Книга - The Italian’s Inexperienced Mistress

The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress
LYNNE GRAHAM


Bargaining with her body…Angelo Riccardi doesn’t do emotions. He’s never known love in his life and he has no intention of finding out the depth of its passion. But when Angelo seeks his long-planned revenge, the daughter of his enemy adds another delicious dimension to his plan!Innocent and beautiful, Gwenna is trapped when the Italian tycoon offers her the devil’s bargain: to buy her father’s freedom with her body… Gwenna hoped that Angelo would tire of her inexperience after one night. But Angelo surprises Gwenna with an outrageous proposal!












is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!







LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon


reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.




The Italian’s

Inexperienced Mistress

Ruthless

Lynne Graham





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE


ANGELO RICCARDI climbed out of his limousine, a heavy-duty vehicle armoured with reinforced panels and bulletproof glass, built to withstand a rocket attack. The heat outside was relentless. His sunglasses screening his hard dark gaze from the bright Venezuelan sunlight, he ignored the uneasy chatter of the English intermediary sent to greet him at the airport. While he understood the man’s tension he was also irritated by it.

Angelo had not experienced fear since childhood and the shame of it had been beaten out of him. He had known loathing, rage and bitterness, but fear no longer had the power to touch him. His relentless rise to power and influence had featured in hundreds of magazines and newspaper features, but his birth and parentage had always been shrouded in a haze of uncertainty. When he was eighteen he had been told the truth about his ancestry. Any idealistic notions he’d had had died that same day when his chosen career had become a complete impossibility. With every successive year that had passed since then he had grown tougher, colder and more ruthless. He had used his brilliant intellect and razor-sharp instincts to build a huge business empire. That he had not had to break the law to become a billionaire was a harsh source of pride to him.

‘There’s a colossal security presence here,’ his companion, Harding, muttered uneasily.

It was true, Angelo acknowledged. Armed guards were everywhere: on the rooftops of the ranch buildings, in every manicured clump of trees or bushes, their state of alert palpable. ‘It should make you feel safe,’ Angelo quipped.

‘I won’t feel safe until I’m back home again,’ Harding confided, mopping his round, perspiring face.

‘Perhaps this was not the job for you.’

He dealt Angelo a look of dismay. ‘Believe me, I meant no offence. I’m delighted to be of service.’

Angelo said nothing. He was surprised that such a man had been chosen to act as middleman in a secret meeting. But then, how many outwardly respectable men accepted the kind of undercover favours that forced them into uncomfortable repayments? He strode into the cool air-conditioned interior of the opulent ranch house where a lantern-jawed older man awaited him. Harding was dismissed like a lackey of no consequence, while Angelo was looked over and greeted with a level of respectful curiosity that bordered on awe.

‘It is a very great pleasure to meet you, Mr Riccardi,’ the older man declared in Italian. ‘I’m Salvatore Lenzi. Don Carmelo is eager to see you.’

‘How is he?’

The other man grimaced. ‘His condition is stable at present but it’s unlikely that he has more than a couple of months left.’

Lean, handsome features taut, Angelo nodded. He had thought long and hard before he had agreed to visit and the old man’s declining health had provided the spur. The infamous Carmelo Zanetti, head of one of the most notorious crime families in the world, was a stranger to him. Yet Angelo had never been able to forget that the same blood that ran in Carmelo Zanetti’s veins ran in his own.

The elderly man lay propped up in a hospital-style bed surrounded by medical equipment. His face was lined with ill health. Breathing stentorously, he feasted his clouded dark gaze on Angelo and sighed. ‘I can’t tell you that you look like your mother because you don’t. Fiorella was tiny…‘

Almost imperceptibly the inflexible cast of Angelo’s features softened, for his mother had shown him the only tenderness he had ever known. ‘Sì…’

‘But you have the look of my father and your own. Your parents were the Romeo and Juliet of their generation,’ Don Carmelo recited with caustic humour. ‘A Sorello and a Zanetti, not a match made in heaven as far as either family was concerned and the bride and groom were at each other’s throats within weeks of the wedding.’

‘Is that why my mother ended up scrubbing floors for a living?’ Angelo enquired smooth as glass.

The old man was unmoved by the reminder. ‘She ended up doing that because she deserted her husband and disowned her family. Who would credit that she was my favourite? It was once my pleasure to spoil her and indulge her every wish.’

‘So, my mamma was a real Mafia princess?’ Angelo sliced in with sardonic bite, unimpressed by the misty fairy-tale aspect of that assurance.

‘Don’t mock what you don’t know about.’ Carmelo Zanetti sent him an impatient look. ‘Your mamma had the whole world at her feet. And what did she do? She turned her back on all that education and fine breeding and married your father. Compared to us, the Sorellos were cafoni…uncouth people. Gino Sorello was a handsome hothead always looking for a fight. She couldn’t handle him or his extra-marital activities.’

‘How did you deal with the situation?’ Angelo was impatient to have the facts that had so far evaded his every attempt to discover them.

‘In this family we don’t interfere between a man and his wife. When Gino was jailed for the second time, your mother walked out on her marriage. She ran away from her home and her responsibilities as though she was a little kid.’

‘Maybe she felt that she had good cause.’

Dark eyes crackling with grim amusement rested on Angelo. ‘And maybe you’re in for a surprise or two, because I think you put your precious mamma on a pedestal when she died.’

Anger at that insinuation made Angelo turn pale below his bronzed complexion. Only the awareness that Carmelo would revel in getting under his skin kept him silent.

The older man slumped heavily back against the pillows. ‘Fiorella was my daughter and dear to my heart, but she shamed and disappointed me when she walked out on her husband.’

‘She was twenty-two years old and Sorello was serving a life sentence. Why shouldn’t she have sought a fresh start for herself and her child?’

‘Loyalty is not negotiable in my world. When Fiorella vanished, people got nervous about how much she might know about certain activities. Her treachery was a stain on Gino’s honour as well and it made her many enemies.’ Carmelo Zanetti shook his head wearily. ‘But she was destroyed by her own ignorance and folly.’

Angelo’s attention was keenly focused on the older man. ‘Obviously you didn’t lose track of my mother and you know what happened to her after she arrived in England.’

‘You won’t like what I have to tell you.’

‘I’ll cope,’ Angelo said drily.

Carmelo pressed the bell by the bed. ‘You’ll take a seat and have a glass of wine while we talk. This one time you will behave like my grandson.’

Angelo wanted to deny the relationship but he knew he could not. A certain amount of civility was the price he had to pay for the information he had long sought to make sense of his background. Squaring his broad shoulders, he sat down in a lithe, controlled movement. A manservant brought in a silver tray bearing a single glass filled with ruby liquid and a plate of tiny almond pastries. With a glint of something hidden in his sharp old eyes, Carmelo Zanetti watched the younger man lift the glass and slowly sip.

The old man laughed. ‘Dio grazia…you’re no coward!’

‘Why should you want to harm me?’

‘How does it feel to have rejected your every living relative?’

A sardonic smile of acknowledgement curved Angelo’s handsome sculpted mouth. ‘It kept me out of prison…it may even have kept me alive. The family tree is distressingly full of early deaths and unlikely accidents.’

After having taken a moment to absorb that acid response, Don Carmelo succumbed to a choking bout of appreciative laughter. Alarmed by the aftermath in which the old man struggled for breath, Angelo got up to summon assistance only to be irritably waved back to his seat.

‘Please tell me about my mother,’ Angelo urged.

His companion gave him a mocking look. ‘I want you to know that when she left Sardinia, she had money. My late wife had left her amply provided for. Your mother’s misfortune was that she had very poor taste in men.’

