by Lynne Graham
In the aftermath, she held him close, awash with wonder and a little shock and loving tenderness. Damiano smoothed her hair, dropped a kiss on her brow, rolled back, but he kept her securely pinned to him with a possessiveness more than equal to her own.
‘It’s so special with you…’ Damiano murmured with slumbrous satisfaction.
Her lips curved. ‘And yet you said that what happened in the bedroom wasn’t important enough to make a major issue,’ she reminded him.
Damiano lifted her up to look at her. His brilliant eyes were full of devilment. ‘Step one in my seduction plan was to defuse the tension—’
‘Seduction plan?’
‘I thought it would take weeks and weeks for us to make it this far,’ Damiano confided with rueful amusement.
They lay in a relaxed sprawl. Damiano hugged her close and drawled. ‘I’ve dealt with Anstey, by the way—’
‘Mark?’
Damiano smiled like a sleepy tiger, eyes gleaming below dark lashes. ‘He won’t be bothering you again—’
‘What happened?’ she pressed anxiously.
Damiano shifted a noncommittal shoulder. ‘He’s repaid the money and he’ll think twice before he tries blackmail a second time.’
Eden sat up. ‘Damiano…’
‘I hit him. OK?’ Damiano gave her a level look of challenge. ‘He frightened you. He caused you a lot of distress. He’s lucky I didn’t damage him permanently!’
Eden never approved of violence. Her principles fought with her lack of sympathy for Mark, whose callous behaviour had hurt her a great deal. While she was struggling with those opposing feelings, the phone by the bed rang.
Damiano reached for the receiver. His lean, strong face tensed, expressive mouth tightening. ‘We’ll be down in ten minutes.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Nuncio and Cosetta are here,’ Damiano breathed, springing off the bed and a grim look in his eyes. ‘I should never have given Nuncio the name of this place and I should have made time for him this morning when he phoned asking to see me, but I’m afraid I wasn’t in the mood for my little brother.’
‘You can’t tell Nuncio about Tina’s affair,’ Eden warned him flatly.
‘That’s not your decision to make,’ Damiano retorted with crisp clarity. ‘You might have been prepared to let yourself be hung out to dry on Tina’s behalf, but I’m not. In any case, my family was abusing you long before that tabloid story appeared!’
‘But you don’t repay spite with spite—’
‘No, you repay wrong with right,’ Damiano countered, unmoved by that line or argument. ‘I won’t listen to a single word spoken against you, so, for his own sake, I hope Nuncio has not come here with the intent of causing trouble.’
They went downstairs together. Eden was dismayed when she walked into the sitting room and registered that Damiano’s entire family had chosen to descend on them. Nuncio, Cosetta and Tina were seated round the fireplace. But she almost laughed when she heard Damiano stifle a groan of exasperation at the same sight.
CHAPTER TEN
NUNCIO looked deeply uncomfortable, like a man who had been dragged somewhere he didn’t want to be by the women in his life. His sister, Cosetta, gave him a charged look of expectancy and, when he failed to react, she rose to her feet with a pronounced air of self-importance.
‘We need to talk to you in private, Damiano.’
Damiano dealt the sharp-faced brunette a withering appraisal. ‘Eden’s my wife and she stays, Cosetta.’
‘I think Eden and I should go for a walk.’ Tina stood up with one of her little deprecating smiles. ‘What do you say, Eden? Shall we leave the Braganzis to it?’
‘Not just right now, thanks,’ Eden said quietly.
China-blue eyes hardening, Tina sat down again.
Nuncio began to say something in Italian to his brother.
‘Let’s stick to English,’ Damiano cut in.
‘I’ll find this matter very difficult to broach with Eden present,’ Nuncio protested.
‘Then you have a problem because I’m not going anywhere,’ Eden advised her brother-in-law, disconcerting him with a sharp retort such as he had never received from her before. But then Eden had already decided that the days when she had allowed Damiano’s siblings to snub and embarrass her were long behind her.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Cosetta exclaimed, throwing Nuncio a look of stark impatience. ‘This secrecy has gone on long enough. Annabel’s being very silly keeping herself in the background but we’re supposed to be here to put things right for her!’
