Dark Angel

by Lynne Graham

  Indeed, in Kerry’s opinion, a male willing to go to great expense to transform Ballybawn into a comfortable home for an elderly couple who could never repay his generosity could hardly be suspected of possessing a vengeful nature. Luciano’s refusal to confirm that he would retain ownership of the castle did not change her mind on that score either. How could she fault him for demanding that she choose between him and the estate? That she put him first? Wasn’t that natural? Of course he didn’t want to think that she might choose to be with him solely because he owned Ballybawn!

  Yet only a few days ago, Luciano had not seemed to care what might motivate her. That he had moved on from that point to demand more from her was encouraging, that he had discovered that he had scruples whether he wanted them or not was even better, Kerry told herself with determination. And on this occasion she could be there for him, this time she was in a position to put him first and her family second and prove her trust. This time she would dare to be different and break the mould!

  ‘Have I misjudged you?’ Costanza asked with a searching look when she collected Kerry from the reception area of da Valenza Technology. ‘Or have you finally worked out that it’s safer to be on the winning team?’

  In the act of entering Luciano’s office, Kerry paused. ‘I’ll leave you to make up your own mind about that.’

  As the elegant brunette spread the door wide, Kerry clashed with Luciano’s intent gaze: bold, beautiful golden eyes set between black spiky lashes, framed by a lean, bronzed masculine face with features as pure and perfect in symmetry as those of a dark angel. A dark angel of the fallen variety, for it wasn’t possible, it had never been possible, to look at Luciano and not react to the sinful sizzle of his sex appeal.

  Now she no longer even tried to pretend that she could be impervious. In response to the hard look of challenge he angled at her, her entire body tingled and her heart pounded and an unholy charge of excitement raced through her slight, taut frame. It shouldn’t have been that way and she was ashamed that it was but she was finally accepting that loving Luciano roused certain instincts in her that she could not fight. She loved him and she wanted to be with him and she could not stand back and do nothing when his interests were in jeopardy.

  Luciano surveyed Kerry with cloaked eyes that concealed the raw satisfaction charging him with an adrenalin high. She had changed her mind. She was coming to Italy, he just knew she was coming to Italy with him and that he had won. Costanza might have been taken in by the excuse that Kerry had miraculous access to the identity of the secretive party eager to buy the castle but he had not been fooled.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll remember reading that solicitor’s letter asking about my mother. I replied to it.’ Kerry drew in a sharp, short breath before continuing. ‘Well, the solicitor contacted me and confirmed that Mum was dead but he—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luciano drawled with roughened sincerity.

  ‘It wasn’t a surprise,’ Kerry sighed. ‘But the solicitor also informed me that my mother’s marriage to my father was her second. When she was barely out of her teens, she had married another man and she had three other children. I have half-sisters, and at their request I came to London to meet them today.’

  His winged dark brows had drawn together. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before I left the castle?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know anything about my sisters and I wasn’t ready to talk about them…I think I didn’t quite believe in their existence until I saw them in the flesh this afternoon.’

  ‘Three more older versions of you,’ Luciano mused.

  ‘We don’t look much alike, as we have three different fathers between us. I suppose you’re wondering why I’m taking up your time telling you about this—’

  ‘No.’ Luciano took it for granted that she would come to him to tell him about any major event in her life and, if anything, he was annoyed that she had kept that information from him while he was still in Ireland.

  ‘My sisters threatened you—’

  ‘Threatened me? How?’ Luciano rested back against his desk so that he towered over her a little less and his sculpted mouth quirked. Her sisters had threatened him? He almost laughed out loud. What the heck was she talking about? Yet there was something touching about the genuine concern that had tensed the delicate lines of her triangular face.

  ‘I’m afraid that they’re very annoyed about our grandparents having been forced to move out of the castle and from what I can work out they’re rich enough to cause trouble for you—’

  ‘In terms of probability, I would consider that unlikely, cara.’

