To Blackmail a Di Sione

by Rachael Thomas

  ‘About what?’ She didn’t want to assume anything. Despite Liev’s threat, ICE’s share prices had risen steadily. Did this mean he still had his trump card to play? Was that why he was here?

  He calmly sat down, as if they were having a friendly chat, but the darkening of his eyes urged caution. Her attention was snagged as he stretched out his strong legs, looking powerful and relaxed, like a panther luring its prey in for the kill—and she had no intention of being his prey.

  ‘Dario had tried to put those dubious dealings right. I saw the evidence for myself.’ He watched her intently as she sat down and a zip of something travelled down her spine. Fear? Yes, that was it. How had he managed to obtain such information? She only knew what Dario had told her in the past; she’d never seen any evidence.

  ‘He wouldn’t just show you something like that.’ Why hadn’t Dario told her about this? He knew how worried she was, how guilty she felt. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Monday.’ The word slid through the air at her and she looked at him, and for a moment she thought she saw a hint of a smile on his lips. Damn him. Did it amuse him to torment her like this?

  Why hadn’t Dario said anything to her? It must have been some showdown, but with the share prices rising, it was one Liev had obviously lost. Distractedly she dragged her fingers through her hair and looked at the few papers on her desk, as if they could give her all the answers she sought. Anything not to look into that handsome face.

  ‘You obviously didn’t carry out your planned revenge, so what is it you want now, Liev?’ She returned her attention to his face and saw the lift of his brows and again that fleeting hint of a smile. What was he up to? Just as the first time she’d met him, she didn’t trust him one bit.

  He stood up and walked around the desk, to stand next to it and look out of the tall window at the skyscrapers of New York. His bold audacity at helping himself to such a view jarred on her already jangling nerves. She stood up, too, not happy to sit whilst he all but loomed so close.

  ‘Liev,’ she snapped, hardly able to contain the apprehension inside her. ‘What do you want this time?’

  ‘This time?’ He turned to face her and to her horror took a step closer, then another, until she could breathe in the scent of his aftershave, which only made her more worried as somewhere deep inside her the flicker of hot passion they’d shared stirred once more. She couldn’t allow him to dominate her, to drag her back to the night she’d loved with her heart and her body.

  ‘Yes, this time.’ Her terse words rushed out. ‘The last time you wanted something, it was to blackmail me in order to destroy my brother’s company. Not that you told me that—no, you lied and cheated your way into my...’

  She stopped, inwardly cursing herself. She’d almost given herself away, almost told him he’d cheated his way into her heart. Just as she’d almost told him she loved him whilst they’d been in Central Park last weekend. Thank goodness she’d stopped herself each time. He could never know he had that power over her.

  ‘Into your what, Bianca?’ He took another step closer and she drew in a breath, determined not to step back, not to be intimidated by him, but even more determined he should never know the truth.

  ‘My family, my social circle. You told me you wanted acceptance and I tried to give you that, even though it was just a cover for the destructive revenge you planned.’

  ‘I did want acceptance, but things changed.’ He remained so close she could hardly think straight.

  So he still wanted revenge. ‘If you have all you want, I think you should go.’

  She turned away from him, looking out over the city as it shimmered in the heat of the afternoon. She didn’t need this conversation now, not when the launch was about to happen.

  ‘I’m not leaving, Bianca, not yet. Not when I don’t have everything I want.’

  Her fingers curled tightly into the palms of her hands, her nails digging in painfully, focusing her mind. She whirled round to face him, her chin lifted defiantly. She would put an end to this right now.

  ‘What do you want, Liev?’

  ‘You.’

  * * *

  Liev watched Bianca’s eyes widen in shock and outrage, but this was no longer a time for dancing around issues and giving mixed messages. He had to tell her exactly what he wanted, exactly why he was here. The rest was up to her. He was totally at her mercy.

  ‘How dare you?’ She flung the accusation at him, disbelief in her eyes, on her beautiful face and in every move she made. Then she stepped back, watching him suspiciously as she did so.

  ‘Don’t deny it, Bianca. You want me as much as I want you.’ He moved towards her, but stopped when alarm entered her eyes. He had no wish to frighten her, not when everything he’d done this week had been done to avoid hurting her in any way.

  ‘All I want is for you to leave—right now.’ She squared up to him, just as she had done after he’d bought the bracelet, outbidding her and infuriating her.

  If he was honest with himself, he’d fallen in love with her right then, but he just hadn’t recognised it as love. To him it had been the first stirrings of desire, but he’d pushed that aside in his quest for revenge. At least until he’d taken her to the island villa. It had been as they’d made love, abandoning everything in their past to enjoy that night, that he’d accepted he was in love with her, but that had been instantly quashed when she’d admitted to using her virginity just to get the bracelet. Instead he’d despised her. He’d thought she was as callous as he believed her brother to be.

  ‘That’s not the impression you gave to Dario.’ Now he really had her attention.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘What? That you’d fallen in love with your blackmailer?’

  She gasped and for a moment he thought she was going to crumple to the floor in shock. Her blue eyes were so wide, their colour so vivid. Then she dragged in a deep breath and fixed a furious expression to her face. ‘He had no right to tell any such thing.’

