‘Do you think I wouldn’t make it my business to know everything about you?’
Fear clawed its way back up her spine. ‘What do you mean?’
He gave her an imperious look down the length of his aristocratic nose. ‘I had you investigated. You had only to sneeze and I heard about it.’
‘No!’
‘Yes, cara.’ He gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘I have been watching you for four years.’
‘Why wait until now to approach me?’
He gave a casual shrug of one broad shoulder. ‘Tactics; cara. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t refuse my offer.’
‘Your blackmail, you mean!’
‘Blackmail is such an unpleasant term.’ He inspected his nails for a moment. ‘I’m doing you a favour and you are paying me back in kind.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ She crossed her arms and glared at him.
‘You are finding the terms of our agreement a little distasteful?’
‘I’m finding them nauseating!’
‘No doubt you will soon come to realise which side your bread is buttered and adjust your opinions accordingly.’
She wanted to scream with frustration. She felt so totally impotent; she had nowhere to turn to escape his clutches.
The spectre of Sammy’s illness lay before her; there was no way around it without Lucio’s help, but his conditions? How was she to protect herself from further pain?
She’d been gutted by their last break-up. It had taken her months to lift herself out of the abyss of depression that had almost consumed her. Could she risk her sanity to go down that path again?
‘I need some time to get used to…to this,’ she said. ‘I have to organise Sammy’s hospital admission and I—’
‘I have already done that.’
‘What?’ She stared at him.
‘In the context of the urgency I thought it best to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. His surgery will be performed early next week.’
‘You had no right!’
‘I had every right. Apart from yourself and Jenny, I am his next of kin in this country.’
There was no argument she could make to counteract his statement.
She realised with a sudden jolt of awareness—he was right. He was Sammy’s nearest male relative and there was nothing she could do to change the fact.
‘There is no point arguing to score points,’ he continued. ‘You are under a great deal of stress just now. I thought it would help you if I made the necessary arrangements.’
His calm deliberation made her earlier outburst seem childish and irresponsible in comparison. He made her feel as if she were somehow lacking as a parent, putting petty arguments ahead of her child’s health.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled grudgingly.
‘I have informed the hospital that I will be responsible for all Sammy’s expenses. I have also opened an account for you.’ He reached into his top pocket and handed her a bank card. ‘Your birth date is the pin number. There are more than sufficient funds in there to buy suitable clothes for yourself, Sammy and Jenny.’
‘I don’t want it.’ She thrust it back at him.
He took her hand and, unpeeling her tight fingers one by one, placed the card across her palm before closing her fingers back over it. ‘You will take it and use it, understood?’
She gave him a resentful scowl. ‘What sort of clothes do you want me to buy? Something to titillate you?’
‘You don’t need clothes to do that.’
Her face burned with shame as she recalled the hateful photographs.
‘I can’t do this,’ she said with a helpless flutter of her hands. ‘I can’t pretend to be your mistress like this.’
‘You will not be pretending,’ he assured her. ‘I will make sure of that.’
She stared at him in consternation. Was that to be his final revenge, to make her want him and love him all over again?
‘You can’t do this to me, Lucio.’ She was close to tears once more. ‘You can’t destroy me like this.’
‘I don’t want to destroy you,’ he said. ‘I want to possess you. I want to make you ache the way I have ached for four years. I want to purge the vision of you in Carlo’s bed for ever from my mind.’
‘You are going to destroy me.’ Her voice was just a whisper of sound, her shoulders slumping as she accepted her fate. ‘You are going to destroy me.’
Lucio stood silently before her, his dark gaze focusing on her bent head.
‘Anna.’
She lifted her head and met his eyes. ‘Don’t make me hate you,’ she pleaded.
‘You already hate me so what have I got to lose?’
It was a moot point because she could never truly hate him. She loved him as she had always loved him—unreservedly, unguardedly, totally.
‘I can’t take much more, Lucio.’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Don’t make me beg.’
His expression hardened as he reached for her, pulling her into the hard wall of his body. ‘I will not be satisfied until I hear you beg.’ His voice was a low growl as he bent his head to hers and captured her mouth beneath the firm intent of his.
She felt the thrust of his tongue into her mouth sending her senses into instant overdrive. She had no way to counteract his touch. She had no defences with which to hold him off. As soon as his lips met hers she was lost like tinder to a greedy flame, the fuel of need racing through her with fiery intent.
She was melting like a candle under the impact of a blow-torch, her insides pooling, her spine collapsing, pitching her forward against him, where his body throbbed with its need against hers.
His hardness, her softness, a delicious combination which she knew from experience had paradise at its culmination.
‘I have longed for this,’ he groaned as his hand sought the thrust of her breast. ‘I have never forgotten what it is to feel you beneath me, writhing with need.’
It was a need only he could awaken. In spite of what his brother Carlo had said had happened between them, she knew she could never feel this way about anyone else. Her senses came alive with the brush of his fingers, the sweep of his tongue. Need clawed its way through her, clamouring for release, a release she knew only he could give.
