Vengeful Seduction (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)

by Williams Cathy

  Lorenzo settled back in his chair, raised his glass to his lips and surveyed her over the rim.

  ‘Makes a refreshing change from the hypocrisy I’ve encountered over the past four years out there in the concrete jungle.’

  ‘You would soon get sick of it, were you to remain,’ Isobel said coolly, and he raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Is that wishful thinking on your part, or have you taken up amateur psychology in your spare time?’

  ‘Hilarious,’ she said, watching him. ‘Now, what exactly would you like to talk about?’ She looked at her watch meaningfully, which appeared to have the opposite effect of making him prolong his silence, while he contemplated her with something bordering on insolence.

  ‘Actually, I thought you might be interested in what I had planned for your father’s company.’

  ‘You won’t be taking over my father’s company.’

  ‘Nothing stands in my way when I’ve made up my mind. Another drink?’ he asked, and she shook her head, furious at his arrogance.

  ‘Some re-organisation,’ he continued, as though she had not uttered a word. ‘Do you know much about your father’s business?’

  ‘I told you, you won’t be——’

  ‘I will be taking over Chandlers, Isobel,’ he grated, leaning forward, ‘and I will be taking it over on my terms. Now, answer me: do you know anything about your father’s company?’

  ‘No,’ she said tightly, deciding to humour him rather than sit through his relentlessness.

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Not that this line of conversation is relevant.’

  ‘Good God, Isobel, what on earth have you been doing with yourself for four years?’

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything!’ she retorted hotly, flushing. He made her life seem so trivial. ‘I work at the local surgery and it’s a pretty full-time job. I hardly saw the need to take up a second career looking over my father’s shoulder! Anyway, this is ridiculous. You might think that you can do what you want, that I’ll give in to your bizarre conditions, but you’re wrong!’

  ‘I intend to streamline the whole operation. It’s a bit like an octopus at the moment, with tentacles stretching here, there and everywhere, and very few of them reaping much by way of profit.’

  ‘Those tentacles provide jobs,’ Isobel hissed, temporarily side-tracked, and he looked at her with a hooded expression.

  ’I’ll bear that in mind when I decide to make it a registered charity,’ he said. ‘Until then, the business has to shrink.’

  ‘And to hell with the livelihoods that will be swept down the drain?’ This seemed as good an area as any for letting off steam. Isobel took a deep breath. ‘Some of the people there have worked in my father’s company from the year dot. What do you intend to do with them when your great streamlining project gets under way? Throw them a few rueful platitudes about recession and pat them on the head?’

  She expected him to get angry with her—in fact, if she was honest with herself, she quite wanted it because she dearly would have liked to release some of that pentup, confused, alarming feeling that swept through her every time she saw him in a good raging argument. But he stared at her, then said in a low voice, ‘So you do recognise that I plan on coming back here?’

  ‘No.’ She spoke sharply, reddening when she realised that she had been persuaded into an argument which had weakened her position.

  ‘I lied when I said that I could resist you.’ It was a statement of fact and there was no tenderness on his face when he spoke. ‘You’re as exquisite as you always were and I still want you.’

  A dark excitement coursed through her and she looked away, alarmed.

  His voice was husky, sexy. It made her senses spin and she had to force herself to say in a final tone, ‘You can’t expect me to sign myself over to you. I already…’ She stopped, confused, and he moved forward, reaching out to hold her chin, to force her face to his.

  ‘Made that mistake? Is that it, Isobel? Dammit, talk to me, woman!’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘You betrayed me and I want to know why.’

  His intensity unsteadied her and she made a heroic effort to regain her composure.

  ‘Why won’t you just let me be? Have my father’s company. I’ll sell it to you, but leave me alone.’

  ‘Never,’ he bit out, releasing her in an angry gesture.

  There was a tense silence and she seemed to hear the workings of her body, the anxious, desperate beating of her heart, the mad flow of blood through her veins, the heavy thud of her pulse.

  ‘Your plans for the company…What would you do with the people you laid off?’

  ‘I’ll allow you to change the subject for now,’ he rasped, ‘but only for now.’

  It no longer mattered that he was going to tell her about plans which would never materialise. She would have welcomed any change of conversation. She would have gladly encouraged him to hold forth on meta-physics and its place in the kitchen if it had meant not having to withstand that terrible assault on her senses.

  Besides, she told herself practically, she might gain an idea or two from what he had to say. Who knew, his suggestions might serve her well if it came to having to work things out for herself. When, she amended to herself, when it came to having to work things out for herself. She felt better now she could reason that one out, and she smiled encouragingly.

  ‘I have an excellent redundancy package worked out, which will amount to early retirement for some of the older members of staff, all of whom will eagerly accept.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Experience,’ he answered with utter assurance. ‘It’s a misconception that most people want to devote as much of their lives as they can to working in an office. The majority would quite happily take early retirement and relax on the proceeds.’

  Yes, she thought, that made sense.

  ‘And who would you volunteer for early retirement? Hypothetically speaking, of course.’