Eden blinked in surprise at that reference to Damiano’s former fiancée. Why on earth was Damiano’s sister rabbiting on about Annabel Stavely?
‘What are you trying to put right for Annabel?’ Eden enquired but even Cosetta, who was normally a far from sensitive being, coloured and looked away from her, sooner than answer her directly.
‘We wanted Annabel to come out to Brazil with us…Annabel and her son, Peter,’ Nuncio began stiffly, his heavy face flushed as he concentrated his attention on his elder brother. ‘But she became quite hysterical when we suggested that—’
‘Of course, she did. She has her pride. Naturally she didn’t want to be the one to make the first move. Any woman would feel the same in her position!’ Cosetta proclaimed in heated defence of her best friend.
Eden slowly shook her head in silent wonderment. Damiano’s family never failed to astonish her. Not only had they left her behind when they had flown out to greet their long-lost brother in Brazil, but they had also evidently attempted to persuade Annabel to take what should have been Eden’s place! As for Cosetta’s fond contention that Annabel was too proud to make the first move with Damiano…well, Eden almost laughed out loud at that claim. In her efforts to win Damiano back even after his marriage, Annabel had been blatant.
Admittedly, it had never seemed to get the redhead anywhere, Eden conceded. She might have envied Annabel because she believed that Damiano had once sincerely loved the other woman. But even thinking that Damiano might well have married her on the rebound, Eden had recognised that he’d no longer been in love with his former fiancée. Indeed, had she had a better sense of humour five years earlier, she might well have reaped a lot of macabre enjoyment from Annabel’s attempts to attract Damiano when he’d been so patently detached from her.
‘What is this farrago of nonsense?’ Damiano enquired very drily of his brother and sister. ‘Why would you have invited Annabel to come out to Brazil with you? Why the hell would I have wanted to see her?’
‘So that you could be tempted afresh,’ Eden could not resist pointing out to her husband, a slight wobble in her voice. ‘Your family obviously thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. After all, you had spent all those years locked up and were sure to be at a low ebb of restraint!’
An appreciative smile curved Damiano’s mouth and he closed his arm round Eden. ‘Why do you think that I’m still complaining that you weren’t on the flight?’ he teased before turning his attention back to his brother. ‘Come on, Nuncio. Do try to come to the point.’
Nuncio cleared his throat like a bullfrog and stood up. ‘Annabel has had a child, Damiano…’
Eden’s spine tingled and stiffened. Only now did she recall Tina smugly telling her that she had a huge shock coming her way. Common sense told her what had to be coming next but she just couldn’t credit the explanation that her mind was serving up to her.
‘So?’ Damiano elevated a sardonic dark brow.
‘Annabel told us that you and she had got back together again shortly before you went out to Montavia,’ Cosetta delivered and the brunette slung a triumphant smile at Eden’s astonished face. ‘We weren’t at all surprised but poor Annabel didn’t feel she could tell us the truth until your wife had moved out of the town house. By then Annabel was five months pregnant and, with her father having been declared bankrupt, she was very much in need of our support—’
‘A
nnabel will be in even greater need of your support when she finds herself hauled up in court for slander,’ Damiano broke in with icy disbelief, his outrage etched in every angle of hard bone-structure. ‘How dare you bring this tissue of lies into my home? If Annabel has had a child, it was not fathered by me!’
Eden had gone way beyond amusement now. She felt sick with shock. And she thought strickenly for an instant, Could it be true? Might Damiano have turned to Annabel again before he’d gone missing and when their marriage had been under strain? She looked up at him and found him gazing down intently at her. She met his eyes head on, those stunning clear dark golden eyes. She recognised the honest anger there, the pure exasperation with which one met a fantastic story, and not the smallest shade of discomfiture. Her momentary stab of concern vanished to be replaced with outrage. It was his wretched family again, she decided furiously, still set on having another go at dividing them!
‘That’s quite some story, Cosetta,’ Eden commented tightly, her green eyes sparkling with scorn. ‘Very offensive in its content but just a little too like a soap opera to impress anyone with any wit!’
