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Cristiano angled his sleek dark head to one side and studied her with maddening cool. ‘Don’t you?’
Her tummy seemed to somersault, as if he had punched a panic button. For a crazy moment she worried that he knew her better than she knew herself, and she rushed to fill the silence. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I obtained some privileged information…’
She turned pale as milk. So he knew about the missing money. Of course he knew, an inner voice censured. She wanted to cringe, and a pronounced reluctance to look him in the face afflicted her.
Cristiano Andreotti took advantage of that moment of weakness and stepped past her. He knew her fortunes had been in a steady decline since their last meeting, but it was only now when he saw the shabby, sparsely furnished sitting room, that he appreciated how steep that descent had been. Nothing could more adequately illustrate the vast gulf between their lives, and the reality that she had only ever been a visitor in his world.
‘What happened to the window?’
‘It got broken,’ she mumbled.
‘Have you called a glazier?’
‘Not yet. It only happened late last night.’
His incisive gaze alighted on the crudely lettered and crumpled note on the mantelpiece and he reached for it. The stone was sitting on the hearth, and he guessed what had happened. A frown drew his sleek dark brows together for a split second. ‘You’ve been threatened? Have you reported this?’
In an abrupt movement she snatched the abusive note from his shapely brown fingers. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ she gasped, more mortified than ever.
‘The police should be told. The brute mentality behind that sort of intimidation is liable to get more physical. You cannot stay here alone—’
‘And where do you suggest I move to?’ she broke in tautly, deeper anxiety assailing her—for if anything the incident last night had made her even more reluctant to take advantage of her cousin’s offer of shelter. Gwenna, and her father and brother, lived in an isolated farmhouse, and she would not risk bringing trouble to their door.
‘I may be able to provide a solution,’ Cristiano murmured without the slightest change in his level of intonation.
Lydia realised that she was trembling. Looking away from him, she struggled for mastery over conflicting promptings of fear, bewilderment and discomfiture. In doing so, she registered for the first time since his arrival that she was standing in front of him wearing an old dressing gown and with messy hair. She almost died of chagrin.
‘Look, I need to get dressed…I’m not going to hang around arguing with you.’ What solution? she wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t let herself. She hadn’t even told him to get out. Didn’t she have any pride? How much lower could she sink?
Watching her climb the stairs, Cristiano caught a flash of a pale, slender silk-smooth thigh, and an instant shaft of heat travelled to his groin. He ground his even white teeth together. The sexual buzz in the atmosphere was sending his male hormones on a primal rampage. That ferocious attraction had been there from the first time he saw her. But he was convinced that once he slept with her, he would no longer want her. She was scared. If he offered her the money without further ado she would probably let him have her here and now. So what if it was sleazy? So what if he had never paid for the privilege of bedding a woman before? Dio mio, she wanted him too. Her eyes and her edginess around him were unmistakably revealing to a male of his experience. Yet she still seemed to be in denial of that truth—always backing off, primly avoiding visual contact. A guy with some class would wait and prolong the finale, he told himself grimly.
A gardening book lay open on the small dining table and he studied it with a questioning frown. Restive as a hungry panther on the prowl, he paced. It was a challenge, for the room was tiny, the hall non-existent and the kitchen not much larger. There, however, he came to a sudden halt, a black brow rising in astonishment. In defiance of the grim urban outlook, the small back yard had been transformed into a glorious green patio jungle of containerised flowers and foliage.
Employing his mobile phone, he told one of his staff to organise a glazier to replace the broken window. He said the job had to be done immediately.
Upstairs, Lydia darted into the bathroom and ran a brush violently through her tousled hair, while at the same time trying to clumsily clean her teeth. She was all fingers and thumbs as she shed her nightwear and yanked a pair of jeans and a vest top from a drawer. How could she be calm and controlled? Downstairs was the guy who had won her trust and made her love him. Downstairs was the smooth, slick operator who knew how to fake romance and act as if he was serious. But it had all been a con. She had been the victim of his cruel, demeaning charade! A dupe, a joke for macho males who got in touch with their crude masculine selves by comparing the number of notches on their bedposts. She zipped up her jeans with a trembling hand. Unfortunately, she had been so hurt and angered by that betrayal she had made herself a victim all over again. She had fallen for the stupid suggestion that she might take revenge and at least emerge with her pride intact. The consequences of that final foolish impulse had pretty much destroyed her modelling career.
