Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled With Rubies

by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker

  ‘I don’t think…’

  Despairingly, Amy swung round to where Vincenzo stood, silently watching and listening. In spite of herself, she couldn’t resist searching his face, hoping against hope that she would find something there that would give her a clue to work on, a chance of changing his mind.

  But the expression etched on to those stunning features, gleaming in the polished jet eyes, was one that twisted her nerves in fear, telling her without words that there was no way she could win.

  You wouldn’t dare, that look challenged silently. You wouldn’t dare invite me to go along with you. You’re scared. And if you’re scared, then that means something else. It means that this matters more to you than you’re prepared to admit. That you feel something more than you’ve been pretending all this time. If you’re so afraid of my company, then it means that you care.

  Silently Amy admitted defeat. There was nothing else she could do. To protest would only be to reinforce his conviction that she was afraid of him.

  The only way she could refute that assumption was to smile as light-heartedly as she could manage.

  And say, ‘Yes, okay. Why not?’

  ‘Better get inside,’ Vincenzo warned now, coming past her with the bags as she stood outside the cottage. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain.’

  Sure enough, with the typical changeability of an English summer, the clear, bright afternoon was rapidly clouding over, a chill wind getting up, pushing Amy into hurrying after him. The first heavy drops of rain began to fall just as she stumbled into the small, narrow hall.

  Vincenzo was standing at the foot of the stairs, tall and dark in a navy V-necked sweatshirt and jeans. Meeting his deep eyes in a moment of intense awareness, Amy felt her heartbeat quickening, her breathing suddenly uneven. It was almost as if she had suddenly come up against a dark, sleek predator, waiting and watching for its prey.

  ‘I’ll take the bags up.’

  His voice was calm, indifferent. Was she the only one who had felt that stunning jolt of recognition, the feeling of being on very dangerous ground indeed?

  ‘Any particular choice in rooms?’

  ‘What? No…’

  Amy gave a swift glance up the narrow, steep stairs. If anything, the landing was smaller than the hallway. She would be able to hear every move he made at night, every slight sound—and vice versa. The thought made her voice wobble as she went on, ‘Anywhere will do. It’s just somewhere to sleep.’

  Something in her tone had got through to him, making him pause and look deep into her eyes.

  ‘David could have been here if he’d wanted to be,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ The fear of betraying the truth made her tone sharper than she’d intended. ‘He had an important contract to deal with—something that could bring in a lot of money.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Vincenzo returned cryptically.

  He was turning away as he spoke, heading up the stairs.

  ‘Vincenzo!’

  His response was so swift, so automatic, dropping the cases and swinging back to face her, that it seemed he had been anticipating her call.

  ‘Si?’

  ‘Why—why are you here?’

  ‘I thought you understood. To talk about the divorce.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  Even to herself she couldn’t have said if she was relieved or disappointed by his answer.

  ‘All?’ he echoed sombrely. ‘No, but you wouldn’t want to know about the rest.’

  ‘And what “rest” is that?’

  His smile was slow, strangely gentle.

  ‘Oh, Amy, cara, I think you already know the answer to that. I am here because I cannot be anywhere else. Because, no matter how hard I try, I cannot stay away.’

  ‘But you said…I thought…’

  Since that night he had kissed her at her flat, he had never said another word about wanting her. Foolishly, naïvely, she had allowed herself to believe it was all over. That he had conceded defeat, or at the very least decided she wasn’t worth fighting for. She should have known better. Conceding defeat and Vincenzo Ravenelli were two things that just didn’t go together.

  ‘Believe me, bella mia, I don’t like it any more than you do, but you have a hold on me that I cannot break. So…’ He spread his hands, palms upwards in a gesture of something like acceptance. ‘I am here…’

  The tension Amy was already experiencing was multiplied one hundred fold in an instant.

  ‘You needn’t think…’ she began nervously, only to have the word fade from her mind when she was confronted by another of those slow smiles.