‘Annabel said that Peter was Damiano’s son!’ Cosetta argued shrilly.
In the face of his elder brother’s outraged rebuttal, Nuncio had turned a pasty colour and fallen silent. Now he said uneasily, ‘Ever since Damiano came home, Annabel has done nothing but beg us to mind our own business and keep quiet about this, Cosetta. I told you I wasn’t happy with the odd way she’s been behaving—’
‘That’s only because Annabel wanted Damiano to make a free choice between her and Eden,’ Cosetta argued even more frantically. ‘Annabel wouldn’t have lied to me!’
‘What you seem to forget is that your brother made that choice when he married me,’ Eden retorted with crisp dismissal. ‘It’s long past time that his family accepted that and, if you can’t accept it, then leave us alone.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Damiano stated flatly, curving Eden even closer to his big powerful frame as he surveyed their three visitors. ‘And, sadly, you, my family, really do deserve Annabel. Indeed Annabel could not have ripped off a nicer set of people. I can barely believe how stupid you’ve all been—’
‘Ripped off? Stupid?’ Cosetta repeated incredulously. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Annabel waits until she thinks I’m dead and Eden has been driven from the family before she comes forward with her touching little confession…am I right?’ Damiano prompted, sounding very bored.
‘Well…yes,’ Nuncio confirmed.
‘She then told you she was expecting my child. Tell me, did anybody argue at that point? Did anybody seek any supporting evidence of her claim?’ Damiano surveyed his siblings with questioning derision. ‘So you just accepted that if Annabel was pregnant, the child was mine because she said so. Even though I was married—’
‘Annabel said you were planning on getting a divorce.’ Nuncio groaned.
‘Annabel said,’ Damiano stressed with angry contempt. ‘Her father going bankrupt must’ve been a really nasty shock because Annabel has expensive tastes. Weren’t you capable of adding two and two and making four, Nuncio? Didn’t you smell the proverbial rat? How much money have you given her over the years?’
‘I can’t believe that Annabel could have made it all up just to get money off us! How could she do that to me?’ Cosetta sobbed and she stalked over to the window and turned her back on them all.
‘You used her to get at me, Cosetta,’ Eden reminded the brunette ruefully. ‘And she used you to stay in Damiano’s radius.’
‘Ouch…’ Damiano groaned.
Looking hangdog, Nuncio muttered defensively, ‘I was only trying to look out for your interests when I helped Annabel out, Damiano—’
‘How? By hurting and humiliating my wife when she was at her most vulnerable? Tell me, how was that looking out for my interests?’ Damiano demanded with a hard condemnation that made his younger brother flinch.
China-blue eyes cold as charity, Tina now spoke up with her usual hesitancy. ‘I’m sorry but it’s really not fair to blame Nuncio,’ she said softly. ‘None of us have wanted to mention it but Eden did have an affair with another man and obviously that upset all of us a great deal.’
Bitter anger flared in Eden at Tina’s nerve in making that crack. She felt electric aggression power tension through every muscle in Damiano’s lean, well-built length. ‘Tina…’ Damiano began not quite evenly, rage gritting from even those two single syllables, but he did not get the chance to continue.
Without the smallest warning, Cosetta erupted back into the centre of the room and pitched a set of prints down onto Tina’s lap. ‘You lying, cheating little snake!’ she spat furiously. ‘It was you who had the affair with Mark Anstey! It was you all along and you lied all the way down the line!’
As Eden fixed appalled eyes on the photos she now belatedly recalled having left lying on the window-seat, close to where Cosetta had been standing, all hell broke loose. Nuncio made a sudden grab at the photographs and broke into an aghast exclamation while Cosetta continued her ranting attack on her former ally.
‘You can stage this confrontation elsewhere,’ Damiano drawled with chilling clarity. Striding over to the door, he flung it wide. ‘All of you…out!’
Shattered silence fell.
‘I’m prepared to get physical,’ Damiano warned.
Their unwelcome visitors departed but they were all shouting at each other again before the front door even closed behind them. Eden sagged with relief.