Angelo tensed.

Carmelo Zanetti gave him a cynical glance. ‘I warned you that you wouldn’t like it. Of course there was a man involved. An Englishman she met on the beach soon after your father went to prison. Why do you think she headed to London when she spoke not a word of English? Her boyfriend promised to marry her when she was free. She changed her name as soon as she arrived and began to plan her divorce.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I have a couple of letters that the boyfriend wrote her. He had no idea who her connections were. Once she was settled he offered to take care of her money, but he took care of it so well that she never saw it again. He bled her dry and I understand he then told her he’d lost it all on the stock market.’

Angelo was very still but his brilliant gaze glittered like black diamonds on ice. ‘Is there more?’

‘He abandoned her when she was pregnant by him and that was when she discovered that he was already married.’

In shock at that further revelation, Angelo gritted his teeth and was betrayed into comment. ‘I had no idea.’

‘She lost the baby and never recovered her health.’

‘You knew all this…yet you chose not to help her?’ Angelo recognised the cold, critical detachment that had ultimately decided his frail mother’s fate.

‘She could have asked for assistance at any time but she didn’t. I will be frank. She had become an embarrassment to us and there were complications. Gino got out of prison on appeal. He wanted you, his son, back and he wanted revenge on his unfaithful wife. Your mother’s whereabouts had to remain a secret if you were not to end up in the hands of a violent drunk. Silence kept both of you safe.’

‘It didn’t stop us going hungry though,’ Angelo replied without any inflection.

‘You survived—’

‘But she didn’t,’ Angelo incised.

Don Carmelo revealed no regret. ‘I’m not a forgiving man. She let the family down and the final insult was her belief that she had to keep her son away from my influence. She got religion before she died and turned against us even more.’

‘If you never saw her again, how do you know that?’

The old man grimaced. ‘She phoned me when her health was failing. She was worried about what would happen to you. But she still begged me to respect her wishes and not to claim you when she was gone.’

Angelo could see that exhaustion was steadily claiming the older man and pushing their meeting to a close. ‘I appreciate your candour. I would like the name of the man who stole my mother’s money.’

‘His name was Donald Hamilton.’ Don Carmelo lifted a large envelope and extended it. ‘The letters. Take them.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Angelo queried. ‘My mother died when I was seven years old.’

‘And now here you are, proud not to be a Zanetti or a Sorello. If you are so unlike the stock from which you were bred, why do you want Hamilton’s name?’ the old man riposted. ‘What could you intend to do with it?’

Angelo surveyed him with dark expressionless eyes and shifted a shoulder in an almost infinitesimal shrug.

‘Don’t do anything foolish, Angelo.’

Angelo laughed out loud. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that to me.’

‘Who better? I’ve spent the last decade in exile. I’ve been hunted across this planet by the forces of law and order and by my enemies. But my time is almost up,’ Carmelo Zanetti mused. ‘You are the closest relative I have left and I have watched over you all your life.’

‘Only not so that I noticed,’ Angelo countered, unimpressed by the claim.

‘Perhaps we are cleverer than you think. You may also find out that, under the skin, you have more in common with us than you want to admit.’

Angelo lifted his arrogant dark head high, strong denial of that suggestion in every inch of his proud bearing. ‘No. I really don’t think so.’



A basket of flowers on her arm, Gwenna hurried down the muddy lane in pursuit of the two little boys. Thrilled by the growling noises she was making in her role as a pursuing bear, Freddy and Jake were in fits of giggles. With her dog, Piglet, a tiny barrel-shaped mongrel, hard on their heels and barking like mad, they made a noisy trio. The insistent ring of a mobile phone sliced through the laughter. Gwenna fell still and with a guilty air of reluctance dug the item out of her pocket.

‘Bet it’s the Evil Witch again,’ Freddy forecast gloomily.

‘Shush…’ Gwenna urged in dismay, wishing the children’s mother were more careful about what she said in front of her sons because the little boys didn’t miss a trick.

‘I heard Mummy tell Daddy that you’ll never get a man with the Evil Witch around. Do you need one?’ Jake asked earnestly.

‘Course she does…to have babies and change the light bulbs,’ Freddy told his little brother with immense superiority.

‘Is that children I hear?’ Eva Hamilton demanded sharply. ‘Have you let Joyce Miller lumber you with those horrid brats again?’

Giving the twins a pleading glance, Gwenna put a finger to her lips in the universal signal for silence and sidestepped the question. ‘I’ll be with you in less than an hour—’

‘Have you any idea how much still has to be done here?’

‘I thought the caterers—’

‘I’m talking about the cleaning,’ her stepmother cut in acidly.

Gwenna almost flinched for it seemed to her that the past week had passed by in a relentless blur of labour. Even her back, well toned from regular physical activity at the plant nursery where she worked, had developed an ache. ‘Did I miss something out?’

‘The furniture is getting dusty again and the flowers in the drawing room are drooping,’ Eva Hamilton snapped out accusingly. ‘I want everything to be perfect tomorrow for your father, so you’ll have to see to it all this evening.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Gwenna reminded herself that the endless preparation required to stage Eva’s buffet lunch for a handful of select guests was in aid of a very good cause. First and foremost, tomorrow was her father’s big day. Donald Hamilton had worked tirelessly to raise the funds necessary to begin the restoration of the overgrown gardens of Massey Manor. Although the manor house was virtually derelict, the gardens had been designed by a leading nineteenth-century garden luminary and the village was badly in need of a tourist attraction to stimulate the local economy. A host of local VIPs and the press would be present to record the moment when Donald Hamilton symbolically opened the long padlocked gates of the old estate so that the first phase of the work on the grounds could begin.

‘The EvilWitch always steals your smile,’ Freddy lamented.

‘I’m a bear and bears don’t smile,’ Gwenna informed him with determined cheer, snapping back into play mode for the boys’ benefit. But the children had barely got to loose a delighted giggle at the fearful face she assumed when an outburst of frantic barking gave Gwenna something more pressing to think about.

‘Oh no!’ she groaned, racing for the village green where Piglet had clearly found a victim. She was furious with herself for letting her pet off the lead. Although the little animal was very loving and terrific with children he had one troublesome quirk. Having been dumped by the roadside by his first owners and injured as a result, Piglet had developed a pronounced antipathy towards cars and was prone to taking an aggressive stance with their male occupants. Fortunately for him, he was so tiny that his belligerence usually struck people as a joke rather than a source of complaint.

‘Piglet…no!’ Gwenna launched the instant she saw her pet dancing furiously round the very tall dark male standing by the church lychgate.



In spite of the sunshine and his undeniably picturesque and bucolic surroundings, Angelo was not in a good mood. The state-of-the-art satellite-navigation system in the limo, developed by one of his own companies, had proved to be as accurate as a tenth-century map when challenged to deliver the goods in this rural location. His chauffeur had tried to drive down a lane barely wide enough to take a bike and had scratched the limo’s paintwork before finally being forced to admit that he was hopelessly lost. While Angelo had climbed out to stretch his legs, his security team were endeavouring to locate another living being in a village so deserted that he would not have been surprised to find out that he had strayed onto the set of a disaster movie. An attempted assault by a freaky mini-dog with enormous rabbit ears and incongruous short legs was no more welcome. As the careless pet owner approached him at a run Angelo had an icy cutting reproof on his lips.

‘Piglet…stop that right now!’ Gwenna was aghast to see that Piglet had targeted a male dressed in an immaculate business suit, for in her experience such men were less tolerant of annoyances. There were two houses for sale on the other side of the green and she wondered if he was a city estate agent.

