by Lynne Graham
Kelda could feel tears burning behind her lowered eyelids. She had never hated Angelo so much and yet simultaneously, she had never felt so savaged. She found herself remembering the loneliness of those years and discovered that inexplicably, deep down inside, she must once have had the vague conviction that to take charge of her in the first place, Angelo must have had some slight affection for her. How she could have thought that and yet believed that he hated her at the same time was no more clear to her than anything else since she had arrived in Tuscany.
‘I was more like your father than your stepbrother,’ Angelo mused with an oddly chilling quality. ‘You don’t know me like this because in the past six years you have become an adult and I can now treat you as one. You wouldn’t believe the pleasure that that freedom gives me.’
Kelda pressed both hands against her pale cheeks and forced herself to look at him over her straining fingers. ‘Why did you bring me here?’ she demanded in a shaken tone.
‘Why?’ Glittering dark eyes slid over the wild tangle of red-gold hair veiling her shoulders in a torrent of curls and lingered on the exquisite perfection of the triangular face pointed at him. ‘Are you really that dumb? Six years ago you virtually destroyed my relationship with my father—’
‘I...I didn’t mean to—’ Kelda was shocked and unprepared for the directness of that attack.
‘The only woman ever to put one over on me was just eighteen,’ Angelo spelt out. ‘But no blushing virgin. You knew exactly what you were doing that night—’
‘I didn’t!’ she protested.
‘And it worked a treat,’ Angelo breathed softly, black ice eyes holding distressed green with raw force of will. ‘You waited until you heard Daisy and Tomaso come in and then you skipped into my room, knowing that they’d be surprised to find the party over and that Daisy’s first stop would be your own bedroom. Finding you absent, my father was certain to come looking for me...and what did he discover?’
‘It wasn’t like that!’ Kelda argued half an octave higher, appalled by what he was accusing her of. ‘It wasn’t planned!’
‘On the contrary, it was beautifully plotted and carried out,’ Angelo contradicted with satire. ‘You had to keep me quiet about what I’d seen earlier in the evening, and what better way? You were paranoid, as it happens. I had no intention of sharing that sordid little scene with your mother.’
‘If you hadn’t touched me, nothing could have happened!’ Kelda told him in a wild surge.
Angelo threw back his dark head and laughed with sardonic amusement. ‘Cara, this is Angelo you’re talking to, not Daisy! You were standing over me in a minuscule see-through nightdress, eating me with your eyes. Up until that night, I was ashamed of the fact that I wanted you—’
‘W-wanted me?’ Her full attention pinned to him, Kelda sat up straighter again with a jerk that very nearly dislodged the sheet that was her only veil of modesty.
‘You were like a thorn sinking deeper and deeper into my flesh.’ Angelo angled a terrifyingly cold smile over her. ‘Full marks for the pretence of innocence, but you knew, cara. In the cradle, you were as old as Eve. You knew that I wanted you and I’ve often wondered how it would have gone if I hadn’t found you playing the whore so indiscreetly in the library that night. That really was remarkably careless of you—’
‘Careless,’ Kelda repeated, her mind fathoms deep in shock from what he was telling her, only he did not appear to accept that he was telling her anything she hadn’t already known. But dear lord...dear lord, the past she had so recently recalled was assuming colours and depths and meanings that had previously been a mystery to her.
Angelo shot her a suspicious glance. Hard, narrowed, sharp. ‘The only way I could have had you then was by marriage,’ he delivered silkily. ‘That was the price and it would have been one hell of a price to get you flat on your back on the nearest available bed...but I damned near paid it. I was prepared to wait for you to grow up. Now that is a surprise to you, isn’t it?’
‘Y-yes.’ She was incapable of saying anything else.
‘And the reason I’m telling you that six years after the event is that I don’t want you to waste your time plotting and planning how to turn this little sojourn abroad into a trip to the nearest church,’ he spelt out flatly. ‘I will never marry you.’
