by Lucy Gordon
He put his head on one side. ‘Is this the joke of the day?’
‘I never joke about money, any more than you do, I’m sure. Here, these will convince you.’
She took out the official papers, signed, witnessed and complete, proving that Larezzo was now officially free from debt.
Salvatore’s first thought was that they were forgeries, but then his head cleared and he saw the signature of Valerio Donati, the bank manager, a signature he knew well. Everything was perfectly in order. Payment had been made in full.
His face was a careful blank as he summoned up all his reserves of control. They had never failed him before, but nothing in the past had mattered quite as much as this.
She was smiling as though this were no more than an innocent moment between friends, but he knew better. She’d come here today to flaunt her triumph, letting him delude himself that he’d won. Now she was doubtless laughing inside. Anger flared up in him but he suppressed it. How she would enjoy any sign that he was disturbed.
‘Very clever,’ he said at last. ‘I underestimated you.’
‘Now, there’s an admission!’
‘A temporary admission. It won’t last. You’ll sell in the end.’
‘Oh, will I? I’ve heard of stubbornness but this is absurd.’
‘Is it? Let’s face facts. Are you pretending that Antonio left you enough spare cash to cover this?’
‘No, he didn’t. If anything his funds were running rather low in his last months.’
‘Then you must have raised a huge bank loan.’
‘Really? Perhaps you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘I think this one is safe enough.’
‘Salvatore, you have a problem.’
‘I have a problem?’
‘Yes, you simply can’t believe anything that doesn’t suit you. It weakens your position because it means that your enemy is always one step ahead, knowing something that you don’t.’
‘The enemy being you?’
‘If you like.’
She laughed up into his face as she said it, and for a moment he was invaded by a delight so intense that it almost drove everything else from his mind. He fought it. This was no time for emotion.
‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘Enemies it is. But how foolish of you to cross me. It’s something I don’t allow. You’ll discover that.’
‘Oh, don’t be so serious. I’ve won this round, you’ll probably win the next one, then I’ll win the one after-’
‘And I’ll win the last one.’
‘Maybe. Shake?’
Reluctantly he took the hand she held out and held it for a moment.
‘So you’re still determined to drive me out of Venice?’ she said lightly.
The sudden tension in his grip told her all she wanted to know. He didn’t want to drive her out.
‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly. ‘Or maybe I’ll let you stay-if it suits me.’
‘It always has to be on your terms, doesn’t it?’
He raised her hand, touching it with gentle, seductive lips that sent scurries of pleasure through her.
‘Always,’ he confirmed. ‘But here-’he glanced around his office ‘-isn’t our real battlefield. It’s the other one that counts, and there-who knows who the victor will be?’
Helena laughed. ‘Shame on you. You think you’re going to win that one too?’
‘Perhaps that depends on what you call victory,’ he parried. ‘We may both enjoy finding out.’
‘That’s true. I’ll leave you now. You’ll need some time to consider your next attack. But remember what I told you. Beware the enemy-no, not enemy, opponent-’
‘That’s better,’ he agreed.
He was still holding her hand, smiling in a way that disturbed her. The warmth was stealing through her again, making her smile back-Like an idiot, she reproved herself.
‘You’re getting out of character,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You’re supposed to be angry with me, don’t you remember?’
‘I am-very angry.’
‘You’re absolutely furious that I put one over on you.’
‘In a terrible rage.’
‘I can see. And you’re planning your revenge.’
‘Not planning it,’ he said quietly. ‘Taking it.’
On the words he drew her close and kissed her, wrapping both his arms right round her, imprisoning her own arms so that she had no choice but to stand still, defenceless against anything he wanted to do.
And what he wanted was to caress her lightly, teasingly, each whispered touch a reminder of their ‘other battlefield’ and the thrilling skirmishes still to come. She relished it as long as she could endure immobility, then broke free and took over the kiss.
‘Call that revenge?’ she demanded. ‘This is revenge.’
She returned his attack in full measure, pressing close to him while her lips made silent promises that challenged his self-control, just as he’d challenged hers. It was a battle of the Titans.
‘I must go,’ she whispered. ‘I have a lot of things to do.’
She moved towards the door, then stopped and looked back.
‘Remember my warning. Beware the opponent who knows something you don’t.’
She was gone.
That evening Salvatore called on Valerio Donati. He was always a welcome guest in the bank manager’s house, and was impatient to plan his next move. But things didn’t go as he’d expected.
‘That’s the last time I listen to you,’ Donati grumbled as they sat down to dinner. ‘Call the loan in, you said. She can’t cope, you said. In fact it was easy for her to cope, given who she is.’
‘Who is she,’ Salvatore demanded, ‘apart from Antonio’s widow?’
‘Are you saying you didn’t realise you were dealing with “Helen of Troy”?’ Donati demanded.
‘Of course he didn’t,’ his wife said. ‘Salvatore doesn’t read the fashion pages, or he’d have known that her face was everywhere before she retired. They say she was among the highest-paid models in the world. She must be worth a fortune.’