  ‘So, it’s true?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice rose and he knew she was lying, deceiving herself as well as him. All he had to do now was convince her that he loved her, that because of that love he’d changed all the plans for revenge. ‘I despise you. How can I ever love a man who wants to do nothing but destroy my brother and me in the process?’

  ‘How could you make love to a man, give up your virginity, if you didn’t love him?’ She paled as his words found their mark and he felt sorry for her, felt her pain and confusion, and wanted nothing more than to hold her, to kiss away that pain, caress away that confusion.

  ‘I did it for the bracelet, for my grandfather.’ She fiddled nervously with the simple gold locket around her neck and bit down on her bottom lip as she waited for his response.

  ‘I know,’ he said softly, and he moved towards her. ‘You have no idea how much it hurts me to think that I put you in that position.’

  ‘You blackmailed me, Liev, blackmailed me in order to ruin my brother. I can never forgive you for that—ever.’

  The door opened and one of Dario’s staff came in. ‘Sorry. Ten minutes until we go live.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Bianca was visibly unnerved and her eyes met his, the questions in them clear. He’d do anything to take away her pain, to answer those questions, but in the light of what she’d just told him, he knew it might never happen.

  ‘Excuse me. I have to go.’

  Panic sluiced through him. She had to know what he’d done in an attempt to mend the hurt he’d caused. He had to make her understand he loved her, but from the sound of that last comment, his time was very limited.

  She looked at him. ‘I have work to do, Liev. I’d like you to leave.’

  ‘Not yet, you don’t. I need to explain.’ He stood so close to her he could smell her fragrance and he remembered how she felt in his arms. He had to fight for that.

  ‘There’s nothing to explain. You deceived me, blackm
ailed me and now you plan to destroy all that my brother has worked to achieve. How can there be anything to add to that?’

  There was so much more to add, like the deal he’d struck with Dario after the heated argument which had revealed the truth of the situation. A deal that meant he could put right the past in a businesslike way and not hurt anyone in the process. He had, of course, faced Dario’s wrath over hurting his sister and it was then that her confession to her brother had unintentionally come out, but Dario must have got it wrong. She didn’t have feelings for him. From the contempt on her face, it was obvious she had no wish to see him at all.

  ‘I didn’t use anything you told me, Bianca—not to anyone but Dario.’ He’d never felt this out of depth before, this adrift in a sea of emotions he couldn’t control.

  ‘But what is to stop you leaving here right now and doing just that?’

  ‘There is only one thing that can stop me,’ he said, his voice gravelly and thick with emotion. ‘You.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s too late, Liev, too much has happened, and besides, I don’t believe you and certainly don’t trust you. You could leave here now and leak all you know, just moments before the launch, to the waiting press and achieve the destruction you so obviously crave.’

  ‘Why would I destroy a company I’m now a shareholder in?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE WAS A SHAREHOLDER? As the sounds of the launch filtered into the office, Bianca’s mind reeled. What had he done? He’d been so angry when he’d left the park, so hell-bent on getting revenge, but this was the last thing she expected to hear.

  Why had he waited until now to say anything? Why moments before the launch? What was he up to? The need to warn Dario rushed over her again and she realised sending Liev away would only give him the perfect opportunity for taking his revenge at the worst possible moment.

  ‘What did you do, Liev?’ She asked the question, hating the trepidation in her voice. None of what he was saying made any sense, and why was it all connected to her?

  ‘I did exactly what you told me to do. I went to see Dario. I went with the intention of telling him I knew all about his latest product, that I would leak it all to the media as payment for what ICE had done to my family. I wanted revenge and Dario was the way to get to the man who’d been responsible for destroying so many companies.’

  She saw his jaw clench as he finished speaking, as if he was trying to bite down the anger he felt. Nothing made sense. Had he blackmailed Dario too? But her brother would never take that. Would he?

  ‘What did Dario say?’ Her voice was more of a cracked whisper as she hardly dared to ask. Liev must have seen Dario after she’d called him; otherwise her brother would have said something when she’d called to confess what she’d done. Thank goodness she’d finally plucked up the courage to tell him. At least he would have been forewarned. Then she recalled her brother’s words. I’ve got it covered. What had he meant?

  Liev crossed back to the window, looking far too much in control of himself and the discussion. How did he always manage to turn everything to his advantage? He’d even turned a prison sentence into something beneficial to him.

  ‘Dario listened to all I had to say, something I did not expect. Then he picked up a file, one he had ready after your warning call. He showed the various correspondences that had been made to my father or his beneficiary. As you know from your research on me, I’d purposefully lived under the radar. The letters never reached me.’

  ‘And that’s why you didn’t leak the information you so cruelly duped out of me?’ Bianca’s mind was racing to keep up with these new events. Surely Dario would have called her, told her what had happened.

  ‘In part, but I couldn’t have gone through with it, Bianca.’

  He turned those slate grey eyes on her and her heart flipped, sending a dart of annoyance through her. She shouldn’t feel anything for this mercenary man. ‘So our sham of an engagement has been wasted? The past two months have been for nothing?’