‘N-no,’ Kelda agreed, feeling like someone taking part in a Salvador Dali dream sequence of spectacular complexity. Marriage and Angelo. She could truly put her hand on her heart and swear that such a prospect had never crossed her mind in her wildest imaginings.
‘But I will make love to you as no man ever has before,’ Angelo swore in a sizzling undertone that purred along her sensitive nerve-endings like bittersweet chocolate, inflaming her in all sorts of intimate places she had never dreamt were so susceptible. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She was magnetised by the most extraordinary excitement. It came from somewhere deep and dark inside her, some secret place, until that moment undiscovered even by herself.
‘I have had six long years to think about how I intend to entertain you,’ Angelo savoured with unrestrained eroticism. ‘And I knew that this moment would come. When you sent me that Vogue cover, I knew that we were playing the same waiting game. There you were wearing a string of priceless emeralds and nothing else—’
‘It only looked that w-way!’ Kelda heard herself stammer.
He dug a lean brown hand into the pocket of his riding pants and tossed something almost negligently on the white sheet. ‘They came from Cartier...I bought them.’
Her long, luxuriant lashes lifted and dropped again but the glorious string of matched emeralds separated by diamonds still lay like a river of glittering fire in the strong sunlight flooding through the windows. She could not resist touching them with a tremulous finger. She had not seen them in six years.
Angelo laughed, softly, lazily and with immense and unconcealed satisfaction, rampantly amused by her state of dazed, unspeaking paralysis. He strolled confidently round to the side of the bed, scooped up the necklace and sank down on the edge of the bed. He smoothed her torrent of hair gently out of his path and she felt the cool touch of his fingers at her nape, then the weight of the jewels at her throat, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak...
His breath fanned her cheek and her heartbeat thundered in her eardrums and still she couldn’t move. He rearranged her hair with the intimacy of a lover, trailed a caressing forefinger down her knotted spine. ‘So tense I could almost believe you were terrified,’ he teased and then he pressed his mouth briefly, hungrily, agonisingly to an incredibly sensitive spot just below her right ear and she could feel every bone melt, every muscle give way in surrender.
‘Tonight,’ he breathed huskily, and vaulted gracefully upright again.
She began to shiver, suddenly cold, shock giving way to wave upon wave of after-shock.
‘Do you want to come riding with me?’ He was already at the door in two long, elegant strides. ‘No? I’ll meet you for breakfast in an hour in the courtyard.’
And then he was gone. Kelda slid bonelessly down the bed. She was in Tuscany with Angelo. Angelo wanted her. Angelo had apparently been lusting after her for years. Angelo was prepared to deck her in emeralds and diamonds before breakfast. Angelo was asking her...no, expecting her to become his mistress. Hot mistress material. And when he had touched her, it had been like coming alive in paradise...she had felt...she had felt wildly immoral and wonderfully sensual for the very first time in her chequered and, until now, not that exciting existence.
So much, for not being a real woman, she tasted. Angelo had actually admitted that he would have married her six years ago purely to satisfy his hunger for her. Hunger—she savoured the concept shamelessly. All this time and she hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected that Angelo desired her. She rolled over on her stomach and stretched, conscious of every individual skin cell in her body. She felt incredibly powerful for several more minutes...this was A
ngelo where she had always wanted him...on his knees.
And then common sense began to assert itself. It was an uphill battle but it got there in the end, hacking a passage through the layers of sublime contentment that she was suddenly quite unable to reasonably explain. Did she like Angelo wanting her? Oh, yes. It was retribution for all he had put her through in the past.
But that was her teenage self talking, not the adult she was supposed to be. It was impossible to explain the fact that she had allowed him to festoon her in emeralds and diamonds unchecked. She put both hands to her throat in sudden anger and attempted to remove the necklace. Five fruitless minutes later, when she was afraid of breaking the wretched thing, she gave up and leapt off the bed, wide awake but still...she just couldn’t help it...still not thinking straight.
Of course, she was going home on the first available plane. He had her passport but he would hardly insist on keeping it...would he? Dear heaven, he had virtually kidnapped her! He had lured her here with the intent of seduction. Such an old-fashioned word and quite inappropriate. The sole seduction Angelo intended to employ was his immense wealth.
