Turning on the charm, he murmured softly, 'Ah, I see I have embarrassed you, Charlotte.' His dark eyes narrowed on her face. 'You think I am some old lecher who spends his day ogling naked women, perhaps?' he prompted, and noted the deepening flush in her pale cheeks with amusement. It was a long time since he had seen a woman blush and Charlotte Summerville did it beautifully. She played the innocent to perfection, even though he was sure she was anything but.
'Let me set your mind at rest, Charlotte. I am a businessman first and foremost, and when I see a good deal I snap it up, whether it be a company or art. The painting is an investment. I do not wish to sound callous, but you, who sanctioned the exhibition, must be well aware work by a dead artist is much more marketable than that by a living one.'
The ease with which he had read her thoughts was scary. But Charlie knew his cynical assessment was correct. 'Yes,' she murmured, finally finding her voice.
'And let me reassure you...' his deep voice thickened as he turned back to the painting '...this is the only nude I want to own. I believe it is your father's best and last.'
Following the line of his gaze, Charlie looked once more at the picture, in which her father had captured the mood of the woman perfectly.
'Yes, she is beautiful,' she agreed again. But, though it might be his best, she knew it wasn't his last. There was a half-finished portrait in her possession of a red-headed woman. Determined to try and match his sophistication, she looked up at Jake. 'But not, I think, his last,' she said archly, and was about to tell him of Robert's last affair in what she hoped was a sophisticated attempt to keep his interest. But her effort was wasted; he wasn't listening. She saw the glazed look in his dark eyes, and reality hit her like a slap in the face. The man was transfixed by the portrait.
But then, he had just paid a hefty amount of money for the picture—why wouldn't he be fascinated? she told herself firmly. What was she thinking of, trying to impress a man she had just met? A man, moreover, who was captivated by the portrait of a luscious brunette. Where did that leave her a very average blonde? Precisely nowhere, and she castigated herself for being a fool.
Her first assessment had been right before she'd ever seen Jake d'Amato. He was certainly no fat old man. The very opposite—a more striking male would be hard to find. But as for the rest, she had been correct. He was wealthy—it was evident in the supreme confidence he displayed, and in every line of the designer suit right down to the handmade shoes, never mind the fact he had bought the painting. But that aside, she told herself firmly if a little regretfully, he was also the type of guy who got off on looking at pictures of nude women.
Not her sort of man at all. She had been here far too long and it was scrambling her brain. She tightened her grip or her clutch bag and with a swift sidestep put some space between them.
'Well, I wish you joy of your purchase, Mr d'Amato Nice to meet you, but now I must be leaving.' And, spinning on her heel, she dived headlong into the crowd before she made a bigger fool of herself than she already had.
Safely in the ladies' cloakroom, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her blue eyes unusually bright. She could not believe a man who was obviously from the same mould as her father could have such a startling effect on her, and it scared her witless. She had loved he dad, but only a complete idiot would willingly get entangled with a philanderer of the same ilk.
The only reason Charlotte existed was because Robert Summerville, nineteen and studying art, had got her mother pregnant, and her parents had insisted they marry. It was probably the only time in his life Robert had been coerced into anything. When he had graduated two years later he had left wife and daughter with the maternal grandparents in the Lake District and gone to find his 'true artist's soul'. Charlie and her mother hadn't seen him for three years, and only then to obtain the inevitable divorce.
Charlie suddenly thought it was quite possible Jake d'Amato was also a married man, and she had been so overwhelmed by his effect on her she had behaved like a fool. How embarrassing was that? She needed to get back to her own world, and quick. A taxi back to the apartment her friend Dave had lent her, a simple dinner and an early night were what she needed, not swooning over some man. Straightening her shoulders, she walked out of the cloakroom, and hastily left the building.
She stood on the edge of the pavement and glanced up and down the street. Not a taxi in sight. 'Damn it to hell,' she muttered.
'Now is that any way for a lady to talk? Shame on you, Charlotte,' a deep, dark voice drawled mockingly.
