by Kim Lawrence
Cesare, following instinct rather than logic, moved to block her from Paul’s view.
A view that, mad or not, was well worth looking at—and Cesare did! The tight jeans emphasised the tight curves of her delicious bottom and the fluffy sweater, a shade slightly lighter than her eyes, bore a slogan across the chest that invited the observer to save the forest for the future. Cesare considered the chances of any man reading that instruction and thinking about trees fairly negligible.
‘Can this wait?’ Her face was bare of all but the lightest dusting of make-up, but it was tinged pink and glowing from the fresh air. She looked sexily wholesome.
Anna’s delicate jaw tightened. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you but I saw your car and realised you were back,’ she remarked in a voice that dripped insincerity like honey. ‘But as you want all major decisions run by you I thought I’d better consult you. We bumped into Samantha and her mum while we were walking the dogs and they invited Jas to a sleepover. I explained I’d have to check with you as I’m only the babysitter and I wouldn’t want to exceed my authority.’
‘Yes, fine.’
Anna’s jaw dropped; the anticlimax was intense. She felt like someone all dressed up with nowhere to go. ‘Fine?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘But—’ She stopped. What did she want from him? Rudeness, anger? Bottom line she realised that what she was asking for was to be noticed by Cesare. Being ignored hurt a lot more than cross words or insults.
When did she get this pathetic and needy? she asked herself in disgust.
‘Is that all?’ he rasped impatiently.
She took a deep breath and huffed it out slowly, then, with a shrug she hoped matched his indifference, tipped her head. It was crazy to be hurt because he had better things to do than argue the toss with her.
‘Yes, fine, I’ll let them know.’ Focusing on a point beyond his shoulder now, she caught a movement.
Cesare, arms folded across his chest, took a step towards her. ‘That will be all, Miss Henderson.’
The peculiar intensity of his harsh tone brought her attention back to his face. As she noticed for the first time the lines of tension that bracketed his mouth her brow furrowed. Were this and the accompanying general taut quality of his tense body language connected with Louise? Had the row she had taunted him with been serious? Were his intentions towards the blonde serious?
Neither possibility gave her much pleasure, just a horrible sick feeling low in her belly. Before she could analyse it a figure rose to his feet from the sofa and moved with the over-cautious gait of someone not quite sober towards the open bottle on the bureau, glass in hand.
Slightly to her right, she didn’t need to see Cesare just outside the periphery of her vision to feel the tension flowing off him in waves.
‘Oh, sorry.’ Feeling awkward, she flashed a look towards Cesare that just stopped short of being an apology. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
Cesare took a step towards her, the expression on his face as he moved from her to his mystery guest odd. She couldn’t put a name to it. Had she just interrupted a crucial moment in a business deal? Not likely, considering the measure of whisky the stranger was pouring into his glass, but it was clear from the atmosphere that she was intruding.
‘I’ll go and help Jas pack her bag.’
‘You do that.’
* * *
Cesare waited until the door closed.
‘What the hell was that about?’
‘What about?’
‘Anna.’
‘Rose—I think she was the love of my life. If Clare hadn’t been pregnant... I told Rose if she wanted to keep the baby I’d help, though maybe it was for the best that she lost it.’
‘She was pregnant?’
‘Probably a false alarm.’
‘You didn’t go to the trouble of finding out?’
‘Clean break, you said. The girl...red hair...I suppose she does look like Rose,’ he conceded. ‘I admit for a split second there I thought that girl was Rosie.’
Cesare gritted his teeth, frustrated by this display of ignorance on both their parts. ‘That girl is Rosanna Henderson.’
Paul focused his bleary glance, tilting his head to look up at his taller friend before he slopped down on the leather sofa. ‘Quite a coincidence, but she’s not my Rose. My Rosie was taller, slimmer, figure like a wand,’ he recalled. ‘And no freckles, skin like a pearl.’
Finding himself on the point of defending, even waxing lyrical on, the subject of Anna’s skin, which was to his mind several shades above perfect, Cesare stopped. What was he saying? Paul was drunk but not that drunk. For the first time he began to consider the crazy possibility that the ignorance on both their parts wasn’t faked.
‘You are saying that you did not have an affair with the woman who just came in here?’ He mentally tried out explanations. Even his razor-sharp instincts could not begin to unpick this maze.
Paul shook his head, then grinned. ‘But given the chance—’
He never reached the end of the sentence; instead he found himself standing up against a wall. His friend, not looking very friendly at all, still holding his collar in both fists.
He held up both hands, slopping the drink he still held. ‘S-sorry, didn’t mean to tread on your toes. I should have remembered you always did have a thing about redheads,’ he mused, giving a shaky laugh. ‘The headmaster’s daughter? If I hadn’t covered for you that night when we were in...the sixth form or fifth...? If you’d have been caught—’
Cesare looked at his friend and shook his head. How long had he been making excuses for the other man? How long had he been tolerating behaviour that he would have been the first to condemn in someone else? With a snort of disgust he released Paul, who staggered backwards.
‘Hell, man, what’s got into you?’