  ‘Hell, Bianca, can’t you see? I couldn’t go through with it because it would hurt you.’

  She looked at him, suspicion filling her mind, her heart. What was he trying to do now? Make her think he actually had feelings for her? That he felt guilty for what he’d done?

  ‘You are just saying that because it’s all gone wrong. All you want is to justify blackmailing me and keeping an old man from something he treasured.’

  ‘I’m saying it because...’ He paused and she looked at him warily. ‘Because I love you, Bianca.’

  A heavy silence settled between them and she blinked in shock. Had she heard right? Had he said the words that deep down she’d wanted to hear—and from him?

  ‘You love me?’ The question slipped from her lips in a silky whisper and she saw for the first time the anxiety in those grey eyes as he watched her, intense expectation on his handsome face.

  This was almost too much. The man who had stolen her heart was confessing his love for her. Hope rushed through her. She blushed and she lowered her gaze beneath his fierce scrutiny. But how could the blackmailer become a lover? Was it possible?

  ‘Yes, Bianca, I love you. Ever since my parents died, I’ve shut out sentiments I considered to be weakening. After one disastrous affair, I focused my energy on avenging the destruction of my father’s business and ultimately life as I knew it.’

  He paused again and she walked towards him, still unsure of what was really happening, but unable to resist the pull of attraction, the flare of hope which urged her to take a chance. He looked into her eyes as she stood before him and then slowly reached out and took her hand in his and drew her closer. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t break the heady spell that had filled her office.

  ‘You’ve changed all that. You brought light back into my life. You made me feel real, whole. Bianca, you are my life.’

  ‘But what about ICE?’ She had to ask. She couldn’t ignore the launch that was probably happening right now.

  * * *

  Liev looked down into Bianca’s face, saw the worry and confusion swirling in her eyes and longed to kiss her, to prove what he felt was real. But he had more explaining to do yet.

  ‘Dario was understandably angry.’ That was an understatement. He’d been furious, but as he’d given vent to his anger, not over the fact that Liev had wanted to ruin the business as a means of revenge, but the fact that he’d used Bianca so appallingly, Dario had let slip one important bit of information.

  How could you use Bianca so cruelly? Don’t you know she loves you? Dario’s words had sliced through the angry atmosphere, shattering all his plans for revenge as if they were made of the finest crystal and had just been hit with a rod of iron. He’d known then that the revenge he’d wanted for years could never be taken. Not when the woman who’d stolen his heart loved him, despite her claims of hate the day he’d given her the bracelet and she’d returned the ring.

  ‘But you told him—about your father’s business?’ She looked up at him, all wide-eyed and innocent, and again the urge to press her to him and kiss her forged forward.

  ‘That was easily sorted, once he showed me the file. What he wasn’t so easily placated over was the way I’d treated you—and rightly so.’ He brushed his fingertips over her face, watched as her eyelashes fluttered briefly closed.

  ‘I knew all along that would be a problem when we ended our engagement. I just hoped none of my brothers or sisters would find out about the deal I’d struck for the bracelet.’ Her earnest words cut him deeply. How could he have been so callous? She hadn’t deserved any of that. ‘What did he say?’

  Most of what Dario had said he couldn’t repeat, but one sentence had kept playing over and over in his mind, until he knew he had to come and see her, had to risk everything. Don’t you know she loves you?

  ‘That I’d hurt you, treated you badly, didn’t deserve you. The usual brotherly type of things.’ He tried to inject lightness into his voice, but as his last wor
ds rushed out, he failed. ‘And he was right.’

  ‘No, no, don’t say that.’ The husky whisper forced his eyes closed, and when he looked at her again she was smiling up at him. ‘That’s what brothers do—and offer you a deal so that you don’t have to break my heart all over again.’

  ‘All over again? When did I first break your heart?’

  ‘After that night on the island.’ She blushed and lowered her lashes, and he lifted her chin so she had to look at him. He wanted to see the reality of her love in her eyes. ‘You looked so disgusted with me.’

  He let a harsh Russian curse slip out, realising how it must have looked to her. She’d been at her most vulnerable then and he’d hurt her at the worst possible time. ‘I was disgusted with myself for pushing you into that situation.’

  She reached up and pressed her lips against his briefly. ‘None of that matters now, Liev, and I wouldn’t have changed that night for anything. It was perfect.’

  Before she could say anything else, he kissed her, her response firing the need within him, and he had to force himself to stop. He loved her, and as he’d looked into her eyes, he’d seen her love reflected back at him.

  * * *

  Bianca wanted to keep kissing him, to savour every last minute of the kiss. She loved him. He’d changed her and changed the way she viewed men, albeit in an unorthodox way, but he had and she meant what she’d said. That night they’d spent on his island together was special and she couldn’t ever forget it, wish it undone, for anything. That night she had loved him—truly loved him.

  Her grandfather had known that she’d fallen deeply in love with Liev; she was convinced of that now. Thankfully she didn’t think he knew that Liev had blackmailed her, but he had known she loved him and was holding back, denying herself love. ‘Do you know what my grandfather said just before we left?’

  She felt Liev’s arms tense around her and his eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. ‘What did he say?’