by Lynne Graham
Having enjoyed an idyllic ten days of wholly sybaritic pleasure on the island, Kerry and Luciano flew back to London.
Early the next morning, Luciano headed straight into the office and Kerry called her grandparents to ask how they had settled back into Ballybawn. During her absence, her sisters had engaged staff for the castle and had overseen the elderly couple’s return to their much-improved home.
‘I hope to fly home tomorrow,’ Kerry told her grandfather cheerfully.
‘Now, don’t be hurrying back just for our benefit,’ Hunt O’Brien warned. ‘This afternoon we’re off to Quamar to stay with Freddy. Your grandmother wants to be with your sister when the new baby arrives.’
Kerry came off the telephone feeling ever so slightly abandoned: her grandparents were turning into seasoned globetrotters. Reminding herself of the very real fears that she had once had for their well-being, she shook off that instant of regret, for their future was now very much more secure. With a caring team of well-paid employees to ensure their every comfort, her grandparents would never be so dependent on their youngest granddaughter again and she had sensed her grandfather’s relief and satisfaction that that should be the case.
Mid-morning, Costanza arrived and explained that she had to find a file which Luciano believed he might have left at the townhouse. Kerry watched as her husband’s PA began to leaf through the filing cabinets in the room he used as an office.
‘Can I help?’
The brunette gave her a surprised look and then smiled. ‘Yes, please. Luciano’s expecting me back as soon as possible. I do wish he’d thought to mention what a mess he’d made of the filing system!’
For a couple of minutes the two women worked side by side.
‘Why is everything in the wrong place?’ Kerry grumbled.
‘Because Luciano finally has the excuse he has been waiting for all his working life,’ the brunette said in her usual acerbic style. ‘He is now way too rich, important and busy to put things back where he found them!’
Kerry burst out laughing.
‘Of course, his current excuse might well be exhaustion. Send him to bed early tonight,’ Costanza quipped. ‘Only half an hour after he came in, he fell asleep at his desk!’
Kerry blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘That was jet lag.’
‘But you only flew back from Sicily!’ The PA checked the desk drawers and then produced keys to access the wall safe.
A couple of files spilled out from the precarious pile inside the safe and fell to the carpet. Ignoring them, Costanza pulled another file from the heap with an exclamation of satisfaction. ‘Got it!’ Halfway to the door again in her eagerness to get back to the office, the brunette paused to take account of the files now littering virtually every surface and winced. ‘Luciano’s in a massive hurry for this…can I leave you to tidy up?’
‘If you promise not to tease him about falling asleep—’
‘He’s a man…they love the kind of teasing that suggests they’re incredible studs!’ Costanza mocked on her way out.
Still smiling, Kerry knelt down to gather up the loose papers that had spilled from one of the fallen files. The bright yellow logo on the letterhead of one of the documents stole her attention: Salut. Stilling in surprise at the logo of the wine-store chain that Miles had said was cutting Linwoods’ profit margins to ribbons, Kerry began to examine the papers she had been about to slot back into the file.
The first document she scrutinised startled her, for it was a very detailed and businesslike report on the strengths and weaknesses of her father’s wine-store operation. The information it contained was both confidential and damaging to Linwoods, and moreover the report was marked as being only for the eyes of the Salut management team. What the heck was Luciano doing with a report like that in his personal possession? As Kerry leafed through the rest of the file, her skin began turning clammy and her sensitive tummy churned.
Everything she looked at fell into the category of privileged information either in relation to Linwoods or to Salut, and naturally Luciano had kept the file locked in his safe away from prying eyes. His wife’s prying eyes? For, unless she was very much mistaken, Luciano da Valenza, her husband, was behind the successful Salut wine stores currently engaged in hammering her father’s retail operation into the ground. Gooseflesh prickled at the nape of her neck.
Surely Luciano could not own Salut? Wasn’t it possible that, having noted the chain’s rapid rise to prominence, he was perhaps considering investing in it? With hands that were damp and showing a distinct tendency to tremble, Kerry flicked back through the file. There was no room for doubt: Luciano owned Salut. He had financed the launch of the chain long before he got out of prison. For months, Salut had run at a staggering loss while it was stealing Linwoods’ customers.