Charlie spun around, and found herself only inches away from a large male body. 'Mr d'Amato,' she said coolly, but she could do nothing about the surge of colour in her cheeks.
'Jake,' he corrected. 'Now what seems to be your problem, Charlotta? Maybe I can help.'
The accented way he said her name was enough to give her goose bumps. 'Most people call me Charlie, and I am trying to get a taxi back to my flat.'
'Charlie is no name for a beautiful woman and I refuse to use it,' he declared firmly. 'As for the taxi, that is no problem.' The smile accompanying his words held such devastating charm Charlie could not help smiling back. 'My car is here.' He gestured with one hand to the sleek navy blue saloon parked on double yellow lines about ten yards away. 'I'll take you wherever you want to go.'
'Oh, no, I couldn't possibly—'
'Preferably to dinner, and of course you can.'
Five minutes later she was seated in the passenger seat of a luxury car and Jake was in the driving seat, having ascertained she'd intended to eat alone, and bulldozed her into dining with him at a well-known London restaurant.
'Do you always get your own way?' Charlie asked dryly.
Jake turned slightly, his thigh brushing hers in the process. 'No, not always,' he said seriously, his dark eyes capturing hers. Reaching out, he clasped her small chin between his thumb and finger and tilted her face towards him. 'But when it is something or someone I truly want, I always succeed.'
Charlie swallowed hard and sought a witty comeback, but words failed her as his hands dropped to curve around her shoulders. He made no attempt to pull her into his arms. He didn't need to. His mouth covered hers and he coaxed her lips to part to the gentle invasion of his tongue. The steadily increasing passion of his kiss ignited a slow burning sensation deep down in her belly that was entirely new to her. Suddenly Charlie wanted him with a hunger that shocked even as it thrilled her, and instinctively her hands lifted to his broad shoulders, but she didn't reach them.
'Dio mio!' Jake exclaimed shakily, and, grasping her hands, he pulled back and pressed them to her sides. His heavy-lidded dark eyes swept over her dazed face, and lingered on her softly swollen lips.
'You are some woman,' he commented, and for a moment Charlie thought there was anger in the dark eyes that stared down at her. Then he pressed a brief kiss on the tip of her nose and added, 'I promised you dinner, the rest must wait.' He slanted her a wickedly seductive smile, before starting the car and driving off.
Charlie didn't say a word. She could hardly believe what had happened; it was so unlike her. Where had her common sense, the steely nerve she was noted for, gone? Banished into oblivion by one kiss. Her entire body thrummed with a strange excitement and she had never in her wildest dreams believed a man could make her feel so wonderfully, vibrantly alive. But what was even more unbelievable was that Jake seemed to be as captivated by her as she was with him. She had felt it in the pounding of his heart, his shaken reaction when he had ended the kiss.
Suddenly the dinner she had tried to refuse held great appeal.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS an exclusive French restaurant and at first glance appeared to be full, but within seconds of them entering the head waiter was at Jake's side, and declaring it was a great pleasure to see him again, and his charming companion. His shrewd eyes flashed an appreciative glance over Charlie as he bowed courteously and led them to a small table set f
or two in an intimate corner of the room.
She looked around the dining room, her blue eyes widening in awe as she recognized a couple of politicians and a few famous faces from television. 'You must have friends in high places,' she said, grinning across the table at Jake. 'I read an article about this restaurant in a Sunday supplement. But it's even better than I imagined, though I never thought I would ever eat here.' Eyes shining, she leant forward slightly. 'Apparently one has to book months in advance.'
'Obviously not in my case,' Jake said arrogantly as the waiter arrived with the menus.
Disconcerted by his cool reply, Charlotte felt her smile fade as she realised her mistake. He was a big man and every inch the dominant male. Add wealth and sophistication, and it would take a very brave man or a fool to turn him down. As for women-—she only had to recall how easily he had overcome her objections to dining with him to know the woman probably wasn't born who could say no to him.
