by Jennie Lucas
‘You’ve lost weight, Valentina,’ came his voice behind her. ‘You’ve been working too hard.’
And it rankled with her that all the time he’d been following her he’d been sizing her up. Comparing her to how she’d been three years ago and finding her wanting. No doubt comparing her to all his other women and finding her wanting. Damn it, she didn’t want to think about his other women! They were welcome to him. She spun around. ‘We’ve all changed, Luca. We’re all a few years older. Hopefully a bit wiser into the deal. I know I am.’
He smiled and picked up a paperweight that glowed red from a collection from a side table, resting it in the palm of his big hand. ‘Some things I see haven’t changed. You are still as beautiful as ever, Valentina.’ He smiled and examined the glass in his hand before replacing it with the others and moving on, finding a slow path around the cluttered room and around her, pausing to examine a tiny crystal animal here, a gilt-edged glass plate there, touching just a fingertip to it before looking up at her again. ‘Perhaps, you are a little more prickly than I remember. Perhaps there is a little more spice. But then I recall you were always very...passionate.’
He lingered over the word as if he were donning that velvet glove to stroke her memories and warm her senses. She swallowed, fighting back the tide of the past and a surge of heat low in her belly. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she said, turning on the spot as he continued to circle the room, touching a hand to the head of a glass boy holding a lantern aloft as if the golden-skinned child was real and not just another of her mother’s follies. ‘Instead, I want to tell you that I know what you’re doing.’
He tilted his head. ‘And what, exactly, am I doing?’
‘I’ve been through Lily’s accounts. You keep lending her money, advance after advance. Money that she turns straight around to purchase more of this—’ she waved her hand around the room ‘—from your own cousin’s glass factory on Murano.’
He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I am a banker. Lending people money is an occupational hazard. But surely it is not my responsibility how they see fit to use those funds.’
‘But you know she has no income to speak of to pay you back, and still you loan her more.’
He smiled and held up his index finger. ‘Ah. But income is only one consideration a banker must take into account when evaluating a loan risk. You are forgetting that your mother has, what we call in the business, exceptional assets.’
She snorted. ‘You’ve noticed her assets then.’ The words were out before she could snatch them back, and now they hung in the space like crystal drops from a chandelier, heavy and fat and waiting to be inspected in the light.
He raised an eyebrow in question. ‘I was talking about the palazzo.’
‘So was I,’ she said, too quickly. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking about.’
He laughed a little and ran the tips of his fingers across the rim of a fluted glass bowl on a mantelpiece as he passed, continuing his circuit of the room. Such long fingers, she couldn’t help but notice, such a feather-light touch. A touch she remembered on her skin. A touch she had thought about so often in the dark of night when sleep had eluded her and she had felt so painfully alone.
‘Your mother is a very beautiful woman, Valentina. Does it bother you that I might notice?’
She blinked, trying to get a grip back on the conversation, tilting her head higher as he came closer. ‘Why should it?’
‘I don’t know. Unless you’re worried that I have slept with Lily. That maybe I am sleeping with her?’ He stopped before her and smiled. ‘Does that bother you, cara?’
‘I don’t want to know! I don’t care! It’s no business of mine who you sleep with.’
‘Of course not. And, of course, she is a very beautiful woman.’
‘So you said.’ The words were ground out through her teeth.
‘Although nowhere—nowhere—near as beautiful as her daughter.’
He touched those fingers to her brow, smoothing back a wayward strand of hair. She gasped, shivering at the touch, thinking she should stop him—that she should step away—when in truth she could feel herself leaning closer.
It was Luca who stepped away, dropping his hand, and she blinked, a little stunned, feeling as if she had conceded a point to him, knowing that she had to regain the high ground.
‘You told my mother we were old friends.’
He shrugged and sat down on a red velvet armchair, his long legs lazily sprawled out wide, his elbows resting on the arms. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘We were never friends.’
‘Come now, Valentina.’ Something about the way he said her name seemed almost as if he were stroking her again with that velvet glove and she crossed her arms over her chest to hide an instinctive and unwanted reaction. ‘Surely, given what we have shared...’
‘We shared nothing! We spent one night together, one night that I have regretted ever since.’ And not only because of the things you said and the way we parted.
‘I don’t remember it being quite so unpleasant.’
‘Perhaps you recall another night. Another woman. I’m sure there have been so many, it must get quite confusing. But I’m not confused. You are no friend of mine. You are nothing to me. You never were, and you never will be.’
She thought he might leave then. She was hoping he might realise they had nothing more to say to each other and just go. But while he pulled his long legs in and sat up higher in the chair, he did not get up. His eyes lost all hint of laughter and took on a focus—a hard-edged gleam—that, coupled with his pose, with his legs poised like springs beneath him, felt almost predatory. If she turned and ran, she thought, even if there was a way to run in this cluttered showroom, he would be out of his chair and upon her in a heartbeat. Her own heart kicked up a notch, tripping inside her chest like a frightened gazelle.