  Recognising that he was not taking her warning seriously, Kerry named her siblings. At the sound of the name Andracchi, Luciano began to frown in recognition. When she mentioned the fact that her eldest sister was reputedly the wife of an oil-rich eastern prince, Luciano straightened and threw back his wide shoulders. ‘You can’t be serious. Dio mio, are you trying to tell me that your three sisters are—?’

  ‘And Ione…the youngest next to me—’

  ‘Is called Christoulakis. She’s the Greek heiress who married Alexio Christoulakis. Santo cielo…you must have heard of the three of them before!’ All Luciano’s relaxation and amusement had come to an abrupt end. ‘Even I know that some society gossip columnist christened Misty Andracchi and her sisters the Three Graces for their charitable fund-raising activities—’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t heard of them, and my sisters weren’t very charitable about you,’ Kerry confided with a grimace. ‘In fact they seemed to be blaming you for everything that’s gone wrong at Ballybawn, which isn’t fair—’

  ‘Obviously very prejudiced ladies, and whoever said life was fair?’ An absolute rage of furious, frustrated disbelief was nibbling at the edges of Luciano’s steely control. Just when Kerry was on the very edge of becoming wholly and absolutely his, providence threatened to snatch her away again. She had three very wealthy sisters, who would no doubt do whatever was in their power to separate Kerry from him.

  She could only have spent an hour at most in their company and already his presence in her life had come under attack. That knowledge so inflamed Luciano that it was a second or two before he could even cool down enough to consider what it was that her siblings might find so very objectionable about him. He did not have to consider that issue for long. On the face of it, he was prepared to allow that he might not look like the ultimate catch. He was not only an ex-con but also the bastard who had had the misfortune to collect a debt that ensured their long-lost grandparents became homeless. With luck like that, Luciano reflected grimly, he might as well shoot himself. Andracchi, Christoulakis and the Arab prince Jaspar al-Husayn would make formidable opponents. Luciano was convinced that even on a bad day he could take any one of them but he was less sanguine about his prospects were all three to band together.

  ‘It’s my sisters who are behind that offer to buy Ballybawn. They want to give it back to Grandpa and Grandma,’ Kerry told him. ‘So you just say yes to that offer now and sell—’

  ‘Sell?’ Luciano ground out with incredulity. ‘That’s your home we’re talking about—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who gives the castle back to my grandparents. My sisters will do it. My sisters are dying to gallop to their rescue,’ she emphasised tautly. ‘You no longer need to worry about my grandparents—’

  ‘But I own Ballybawn,’ Luciano breathed with a raw edge to his delivery, outraged to have his life-changing bout of generosity tossed back ungratefully in his teeth.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t need Ballybawn and it’s not as if you ever really wanted it or even fell madly in love with it,’ Kerry reasoned ruefully. ‘So you might as well sell the castle back to the family for the best offer you’re ever likely to get.’

  ‘You’re telling me to sell out to your sisters—?’

  ‘Yes. It’ll keep them happy and give them less reason to threaten your business interests. I’m certain that they’ll back off if you let
them have the castle.’

  Raw dark colour accentuated the hard slant of his blunt cheekbones and his brilliant eyes blazed gold. ‘I am not afraid of your sisters or their husbands—’

  Kerry stretched up and framed his lean, powerful face with spread fingers, blue eyes full of troubled appeal. ‘Just for once in your life, don’t be macho and aggressive. Try to think like a woman and be cool-headed and sensible…’

  His beautiful mouth quirked.

  ‘You know what I mean. Why look for trouble when you don’t have to?’ Kerry reasoned feverishly. ‘You have no fight with them—’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Long brown fingers drifted through the tumbled fall of her curls and slowly knotted there, his hot, hungry gaze resting full on her. ‘I had a quarrel with your sisters the instant they tried to come between us, bella mia.’

