by Lynne Graham
Goodness, was she actually contemplating a new lifestyle as Valente Lorenzatto’s mistress?
A pained laugh was wrenched from her compressed lips. Valente would soon realise that he had struck a very bad bargain. She felt sick at the very idea of such a humiliation, but if that was what it would take to satisfy his desire for retribution could she really stand back and let so many other people suffer? It was her fault that Valente was angry and bitter, nobody else’s. She had let him down.
But how could she even consider surrendering to his demands? If she became intimately involved with Valente it would cause too much distress for her strait-laced parents, who had long believed that only shameless women slept with men they weren’t married to. A lurid affair would horrify and humiliate them, and her father’s health would never stand up to that upsetting challenge. Nor, in such circumstances, would Joe and Isabel Hale agree to continue living in a house owned and maintained by their daughter’s lover. But what if Valente could be persuaded to lower his expectations and settle for a one-night stand which could be kept a secret? She shifted uneasily on her seat, wondering in cringing embarrassment whether he would ask for his money back when she signally failed to please between the sheets.
Such thoughts made her feel sleazy, made her feel like the whore he had suggested she might be, and her pride was already in the dust. But, at the end of the day, a body was just a body, she told herself flatly, and it was highly unlikely that Valente would be violent or abusive. After all, he wanted her to want him, didn’t he? To want him so that it would hurt when he dropped her again? Couldn’t she pretend, suppress the fear, make a real effort to be normal? Tears burning the back of her eyes, she rammed shut the mental door threatening to open on her painful memories. Matthew would not have sought other lovers had she managed to be a good wife. Hadn’t he told her so, times without number? It was a heavy burden for her conscience to carry.
On the other hand, Valente was offering her an indefensibly corrupt arrangement which made her feel that she owed him nothing in terms of honesty. He was playing a cruel game with her. Did she have the nerve to fight for terms which would make an agreement possible?
CHAPTER THREE
CAROLINE was taken aback when not one but three luxury vehicles pulled up outside Winterwood shortly after four that afternoon. She had dimly assumed that Valente would arrive without an entourage. This would make a private chat impossible.
Valente emerged fluidly from his limo, his every movement laced with the predatory grace that was as much a part of him as his ability to breathe. He cut an impressive figure in his supremely elegant dark suit, which accentuated his broad shoulders, lean hips and long, powerful legs. He strode into the entrance hall closely followed by three other men. He already knew to expect the flashy décor, so it was his companions who stared in surprise when they realised that almost everything, from the fake marble pillars to the elaborate furniture, was gilded. It was bad taste central, Valente acknowledged with concealed amusement, the attempt of a nouveau riche family to present a country house in the guise of an historic stately home.
With unblemished cool, Valente introduced Caroline to an architect, a surveyor, and a keen-looking local man she recognised as the owner of a building firm well known for restoring period properties. ‘They’re here to see the house and get some plans down on paper. It would make more sense if they were allowed to explore at their own pace,’ he said.
Caroline was appalled that he was already making plans to alter her parents’ home. ‘Of course,’ she acceded. as if the matter was of no concern to her-because she knew that she had no grounds for interfering.
‘Where are your parents?’ Valente asked with a frown as his companions took off in different directions to do his bidding. He had expected to renew his acquaintance with the older couple who had in the past slighted him with their distaste, quite unaware that as an illegitimate Barbieri he had been abused by true professionals in that field and had developed a tough skin after enduring much more painful rejections and dismissals. He ran his unimpressed gaze over the faded jeans and the ruffled purple shirt that Caroline now sported. The outfit at least fitted her delicate figure and made her look much younger than her years. The shirt also lent a reflected purple depth to her silvery eyes, while less innocently outlining the rounded, tip-tilted firmness of her small bosom. His even white teeth clenched and his body reacted accordingly to those delectable breasts, even before he noted the tight fit of the denim over the curve of her hips.
