The Disobedient Mistress

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Colouring and confused by what she could not explain to her own satisfaction, Misty climbed into the van in Brewsters’ car park and drove to the premises she rented on the outskirts of town. There she joined her three staff in the clean-up operation that concluded every working day. It was after five by the time she locked up and all she could think about was how her business had become so vulnerable that one lost contract could finish it off.

Carlton Catering was just over a year old. She had started out small, doing private dinner parties and the occasional wedding. Nothing too fancy, nothing too big and her overheads had been low. But when, five months ago, her supplier had mentioned that there was a tender coming out for providing lunches at Brewsters, the biggest, swankiest company on the industrial estate, she had been eager to put in a bid and expand. On the strength of that trial contract, she had borrowed to buy another van and upgrade her equipment.

However, disaster had struck soon afterwards. Her premises had been vandalised and the damage had been extensive but her insurance company had refused to pay out, arguing that her security precautions had been inadequate. That had been a bitter and unexpected blow, for the repairs had wiped out her cash reserve and from that point on she had been struggling to stay afloat.

‘Your need to reduce your personal expenditure to offset that loss,’ her bank manager had warned her only six weeks earlier. ‘In spite of your cash-flow problems, you’re continuing to pay the mortgage on a house that doesn’t belong to you. I respect your generosity towards Mrs Pearce, but you must be realistic about the extent of the drain on your own resources.’

But sometimes being realistic utterly failed to take account of circumstances and emotional ties like love and loyalty, Misty reflected painfully as she drove home. Birdie Pearce lived in a rambling old country house called Fossetts, which had belonged to her late husband Robin’s family for generations. Unable to have children of their own, Robin and Birdie had chosen to become foster parents instead. For over thirty years the kindly couple had opened their home and devoted their lives to helping countless difficult and disturbed children.

Misty had been one of those foster kids and she too had been unhappy, bitter and distrustful when she had first gone to Fossetts. She had been twelve years old, hiding behind a tough front of not caring where she lived or who looked after her, but Birdie and Robin had worked hard to gain her trust and affection. They had transformed her life by giving her security and having faith in her, and that was a debt she knew that she could never repay but, above all, it was a loving debt, not a burden.

For the past fourteen months, a fair proportion of Misty’s earnings had gone towards ensuring that Birdie could remain in her own home. Not that Birdie knew that even yet, for her husband had once managed their finances and Misty had taken over that task after the older man’s death. Misty had been shocked to discover that Fossetts was mortgaged to the hilt. When Robin’s investments had failed and money had become tight, he had borrowed on the house without mentioning the matter to anyone.

Now over seventy, Birdie had a bad heart and she was on the waiting list for the surgery that would hopefully ensure that she lived well into old age. But in the short term, without that surgery, Birdie was very vulnerable and her consultant had emphasised how important it was that Birdie should enjoy a stress-free existence. Birdie loved her home and it was also her last link with Robin, whom she had adored. From the outset, Misty’s objective had been to protect the older woman from the financial worry that might bring on another heart attack. But even Misty had not appreciated just how much it would cost to keep Fossetts running for Birdie’s sake.

It was a tall, rather Gothic house with a steep pitched roof and quaint attic windows. Built in the nineteen twenties, it sat in a grove of stately beech trees fronted by a rough meadow. Parking the van, Misty suppressed a troubled sigh. Fossetts was beginning to look neglected. The grounds no longer rejoiced in a gardener. The windows needed to be replaced and the walls were crying out for fresh paint. Although it was far from being a mansion, it was still too big a house to be maintained on a shoestring.

Yet the minute Misty stepped into the wood-panelled front hall, she felt for a moment as though all the troubles of the day had slipped from her shoulders. On a worn side table an arrangement of overblown roses filled the air with their sweet scent and dropped their petals. She walked down to the kitchen, which was original to the house and furnished with built-in pine dressers and a big white china sink.

Nancy was making salad sandwiches for tea. A plump woman in her late fifties, Nancy was a cousin of Robin’s, who had come to live at Fossetts and help out with the children almost twenty years earlier. These days, she looked after Birdie.

‘Birdie’s in the summer house,’ Nancy said cheerfully. ‘We’re going to have tea outside.’

Misty managed to smile. ‘Sounds lovely. Can I help?’

‘No. Go and keep Birdie company.’

It was a beautiful warm June evening but Birdie was wrapped in a blanket, for she felt the cold no matter how good the weather. She was a tiny woman, only four feet eleven inches tall and very slight in build. Her weathered face was embellished by a pair of still-lively blue eyes. ‘Isn’t the garden beautiful?’ she sighed appreciatively.

Misty surveyed the dappled shade cast by the trees, the lush green grass of early summer and the soft pink fading show of the rhododendron blooms. It was indeed a tranquil scene. ‘How have you been today?’

