The Argentinian's Demand

by Cathy Williams

  Leandro marvelled that he had managed that sentence without slurring his words. He began heading back towards the sitting room and could feel her presence behind him.

  The lethargy that had afflicted him seemed to have miraculously disappeared.

  ‘You should drink some black coffee—sober up.’

  Leandro swung round to look at her and Emily automatically took a couple of steps back.

  ‘Reason being...?’

  ‘I don’t want you falling all over the place when I say what I...I’ve come to say...’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me now and get it over and done with? I’m thinking you’ve had a chance to rustle up a plausible story, but you can forget it if you imagine that a plausible story can buy you a ticket back to my bed.’

  ‘Do you know something, Leandro? I am mystified as to how I could have done something so stupid as to fall in love with you!’

  Leandro stared at her. He didn’t need any black coffee. He felt as sober as a judge. And once he’d started staring he found that he couldn’t peel his eyes away from her face. She was bright red but she was standing her ground, glaring at him as though she had somehow been forced to utter those words against her will.

  ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’

  ‘I’m in love with you. Okay?’

  Leandro suddenly laughed, leaning against the wall. ‘Nice try,’ he finally said drily.

  The cynicism he should have been feeling was curiously absent. Instead he was filled with a wild satisfaction which he could only put down to having had his ego stroked.

  ‘What do you mean, “nice try”?’

  ‘I mean you only jacked the ex in on the back of being able to sustain a relationship with me for as long as it would take to leave with some financial gain and you must be kicking yourself that you never quite managed to reach the point of success...’

  In love with him? It was a bloody lie—of course it was. She had economised with the truth to such an extent that he would be a complete fool to believe a word she came out with. He should, he knew, just call her a cab and cut short this pointless conversation before it had time to degenerate into a shouting match. He didn’t do shouting, or hitting things, but he had a suspicion that she was just the woman to bring that out in him.

  Emily continued to glare, then she sidestepped him and headed towards the kitchen, not looking back to see if he was following her, knowing that he was. She was ramrod-straight, her head held high, but her heart was beating a mile a minute and she felt dizzy and sick.

  The kitchen was a marvel of up-to-the-minute technology. It had never been her style and she had told him so on numerous occasions, much to his amusement, but she could still admire the stark lines, the clean surfaces and the plethora of high-tech gadgets, none of which looked as though they had ever been used.

  There was an advanced and scary-looking coffee-making machine on the counter, sparkling white against the black granite, but she opted for the kettle instead and didn’t look at him as she made them both some coffee. Black for him...white with two teaspoons of sugar for herself.

  When she did finally turn around it was to see him lounging against the doorframe, watching her with narrow-eyed hostility.

  ‘You should sit.’

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Emily? Walking in here after we’ve parted company and issuing orders?’

  ‘I think I’m a woman who never expected to fall in love with you, or with anyone, and now that I have I find that I can’t walk away without...without telling you the whole story...’

  ‘What’s there to tell? You were going to marry a gay guy for his money before you decided that I was a better bet. No marriage needed and yet play your cards right, plenty of hot sex, and sooner or later—money...’

  ‘Sit down, Leandro!’

  How on earth was she managing to do this? She just knew that she had to lay the whole story on the line for him and then he could do with the information what he liked. Despise her more. Kick her out. Turn her into the butt of his jokes in the years to come. Whatever...

  Leandro opened his mouth to protest in automatic dismissal of anyone daring to tell him what to do. Except...hadn’t he dumped that all-controlling persona with her?

  He shrugged nonchalantly and moved to one of the black leather chairs, turning it away from the chrome and glass table so that he was looking at her.

  ‘Okay.’ Emily drew in a deep breath. ‘I got engaged to Oliver knowing that he was gay because it suited us both.’

  She took a few seconds to get her thoughts into order, to arrange them in a way that made some kind of sense. Hesitantly, she walked across to the table and sat facing him, nursing the mug between her hands.

  ‘You wanted his money,’ Leandro said with scathing contempt.

  ‘I wanted his money,’ Emily agreed. ‘I needed his money.’

  Her blue eyes were clear and honest when she looked at him, and Leandro did his best to fight the temptation to be sucked into whatever fairytale she was telling even though he knew that what he would hear would be the full truth, no holds barred.

  About time. Lord only knew what she was going to come out with. A secret gambling addiction? Debts that had been racked up to the point of no return?

