‘Good.’ He nodded. Then, out of the dull, throbbing silence that powered down around both of them, a telephone began ringing somewhere in the room.
Sandro muttered something and strode off to answer it. ‘Si?’ he bit into the receiver—a sure sign that he still had not got himself totally in hand yet, because he had spoken in his native tongue.
He listened, his dark eyes snapping with irritation. ‘No—no,’ he said. ‘You must cancel. I am too involved here.’
Cancel? Cancel what? Joanna wondered, then, on a jolt of understanding, ‘Oh—no, Sandro!’ she protested. ‘Please don’t cancel your meetings on my account!’
But he was already replacing the receiver on its rest and turning back to her with an expression carved into his features that had her old friend panic skittering to life.
He looked like a man who had come to a decision, and that decision most definitely involved her. ‘Sit down,’ he invited, ‘while I pour us both a drink.’
‘But y-you told me this morning that you were very busy,’ she reminded him anxiously. ‘And—and I have to be leaving now anyway!’ she lied as her eyes darted over to the closed lift doors, as if they could be her saviours and not the source of one of her worst nightmares.
‘Leave without your five thousand pounds safely stashed away, cara?’ he mocked. ‘What a waste of all this anguish you have been putting yourself through by making yourself come to me.’
And it was absolutely amazing—Joanna made incredulous note. Today Sandro had swung himself through just about every emotion that existed. Now he had come full circle and was back to being the sharpeyed cool headed businessman again, while she—
Well, she was back to making choices, seeing Arthur Bates’ grotesque figure looming threateningly in front of her and knowing that once again she had to draw the same conclusion she had drawn each time she reached this same unpalatable point.
There was no choice.
She was caught, held fast in a trap of her own making. Her own fears, failures and wretched inadequacies the bait with which she had ensnared herself.
As if knowing all of this quite instinctively, Sandro turned away from her pale-faced defeated stance and moved over to a cupboard which, when opened, revealed a comprehensive selection of bottles and glasses.
No choice. Those two little words began to rattle with dizzying speed around her head until she had to give in to them and sit herself down—before she actually fell down. She chose one of the soft oatmeal linen-covered chairs, dropping into it and lifting a shaky hand to her aching eyes; that lingering ’flu virus, worry and lack of sleep were really beginning to get to her.
On top of all that, she mocked herself grimly, there was all the stress entailed in making herself come here; it was no wonder she was feeling drained to the very dregs of her reserves now.
The cold touch of glass against the back of her raised hand brought it jerking away from her eyes.
‘Try this,’ Sandro advised. He was standing over her, holding out a glass. ‘Gin and tonic,’ he informed her as she stared suspiciously at the contents. ‘It may help give you back some courage. You seem to be flagging.’
Mock, mock, mock. She took the glass, put it to her lips and swallowed half its contents down in one go in sheer defiance.
He ignored her defiance, going to seat himself in the chair opposite to sip more slowly at his own drink, looking supremely relaxed while her body was bonegratingly stiff, his eyes annoyingly implacable while hers were giving much too much away.
‘Since when have you had this apartment up here?’ she asked, cowardly, shying away from what she knew she should be talking about—the money.
‘Since always,’ he replied. ‘It has always been here.’
She frowned. ‘But I never knew about it.’
That is because I have a perfectly acceptable house in Belgravia where I preferred to live with my wife,’ he answered with sardonic bite. ‘This place is merely a convenience for when I have to work late. Time zones being the inconvenient things they are,’ he explained while her own mind leapt backwards and began wondering if all those nights when he hadn’t come home to the house in Belgravia while she’d lived there he had been right here instead.
The perfect escape from the pressure of his lousy marriage.
‘Where are you living now, exactly?’ he asked casually, bringing her mind crashing back into sharp focus on him.
But she had to look away from him as she answered that question, not wanting to see the distasteful expression that was bound to cross his face.
It was clear in his voice, though; she could not escape that. ‘Do I have to presume, from that kind of address, that the five thousand pounds is protection money?’
Inside she shuddered. Sometimes, she decided, she hated him—despised his sarcasm and his superior attitude. ‘I can protect myself!’ she snapped.
He made no comment—a derisory comment in itself. She took another deep slug at the gin and felt her head start to swim. She’d had no food today, couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last, so the alcohol was hitting her empty stomach and instantly entering her bloodstream.
‘All you have to do, Joanna, is say it,’ Sandro suggested gently.
‘Say what?’ Her eyes flashed him a wary glance.
‘Say what you need the money for and I will give it to you.’
Just like that? No strings attached? She could barely believe her luck—except for one small thing. It was confessing why she needed the money that was the most difficult.
‘I’ve been working behind the bar in a casino nightclub for the last twelve months,’ she said, trying to sound casual and knowing she failed dismally. ‘S-since Molly died,’ she added, because it was in actual fact a very important part of why she was here today. ‘I...’ Her glass was empty and she was suddenly wishing it wasn’t.
‘A refill?’ Sandro offered, getting smoothly to his feet.
‘Please.’ She held the glass out to him. He took it and walked away, giving her a few moments to sag while he wouldn’t see her doing it.