You arrogant, conceited swine, she suddenly thought, livid. Angelo actually believed that all he had to do was flash extravagant jewellery at her and she would fall down gratefully at his feet. He had reminded her how broke she was. He was willing to strew the passage to his bed with emeralds, diamonds and cold, hard cash. Angelo might find her incredibly desirable and she really couldn’t restrain the flush of heat that enveloped her at that repeated reflection but his confession had not been coined to flatter her. Angelo was treating her like a high-class whore.
What the hell sort of a spell had he cast, that she had lain there and simply listened without rearranging his features for him? Men had insulted her before, but leave it to Angelo to fathom out the grossest possible insult! He assumed that all he had to do was ask and he would receive...he really did think that! Abruptly, hot moisture flooded her eyes and she was shocked at herself.
She didn’t know why she was crying. She ought to be laughing her head off. Angelo had miscalculated and made an ass of himself. She was not for sale, she was not tempted, and if she lusted after being badly treated and abused she would find a street corner to haunt faster than she would sink to the depravity of allowing Angelo Rossetti to lay one arrogant finger on her!
Six years...six years, though, he had waited for her, wanting her, thinking about her, presumably noticing her every time she appeared in the newspapers and on advertising hoardings and in glossy magazines. Six years—she just couldn’t get that out of her mind. Six years...good to know that she hadn’t been the only one scanning boring newsprint, gossip columns, tuning in to BBC 2 when there was a stock-market crisis, just knowing he’d be interviewed...
And why had she done that, she asked herself in sudden stricken dismay? A sliver of conversation she had had recently with Tim returned to her.
‘Did you see Angelo holding forth on TV last night?’ she had mocked.
‘I don’t watch that sort of stuff.’ Tim had dismissed. ‘Sometimes I think you’re obsessed with Angelo...’
‘Because I hate him,’ she had responded drily.
Was that a kind of obsession too? Was hatred so all-encompassing? And, if she hated him, why hadn’t she broken out into a rash of revulsion when he’d pressed his mouth to the pulse beneath her ear?
She turned the shower on full blast on cold. Go on admit it, she scorned with throbbing self-disgust. Ever since that night, Angelo has fascinated you. He had taught her the meaning of desire. A terrifying devastation of the senses. After that night, she had decided she was a slut in the making, all rampant hormones and no self-control. She had imagined that Angelo would recall her response to him with cruel amusement.
She had cringed from the memory. She had hidden from the fact that even though hours earlier she had been subjected to a brutal assault of a very sexual nature, she had still contrived to melt into Angelo’s arms without a shred of fear. He had stolen her peace of mind forever. He had shown her how frail she was under fire of her own sensuality. But only with him...only with him, a little voice whispered inside her head. Only with Angelo.
Admit it: you want him too. Incredibly bad taste, she told herself. It was purely physical chemistry, the sort of thing she had no control over. But of course, she would have complete control of that weakness now because she had freely admitted it to herself. As an arrangement of flesh, muscle and bones, Angelo was indisputably very nicely arranged. However, that was all it was, just a stupid, mindless physical thing.
Having placed Angelo exactly where he belonged, Kelda got dressed in a pair of matador-style high waisted cotton trousers and a sheer lace shirt. Combing out her towel-dried hair, she didn’t even bother to reach for her cosmetics case. After all, she didn’t want Angelo imagining that she was making an effort for his benefit! Poor Angelo, she reflected, feeling much more like herself. This time, he really had gone in over his head!
‘My passport, please,’ she rehearsed in front of the mirror, and laughed.
There was no sign of breakfast in the courtyard she had entered the night before. She trekked back through the echoing hall, glancing into rooms on her passage past, her feet moving more and more slowly. Fabulous house, she found herself thinking, more of a palazzo than a mere dwelling. Trust Angelo to have found it, she thought. Probably picked it up for a song and then spent millions on it which he could well afford, she conceded darkly, absently fingering the emeralds still at her throat. But where, oh, where were the serfs to people his feudal kingdom in the Tuscan hills...impossible to imagine Angelo ‘doing’ for himself!