So what was Cristiano Andreotti doing in Wales? Why had he come to see her? A solution? She couldn’t see why he would wish to help her in any way. When she’d left his Georgian mansion with Mort she had struck a blow at Cristiano’s ego. There had been nothing else to take aim at, she acknowledged painfully. Cristiano Andreotti did not have a heart or a conscience. Had he come to gloat over more of her unending misfortunes?
Slowly, Lydia descended the stairs. ‘What do you want with me?’ she asked defensively.
‘What do most guys want?’ Cristiano traded, smooth as glass, while he scanned the silvery pale waves tumbling round her oval face, her luminous blue eyes and her sultry lips, which were slightly parted to show the moist inner pink. He wasn’t really listening; he was rejoicing in her visual allure.
Hot colour flooded her cheeks. The direction of his gaze was not lost on her, and she shot him a look of loathing. ‘At least you’re not pretending to be a nice guy any more!’
Dark eyes flaring to gold, Cristiano inclined his arrogant dark head in acknowledgement. ‘You’d take advantage of a nice guy. I’m much more your style.’
‘In your dreams!’ Lydia slung back at him.
‘How often does Mort Stevens figure in yours now?’ Cristiano riposted without skipping a beat.
That merciless retort made her blench, and she semi-turned away, presenting him with a view of her delicate profile. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’
Sideways on, her slender build made her look disturbingly fragile. Without hesitation he reached out and closed his hands over hers.
In surprise, she gasped, ‘What the heck—?’
‘Just checking…’ Having scanned her arms for any suspicious marks that might have indicated drug abuse, and satisfied himself that that was not her problem, Cristiano released her again.
‘I do not do drugs…I never have and I never will!’ she protested furiously.
‘Glad to hear it.’ But she needed to eat more, Cristiano reflected as his attention skimmed from her narrow white shoulders to the pert outline of her small breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He tensed, infuriated by his own thoughts and behaviour. What was he? A schoolboy again? Since when had the female form entertained the slightest mystery for him?
‘Did you only come here to insult me?’
‘No, there is always purpose in what I do. You’re facing a prison sentence.’
Taken aback by that unequivocal assurance, Lydia snatched in a sharp breath. ‘You don’t know that…how could you? You know nothing about it—’
‘Crimes that entail cash and deception and female offenders always attract a more severe punishment,’ Cristiano murmured silkily. ‘Defrauding a charity was not a good idea—particularly one engaged in raising funds for disadvantaged children.’
Her skin felt cold and clammy. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Were you in debt? Were you being pursued for payment? You stole a very large amount of money, but I don’t see much evidence of ill-gotten gains.’
That Cristiano had no doubt of her culpability cut across Lydia’s tender skin like a whiplash. A painful tide of colour lit her face. On the strength of rumour, he had decided that she was guilty as charged.
‘Why should you care either way?’ she queried, throwing back her pale head, her chin at a truculent angle.
Cristiano surveyed her with eyes as cool and hard as tempered steel. ‘I don’t. But I can keep you out of prison…’
She stiffened, eyes widening, while a crazy little leap of hope surfaced somewhere inside her. ‘And how could you possibly do that?’
‘By repaying the money you took with the addition of a handsome donation to oil the wheels of charitable forgiveness,’ Cristiano explained softly.
‘It wouldn’t be that simple—’
‘Don’t be foolish. I never talk about what I can’t do.’ His wide, sensual mouth curled. ‘A discreet approach has already been made to the director of the Happy Holidays fund, and the response to that particular suggestion has been a very positive one.’
Her restive fingers clenched in on themselves with fierce tension. ‘But why would you offer to replace the missing cash?’
‘Obviously because I want something in return,’ Cristiano delivered, soft and low, his dark drawl as erotic as velvet trailing over silk.
Her heart jumped behind her breastbone. She met bold, dark golden eyes shaded by luxuriant black lashes. Breathing normally became a distinct challenge. His lean dark features were wholly intent on her. Something that felt like a tiny hot wire was pulling taut in her pelvis. It was a sensation that fell somewhere between pleasure and pain, and the surge of heat that followed made her tremble.
His sizzling, sexy smile slashed his beautiful mouth. ‘And I do believe you will enjoy giving it to me, cara mia.’
