Finding a wife would not be a problem, but finding the right kind of wife—who would adapt to his way of life and understand the duties and responsibilities it carried—could be one. Especially when the kind of marriage he wanted was one based on practicality rather than emotion. Especially when one considered his wish to father an heir.
It was time for him to find himself a woman. A woman with whom he was both socially and sexually compatible. A woman, perhaps, like Lucy.
Lucy?
Had he gone mad? She exasperated him as no other woman could, and her marriage to Nick Blayne had only increased his impatient anger towards her.
But last night she had enticed and aroused him as no other woman had.
The truth was that Lucy needed protecting from herself. He would certainly be a far safer and more suitable husband for her than another Nick Blayne. A marriage between them would benefit them both. He needed a wife, and Lucy certainly needed a husband—if only to prevent her from repeating the mistake she had made in marrying Blayne.
And Lucy loved children.
Actually, for them to marry one another was in many ways entirely logical. She understood the world he lived in because it was also her world. They both wanted children, and sexually he had sown all the wild oats he wanted to sow—even if a part of him still mourned the loss of his youthful dreams of travel and adventure.
His mind was made up, Marcus decided abruptly. He intended to marry Lucy. And the sooner the better.
All he had to do now was find a way to convince her that she needed to marry him. And Marcus though he knew exactly how to do that.
The sensuality Lucy had displayed last night had surprised him, as had the pleasurable intensity of her sexual response to him. Lucy was a woman with a warm sex drive, a woman currently without a sexual partner in her life and quite clearly a woman who wanted one.
All he had to do was make her need work in his favour, Marcus decided coolly. He walked over to his desk and picked up the telephone receiver.
* * *
The message light was flashing on her telephone when Lucy walked back into the office. She had been longer at the coffee shop than she had expected. Her heart slalomed the length of her chest cavity before skidding dangerously to a halt as she played the message and heard Marcus’s voice, telling her that he had arranged for them to visit his sister and that he would pick her up from her office at four o’clock.
Four o’clock? It was ten to now, Lucy saw, panic-stricken.
Thirteen and a half minutes later she was on her way downstairs, her hair combed, her lips glossed, and her heart thudding like a drum beat.
‘There you are—come on. There’s a traffic warden on the prowl and I don’t want to get a ticket.’
There was no time to object as Marcus took hold of her arm and hurried over to the Bentley parked illegally outside the office block, opening the passenger door for her so that she could scramble in whilst he strode round to the driver’s door.
The interior of the car smelled of leather and Marcus, and Lucy leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, breathing as slowly and carefully as she could.
‘Our flight leaves at six—which means you’ve just about got time to pack if I drive you back to your flat now.’
‘What? What flight? Where are we going?’ Her eyes snapped open and she lurched forward in her seat.
‘To see Beatrice, of course,’ Marcus told her patiently. ‘Remember? You’re going to advise her about organising a party for George’s fiftieth.’
‘Your sister lives in Chelsea!’ Lucy protested dizzily.
‘Most of the time, yes. But she and George also have a villa in Majorca, and that’s where she is right now. She thought it would be a good idea if you flew out to see her while she’s there, so that she can discuss George’s party with you while he isn’t around. She doesn’t want him to guess what’s going on.’
Silently Lucy digested what he was saying to her. It was not particularly unusual for clients to fly her out to all manner of places, in order to consult her or to get her opinion of their chosen venue for their event, but Marcus had said very clearly ‘
our
flight’, which meant...
‘You’re going to Majorca as well?’ she demanded.
‘I have some family business I need to discuss with Beatrice, so she suggested we might as well travel out together,’ Marcus told her calmly. ‘We’ll be staying for a couple of days, so you’ll need to pack a few things.’
‘And I’ll have to get changed. I can’t travel to Palma wearing armour,’ Lucy protested.
‘Armour?’
Lucy could feel herself going red at she recognised her slip-up.
‘It’s what I call my business suit,’ she mumbled.
She could feel Marcus looking at her, but his only comment was a very dry, ‘Mmm.’
Marcus turned into Sloane Square and then cut through a couple of narrow back streets before finally bringing the Bentley to a halt in a conveniently empty parking space right outside the block of flats where she lived.
‘I’ll come up with you.’
It was a statement, not a question or an offer.