Angelo looked down into clear eyes the startling blue of Dutch Delft, set in a heart-shaped face of such rare beauty that for the first time in his life he forgot what he had intended to say. In a millisecond the opportunity to stare was lost. Fair head bowing, she bent down in an effort to catch the offending dog.

‘I’m so sorry…please don’t move in case you stand on him,’ Gwenna begged, frantically chasing her defiant pet round masculine feet shod in the very finest leather. By the time she got a firm hand curved round Piglet’s wriggly little body she felt hot and exceedingly foolish.

Out of the corner of his eye Angelo saw one of his security team hurrying towards him to provide the usual if belated barrier between his employer and the rest of the human race. Angelo shifted a staying hand to keep the man at a distance. The rays of the sun were picking out streaks of pure gold in her hair. Even though that blonde waving mass was confined in a band at the nape of her neck, it was still long enough to trail down her narrow spine. In his mind’s eye he was still picturing her face and already questioning why she had had such an impact on him. He was fiercely impatient for her to look up again.

‘Piglet, you little rascal…I’m so, so sorry,’ Gwenna declared feverishly, clipping Piglet’s lead to his collar and rising. ‘He didn’t nip you, did he?’

Even while Angelo marvelled at the impact of her beautiful eyes, wide cheekbones and generous mouth, he was also registering that the world of fashion and style was foreign territory to her. Her faded blue summer dress hinted at the lush curve of her breasts before billowing out in shapeless folds that revealed only her slender ankles. ‘Nip?’ he queried, his lean, powerful frame poised with natural elegance while he waited for her to respond to him as women always responded, with widened eyes and smiles and a host of flirtatious signals.

‘Bite? He didn’t, did he? He has teeth like needles.’ Intimidated by his sheer size, for he was well over six feet in height, Gwenna kept her distance. It was impossible though to avoid noticing how extremely handsome he was. That awareness, not to mention the weird compulsion she had to stare at him, was sufficiently unlike her to make her feel distinctly unsettled in his presence.

‘He didn’t bite…’ Angelo watched and waited in vain for the female sexual response that was so predictable, he expected it and took it for granted. Instead her long silky brown lashes screened her expressive gaze and she evaded his scrutiny. It annoyed him even while he was absorbing the fact that, in spite of the unforgiving brightness of the light, her skin retained the luminescent sheen of a pearl. He wondered if she was that same pale-as-milk shade all over and almost smiled.

‘Thank goodness…Jake…Freddy!’ Gwenna was anxiously looking back to see where the boys had got to and eager to focus her attention elsewhere.

Two ginger heads popped out from behind the hedge that bounded the grounds of the church.

Angelo froze. She had kids? He scanned her hand. Her wedding finger was bare.

‘Chase us, Gwenna!’ Freddy begged.

‘Are you their nanny?’ Angelo enquired.

Gwenna blinked in surprise at that unexpected question. ‘No, I’m not…I’m just looking after them for an hour. Excuse me,’ she added, glancing up without meaning to and discovering that his dark golden eyes held a light that made her tummy clench and her throat tighten. Hurriedly she screened him out again and grabbed up the basket of flowers that she had set down.

‘Perhaps you could tell me how far Peveril House is from here.’

Gwenna came to a halt again, for any appeal for assistance was a sure path to her full attention. She glanced across the green but there was no sign of the car he must have arrived in. ‘It’s a good five miles. If you go down the fork behind the church, you’ll see a sign for the hotel,’ she told him. ‘People don’t often come this way.’

‘I wonder why not,’ Angelo drawled softly. ‘The scenery is quite exquisite. Will you dine with me tonight?’

Taken aback by that smooth invitation, Gwenna flashed him a surprised glance and soft pink warmed her cheeks. ‘But I don’t know you…’

‘Seize the opportunity,’ Angelo advised silkily.

‘No…thank you, but I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Other men invariably retreated at the first hint of refusal. That bold demand for an explanation startled her. ‘Well, er…’

‘Boyfriend?’

Tongue-tied by discomfiture, Gwenna shook her head and wished she found it easier to tell lies. ‘No, but…’ Her full, soft mouth folding, she dipped her head and fell silent.

She had turned down the only excuse that Angelo could have accepted. Even then he would only have sought another angle of approach, for he had yet to meet a woman capable of resisting what he offered. Fidelity, he had long since discovered, was usually negotiable. The silence lingered. He could not credit that, for the very first time in his life, he was meeting with a flat refusal.

‘Excuse me,’ she muttered again, her eagerness to be gone yet another rebuff to the male watching her. ‘I have to go.’

Angelo stood in mute disbelief as she walked away from him and through the church gate. His gaze tracked her every move as he had a perverse need to know if she would look back; she did not.

Breathless and taut, Gwenna secured the dog lead to the wooden bench that sat to one side of the arched wooden door and stepped gratefully into the cool dim interior of the old church. Freddy and Jake chattered while she set about her task of arranging the flowers for the christening that was to take place the following morning.

It was quite some time since anyone had asked her out; she met very few fresh faces. She could not understand why she was so flustered. Or why she had the most peculiar desire to creep back to the door to peer out and see if the handsome stranger was still there, which of course he wouldn’t be. He would now be well on the way to his incredibly posh hotel, which was probably hosting an international business conference or some such thing. There had been a slight inflection on certain words that had suggested that English might not be his first language. Certainly men with that kind of gloss and sophistication were scarcer than hen’s teeth, locally.

What was the matter with her? Why was she even curious? She dashed impatient fingers through the strands of fair hair clinging to her damp brow. She didn’t date. There was just no point when it couldn’t go anywhere. She had learned the hard way that even when men said friendship was fine, they always wanted more and more always involved sex. But she didn’t want physical intimacy without love, which would leave her feeling just as empty and alone when it was over. The taunts she had endured as she grew up had convinced her that old-fashioned values could provide a bulwark of protection from the worst mistakes. She was painfully aware that her own mother had paid a high price for flouting those same principles.

An image of the stranger’s lean bronzed face swam before Gwenna afresh, and the extraordinary impact of those dark deep set eyes against the fantastic symmetry of his hard bone structure. A soft gurgle of laughter was reluctantly dragged from her. So, she was female and human and she had noticed a breathtakingly gorgeous guy. Not her type though. He had been altogether too arrogant and slick to appeal to her. She liked open, friendly men with a creative bent. Add in tobacco brown hair and laughing green eyes, she reflected abstractedly, and she would be describing her likeness of the perfect man.

Fifty breathless minutes later, Gwenna returned Freddy and Jake to their mother, who had had a pre-natal appointment to attend at the hospital. She knew Joyce Miller well for the two women had worked together at the nursery for over a year.

‘Come in for a while,’ the heavily pregnant redhead urged. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘Sorry, I can’t.’

Joyce gave her a wry appraisal. ‘Is the Evil Witch jerking your chain again?’

Gwenna shrugged acceptance. ‘There’s still a few things needing done at my father’s house—’

‘But you don’t even live there. I can’t see what the state of the Old Rectory has got to do with you.’

It was quite a few years since Gwenna had moved into the small flat above the office at the nursery. Her accommodation was spartan but it had been a relief to embrace peace and independence. ‘I don’t mind if it keeps Eva happy. Tomorrow is a special day for Dad.’

‘And for you,’ Joyce chipped in. ‘Massey Manor was built by your ancestors. It was once your mother’s home—’

Gwenna laughed and shook her head. ‘More than a generation back and even then it was going to rack and ruin. My grandmother moved out because the roof was leaking so badly and by then she and my mother were only living in a couple of rooms. It’s a pity that none of my Massey ancestors had the magic knack of making money.’