Kerry tottered upright on wobbly legs. Clutching the file beneath her arm, she called a taxi to take her over to da Valenza Technology. No way could she wait until Luciano came home that evening to confront him. Maybe he would have some explanation, maybe she was leaping to entirely the wrong conclusion, she told herself bracingly. She was married to Luciano. She adored him. He was a wonderful man. It was not the best time for her to recall Ione having said, ‘It’s a big mistake to think a guy’s perfect…occasionally you meet one who would make King Herod look kind!’
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU’RE not allowed to take Luciano home for lunch…he’s needed here,’ Costanza teased when she came out of one of the offices and saw Kerry approaching Luciano’s door.
‘I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.’ Kerry evaded the brunette’s keen gaze.
When Kerry entered Luciano’s office unannounced, he was on the phone. Brilliant golden eyes zeroed in on her and lingered to admire the flattering fit of the stretchy green safari dress that made the most of her light tan and slender, shapely curves. Obviously, Luciano thought with satisfaction and without surprise, his wife had missed him. Four hours without a glimpse of him had been more than she could stick. A smouldering smile of welcome slashed his lean, darkly handsome features. Lounging back in his chair, he scrawled three words on his desk notepad and turned it round for her to see while he continued his call.
‘Lock the door.’
A burning blush heated Kerry’s drawn face. Most decidedly, it was the wrong moment for her to remember that Luciano had suggested that she come into his office some day so that he could live out another fantasy by having her across his desk…or up against the wall…or the door. With a complete lack of shame, he had admitted that he didn’t care where, he just wanted the forbidden thrill of doing it.
His smile only gaining in brilliance, for when Luciano’s mind focused on sex it could not be said to heighten his ESP, he printed something else on the pad and exhibited it to her.
‘This office is sound-proofed.’
At that mortifying reference to a most personal matter, Kerry got so hot she was convinced she had to resemble a beetroot and she was incensed with her own inability to immediately slap him down and freeze him out. Wasn’t she angry enough with him? In truth, she acknowledged dimly, she was still too deep in shock to know quite what she was feeling. But raging, rampant disbelief and horror at the deception he had practised on her were assailing her in stormy waves. Yet more than anything else she was still praying that her worst suspicions would somehow be proven to be wrong. In fact never in her life had she been more eager or more hopeful of being shot down in flames.
Crossing the room, she lifted Luciano’s gold pen, flipped over a fresh page on the pad and printed one word on it. But she printed that single word with such force that she ripped a tiny hole in the paper.
While Luciano would have been happy to credit that Kerry was getting into the passionate spirit of the occasion, he was not that naive. Quirking a winged black brow and wondering if it was possible that she could be in a bad mood with him when she had gone to so much trouble to look sexy for his benefit, he endeavoured to read the page on the pad
upside-down. At that point, he froze.
‘Salut.’
At speed, Luciano concluded his phone call. Kerry slapped a file which he had last seen in the townhouse safe down on his desk. Now noting the feverish strain marking her blue eyes, he suppressed a groan. He reckoned that his chances of fulfilling the office fantasy currently stood at the slim-to-non-existent rating. He just hoped she was not about to throw a three-act tragedy about the Salut affair, for if she did he knew he was liable to lose his temper. She was his wife and there were many areas of his life that she might reasonably comment on. However, the field of business was on the forbidden list.
‘Do you own Salut?’
‘I do.’ Determined to make his attitude clear from the outset, Luciano rose to his full, commanding height. ‘Where did you get that file?’
‘Costanza was in your safe and it fell out and I think she forgot to lock it up again…don’t you dare blame her for being careless! I’m sure it’s quite understandable if she assumed that a normal husband would have no secrets from his wife!’
‘Obviously I’m not normal,’ Luciano dared. ‘But then I’m not applying for sainthood and the decisions I make in a business capacity have nothing to do with you.’
