SHE had been back in London for three days now, and still hadn’t been able to persuade herself to go into the office. Officially at least, so far as Lucy was concerned, she was taking a few days’ leave. The reality was that she had felt too sick with loss and misery to do anything other than retreat into herself and stay in her bedroom. Fortunately Jules was away, so she had the flat to herself, but today she had to go out—because today she had an appointment to see Marcus.
No matter how much she was suffering because of Ricardo’s deceit and betrayal, she reminded herself that she still owed a duty to Lucy, both as a friend and an employee, and so she had screwed up her courage and got in touch with Marcus to tell him she had some concerns about the financial affairs of the business that she did not at this stage want to discuss with Lucy. Fortunately she’d had his e-mail address, and virtually immediately he had e-mailed her back to ask her to go and see him.
The first thing she noticed when she abandoned the comfort of her ‘at home’ joggers and top was how loosely her jeans fitted her. It was true that she had not felt much like eating, but the sight of her pale, drawn face and grief-shadowed eyes when she looked at herself in the mirror told her that it wasn’t just lack of food that was responsible for her altered appearance. But there was nothing she could take to alleviate the devastating effect of lack of Ricardo, was there? At least only she knew how humiliatingly she longed for him, despite what he had done.
Love knew no sense of moral outrage, as she had now discovered. And, equally, once it had been given life it could not be easily destroyed. She had tried focusing on all the reasons she should not love Ricardo, but rebelliously her thoughts had lingered longingly instead on the happiness she had felt before she had discovered the truth. It might have been a false happiness, but her heart would not let go of it. Her heart longed and yearned to be back in that place of happiness, just as her body yearned to be back in Ricardo’s embrace.
She took a taxi to the address Marcus had given her, and was surprised to discover that she had been set down not outside an office building, but outside an elegant house just off one of London’s private garden squares.
Even more surprisingly it was Marcus himself who opened the door for her and showed her in to the comfort of a book-lined library-cum-study.
‘You must think it rather odd that I’ve got in touch with you privately,’ Carly began awkwardly, having refused his offer of a cup of coffee. She was so on edge that for once she did not feel the need for her regular caffeine fix.
‘Not at all,’ Marcus reassured her. ‘In fact…’ He paused, and then looked thoughtfully at her.
‘I think I have a fair idea of why you want to see me, Carly.’
‘You do?’
‘Ricardo has been in touch with me. He told me that you would probably wish to talk to me.’
Carly could feel her face burning with the heat of her emotions.
She couldn’t understand why Ricardo should have been in touch with Marcus, but just hearing Marcus say his name made her long for him so much she could hardly think, never mind speak. But of course she had to. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and began.
‘Marcus, Ricardo is planning to acquire Prêt a Party, and I’m afraid I may have made it easier for him to get the business at a lower price. You see—’
‘Carly, Ricardo has no intention of acquiring the business. In fact, when he telephoned me he made it plain that whilst he had at one stage contemplated doing so, his relationship with you had caused him to change his mind. He also said that you were concerned about Nick’s role within the business, specifically when it came to the financial side of things, and that it might be a good idea for me, as Lucy’s trustee, to look into it.’
Carly could hardly take in what he was saying.
‘But that’s not true,’ she protested. ‘He—’
‘I can assure you that it is true. In fact, Ricardo also told me that, because of your concern for Lucy and the business, he wondered if there might be some way that, between us he and I could put together a discreet rescue package, potentially with him using the services of Prêt a Party in connection with his business whilst I deal with the side of things relating to Lucy’s trust fund. We agreed that we would both give some thought to our options before making a final decision.
‘At that time I rather gained the impression that you and he…’ Marcus paused as Carly made a small shocked sound of distress, and then continued, ‘However, when he called in to tell me that you were likely to want to see me, he made no mention of your relationship. But he did ask me to give you this.’
Carly was too busy struggling to take in everything Marcus had told her to do anything more than glance vaguely at the small, neatly wrapped box Marcus had handed to her. There was one question she had to ask.
‘When…when exactly did Ricardo first telephone you?’
Marcus was frowning.
‘Let me have a look in my diary.’
He opened a large leather-bound desk diary and flicked through it.
‘Yes, here it is…’
Ricardo had spoken to Marcus before she had seen the papers on his desk. He had told Marcus then about her concern and his own decision not to go ahead with any acquisition because of his relationship with her. And she had accused him of lying to her, betraying her.