‘Well, I think you’ve done incredibly well getting the locals together and coming up with so many good ideas to raise cash for the garden restoration.’

Gwenna grinned. ‘Thanks, but I’ve only ever been the backroom girl. It was my father’s persuasive tongue and his fantastic business connections which brought in the serious pledges of money. He’s done a marvellous job. Without his input we would never have made it this far.’

‘I’ve finally realised why you’re still single. You adore your father,’ the redhead said ruefully. ‘No man will ever match him in your eyes.’

Walking over to the Old Rectory where her father and stepmother lived, Gwenna thought about that conversation. She had not argued the point because the truth was too private. But, even so, Gwenna did believe that for any man to match Donald Hamilton would be a very tall order indeed. Her father was special. It had taken an exceptional man to acknowledge an illegitimate daughter, take her into his home and keep her there even when it had cost him his marriage. She accepted that her father had his flaws. As a younger man, he had had a pronounced weakness for women and more than one extra-marital affair. Her mother, Isabel Massey, had been one of those women.

The following morning, Gwenna watched while her father posed for the cameras at the neglected main entrance of the Massey estate. Although comfortably into his fifties, Donald Hamilton looked younger. With his silvering blond hair swept back from his tanned brow, he was a very presentable man. A lawyer, who had forged a successful career with a furniture company, he was accustomed to dealing with the media and his short witty speech added gloss to an already polished public performance. The gates were swept open and the local television news team recorded the moment and punctuated it with an interview. Gwenna’s stepmother and her stepsisters, Penelope and Wanda, were revelling in the limelight. Gwenna made no attempt to join the family gathering since she was well aware that she would be unwelcome and that the subsequent unpleasantness would discomfit her father.

‘I didn’t realise the police bigwigs were coming too,’ a member of the Massey Garden committee remarked at her elbow. ‘That’s Chief Superintendent Clarke.’

Gwenna glanced over her shoulder and saw two men in suits standing by a police car. Their faces were grave. Another man was in conversation with her father and whatever was being said was evidently not to Donald Hamilton’s liking, for he had turned a dull red and he was saying loudly that something was nonsense. The news crew were now paying attention to the tableau. With an exasperated smile on his lips, her father strode towards the men by the car, even making a laughing sally as he approached. But a curious little puddle of silence was steadily spreading through the crowd. It enabled Gwenna to hear the senior police officer refer to ‘very serious allegations’. She watched in frank disbelief as her father had his legal rights read to him. In full view of his family and the media, Donald Hamilton was being arrested.

In his opulent private suite at the Peveril House hotel later that afternoon, Angelo Riccardi flicked on the recording that had been made for his benefit. Having received an anonymous tip off, the television crew had lingered for the more exciting finale that had been promised: Hamilton, captured on film at the very height of his self-glorification as local worthy and philanthropist, brought crashing down from his little plastic pedestal of respectability.

Angelo had bought the furniture company that employed his quarry and had sent in his auditors to check the accounts. Catching Hamilton red-handed had not been the challenge he had expected. Indeed it had been almost too easy. Of course, public exposure was only the beginning, Angelo reflected. Hamilton had to be made to pay the proper price for his sins. Piece by piece he intended to strip the man who had abandoned his mother of everything he valued and his good name was only the first step in that process…




CHAPTER TWO


GWENNA looked round the noisy room in despair and blocked out the angry flood of accusations being hurled at the hunched and pathetic figure of her father, who had been shorn of all his natural buoyancy by the events of recent days.

The drawing room of the Old Rectory was large and elegant. But the flower arrangement on the table, which Gwenna had taken such special pains with, was now wilting and dropping petals. It was three days since the world in which she lived had shattered into broken shards and, along with it, some of her most heartfelt convictions.

Donald Hamilton had been charged with fraud, false accounting and forgery and informed that other offences might yet be added to that terrifying tally. At first, everybody had been up in arms in defence of the older man. Not just his family, but his friends and neighbours as well for he was a popular figure. The fact that his employer and work colleagues stayed silent and kept their distance had been loudly condemned. But then, possibly people were worried about the security of their jobs. After all it was barely a week since Furnridge Leather had been bought by Rialto, the vast corporate business empire run by Angelo Riccardi. Possibly because of that more cosmopolitan and powerful connection, the case had attracted a great deal of unpleasant publicity.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all had occurred when Donald Hamilton, confronted with overwhelming evidence of his crimes, had chosen to confess his guilt. Gwenna had been truly devastated. That the father she adored and admired should have stooped so low as to steal money had appalled her, but she had been proud that he had ultimately had the courage to admit what he had done and accept the blame. When he had finally been allowed home, he had taken Gwenna into his study for a private chat. There he had confided how the extravagant lifestyle he had been leading had led to steadily mounting debts that he could no longer handle.

‘I just borrowed a little one month from the Furnridge accounts to tide me over,’ her parent explained heavily. ‘Naturally I intended to pay it back. Unfortunately Penelope sprang her big fancy wedding on us without warning and that cost a fortune. Her mother spent another fortune comforting her when her marriage failed. Last year Wanda needed the capital to set up her riding school. As you know that was another disaster and I lost a lot on that venture. But I do realise that that’s no excuse for stealing. You mustn’t think I’m blaming anyone either—’

‘I don’t…I don’t.’ Gwenna’s throat was thick with tears as she gave the older man a comforting hug. She was well aware that nothing less than the very best was ever acceptable to her stepmother and her two stepsisters and that they expected her father to provide for their every need and want.

‘You see, I’ve never been very good at saying no to the people I love. I’m afraid that we’ve been living above our means for a long time in this house but I found it impossible to deny Eva anything. I love her so much, Gwenna. I don’t know what I’ll do if she decides to divorce me over this.’

After that illuminating conversation, Gwenna was now finding it very difficult indeed to stand by listening while the rest of her father’s family made him the target of their bitter recriminations. He was a solicitor, whose main source of income had been earned by his employment at Furnridge Leather. A few hours a week, he worked for a handful of private clients, most of whom were elderly and whom he had inherited from his late father’s now defunct legal practice.

‘They’ve frozen your bank accounts. My allowance hasn’t been paid. How am I supposed to pay my credit card bill?’ her elder stepsister, Penelope, was demanding, her pretty face contorted with fury.

Gwenna wondered what would happen if she dared to suggest that perhaps it was time that the brunette looked for a regular job. Both her stepmother’s daughters still lived at home. Penelope was twenty-seven, a part-time model who treated her career like a hobby and expected her stepfather to fund the luxuries she enjoyed. Her sibling, Wanda, was two years younger and had never held down a job for longer than six weeks.

‘What about the repayments on my sports car?’ Wanda was demanding. ‘Where am I going to get the money to keep them up?’

Eva Hamilton gave her silent husband a bitter look of tearful condemnation. ‘Until now, I never appreciated how lucky I was that my first husband was such an excellent provider.’

Gwenna winced at a reminder that she felt was unnecessarily cruel and wondered fearfully if her stepmother would stand by her disgraced husband, now that the gravy train had ground to a halt.

‘Yes, he was and I’m certainly not living up to that challenge.’ Slumped in his armchair in the corner, Donald Hamilton was sunk so deep in depression that he was a soft target for all such attacks.

‘If only you hadn’t admitted that you took the money! With a good lawyer, we could have fought the charges!’ Penelope told him furiously.

‘We might have had a chance if Furnridge had still been under John Ridge’s ownership. But not now…Rialto is huge and Angelo Riccardi is a hard-hitter. In an organisation of that size, the rules are rigid and the resources unlimited. They’d pursue you to the edge of the grave for a penny, never mind what I’ve creamed off the accounts over the years,’ the older man framed bleakly. ‘I’m ruined.’