‘So,’ he prompted as he mixed her second gin. ‘Molly died and you went to work in a casino. What happened next to make the penny-conscious Joanna get herself into debt?’
Did he know—had he guessed? She frowned at his back and couldn’t decide. He was acute, he was perceptive, he always had been able to out-think her brain ten to one in any discussion. But...?
No, she decided, even Sandro wouldn’t suspect her, of all people, of gambling.
Gambling. The word on its own could actually make her feel physically sick now! Or was it the gin? Or the lack of food? Or the stress she had been living under recently?
Or was it just sheer reluctance to confess the full truth that was making her feel so sick?
He came back, handed her the refilled glass. She accepted it and took a gulp at it while he returned to his own chair.
‘Please go on,’ he invited.
‘When—when Molly died, I...’ Fell apart, was the wretched truth of it. She’d felt as if she had nothing and no one left to live for. ‘The job was offered to me by the same man who lent me the money to pay for Molly’s funeral...’
The choking sound coming from Sandro brought her eyes up to clash with his. He wasn’t quite in focus, she realised—which made it easier to keep this story moving.
‘He said I could pay him off quicker if I worked for him,’ she explained. ‘B-because the wages were higher than restaurant work, and he could even find me a flat within walking distance of the club. S-save me travelling expenses...’
‘But it turned out to be not as simple as that?’ Sandro grimly suggested.
She gave a shake of her bright head. ‘H-he kept on putting up the weekly repayments, and I suppose I st-started to panic in case I fell behind, which therefore m-meant borrowing more money from him. I’d seen some of the other girls get caught out like that,’ she explained huskily. ‘It was f-frightening...’
‘So,
you did what?’ Sandro demanded. ‘To keep up your payments?’
Joanna took another gulp at her gin as if her very life depended on it. ‘I played the tables,’ she confessed on a soul-crushing rush of shame. ‘I took a chance on trying to win back what I owed him. It didn’t work.’ Well, who in this room is surprised at that? she wondered grimly. ‘One—one thing led to another,’ she went on. ‘And now I’m in debt so deep to him that if you won’t help me, then...’
She trailed to a stop, aware that she had said too much already.
But Sandro wasn’t going to let her stop there. ‘Then...?’ he prompted.
She shrugged, refusing to answer, and lifted unfocused eyes to him. ‘Will you help me?’ she asked.
But even through a gin-induced haze, she could see the anger in Sandro’s expression. ‘I want to know what happens if you do not pay this man off!’ he grimly insisted.
And her own temper flared, putting a bright, condemning spark into her blue eyes as she tossed at him bitterly, ‘Oh, you should know the answer to that one, Sandro, since you once used very similar tactics on me yourself, in an effort to get me to do what you wanted me to do!’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ he demanded.
‘Blackmail!’ she flashed at him, and uttered a scornful little laugh. ‘Which is probably the most polite way of describing the pressure you exerted to get me over the colossal hurdle of—now, what did you call it?’ She pretended to ponder, angrily ignoring the slow, warning way his body was stiffening in the chair opposite. ‘Ah, I remember. My “freakish aversion to sex!” That was it! Only where you used your wonderful self as a lever, this man is using my debt to get what he wants from me!’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I NEVER used force on you!’ Sandro denied that.
But, ‘Let me make love to you or get out of my life’, had been force enough, Joanna argued silently. In the end, when she still could not let him touch her, she had saved him the bother of throwing her out and walked out on him instead!
‘So let me get this straight,’ he continued angrily. ‘What you are trying to say here is that some man is forcing you to have sex with him in return for the five thousand pounds you owe to him?’
‘Yes!’ That was exactly what she was saying!
Then, quite without any prior warning, she was getting rid of her glass and lurching to her feet, turning away from Sandro and hugging herself, a hand pressed against her quivering mouth.
He was slower in rising, his anger replaced by a grim kind of recognition of what it was she was struggling with. He had been here before after all—had seen it all before.
After a few moments of watching her, he released a heavy sigh. ‘OK, Joanna,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Take it easy. No one is going to touch you like that here.’
Her bright head nodded in acknowledgement of his grim reassurance. ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed behind her straining hand, and for once Sandro did not chide her for the apology.
All he did do was move right away from her, going to stand by the window, staring out, giving her some privacy while she pulled herself together again.
Yet for some reason that small show of sensitivity hurt her so badly it sent the wretched tears sweeping across her eyes. She didn’t understand it, couldn’t explain it, but it had something to do with the man himself and the way he was standing there, tall, sleek, unbearably special, hands resting in the pockets of his grey silk trousers, shoulders straight, that noble dark head held high.
And he was alone.
That was what hurt. It was the space between them, the huge gulf, physical and emotional. A gulf she had caused and one he maintained because he had learned the hard way not to attempt to bridge it.
And what had she just done? Thrown into his face one of those very few times he had attempted to cross that wretched bridge.
Dropping her hand to her side, she clenched it into a tight fist of bitter aching despair. It wasn’t fair—none of it. They’d had so much going for them once, and now look at them.
Miserable, both of them. Each better off without the other.
