CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCCA RIPPED YET another piece of paper off his sketchpad and scrunching it savagely into a ball, threw it at the wall. It bounced off and landed next to the pyramid of sketches he’d tossed there over the course of the evening.
For the first time in his life he couldn’t get into the zone. Couldn’t centre. Couldn’t anchor down.
Drawing was the music of his soul but tonight the band had packed up and left. Throughout his life, whatever emotions he grappled with, whatever demons he wrestled, whatever ghosts he avoided, he did it with pencil or paintbrush. It was his way of purging himself of every foul feeling festering inside him. The meticulous concentration of miniature work calmed him. Whether he was doing the preliminary sketch, or painting with one of his finest brushes while he worked under a large magnifying glass, the painstaking process calmed him like a lullaby does a fractious child.
But not tonight.
He was angry. Angry at himself. Angry for allowing his control to slip.
Lottie had needled him and instead of laughing it off in his usual I-don’t-give-a-damn manner he had reacted. Let her see a side of him he allowed no one to see.
Her little dig about him sponging off his family’s money seriously annoyed him. Who was she to talk? What about all the silver spoons she’d been fed with over the years? It wasn’t as if she had a big career path all mapped out. She lived her life through other people. Planning their events for them. She had no events of her own.
He had a right to his family’s money. The security of wealth made up for the emotional wasteland of his childhood. The loneliness he had suffered. The shame and hurt of not having a mother who had loved him and his siblings enough to stick around. The wretched disappointment when yet another important event at school ended without either of his parents showing up. He would look at all the other children with their proud and indulgent parents sitting in the school auditorium during a formal assembly or awards night or on the sports field. He would search that sea of beaming faces, hoping for a glimpse of his mother, desperately trying to match a face to the Laurent’s painting that hung at Chatsfield House. He would think it each and every time, even though he had no hooks to hang his hopes on: maybe this would be the day his mother would return. She would come to see him and Orsino. To cheer them on, to be proud of them, to show she still cared about them. His hopes would mushroom up in his chest until he could barely breathe. But then, like a sharp pin piercing the thin skin of a balloon, his hopes would deflate—flat, useless, empty.
He hadn’t made the most of his schooling. He had acted out his frustration, kicked back at authority, deliberately sabotaged his academic potential as a way of punishing his parents for not caring enough to show even a modicum of interest.
He had been lucky to have Orsino, but a twin was not a parent, and nor were older siblings. Antonio and Lucilla, his eldest brother and sister, had filled in where they could, but like Nicolo, and Franco, the next brothers in line, they had issues of their own to deal with.
And then there was Cara, the baby of the family, who had no memory of their mother at all.
Lucca swore as he dragged his hand over his face. He hated thinking about his family. He hated thinking. It stirred up emotions he had long ago buried, shining a bright light on the dark shadows of his hurt. The illumination of his pain made him feel physically ill. He could feel it now...the dead feeling in his muscles, the lethargy that dragged at his limbs. The tightness across his forehead, as if his eyes were being pulled back in their sockets by hot metal wires.
He picked up his phone, scrolled past another couple of missed calls from his brother, but instead of returning the call or distracting himself with social media he found himself scrolling through his photo file instead. He came to the photo of Lottie in the palace gardens. The light had caught the top of her tawny head, dividing her hair into segments like skeins of spun gold. Her skin looked as pure as cream with just a hint of dusky rose on her cheek that was facing the camera. She looked young and innocent, untouched, unsullied by the stain of twenty-first-century humanity.
He picked up a new pencil and turned over a fresh sheet on his sketchpad and started drawing....
* * *
Lottie had been fine about spending the night alone. Perfectly fine. Anyway, it had been exhausting doing loads and loads of shopping. It had been enormously liberating to wander about without a bodyguard, especially since no press had discovered her. With Lucca’s cutting remark about her goody-two-shoes personality still ringing in her ears she had bought outfit after outfit in a range of colours and styles just to prove she wasn’t half the coward he thought she was. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw her dressed in hot pink and wearing make-up and with her hair loose. Which was why it was kind of annoying he hadn’t made any contact since their little spat.
It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting him to take her out to dinner or a nightclub or anything. Perish the thought! She was perfectly fine about watching old movies on the large-screen television and ordering room service.
It had been very quiet next door, which was both a relief and a surprise. She’d expected to hear a boozy giggle or two as he brought a nameless girl back from a nightclub. She’d strained her ears for the sound of clinking glasses or the murmur of voices, but instead she had heard nothing, which just showed how incredibly soundproof the walls of Chatsfield Hotels were these days.
But when it got to ten the next morning and she still hadn’t heard a peep from next door or received a text from Lucca she started to wonder if he had stayed out all night. She paced the floor of the suite and fumed. How dare he leave her hanging? It would serve him right if he missed his important business meeting due to a massive hangover.