Birdie, who hated talking about her health, ignored the question. ‘I had visitors. The new vicar and his wife. They’ve hardly been living here five minutes and already they’ve heard those silly rumours about how I’ve been reduced to genteel poverty by some greedy former foster child.’ Birdie tilted her greying head to one side, bright eyes exasperated. ‘Such nonsense and so I pointed out. Where on earth are these stories coming from?’

‘That business with Dawn, I expect. Someone’s heard something about that and got the wrong end of the stick.’ Misty neglected to add that the more curious of the locals had evidently noted the visible decline in the Pearce fortunes and put the worst possible interpretation on it. But then over the years that the Pearces had fostered, more than one pessimistic neighbour had forecast that they would live to regret taking on such ‘bad’ children.

And sadly, the previous year, Dawn, who had once been fostered by the Pearces, had come to visit and had stolen all Birdie’s jewellery. Birdie had refused to prosecute because Dawn had been a drug addict in a pitiful state. Since then, yielding to Birdie’s persuasions and her own longing to reclaim her life, Dawn had completed a successful rehabilitation programme but none of the jewellery had been recovered.

‘Why do people always want to think the worst?’ Birdie looked genuinely pained for she herself always liked to think the very best of others.

‘No, they don’t,’ Misty soothed.

‘Well, what have you got to tell me today about that handsome Sicilian at Brewsters? I would love to get a peek at a genuine business tycoon. I’ve never seen one except on television,’ Birdie said naively, for all the world as though Leone Andracchi were on a level with a rare animal.

Misty smiled at the little woman, but a great surge of loving tenderness made her eyes prickle and she had to look away. She told herself that she ought to be copying Birdie’s sunny optimism, turning her problems round until a silver lining appeared in the clouds. And, lo and behold, Leone Andracchi began looking more like their saviour! So why the heck was she still festering with anguished loathing over one stupid kiss? Was she turning into an appalling prude?

‘Actually…Mr Andracchi’s offered me work in London.’ Misty’s gaze was veiled, for she could not have looked Birdie in the eye and told that partial truth. ‘How would you feel about me going away for a month or two?’

‘To work for a handsome millionaire? Ecstatic!’ Birdie teased after she had recovered from her surprise at that sudden announcement.

After tea, Misty went upstairs and opened the wardrobe which contained the clothing that Flash had insisted on buying her in an effort to lift her out of her depression after Philip had broken off their engagement. Fancy frivolous designer garments that had not seen the light of day in over two years. She selected a turquoise faux snakeskin skirt and top and a pair of spiky-heeled shoes. After a quick bath, she dug out her cosmetics, which dated from the same period and which had been similiarly shelved after she had said goodbye to her brief foray into Flash’s glitzy, unreal world.

Flash had transformed her into a rock-star chick and she had learned how to make the best of her looks. Not that it had been much comfort then to see a sexy, daring image in the mirror when the man that she had loved had rejected her. It had wrecked things between her and Flash too, she acknowledged with pained regret. The day Flash had made her fanciable on his own terms had seemed to be the beginning of the end of their friendship. He had stopped thinking of her as a sister, stopped seeing her as the skinny little kid who had shared the same foster home with him for almost five years and had decided that he wanted more.

Making use of the elderly car that only Nancy used now, Misty drove over to the country house hotel where Leone Andracchi was staying. The gracious foyer exuded expensive exclusivity, and when she enquired at the desk she was informed that Leone was in the dining room.

While she hovered, working out whether she ought to wait or seek him out in the midst of his meal, a fair-haired male emerged from the lounge bar and stopped dead at the sight of her, reacting in a similiar vein to the doorman, who had surged to open the door for her, and the male receptionist, who had tripped over a waste-paper basket in his haste to attend to her.

‘Misty…?’

For a split second, Misty thought she was dreaming for, even though it had been three years since she had heard it, she recognised that hesitant, well-bred voice immediately and she spun round in shock. ‘ Philip?’

‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.’ Philip Redding stared at her; indeed, his inability to stop staring was marked. ‘How a-are you?’ he stammered.

‘Fine…’ Her lips barely moved as her silver-grey eyes lingered on him for, although they still lived within miles of each other, she had been careful to avoid places where they had been likely to meet and, apart from seeing his car on the road occasionally, had been very successful in ensuring that they had not run into each other again.

‘You look…you look quite incredible.’ His colour heightened as he found himself forced to tilt his head back to meet her gaze. ‘I’ve often thought of calling in at Fossetts—’

‘With your wife and children?’ Misty enquired in brittle disbelief.

Philip paled and stiffened. ‘Just the one child…Helen and I are getting a divorce, actually…it didn’t work out.’

