Secrets of Castillo del Arco (16 page)

‘There is nothing wrong with you.’

‘Then what the hell is wrong with you? We are married, Raoul. You took me for your wife. What is it you intend to do with me that you bring me to this godforsaken end of the earth and as good as hang me out to dry? What’s with that? This is supposed to be our honeymoon.’

He stiffened. ‘I did not realise you were so inconvenienced by being here.’

‘Inconvenienced? How ungrateful of me to imply such a thing, when clearly I’m having the time of my life! And
when I try to seduce you—my own husband—you reject me. You turn me down. How do you think that makes me feel?’

‘Gabriella …’

‘Do you know how humiliating it is for everyone to know that your own husband will not make love to you?’

‘Nobody knows.’

‘Except for Natania and Marco. Or is that why you brought me here? To save me the humiliation and indignity of the entire world knowing? Should I thank you instead for your kind consideration?’

‘Gabriella, it’s not like that.’

‘Isn’t it? You know, I used to think you had bricked up your heart behind walls so high and thick that they could never be breached. But I thought there was hope for you when we spent those days in Venice. I thought there was hope when you asked me to marry you. But I was wrong.

‘Because you don’t have a heart at all. You’re empty inside. You’re not a man, you’re a shell. An empty, hollow shell of a man. Devoid of emotion. Devoid of feeling. And I wish to God I’d never met you.’

His jaw was set tight, the cords in his neck pulled taut, and when the words came they sounded like they were ground out. ‘You have no idea what I feel.’

‘No, I don’t. Because you won’t tell me. You won’t share the slightest thing with me. Me, the woman who is supposed to be your wife! And yet you give me nothing. When I tell you that I love you, I get nothing in return. I don’t even know if you love me. I thought you did. I believed you when once you told me that you do
not have to hear the words to be true, but now I need to hear those words. Can you say them? Do you love me, Raoul?’

‘Bella …’

‘Don’t
Bella
me! Don’t pretend I mean something to you when clearly I mean nothing. Do you love me? It’s a simple enough question. Yes or no, Raoul; what’s it to be?’

He spun around, his hand raking through his hair. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because I need to know. I need to hear those words. I need you to prove that they are true.’

His hand slammed down hard on his desk. ‘Do you think I wanted this?’

‘What are you talking about? You’re the one who asked me to marry you. Who insisted on not waiting? Who told me that I was the one who made him want to break his vow never to marry again? You’re the one who asked
me
to marry
you
!’

He shook his head wildly from side to side, like a stallion readying for a fight. ‘Do you think I wanted a wife who needed a man to love her and cherish her? Do you think I
needed
another wife?’

Thunder rolled overhead, a long, booming sound that filled the silence in the room and turned it toxic.

‘But you asked me …’ She heard a sob, recognised it as her own and knew she had to escape, knew she had to get as far away as she possibly could from him. She turned and fled out of the room and across the stone entrance-hall, her shoes slapping on the stones.

‘Gabriella!’ she heard, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t
stop. She had to get away, as far away as she could. She tore through the kitchen, looking for escape, finding it in the doors leading to the terrace and the path to the cove, thinking she could hide there, amongst the boulders on the beach, and find the time to work out what she should do.

She would have to leave. She would have to run away, her tail between her legs. Humiliated. Defeated. Phillipa would take her in—Philippa, who had warned her to take her time.

Two short days ago she had been so happy. So wondrously happy. So sure that he loved her.

Do you think I needed another wife?

Hadn’t he wanted to marry her? Then why had he asked her? What had she been thinking? Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision. The bank of dark clouds blotted out the sun, the loose edges like thick, black fingers rolling dark dough across the sky; they rumbled and grumbled with discontent. But still she ran on, faster, towards the stone steps that led down to the beach.

Behind her, she heard him call her name again and ran faster, her grief pushing her on. She flung herself down the time-worn steps to the beach, her feet barely touching the stones, before launching herself onto the sand. The skirt of her dress flew around her; she kicked her flat shoes from her feet at the first opportunity to give her purchase on the sand.