‘What matters is that you owned up to what you had done. I’m sure that that was a relief to everyone concerned and that you feel a little better now,’ Gwenna commented hastily.

‘Honesty is the best policy? Did you get taught that in Sunday School?’ Her stepmother sobbed with scorn. ‘You definitely didn’t pick it up at your mother’s knee. After all, she was your father’s secret bit on the side for years!’

Gwenna reddened with the old sense of shame that she had never managed to shake off. It was true: her mother’s long-running affair with Donald Hamilton had been furtive and built on lies and pretences. Even so, while she had often been treated to such sneering reminders as a child, few had come her way since she had attained adult independence. ‘Look, I came over to—’

‘Stick your nose in where it’s not wanted?’ Wanda sniped.

‘So that we could all try to work out how best to deal with this situation,’ Gwenna countered doggedly. ‘If we can pay back the money that’s been taken, Dad might still be able to escape prosecution. Obviously the Massey gardens and the nursery could be sold. Then there’s the apartment in London—’

The very suggestion that the city apartment, much used by Eva and her daughters, should be put on the market roused Gwenna’s step relatives to a vitriolic counter attack. But Donald Hamilton studied his only child with the first glimmer of hope he had displayed since his arrest. ‘Do you think an offer like that could make a difference?’

Gwenna gave a vigorous nod.

‘But if Massey is sold you’ll lose your job, the business you’ve built up and the roof over your head. Would you really do that for me?’ he prompted wonderingly.

‘Of course.’ Gwenna cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘Then there’s this place…’

Eva emerged from her handkerchief like a ferret scenting a rabbit. ‘This house is in my name and I’m not selling it or raising a loan on it!’

Gwenna had not been aware of that reality and she flushed and muttered a hasty apology.

‘You’ve got some nerve!’ Penelope told Gwenna.

The phone rang. The police wanted her father to answer some further queries. Before Gwenna’s anxious gaze the older man turned a sickly grey shade. It hurt her to witness his obvious fear at the prospect of yet another visit to the police station.

With an air of resolution, Gwenna stood up. ‘I’m going to go to Furnridge Leather and ask to speak to whoever has the power to make a decision on your behalf.’

‘You’ll be wasting your time,’ Donald mumbled. ‘I’m dead in the water, dead no matter what you do.’



Angelo accepted a black coffee, but ignored the erotic invitation in the PA’s admiring gaze and the manner in which she contrived to bend low enough to show off her cleavage. Where was her respect? If she had been on his personal staff she would have been history. He didn’t like sex in the office. It was a distraction and he disliked distractions. Women were wonderful…outside working hours, at a convenient time of his choosing. He let nothing get in the way of business or profit.

He stood by the window that overlooked the ground-floor reception area of Furnridge Leather’s premises and listened to his executives uneasily discussing ideas to regenerate the company with the former owner, John Ridge. Occasionally Angelo spoke up to rubbish the more unrealistic suggestions. This was the smallest company he had taken over in a decade. It was a challenge for his staff to think small enough to suit the project, particularly when this latest acquisition had a big black hole in its accounts. Now there were two thousand employees with very good reason to hate Donald Hamilton because the future of the business was very much in the balance.

A young woman approached the reception desk. Her long blonde hair was caught back in a simple clasp. Angelo stiffened, keen dark eyes narrowing in immediate recognition of the graceful angle of her head and her perfect profile. Well, what do you know? he thought without great surprise. Gwenna from the deadest little village in Somerset had found him again. Had she seen his limousine as he’d departed and recognised his financial worth? Whatever, she had evidently now identified him and intended to save him the hassle of looking for her. He felt disappointed. He had thought that just for once he might actually have to make a concentrated effort to get a woman into bed. The phone buzzed. The call was for John Ridge.

The older man set down the handset and muttered uncomfortably, ‘Donald Hamilton’s daughter, Gwenna, is downstairs asking to see me or whoever is in charge. Is there anyone here willing to speak to her?’

Angelo had become as still as a granite statue. He was frowning because when he had glanced through the background information on Donald Hamilton there had been no reference to a daughter by that name. ‘Hamilton’s actual daughter?’

‘His only child and a lovely girl, but I would really prefer not to have to deal with her. There’s nothing to say, is there?’

‘Nothing,’ one of the executives agreed very drily.

‘I will see her in here in fifteen minutes,’ Angelo decreed, rigorously suppressing the angry sense of shock and recoil spreading through him. A lovely girl? Sì, he could vouch for that. He was a connoisseur and she had stopped even him in his tracks. Impervious to his companions’ surprise at his announcement, he immediately accessed the file on Hamilton on his laptop. And there he found the brief reference to her as Jennifer Gwendolen Massey Hamilton, aged twenty-six years. Donald Hamilton’s only child, who had to be precious even to a lying, cheating fraudster.

Gwenna sat in the waiting area feeling the hostile chill in the air around her and registered that she was reaping what her father had sown. The nerve-racking minutes ticked past. She was astonished to be told that Angelo Riccardi, the billionaire head of Rialto, was in the building and prepared to speak to her, for she had dimly assumed that someone so rich and powerful would have little personal involvement in the acquisition of a comparatively small rural business. By the time she was escorted past the door that had once led to her father’s office and shown into the boardroom, she was very pale, stiff with shamed discomfiture and exceedingly nervous.

‘Miss Hamilton…’ Angelo murmured without intonation, watching the shock of recognition stamp the pure lines of her face. She could not hide her dismay and embarrassment and he marvelled at a transparency that was a rare trait in the world in which he lived. ‘I’m Angelo Riccardi.’

Astonished to be greeted by the male she had met in the village, Gwenna exclaimed in confusion,’ You’re…but you can’t be!’

Angelo elevated an ebony brow.

A timeless moment stretched while she stared, absorbing all over again the stunning set of his tawny gaze above the smooth dark planes of his high cheekbones, the masculine jut of his nose, the sensual fullness of his hard, handsome mouth. A curious little pulse of uneasy heat flickered in the pit of her stomach. Snatching in a ragged breath she made a mighty effort to regain her scattered wits.

‘Well, obviously you are…er, who you say you are,’ Gwenna conceded in an awkward rush. ‘My goodness, a coincidence I could’ve done without today.’

‘I still don’t know why you wanted to see me.’ Angelo was enjoying her frank inability to conceal how flustered she was. It seemed—and he considered himself a very good judge of character—that his enemy’s daughter lacked her parent’s innate guile and cunning.

‘To talk about my father.’

‘I’m surprised you think that I would be interested.’

Gwenna stiffened. ‘My father worked here for a long time—’

‘While he systematically stripped this business of its capital.’

Her lashes dipped over her troubled eyes. ‘I have no intention of trying to deny anything that he has done.’

‘Why else are you requesting this interview? But then, perhaps you expect the same special treatment that your father enjoyed when he worked here.’

Her uneasiness escalated. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘John Ridge treated your father more as a friend than an employee and he could never understand why improved productivity consistently failed to deliver more profits. That’s why he finally sold up.’ Angelo watched her lose colour and duck her head at that news. He was grimly amused by a sensitivity that he knew he would use against her. It was second nature to him to pick up on other people’s weak points and utilise them for his own benefit. ‘He’s gutted now that he understands how his trust was betrayed.’

‘Dad is very ashamed. I know that doesn’t change anything—’

‘You’re living in your own little world, Miss Hamilton. Right now my staff are trying to find a way for this business to survive without massive redundancies.’