Registering that all-over distinctively masculine appraisal, Caroline reddened and felt warm all over, as if her temperature had gone haywire. Valente had always had that effect on her. Unlike many very good-looking men, Valente had never gone through a New Man or metrosexual phase. He was an aggressive alpha male who emanated high-voltage sexuality and potent virility. Women of all ages were always aware when Valente was around. ‘My parents are out…my father has a hospital appointment.’
‘Their absence should only make life simpler,’ Valente remarked. ‘Let’s get on with this. I have a tight schedule.’
He revealed no interest, indeed his frown merely deepened, as she showed him through to the handsome main reception rooms where her mother had spared no expense in either colour scheme or embellishment. ‘Look, you can’t possibly want to live here,’ she told him sharply. ‘I can’t believe that you would have sufficient use for this house, or that it could ever be made over in your style.’
‘If you were waiting here to welcome me when I arrived for a visit, I could learn to like it. In any case-’ a sleek black brow quirked with sardonic cool ‘-what could you possibly know about how I live now?’
‘The designer clothes and the limousines speak for you. This house was never in that class even when it was new!’
‘Sniping at me won’t drive me away, and nor will it win you favours,’ Valente breathed lazily. ‘This property belongs to me and I will do as I like with it.’
‘But my parents-’
‘I don’t want to hear another word! I have a hearty contempt for sob stories,’ Valente incised with chilling bite. He shifted a lean brown hand in dismissal when she attempted to show him the kitchen quarters, and headed for the main staircase instead. ‘Neither of your parents has ever worked a day in their lives, or even had the good sense to cut back on their lifestyle when their business began going down. I refuse to see them as victims of anything but their own self-indulgence.’
Silenced by that harsh condemnation, Caroline swallowed back the protest that her parents deserved a little more sympathy because as their income had dwindled so their household budget had had to be slashed. All extras had been shaved away, the housekeeper and the gardener laid off. Valente was not the man to give her family sympathy, for there was too big a difference between their backgrounds. Caroline had never wanted for anything while Valente had grown up in poverty with a mother whose ill-health had killed her by the time he was eighteen. His tougher experiences had ensured that only major affliction could ignite his compassion.
‘Even so, your parents did not deserve your husband’s betrayal of their trust,’ Valente continued drily with an observation that caused Caroline to stumble on the stairs.
His hand shot out to steady her and he stepped behind her to prevent her from falling backwards. Momentarily, his body braced hers, with all the heady heat and masculinity of his powerful frame. She quivered and then tensed, fighting her awareness of his proximity with all her might.
‘What on earth are you implying?’ Caroline asked curtly.
‘Your late husband was nothing more than a thief, who helped himself to profits even when the business was struggling-’
On the landing, Caroline spun round to face him, agitation and anger colouring her heart-shaped face. ‘He may have spent unwisely on some items, but he was not a thief!’
‘My auditors and the firm’s accountant could tell you otherwise and show you plenty of proof. Your husband set up a dummy bus
iness account and he milked it every opportunity he got.’
Her attention resting on the sombre planes of Valente’s darkly handsome features, Caroline registered the depth of conviction in his own words and paled. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain. Odd, that, isn’t it, piccola mia?’ Valente remarked softly. ‘Your parents thought I would plunge their little princess into a squalid life, and yet it was the golden, public-school-educated boy-next-door who had the criminal streak and the bad habits. He couldn’t keep his hands out of the till or off his employees!’
Caroline saw red. Trembling in the grip of fury and humiliation, she lifted her hand and slapped him-crack!-across one proud olive cheekbone. ‘Matthew’s dead…show some respect!’
‘Don’t ever dare to hit me like that again.’ Eyes black as coals and angrily bright as diamonds, Valente made his warning soft and low and icy.
‘You took me by surprise. It won’t happen again,’ Caroline told him in a rush, shocked at her complete loss of temper and control.
