Rumours: The One-Night Heirs: The Innocent's Secret Baby (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs) / Bound by the Sultan's Baby (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs) / Sicilian's Baby of Shame (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs). Carol Marinelli

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       CHAPTER TEN

      A GORGEOUS CHANDELIER, creating prisms of light in every shade of spring, was the first thing Lydia saw when she awoke.

      There was a long peal of bells ringing out in the distance, but it was a closer, more occasional, deep, sonorous chime that held her attention. It rang low, soft and yet clear, till the sound slowly faded. When it struck again she remembered gliding underneath the Bridge of Sighs with his kiss.

      Lydia knew the legend.

      She had stood by the bridge with one of her school friends and struck it from her study sheet.

      Eternal love and bliss had not applied to her then and it could not now, Lydia knew.

      And so she stared up instead and remembered her vow to not show the hurt when it ended.

      Pinks, lemons and minty greens dotted the ceiling, and she saw that the beads were actually flowers that threw little prisms of light across the room.

      He was awake.

      Stretching languorously beside her.

      Lydia relished the moment.

      His hand slid to her hips and pulled her closer, and rather than ponder over the fact that soon she would be gone, Lydia chose to keep things light.

      ‘I never pictured you as a man who might have a chandelier in the bedroom.’

      Raul gave a low laugh.

      He was a mystery, but not hers to solve, and so she did her best to maintain a stiff upper lip.

      ‘A floral chandelier at that,’ Lydia added. Her eyes could not stop following the beams of light. ‘Though I have to say it’s amazing.’

      ‘It drives me crazy,’ Raul admitted. ‘When I first moved in I considered having it taken down, or changing the master bedroom, but the view of the canal is the best from here.’

      ‘Oh, you can’t have it taken down,’ Lydia said.

      ‘Easy for you to say. I feel like I am having laser surgery on my eyes some mornings.’

      Lydia smiled and carried on watching the light show.

      She never wanted to move.

      Or rather she did, but only to the beat of their lovemaking.

      His hand was making circles on her stomach and he was hard against her thigh.

      Lydia didn’t want to check the time just to find out how little time they had left.

      ‘I love your home.’

      ‘You haven’t really seen it.’

      And she was about to throw him a line about how she could live in just his bedroom for ever, but it would come out wrong, she knew.

      He watched the lips he had been about to kiss press together.

      Raul saw that.

      Then he thought of what he’d been about to say last night.

      Restare.

      Stay.

      He should be congratulating himself for not making such a foolish mistake by uttering that word last night.

      Yet the feeling was still there.

      And so Raul, far safer than making love to her, as he wanted to, told her how he had come by his home.

      ‘There is a café nearby that I go to. I sometimes see Silvio there, and we chat. On one occasion he told me that this palazzo had come on the market. He was not interested in purchasing it but had been to view it as some of his early work was inside.’

      I don’t care, Lydia wanted to say. I want to be kissed.

      Yet she did care.

      And she did want to know about his home and how he had come by it.

      She wanted more information to add to the file marked ‘Raul Di Savo’ that her heart would soon have to close.

      And his voice was as deep as that occasional bell and it resonated in every cell of her body.

      She wanted to turn her mouth to feel his, but she lay listening instead.

      ‘Half a century ago it underwent major refurbishment. Silvio made all the internal door handles with his grandfather. But СКАЧАТЬ