He turned half towards her, giving her hungry senses a view of his long, lean shape in profile. ‘If I give you the money, what then?’ he asked.
‘I’ll pay off the debt,’ she said.
She couldn’t offer to pay Sandro back because it would take her years to save up that kind of money on a waitress’s meagre pay. Which was why she was offering him a divorce as compensation.
‘And you’ll stop working for him?’
‘Of course,’ she declared, as if that should be obvious. ‘I never want to set eyes on him or his nightclub again, if I can help it.’
‘And the gambling,’ he persisted, despite that statement. ‘Does that stop also?’
‘Of course,’ she repeated, almost affrontedly this time. She was not going to fall into the same trap again in this lifetime; did he think she was a complete fool?
‘There is no “of course” about it,’ he sighed. ‘Gambling is a disease, and you know it. If you can use it as an excuse to get you out of financial difficulties once, you are likely to use it again if the situation ever presents itself. Then what comes next?’ He turned to fully face her, his expression so stone-cold serious that she shivered. ‘Do you have to force yourself to come to me again, and will I be expected to pay up again, and keep on paying until you do what you are really trying to do to yourself, Joanna? Tip yourself head-long into the deep, dark pit you struggle so hard to stay out of?’
He knew about the pit? Her whole body jolted with horrified shock. Sandro knew about the big black hole she spent most of her waking hours staring into, watching it open wider and wider with each passing day...
‘You are refusing to help me?’ she breathed in a frail little voice that seemed to absolutely infuriate him.
‘Damn it, Joanna! I am not refusing you!’ he exploded in frustration. ‘But I would be a fool if I did not insist on some assurance from you that this will not happen again!’
‘It will never happen again,’ she promised instantly.
But it wasn’t enough. She could see it wasn’t enough. The way his lips clamped together and his hand raked through his hair told her he was not content with just her verbal promise.
Fear struck a direct line down her trembling spine, the sudden thick silence that fell between them locking up her throat as she stood there staring at him in an open plea, while he frowned darkly down at his feet.
Then he gave a sigh, sounding like a man who was surrendering to something he had no wish to surrender to. ‘Give me the name of the club and the name of the man,’ he clipped out.
‘Why?’ she questioned warily. ‘W-what are you going to do?’
He didn’t reply, but his eyes, when they lifted up to clash with hers, sent a fresh wave of dread running through her. He didn’t trust her to deal with this problem properly, so he was going to deal with it himself! He was going to go to the nightclub, would see the kind of place she worked in, see the kind of man she had stupidly got herself embroiled with. And his opinion of her was going to hit rock bottom—if it wasn’t already floundering near there already.
‘Come on, Joanna,’ he prompted very grimly. ‘You say you have no wish to see this—person or his place of business again. So, prove it,’ he challenged. ‘Give me all the relevant information and I will deal with it for you.’ And when she still stood there, saying nothing, he added very softly. ‘Or you don’t get a single penny from me.’
Her heart split open, surrender spilling out from the jagged crack—along with the hapless knowledge that she had nowhere else to turn if she refused his wretched offer. And she gave him the information in a breathless rush of words that turned his face to granite as he recognised names and places where the lowest of the low lurked.
Weak-kneed by it all, she dropped back into the nearest chair as Sandro strode grimly by her, eyes hard, mouth tight, his whole demeanour one of utter boneclenching dista
ste.
And why not? she asked herself miserably. She felt the exact same way about it all herself!
A shaky hand fluttered up to touch her brow. She really should not have drunk all that gin, she realised, because now, on top of everything else, her head was beginning to throb.
‘Luca?’ Sandro’s hard voice cracked like a whip over the top of her bowed head. She looked up to find him holding the telephone to his ear again. ‘Get five thousand pounds out of the safe and meet me in the foyer with it,’ he commanded. ‘And I want two of our security men standing by with the company limo. What?’ he snapped, his frown as black as thunder. ‘No, not for protection! For damned intimidation!’
Joanna winced. Tight-lipped, Sandro turned abruptly and walked over to a door which, she presumed, led through to the rest of the apartment. He disappeared through it without so much as glancing her way; that was a further condemnation, just another thing she had been judged on and found utterly wanting.
He came back looking so different from the man who had left the room five minutes before that Joanna shot to her feet, and then just stood there staring, trapped into a sense-sizzling silence by the whole incredible transformation.
He had changed his clothes. Gone were the dove-grey trousers and the pale blue shirt with its casually open neck and rolled up sleeves. In their place he was wearing a very dark pin-striped three-piece suit made of the kind of fine fabric that shrieked money at her from every superbly-stitched invisible seam. A pristine white shirt sat neatly around his brown throat, knotted with a slender red silk tie.
But none of that—devastatingly effective power-dressing as it was—caused her breath to catch and her eyes to widen in horrified appreciation of what he was out to achieve by dressing himself like this.
It was the full-length black cashmere overcoat he had slung about his elegant shoulders that made the real statement, along with the fine black wool scarf hanging negligently along his lapels and the stretch-tight black leather gloves he was tugging over his long fingers.
The Marriage Surrender Page 6