Wasn’t Marcus going to say
anything
about last night? She had been dreading seeing him all day, worrying about what he would say and how she could respond.
She had told herself that the worst-case scenario would be if he had simply guessed the truth and challenged her with it. She had even rehearsed the scene mentally inside her head to prepare herself.
Marcus would say: You’re in love with me, aren’t you?
Lucy: What? Certainly not. What on earth makes you think that I could be?
Marcus—in that horrid dry voice he could use to such dramatic effect: Last night?
Lucy—breezily, looking amused and nonchalant: Oh, that! Good heavens, no. I just fancied a shag, that’s all.
But evidently that wasn’t going to be how it happened.
Leaving Marcus to follow her, Lucy hurried past the concierge with a quick ‘hello’ and then up the stairs. Her flat was on the first floor, and tiny, but at least she owned it outright and it wasn’t a drain on her finances—unlike the much grander flat Nick had insisted on them renting during their marriage.
She unlocked the door and walked into the small hallway. The enclosed and windowless space had been made larger and brighter by the addition of two non-matching mirrors she had ‘borrowed’ from the attics at home. A small table, also rescued from attic oblivion, which she had painted cream just like the walls, stood under one of the mirrors. On it Lucy had arranged not flowers, since she believed that every living thing needed natural light and proper fresh air, but instead her precious Jo Malone scented candles and a collection of glass candlesticks. Would Marcus notice the tasteful effect of the arrangement as he followed her into the hallway?
Beyond the hallway lay a tiny sitting room, furnished and decorated in various shades of cream, and pin-neat.
‘Before I do anything else I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee,’ Lucy told Marcus. ‘Would you like a cup?’
‘No, thanks. We don’t have very much time, you know,’ he reminded her.
‘You’re the one who’s organised this, not me, and I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had my caffeine fix,’ Lucy informed him stubbornly, heading for the kitchen.
‘Fine! Where do you keep your passport, Lucy?’
‘In the bureau behind the sofa,’ Lucy told him from the kitchen.
Marcus opened the bureau and saw passports immediately. Two of them were bundled together inside a rubber band. He snapped off the band and opened the top one, and then wished that he hadn’t. It was the passport Lucy had had when she had been married, and the photograph inside it showed a bright-eyed, happy-looking young woman. Her current passport, though—the one she had obtained after her divorce, when she had reverted to her maiden name—showed a thinner-faced young woman whose eyes held stark pain and despair. What on earth had she seen in Nick Blayne? How could she have loved him? Was it really
‘loved’
?
‘Did you find the passport?’ Lucy asked as she walked past him with her coffee and pushed open her bedroom door. Lifting a small case from beneath the bed onto it, she began methodically opening drawers and placing what she thought she would need on her bed.
‘Look—while you’re doing that, why don’t I pack your toiletries for you?’
Having Marcus safely out of the way and out of her line of vision, instead of standing there watching her and making her think about last night, was a very good idea, Lucy acknowledged. So she nodded her head and handed him the bag she used for such necessities, exhaling slowly when he had disappeared into her small bathroom.
Determinedly Lucy started to fold the things she had put on the bed, and place them into the flat packs she always used for travelling.
‘Lucy, what about your pills?’ Marcus called out from the bathroom.
Her pills! Thank heavens he had reminded her. She had learned the hard way never to go anywhere without her sun allergy pills.
‘In the cabinet,’ she called back. ‘Second shelf down, right-hand side.’
She heard him opening the cabinet door as she placed the flat packs in her case, and then he called out again, ‘I can’t find them.’
Putting down the pack she was holding, Lucy walked into the bathroom, holding her breath when she was forced to squeeze past him to reach the cabinet.
‘They’re right here,’ she told him, taking the allergy tablets from the shelf.
‘Those aren’t contraceptive pills,’ Marcus objected.
Contraceptive pills?
‘No. I don’t take contraceptive pills. I don’t need to. I’ve never needed to. Nick always used a condom. It was something he was obsessive about. He told me that he never had and never would have sex without wearing one.’
This wasn’t a subject she wanted to discuss with Marcus in any way, shape or form, Lucy recognised. But she couldn’t help wondering if the fact that Marcus had felt so good inside her last night had been because he had been inside her skin to skin, and she had loved the intimacy of knowing that.