‘Gabriella!’

Above her the sky darkened, the waves crashed against the cliff. She heard his voice on the wind that
whipped through her hair, filled with salt and moisture from the sea, but she didn’t look back. She dared not. There was no point. What was the point of looking back at a man you loved—a man you
thought
you loved—who seemed incapable of loving you but had married you nonetheless?

She could not bear to see him.

Why had he done this to her?

Why?

Her feet pushed on, fighting the loose, soft sand, searching for somewhere to hide, somewhere she could be safe in her misery and despair.

But the sand had been eaten up on the incoming tide and there was nowhere to run. The tide lapped at her feet and she turned back only to collide with a rock that should not have been there. Except this rock was warm, had a thumping heart and had arms that clamped tightly around her.

Raoul
.

She looked up at him, panting, desperate and afraid. She saw her storm reflected in his eyes, wild, insane and wanting, as above them the storm broke in a thunderclap that shook the ground and sent the vibrations spiralling through her. They fell on each other like that storm, hungry, wild and insatiable.

Their mouths meshed, their tongues dancing, duelling, her cheek scraping hard against his blue-black beard as she pulled his clothes free with busy, seeking hands, needing to touch him, to feel him; needing to feel his hot flesh against her own.

Rain pelted down upon them, fat droplets that tugged
on their hair, their clothes and stuck the fabric to them, but his hands were hot and liberating; the wet fabric was no barrier to those seeking hands. He groaned in her mouth and spun her away, finding their own private grotto, where he pressed her hard against the stone, and pressed himself hard against her, making her gasp with his size and his need while her own need spiralled out of control. Her hands explored him, fingernails raking his back, relishing the firm, hard flesh, the muscled tone; her fingers traced the lines of his ribs, the nub of his nipples, the thick column of his erection.

He made a sound like a hungry beast, half-growl, half-roar, and she felt her dress tear apart, felt the rain on her hot skin and his hotter hands at her breasts. Felt her bones dissolve as he dropped his hot mouth to one breast, sucking her nipple in tight until she thought she would explode with the agony and the ecstacy, while his large hands travelled her body, heading south, taking away her last remaining scrap of cover.

She battled with his waistband and, still locked together with her at the mouth, he pushed her hands aside and did the job himself; she felt him hard and hot and bucking against her belly.

She felt herself lifted, pressed hard against the smooth stone, her body pulsing as her legs encircled him, throbbing with need, anticipating completion.

Thunder boomed again and lightning rent the sky. She caught sight of his face, wretched, desperate and tortured, and she pulled his face to hers and kissed him so deeply, she knew he must feel her very soul.

She was lost to the storm going on around her, the
storm going on inside, the fury building with the need until he lowered her slowly down.

She felt his hardness in a nudging press, her muscles working to pull him in; her body ached for completion. And yet he held her there, suspended, for what seemed like for ever as his tongue drove into her mouth, demanding every part of her for his own. Until he let her fall as he pressed inside, her mind blew apart in a raging storm of stars.

Nothing could ever be better than this.

The fleeting thought came to her in that one moment of clarity when the world and everything in it was suspended and there existed just this one, intense moment.

Then he moved inside her and her world threatened to come apart. He was so large she felt that she could not let him go without feeling the suck of his organ on her womb, without feeling the need to have him back inside.

She was already on the brink. He thrust again and she gasped with the spiralling sensations shuddering around him, and with the next he cried out and buried himself so deep inside her she wondered if he could ever find his way out.

Her orgasm came in a rolling wave, like the dark clouds had done this day, building and intensifying until there was no way to go but be lost in the thunderclap of her release as she felt him lose himself inside her.

He carried her to the castle wrapped in the shredded remnants of her dress and his damp shirt; he carried her to his bathroom where they soaped each other in
the steamy shower, exploring each other’s bodies, taking the time they had not had before.