His mouth came back to hers with renewed purpose, drawing from her a response she hadn’t intended giving. His tongue found hers and played with it, his teeth nipping at it gently, inciting her to fight back.
She took up the challenge with a vengeance, her teeth grazing his tongue and then his full bottom lip.
‘You little wildcat,’ he groaned against her mouth. ‘Do you want to hurt me, cara?’
‘I would like to kill you,’ she breathed against the surface of his lips.
‘Kill me, then.’ He smiled a lazy smile just above her mouth. ‘I will die happy.’
She bit him—hard, her teeth sinking into his lip until she tasted blood.
‘You want to fight dirty?’ he asked, licking his savaged lip, the movement of his tongue making her desire for him unmanageable. ‘You want to bite and scratch and claw at me?’
‘I hate you!’ she gasped as his teeth sought her nipple through her blouse, her fingers clawing for a foothold in the dark pelt of his hair. ‘I hate you.’
‘I love the way you hate me,’ he said against her breast. ‘Your body hates me so fervently I can feel it throbbing with pent-up emotion.’
She was betraying herself with every beat of her thunderous heart but there was nothing she could do to stop it.
‘Sammy and Jenny will be back any minute,’ she reminded him, trying desperately to push him away.
He stepped away from her with an ease she privately envied.
‘I remember a time when you wouldn’t have been such a spoilsport,’ he chided her playfully. ‘You would have scoffed at the threat of exposure and gone for it with all the passion of your nature.’
‘I was stupid to fall for your charm,’ she said.
‘You were even more unwise to fall for my brother’s.’
‘According to him, I was the one who lured him into temptation.’ She gave him a quelling look. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Lucio.’
‘I have personal experience of your irresistible lures,’ he returned. ‘Greater men than me would go weak at the knees in the face of such delicious temptation.’
She turned away from the derision in his eyes, unwilling to see herself the way he saw her. She knew she wasn’t an unprincipled person. She had always conducted herself with propriety…Until Carlo…It was like a blot on her copybook and there was nothing she could do to erase it.
‘Please leave me alone,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear to fight you when I’m feeling so…vulnerable.’
His eyes were like chips of ice as he looked down at her cowed figure. ‘I will have my revenge, Anna. Make no mistake. I will have it, no matter how vulnerable you feel.’
She turned to look at him, her heart sinking when she saw the bitter determination in his face.
‘You will not be happy until you’ve broken me, will you?’
His mouth tightened. ‘I have my pride to consider. You should have factored that in when you opened your legs for my weak brother.’
She closed her eyes against the burning accusation of his.
‘I will have my revenge,’ he repeated. ‘I will stop at nothing to get it.’
She could well believe it. The only trouble was—would she have the strength to bear it?
CHAPTER FOUR
THE next two days went by in a blur of activity.
Anna packed carefully, not wanting to take all of their belongings to Lucio’s house, for she knew in the end they would all have to come back again.
This was a temporary arrangement; she had to remember that at all times.
He didn’t want her.
He wanted revenge.
The car he had organised to fetch them arrived and within a few minutes pulled up in front of an imposing house of mansion-like proportions.
‘Dis is a big house, Mummy,’ Sammy said, trailing his teddy bear by one ragged arm. ‘Does my daddy have a simming pool?’
Anna bent down to pick up her bag and gave him a weak smile. ‘I don’t know, darling, but we’ll soon find out.’
The door opened and an older woman dressed all in black greeted them in heavily accented English.
‘Miss Stockton, I am Rosa, Mr Ventressi’s housekeeper.’ She bent down to peer at Sammy. ‘And this must be Sammy. Well, aren’t you a spitting image of your daddy?’
‘This is my sister, Jenny,’ Anna said quickly, pushing Jenny forward.
‘I am pleased to meet you.’ Rosa bowed. ‘Mr Ventressi left me instructions to make you very welcome. He is going to be late this evening.’
Typical, Anna thought as she shepherded Sammy inside the big house. He would want to stretch out her torture by making her wait for him to return, thus ensuring her nerves were at snapping point.
The housekeeper led them upstairs while the driver dealt with the luggage.
She showed Jenny into an airy, pretty room done in three shades of pink, soft billowing curtains at the huge windows adding to the feminine appeal.
Sammy’s room was next door, painted in blue and white, a host of toys positioned about the place to fulfil any three-year-old’s dream.
‘Are deez mine?’ he asked, his eyes widening as he took in the huge truck and a series of shining new model cars.
‘Yes.’ Rosa beamed. ‘Your papa wanted you to feel at home.’
Anna felt her ire rising. She didn’t like the thought of her son being bought with a whole lot of toys, and expensive ones at that.
‘Your room is this way.’ Rosa led the way down the hall. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in. I will have dinner ready in an hour.’
‘Thank you, Rosa.’ Anna did her best to give the housekeeper a genuine smile even though inside she felt at boiling-point.
Once Rosa had gone she turned around and inspected the master bedroom with a critical eye.
It was a huge room with a walk-in wardrobe along one wall and a luxuriously appointed en suite bathroom off the other.