Lottie glanced out of the window and saw a cluster of paparazzi in front of the hotel. There was even a television crew. Her stomach knotted. She had pointedly ignored the newsfeed on her phone and the newspaper that had been delivered in the early hours of the morning and was still hanging in its silk bag on the doorknob outside the suite. She could just imagine what utter rubbish the press were peddling. Fashion Tragic Ice Princess Charlotte Spends Night with Dashing Hot Playboy Lucca Chatsfield in Secret Lust Fest.
She turned away from the window in disgust. She would be laughed at, pilloried as usual. Pitied for being the ugly sister. Cinderella without a handsome prince to take her to the ball.
No one would be running after her with a glass slipper in his hand.
No one would be running after her, period.
No one was even checking on her to see if she was fine about being left all alone for hours on end.
Lottie went over to the adjoining door, staring at the lock she had turned over the day before. She felt an inexplicable compulsion to open it. It was like an out of body experience as she watched her hand reach out and touch the old-fashioned brass key. The shock of cold metal against her fingers wasn’t enough to stop her turning the key with a click that sounded like a rifle shot.
The door was silent as she pushed it open. It didn’t even whisper over the carpet.
The bright morning light from her suite fanned across the room like the V-shaped beam of a searchlight and a muffled expletive sounded.
Lottie’s heart jumped as if it had been jerked by a tractor towrope but she didn’t back away or close the door. The suite was in total disarray. It looked like a tornado had been through it. Or a crazed burglar. There were balls of paper littered over the floor and the bed was a mangled mess of sheets and naked male limbs. No female ones that she could see. Thank God.
‘Get the freaking hell out.’ The words didn’t quite have the sting they should have had. Lucca’s voice sounded flat, listless, as if he didn’t have the energy to spit them out.
‘Are you all right?’
Another curse came out of the strangled sheets. ‘Peachy.’
Lottie pursed her mouth as she came farther into the suite. She stepped over a damp towel, her nose wrinkling in distaste as she caught the sour smell of vomit in the air. ‘Serves you right for going out all night drinking,’ she said. ‘Did you know that excessive amounts of alcohol can actually permanently damage your brain? The repeated bouts of dehydration causes the brain to shrink.’
He lifted his head out from under the pillow he’d been sheltering under and cranked open one bloodshot eye. ‘This is not a hangover. I’m sick.’
She folded her arms like a schoolteacher listening to a naughty pupil’s creative excuse for not completing homework. ‘Sure you are. Copious amounts of alcohol irritates the stomach lining causing acute nausea.’
His head flopped back down to the pillow. ‘Whatever...’
Lottie frowned. He looked dreadfully pale and he appeared to be shivering. She could see the shudders vibrating his body like the rigors of a bad fever. She approached the bed and touched the back of his shoulder. It was roasting hot and damp with beads of sweat. ‘You’ve got a temperature.’
‘You don’t say.’ Sarcasm should have sharpened his tone but it was still flat and toneless.
‘Maybe we should call a doctor.’
‘Maybe you should get the hell out of my room.’
‘There’s no need to be rude just because you’re not feeling well.’
He rolled onto his back, keeping his arm across his eyes as if to block the harsh sunlight. ‘Give me a break, princess. This is not my best look, okay? I just need a couple of hours to sleep this man flu off.’
‘What about your terribly important business appointment?’
He sat upright so quickly his face drained of what little colour remained. Lottie saw him sway as if his centre of balance was skewed. But then he threw back the sheet and stumbled towards the bathroom, banging his shoulder painfully against the doorjamb as he went. He didn’t have time to close the door to protect his privacy. He hunched over the nearest basin and was violently, wretchedly sick.
Every compassionate muscle of Lottie’s heart contracted. She joined him in the bathroom, grabbing a fresh hand towel from the rack and rinsed it under the tap before squeezing it out and handing it to him.
He pressed his face into it for a moment, his body still shaking with fever. ‘Go.’
‘I’m not going till I call a doctor.’
He dropped the towel in the vague direction of the bathtub. ‘I meant to my appointment. You’ll have to bid for me.’
Lottie scrunched up her forehead in confusion. ‘Bid for you?’
He gripped the edge of the basin for balance as he looked at her through wincing eyes. ‘I want to bid on a miniature painting. It’s never been auctioned before. It’s come from a private collection. The auction is at noon.’
‘But I’ve never been to an auction before. I wouldn’t know the first thing about—’
‘Please.’ His tone brooked no resistance. It was as if he had summoned the last remnants of his energy to convince her. ‘I want that painting. It’s the only one of its kind.’
She chewed at her lip. ‘Do you have a budget in mind?’