She gratefully accepted the menu from the waiter and buried her head in it, telling herself to get a grip. Instead of spouting off like some overenthusiastic teenager, she would show Jake d'Amato she could be as sophisticated as any woman.
'What would you like to eat? I am going to have the hot smoked salmon followed by the steak. How about you? The same?'
She placed the menu on the table and lifted her head. 'No, Jake,' she said coolly, before turning to the waiter and asking him in perfect French what he recommended. A lively debate ensued on the relative merit of the red sea bass or the chefs special stuffed trout. Finally Charlie gave her order for a starter of seasonal spring salad followed by the bass to a now beaming waiter, with a brilliant smile of her own.
'So, Charlotte,' Jake commented mockingly as the waiter departed. 'You are a woman of many talents, it would seem.'
Charlie turned sparkling eyes to the man seated opposite. 'Well, I'm not an idiot.' She smiled, her confidence restored.
'No, but, French aside, you did turn the poor waiter into a drooling idiot.' His eyes flashed with a hint of some dark emotion, then softened perceptibly as his gaze roamed down to the soft curve of her breasts. 'Though I can't say I blame him,' he added huskily.
She felt a flush of heat creep from her stomach to cover her whole body at his sensuous gaze, and she had to take a deep breath before she could respond steadily. 'Thank you for the compliment.'
'My pleasure, I assure you.'
Out of nowhere the thought of Jake at her pleasure deepened Charlie's colour, and she frowned. In the sexual stakes she was not in his league, and she wondered what she was letting herself in for.
Jake reached out to cover her slender hand resting on the table with his own. For some reason the reservation in her eyes bothered him. 'Charlotte, don't look so serious,' he said softly. Entwining his fingers with hers, he lifted her hand and pressed a tiny row of kisses across her knuckles. 'Please, relax and enjoy your meal, and let us see if we can get to know each other a little better. We can become friends—can we not?'
Friends? With every nerve in her body quivering at his casual touch, Charlie doubted she could ever be just friends with such a supreme specimen of the male sex as Jake. But it was a start.
'Friends. Yes.' Striving to appear cool, she continued conversationally, 'so, tell me, why the name Jake? It doesn't sound very Italian.'
'My mother was engaged to an engineer in the US Navy. She gave me his Christian name because he died in an accident at sea before she could give me his surname.'
'That is so sad.' Her eyes softened on his. 'Your mother must have been devastated, losing her fiancé like that.'
'Strange,' Jake said with an odd note in his voice. 'Most people respond with embarrassed silence or embarrassed laughter and a quip like, "I always knew you were a bastard." But you are obviously romantic at heart.' The fingers entwined with hers tightened slightly. 'And you are right. My mother was devastated. She never looked at another man to her dying day. Except me, of course, whom she adored,' he added with a soft chuckle, his dark eyes smiling warmly into hers.
'I'm not surprised.' Charlie grinned, relieved her casual query about his name had not embarrassed him. In fact, suddenly the atmosphere between them seemed much more relaxed. Maybe friendship with Jake was not so impossible after all, she thought happily. Though she wasn't sure she agreed that she was a romantic. She had always considered herself the most realistic of women. But then that was before she had met him...
'A compliment. I am flattered.' Jake grinned back.
'I didn't mean you. Well, maybe I did,' she added with a chuckle. 'But really I was referring to your mother. Having committed to getting married, she must have been as distraught at his death as any widow.'
'In my mother's case, yes, but that is very rare.' He leant back in his chair but still retained his grasp on her hand. 'In my experience, plenty of women see an engagement as simply a way of getting money out of a man.'
His cynical attitude appalled her. 'In your experience? You were engaged?'
'I was, once, when I was twenty-three and naive. I bought the ring, gave her money for the wedding, the whole nine yards.'
'And then you left her, I expect.' Charlie pinned on a smile as it struck her again that he might be married, and she hadn't asked—a glaring omission on her part, which she immediately rectified. 'Or else you're married.'