And then he laid her reverently on his bed and acquainted his mouth with every part of her, tasting her, suckling her until she once again cried out, begging for release.

Afterwards he held her close. ‘I love you,’ she said, and he stilled and kissed her cheek.

‘Go to sleep,’ he said, holding her close, his voice a husky promise.

She snuggled closer. For she knew in her heart that he loved her, even though he still could not bring himself to say the words for whatever reason he must love her.

She knew it.

Until she woke in the morning to find him gone
.

There was a letter on his pillow, barely a note, just two short lines:

I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.

And the bottom dropped out of her world.

H
E HAD
gone. Some time this morning before light, according to Natania who had heard the car, he had left her.

Why?

‘I thought he loved me,’ she said, sitting in Natania’s kitchen, sipping sweet tea.

‘I told you this was a bad place. You should leave.’

Nothing had ever sounded so tempting. But where to go? Back to Paris, and the big empty house? Or Venice, where she would not be welcome if Raoul was there? ‘I don’t know where to go.’

‘You have a friend in London. Marco can take you to the airport.’

She bit her lip, thinking through the options. Wondering how Phillipa’s husband would take the news of her separation so soon after dragging his wife and young baby to Venice for the wedding. ‘I don’t know. I have to call her, see if it’s okay.’

‘Call her, then. Or email. There is a computer in the library.’

‘You’re right. I’ll book a ticket while I’m at it. Thank you, Natania. I’m sorry that we could not have met in better circumstances.’

The gypsy woman shook her head, setting the hoops at her ears dancing. ‘It is not your fault. I thought you were the one.’ She sent her gaze in a wide arc. ‘But it is this place. It is what it does to Raoul. It is what it reminds him of. It is a bad place.’

It was a toxic place as far as Gabriella was concerned. It got worse when she realised the computer was password-protected and she couldn’t even access her email account, let alone book a flight.

‘Damn you, Raoul,’ she snarled as she stared at the blinking cursor. On a hunch, she typed ‘Raoul’. No luck.

‘Raoul Del Arco’ met with the same ‘invalid password’ response.

Out of frustration she typed in ‘bastard’, half-expecting that one would work—but then, she rationalised when it didn’t, anyone could have guessed that; it was hardly secure.

She scanned the desk, looking for somewhere he might have jotted down the password, but the desk was irritatingly paper free. She pulled open a drawer, searching through the papers for something, anything, on which he might have written it down. But she could find nothing and slammed it shut.

The drawer on the other side got similar treatment. This one was almost empty though; mostly stationery supplies. A few pens. A stapler. A key.

That drawer got slammed shut too.

Damn!

Unless, she thought a moment later, there was a filing cabinet somewhere. She opened the drawer again, picked up the key, which was heavy, despite its small
size, and ornately carved. Maybe it was not like any filing-cabinet key she had ever seen before, but then this was Raoul and his filing cabinet was no doubt antique.

She prowled the library, testing any piece of furniture with a lock, but most were already unlocked and the key did not fit. She studied it in the palm of her hand. Why keep a key that fitted no lock?

Then she remembered the door at the end of the passageway.

The locked door. And she wondered …

What had he done? Raoul drove aimlessly through village after village of simple white stone buildings and small fields set amidst the rocky hills, knowing only that he needed to get away—except there was no getting away from his own black thoughts.

For he had done the unthinkable. He had done what he had promised himself he would not do. He was supposed to keep her safe; he was supposed to protect her.

Instead he had given in to his basest self. He had taken advantage of her sweet body, and he had not been able to stop at just once.

And it didn’t matter that she had provoked him, that she had goaded him with her taunts and her words. Nothing mattered except that he was in the wrong, whichever way he looked at it. He had been in the wrong from the very beginning.

He had set out to marry her, to do anything it took to keep her and Garbas apart, and he had done that. But in the process he had lost Gabriella.

You don’t have to love her
.