Salvatore smiled and made a polite response, but inwardly he was in turmoil, remembering Helena’s words. This was the secret that she had known and he hadn’t. She’d taunted him with it, and she’d won.
He left his hosts early and walked home through the little darkened calles, and as he went it seemed to him that Helena was with him, chuckling at how easily she’d called his bluff.
On reaching home he shut himself in his office and got on to the internet. The name ‘Helen of Troy’ brought up a host of information about her success at an early age, right up to her retirement two years earlier, after which she seemed to have vanished. There was no mention of her marriage.
Then he turned to the pictures, hundreds of them, going back years to the first shots of her as a teenager, on through her magnificent twenties, to her very last photo shoot. It was like being confronted by a dozen different women.
The first Helena was little more than a child, giving the camera a naïve, confiding glance. Then she was laughing, inviting the spectator into a happy conspiracy, modelling a revealing dress, but with a touching innocence.
As he went on he had the strange feeling that the happy spontaneity vanished quickly. Something in that baby face had changed overnight. Even through her bright, professional smiles he could sense that she’d become older, sadder, knowing. And it hadn’t happened over time, which would have been natural, but suddenly, shockingly.
A memory disturbed him: Helena studying the two pictures of his mother, the one young and happy, the other prematurely aged by misery. He’d snubbed her, refusing to discuss a subject that was unbearable to him.
He rose to his feet and paced the room restlessly, trying to drive the memories away. Every day he fought to banish them, and it was part of this woman’s awkwardness that she brought them flooding back.
He went out into the corridor and stood lis
tening to the quiet house. He should go back and continue his research into ‘Helen of Troy’, seeking the weakness through which he could overcome her, but instead he wandered along the corridor until he came to the room that had once been his mother’s. There he stopped.
How many times had he stood here listening to her sobs from inside, longing to comfort that anguished woman, knowing that it wasn’t in his power? Somewhere along the line his pain had turned to a rage that was still with him, years after her death. It was there now, making him crash his fist helplessly against the door.
At last he returned to his office and resumed his study of his foe, starting again with the young girl, innocent, then imbued with a poignant consciousness that shouldn’t have been there for years. For a brief moment he could almost have pitied her, but the impulse died as he went on through the rest of the pictures.
Now he understood the first picture he had ever seen of her, on the beach with Antonio, her glorious shape barely covered in a tiny bikini. Instinctively he’d known that this was a ‘professional’ body, professionally honed, tended, protected, in order to be put on show and make a profit. Up to a point he’d been right.
But she wasn’t the lady of dubious morals he’d assumed. She was a successful businesswoman with a shrewd brain that told one story, while her appearance told another.
What an actress she was, sultry and sexy one moment, reserved and virginal the next! He stared hard at her face on the screen, the lips full and pouting, the half-closed eyes delivering an unmistakeable message.
Come to me-hold me-touch me-let me show what I can do for you.
But the next picture delivered an equally clear message:
Stay back-I belong only to myself-
He brought the two pictures up together and leaned back in his chair, trying to order his thoughts. The contrast in her different aspects affected him more than he wanted it to. It meant that she was a mystery, which placed another high card in her hand, and that he found intolerable.
She’d challenged him on two levels, personal and professional, winning on both counts. The night of their meeting she’d faced him as an equal, teasing and provoking, knowing her power, flaunting it as though he were just another suppliant at her feet. That was a piece of impertinence, not to be borne.
Now she’d also taken him on as a business opponent, meeting his financial strike against her with alarming ease. On that level too she must be brought under his control.
Only then did it occur to him to wonder which of the two was the more essential, and when he realised that he didn’t know, alarm bells began to ring.
At one time there would have been no doubt which one he wanted more. Only business mattered. Women came second. But this woman was unlike any other.
His time would come. When he took her to bed and held her naked in his arms, when he heard her cry out helplessly with the pleasure that only he could give her, then she would be no different from other women.
From now on he would live for that day.
CHAPTER SIX
N OW Helena spent all her time at Larezzo, learning everything, eagerly absorbing information, enjoying herself as never before.
Her employees loved her for her passionate interest, her determination to protect the factory at all costs, but also the fact that she had the good sense not to interfere.
‘Not yet, anyway,’ she promised them. ‘My time will come. For the moment I’m just going to watch you, and concentrate on making some more money to invest. No more bank loans. They’re not safe.’
The cheer that greeted this told her just how well-informed her employees were. There was another cheer when she added, ‘I may have to do some more modelling for the sake of our future.’
One of her workers was heard to murmur that she should have sold out to Salvatore, but was quickly silenced by the indignation of the others.
‘Perhaps you should fire Jacopo,’ Emilio sighed. ‘You know what he’ll be doing now, don’t you?’
‘Reporting back to Salvatore,’ Helena deduced accurately. ‘Let’s give him something to report.’
After that things happened faster than she could have imagined. Leo, the young designer and her ardent fan, gladly accepted her instructions to create a piece resembling Salvatore’s head, but done to resemble the devil, with pointed eyebrows and horns.