As Lucy hurried back into the bedroom Marcus frowned. Last night, with unprecedented recklessness, the last thing on his mind had been the need for any kind of contraceptive or health precaution. He had to admit that hearing Lucy’s ex-husband had insisted on wearing a condom was very good news.
He watched her whilst she finished her packing. He could feel his body tightening, and a very specific ache gripping it. He wanted her.
He was supposed to be focusing on getting her to want him, not allowing himself to want her.
‘Ready?’ he demanded tersely.
Lucy gave an unsmiling nod of assent.
CHAPTER FIVE
P
ALMA
airport was always busy, and today was no exception. Lucy struggled to dodge the mounds of luggage and keep up with Marcus who, despite having their luggage to deal with, still somehow or other managed to have a positively ‘parting of the Red Sea’ effect on the crowds. They opened to allow him through, and then closed again, forcing her to fight her way through.
Marcus had now reached the exit, where he was being approached by two pretty girls wearing the uniforms of a certain car rental firm. Was it a car they were hoping to persuade him to hire, or a date they were hoping to be offered? Lucy wondered jealously as she finally caught up with him.
‘I was just explaining to these ladies that the hotel will have sent a car to collect us,’ he told Lucy.
‘The hotel? What hotel?’ Lucy demanded as he started to walk towards the waiting chauffeurs with their boards displaying clients’ names. ‘I thought we were staying with Beatrice.’
‘Did you? The villa’s quite small and remote, and since Beatrice is there to oversee some remedial work on the bathrooms I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to expect her to put us up. I’ve booked us into a hotel instead. It’s in Deia, very close to the Residencia, and supposed to be even better. And don’t worry about the bill. I shall be paying it. Ah, there’s our driver.’
If she stood on her tiptoes, she could just about see the smartly uniformed chauffeur holding up a placard that read ‘Hotel Boutique, Deia’.
Lucy knew Majorca quite well, since it had recently become very much one of the ‘in’ places to stay, following on from various celebs buying property in an exclusive enclave of villas and boutique hotels that had sprung up on a previously undeveloped part of the island’s coastline. The Residencia had been
the
place to stay in this upmarket resort, and from what she had heard the new Hotel Boutique was even more special. Lucy had heard rave reviews from clients who had stayed there.
Outside the airport, the warmth of the night air wrapped round her like soft cashmere as the chauffeur opened the doors of a large Mercedes limousine for them.
Marcus slid into the sea next to her and the chauffeur closed the doors.
‘Where exactly is Beatrice’s villa?’ she asked Marcus uncertainly as the Mercedes joined the queue of traffic waiting to leave the airport.
‘Up in the hills outside Palma.’
‘But that’s a long way from Deia,’ Lucy objected. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better for us to have stayed somewhere closer?’
‘The Boutique has an excellent reputation, and I thought you’d prefer to stay there.’
‘How long will it take us to get there?’ Lucy asked.
‘Not that long. Why?’
‘I need another caffeine fix. I’m desperate for cup of coffee.’
And
he
was desperate for
her
, Marcus found himself thinking. ‘Do you want me to ask the driver to stop somewhere?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘No, I’ll wait.’
She was beginning to feel tired, and more than a little bit headachy, but despite the comfort of the Mercedes she couldn’t relax properly—not with Marcus right there next to her.
The road climbed and turned, winding through the hills, and then started to drop down again. Below them Lucy could see the lights of villas, dotted either side of the river ravine, and below them the small harbour itself. Pure, perfect picture-postcard stuff.
The Mercedes turned in to a narrow stone tunnel beyond which lay a paved forecourt. Within seconds, or so it seemed, they were standing in the jasmine-scented coolness of the foyer, a huge fan whirring above their heads, traditional terracotta tiles underfoot, and the décor echoing the very best of traditional Majorcan interiors. The white walls were warmed by striking paintings and woven rugs in rich earthy colours.
‘If you will follow José, he will show you to your suites.’ The receptionist smiled as she handed Marcus two key cards, and a very young and very handsome young Majorcan appeared from out of nowhere to assist them.
The lift was tucked away discreetly in a corner, and as it bore them upwards José told them proudly, ‘You have the best suites in the whole hotel. The King of Spain himself, he has stayed there with his family.’
The lift stopped and José held the doors open, giving Lucy a small bow as he encouraged her to step through ahead of him.