  ‘Needed?’

  ‘I told you about my father—about what he had done. What I didn’t tell you was that when he took off for Bangkok he took all the money with him. Mum tried to get some kind of settlement but she waited too long, was too dazed by what had happened. During that time he made as much of his money disappear as he could. By the time the lawyers demanded full financial disclosure he was claiming poverty and announcing that he was broke.’

  Emily had been young at the time, but she could still remember her mother wondering how on earth they were going to afford to live, to put bread on the table.

  ‘She had to go out to work to make ends meet. We lived in the family home. A mansion. It had been in my mother’s family for generations and she refused to get rid of it even though it ate money. In winter whole sections had to be shut off because we couldn’t begin to afford to run them.’

  ‘What exactly did your mother manage to get from the guy?’

  ‘My father?’ Emily sighed. ‘A pittance. I had to be pulled from private school, and that was that for holidays. Anyway, all my dreams of a career basically went down the pan because I simply had to go out to work and get a good job—which I did as fast as I could. By then Mum had been ill for a while. Breast cancer. I believe it was brought on by the stress.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Leandro said gruffly. ‘Why didn’t you say something before? And what does this have to do with the gay fiancé?’

  He had to return the conversation to a point he could handle.

  ‘I’m getting there,’ Emily said quietly. ‘My mother has early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s not serious. But it’s going to get worse. Eventually she’s going to need proper care, but she still refuses to sell the house and I can’t afford to cover the costs on my salary. As it is, most of what I earn goes towards helping her and keeping the wretched house from falling into complete disrepair.’

  She ran her fingers through her hair and realised that her hand was trembling.

  ‘I reconnected with Oliver a while ago. He’d been in the States and made a small fortune. He had a proposal for me. He wanted to get his foot back on the ground over here. Property. He had grand schemes for a golf course. Our house sits in a lot of land—most of it wild, wooded. You know... He knows the house well, and the land, and he suggested that if we got married I could sign the house over to him and he would help keep it ticking over. When the time came, in exchange for the house—which he would turn into a high-end country hotel set in its own private golf course—he would give me a sum of money sufficient to give my mother the best po
ssible private care available and to set me up in my own little place. He was willing to bide his time, and figured that he would be able to get in with the small community by being my husband. He didn’t think that they would accept him if he came out. It suited me.’

  She looked at him defiantly, challenging him to criticise the decision she had taken.

  ‘Everything wrapped up in a neat, sexless package...’

  ‘I couldn’t have agreed to it otherwise,’ Emily admitted frankly. ‘I may not have believed in love or romance, or the value of marriage, but there was no way that I could have had a sexual relationship with someone who was involved with me just as a business deal, so to speak. And then...’

  There was no mistaking the sincerity on her face and Leandro could feel a weight beginning to lift from his shoulders. Believing the worst in her had been painful, and now he knew why.

  ‘And then we went to the island and I just couldn’t resist you...Leandro.’ She laughed wryly. ‘You were the last man on the planet I would ever have considered a suitable guy, and yet maybe that made my decision to sleep with you easier. You see...I’d never been attracted to anyone the way I was attracted to you. It was like my sensible, practical, cynical self had decided to take a holiday and the new occupants of the house had turned out to be wild, unruly and utterly out of control...’

  Leandro was smiling. He wanted to whistle. His soul was soaring.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Emily muttered, looking at him with suspicion, because this was not in the repertoire of his reactions she had predicted.

  ‘I’m sorry. Carry on. You had just got to the bit where you couldn’t resist me...’

  Emily cringed inwardly but she got it. She had lied and he had every right to enjoy each morsel of truth leaving her mouth.

  ‘When I decided to break off with Oliver I did it because I knew that I had fallen in love with you, and the thought of getting married because it made sense on a number of practical fronts was just no longer conceivable.’ She draped her hair over one shoulder and fiddled with the ends. ‘The last thing I was after was any money. I’d already resigned myself to just doing the best I could with what I earned and crossing bridges when I came to them. Because I knew that you and I were never going to last. I knew what you wanted was sex—that you were still looking for the dream girl to provide you with the dream life.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth when you broke off the engagement with your fiancé?’ It felt okay for him to nurture magnanimous feelings towards the dearly and now departed ex.

  ‘Because I knew what you’d think. That I had no morals. Who would sacrifice their lives for the sake of money?’