‘I grew up. I suggest you do the same.’
The coldness in Cesare’s voice made the other man blink, but he nodded amenably. ‘Of course, of course, you’re right. Tell me what to do. I need Clare and the kids...’
Cesare shook his head and asked himself how many times he had responded to that request. What had Angel called it? Enabling? How come his little sister had seen what he hadn’t? ‘How old was this Rosie when you had an affair, Paul?’
The other man responded to the question with a petulant half-resentful shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you do.’
‘Around twenty, I think.’
‘Around twenty as in nineteen?’
‘She was very mature.’
Cesare had an overwhelming urge to shake his friend until his teeth rattled. Instead he dug his hands into his pockets as he strode across the room to the old-fashioned bell pull, which he yanked hard.
‘Mrs Mack will get you a taxi.’
A look of utter astonishment crossed the other man’s face. ‘You’re sending me away? Not going to help me? But what will I do?’
‘Your mess, Paul, you figure it out.’ He delivered the long-overdue tough love and found it a lot easier than he had anticipated. On cue, the housekeeper bustled into the room. ‘Mrs Mack, Mr Dane will be needing a taxi to the village.’
Paul reached out his hand, touching the taller man’s arm. ‘But, Cesare—’ A glance from Cesare’s hooded eyes made his hand fall from his sleeve.
‘One suggestion, Paul—stop thinking of yourself as the victim here. You’re not—Clare and the kids are. The girl you charmed is. So show a little of the guts you showed when you risked your life diving into that swollen river to pull me out of the car.’ At the door he turned back. ‘You have what many men would give a lot to have.’ He might not be one of them, but Cesare knew many who would have swapped places with Paul in a heartbeat. ‘Good luck, Paul,’ he added, meaning
it. ‘You’re a lucky man. I hope you wake up and realise how lucky before it’s too late.’
‘What if it already is?’ For the first time there was genuine fear in the other man’s voice.
CHAPTER NINE
JASMINE HAD RANSACKED several drawers in her bedroom in her search for the pair of pyjamas she wanted to take with her for the sleepover. The contents now lay in a brightly coloured jumble on the bedroom floor.
Having waved goodbye to the excited little girl, Anna set about picking up the crumpled items of clothing. Then, after smoothing the pretty quilt and plumping up the pile of cushions, she closed the door behind her and with a sigh leaned against it.
Rather than welcoming the relaxing evening that lay ahead, Anna found herself dreading it. Time to think with no distractions was something she definitely didn’t want.
She had told herself that she wouldn’t think about Cesare’s weird behaviour, but how could she not? With the rest of the evening to herself, what else did she have to do?
She walked around the room twitching a tartan throw that didn’t need twitching, punching a cushion, then, instead of putting it back on the sofa, walking over to the deep mullioned window with it clutched to her chest. Her expression abstracted, she stared down at the manicured lawn below, allowing her gaze to move beyond the grounds to the monumental craggy mountains that stood out against a rare blue sky.
First his easy capitulation, then the thing with the guest—she hadn’t really registered the man’s face, just Cesare’s obvious reluctance to introduce them. Now that she thought about it he had virtually thrown her out of the room. What did he think she was going to do?
She had nothing but the wall to vent her anger on and the twelve inches of solid stone absorbed her angry glare much the way her intended target would have. The man had the thickest skin... Skin... She shook her head to clear the tactile sensations that made her fingers curl as she thought of Cesare’s satiny dark gold-toned skin.
Was he even now recounting details of her imagined sleazy past to his friend? Hating the fact that the possibility had the power to hurt her, she walked across to the table and picked up a book she had started reading earlier that week. She had flopped down into a high-backed easy chair when without warning the door opened.
She had stopped pretending even to herself that the sight of him didn’t turn her into a drooling idiot. In her defence there was good reason: Cesare was a beautiful sexy predator, the sort that didn’t have to lift a finger to capture his victims—they were lining up to be eaten.
And to her intense shame, she was no different.
She laid her book down and sat forward, her spine straight as she levelled a condemnatory glare up at his face. ‘I thought this was meant to be a private wing?’
He was still wearing what she privately called his professional uniform, one of the slickly tailored designer suits that he must have dozens of, minus the usual silk tie and plus a heavy shadow of stubble on his angular jaw.
‘You expect me to knock in my own house?’
Her husky little laugh sent a flash of heat down his body.
‘I expect you to do exactly what you want,’ she admitted bitterly.
‘If that were true you’d be naked and under me.’
The glitter in his deep-set hooded eyes as much as the raw pronouncement drew a gasp from Anna, who, despite the heart-racing excitement swirling like champagne bubbles through her veins, adopted a stiff expression and demanded, ‘Am I meant to find that statement a turn-on?’ Because if so it worked, oh, big time it worked!
‘Not my intention, just a fringe benefit, but leaving that to one side—’
He made it sound the easiest thing in the world, which for him it probably was, while his comment had left her shaking with lust. Her nervous system was in meltdown but Anna, by some superhuman effort, managed to hide it behind a rigid mask of composure as she focused her eyes on a point over his left shoulder.