Lydia was finding it impossible to concentrate. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand—’
‘Don’t you? I’m offering a pretty basic deal. I want you in my bed—’
Shock roared through her, leaving her light-headed. ‘I don’t believe you—’
‘Of course you would have to throw yourself heart and soul into the role of being my mistress—’
‘This doesn’t make sense—’
His brilliant eyes were ice-cold. ‘It makes perfect sense. Watching you endeavour to meet my every wish and need will provide me with considerable entertainment. I’m not an easy guy to please.’
Lydia had turned bone-white. ‘You can’t despise me and want me like that at the same time.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s immoral!’ she gasped.
‘When did I say I was moral?’
‘I can’t believe your nerve. I can’t believe you can approach me with such a proposition!’ Lydia lanced back at him, burning with furious mortification. ‘Maybe you don’t have any standards, but I do—’
‘I don’t steal,’ Cristiano proclaimed, in a super-soft undertone.
‘Maybe I don’t either. But you’re only interested in trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m in trouble, and I think that is disgusting!’
‘I’ve made a fortune from opportunism, cara mia.’
‘Well, you lucked out when you met me—because I’d sooner go to prison than sink to the level of being your mistress!’
Shimmering dark golden eyes connected with hers. ‘I don’t think so.’
The force field of energy he projected was all around her, like an invisible web of silent intimidation. Unable to break the hold of his compelling scrutiny, she felt his anger, and it somehow soothed the ache deep down inside her.
‘I know so.’
As she stepped past him, he curved a light hand to her spine and stilled her. He bent his handsome dark head and the cool, irresistible power of his sensual mouth claimed hers. It was everything she had secretly feared, everything she had ever craved. With the utmost gentleness he let his tongue steal between her parted lips and explore the moist interior. He delved deeper. She moaned low in her throat, heard her own plaintive cry of surrender and acceptance, and wanted to die of shame. But still she couldn’t break free of the fierce physical excitement that controlled her. That inner conflict made her quiver, as though she was in the eye of a storm.
Cristiano stepped back. He had not held her. He had not given her that much excuse to succumb. ‘Answer the phone…’
Only when she was separated from him did the world crowd back in on her again, and she heard the phone’s insistent shrill. She surged in a feverish rush to answer it. Fighting to rescue her smashed composure, but nowhere near strong enough to meet Cristiano’s appraisal, Lydia snapped a damp palm round the receiver. It was her solicitor. She stiffened in dismay when she learned that the police had requested a meeting today, rather than in four days’ time, as had been previously arranged.
‘It’s your choice. You don’t have to go to the station. But evidently they have some new information, and I feel it would be in your best interests to agree to make yourself available today,’ her legal adviser informed her.
Lydia breathed in deep. ‘Right…yes, I’ll go.’
Her lips were tingling and her knees were weak. Perhaps an extra trip to the police station was her punishment for making such a fool of herself with Cristiano Andreotti, she thought crazily. How could he still live and breathe when she hated him with such venom? Or did she hate herself even more? How could she have sacrificed her pride for one kiss? Had stress deranged her wits? What vindictive fate had brought Cristiano back to her door when she was at her weakest?
In one harried step she reached the front door and yanked it wide. ‘I have a pressing invitation to have another chat with the police, so you’ll have to leave.’
‘I’ve arranged for a glazier to replace the window,’ Cristiano informed her.
Her teeth gritted. ‘And why the heck would you have done that?’
‘Isn’t it fortunate that I did, when you have to go out again?’ In a fluid gesture, Cristiano cast a business card down on the shelf to one side of her. ‘My number…for when you come to your senses and accept the inevitable.’
‘You are not an inevitable event in my life.’
Cristiano looked down at her from the vantage point of his superior height, his slumberous golden eyes glittering down towards hers in a collision course as keen as an arrow thudding into a target. ‘Conversation is a much overrated pursuit between men and women. The kiss told me all I needed to know.’
Inwardly she shrank from that humiliating reminder. Her body had responded to him in blatant disregard of her entrenched dislike and defiance. But then how much would Cristiano Andreotti care about that? As he had just admitted, without an ounce of shame, he was more into the physical than the cerebral where women were concerned. She could not help but remember how she’d used to chatter on the phone to him. Had he been bored witless by the way she had rattled on?
While she wondered, Cristiano inclined his handsome dark head, strolled out, and swung into the limousine waiting for him. The long, opulent vehicle purred away from the kerb and disappeared from her view as if it and its owner had never been there.