  ‘Don’t worry, moglie mia, I am not a complete fool. I do not put my head in a noose twice. I told you, I will not come to you again. If you want me, you will have to come to me.’

  ‘I’d rather crawl all the way home over broken glass! If that’s what you’re waiting for, marito mio…’ Deliberately she echoed his tone of voice. ‘Then you’ll have to wait until that lake out there freezes over!’

  ‘Really?’

  Vincenzo cocked his head on one side, listening to the rain that was now lashing against the windows, the gale that howled round the cottage.

  ‘Seems to me that that might not be as distant a prospect as you might think,’ he tossed at her before heading back upstairs with the cases, leaving Amy gasping in fury behind him.

  Did he really think, even now, that she would change her mind, beg him to come back to her? The arrogance of the man! She would…

  No! Amy pulled herself up sharply. Getting angry, getting upset was exactly what Vincenzo wanted. Well, she’d show him!

  ‘I thought we’d take it in turns to cook,’ she purred, all sweetness and light, when Vincenzo came back downstairs again. ‘I’ll do tonight, and it’ll be your turn tomorrow. That okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ Just for a second he had looked taken aback by her quick recovery, but it only took a second for him to match her in casual politeness. ‘Shall I light a fire? This place doesn’t have any central heating and the rain’s really brought the temperature down.’

  This was going to be easy, Amy told herself as she bustled about the kitchen preparing the meal. All she had to do was keep the conversation neutral and she’d be fine. It was just like going on holiday with a friend.

  Okay, she admitted a short time later, so if Vincenzo was a friend, then her pulse wouldn’t leap quite so frantically when he brushed past her in the tiny kitchen. She wouldn’t be so sensually aware of little things about him, like the strength implied by the easy way he carried in a huge basket of logs from the outside store, the strong lines of his hands as he laid the fire, the strangely vulnerable look of the back of his neck between the silky black hair and the soft navy sweatshirt. But she wasn’t going to act on that, so she was quite safe.

  Her resolve got her through that first evening, and most of the next day. A day when the rain hardly let up at all and yet Vincenzo insisted on them going out, on seeing everything they could cram into a day.

  ‘I showed you Venice,’ he said. ‘It’s your turn now.’

  ‘But we’re not here to go sightseeing. I thought you wanted to discuss the—the divorce.’

  Her voice shook on the last couple of words as she struggled to accept that this was really going to happen. After wanting it for so long, forcing herself to go along with Vincenzo’s conditions, she couldn’t believe that she was so close to winning her freedom. It ought to make her feel happier, lighter, as if a burden had dropped from her shoulders, but instead her mood was low and despondent, grey and dull as the weather.

  ‘We have the whole weekend for that, and right now you’re so painfully uptight that you wouldn’t be able to talk straight if you tried.’

  In spite of herself Amy blinked in confusion at his pronouncement. She had thought she’d played the role of careless about-to-be-divorcee to perfection so it was disturbing to know that Vincenzo had seen straight through her act and discovered the truth underneath
it.

  ‘We can talk tonight. Today we explore the area.’

  ‘What? In this? You must be mad!’

  ‘Are you afraid of a little rain, Amy? We won’t melt.’

  ‘No, but we might well drown! Oh, all right.’ Shaking her head in disbelief, she pulled her coat from the hook behind the door. ‘Come on, then—let’s do the guided tour.’

  In spite of, or perhaps because of the weather, she ended up enjoying herself. There was a special sort of community atmosphere that had sprung up because of the torrential downpour. People laughed and grimaced and commented on the weather as they trudged round the narrow streets of Grasmere, dodging in and out of shops simply in order to get a respite from being soaked.

  It was the same in Keswick where they found a small restaurant and lingered as long as possible over lunch, only risking coming out when a faint crack appeared in the clouds, a tempting sliver of blue sky showing through the grey.

  It didn’t last. After no more than ten minutes, the weather closed in again, the rain heavier than before, but by that time Amy was past caring, the absurdity of sightseeing in such appalling weather appealing to her sense of the ridiculous and lightening her mood.