‘I’m puzzled.’
Anna’s gaze swung back to his face as she widened her eyes in an attitude of mock wonder. ‘I’m amazed. I thought you knew everything.’
He responded to the bitter jibe with a tight smile. ‘If you had an affair with Paul Dane why didn’t you recognise him when you walked into the library and saw him sitting there?’
He watched as a look of blank astonishment washed over Anna’s face. In a matter of seconds the colour leeched from her face and then rushed back, staining her skin pink.
‘That man was Paul Dane?’
She had smiled at him.
Her hands balled into fists. Smiled! She should have punched his lights out. Her blue-eyed fury switched to the person delivering the information.
‘You invited him here?’ she choked. ‘You thought that was funny?’ Rising from the sofa, she was forced back down by the large hands on her shoulders.
Cesare sank down with her. Lifting his hands from her shoulders, he took her hands in his, drawing them onto the hard contours of his muscular thighs.
‘Let me go.’ She had the opportunity to tell that slimy rat exactly what she thought of him and nothing and nobody was going to stop her.
‘Certainly, when you have told me what the hell this is about,’ he retorted calmly.
‘I’m not staying a night, not a second, under the same roof as that man,’ she declared in a shaking voice.
Cesare had been trying to break through her defensive rigidity, but success was not sweet. The pain shimmering in her beautiful eyes was painful to witness. ‘He isn’t.’
She lifted eyes that glowed with angry contempt to his face. ‘Isn’t what, a total scumbag?’ She loosed a wild laugh tinged with bitterness. ‘Well, your definition is clearly different from mine.’
‘Under this roof.’
It took a few seconds before her brow puckered and she responded with a subdued, ‘Oh.’ Before adding, ‘But the principle is the same.’
His platinum gaze scanned her face. ‘You’re not leaving.’
Unable not to challenge the confidence in this statement, she lifted her chin. ‘Oh, and why is that?’
Talk about an own goal. She lowered her lashes and thought, Never ask a question when you don’t want to hear the true answer. He had to know that she spent each moment of each day anticipating a glimpse of him with as much dread as longing; the only thing she hated more than seeing him was not seeing him.
Fully expecting to hear him expose her weakness, because he had to know, she was shocked to hear him say something quite different.
‘You wouldn’t leave Angel in the lurch. You have too many principles.’ His wolfish grin flashed, humour warming the metallic hardness of his eyes. ‘And anyway you’re way too stubborn.’
Cesare found her ability to bring a fight-to-the-death mentality to even the most innocuous discussion one of the most irritating and exhausting things about her, but then Anna, if that was her name, did manage to press all his buttons, frequently at the same time.
Given her irritant status a sensible man would have responded to her threat to leave with a sigh of relief, but then a sensible man, Cesare conceded, would not have allowed her to become an obsession. The word was not, he realised, an exaggeration. Dio, the sooner he took this woman to bed, the sooner he might get, not just his life, but his mind back! He had no idea yet where she fitted into this story but the important thing was she had not been Paul’s mistress. So he knew who she wasn’t, but not who she was.
‘Don’t be so sure,’ she muttered, trying not to be ridiculously pleased by the back-handed compliment and trying not to inhale too obviously his warm, male, musky fragrance, but he smelt so good!
‘Right now explanation.’
The clipped instruction made her blink. ‘What?’ Anna asked, struggling to focus thanks to the brown thumb now stroking th
e sensitive inside of her wrist. Ironically he didn’t even seem to be aware he was doing it, while the contact was sending sharp breath-stealing electric thrills through her entire body.
‘Explain to me why you pretended to be someone you are not.’
She got the strength from somewhere to tug her hands free. Experiencing a stab of disappointment when he didn’t attempt to retrieve them, she folded them in her lap and shuffled her bottom to the far end of the sofa.
The gesture drew a brief wry smile from Cesare, but his eyes remained intent and unsmiling on her. Face turned to him in half profile, exposing the smooth curve of her cheek and the elegant line of her long neck, at times like this she frequently brought to mind one of those Degas dancing figures, combining sinuous, sensuous promise with an almost ethereal quality, but she was warm to touch with an earthy sensuality that no painting could reproduce.
‘I’m exactly who I said I was—Anna Henderson.’ Her eyes flickered to him and then she felt her anger slip quickly away again. There had been occasions recently when she had lost sight of that fact, times when she had caught herself asking, Is this me?
There were moments when the woman who had caught the sleeper from London just a short time ago seemed like a stranger, one who had felt a lot more sure of things than she was.
‘You have never had an affair with Paul.’
The accusation in his voice made her turn her head sharply, causing her hair to whip across her face. Blowing the gleaming strands from her cheek, she tucked them impatiently behind her ears.
‘So this is the mind they liken to a steel trap in action? Wow, I’m overcome with admiration.’
He arched a sardonic brow and drawled, ‘Sometimes, Anna, your efforts to derail a discussion are pretty pathetic.’
The boredom in his voice brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘Not unlike your selective amnesia. I never said I’d had an affair with him,’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘That was all your idea.’