I was insane?’ She swung her head back around. Her face was blank but for the searing fire in her eyes. ‘In case I wasn’t fit to stand trial.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I was lucky. I can’t recommend jail as a positive experience but I suspect an asylum for the criminally insane is worse. Just.’
Something passed between them. Some awareness, some connection, like a vibration in the taut air. Something that for a moment drew them together. It left Domenico unsettled.
Any connection with Lucy Knight was a betrayal of Sandro.
Anger snarled in his veins. ‘You’re alive to complain about your treatment. You didn’t give my brother that option, did you? What you did was irrevocable.’
‘And unpardonable. Is that why you spirited me away from the press? So you can berate me in private?’
She lounged back in her corner and made a production of crossing her legs as if to reinforce her total lack of concern. Even in her drab navy skirt and jacket there was no hiding the fact she had stunning legs. He was honest enough to admit it was one of the things that had drawn him the day they met. That and her shy smile. No wonder she’d always worn a skirt in court, trying to attract the male sympathy vote.
It hadn’t worked then and it didn’t work now.
‘What a ripe imagination you have.’ He let his teeth show in his slow smile and had the satisfaction of seeing her stiffen. ‘I have better things to do with my time than talk with you.’
‘In that case, you won’t mind if I enjoy the view.’ She turned to survey the street with an intense concentration he knew must be feigned.
Until he realised she hadn’t seen anything like it for five years.
* * *
It was even harder than she’d expected being near Domenico Volpe. Sharing the same space. Talking with him.
A lifetime ago they’d shared a magical day, perfect in every way. By the time they’d parted with a promise to meet again she’d drifted on a cloud of delicious anticipation. He’d made her feel alive for the first time.
In a mere ten hours she’d fallen a little in love with her debonair stranger.
How young she’d been. Not just in years but experience. Looking back it was almost inconceivable she’d ever been that naïve.
When she’d seen him again it had been at her trial. Her heart had leapt, knowing he was there for her as she stood alone, battered by a world turned into nightmare. She’d waited day after day for him to break his silence, approach and offer a crumb of comfort. To look at her with warmth in his eyes again.
Instead he’d been a frowning dark angel come to exact retribution. He’d looked at her with eyes like winter, chilling her to the bone and shrivelling her dreams.
A shudder snaked through her but she repressed it. She was wrung out after facing the paparazzi and him, but refused to betray the fact that he got to her.
She should demand to know where they were headed, but facing him took all her energy.
Even his voice, low and liquid like rich dark chocolate laced with honey, affected her in ways she’d tried to suppress. It made her aware she was a healthy young woman programmed to respond to an attractive man. Despite his cold fury he made her aware of his masculinity.
Was it the vibration of his deep voice along her bones? His powerful male body? Or the supremely confident way he’d faced down the press as if he didn’t give a damn what they printed? As if challenging them to take him on? All were too sexy for her peace of mind.
The way he looked at her disturbed, his scrutiny so intense it seemed he searched to find the real Lucy Knight. The one she’d finally learned to hide.
Lucy stifled a laugh. She’d been in prison too long. Maybe what she needed wasn’t peace and quiet but a quick affair with an attractive stranger to get her rioting hormones under control.
The stranger filling her mind was Domenico Volpe.
No! That was wrong on so many levels her brain atrophied before she could go further.
She made herself concentrate on the street. No matter what pride said, it was a relief to be in the limo, whisked from the press in comfort.
Yet there’d be a reckoning. She’d given up believing