Her tummy executed a sick flip of alarm. Already cringing at the reminder of how John Ridge had been deceived, she was even more dismayed to learn what a precarious position the company had been left in. Angelo Riccardi’s rebuke struck her as horribly well deserved; she had failed to consider the wider repercussions that might arise from her father’s embezzlement. In fact she had naively assumed that the future of Furnridge Leather would be more secure as a part of a much larger organisation like Rialto. The risk of redundancies appalled her since the furniture company was the main local employer.

‘I didn’t know…I genuinely had no idea matters were so serious.’

‘How could you not know? A large amount of money has been misappropriated.’ Angelo was discovering that the anger roused by the disclosure of her identity had gone to be replaced by a growing buzz of satisfaction. Why not? She was Hamilton’s daughter. He now had two people to play with, instead of only one, and as he was already discovering she was a very beautiful plaything with an entire repertoire of responses that he had not seen in a long time. ‘No business of this size could weather such a financial loss without shedding staff.’

A gleam of optimism lightened her anxious gaze and she lifted her head. ‘But that’s why I’m here…to talk about how that money could be repaid.’

‘Repaid?’ Angelo queried, his narrowed gaze skimming over her with renewed intensity. The upward tilt of her eyes and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose had an appeal he could not define. The trouser suit might be drab and un-flattering to her frame, but it was outshone by a radiant beauty that continually drew his attention back to her.

‘My father has property interests that could be sold and the proceeds put towards repayment.’ Eager to put that point across, Gwenna partially evaded his gaze as she became aware of the force of his scrutiny. Not for the first time she wondered why he made her feel so uncomfortable. Her throat was tight, her muscles clenched taut. Was it fear?

‘If any of those property interests were purchased with stolen funds and your father is found guilty in court, those assets could be seized and sold to provide compensation.’

That smooth assurance sliced through Gwenna’s hopes like a blade and she felt the full force of her own ignorance. ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’

His agile intellect was already engaged in wondering what favour she had intended to ask in return for the repayment of the stolen funds. In spite of what he had said to her, he was aware that the courts were often reluctant to seize and sell private assets, particularly where there was a wife involved. It would not be the first time that a con man had served his sentence only to emerge from prison and enjoy the ill-gotten gains of his crime. That was a galling prospect to Angelo, who was determined to see Donald Hamilton punished on every possible level. Stripping the offender of his worldly goods would add savour to that process.

‘However, bringing a case such as this takes time, and this business is almost out of time.’ Angelo offered up that piece of encouragement to draw her out again.

‘Dad has already admitted his guilt,’ Gwenna reminded him readily. ‘He would be happy to agree to the properties being put up for sale and to the proceeds being used to repay his debt—’

‘He’s a thief, not a debtor,’ Angelo cut in drily. ‘What is more, although I hate to rain on your parade, property can take a very long time to sell.’

Her teeth worried anxiously at her full lower lip. Although she too had thought of that angle there was no getting round that potential hiccup that she could see. ‘Yes, I appreciate that…’

Ebony eyes of extraordinary power sought and held hers in a grip as strong as forged steel. ‘Of course, if I was prepared to consider such an arrangement, a valuation could be done and the properties concerned could simply be signed over. That could be achieved very quickly.’

Ready to grasp at any prospect of agreement, Gwenna nodded eagerly at that suggestion. She snatched in a ragged breath, wildly aware of his gaze and the insidious unsettling pulse of awareness at the secret heart of her body. Her lovely face suddenly flaming at that acknowledgement, she tore her attention from him and walked over to the window. She could not credit that he could have such an effect on her. He was a stranger and alien in every way to her. How could he rouse the physical consciousness that she had suppressed and buried? She refused to believe that he could. It was a long time since she had decided that she would never give her body without her heart.

‘It would also lessen the risk of anyone suffering last-minute regrets,’ Angelo pointed out, gaze glinting with triumph at his success in finally raising a reaction from her. He had seen the flare of surprise in her eyes. Not quite the ice maiden after all, it seemed. ‘Obviously your objective is to free your father from the threat of prosecution.’

Not knowing whether to be relieved or threatened by the ease with which he had deduced that fact, Gwenna spun back to face him. She lifted her chin and knotted her hands together tightly as if she was bracing herself. ‘Yes.’

‘No can do, cara. It is my personal conviction that all wrongdoers should be punished by the full weight of the law.’

‘But if that money was replaced it would benefit this business and all the people who work here!’ Gwenna protested feverishly. ‘Don’t you care about that?’

‘My heart rarely bleeds, Miss Hamilton.’

Angelo watched her brush a fine strand of honey-blonde hair back from the peach soft curve of her cheek. She was exquisite, delectable, he acknowledged, his usually disciplined body reacting with painful immediacy to the sexual charge of her presence. She was trembling almost infinitesimally. He liked the idea that he might be responsible for that potent effect. He had an almost overpowering desire to see her long hair falling loose round her shoulders in a tumbling mass of waves. She made him think of a Victorian painting he had once seen of a naked woman on horseback—Lady Godiva. That whimsical reflection surprised him but that image gave him a distinctly erotic kick.

‘But in this particular case…’ she dared to prompt.

‘Business is all about the art of profit and the bottom line here is that there’s not enough in your offer to tempt me.’

Disappointment at his refusal flooded Gwenna. She had never felt so nervous or out of her depth. At her most happy when she was working outdoors, she had acquired a host of horticultural qualifications while still regarding herself as only a keen gardener. Now, for the first time, she was uneasily conscious of her lack of sophistication. She genuinely did not know how to appeal to such a man. He had the cold, hard glitter of a very expensive and elegant diamond and he showed no emotion. It was a combination that she found utterly intimidating.

‘What would it take to…er, tempt you?’

Angelo studied her with unnerving calm. ‘You.’

Gwenna blinked. ‘I’m sorry…I don’t follow.’

‘I want you.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Her Delft-blue eyes widened and she dragged in a ragged breath. She felt incredibly stupid because of course he could not mean what she had thought he might mean. True, he had asked her out, but it had been very casual, hadn’t it?

‘Are you always this slow on the uptake?’

‘Are you talking about…sex?’ Gwenna was furious that embarrassment made her mangle that last word into an almost incomprehensible mumble.

Dense black lashes lifted over his brilliant dark tawny eyes and he managed to look very bored. ‘What else?’

Gwenna surveyed him with as much unrestrained amazement as she would have shown a zebra that suddenly appeared out of nowhere to walk across the office. She had always had a problem seeing herself as a sexual being. The passes that came her way were usually pretty half-hearted because she was much better at being sympathetic and sensible than sexy. That a guy of such immense wealth and supposed sophistication should target her as if she were a provocative siren struck her as unbelievable.

‘Is this some kind of a wind-up?’ she asked tautly.

‘I don’t do wind-ups.’

Gwenna studied him, poised there so straight and tall in his sharply tailored black designer business suit. He was devastatingly handsome but she crushed that thought as soon as it entered her mind. ‘But are you really suggesting that if I sleep with you you might reconsider prosecuting my father?’

‘Yes.’ Angelo made that confirmation.

Gwenna was stunned by that unhesitating agreement. ‘But that’s morally wrong.’

‘We’re consenting adults and you have a choice.’

Gwenna flung her head high, furious that she was dying of embarrassment like a schoolgirl, while he was behaving as though nothing untoward was happening. ‘Do you get a thrill out of insulting me like this?’

‘One woman’s insult is another woman’s compliment.’ Angelo sent her a dark smile of challenge. ‘It’s not my ego talking, but fact, when I tell you that a score of women would kill to have the same opportunity.’