  Her delicate face clouded. ‘You wouldn’t believe how excited and happy I was when I realised that I had sisters…and meeting them at first was wonderful.’ Kerry swallowed hard, for it was too upsetting to recall the special sense of connection which she had initially experienced in her siblings’ company. ‘But it all just fell apart when I realised how they felt about you…’

  Luciano knew he ought to tell her that her sisters had probably spoken out of the best of intentions: their protective concern for her versus their distrust of him. He knew he ought to point out that she had no true experience of how normal family members interacted. Caring relatives did interfere in each other’s lives but Kerry’s father had never had the interest to do so.

  Conscious that an essential spirit of fair play and decency ought to have prompted him to speak up, Luciano remained stubbornly silent. He much preferred to mull over the amazing fact that Kerry had turned her back on her own sisters for his benefit. Her first loyalty had lain with him. Automatically and instinctively, she had rejected their arguments against him. She had also rushed across London to warn him that her siblings were behind the offer for Ballybawn. What had he done to deserve that loyalty? Not a lot, Luciano was prepared to concede. But he knew how best to conserve his own good fortune. Removing Kerry from all possibility of further contaminating contact with her troublemaking sisters loomed large on his immediate agenda.

  ‘We’re going to Italy together,’ he murmured gruffly.

  Kerry felt a dreamy smile curve the softened line of her lips. ‘Yes…but—’

  His big, powerful frame tensed against her. ‘No buts—’

  ‘I’ll need to go to Dublin first and see my grandparents. I’m also dining with Miles this evening—’

  ‘Phone him…I have a stronger claim on you, cara.’ As Luciano’s breath fanned her parted lips, she trembled. She wanted that hard mouth of his on hers so bad it was a literal pain to be denied it. ‘We’ll see your grandparents together tomorrow. We’ll stop off on the way to Italy—’

  ‘Miles is waiting at his apartment for me. I can’t let him down like that.’

  Brilliant eyes narrowed, Luciano set her back from him with ruthless cool.

  The shock of separation from that lithe, powerful length of his hurt even more. Her body ached, the wanton heat and dampness at the very heart of her reacting with shameless disappointment to his retreat. Her colour high, Kerry stepped back from him on unsteady legs. The amount of power he had over her shocked her but she was determined not to give way to his demand that she cancel her evening with her stepbrother. Even though her every shameless skin cell urged her to spend that same time with Luciano?

  But when would she next be in London? In addition, she no longer had a home of her own to which she could invite Miles whenever she might choose. As she finally appreciated just how dependent she would be on Luciano in the future, her innate streak of caution almost went into panic overload. Suppressing her uneasiness, she backed away and secretly cringed over the fact that she had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from suggesting that she saw Luciano later that evening.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ Luciano drawled.

  When Miles opened the door of his apartment, he was in the middle of a tense conversation with someone out of view. Turning back to Kerry with a hangdog air, he muttered rather indistinctly, ‘Sorry about this.’

  Kerry had entered his sitting room before she understood why he was apologising. His sister, Rochelle, was poised by the fireplace, her green eyes alight with defiance. ‘Look, this was my idea, not my brother’s…OK? Satisfied, Miles?’

  As Miles closed the door again in craven masculine retreat, Kerry was very tempted just to walk right back out of his apartment again. ‘I can’t imagine what you could have left to say to me.’

  Rochelle planted her hands on her hips. ‘That I’m not the competition you needed to worry about…your real challenge is Paola Massone—’

  ‘I have no idea who you’re referring to, nor do I want to know.’ Kerry gave the aggressive blonde a weary appraisal and decided that there was something a little immature about a woman of twenty-eight who chose to wear a skirt so short that the slightest bend threatened to expose her panties.

  Her stepsister lifted the gossip magazine lying on the coffee-table and then slung it down again in emphasis. ‘Read this and weep! I bet Luciano hasn’t mentioned wedding bells to you this time around. Now that he’s rolling in the dosh and the vineyards, he’s got much fancier game in mind for the bridal role. Paola’s got the looks, the social status and she’s Italian too…and her daddy and Luciano are planning to make world-class wine together! Now, isn’t that sweet? Top that little lot if you can!’