  Lorenzo was watching her through narrowed eyes and she wondered whether he was trying to gauge her sudden interest in a topic which she had only minutes before proclaimed to be a waste of her vocal cords. She hoped desperately that he would find nothing revealing on her face. Living with Jeremy had done a great deal to sharpen her powers of concealment. He had always enjoyed the hold that he had over her, and she had learned very early on that the more sensitive she appeared, the more he relished it, so in the end she had learned to disguise her emotions under a wall of blankness. Like all things, it had gradually become a second skin. Time could work wonders.

  ‘Greg Thompson, Vic Richards, old McGraw—all of whom are doing the company no good at all. They lack the drive that they no doubt had in their younger days.’ He paused. ‘Of course, there would have to be some reshuffling, but strings would be pulled to help those men who suddenly find themselves out of work to pick up the pieces and carry on.’

  ‘Greg Thompson,’ Isobel murmured. ‘Vic Richards, Ronnie McGraw.’ Shame, she thought, that she didn’t have a notebook.

  ‘Any more questions?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘Sure you can remember the helpful hints?’

  ‘Helpful hints?’

  ‘You won’t get the chance, Isobel, so forget it. No one touches that company but me. I’ll make sure of that.’ He smiled coolly and she wondered what it would feel like to tip the remainder of her drink over his head.

  ‘I told you. You can have the company.’

  ‘You’re part of the deal.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked with a feeling of dreadful apprehension. ‘Why marriage?’

  ‘Because running your father’s company isn’t going to be a hobby for me. Of course, I have other businesses, some in America, and that will involve travel, but I also have men who can run them efficiently in my absence. No, I plan on settling down here and this is the sort of town where respectability is essential.’ He looked at her through
hooded eyes. ‘Would you have agreed to be my woman on the side?’

  Colour crawled into her face. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I want you, Isobel, and I intend to have you. Marriage is a bonus for you.’

  ‘And fidelity?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Love?’

  ‘Since when has the absence of love held you back?’ he asked softly.

  She stared at him, dry-mouthed. It shocked her that he was prepared to go to such lengths to wreak his revenge. He didn’t love her but he would marry her because he knew that marrying her was the one thing she wanted least.

  Simply owning her father’s firm would not be enough.

  ‘And fidelity?’ she asked, skirting round his question, which she could not answer without tying herself up in knots.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I see.’ She did too. She saw that fidelity would mean absolutely nothing to him. ‘You would feel free to indulge yourself whenever you wanted,’ she observed bitterly.

  ‘You see that, do you?’

  The question hung in the air, tantalisingly asking for a response.

  ‘I must go.’ She stood up, half expecting him to prolong the conversation, relieved when he stood up as well.

  ‘What’s it like working with Adams?’ he asked casually as they moved towards the door, and she threw him a surprised look.

  ‘You told me that you worked at the surgery. There’s only one.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Not that it mattered. I had you checked out before I came back anyway.’

  ‘You had me what?’

  She stopped by the door and stared at him in angry astonishment.

  ‘Checked out,’ he repeated calmly, as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. ‘I thought that I might as well find out about you. I knew where you worked and for whom.’

  ‘You had a detective trailing me?’

  ‘Tom Wilkins will begin to get very interested if he sees us engaged in earnest conversation here.’

  ‘Some seedy man in an overcoat, peering through binoculars?’ she asked, aghast.

  ‘Hardly. I asked Clark to find out about the family background, about you.’

  ‘On what pretext?’ The simmering phase was fast reaching a rolling boil. He pulled open the door and shoved her out and she turned on him angrily. ‘That’s the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard in my life!’

  ‘You must have led a very sheltered life these past four years, in that case,’ he said, unmoved.

  ‘You had no right!’

  ‘I was planning to spend quite some money buying your father’s firm. I felt I had the right. Besides, I was curious.’

  ‘You were curious. Well, that makes it all right then, doesn’t it?’

  They were walking along slowly and she made sure that she kept a very safe distance from him. ‘Adams isn’t married, is he?’ Lorenzo asked in a casual voice.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s he like? I remember him as looking like a giraffe. All limbs.’

  ‘He’s grown into a very attractive young man,’ Isobel said stiffly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

  ‘Everything that has to do with you is my business.’ He wasn’t looking at her as he said that. He was staring straight ahead. Isobel glanced at him, at the hard profile, the lean, muscular body with its peculiarly graceful stride.

  Abigail had once told her that she thought Lorenzo was remarkable, the sexiest man she had ever laid eyes on.

  ‘He could go far in my line of business,’ she had commented. ‘He would make an imposing actor. He has the presence. He doesn’t even need to open his mouth.’

  Why hadn’t he stayed put? Isobel wondered. Why hadn’t he had the good manners to stay a memory, lurking at the back of her mind? Why did he have to bring his imposing presence back into her life? She had never recovered from him, but at least recovery would have been possible in the end if she was denied proximity.

  Her only chance rested in his departing once again for distant shores.

  She would never marry him; she would never give him his opportunity to wreak revenge, and perhaps, once he saw that, he would give up any attempt to persuade her.

  ‘Cosy for you,’ he said softly, next to her, ‘working with a single, attractive man.’

  ‘Yes.’ Isobel turned to face him. ‘We have a very good relationship.’ She could have inserted ‘working’, but then why should she?