‘They will never set foot in any residence of ours again,’ Damiano swore with vehemence. ‘But when did my kid sister turn into such a shrew?’
Eden sighed and, turning round, rested her brow against his broad chest, feeling his arms close round her and revelling in the warmth and solidity of him. ‘I think her friendship with Annabel turned her in that direction. Annabel is a lot older and she influenced her a good deal. Oh, dear…I feel so awful about leaving those dreadful photos just sitting there where anyone could find them!’
‘I noticed them long before Cosetta did. I was subconsciously willing Nuncio to go over there and see them, cara mia,’ Damiano confided grimly, strongly disconcerting her. ‘Tina has not been good company for Cosetta either—’
‘But what about Nuncio? He looked so stricken, Damiano—’
‘He’s miserable with her or hadn’t you noticed that yet? Let them work out their own problems,’ Damiano advised. ‘I don’t have any sympathy to spare after that outrageous spiel about Annabel. Listening to them, I honestly wondered if my brother and sister had more than one brain cell apiece—’
‘But you’ll note that I had total faith in you,’ Eden informed him with the kind of sweetness that carried a slight sting in its tail.
Dark colour accentuated his blunt cheekbones just as a knock sounded on the door and it opened. Their housekeeper began to speak but was silenced by the woman pushing impatiently past her to gain entrance to the room.
It was Annabel Stavely and Annabel as Eden had never seen her before. The redhead had no make-up on, swollen eyes and a look of desperation etched on her still beautiful face.
‘You’ve got to let me explain myself!’ Annabel exclaimed pleadingly.
‘Do you think you could make it brief?’ Damiano enquired very drily.
‘I passed the limo at the end of the driveway,’ Annabel confided in a rush and bit at her full lower lip. ‘I hoped I’d get here first so that I could explain but I know that Nuncio and Cosetta must already have told you about the story I made up—’
‘Children make up stories. Adults tell lies.’ Damiano shot Annabel a derisive appraisal. ‘And when an adult lies to commit a fraud, it is rather more serious. So let’s not pretend that you involved yourself in some playful little charade—’
Annabel was very pale. ‘I didn’t see that it was going to hurt anybody—’
‘You didn’t care whether it did or not,’
Eden cut in helplessly. ‘For you to have pretended that your child was my husband’s is about as low as any woman could sink—’
‘How many other people are suffering from the same delusion?’ Damiano demanded with sudden harshness, that aspect clearly not having occurred to him until Eden mentioned it.
‘Only your family,’ Annabel hastened to assure him. ‘It really was a big secret—’
‘It had better have been or you will find yourself in court,’ Damiano spelt out in hard warning. ‘If one rumour of this appears in print, call your solicitor because you’re going to need him.’
Annabel surveyed him with appalled eyes and then dropped her head.
‘Does your son believe that Damiano is his father?’ Eden had to ask.
‘No! Really, you’re making far too much of this,’ Annabel contended shakily. ‘It was wrong and it was stupid but I was so broke I couldn’t even settle the rent on my apartment! Don’t you realise the hell I’ve gone through this last month since Damiano turned up alive?’
At that plea for sympathy on such a count, Eden’s lips parted company and then sealed together again for she dared not have spoken.
‘I mean I just couldn’t believe you coming back from the dead like that!’ Annabel wailed accusingly at Damiano. ‘Do you think I’d have lied if I’d known there was any chance of that happening? I had to take myself off to a friend’s villa in Turkey to hide. I didn’t know what I was going to do to get myself out of this mess. And Cosetta kept on phoning and phoning and phoning me to demand that I fly out to Italy to see you! You were the very last person I wanted to see!’
‘You’ve had a really dreadful time,’ Eden muttered soothingly but she was challenged to keep her face straight.
Damiano murmured tautly, ‘I don’t think we need to discuss this any further, Annabel—’
‘You mean you forgive me?’
Damiano sighed. ‘Annabel…unless I’ve very much mistaken you have managed to defraud my brother of thousands of pounds over the last few years. You ripped him off and what he chooses to do about that is nothing to do with me.’