* * *
Lottie had never felt more pleased with herself. She had not only got out of the hotel undetected by the press—thanks to the aid of a senior staff member, Jean Rene, who set up a decoy—but she got to the auction, which was being held in a private villa and managed to outbid the highest offer. The exquisite painting was no bigger than a brooch and was of the mistress of a duke from the seventeenth century. Back and forth the bidding went until it was finally down to her and a man in his sixties who eventually caved in, shaking his head in defeat as the auctioneer brought the gavel down. ‘Sold to the young lady in pink at the back.’
Lottie got back to the hotel, again without detection, and dashed up to Lucca’s suite as if she were bringing the crown jewels. ‘I got it! I won the final bid. I—’ She stopped and looked at the sleeping form of Lucca lying on the bed.
She put the painting down, along with the other three she’d bought, and went over to the bed. He was lying on his stomach with just a cotton sheet covering him from the hips down. She could see the outline of his splayed legs, one hitched a little higher than the other, the taut curve of his buttocks making something in her belly feel wobbly.
She reached out and gently brushed the damp hair back off his forehead. He didn’t seem to register the contact. His breathing was deep and even, his mouth relaxed in sleep.
She waited a moment and then trailed her fingers down his cheek to see if his stubble was as prickly as it looked. It was. It scraped against the pads of her fingertips like sandpaper, making her insides give another little quiver.
She curled her fingers into a ball to stop them exploring any further and moved away from the bed. She let out a sigh as she looked at the chaos of the suite. She could call housekeeping but that would mean disturbing him. She could just as easily grab fresh towels and sheets from one of the housemaids and do a quiet tidy up and keep an eye on him while she was at it.
She gathered up the balls of paper and placed them in the wastepaper basket. But then her curiosity got the better of her and she bent down and took one out again and unfurled it. It was a rough sketch of one of the villas they had walked by the previous day.
She picked up another ball of paper and found another sketch of one of the cafés on the harbourfront. She knitted her brows as she took out yet another ball of paper. Each unfinished sketch seemed to tell her more and more about Lucca rather than the sketch itself. It was like peeling back the layers of an onion to find a treasure buried inside. She had never thought of him as an artist, and a remarkably talented one at that. The sketches might be rough but she knew enough about art to know he knew what he was doing with each stroke of the pencil against the paper. The detail and perspective were amazing. It was as if he was looking at the world with an intense focus, narrowed down to a minute degree to capture the hidden secrets of his subject.
But there was one more drawing.
Not scrunched up in a discarded ball on the floor, but on a sketchpad on the walnut desk over by the window. The pencil he had been using was lying crosswise on the pad, and an eraser was next to it surrounded by little rubber shavings. The antique chair was pushed back at a skewed angle as if he had got up in a hurry and hadn’t had time to straighten it.
Lottie looked down at the drawing, her heart doing a little skip of recognition when she saw an image of herself picking flowers in the palace gardens. It was a work in progress, but even so, Lucca had captured something about that frozen moment in time, built it into a story that made her look ethereal, even beautiful.
She had posed for official portraits before and had hated the stiff, formal results. She had always looked stuck-up and starchy.
No one had captured her.
She glanced at the bed. He was still soundly asleep, his chest rising and falling in slow deep breaths. Something prickly and tight in her chest loosened. Smoothed out. Flowed.
Escaped.
Lottie drew in a ragged breath and moved away from the desk. She set about briskly putting the rest of the suite to order. Work was a great panacea for wild imaginings that should not be allowed free. Ever. She was not to think of Lucca Chatsfield as anything other than an outrageous flirt, a layabout libertine who was only here to make trouble for her because that’s what he did best. He courted trouble. He relished in it. The press documented it in colourful, lurid detail.
He was one big flashing human headline.
He wasn’t the sort of man she should be thinking about. He certainly wasn’t the sort of man she should be kissing, or touching, or sharing a continent with, let alone a penthouse suite, even if it had a hundred separate rooms.
And he definitely wasn’t the sort of man she should be fantasising about making love with, even though her body reacted to him like a magnet to metal.
Even now her gaze was drawn to him. He had rolled onto his back and the sheet had dipped lower, revealing a tantalising trail of black hair that arrowed down from his belly button. His abdomen was superbly defined, gorgeously lean and tautly muscled.
She swallowed as his hand absently started scratching at his lower stomach. She felt like a voyeur, getting off on watching him. Was there a man alive who looked more outrageously delicious? He had been wearing dark blue underpants when she’d found him earlier but she suspected he was naked now because she’d found a pair of underpants in the shower stall along with a used towel. She could see the contour of his penis, the way it seemed to swell before her eyes, as if he were dreaming of something richly erotic.
His hand went lower and Lottie abruptly cleared her throat, her face so hot it felt like it was on fire. ‘Ahem. You’ve got company. Might want to keep that for when you’re alone.’
His eyes opened and he blinked a couple of times as if trying to place her. ‘Lottie?’
‘At your service—I mean, not in that sense.’ She waved her hands about the room, her blush deepening. ‘I was just tidying up...a bit....’
