by Lynne Graham
‘We should have made better use of last night,’ Cesare muttered raggedly. ‘I want you so much, I ache…’
Without warning, he pulled back from her and communicated with the chauffeur.
‘What are you doing?’
‘It’ll take over an hour in this traffic to reach the town house…’
Minutes later he was tugging her out of the limousine in front of a well-known hotel. Ten minutes after that they were standing in a luxurious bedroom.
‘This is crazy,’ Mina protested weakly.
‘Everything I do with you is crazy,’ he muttered thickly, hauling her into his arms.
He took her mouth with a wild, surging hunger. She went under like a novice swimmer, overwhelmed by the swirling currents of unashamed passion and sucked down mindlessly into the depths. But all the time her hands were busy. She wrenched off his jacket, embarked on his shirt buttons.
With a groan of frustration, Cesare drew back and dispensed with his own clothing. ‘Someday we are going to do this with control and finesse!’ he swore.
‘But not today.’
‘No, not today,’ he agreed, pulling her back to him, impatient fingers locating the zip on her elegant summer dress.
He skimmed the dress down her arms and it pooled at her feet. He took in the satin and lace brevity of her lingerie, dark eyes blazing molten gold. ‘Dio…I have incredibly good taste.’
Mina was headily flushed. ‘You went shopping?’
‘It kept me going before the wedding…when I had nothing else.’
He found her reddened mouth hungrily again and backed her down on the bed. A fire raging out of control could not have been more dangerous than the sudden scorchingly intimate connection they made. Theirs was an electrifying passion made all the wilder as the unleashed emotions ruling them both took over.
She lost herself in him. Her heart hammering, her slender body writhed beneath his, desperate for the completion that only he could give. She clutched at his hair, scored the satin-smooth skin of his back and then arched and sobbed as he sank into her in one powerful thrust.
‘Nobody is going to take you away from me,’ he said savagely, scanning her with glittering golden assurance. ‘Nobody!’
And after that there was nothing but the hot, surging pleasure which drove her relentlessly up to the heights and then dropped her again into the valley of sobbing satisfaction.
‘We are crazy to be doing this in the midst of a crisis,’ Cesare conceded lazily a long time later as she lay wrapped in his arms, blissfully satiated, never, ever wanting to move again. ‘But even if it can only be for a few hours, I want nothing else to intrude between us.’
Mina climbed back into the limousine feeling like a woman reborn. She felt strong, she felt good, she felt wonderfully liberated from her darkest fears. It was an extraordinary feeling. But she was less afraid of the police than she was of losing Cesare. Of course she would not allow him to step in and try to take the heat for her. He could make as many plans as he liked towards such an end but Mina knew that she would foil him if he made any such attempt.
But he had to care about her, he really had to care to be this concerned, this determined, this protective. He didn’t need to say the words. At that moment she didn’t mind if he never said the words. All the emotion he struggled to conceal had been communicated by his lovemaking. That hadn’t just been sex. There had been an intense closeness between them that went far beyond anything they had ever shared. The barriers had come down. Cesare was hers in exactly the way she had always wanted him to be. Hook, line and sinker hers…and with that behind her she could face anything, she told herself.
‘I have a few calls to make,’ he imparted before they got out of the car outside the town house. ‘Then we’ll go down and pick up Susie. You will fly straight back to Sicily and tomorrow morning I will approach the police——’
‘No!’ Mina objected, dragged from her blissful inner world with a vengeance.
‘It is imperative that I go to them before they come to you. They may well have been covertly investigating Severn for months,’ Cesare pointed out grimly, and gripped her hand.
‘I am not going back to Sicily,’ Mina asserted tautly, and yanked her fingers free. ‘I will go to the police. I don’t want you involved——’
Her voice was cut off as the chauffeur opened the door. Mina scrambled out and walked into the town house, smiling tautly at the manservant who greeted her. As she entered the hall, Cesare powering up close behind with his long, impatient stride, an older woman appeared. She was very elegantly dressed and her ash-blonde hair was beautifully styled.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded of Cesare, her face distraught. ‘You left the airport five hours ago and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since!’