Twenty feet away, Leone Andracchi stilled, stunned by the vision of Misty Carlton shorn of her shapeless grey suit. With her wealth of copper hair tumbling loose, eyes that gleamed like polished silver were soft on the face of the man she was regarding, her wide peach tinted mouth parted to show pearly teeth. Leone could not quite work out what she was wearing. The top seemed to be held up by the narrow chains bisecting her slight shoulders. The rich fabric gleamed beneath the lights accentuating the thrust of her breasts, the slender indent of her waist, and screeched to a death-defying halt above long, long, endless legs capable of stopping traffic.

‘Misty…?’

Taken aback by Philip’s blunt admission that his marriage was heading for the divorce courts, Misty shifted her attention to the tall dark male poised several feet away. Leone Andracchi. She collided with sizzling golden eyes that seemed to burn up all the available oxygen in the atmosphere and instantly she tensed, butterflies fluttering in her tummy. But even as she reacted to his vibrant presence her mind was marching on to make uneasy comparisons between the two men. Leone was much taller, more powerfully built and strikingly dark next to Philip with his boyish fair good looks.

‘Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, amore,’ Leone murmured smooth as silk, moving to her side to place an infuriatingly possessive hand on her spine.

‘Philip Redding…’ Philip shot out a hand with all the easy friendliness that was natural to him. ‘Misty and I are old friends.’

‘How fascinating,’ Leone drawled in a tone of crushing boredom that made the younger man flush. ‘Unfortunately, Misty and I are running late.’

‘Look, I’ll call you,’ Philip told Misty, giving Leone a bewildered look, quite out of his depth when faced with such a complete lack of answering courtesy.

‘Don’t waste your time,’ Leone advised before Misty could respond, shooting Philip a derisive glance of cold menace as he pressed her over to the lift and hit the call button with one stab of a punitive finger. ‘She won’t be available.’

Her face flaming but her lips sealed, for she could not intervene when she did not want Philip to phone Fossetts and upset Birdie, Misty stalked into the lift while listening to Philip mutter in disconcerted response, ‘Well, I must say…really, for goodness’ sake…’

‘Do you like behaving like the playground bully?’ Misty enquired dulcetly as the lift doors whirred shut.

‘While you’re with me, you don’t talk to other men…you don’t even look at other men,’ Leone delivered with simmering emphasis.

Misty clashed head-on with brilliant golden eyes that went straight for the jugular and a bone-deep charge of grateful excitement surged through her long, slender length for the very last thing she wanted to think about just then was Philip, whose rejection had torn her apart with grief and despair for longer than she cared to recall. ‘Is that a fact?’

‘Particularly old flames…’ Leone decreed, impervious to sarcasm.

Misty tilted her copper head back and shrugged a slim shoulder, glorious silver eyes wide and mocking, the knot of sexual tension he had already awakened licking through her like a dangerous drug in her bloodstream. ‘Then you had better watch me well.’

‘No. I’m paying for total fidelity and the illusion that you have eyes for no other man,’ Leone imparted without hesitation. ‘Flirting with Redding was out of line.’

‘Flirting…?’ An involuntary laugh empty of humour was wrenched from Misty, the emotions roused by that unfortunate encounter with her ex-fiancé breaking loose of her control. ‘Philip’s the last man alive I’d flirt with!’

‘I saw the way you looked at him,’ Leone said with grim clarity.

‘And how was that?’ Misty queried unevenly, curious in spite of herself.

‘Do I need to draw pictures?’

Her silver-grey eyes darkened as a shard of bitter pain from the past assailed her but she veiled her gaze in self-protection. So for an instant she had recalled happier times when Philip had meant the world to her, but those days were very far behind her. And why was she so sure of that reality? Three years earlier, she had only been engaged to Philip for six weeks when a drunk driver had crashed into Philip’s car. Although Philip had sustained only a concussion, Misty had suffered internal injuries and had required surgery. Afterwards she had learned that she might never be able to conceive a child and Philip had found the threat of a childless future impossible to accept. But never let it be said that Philip was unfeeling: after all, he had had tears in his eyes when he’d ditched her, when he’d told her that he’d still loved her but that she wasn’t really a proper woman any more…

‘Redding was all over you like a rash—’

‘He didn’t even touch me!’

‘He didn’t get the chance.’

As Leone rested a lean hand on Misty’s spine to prompt her out of the lift again, she jerked away and flung her bright head high, sending him a warning look from bright silver eyes. ‘I don’t see an audience, so keep your hands to yourself!’

CHAPTER THREE

MISTY’S eyes leapt in skittish mode round the luxurious hotel suite while she struggled to disguise the fact that her whole body wanted to shake as if she were a leaf in a high wind.