‘I have no respect for your late husband…or you, for that matter…because you stayed with him until the bitter end. Yet you knew what he was capable of, didn’t you?’ he condemned with lethal accuracy. ‘I saw your face. You weren’t sufficiently shocked to have been ignorant of his greed or his selfishness-’
Still trembling, Caroline moved so that one of the men who had accompanied him into the house could get past her and head down the stairs. ‘I didn’t know about the account you mentioned,’ she admitted in a pained whisper. ‘I knew he had been extravagant but I had no idea that he might actually be stealing. Please don’t publicise the fact-’
‘Even dead, Matthew’s sacred and untouchable, is he?’ Valente derided in disbelief.
‘His parents would never recover from the disgrace if what you’ve just told me got out. He can’t be punished now. Let his family keep their memories of him clean and intact,’ she pleaded vehemently.
Valente was outraged by that plea. Did she truly expect him to throw a cloak of respectful concealment over her late husband’s fraud? Bailey-the guy who had supplanted Valente in her heart and in her bed?
Caroline read the anger in the clenched set of his fabulous bone structure, and the grim glow of displeasure in his hard dark gaze. A kind of panic threatened what remained of her composure and she shifted her feet restively. This was a meeting she had known she had to get right, but instead it was going badly wrong.
From round the corner drifted the sound of male voices engaged in lively dialogue about where to carve out extra bathroom space in the old house.
Before they could be interrupted, and Valente distracted by them, Caroline reached a sudden decision. She opened the door into the unused master bedroom suite behind her and closed a hand over Valente’s sleeve to tug him in there with her. ‘We have to talk…’
‘What about? I made you a simple proposition,’ he declared, with more than a hint of impatience, although he twisted his hand around to catch her fingers in the grip of his. ‘This morning you were undecided-’
Caroline leant back against the door to close it. ‘I was not undecided. I made it very clear that what you were suggesting was out of the question.’
‘Except when I was kissing you,’ Valente tossed in lazily, his satisfaction at that recollection patent. His long fingers stroked the sensitive skin of her inner wrist and she felt her nipples tighten and tingle with awareness beneath her clothing. While he tried not to wince at the wall panels of pseudo-Georgian flowers picked out in lime-green and white, and the ludicrously opulent furniture which was so far removed from any Georgian ideal of elegance, Caroline was incapable of noticing anything.
Her face was flaming, shame and confusion having assailed her in a twin attack as her body reacted to the touch of his clever fingers. He had no idea of how inadequate she was and she dragged her hand free. Weighing up the potential future of the employees at Hales, however, Caroline ignored the twang of her conscience. She had already warned Valente what she was like. It would be his own fault when he discovered that she was incapable of providing him with the level of sexual entertainment he expected. In any case he was trying to blackmail her, and she needed to use every possible weapon in her repertoire to fight back.
‘I could never become your mistress,’ she told him baldly. ‘It would kill my parents. They’re too old to handle that, Valente. Nor could they accept such a relationship and still live under this roof.’
Lean, strong face implacable, Valente moved back to the door. ‘Why did you bring me in here?’ His beautiful mouth took on a sardonic curl as he cast a speaking glance over the dusty reproduction sleigh bed, brilliant black eyes flicking up again to rest on her earnest face. He was unimpressed, for she had seemed equally sincere five years earlier when she told him how much she loved him. ‘For a crazy moment I saw the bed and thought that maybe you wanted to pay me something on account…a first instalment, as it were.’
Consternation gripping her as he reached for the doorknob, Caroline blocked his passage while a blaze of temper roared through her. There it was again, the suggestion that she was a cheap and easy slut, and she hated him for it when she had given him no grounds to view her in that light. ‘Why won’t you talk to me or listen?’ she hissed. ‘I will do just about anything to protect the workers at Hales, but don’t ask me to hurt or upset my parents. They could only accept the set-up you suggested if we got married!’