‘When your mother first came to me for a loan,’ he said in a voice that dared her not to pay attention to each and every syllable, ‘I was going to turn her down. I had no intention of lending her the money.’
She didn’t say anything. She sensed there was no point in asking him what had changed his mind—that he intended telling her anyway—even if she didn’t want to know. On some very primal level, she recognised that she did not want to know, that, whatever it was, she was not going to want to hear this.
‘I should see about that coffee—’ she said, making a move for the stairs.
‘No,’ he said, standing and barring her exit in one fluid movement, leaving her wondering how such a big man could move with such economy and grace. ‘Coffee can wait until I’ve finished. Until you’ve heard this.’
She looked up at him, at the angles and planes of his face that were both so beautiful and so cruel, looked at the place where a tiny crease betrayed a rarely seen dimple in his cheek, studied the shallow cleft in his chin, and she wondered that she remembered every part of him so vividly and in such detail, that nothing of his features came as a surprise but more as a vindication of her memory.
And only then she realised he was studying her just as intently, just as studiously, and she turned her eyes away. Because she had stared at him too long, she told herself, not because she was worried what he might be remembering about her.
‘I didn’t have to lend that money to your mother,’ he continued. ‘But then I remembered one long night in a room warmed by an open fire, with sheepskin rugs on the floor and a feather quilt to warm the wide bed. And I remembered a woman with skin the colour of cream with amber eyes and golden hair and who left too angry and much too soon.’
She glared at him, clamping her fists and her thighs and refusing to let his words bury themselves in the places they wanted to go. ‘You lent my mother money to get back at me? Because I slapped you? You really are mad!’
‘You’re right. I can’t g
ive you all the credit. Because in lending your mother money, I saw the opportunity to take back Eduardo’s home—this palazzo—before it collapsed into the canal from neglect. I owed Eduardo that, even if I wanted nothing to do with his wife. But that wasn’t the only reason. I also wanted to give you a second chance.’
‘To slap you again? You make it sound so tempting.’ Right now her curling fist ached to lash out at something. Why not his smug face?
He laughed at that. ‘Some say a banker’s life must be dull: days filled with endless meetings and boring conversations about corporate finance and interest rate margins. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Sometimes it can be much more rewarding.’
‘By dreaming up fantasies? Look, I don’t care how you while away your hours—I really don’t want to know—just leave me out of them.’
‘Then you are more selfish than I thought—’ his voice turned serious ‘—your mother is in serious financial trouble. She could lose the palazzo. In fact she will lose the palazzo. Don’t you care that your mother could be homeless?’
‘That will be on your head, not on mine. I’m not the one threatening to throw her out.’
‘And yet you could still save her.’
‘How? I don’t have access to the kind of funds my mother owes you, even if I did want to help.’
‘Who said anything about wanting your money?’
There was a chilling note to his delivery, as if she should indeed know exactly what kind of currency he was considering. But no, surely he could not mean that?
‘I have nothing that would interest any banker and convince them to forgive a debt.’
‘You underestimate yourself, cara. You have something that might encourage this banker to forgive your mother’s debt.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so!’
‘Listen to what I offer, Valentina. I am not a beast, whatever you may think. I do not want your mother to suffer the indignity of being thrown out of her home. Indeed, I have an apartment overlooking the Grand Canal ready and waiting for your mother to move into. She will own it free of any encumbrance and she will draw a monthly pension. All that stands in the way is you.’ He smiled, the smile of a crocodile, the predator back in residence under his skin.
Her own skin prickled with both suspicion and fascination. He was a beautiful specimen of a man. He always had been. But she’d known the man, she’d known what he was capable of, and her self-protection senses were on high alert. ‘And are you going to tell me what I have to do in order to win this happy ever after for my mother?’
‘Nothing I know you will not enjoy. I simply require you to share my bed.’
She blinked, expecting to wake up at any moment. For surely she was so jet-lagged that she’d fallen asleep on her feet and was busy dreaming a fantasy. No, not a fantasy. A nightmare. ‘As simple as that?’ she echoed. ‘You’re saying that you will let my mother off the hook, you will gift her an apartment in which to live and pay her an allowance, and all I have to do is sleep with you?’
‘I told you it was simple.’
Did he imagine she was? Did he not realise what he was asking her? To sell herself to him like some kind of whore—and all to save her mother? ‘Thank you for coming, Signore Barbarigo. I’m sure you don’t have to trouble Carmela to find your way out. I’m sure you can find the way.’
‘Valentina, do you know what you are saying no to?’
‘Some kind of paradise, apparently, the way you make it sound. Except I’m not in the market. I’m not looking for paradise. I certainly wouldn’t expect to find it in your bed.’
‘You might want to reconsider your options. I do not think you are giving this offer the serious consideration it deserves.’
‘And I don’t think you’re giving me any credit for knowing when I’ve heard enough.’
‘And your mother? You care not for what happens to her?’
‘My mother is a big girl, Mr Barbarigo. She got herself into this mess, she can damned well get herself out of it.’