Gwenna, who rarely lost her temper, learned now that she could want to kill another human being. His insouciance, his sheer arrogance, his silken insolence, indeed the whole glossy patina of his rich and rarefied existence, which he wore like armour, made her teeth grit. Absolute hatred hurtled through her in an acrid flow. ‘Well, I’m not one of them! I have higher self-esteem.’

‘Which makes you infinitely more desirable.’

‘So, you’re one of those men who always wants most what he can’t have?’

Angelo held her outraged blue gaze, more intrigued than ever by her resistance and the anger that had unexpectedly cut through her tranquil surface. ‘I have never met with a “can’t have”,’ he told her truthfully.

‘You just have,’ Gwenna told him grittily and turned on her heel. ‘My body isn’t something I’m prepared to barter, Mr Riccardi.’

‘Then your father will have to pay the piper and go to prison,’ Angelo murmured and she stopped halfway to the door and turned back, her raw pain at that likelihood etched in her candid gaze.

Torn between stalking out in angry mortification and the sinking conviction that she could not afford such a demonstration of disdain, Gwenna hovered. The very idea of her father going to prison appalled her. He had already lost so much: his job, his reputation, his friends, his financial security. His marriage might well soon slip into that same category of loss. She knew and she accepted that he had done wrong. But what dominated her thoughts was the debt she had owed to her father since the day that he had opened the doors of his home to her after her mother’s sudden death.

When her mother, Isabel, had fallen pregnant during her long-term affair with Donald Hamilton, she’d expected her lover to leave his childless wife, Marisa. Instead Isabel had learnt that she had not been his only extra-marital interest. Heartbroken and bitter, Gwenna’s mother had become a less than enthusiastic single parent.

When Gwenna was eight years old, Isabel had died in a car crash. Donald, still married to his first wife, had come to his illegitimate daughter’s rescue at a time when Gwenna had had nobody else whom she could call her own. Even though he had been almost a stranger, her father had made her feel as if she truly mattered to him. Even when his long-suffering wife, Marisa, forced him to choose between his daughter and his marriage, he had refused to put Gwenna up for adoption. Not long afterwards, Marisa had demanded a divorce. The older man had never reminded Gwenna of the price he had had to pay for choosing to raise his daughter. But in spite of her father’s subsequent remarriage to Eva, Gwenna had always felt very guilty. And the passage of time and the arrival of maturity had not altered her belief that she would always be in her father’s debt for the loving sacrifice he had made on her behalf.

‘Before you leave, hear me out,’ Angelo drawled softly, playing on Gwenna’s hesitation with skill and cool.

Blinking, Gwenna focused on him again.

‘If sufficient assets are signed over to set against the empty coffers here at Furnridge Leather and you agree to be my mistress, I will withdraw the current charges against your father,’ Angelo spelt out.

A long shiver ran through her taut, slender body. He wanted a lot, he wanted everything. Mistress? What was that fancy term for? A one-night stand? Was conquest that important to him? Could he really want to have sex with her that much? The extent of her own sexual ignorance annoyed her.

‘What does being a mistress encompass?’ she pressed without looking at him.

‘Pleasing me…’ Angelo trailed out the word with exquisite enjoyment.

She gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at that.’

‘I’m willing to give lessons at no extra cost.’

Furious resentment burned like lava inside her. ‘I think you just can’t stand being turned down…’

‘I don’t think you’re going to turn me down twice.’

Gwenna sucked in a jerky breath. Unable even to imagine taking her clothes off in front of a man without cringing, she blanked out all thought of the nitty-gritty details of actual intimacy. She was aware that lots of people had sex without making a big issue of it. It would be physical, not emotional. There was no need for her to make a major fuss about something that really wasn’t that important, she told herself urgently. She was a pragmatist. She might not be into sex but presumably she could put up with it. ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned it’s senseless and crazy, but if my sleeping with you one night will help my family—’

‘One night won’t suffice.’

Gwenna was as flattened by that unexpected comeback as if a giant rock had been dropped on her. He wanted more than one night? The silence pulsed. Newly discovered defiance made her tilt her chin. She collided with brilliant dark eyes enhanced by spiky black lashes. If eyes were truly the windows of the soul, she thought helplessly, he lacked one. ‘Only hell has no time limit,’ she told him prosaically.

Disconcerted by that comment, Angelo studied her and then flung back his dark head and laughed with grim appreciation. ‘I like your sense of humour, cara.’

‘But I wasn’t trying to be funny. I need to know how long you envisage me filling such a strange role in your life.’

Angelo lifted a broad shoulder in a fluid shrug. But in a lightning-fast change of mood unfamiliar to him he was discovering that he had gone from amusement to an emotion very much akin to anger. He was a proud man and her parade of reluctance, which he refused to believe in, was fast becoming more insulting than intriguing. Long before they parted, she would sing a different tune, he swore inwardly. She would love him as his mother had once fruitlessly loved her con artist of a father.

‘I’ll want you for as long as you provide me with entertainment.’

‘You find it entertaining when a woman hates you?’ Gwenna asked fiercely.

Liquid gold flared in Angelo’s intense gaze and it was as if all the oxygen burned up in the atmosphere between them. ‘I promise you that hatred won’t be what you feel.’

Gwenna compressed her generous mouth and recalled that she was supposed to feel honoured by his interest, like some maidservant of old catching the eye of the lord of the manor. Loathing roared through her to such an extent that she felt dizzy. But then reality penetrated and she thought of her father and of how much she loved him. Angelo Riccardi was giving her the chance and the power to protect her father from prosecution and gaol. How could she say no? How many years of freedom would her father lose if she said no? How would he endure years of being shut away from the world? He would not be the same man when he emerged from such an ordeal, whereas if she kept him out of prison he would find it much easier to embark on a fresh start. What right did she have to deny him that chance of redemption?

‘I want your answer now,’ Angelo told her flatly.

‘Yes…you’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse,’ Gwenna breathed shakily.

Angelo extended his hand.

‘But let’s not pretend that it’s a civilised offer,’ Gwenna heard herself add as she took a step back from him.

Angelo took a step forward and before she had the slightest idea of his intention he framed her cheek with long brown fingers and brought his beautiful insolent mouth down in a mocking taunt on hers. Shock held her paralysed for the first ten seconds and then a wild surge of heat flamed up between her thighs, stretching every feminine muscle wickedly taut. It was like flame in freezing temperatures, shocking and sudden and shatteringly sweet. He lifted his arrogant dark head again, his scorching dark golden gaze raking in an assessing arc over her dazed expression.

‘Being civilised can be overrated, cara. My lawyers will be in touch. If everything is in order, I’ll contact you next week.’




CHAPTER THREE


DONALD HAMILTON slowly shook his distinguished head. ‘I’ll have nothing left, not even my independence.’

‘The valuations aren’t what you hoped? Even for the city apartment?’ Gwenna questioned anxiously.

‘I would say that the figures are anything but generous.’

Gwenna frowned. ‘Of course property prices have fallen in some areas. How did the Massey garden and nursery fare in the valuation stakes?’

‘The estate is listed and protected by law,’ Donald reminded her. ‘That keeps its value low because there are too many rules preventing more profitable types of development. The nursery is a small enterprise. You’ve worked wonders there but…’

‘It’s hardly big business,’ Gwenna filled in heavily.

‘Even so, if selling up protects me from having to make a court appearance, how can I possibly complain?’ her father asked her in a more upbeat tone. ‘As for what you told me about you and the owner of Rialto, that’s made all this even more amazing.’