Kerry had expected him to look at least guilty and discomfited. She had not been prepared for him to fight back on the most unacceptable of macho terms. ‘Are you calling your efforts to ruin my father’s livelihood a business decision?’
Luciano leant back against the edge of his desk with a galling air of self-assurance. ‘Yes, I am. In the last two months alone, Salut has doubled its profit margins. It’s breaking records as one of the most successful new companies ever and I’m proud of that. You’re my wife. I don’t care if it kills you…it’s your job to be proud of my achievement too.’
Kerry was so shattered by the outright manipulative cunning of that retaliation that she trembled. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this—’
‘And by the way…’ Luciano had decided that it would be unwise to conceal any information that she would soon learn for herself ‘…my efforts to destroy your father’s firm have been equally successful. The receivers were called in at Linwoods the day before yesterday.’
Turning pale as milk at that declaration of appalling fact, Kerry took an actual step back from him.
‘It is also probable that I will buy Linwoods’ more profitable outlets at a knockdown price and relaunch them under the Salut banner,’ Luciano completed.
‘Dear heaven…’ Kerry whispered strickenly. ‘You went out after my family and ruined them—’
‘But Harold won’t be in need of a homeless hostel or a soup kitchen to survive. Heathlands and a sizeable pension fund were placed in your stepmother’s name a long time ago to safeguard his old age,’ Luciano cut in very drily. ‘Let’s not dramatise the situation.’
‘Dramatise it?’ Kerry repeated with sick distaste at his flippancy. ‘You can’t conceal the wrong of what you’ve done just by calling it business…I looked in that file! You set out to systematically destroy Linwoods by stealing their customers and you spent a fortune doing it. That’s not normal business, that’s revenge!’
Luciano lifted and spread lean brown hands in a fluid motion. ‘I’m not denying that.’
Kerry was disconcerted. ‘You’re…not?’
‘What’s wrong with revenge? I’ve done nothing illegal,’ Luciano drawled.
‘Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be wrong!’ Kerry condemned with angry emphasis. ‘Don’t you have any principles? What about what you’ve done to me? You should be ashamed…you’re married to the daughter of a man whom you’ve done everything within your power to ruin!’
‘Possibly I should be more ashamed of having married the daughter of the man who stood back and let me take the fall for a theft I didn’t commit,’ Luciano traded, his strong jawline clenching. ‘I’m the one in the right here. I’m the one who was wronged. It’s time that you acknowledged that instead of bleating goody-goody sentiments that have little relevance in the real world!’
Kerry was cut to the bone. ‘I don’t bleat goody-goody sentiments!’
‘You’re out of line. What I do in business has nothing to do with our marriage—’
‘If you murder someone in business, am I supposed to turn a blind eye to that as well?’ Kerry demanded in furious rebuttal. ‘You’re totally ignoring the true issue here! Ever since you came back into my life, you’ve been working against my family in a totally underhand and dishonest way!’
‘I’m not listening to this bull. I refuse to fight with you over this. Five years ago, your precious family ensured that I was locked up—’
‘I don’t want to hear that again…I don’t believe it!’
Splintering golden eyes raked over her angry face. ‘Per meraviglia. I told you that you were either with me or against me, and now that we’re married the dividing line is even more distinct—’
‘Don’t threaten me, Luciano. Don’t you have any conscience about what you’ve done?’
‘What are you really upset about here? Surely even you couldn’t have believed that eventually we would all shake hands and end up the best of friends?’ he derided harshly.
‘I am shattered that you could go ahead and bankrupt Linwoods without once stopping to think or care that that might hurt me or make a difference to our relationship.’
‘Why would it hurt you?’
Kerry surveyed him with shaken incredulity. ‘How can you ask me that?’
‘I do feel moved to ask why you should be this upset. Harold Linwood wouldn’t cross the road for you if you were dying, and he felt like that even before you became my wife!’ Luciano countered with contemptuous clarity. ‘You have no relationship with him.’
Kerry recoiled from that blunt and wounding statement but stood her ground. ‘He is still my flesh and blood. Is there nothing you won’t say or do to come out on top? Is winning all that matters to you?’