The huge windows were draped with a black and white silky fabric with sophisticated pelmets and tassels, and the massive king-sized bed was covered in a matching fabric and was regally offset by a stately wing chair and sofa.
It was quite clearly the room of a very wealthy man who was used to having the very best of everything around him. Anna felt like an alien in the room, her tired, faded clothes looking very out of place amongst such opulence.
She turned with a sigh and caught sight of her reflection in the cheval mirror near a small walnut writing table.
She looked exhausted. Her blue eyes were shadowed and her normally shiny mid-length blonde hair was dull and lifeless. Her skin looked unusually pale, as if she hadn’t had a touch of sunlight for months, and her cheeks were distinctly hollow, as if food had been in short supply as well.
There was a sound behind her.
‘Look, Anna!’ Jenny’s voice was excited as she bounced into the room. ‘See what Lucio has bought for me!’
Anna turned and stared at the huge armful of gorgeous designer clothes cradled in her sister’s arms.
‘He bought them for me,’ Jenny repeated. ‘Rosa told me they are a gift.’
Toys for Sammy and clothes for Jenny…What did he think he was doing?
‘You can’t keep them.’
‘What?’ Jenny’s face dropped.
Anna hardened her heart. ‘I can’t afford to pay for them.’
‘But they are a gift,’ Jenny said. ‘You don’t have to pay for gifts.’
‘Don’t I?’ Her tone was deliberately cynical.
A green silk dress slipped from Jenny’s grasp and landed on the floor at her feet.
‘Is something wrong, Anna?’
‘No,’ she lied, hating herself. ‘But we can’t get used to this…’ she indicated the wealth around them with a sweep of one hand ‘…this luxury, as it won’t last.’
‘What do you mean it won’t last?’ Jenny looked confused. ‘Lucio is a very rich man. He can afford to be generous.’
‘Jenny…’ she began to sign to make her statement even more clear ‘…I feel uncomfortable accepting such expensive gifts. If anything should go wrong…’
‘What could possibly go wrong?’ Jenny asked. ‘Lucio is back in your life and Sammy is going to be well. What could possibly go wrong now?’
Oh, for the blissful ignorance of youth, Anna thought. Jenny was so innocent at nineteen, so full of romantic dreams of happy endings, but she didn’t know the full story. She didn’t know the dark secret that lay between Anna’s past and the present, its looming shadow increasingly inescapable.
‘Nothing.’ She sighed. ‘You’re right. I’m just being silly.’
‘You are tired,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s been so hard for you with Sammy. I will try to help you more.’
Anna gave her a grateful smile. ‘You help me so much as it is. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘But I am on holidays now from university, so I can be even more help,’ Jenny said. ‘You will be free to concentrate on spending time with Lucio.’
Anna stared at her stricken reflection once her sister had left the room.
The very last thing she wanted to do was spend time with Lucio.
The very last thing.
Sammy was asleep before Anna had finished the story she’d been reading him. She tucked the sheets up close to his chin and kissed him softly on the cheek, unable to stop herself from feeling overwhelmed by maternal love, a love that had asked much more of her than most mothers ever had to pay, even in a lifetime.
Lucio’s offer to help was laden with compromise for her. Everything in her wanted to reject his rescue plan, but between her resistance and pride lay Sammy’s future.
She had to put him first even if it meant far
greater hurt than she had suffered before. After all, she had been the one to destroy their blissful happiness.
She was the guilty one.
She had slept with his brother; there was no escaping that fact.
Jenny had retired to her beautiful pink room and the housekeeper had long gone when Anna paced the sitting room floor waiting for Lucio to return.
She had considered crawling into the huge bed in the master bedroom but didn’t fancy the idea of being asleep when he returned. She wanted to be on full alert when she saw him next, not have him slide into bed beside her and reach for her…
She heard the roar as his Maserati pulled into the driveway.
She heard the sound of the garage doors hissing closed with electronic precision.
She heard his firm tread across the gravelled driveway…he was at the door…his key in the lock…the heavy front door closed behind him…he was coming towards the thin beam of light shining underneath the sitting room door…
She leapt to her feet as he opened the door.
‘You had no right to bribe them like that.’
Lucio closed the door behind him with such casualness as if she’d just commented on the weather.
‘Good evening, cara.’
She drew in a prickly breath. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
He tossed his suit jacket over the back of one of the cream sofas and reached for his tie. ‘How did you all settle in?’ he asked, loosening it with indolent grace.
She stared at him.
‘Is there something wrong?’ he added.
She let out her breath on a gasp. ‘Of course there’s something wrong! All of this is wrong! You’ve deliberately made it harder for me to…to…’
‘To what, Anna? Sleep with me?’
She spun away in anger. ‘I don’t want to sleep with you.’
‘Ah, but you have no choice now, do you, my love?’
She turned back to glare at him. ‘Do you really think a roomful of toys for Sammy and a wardrobe full of clothes for my sister is all it would take for me to share your bed?’
His eyes were like dark chips of ice as he surveyed her outraged features. ‘No, but I had thought you might recall the considerable expense I am going to with regard to your son’s medical bills.’
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