  ‘And how did Jeremy feel about that?’

  ‘Is this a question and answer session?’ she asked politely as they reached her bike, and she grabbed hold of it and began walking along the pavement. ‘Anyway, I’m surprised you didn’t get your spy to fill you in on all these details. Lapse of yours.’ She wished that he would vanish into thin air.

  ‘Were you having an affair with him?’ He reached out and gripped one of the handlebars.

  ‘You can take it however you like,’ she answered, and his mouth hardened.

  ‘So you had an open marriage. I don’t suppose I should be too surprised at that. Was Jeremy that nondescript in bed or did you feel that, once you had established your status quo, there was no need to pretend to feel anything for him? Or were you sleeping with both men at the same time, Isobel? If I recall, you always were a passionate little thing.’

  Isobel’s hands tightened on the handlebars until her fingers were white. She would have slapped him if she could, but little towns were not places for public fights, and she knew that he was deliberately playing with her anyway.

  ‘I really must be going, Lorenzo,’ she said, without looking at him, and his hand slid up to grip her arm.

  ‘Not until you’ve answered my questions.’

  Her response to that was to yank at her bike, and he let her, walking alongside her until they approached his car, at which point he held on to the bike and said, with the same semblance of politeness which didn’t fool her for a minute, ’I’ll drive you to your house.’

  Isobel looked at him. In the gathering gloom of nightfall his face was all shadows and angles. A hard, powerful face, the face of a man who seldom, if ever, yielded to resistance.

  ‘I want to meet your mother,’ he said, his mouth twisting. In the darkness the grey eyes glittered with casual menace. ‘After all, it won’t be long before I shall know her very well indeed, will it, Isobel?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY drove the short distance to the house in silence. She could remember how much they had talked, years ago, planned, laughed, when any silences between them were filled with warmth. This silence was heavy with foreboding.

  As soon as the car pulled up outside the house Isobel shot out, followed lazily by Lorenzo.

  In a stroke of monumentally bad luck, as far as Isobel was concerned, her mother was at the door as it was pushed open.

  She saw Lorenzo, and Isobel watched with a sinking heart the expression of warm delight on her mother’s face, the exchange of greetings.

  ‘How wonderful to see you, Lorenzo.’

  Oh, God, Isobel thought. This had the makings of more than a five-minute chat on the doorstep.

  ‘I suppose my daughter has arranged the dinner date with you? Naughty of her not to have phoned and warned me.’ Her mother gave one of her throaty, relaxed laughs.

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, she hasn’t.’

  ‘I forgot,’ Isobel said. She stepped into the hall, blocking the entrance with her body, and said coolly, ‘You must drop round some time for a meal, Lorenzo. Though I’m sure you’ll be far too busy to accept in a hurry.’

  ‘I should love to come round for dinner,’ he replied, looking at her tight-lipped face with amusement.

  ‘Why not now?’ Mrs Chandler peered over Isobel’s shoulder. ‘There’s a casserole in the oven—nothing terribly fancy, I’m afraid—and some vegetables from the garden.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything nicer,’ he said with an infuriating smile, and he stepped past Isobel into the hall.

 
Her mother was right. Lorenzo Cicolla had great charm, an abundance of it. Hatred for her, she thought, had hidden it, but it was in full force now, and bowling her mother over by the second.

  Both her parents had been very fond of him. She was tempted to point out the ruthlessness, the arrogance, the obliterating single-mindedness which rubbed shoulders with the dark, persuasive smile and the easy, sophisticated banter, but she held her tongue. Meeting her mother was a waste of time. He would discover that in due course.

  They went to the sitting-room, with Isobel trailing behind them, listening to the warm exchange of two people who frankly liked each other and wishing that she could think up a suitable ailment that would spare her from what threatened to be a very uncomfortable evening ahead.

  ‘Now,’ Mrs Chandler said, after she had poured them all a drink, ‘shall we get the uncomfortable part of this evening out of the way?’

  Lorenzo raised his eyebrows in a question and Isobel felt her spirits sink a little lower. She swallowed her glass of wine in record time, helped herself to another to steady her nerves, and sat back.

  ‘Sounds ominous,’ Lorenzo drawled.

  ‘I was absolutely delighted when Isobel told me the prospective buyer of David’s company,’ Mrs Chandler began, looking suitably delighted. ‘It came as a great shock when Mr Clark told us that we would have to sell Chandlers. You see, it was David’s great love building that company. I dreaded the thought of a stranger coming along, maybe taking it to pieces. Someone with no history in the community, commuting from another town, seeing the firm as something to make a profit.’

  Lorenzo nodded. Isobel eyed him sceptically from under her lashes and wondered how much of that sympathetic air was real and how much feigned.

  ‘I understand,’ he murmured.

  ‘Do you?’ Isobel shot him an innocent look of raised eyebrows and curved lips. ‘Then I take it you approached every company you took over as a sympathetic friend and not as an investor wanting to see his investment make money?’

  Lorenzo frowned at her. ‘I have always been fair in my take-overs.’

  ‘Oh, how reassuring,’ she murmured with a sweet smile.