Fierce dark golden eyes struck sparks off hers. ‘I won’t be sidelined into discussing this sort of emotional stuff—’
‘And do you know why? Because you couldn’t defend yourself!’
‘Business is business. I don’t owe you an explanation and, as I have done nothing wrong, I have no intention of defending myself.’
‘I can’t believe I’m married to a guy with no scruples whatsoever…it’s terrifying!’
At that emotive assurance, Luciano groaned out loud.
‘I’m not overreacting. Right now, you feel like a stranger to me,’ Kerry whispered chokily, pinning her tremulous lips together.
Lean, powerful face troubled and no longer hard, Luciano strode forward as if he intended to take her into his arms.
Kerry backed away from him. ‘L-leave me alone!’
Ignoring that demand, Luciano reached for her hands, closing them between his when he realised how cold her fingers were. ‘Don’t make this a bone of contention between us, bella mia.’
Perspiration had beaded her short upper lip. She looked up at him and she still loved him and that tore her apart, for somehow she had expected the love to go away when she was as furious and distressed as she was. ‘It’s not me who’s doing that…it’s you,’ she argued with desperate vehemence.
Golden eyes very intent, he gripped her hands tightly in his. ‘I want you to understand and believe in me. I need that. When people damage me, I hit back hard. That’s my nature—’
‘And business is business…and you don’t want me bleating like some good-living prig even though you know very well that you chose to marry a good-living prig!’ In a sudden movement of rejection that took him by surprise, Kerry hauled her hands free of his. ‘Obviously I should have listened to my sisters. When I first met them, they warned me that you were out for revenge and I wouldn’t listen to them—’
His beautiful eyes flashed and his wide, sensual mouth compressed. ‘This matter is between us…you don’t discuss it with your sisters—’
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‘Don’t I? But this is family business,’ Kerry said defiantly. ‘And just as you don’t think that the business of profit is anything to do with me, I don’t think family business is anything to do with you!’
Luciano did not even look marginally amused. ‘Don’t be facetious,’ he grated. ‘We’re flying back to Ireland tomorrow and we’ll sort out any problems we have in private.’
‘In the usual way you sort out problems?’
‘No, even I don’t think you’re ready to fall into bed with me right at this minute,’ Luciano drawled.
Her blue eyes lit with fury. ‘I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about threats—’
‘When have I threatened you?’ Luciano demanded rawly. ‘I just don’t want you running off to confide in those interfering sisters of yours!’
‘Don’t you dare call my sisters interfering!’
‘I have no quarrel with them as long as they stay the hell out of our marriage!’ Luciano launched at her with ferocious bite.
Kerry shot him a look of mingled angry, wounded frustration. ‘How could you think that I would want to tell another living soul about this? I’m hurt and I’m disappointed in you and the last thing I feel right now is proud of being married to you…but I’ve got enough pride to want to keep that news to myself!’
A surge of dark colour slashed his hard cheekbones and then slowly receded to leave him unusually pale. His dense black lashes screened his brooding gaze. He was seething but not an inch beneath that anger he was much more affected than he was prepared to admit by her attack. How dared she tell him that he had disappointed her?
Fabulous bone structure taut, Luciano surveyed Kerry with fierce, chilling cool but she was not fooled, for she knew she had finally penetrated his tough hide.
Rigid-backed, she walked back to the door before making one final comment. ‘And if you’re so blasted proud of what you’ve done, why didn’t you tell me about it? Why did I have to find out only by accident?’
How could she ask him that? If he had told her that he was in the process of destroying Linwoods, she wouldn’t have married him. And, given the same choices to make again, Luciano knew he would still choose to remain silent. She was his wife now. She could be angry, disappointed and hurt but she was still his wife and on his terms that meant that she wasn’t going anywhere. He was damned if he was going to fake regret to touch her soft heart. Bringing down her father had been a source of deep satisfaction to him and not only on his own account. Even before his imprisonment, he had despised Harold Linwood for the continual wounding snubs and rejections the older man had levelled at his daughter.