A short, wide corridor lay in front of her, its walls painted white and hung with more paintings. Lucy was tempted to linger and inspect them more closely, drawn by the richness of the oil paint, but her head was pounding and she was desperate for coffee.
Only two doors opened off the corridor. José stopped at the first of them and opened the door, inviting Lucy to step inside.
As she did so, her eyes widened in appreciation. In front of her was a large room with a high ceiling, furnished with traditional dark, heavy wooden furniture which included a huge four-poster bed. Floor-to-ceiling wooden shutters filled one wall, and when José went to open them for her Lucy gasped in delight. The shutters concealed glass patio doors beyond which was a well-lit private terrace, complete with its own plunge pool, and beyond that an uninterrupted view of the sea and sky.
‘Thank you, José. I’ll find my own way around everything.’ Lucy smiled and tipped him so that he could leave and show Marcus to his suite.
As soon as she had closed the door behind José, Lucy picked up the telephone and hurriedly dialled Room Service. Only when she had ordered her much-needed coffee did she start to study the suite properly.
A wooden screen that could be folded back separated the bedroom from an integral, sensually luxurious huge round bath, set into the floor right in front of the patio windows so that one might lie in the bath and look out across the terrace and beyond it.
The wall opposite the patio doors was completely mirrored, as was the wall at right angles to it, and set against the right angle was an all-glass shower cubicle, so that in effect one could bathe or shower and see one’s reflection in the mirrors at the same time.
She heard a knock on her bedroom door. Her coffee! Wonderful! But when she went to open the door it was Marcus who was standing outside it.
‘I’ve brought you this,’ he told her, handing her a card key. ‘I’m going to ring Beatrice in a minute, and fix up a meeting with her for tomorrow, but so far as dinner tonight is concerned, there’s supposed to be an excellent restaurant down by the harbour. It’s eight now, so if I book a table for ten...?’
‘Yes. Fine,’ Lucy agreed, exhaling in relief as she saw the waiter coming down the corridor.
Ten minutes later, with her caffeine levels replenished, Lucy explored the rest of her suite.
In addition to her open plan bedroom-cum-bathroom, she also had a self-contained dressing room and a second bathroom, with another shower plus bidet and lavatory.
She would have to change before she went out for dinner. A shower would be speedier, but she just couldn’t resist the temptation to wallow self-indulgently in the bath.
* * *
Lucy lay soaking in the bubble-topped silky warm water of her bath, luxuriating in the sensuality of the experience. She had left her shutters open, so that she could enjoy the view out to sea should she feel energetic enough to lift her head off the bath pillow. Instead, though, she opened her eyes and looked towards the mirrored wall. There was something irresistibly sensual about the combination of a huge bath and a mirror in which one could see oneself using it. This was definitely a suite for lovers.
Lovers. There was only one man she wanted as her lover. Only one man she had ever wanted, full stop. And that man was Marcus.
Marcus.
Was his suite the same as her own? Was he right now lazing in a tub of hot water, his body naked beneath the suds? A shiver of sensual pleasure iced through her own inner heat, as pleasurable as ice-cream melted by hot chocolate sauce—only a thousand times more so.
But she suspected that Marcus was more likely to prefer a fierce shower to a lazy linger in a bath. And he still hadn’t said a word about last night.
Lucy closed her eyes and stroked the soapy water over her skin, imagining that it was still last night and that Marcus was here with her, touching her, stroking her. A wet heat that had nothing at all to do with the water flooded her sex. This was getting dangerous. But she couldn’t resist the temptation to lie there and fantasise, to imagine and remember. She closed her eyes...
She had almost fallen asleep in the bath! And look at the time! It was gone nine o’clock. Reaching for the plug, Lucy stepped up out of the bath and reached for one of the deliciously thick, fluffy towels. The mirror threw back her reflection—white soap bubbles slithering silkily down her body, covering her sex and then revealing it. She could feel the hot beat of her own desire as it pulsed out its hungry message. Her fingers touched her own body, stroking the foam from the swell of her mound and then moving lower. She watched her own movements in the mirrors, unable to look away. Her heart had started to race, a fierce wanton urgency filling her. Slowly and delicately, her tongue-tip pressed to her teeth, Lucy ran an experimental finger along her mound and pressed lightly against her clitoris.