There was a little inner courtyard. There he was, bathed in a pool of golden sunshine that glinted off his ebony-dark hair, accentuated his strong profile and turned his gorgeous eyes to honey-gold. Something went hip-hippety-hop behind her breastbone and she momentarily froze on the threshold. All of a sudden, as he looked at her, it was so incredibly hard to breathe. It was intimidating.
He slid upright. Superb manners, she absently recalled. Angelo was the only male she had ever met capable of opening a door and standing back politely for you to precede him even in the middle of a violent argument.
‘I want my passport,’ she announced.
‘Have some cappuccino,’ Angelo suggested smoothly.
She planted both hands on her slim hips. ‘Look, the comedy is over, Angelo. I want my passport.’
‘No.’
Kelda waited. ‘Is that it? Is that all you think you have to say? No? And the little woman says sorry for asking!’
‘You signed the usual contract with St Saviour Villas?’
Kelda frowned. It had come over by special messenger within hours of Ella’s call. ‘Yes, but the contract was a blind—’
‘I can assure you that Max will stand by it if I ask him to,’ Angelo murmured softly. ‘It would be your word against his that there was never an assignment in the first place. I would ensure that he sued you for breaking the contract. He would say that you had walked out. Can you afford to be sued for default right now?’
Her lips had parted in disbelief. ‘You couldn’t do that!’
‘I never threaten what I can’t deliver. Think about it...you return to London, inform the agency that you were—what?’
‘Blasted well lured out here by a crackpot and his accomplice in crime!’ Kelda shot at him in outrage.
‘I do believe my reputation and my influence would upstage yours, cara. Who would believe such a thing of me?’
Kelda couldn’t credit what she was hearing. ‘I would believe it!’ she shrieked tempestuously.
‘But it is scarcely credible that I, Angelo Rossetti, would go to such lengths to entrap a woman—’ he countered with silky emphasis.
Kelda stared at him with wide furiously frustrated eyes. She wanted so badly to hit him, she didn’t trust herself to get any closer. Her nails dug into her palms.
‘You see ca
ra...my reputation is considerably more...shall we say...clean than yours?’ Angelo added in offensive addition.
‘You lousy, rotten, calculating bastard!’ she hissed.
He offered her a fresh roll as she collapsed down into a seat opposite him. Her knees had given way. She took a deep breath. ‘Angelo, you wouldn’t do that—’
‘But I wouldn’t be doing it. I would be safely behind the scenes, quietly pulling the strings,’ he responded gently. ‘Did you really think that I brought you here without covering myself on all fronts?’
Half an hour ago, she had felt rather like a fluffy lamb gambolling on a deep, lush and grassy meadow. It had been a game. All of it. A glorious and exciting game that challenged her. But now, she was feeling sick and shaky. Angelo was making it indisputably clear that the kind of game he liked to play had suicidally high stakes.
‘This...this Max St Saviour,’ she framed, ‘why would he lie for you?’
A hint of a smile curved his ruthlessly sensual mouth. ‘He couldn’t afford not to lie if I told him to—’
‘Hell’s teeth!’ Kelda exclaimed in horror. ‘You don’t mean that you would put pressure on the poor man simply to punish me!’
Angelo sipped at his coffee with inhuman calm. ‘I should dislike the necessity,’ he conceded very softly. ‘But to cover my own back? Yes, I would do it. In a tight corner I always come out fighting. One cannot be sentimental about the weapons one employs.’
‘I’ll go to my mother, tell her everything!’ Kelda threatened wildly.
‘And she’ll think you’ve suffered a resurgence of your infatuation with me and been cruelly rejected,’ Angelo inputted sardonically. ‘And she will be terribly, terribly upset on your behalf—’
‘My m-mother knows me better than that!’ Kelda swore, her cheeks flaming with outraged colour. ‘I was never infatuated with you!’
‘We know that,’ he said lazily. ‘But does she?