Five minutes later a glazier arrived to replace the broken windowpane. All smiles, he told her that for what he was being paid he had been more than happy to give her job priority.
As she made her way to the police station that afternoon, Lydia was consumed by a helpless need to rerun Cristiano’s visit in her mind over and over again. In a nutshell, he had offered to recompense the Happy Holidays charity in return for her sexual favours. Had he been acquainted with her abysmal lack of experience in that department, however, he might have been rather less keen, she thought ruefully. Yet she could not forget that eighteen months ago she had been so besotted with Cristiano that she had been on the very brink of being whatever he wanted her to be…
She was not proud of that weakness. But then she blamed her susceptibility on the fact that she had first seen Cristiano Andreotti in a glossy magazine spread when she was only fourteen years old. He had been twenty-two. Convinced that he was the most breathtakingly gorgeous guy she had ever seen, she had torn out his picture and kept it. She had not just stuck him in a drawer—no, she had ironed his paper image and put him in a photo frame, and spent seemingly infinite, essentially adolescent moments devouring his picture with wistful contentment. She had much preferred those dreams to the often crude reality of the young men she’d encountered.
In fact more than six years were to pass before she actually met Cristiano—years during which her popularity as a model had gradually brought her to the point where she had an occasional entry ticket into his rarefied world of wealth and privilege. Once she’d had the thrill of seeing him across a nightclub, lounging back like royalty and looking bored, while a bevy of women fought for his attention. He hadn’t seen her or noticed her.
A frightening experience when she was only thirteen had made Lydia wary of men. After that she’d found it hard to flirt, and was careful not to bare too much flesh in mixed company. That she was still a virgin was a secret she’d kept very much to herself, for she had moved in circles where casual sex was considered the norm. She had also been endlessly hunted by rapacious men eager to bed her just so that they could add her to a macho tally of conquests. When she’d finally realised that she was being labelled frigid by the men she refused, she had been deeply hurt and embarrassed. It had seemed easier not to date at all. It had not occurred to her that her very unavailability might make her an even more tempting target for a predatory male.
The day she’d peered through the curtains at a Paris fashion show and seen Cristiano Andreotti seated in the very front row, she had been overwhelmed. The teenager who had once cherished his photo as a pin-up had surfaced inside her again. Edgy as a beginner on the runway, she had been afraid even to glance in his direction. In fact when he’d asked to be introduced to her, she’d been so sick with nerves that she hadn’t dared to look directly at him. He had asked her for her phone number and she had told him that her mobile had been stolen. A moment later she had had to race off to do a private showing for a VIP. Later Cristiano had had a new phone delivered to her hotel, and his had been the first call, his rich dark drawl coiling round her like melting honey.
He had wanted to see her that night, but she’d had a booking back in London early the following day.
‘I’ll be in Sydney next week. Phone and say you’re ill so that you can stay on in Paris,’ he’d urged.
‘I can’t do that.’
‘You can if you want to see me.’
‘And if you want to see me you can wait,’ she’d heard herself reply.
‘Are you always this difficult?’
That had been her first—and not her last—taste of dealing with a very rich and powerful guy, accustomed to the instant gratification of his every expressed wish. Anything less than immediate acceptance or agreement was perceived as a negative response.
Even so, Cristiano had still flown her back to Paris the following evening to dine with him, and they had got on so well that they had still been talking in the early hours. Perfect white roses had awaited her when she returned to London, and he had called her every day for a week afterwards. She had felt cherished and appreciated. Every step of their relationship had struck her as being the very essence of romance. Plenty of people had warned her that Cristiano had a reputation for being notoriously cold-blooded when it came to her sex, but she’d paid no heed. She had ridden the crest of the wave of phone calls and all-too-brief meetings while secretly dreaming, as women had from time immemorial, of love and happily-ever-after. At no stage had it crossed her mind that she might simply be an object to be used and abused in a game being played by a super-rich, egotistical man.
Now, the pain of that final recollection did nothing to ease Lydia’s tension as she found herself back in a police interview room.
The inspector gave her a surprisingly genial smile. ‘Tell me about your mother’s house in France,’ he invited.
‘France?’ Lydia’s astonishment was unhidden. ‘But my mother doesn’t have a house in France.’
‘We believe that she does, and according to our source it’s quite a luxurious second home. Five bedrooms and a pool, no less. At least, that is what she told a friend last year. That kind of set-up doesn’t come cheap in the south of France.’