  ‘Except you weren’t doing that, really, were you?’ Leandro said softly. ‘I would have seen someone willing to sacrifice the happiness she didn’t think she believed in for the sake of the mother she loved very much. I would have seen a woman willing to accept friendship as a basis for marriage because of altruistic reasons. I would have seen the woman I had fallen in love with.’

  It was Emily’s turn to stare at him. She wondered whether she had heard right. His expression was soft and intense and open all at the same time, and her mouth went dry because she didn’t want to misread anything.

  ‘Have I rendered you speechless?’

  ‘I’m not sure I heard correctly,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Then I’ll repeat it, because one good confession deserves another, don’t you think? I love you. I love you and I didn’t even realise it. I wasn’t looking for love and I therefore assumed that it wouldn’t arrive. God, Emily...’ He shook his head and remembered the feelings earlier that had driven him to the bottle. ‘When you left today I thought I was going out of my mind. It felt like a part of me had been ripped out, and even then I managed to convince myself that it was because I hadn’t taken you for a liar, because I was annoyed, disappointed, angry...’

  Emily reached across the table and her hands found his. They linked fingers. She felt the energy run between them—familiar, exciting and comforting all at the same time.

  ‘You’re really telling me that you love me...?’

  ‘You were cynical and didn’t believe in love. I was fully committed to the idea, but on my terms and within my control and at a time that slotted in to my schedule. I guess it’s fair to say that you weren’t the only one to be taken by surprise...’

  He stood up, pulling her to her feet and drawing her into him.

  ‘I love you, Emily Edison, and I would like to know if you could take me on—for better or for worse...’

  ‘Are you asking what I think you’re asking?’

  ‘Depends... I’m asking you to marry me.’

  ‘You would think that I want your money if I said yes...’

  ‘I would think that you wouldn’t have a choice but to let me help you, because that’s what people do when they love each other.’

  ‘I...’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  Emily smiled. She grinned until her jaw began to ache and she squeezed him tightly, barely daring to breathe in case the moment was broken.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You agree to take me on, for better or for worse.’

  ‘For better or for worse...’

  ‘And my worse is that I update that pile of yours so that your mother is happy and comfortable for ever in the place she loves and the place you love too—because I will always love what you love, my darling...’

  He drew her apart and brushed some hair away from her forehead.

  ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up here tonight,’ he said quietly. ‘I would have come to find you, but my pride would have made me take my time, and I shudder with fear to think about what you might have done in the interim. Reconsidered your options about marrying the ex...’ He felt sick when he thought about it.

  ‘Never...’ She stroked his cheek and kissed the side of his mouth, smiling as she felt the shift inside him as his libido kicked in as effortlessly as hers did. ‘You’ve spoiled me for the rest of the opposite sex...’

  ‘And you’d better keep it that way...’

  He held her hand and began leading her out of the kitchen, back up to the bedroom, where he had every intention of sealing their love in bed.

  ‘And I shall keep reminding you on a daily basis how to do that...beginning, my love, with right now...’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from TAMING THE NOTORIOUS SICILIAN by Michelle Smart.

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  Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  FRANCESCO CALVETTI BROUGHT his MV Agusta F4 CC to a stop and placed his left foot on the road as he was foiled by yet another set of red lights. Barely 7:00 a.m. and the roads were already filling up.

  What he wouldn’t give to be riding with nothing but the open road before him and green fields surrounding him.

  He thought of Sicily with longing. His island had none of the grey dreariness he was fast associating with London. This was supposed to be spring? He’d enjoyed better winters in his homeland.

  He yawned widely, raising his hand to his visor out of pure habit. After all, no one could see his face with his helmet on.

  He should have gotten Mario to bring him home after such a long night, but being driven by anyone irritated him, especially in a car. Francesco was a man for whom drive had multiple definitions.

  The light changed to green. Before twisting on the throttle and accelerating smoothly, he swiped away the moisture clinging to his visor.

  What a country. At the moment it was like driving through a saturated cloud.

  As he approached yet another set of lights, a cyclist on a pushbike just ahead caught his attention—or, rather, the fluorescent yellow helmet she wore caught it. She reached the lights at the moment they turned amber. If that had been him, Francesco mused, he would have gone for it. She’d had plenty of time.

  But no, this was clearly a law-abiding woman with a healthy dose of self-preservation. She stopped right at the line. The car in front of Francesco, a large four-wheel drive, drew level on her right side.