‘And if that means she loses the palazzo and ends up homeless?’
‘Then so be it. She’ll just have to find somewhere else to live, like anyone else who overspends their budget.’
‘I’m surprised at you. Her own daughter, and you will do nothing to help her.’
‘You overplayed your hand, Luca, imagining I even cared. I will play no part in your sordid game. Throw my mother out if you must. Maybe then she might learn her lesson. But don’t expect me to prostitute myself to bail her out. When I said what we had was over, I meant it.’
He nodded then, and she felt a rush of relief like she had never known before. She had just consigned her mother to her fate, it was true, but it was no worse a result than she had come here half expecting. Perhaps if her mother had been more of a mother, one who inspired loyalty and affection, she might even consider Luca’s barbaric bargain. For five minutes at least. Then again, a mother like that would never put her in a position such as this. A mother like that would never have fallen victim to such an opportunistic despot.
‘In that case you give me no choice. I will go. And I will call your father and let him know the bad news.’
‘My father?’ she asked, with an ice-cold band of fear tightening around her chest. Lily had been talking to her father on the phone when she’d arrived and she’d never got around to finding out exactly why, even though it had seemed odd. What had they cooked up between themselves? ‘Why would you call him? What’s Mitch got to do with this?’
‘Does it matter? I thought you wanted no more part of this.’
‘If it’s about my father, then of course it concerns me. Why would you need to call him?’
‘Because Lily spoke to him today.’
‘I know that,’ she snapped, impatient. ‘And?’
‘And he didn’t want to see your trip wasted. Lily told me he would do anything for you, and apparently she was right. He offered to put up the farm as security if you could not find a way to help.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I CAN’T believe you dragged my father into this!’ Tina burst into her mother’s room, livid. There was no risk of waking her, she’d just ordered Carmela to bring her brandy. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’
Luca had departed, taking his smug expression with him but leaving a poisoned atmosphere in his wake and now Lily wasn’t the only one with a headache. Tina’s temples pounded with a message of war.
‘What are you doing in here? What’s all this screaming?’
Tina swiped open the curtains in the dark room, letting in what little light remained of the day. Too little light. She snapped on a switch and was rewarded by a veritable vineyard lighting up above her mother’s bed head, clusters of grapes in autumn colours, russets and pinks and golds, dangling from the ceiling amid wafer-thin ‘leaves’ of green and pink. For a moment she was too blindsided to speak.
‘What the hell is that?’ she demanded when at last she’d found her tongue.
‘You don’t like it?’ her mother said, sitting up, looking up at the lights, sounding surprised.
‘It’s hideous. Just like everything else in this glass mausoleum.’
‘Valentina, do you have to be so rude? I’ll have you know I don’t buy things to please you.’
‘Clearly. But right now I’m more concerned about whatever it was you got Dad to agree to. Luca said he’d put the farm on the line. For you. To bail you out. If I couldn’t find a way.’
‘You saw Luca?’ Lily scambled from the bed, pulled on a rose-pink silk robe that wafted around her slim body as it settled. ‘When? Is he still here?’
‘He’s gone and good riddance to him. But not before he put his seedy deal on the table. Were you in on it, mother dearest? Was it you who came up with the idea of swapping your
daughter for your debt?’
Lily blinked up at her. ‘He said that?’ And her mother looked so stunned Tina knew there was no way she could have been in on it. ‘That does explain a few things, I suppose. Well, aren’t you the lucky one. And I thought he wasn’t interested in sex.’
‘You didn’t! Oh, please God, tell me you didn’t proposition him.’
She shrugged, sitting at a table, picking up a cloth in one hand, a glass dolphin in the other, absently rubbing its head. ‘Turning fifty is no joy, Valentina, you mark my words. Nobody wants you. Nobody sees you. You might just as well be invisible when it comes to men.’
‘There’s nothing flattering about being asked to be someone’s mistress, Lily!’
‘But of course there is. He’s a very good-looking man.’ And then she stopped rubbing and stared into the middle distance as if she was building an entire story around the possibilities. ‘Just think, if you play your cards right, he might even marry you...’
‘I told him I wouldn’t do it.’
Her mother looked at her, and Tina saw an entire fantasy crashing down in her eyes. ‘Oh.’
‘And that’s when he told me about Dad, and agreeing to put up the farm. Is that why you were on the phone to him, Lily? Looking for a Plan B in case I couldn’t save you? Begging for favours from a man you abandoned with a baby more than twenty-five years ago? A man who by rights should hate your guts.’
‘He doesn’t, though. I think Mitchell was the only man who ever really loved me.’
‘Well, you sure made a mess of that.’
‘I still don’t understand what your problem is. People would kill to sleep with Luca Barbarigo.’
And the desire to shock her mother just for once, instead of being the one who was always shocked, was too great. ‘That’s just it. I have slept with him.’
‘You sly girl,’ she said, swapping the dolphin for another, this one with a baby swimming alongside. ‘And you never let on? So why make such a big deal out of it now?’