She was in the taxi Marcus had insisted on calling for her before she remembered the parcel he had given her. Shakily, she took it from her bag and opened it. Inside it was a cardboard box, and inside that was her Cartier watch.
Carly tried to focus on it through the tears blurring her vision, and then realised that beneath it was a note from Ricardo which read; ‘You left before I could return this to you.’
Nothing else. Just that. No words of love. But on the card was a handwritten address in London and a telephone number.
Initially he had misjudged her, but that had not stopped her loving him. Then she had misjudged him. Was his love for her strong enough to withstand that?
There was only one way she could find out.
Carly rapped on the glass panel separating her from the taxi driver. When he pulled it open, she told him she had changed her mind and gave him the address on Ricardo’s note.
She had paid off the taxi and now she was standing uncertainly in front of the imposing Georgian terraced house, its gold-tipped black railings glinting in the sunshine, and trying to remember the words she had rehearsed in the taxi on her way here. Words that would tell him how much she loved him, how much she wished she had listened to him and trusted him.
Would he allow her to say them?
Trying not to give way to the mixture of anxiety, dread, and longing leavened with hope that was gripping her body, Carly walked up the stone steps to the imposing black gloss-painted door, and rang the bell.
Seconds ticked by with no response. The street was empty. Like the house? Had she let her own feelings allow her to put an interpretation on Ricardo’s note he had never intended? Should she ring the bell again? It was a huge house and maybe no one had heard it the first time? Or maybe no one was there to hear it, she told herself. But she pressed the bell a second time and waited, whilst her heart thumped and the hope drained from her.
There was no point in her ringing a third time.
Carly walked back down the steps, oblivious to the fact that the reason she was struggling to see properly was because she was crying, oblivious too to the taxi turning into the street—until it screeched to a halt only feet away from her, causing her to freeze with shock.
‘Carly!’
Her shock turned to disbelief as the passenger door opened and Ricardo got out, immediately striding towards her.
The taxi driver was reversing and turning round, but Carly didn’t notice. She was in Ricardo’s arms and he was kissing her with all the passionate hunger and love she had been longing for since she had left him.
‘Come on. Let’s go inside,’ he told her huskily, keeping his arm round her as he guided her back up the stone steps.
‘Ricardo, I’m so sorry I refused to believe you. I—’
‘Shush,’ he told her tenderly as he unlocked the door and ushered her into the hallway.
Motes of dust danced in the sunlight coming through the fanlight, and an impressive staircase curled upwards from the black and white tiled floor. But Carly was oblivious to the elegance of her surroundings, feasting her gaze instead on Ricardo’s face.
How could she ever have thought she could live without him?
‘You bought my watch back for me,’ she whispered emotionally. ‘And you told Marcus you didn’t want to acquire the business because of me.’
‘I knew you would worry about Lucy if I did, and your happiness and peace of mind are far more important to me than any business acquisition. The reason those papers you found were on the desk was because I’d seen how upset you were about Nick and the cheques, and I know Marcus vaguely, and so I’d decided that maybe it was worth making contact with him, to see if between us we couldn’t do something that would set your mind at rest. I reasoned that since he was Lucy’s trustee he would want to protect her, just as I wanted to protect you.’
‘And then I accused you of trying to use me. I’m surprised you even want to see me again.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be. Real love, true love, the kind of love I feel for you and you feel for me, is far stronger than pride—as you have proved by coming here to find me. Now, did Marcus tell you that I’m going to give Prêt a Party some business?’
‘What?’ said Carly blankly. ‘Well, yes…’
‘I’ve got several events in mind I can use them for, but the first and most important of them all is going to be our wedding.’
Carly looked up at him. ‘You want us to get married?’
Ricardo nodded his head.
‘I want us to get married; I want you to be my wife; I want you to be the mother of my children. You are my soulmate, Carly, and my life is of no value to me without you in it, at my side…But this is not the way or the place in which I had intended to propose to you.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No. I wanted something far more romantic—something that would make up for all the unhappiness life has brought you and show you how much I love you. A room filled with roses, perhaps, or—’
Carly reached up and placed her finger against his lips.
‘I don’t need or want that, Ricardo. All I want is you, and your heart filled with love for me.’
‘Always,’ he told her softly, before bending his head to kiss her.