Marcus... Immediately her flesh swelled and glistened richly, her heart pumping...
Somewhere outside the intensity of her concentration she heard a noise that sounded like a door opening...
A door opening! Immediately she removed her hand and reached for a towel, her face burning with self-conscious heat as she realised that Marcus was standing in her bedroom.
How long had he been there? How much had he seen? Behind him she could see what must be a connecting door between the two suites. He must have knocked, but she had obviously been too preoccupied to hear him. Her face burned with the knowledge of what she had so nearly been preoccupied with!
‘How much longer is it going to take you to get ready?’ he asked her. ‘Only it’s nearly nine-thirty now.’
He, Lucy recognised dizzily, was already changed, wearing a pair of light-coloured chinos with a darker-coloured top.
‘I’m virtually there,’ she replied, and then blushed vividly as she realised just what connotation could be placed on her comment, and how appropriate it had almost been. She did not dare look at Marcus as she almost scurried past him and into her dressing room.
‘It’s a long, steep walk down to the harbour, so I’ve asked the hotel to provide us with a car and a driver,’ Marcus announced as they walked into the foyer together, and Lucy glanced down at her strappy-sandal-shod feet. The same sandals she had been wearing yesterday. The same sandals one of which she had left on his stairs, and then found placed neatly with its twin this morning, alongside her clothes...
She wasn’t normally a fan of high-heeled shoes, but the dress she was wearing had a pretty handkerchief hem and demanded equally pretty footwear.
From the hotel, the road to the harbour wound down alongside the river, the wooded slopes broken up by the lights of a scattering of expensive luxury villas,
The harbour itself was tiny, and predictably filled with sleek expensive-looking yachts—just as the restaurants fronting onto the harbour were filled with equally sleek and expensive-looking diners.
This was very much Notting-Hill-on-Sea territory, Lucy thought ruefully. Within seconds of leaving their car and taking less than half a dozen steps, she had seen at least half a dozen famous faces amongst the groups of people already seated at the tables set up outside the restaurants and bars.
‘The place I’ve booked us into has a reputation for serving top-quality fish dishes,’ Marcus told her. ‘And, knowing how much you like fish, I thought you might prefer that to a more traditional tapas bar.’
‘Yes, I would,’ Lucy agreed, as she stifled a small yawn.
‘Sleepy?’
‘No, not really. I think my bath must have made me feel tired,’ Lucy responded without thinking, and then felt her whole body start to burn as she tensed, dreading hearing Marcus say that he knew exactly why she might be feeling tired.
There was really no reason for her to feel embarrassed about something so natural. Heavens, she didn’t know any women of her own age who were not prepared to trade opinions on the latest vibrator. But somehow the fact that Marcus might have seen her almost engaged in such a very intimate and personal act of self-pleasure made her feel acutely embarrassed. Especially after last night. Oh, yes, especially after last night. Now he might think that it was her desire for him that had prompted her to such a course of action.
He might think it, but she actually
knew
it, Lucy admitted to herself, as Marcus guided her between the packed tables and into the restaurant itself.
Typically, Marcus had managed to secure them a table with just about the best view of the harbour possible, and he had been right about the food as well, Lucy saw, when her own meal was placed in front her. Her mouth started to water. Pan-fried scallops with an Asian fusion-style warm salad. Marcus, she noted, had chosen a thick tuna steak.
* * *
‘More wine?’
Lucy shook her head firmly. She was already on her second glass, and beginning to feel pleasantly relaxed. She didn’t need or want any more.
Marcus had only had two glasses himself, although she noticed that, unlike her, he did not nod his head when the waiter asked if they wanted coffee.
‘Espresso?’ he commented after she had given her order. ‘You’ll never sleep.’
‘Watch me,’ Lucy answered flippantly, and then went bright red. Heavens, Marcus was going to think she was propositioning him if she kept on saying idiotic things like that.
Watch her? Oh, he would love to... And not only watch, either.
‘What time did you say we were seeing Beatrice tomorrow?’ Lucy asked Marcus hastily, trying to sound businesslike and efficient.
‘She’s going to ring me in the morning to confirm,’ Marcus told her as he glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t want to rush you, but the car should be back for us any minute now.’
Her coffee had arrived and Lucy drank it greedily, relishing both its smell and its taste, while Marcus summoned their waiter and asked for the bill.