‘How long will it take to produce it in glass?’ she asked him.
‘A couple of days if I work fast.’
‘Wonderful. I thought it took you ages to produce your creations.’
He winked. ‘That’s what I tell Emilio to boost my pay.’
‘You forgot you’re talking to the boss,’ she teased him.
He made a comical gesture of despair, and they laughed together.
‘Do this for me and I’ll pay you a bonus,’ she promised.
Emilio shared the joke when she told him.
‘That boy’s a wizard,’ he confirmed. ‘He’s created pieces in less than two days when we’ve had a sudden crisis.’
‘What kind of crisis?’ Helena wanted to know.
Suddenly the kindly manager was embarrassed.
‘Ah-well, it was a long time ago-’
‘You mean before Antonio met me, and was still sending glass tributes to other ladies,’ Helena supplied.
‘Something like that,’ Emilio said vaguely.
She sighed in apparent disillusion. ‘And there was I, imagining that he must have lived like a monk. Don’t worry, Emilio. I have no illusions about Antonio. He was dear to me as he was.’
Emilio looked relieved and soon found something else to do.
The glass head was a masterpiece, unmistakeably Salvatore, despite the extras.
‘Are you going to send it to him?’ Emilio asked.
‘Certainly not. I shall just leave it here, in plain view, where Jacopo can find it easily.’
They didn’t have to wait long. A few hours later Jacopo was observed slipping into Salvatore’s factory. Next day he returned to work in a scowling temper.
‘Salvatore sent him away with a flea in his ear,’ Helena guessed.
‘That doesn’t sound like him,’ Emilio said doubtfully.
‘I think it does.’
‘Don’t forget he fights to win.’
‘Unless he knows he can’t win,’ Helena murmured mysteriously.
From Salvatore there was no word. He seemed to have gone to ground, meaning that he was more dangerous than ever.
One evening, as she reached the hotel the desk clerk told her that a parcel had been left for her. In her room she unwrapped it and sat gazing in awe at its beauty.
It too was a head, but not a recognisable one. There were no distinct features, just a general air of beauty and fair hair streaming back. Any woman would be proud to believe that a man saw her that way.
There was no note or any sign to show who’d sent it, but she called Salvatore, and he answered with a speed that showed he’d been waiting. As soon as she heard his voice she said, ‘I give in.’
‘What-exactly-does that mean?’ he asked with exaggerated caution.
‘It means you’re better at this than I am. It means you wrong-footed me. It means thank you, it’s beautiful.’
‘I hoped you’d like it,’ he said warmly. ‘Are you free to have dinner with me tonight? I know a restaurant that I think you would enjoy.’
‘That sounds lovely.’
This time there was no gondolier. Salvatore came to the hotel on foot. By chance Helena was looking out of her window and had a long view of him approaching. She watched as he crossed a small bridge, pausing at the top to lean on the rail and look out over the lagoon.
She drew back, enjoying the chance to study him without his knowing. Hostility apart, she had to admit that with this man nature had distributed her gifts unjustly. There were better men in the world, good, civilised men with kindly natures, who deserved the best. Yet women would overlook them in favour of an arrogant schemer, who couldn’t be
trusted an inch, for no better reason than that he seemed to embody all masculine attraction in himself.
From this distance she could see what hadn’t been so clear before, that his legs were long like an athlete’s, and he moved with a careless grace that almost, but not quite, concealed his power.
At the thought of that power a tremor of excitement ran through her, warning her that she’d started on a dangerous road. She wanted him. She was honest enough to admit that to herself. She wanted that body and whatever it could offer to her own body. She wanted his hands on her, touching her intimately in the places that he’d brought alive just by his presence, and bringing them even more alive by the skill of his caresses.
Her head was on guard against him, but her flesh refused to be cautious. Nature had designed him to give her pleasure, and she would make him fulfil nature’s purpose or live desolate for the rest of her days.
While she watched he straightened up and turned to finish the journey to the hotel. A few moments later she went down to greet him with a bland smile that gave no hint of the turmoil within.
He escorted her a short walk to a tiny restaurant, where he led her out into the garden and towards a small table in the far corner, lit only by a candle and a few fairy lights overhead.
‘Did I make a good choice?’ Salvatore asked. ‘Of course it’s not a fine, luxurious place-’
‘All the better for that. It’s charming. Thank you for not trying to overwhelm me with finery.’
‘That would be very foolish of me, wouldn’t it? I can’t compete with “Helen of Troy”.’
‘So you know about that?’
‘Yes-finally. Everyone else in Venice seems to have known about it first. And I must admit, you tried to warn me that there was something I didn’t know, but I just charged on, didn’t I? And I got my just deserts.’
She studied him for any trace of irony, but failed to find it. While she was still trying to make her mind up a waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne.
‘The very finest, signor, just as you said.’
‘Don’t be fooled by the modest appearance of this place,’ Salvatore told her. ‘Their cellar is the best.’