‘What’s wrong?’ Cesare questioned tautly.
The older woman bit back a sob and breathed in convulsively. ‘Your brother’s been arrested——’
‘Di che cosa parli?’ Cesare raked.
‘English, Cesare,’ the woman stressed shakily.
‘Sì Mamma…English,’ Cesare rasped, and pushed open the door to a sunlit drawing-room. ‘So what has Sandro done? Another car smash? I hope there is nobody injured this time——’
‘He’s in much deeper water than that!’
‘Mina…allow me to introduce you to my mother, Louise Falcone,’ Cesare breathed heavily.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ his mother shot at him hysterically, in no fit state to acknowledge her new daughter-in-law.
Cesare closed the door. Mina hovered uncomfortably, wondering if she should leave mother and son in private, wondering why Cesare had never mentioned the fact that his mother was English and not Italian.
‘Sandro’s been arrested for fraud!’ the older woman told them, stricken.
‘Fraud?’ Cesare exclaimed incredulously.
‘He had a partner. He was arrested last night. Sandro was picked up at the airport early this morning.’
Mina was as still as a statue but her brain was ticking over at supersonic speed.
Cesare cleared his throat. ‘Are you telling me that Sandro was involved with Felix Severn?’
‘Heavily involved.’ Louise Falcone sank down heavily on to a chair, suddenly looking exhausted. ‘He came to me before he went to the airport. He was so terrified, he told me everything.’
‘And would everything include…insider dealing?’ Cesare prompted unsteadily. Mina’s gaze flew to his carved profile but there was nothing to be read there.
‘That’s the least of it,’ his mother moaned. ‘He’s also been embroiled in several crooked deals in the insurance field. Severn was the front man. Sandro stayed in the background, putting up the finance, drumming up contacts …but you don’t need to worry——’
‘I don’t need to worry?’ Cesare repeated in a savage undertone. ‘Mamma, if only you knew!’
‘Sandro hasn’t implicated Falcone Industries in any way!’ his mother stressed, keen to make that point.
‘I removed him from the board three years ago…how could he?’
‘You humiliated him,’ Louise condemned, her face twisting resentfully.
‘But he was already up to his throat in crooked deals at that point, was he not?’ Cesare pressed.
‘Yes but how did you know that? Oh, what does it matter?’ the older woman mumbled wearily. ‘At least you’re here now. Your lawyer is at the police station with him. I fixed that. You can arrange bail——’
‘The legal system is different here. In any case, if the police picked him up at the airport, he’ll be kept in custody. Sandro will run if he gets the chance…’
‘Cesare…what’s the matter with you?’ Louise Falcone lifted her head and stared accusingly at her elder son. ‘This is your brother we’re talking about. He needs your help and support.’
Mina’s knees were wobbling. Reeling with shock, she slumped down on to a chair and studied the carpet. It could only have be
en Sandro who set her up four years ago. But why? Why had Sandro done that to her? To cover his own tracks? Had he been afraid that Cesare either was or would become suspicious of his activities?
Or had there been a more personal element in his choice of her as the victim? Sandro had certainly disliked and resented her for repeatedly brushing off his approaches. That resentment could well have flamed into outrage that morning in the penthouse apartment when he realised that she had spent the night with his brother. Mina covered her chilled face with trembling hands.
‘Sandro has never broken the law before,’ his mother proclaimed in his defence.
‘But he’s lied all his life,’ Cesare murmured so faintly that Mina had to strain to hear him.
‘He needs our help and understanding!’ Louise gasped. ‘You can’t turn your back on him. He’s your brother!’
‘Mea culpa——’
‘Oh, don’t start talking in Italian again!’ his mother said shrilly.
‘It was Latin——’
‘Whatever. You’re so foreign, Cesare. You’re like your father. I’ve never been able to understand you and now my poor, sweet Sandro——’ Louise broke down into hysterical sobbing.