For a moment Jake looked astonished, then he laughed, but the humour didn't reach his eyes. 'How like a woman to blame the man.' His cool dark gaze held hers. 'But you are wrong. My fiancée left me, and spent the money on something else. So, no, I am not married, nor ever likely to be. It is not an institution I believe in.'
Feeling foolish, Charlie realised appearance could be deceptive. She could not imagine any woman turning Jake down, but she had been wrong, and that long-ago rejection must have hurt. Her soft heart went out to him. 'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. I am not. But enough about me. Tell me how you learned to speak fluent French—and do you speak any other language?'
'No, just French.' She accepted his change of subject.
Obviously it still hurt him to talk about his ex-fiancée, and it made him seem more human somehow. 'I learned French at school, but I became fluent mainly because from the age of eleven I used to spend a few weeks' holiday every year with my father at his home in France. Not so often in recent years, but I did stay with him last year, a little while before he died.'
'Ah, yes, your father. I should have guessed.' He dropped her hand, and a shadow seemed to pass over his face. Charlie wondered what she had said to cause it—or perhaps he was still thinking of his ex-fiancée? Then the wine waiter arrived with a bottle of Cristal champagne and filled two glasses before placing the bottle in the champagne cooler and leaving, and she banished the dark moment to the back of her mind.
'To us and the start of a long friendship,' Jake said, raising his glass, and Charlie reciprocated, her blue eyes shining into his as another waiter arrived with their food.
'So tell me, have you any other family?' Jake asked casually as they both tucked into their first course.
'My mother died when I was eleven, my grandmother when I was seventeen and my grandfather three years later. My father was an orphan, so I'm alone in the world now he's died.'
'With a father like yours, can you be certain of that?' Jake queried sardonically.
'Yes, I'm certain.' She glanced up, surprised by his cynical question, and thought she saw a bitter look in the dark eyes, but she must have been mistaken, as the next moment he grinned.
'Ah, another illusion bites the dust. I should have known the exploits of your father were more fiction than fact— probably circulated to increase the price of his work.'
'Well, I don't know about that,' Charlie murmured, pushing her empty plate away. There was something in the tone of his seemingly jocular comment that struck a discordant note and made her wary. Plus she was not comfortable talking about her father or about money.
&nbs
p; 'No, of course you wouldn't,' Jake agreed smoothly, and for the rest of the meal he endeavored to keep the conversation general while trying to discover more about the woman before him. Though he was loath to admit it, Charlotte was beginning to intrigue him more than any woman he had met in a long time.
For Charlie the next hour passed in a hazy bubble of happiness. Jake was a great conversationalist and, without her realising it, she had soon told him where she lived and how, after the death of her grandmother, she had left school to help her grandfather run the small family hotel overlooking Lake Windermere.
'And you inherited the hotel, of course,' Jake prompted when she fell silent for a moment.
'Yes. Yes, I did.' The thought of the family she had lost dulled the sparkle in her eyes for a moment.
'Lucky you,' Jake said. Charlie frowned and she was about to argue there was nothing lucky about losing one's family, when he added, 'But I was very lucky in a way,' and to her surprise proceeded to tell her more of his own past. After the death of his mother when he was eight, he had been placed in an orphanage and got involved with a bad crowd. But miraculously he had been fostered at the age of ten by a man whose pocket he had tried to pick. It had saved him from a life of crime and had been the incentive he had needed to study and become a marine engineer, and owner of his own company. His foster-parents were still alive and he visited them regularly.
Charlie simply beamed at him, and thought how kind. He must have a very caring nature.
Also a very sensual nature, because as they ate the meal and drank the bottle of champagne Jake subtly managed to keep her in a state of simmering sexual tension. A forkful of his food offered to her willingly parted lips, a casual touch of his hand, an intimate smile. By the time they got to the coffee stage Charlie was unaware she had consumed the lion's share of the champagne, and as she spooned sugar into her cup and added cream any resistance to his sophisticated charm was well and truly vanquished.
Pregnancy of Revenge Page 2