Amazing? It seemed an odd choice of word. Gwenna coloured, her lashes concealing her bemused eyes. She was still wondering if the older man had quite grasped what she had delicately endeavoured to tell him with regard to her future association with Angelo Riccardi. In an effort to conceal her confusion, she bent down to pet Piglet, who was slumped at her feet.

‘You’re a beautiful woman and all grown up now.’ Donald Hamilton treated his daughter to a distinctly misty-eyed appraisal. ‘I mustn’t forget that. I’m not at all surprised that a man of Angelo Riccardi’s calibre should notice you and go for you in a big way.’

‘Well…he did notice me,’ his daughter muttered half under her breath, reckoning that her father could not possibly have registered the sort of liaison that she was being offered. No doubt that was a mercy, for she had worried about him kicking up a fuss even though she had packaged the unlovely truth with the pretence that she had been similarly impressed by Angelo Riccardi.

‘Perhaps you could have a little word with him about the valuations,’ the older man murmured casually. ‘Not right now, necessarily, but possibly in a week or two.’

Having tensed, Gwenna slowly lifted her head. ‘Have a word with him?’

‘You can’t be that naïve,’ Donald Hamilton said with a chuckle. ‘Obviously you’ve got influence with the man in the seat of power.’

‘I don’t think you can say that—’

‘This is not the time for false modesty,’ her father told her a touch irritably. ‘Choose your moment to speak to him about how unhappy you are over the treatment of your family. My word, do I have to paint pictures for you? Have you any idea what my life is going to be like when I don’t have a penny to call my own? When I’m forced to live off your stepmother like some ghastly ageing gigolo?’ But Gwenna was both taken aback and dismayed by his assumption that she would be able to persuade Angelo Riccardi to offer the older man a better price for his properties. She was very pale. ‘Look, I’m sorry…I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. All I’ve been thinking about is keeping you out of prison.’

Donald Hamilton winced as though she had been guilty of a gross lack of tact. ‘I think that risk has been safely laid to rest now and life does go on,’ he declared. ‘It is going to be very difficult for me to find another job.’

‘Yes, I suppose it will be. But how are you expecting me to help out by speaking to Angelo Riccardi?’ Gwenna asked apprehensively.

Her father grimaced. ‘You can be very naïve, Gwenna. For as long as you have Riccardi’s interest the world will be your oyster. Ideally I would like my job back at Furnridge Leather.’

Gwenna was staggered by that announcement. ‘Your old job?’

‘Yes.’ Impervious to her incredulity, Donald Hamilton added, ‘That would silence the scandalmongers. And help me get back on my feet again.’

Gwenna swallowed hard. ‘I honestly don’t think that I could do anything to help you to get your old job back.’

‘Well, if not it, something of equivalent status elsewhere. Why so shocked?’ he queried with dissatisfaction. ‘It would be no big deal to Riccardi to do one little favour for you.’

For once, Gwenna found it a relief to be joined by Eva and her stepsisters. She did not know how to tell her father that she did not have the influence he imagined, but she did feel that his expectations were unrealistic. At the same time, she strove to make allowances for his state of mind. He was under enormous pressure and the troubled state of his relationship with his wife was not helping.

‘Nice to see that you’re still running round in your dreary old Barbour and jeans like Little Miss Ordinary.’ Penelope treated Gwenna to a sour appraisal. ‘When does Angelo Riccardi wave his magic wand and turn you into a sex kitten? Or does mud turn him on?’

Gwenna had no wish to consider what might turn Angelo Riccardi on. Ever since that startling kiss, she had blanked him out of her mind. The discovery that he could dredge such a physical response from her had been deeply unwelcome. Indeed she was mortified to her core to appreciate that she was not impervious to his sexual charge. But, equally, forewarned was forearmed, and she had no plans to gratify his ego in that manner again.

‘You lucky, lucky cow,’ Wanda groaned with unhidden envy. ‘When I think of the effort I make to look beautiful, it’s depressing that you can go out looking like a dog’s dinner and still pull a billionaire.’

‘It won’t last five minutes,’ her stepmother, Eva, forecast with a dismissive but speaking distaste that raised goose bumps of chagrin below Gwenna’s skin. ‘These things never do.’

‘I’d better go. I’ve got orders to take to the post office,’ Gwenna muttered, keen to make her escape from the trio of cold, critical gazes fixed to her. Her stepmother’s contempt bit deepest of all.

‘Don’t forget what I’m going through here,’ her father urged, having taken the unusual step of accompanying his daughter to the door.

‘Of course, I won’t.’ Gwenna was touched by the affectionate hug he gave her.

‘See if you can work out something on my behalf with Riccardi.’

Gwenna drove slowly back to the nursery in the van. There was nothing more that she could do for her father at present, she thought unhappily. He was going to have to deal with the fact that his life was never going to be the same again, but that would take time. Her brow was pounding out her tension. Reasoning was a challenge when she felt as though the shock of recent events had set up a barrier between her and her wits. She was still struggling to accept that, in the space of ten days, her whole life had fallen down round her like a house of cards and with it the future that she had taken for granted. The village where she had lived from birth would no longer be her home. She would be barred from the gardens where she had grown up and happily worked whenever she had a moment free. The business she had laboured so hard to build would pass on to a stranger and might not even survive. After all, the profit margins at the nursery were low and, with Joyce on maternity leave, she was working alone.

Her mobile phone rang just as she finished packing the orders from the mail-order catalogue in the rear storeroom. It was Toby. Smiling with pleasure, she relaxed and went into the shop to chat and savour every piece of his news. He told her that he was in Germany. A landscape architect, Toby James had already made his name in design and he often accepted commissions abroad. Gwenna had first met him at college and saw a lot less of him than she would have liked.

‘A mate of a mate saw the story about your father in the paper and passed it on,’ Toby volunteered. ‘You must be really torn up about this. Why didn’t you tell me about it yourself?’

Piglet had started barking in the storeroom and she called out to him to hush. ‘There was no point spreading the bad news.’

‘How often have I cried on your shoulder?’ he censured.

‘Only once,’ she sighed, recalling that night with pained regret. ‘The nursery and the gardens are being sold.’

‘That is a total disaster…I can’t believe it!’

Gwenna pictured Toby raking an impatient hand through his brown hair, his green eyes glinting with concern and disappointment on her behalf. He was very attractive and tremendous fun. They had so much in common and she even got on like a house on fire with his family. It had taken a long time for her to register that their close friendship was destined to go no further because, although few people appreciated the fact, Toby was gay. By the time she’d found out she had been head over heels in love with him and had yet to meet the man who could compete with Toby’s hold on her affections, although goodness knew she had tried.

While Gwenna was enjoying her conversation with Toby, Angelo was descending from his limo that had purred to a halt outside. He surveyed his surroundings with huge disdain. The nursery as such was composed of ramshackle sheds and an ancient greenhouse. He strolled towards the open door of the shop and just as he began to frown at the strong perfume in the air he saw Gwenna. Endless long slim legs clad in slim-fit jeans, blonde hair in a pony-tail, she was leaning back against the counter, a glorious smile lighting up her lovely face. She was chattering, unaware of his presence. Instantly he knew that he would not be satisfied until she smiled at him like that.

‘It feels like a hundred years ago since I saw you…I miss you.’

Stilling in the doorway, Angelo began to listen. He was fifteen feet from her and she still hadn’t noticed him. That had never happened to him before. The average woman went on hyper-alert when he entered the building, never mind the same room. She was locked onto that phone as if it were her lover. Or, as if she were talking to her lover, eyes shining, voice husky, giggly, her entire manner in feminine flirt mode. His eyes turned to chips of black ice.





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