With difficulty Mina dragged herself forcibly from shock and stood up. ‘Cesare, I think you should go to the police station.’
His eyes were winter-dark and bleak, his superb bone-structure painfully prominent beneath his skin. ‘What do I say now to you?’ he muttered thickly.
Mina moved closer, understanding that, like her, Cesare was fathoms-deep in shock and aeons from any ability to feel concern for Sandro’s predicament but he also had to appreciate that his mother had no idea why he should feel like that.
‘The evidence in the file he gave me seemed foolproof,’ he murmured unevenly, thrusting splayed fingers through his thick black hair. ‘Your signature, your voice on a taped phone call, the bank statements. He went to a lot of trouble over that file. Forgery…the tape must have been doctored, the statements you explained——’
‘Not now.’ Mina had to pitch her voice to be heard above his mother’s sobs. ‘Save it for later. It’s not important.’
‘Not important?’ Cesare repeated dazedly.
‘Look, do what you have to do first…for your mother’s sake,’ Mina urged.
‘Susie’s waiting for us,’ he mumbled, visibly finding it an effort to concentrate.
‘I’ll pick her up and bring her back here…after I’ve sat with your mother for a bit,’ Mina sighed. ‘I can’t leave her like this.’
‘But——’
Mina gave him a helpful little push in the direction of the door. ‘Find out what’s happening at the police station.’
Her heart went out to him. She had never seen him in such a state of bewilderment. He simply wasn’t functioning. Like a record stuck in a groove, he could focus only on the issue that was central to his marriage. ‘You didn’t do anything!’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘And all this time I’ve been——’
‘Right now you are going to the police station to enquire after your brother,’ Mina informed him, ushering him out into the hall, dimly wondering if he was in any fit state to enquire after anyone. Shock had wiped him out. ‘For your mother’s sake,’ she said again.
His expressive mouth curved bitterly. ‘Sì…’
‘So unemotional, so judgemental…how did I give birth to a son like that?’ Louise Falcone appealed tearfully to Mina. ‘Sandro’s the complete opposite.’
While marvelling that any mother could make such a blatant favourite of Sandro with Cesare around, Mina took charge. She had coffee brought in and she located a box of tissues for her mother-in-law, who had by then surrendered completely to the need to establish what a wonderful son Sandro had always been.
Mina sat with a wooden smile through it all, her sympathies firmly with Cesare for having a mother so absorbed in one son that she had no time for the other. The afternoon crept away until Louise complained of a headache and decided to go and lie down. Mina mentioned that her daughter was waiting for her.
‘I always wanted a little girl. Cesare is such a disappointment,’ his mother lamented helplessly.
‘Not to me,’ Mina said brittly, having held her tongue as long as she could bear, but it washed off her motherin-law completely.
The drive down to Thwaite Manor was the first chance Mina had to assimilate the devastating change that had taken place in her marriage. She smiled. It was as if an enormous weight had fallen off her shoulders. Cesare knew the truth now. He finally knew the truth. Sandro had clearly presented him with a very impressive body of evidence and her own apparent disappearance had played into Sandro’s hands.
She didn’t blame him for believing Sandro. She had only had one night with him. Family was family and she suspected that all his life Cesare had been made to feel protective towards his infinitely weaker brother. What reason would he have had to distrust Sandro?
When she arrived at the manor Susie surged into her arms and hugged her tightly. ‘Where’s my daddy?’ she demanded.
‘You’ll see him soon,’ Mina promised. ‘We’re going straight back to London.’
‘Wonderful,’ Winona remarked, avidly reading the details of Sandro’s arrest in the evening paper. ‘I hope they throw the book at the creep after what he did to you! How’s Cesare taking it?’
‘He’s pretty shocked.’
‘I bet he is.’ Winona sighed, looking wry. ‘But blood is thicker than water. I would believe you quicker than I would believe anyone else. But right now Cesare must feel like the ground has vanished beneath his feet.’