He propped himself up on one elbow, his brow frowning. ‘Did you get the painting?’
‘I did.’ She brandished it proudly. ‘I had a ball—er, I mean, heaps of fun.’ What was wrong with her mind that it kept sinking into the gutter?
‘Good girl.’ He lay back down with a sigh and closed his eyes again.
She gnawed at her lip for a moment. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Marvellous.’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’
‘I mean, your colour’s not right.’ Lottie tentatively approached the bed. ‘Have you had anything to eat or drink?’
‘No.’
‘What about if I get you something? Some light broth or one of those rehydrating drinks. I could call up room service if you—’
He cracked open one eye and gave her a wry look. ‘Might as well tip it straight down the toilet and cut out the middleman.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘Get me an eye of a needle and I’ll prove it.’
She winced in sympathy. ‘It’s okay, I get the picture.’
There was a little silence.
‘Thanks for getting the painting for me.’
Lottie felt a warm glow come over her. ‘It was heaps of fun. There was this old guy there who was pretty determined to outbid me. I dug my heels in. I didn’t care how much I had to pay, I was not leaving without that painting. It was such an adrenaline rush when it was over. I felt like I’d won a race or something. Can you get an endorphin rush from an auction, do you think?’
He gave her another one-eyed look. ‘How much did you pay for it?’
‘Um...’ She pulled at her lower lip again. ‘I can chip in if you think I overdid it.’
His mouth came up in a weak half-smile. ‘I’m sure I can manage it. I’m a filthy-rich playboy, remember?’
Lottie gave him a sheepish look. ‘About what I said yesterday...’
‘I deserved it.’ His gaze went to her mouth, his smile fading as his frown returned. ‘How’s your lip?’
She touched the tiny spot with the tip of her tongue. ‘It’s fine. I should use lip balm more often. Madeleine is always nagging me about taking better care of myself.’
His eyes meshed with hers, searchingly, as if he was trying to solve a mystery inside her gaze. ‘I like that pink outfit you’re wearing.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Why do you dress in such drab gear all the time?’
Lottie looked down at her hands, rubbing her finger over her bitten-down thumbnail in a circular pattern. ‘It’s a habit I got into. A way of giving everyone the finger about their criticisms of me.’
‘The press?’
‘Yes. And the public.’ She met his dark gaze again. ‘I’ve never been the picture-perfect princess like Madeleine. I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a bad photo of her. Every time there’s a camera around I freeze. I feel awkward. I stiffen up. I can’t act natural when I know someone’s looking at me. And of course the press love those caught-off-guard shots without make-up or sweaty from the gym...or stumbling out of a helicopter looking green.’
‘So you don’t play ball rather than try hard and then get criticised for it.’
She saw something in his gaze she had never seen there before. Kindness. Understanding. She let out a slow breath and another notch of tightness in her chest loosened. ‘That boyfriend I told you about? It kind of started with that.’
His frown shadowed his eyes. ‘He criticised you?’
‘Not like that as such.’ She picked at a rough edge on what was left of her fingernail. ‘He took photos of me. Of us...when we were...you know...’
‘And you didn’t know about it?’
She looked at him again. ‘Not until I saw them on his phone. He’d set it up on remote control. I was horrified. It was like a nightmare I’d stumbled into. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. He’d shared the photos with some of his friends. Luckily my father was able to pull some strings to stop the images going viral. You can imagine the scandal it would have caused.’
His frown was so deep it made him look ten years older. ‘So you’ve pushed everyone away ever since?’
Lottie got to her feet and smoothed her skirt down over her thighs. She never talked about this stuff. To anyone. Ever. Why was she spilling all to Lucca Chatsfield, of all people? He’d had his latest bedroom antics splashed over the London tabloids the week before. He probably had an archive full of juicy boudoir shots. ‘I should let you rest. I’ve cancelled our flight back. I think we should wait and see how you’re feeling in the morning. Are you sure you don’t want me to call a doctor?’
‘No, it’s just a virus. Hope you don’t catch it.’ He lay back with a weary sigh. ‘I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’
There was another silence.
‘I saw the picture you drew of me.’
He didn’t open his eyes but she thought she saw his body tense momentarily. ‘It’s just a doodle.’
‘I didn’t know you could draw like that.’
He made a dismissive sound.
‘You’re really talented, Lucca. Really talented.’
He opened that one dark satirical eye again. ‘So if I asked you to come and see my etchings you’d come in a flash?’
Lottie gave him a prim look to disguise the track her mind was taking at his double entendre. ‘I might appear naive but even I wouldn’t fall for that hackneyed line.’
He gave her a rueful smile that had a tilt of sadness to it. ‘You’re a nice kid, little princess. You should stay away from bad boys like me.’
She put on a confident smile that took far more effort than it should. ‘I intend to.’