  ‘I can’t get any more wet than I already am!’ she laughed, surveying the sodden bottoms of her jeans, her rain-darkened shoes. ‘I’m just going to ignore it.’ And she did her Gene Kelly impression, dancing along the street, humming ‘Singing in the Rain’ as she did so.

  ‘You’re mad!’ Now Vincenzo was the one who hunched his shoulders against the showers. ‘Totally out of your mind.’

  ‘I’m English!’ Amy retorted. ‘And we English were born to handle the rain. I reckon we’re part ducks, really. You didn’t know I had webbed feet inside these boots, did you? Oh, darn it…’

  She screwed up her face into a grimace of discomfort as a particularly large raindrop splashed from an overhead awning, bounced on her head and trickled down her nose.

  ‘Here…’

  Reaching into his pocket, Vincenzo pulled out a spotless white handkerchief and dabbed at her nose, drying it gently.

  ‘Thank—’ Amy began then froze, staring straight into his face.

  It really wasn’t fair, she told herself regretfully. Where she knew that she must look like a particularly miserable drowned rat, all that the rain had done was to enhance Vincenzo’s own particular brand of lethal male attractiveness.

  Soaking wet, the black hair looked smooth and sleek, pressed down flat against the superb bone structure of his skull, and emphasising the slashing lines of his cheekbones, the straight nose and determined jaw. The rain had caught in the impossibly long, lush lashes that fringed his spectacular eyes, clumping them into spikes through which the polished jet gleamed, warmed by soft amusement.

  But even as she watched the amusement faded, to be replaced by something deeper, infinitely more disturbing. The soft pad of the handkerchief stilled, Vincenzo abandoning all pretence at drying her face.

  ‘Amy…’ he began with a hesitancy that was so unlike Vincenzo that she had to blink hard to convince herself she wasn’t hearing things.

  But in that same moment there was a huge flash of lightning, a crash of thunder almost overhead, and the intensity of the storm increased by a thousand per cent.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  Snapped out of the strange, hypnotic mood, Amy jumped, looking round frantically.

  ‘Over there—’ She grabbed Vincenzo’s arm and pointed.

  ‘There’s a bookshop—we can hide in it till this passes.’

  In the flurry and haste of the mad dash across the road, dodging pedestrians, puddles, and traffic, the atmosphere was broken. When she had the nerve to look into Vincenzo’s face again, his mood was obviously completely different. He turned his attention to the bookshelves as if nothing had happened, and the moment of distraction was never referred to again.

  In the beginning, the second evening of the holiday followed the pattern of the first. The first necessity when they arrived back at the cottage was a hot shower and a complete change of clothes. They were both soaked through to the skin and ravenously hungry, so dinner was the next item on the agenda. Amy devoured the savoury pasta dish Vincenzo had created with appetite and enjoyment.

  ‘That was great!’ she told him, genuinely enthusiastic, as she pushed her plate away from her and leaned back in her chair. ‘You really can cook, can’t you?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised.’ Vincenzo assumed an expression of mock outrage. ‘Of course I can cook! I am Italian, after all.’

  ‘Well, I’m impressed. One day you’ll make someone a wonderful wife.’

  Her words fell into a sudden silence, everything left unsaid about the true reason they were there seeming to hover between them like a great black shadow, destroying the light mood in the space of a heartbeat. Immediately, Amy wished them back, but it was too late for that, so she got hastily to her feet, desperate to change the subject.

  ‘I’ll do the washing up.’

  ‘No need…’ Vincenzo was on his feet too, collecting plates from the table. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘But you cooked!’ Amy protested. ‘It’s only fair.’

  In the end they did it together, a situation that started off relaxed and ended up with Amy’s nerves stretched to screaming point. The kitchen really was far too small for comfort, the confined space forcing them close to each other time and time again. And the whole situation was just too cosily domestic. Anyone looking through the lighted window from outside would have taken them for a long-married couple, perfectly in tune with each other and the ironic contrast between that scenario and the truth about their painfully short marriage twisted a knife in her heart.