When Mina and Susie reached the town house, it was late. Susie was half asleep and Mina put her straight to bed. When she came downstairs again, Louise was talking angrily on the phone. Her face frozen with fury, she cut off the call, caught sight of Mina standing in the doorway and snapped, ‘I’m not staying here. I’ll stay at Sandro’s apartment!’
Mina frowned. ‘But why?’
‘Cesare’s not doing a damned thing to help his brother!’ Louise hissed resentfully, and stalked off. Mina attempted to reason with the older woman but she wouldn’t listen.
It was after eleven when she finally heard the front door opening. She leapt up as Cesare appeared in the doorway. He looked exhausted.
‘Your mother’s gone,’ Mina told him.
Cesare shrugged. ‘Probably for the best. I’m not going to work any miracle on Sandro’s behalf. He’s facing very serious charges. It’s very unlikely that he’ll get off without a prison sentence.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘No. However,’ he sighed, ‘he admitted what he had done four years ago to my lawyer and asked him to pass it on to me.’ Mina’s surprise was unhidden and Cesare released a bitter laugh. ‘Why should he think of us in the midst of all his trouble?’ he asked for her. ‘I’ll tell you why. The news that we’re married has panicked my brother into the belief that I already knew that he had falsified the evidence against you. He chose to admit the deception in the hope of retaining my sympathy and support.’ He framed the final three words with deadly cold finality.
‘Why did he do it?’ That was all Mina wanted to know.
‘Apparently you heard him talking on the phone in the penthouse apartment the morning after we spent the night together.’
Mina didn’t understand. ‘Yes…but——’
‘Evidently Sandro was involved in a highly confidential and dangerous call to Severn when you interrupted him. He was afraid that you had heard too much and would tell me when I returned from Hong Kong. The die was cast in that moment. He had to find some way to ensure that I got rid of you…’
Mina uttered a shaky little laugh and sank down on a seat. It was so simple that she would never have guessed. Sandro had been on the phone when she’d come out of the bedroom but she hadn’t picked up a single word of what he had been saying. Her mind had been on other things. She had been deeply embarrassed by the discovery
that the voice she had assumed to be Cesare’s was in fact his brother’s. Now she could recall how shocked Sandro had been when he had first turned to look at her that day, but she had naively misread what lay behind that shock.
‘In the space of forty-eight hours he paid someone to forge your signature and someone else to doctor that tape. He had Severn’s voice on tape and he was able to acquire yours. The two were spliced. If the fraud had been exposed, Sandro would have been in the clear. He was too greedy to put more than fifty thousand into your bank account…and no, I don’t know whether he actually got that money back,’ Cesare told her heavily. ‘He didn’t cover that aspect with my lawyer. When he had compiled the file, he flew out to Hong Kong to present me with it in person.’
‘I had no idea…’
‘I was already wondering what was wrong. Sandro had called me to inform me that you had gone on leave without clearing it with anyone. Since you didn’t have a phone at home, I had no immediate way of contacting you. I was worried,’ Cesare revealed tautly. ‘I thought you might be upset and I blamed myself for not having talked to you that morning before I left.’
‘But I was in the office…I didn’t take any leave!’ Mina protested.
‘I know that now but I didn’t at the time.’
‘So you didn’t phone,’ Mina whispered in belated understanding and she could still remember how agonising that wait for a call had been. Cesare’s silence had tormented her and made her suspect that he regretted their brief intimacy, just as Sandro had forecast.
‘Sandro took one hell of a risk. If you had contacted me direct——’
‘But I wouldn’t have done that.’ Mina repeated what his brother had said to her that morning.
Cesare paled and swung away. ‘In Hong Kong he told me that he had heard you on the phone some days earlier and suspected that you might be passing on confidential information. He presented the file of evidence as the results of his investigation. He never once intimated that he had any idea that you and I were already lovers. I was shattered by that file,’ he confided roughly.