  ‘Is that it? Are you finished now?’ Kerry prompted hopefully.

  ‘Just about. Of course, if you had any pride, you wouldn’t settle for being his tart now when you were once engaged to him,’ Rochelle remarked with soft, stinging scorn.

  Only as her stepsister began to leave did Kerry find herself finally asking the question that she had always longed to ask the other woman. ‘Are you in love with Luciano?’

  Rochelle gave her a pained appraisal and winced. ‘Why are you always so wet? I want to shag him every time I see him…that’s all!’

  ‘And just for that…you wrecked our engagement?’

  ‘The guy was mine first. All right, so he was drunk and it was only one weekend, but he had no business getting engaged to you when he couldn’t even be bothered using my phone number! Are you satisfied now?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kerry was thinking how very ironic it was that Rochelle should have been as jealous of her as she had been of Rochelle.

  Ripe mouth pursed, her stepsister departed, slamming the front door in her wake.

  Kerry found Miles seated at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, a bottle of whisky in front of him and an empty glass.

  ‘So where are we going tonight?’ her stepbrother asked with feverish brightness, his words slurring as he clambered down off his high stool with exaggerated care. When he attempted to straighten, he swayed un-steadily. While she watched in dismay, he burst out laughing and grabbed the edge of the worktop to stay upright.

  Miles was so drunk that he could barely stand and Kerry had no intention of leaving the apartment with him. ‘I’ll make us something to eat here.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ He lifted the bottle to help himself to another shot of alcohol.

  Don’t you think you’ve had enough? Kerry swallowed back a reproach that she knew would only rouse his resentment. Miles might be a party animal but she was dismayed that he could be in such a condition at only seven in the evening, particularly when he had invited her to dine with him. He looked rough in more ways than one as well. Usually immaculate in appearance, he was in dire need of a shave and a clean shirt, and his complexion was downright haggard.

  ‘But I’m glad you’re here.’ On a sudden impulse, Miles engulfed her in a clumsy hug.

  With firm hands, Kerry pressed him back onto the stool before he fell over.

  ‘I’m in a mess,’ he mumbled heavily.

  Her concern increasing, Kerry murmured, ‘
What kind of a mess? Is my father giving you a hard time?’

  ‘Yeah…everybody is and it’s not about to get better, it’s likely to get worse.’ Miles went off into another burst of what struck her as inappropriate laughter. ‘Linwoods is bleeding to death while those bastards at Salut steal our customers!’

  ‘Linwoods has come through tough times before.’ Kerry found some eggs in the fridge and decided to make omelettes in the hope of sobering him up with food. She was so relieved that she had not been tempted into cancelling her visit, for it was obvious that Miles was much in need of a caring shoulder.

  Her stepbrother’s sensitivity had always drawn Kerry to him. Although on the surface he seemed to have the same bold bravado as Rochelle, he had neither his sister’s thick skin nor her resilience. He found it hard to work for a man as harsh and critical as her father could be and he seemed to see every disappointment and setback at the firm as a personal failure. When Luciano had been arrested for stealing from Linwoods, Miles had been stressed out of his mind for weeks afterwards.

  At ten, Luciano called her on her cellphone. By then, she had managed to persuade Miles to go for a shower but it had been an uphill battle that had taxed her patience.

  ‘So where are you?’ Luciano enquired lazily.

  ‘In Miles’s sitting room.’

  ‘How very exciting, cara mia,’ Luciano purred with a satisfaction he was quite incapable of hiding. ‘I’ll pick you up after nine tomorrow morning. Are you missing me?’

  ‘Nope…not in the slightest—’

  ‘I know you miss me,’ Luciano asserted.

  Involuntarily, she grinned. ‘So why ask?’