  So it was a relief when the simple task was over and she could escape upstairs to draw breath and collect the fat novel she had bought in Keswick as they sheltered from the rain. Curling up in an elderly armchair beside the fire, she concentrated fiercely on the plot so as to block out the faint noises Vincenzo made as he pottered about in the kitchen.

  Outside, the rain, which had slowed to just a drizzle while they ate, had begun to fall in torrents again, and in the distance the roar of thunder blended in with the sigh of the wind.

  ‘Coffee?’ Vincenzo asked, coming to the door.

  ‘Mmm, that’d be nice.’

  Amy turned a page one-handed, using the other to tuck away a strand of hair that, slippery smooth after its dowsing in the rain, had fallen forwards onto her face. It fell down again immediately, and again the next time she tucked it back.

  With a small sound of impatience she reached up, pulled out the band that fastened her hair back into its usual chignon so that it fell loose around her shoulder and combed through with her fingers. She was just about to scrape it back again when a sound from the door made her pause.

  ‘Leave it down.’ Vincenzo’s voice was soft and husky.

  ‘What?’

  Looking up, she found that her gaze met his, locked and held, unable to look away again.

  ‘I said, leave it down. It looks better that way.’

  ‘I…’

  She was tempted. It was much more comfortable and relaxed that way. And there was a look in Vincent’s eyes, a warmth that was like a caress in itself, that she both longed to keep there, and yet at the same time feared the consequences if she encouraged him.

  ‘And David isn’t here to disapprove.’

  ‘He doesn’t…Oh, dear…’

  Suddenly she was desperately tired of defending David, of trying to explain everything he did.

  ‘He is a bit old-fashioned.’

  Tell him now, her conscience urged. Tell him the truth about you and David. Tell him how, only the day before, you spelled out in no uncertain terms to David, the fact that there could never be anything other than friendship between the two of you. But the words tied themselves into a knot in her throat and she couldn’t get them to form into actual sounds.

  ‘I think that’s an understate
ment,’ Vincenzo murmured dryly. ‘Don’t tell me he approved of that top.’

  ‘This?’

  Amy looked down in consternation at the rich teal velvet of her loose, long-sleeved top. She had seen it in a shop only the day before, and had been unable to resist it, even though she had wondered then exactly when she might get the chance to wear it. In the rush to get dry and the amicable dispute over who should have the shower first, she hadn’t even stopped to think but had grabbed the first thing that came to hand.

  ‘No.’ It was a faint sigh. ‘It’s not exactly David’s sort of thing. I don’t suppose he’d be too impressed by this, either…’ She smoothed a hand over the black jersey of her ankle-length skirt.

  ‘I like it,’ Vincenzo told her softly. ‘Sitting there by the fire, it makes you look like someone in a Victorian painting. But David will never know. He’s far too busy negotiating terms for the Ravenshead contract to even spare a thought for what we’re doing.’

  It was the way he pronounced the name Ravenshead that gave him away. Any English person would have made it sound like the name of the bird, but Vincenzo’s accent, his intonation meant that it echoed his own surname, bring her head up sharply.

  ‘Raven…’ she began, struggling to cope with the thoughts that were crowding into her head, the implications for herself if her suspicions were true. ‘Ravenshead—Ravenelli! It’s another of your companies—it’s your damn contract!’

  At least he had the grace not to try and deny it. She wouldn’t have believed him if he had. The truth had been written on his face in the moment she had accused him.

  ‘Just why are you putting all this work David’s way? It can’t be just altruism—making sure his company doesn’t go under.’

  ‘It’s definitely not that. I’m not a fool, Amy. I’ve seen the work Brooke’s does, and it’s good—they deserve the contract. But I have to admit to another, more personal motive for what I’ve been doing.’

  ‘And that is?’ Amy questioned, not really knowing whether she wanted the answer. Her heartbeat had suddenly picked up a gear, sending the blood pulsing through her veins so that it roared in her ears until she had to strain to hear.