Valente flung back his arrogant dark head and laughed as though she had said something uproariously funny. ‘Che idea! I’m not the romantic I was five years ago, when you appealed to my protective instincts. Nor am I so hot for your tiny body that I would surrender my freedom for even a short period of time.’
Mortified colour flooded her cheeks when she appreciated that he had taken her declaration as a serious suggestion-which it had not been. It had simply occurred to her that the only way her parents would accept her intimacy with Valente or his financial help would be if he was her husband. In actuality the prospect of being married again, ensnared in a nightmare pretence of a relationship whilst being subjected to male demands, had as much attraction for Caroline as a dose of the plague, and she went white. She had hated being married, had felt trapped and helpless. But she found herself thinking that marrying Valente would be a much safer solution for her family than her becoming a mistress who might well be discarded within days, along with his generous promises. After all, she knew, even if he didn’t, that she was the last woman alive likely to fulfil his fantasies in the bedroom.
‘But then it wouldn’t have to be a normal marriage…I mean one that lasts,’ Caroline could not resist pointing out in a grudging undertone.
His sleek ebony brows pleated. ‘Maledizione! How could you seriously think that I would marry you?’ he demanded with incredulous bite. ‘Naturally I can understand why you would prefer that option. The divorce settlement would be worth millions, and we both know that although you hide it well there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for that amount of money!’
Barley able to credit that she was having such a conversion with Valente, Caroline fixed affronted grey eyes on him. ‘I thought pre-nuptial agreements dealt with that sort of threat these days. I know you don’t believe it, but I don’t want your wretched money-’
‘There’s no way I would stoop to the level of marrying you!’ Valente spelt out with disdainful emphasis. ‘You’re a lying, deceitful, mercenary little witch. Get the idea of marriage right out of your head now.’
Caroline kept her head high. ‘I’m afraid it’s the only option I could accept-’
‘But what would I get out of it-apart from a sense of self-sacrifice?’ he fielded with unconcealed scorn, outraged by her cheek in even suggesting the idea, when she had stood him up at the altar five years earlier.
‘Then accept that I will never be your mistress, Valente. Evidently we’ve reached stalemate.’ Tilting her chin, Caroline opened the door and walked back out on to the landin
g with as much dignity as she could muster.
‘I would want a child.’
Lashes flipping up in bewilderment over her startled eyes, Caroline froze in her tracks. She was stunned by that entirely unexpected announcement.
‘An heir to follow in my phenomenally successful footsteps, piccola mia,’ Valente mused silkily. ‘How does that idea grab you?’
Caroline had turned pale, knowing that he had just presented her with yet another impossible challenge. ‘It doesn’t.’
Valente released a cruelly amused laugh. ‘I didn’t think it would, but that’s the final offer on the table, cara mia. If I take you as a wife there has to be something more in it for me than sex. In that department I have endless choice and no reason to choose marriage. But a child would be the perfect sweetener to the deal.’
‘Sadly, I’m not a whore or a brood mare.’
Valente cast her a lingering glance in the entrance hall. ‘All women are capable of playing the whore for the right man…or the right opportunity. I wanted you the first time I saw you and I still want you. You’ve upped the stakes and so must I. I’ll consider your idea if you spend the night with me at my hotel.’
Paralysed to the spot by that stunning proposition, Caroline gazed back at him with huge disbelieving eyes.
‘I always play hardball, and if you want a wedding ring for what you can get out of me as a legally wedded gold-digger, I expect to preview the merchandise,’ Valente delivered silkily. ‘I’m tied up in meetings until ten tonight. I’ll see you then.’
White as milk at that crack about merchandise, not to mention his belief that she had only mentioned marriage in the hope of reaping a greater financial profit from him, Caroline muttered, ‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Final word, last chance,’ he quipped, closing his arms round her slight body without warning and sealing her to his lean, powerful frame. ‘The game is over, angelina mia. Take your chance while you can, because it won’t come round again.’