She could not credit that that brief meeting with Philip should have brought so many wounding memories to the surface and destabilised her to such an extent. But then she had worked long and hard to bury all that pain, to rise above the cruel concept that fertility was the sole measure of femininity, and had learned to focus on another future other than that of a husband and a family.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Leone Andracchi enquired.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Possibly it might calm your nerves—’

Misty whirled round in a surge of fury that erupted so suddenly it made her feel dizzy with the strength of it. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my nerves! Stop trying to put me down—’

Brilliant dark golden eyes rested on her. ‘So the wimp upset you—’

‘Don’t talk about Philip like that…you don’t know him.’

‘I don’t need to,’ Leone purred, surveying her with sardonic amusement. ‘He showed himself up.’

Misty threw back her head, copper hair flying back from her flushed cheekbones. ‘No, I think you did. I don’t like aggressive men.’

A slow, winging smile slanted his wide, sensual mouth. She had the maddening suspicion that, far from her drawing blood with her retaliation, he was actually enjoying the exchange. ‘I’m not aggressive…I’m strong and you like that.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

A winged ebony brow quirked. ‘Don’t you?’

She could feel the tense silence buzzing around her. Her mouth had run dry and her heart was thumping like a trapped bird against her ribs. She looked at him: so very tall and lean with the sleek, honed, muscular build and grace of a natural athlete. His cropped, slightly curly black hair gleamed in the lamp light that picked out every fabulous angle of his bone structure, accentuating the carved cheekbones, the hollows beneath, the firm, sensual line of his mouth. Drop-dead gorgeous, as she had been refusing to acknowledge from the moment he’d appeared in the downstairs foyer and shadowed Philip like Everest looming over a bump in the lawn.

Entrapped by those smouldering dark golden eyes, she could look nowhere else and every breath that quivered through her felt like a huge effort. The taut peaks of her breasts ached and a sliding, curling sensation low in her pelvis made her tighten her thighs. Her knees had developed a slight tremor and all the time she was aware only of the almost terrifying rise of anticipation that took account of nothing but the fierce longing gripping her.

‘You want me…I want you, but it’s not going to happen,’ Leone breathed in a charged undertone that rasped down her sensitive spine like a roughened caress. ‘This is strictly business and we don’t need to make it complicated.’

Stark disconcertion rippled through Misty. She felt stripped naked, exposed. Urgent words of proud denial brimmed on her lips until she saw the way his burning gaze was homed in on her mouth and she trembled, the excitement climbing again, mindless and without conscience.

‘Business…’ Leone repeated thickly.

Someone rapped on the door and, although the knock was light, Misty flinched, dredged from her fever with a sense of guilty embarrassment. As the door opened and a young man appeared with a file in his hand she turned to stare out the window, breathing in slow and deep, fighting to still the nervous tremors currenting through her. Nobody had ever had so powerful an effect on her and it was starting to scare her: it was as if she had no control over herself around him, as if her brain went walkabout. But he was feeling that pull too. That shook her, surprised her, made her feel a little less mortified. Although she knew that the worst thing she could do would be to lower her guard around a male like Leone Andracchi, the knowledge that the attraction was mutual still made her feel better about herself, better than she had felt in a long time.

The door snapped shut and she turned back.

‘This is the agreement I mentioned.’ Leone extended a document. ‘Read it and then sign.’

Misty accepted the document. ‘And if I don’t sign?’

‘We don’t have a deal.’

She sat down and began to read. It was typical employment contract stuff, no mention of her pretending to be his mistress or of clothes or apartments either. However, there was a clause that said she would forfeit all benefits and payments if she tried to walk out before he considered the job complete. She didn’t like, that but her attention was caught by the sum of cash he was offering in return and that amount bereft her of breath. Enough money to keep the mortgage on Fossetts ticking over for the next year and more, as well as allowing sufficient funds to settle her outstanding bills and cover staff salaries during her absence.

Cheeks burning, Misty swallowed hard and looked up. ‘You’re being very generous…but what am I supposed to think about this bit that says I can’t walk out on this without your agreement?’

‘You may think what you like,’ Leone murmured levelly, ‘but I assure you that the position won’t entail anything either immoral, illegal or dangerous.’

None the wiser, but still troubled that he saw the necessity of making that stipulation, Misty lifted the pen from the table in front of her. He wasn’t going to explain himself and she couldn’t afford to throw away the only lifebelt on offer.

‘Wait…’ Striding back to the door, Leone called the young man back in to witness her signature and his own.

Such devotion to legal detail rather unnerved Misty. When the document was duly removed, she smoothed her damp palms down over her skirt. ‘Now what?’

‘Just a few details. I’ll send a car to pick you up at nine on Monday—’

‘This Monday coming?’ Misty questioned. ‘That’s only six days from now—’

‘I want this show up and running for the following weekend.’ Leone settled a notepad down on the coffee-table. ‘Make a note of your measurements. You need a new wardrobe.’