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‘Joe needs me,’ Isabel delivered, with a suspicious look at the tall, broad Italian.
‘I’ll be all right. You should come back later,’ her husband urged, reaching out a hand to grasp his wife’s in a reassuring gesture.
Valente noted the glitter of tears in Isabel’s gaze and registered that she had a human side after all. For all her seeming superficiality and affectation, she was deeply attached to her husband.
Isabel was stiff and sore after sitting for so long, and required her daughter’s support to stand up and walk with her stick. She spoke to the ward sister on the way out, and they left the hospital at a much slower pace than when they had arrived. Caroline was amazed that her mother had agreed to accept a lift home from Valente, but, spotting the tremulous line of the older woman’s mouth, recognised that her energy resources were dwindling.
Once Isabel Hales became aware that Valente’s preferred mode of travel was a limousine, with accompanying security staff, she was much more forthcoming and chatty. Caroline was astonished when her mother broke into animated conversation and smiled, as if Valente was an old friend rather than someone she had only recently professed to despise. It soon dawned on her that her mother was hopelessly impressed by Valente’s evident wealth and she was mortified, painfully conscious that Valente was quite capable of making the same shameful and embarrassing deduction.
Having insisted on assisting her mother from the car and walking her to the front door, Valente rested a lean, possessive hand on Caroline’s slight shoulder and bent down to say, ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow.’
Looking up to find black-lashed dark golden eyes intent on her, Caroline trembled and felt the pound of her heartbeat behind her breastbone. All of a sudden it was a challenge to speak or breathe, and instinct made her pull away as if he was crowding her—which indeed he was. ‘There’s no need.’
‘There’s every need,’ Valente contradicted, without a second of hesitation.
‘I’ll be at the hospital with Dad.’
‘But you will hardly be there all day,’ Isabel Hales interposed in a tone of admonishment.
‘I have an order of jewellery to finish before Friday,’ Caroline added tautly, incredulous at her mother’s sudden alarming change in attitude.
‘We’ll have dinner together tomorrow evening, bella mia. I’ll send the car to pick you up at seven,’ Valente countered.
‘Mum, what are you doing?’ Caroline pressed in a driven undertone the instant the front door had flipped shut behind the two women.
‘What are you doing?’ Isabel enquired in dulcet return. ‘Your one-time lorry driver is now filthy rich and just as keen as he ever was …’
‘Of course he isn’t!’ Caroline snapped, bending down to pet Koko, who had come bounding up gracefully to greet her return.
The older woman gave her an amused glance. ‘This is not the time to be shy, Caro. I saw how he looks at you. He owns our business. He owns our home. You’re working your fingers to the bone with that wretched jewellery enterprise and you’re as poor as a church mouse. A rich husband would solve all our problems very nicely.’
‘No—no, he wouldn’t!’ Caroline repudiated that audacious suggestion with rare vehemence, causing her mother to raise a minatory brow. ‘I’ve got no intention of ever marrying again!’
‘Not all men are like Matthew,’ Isabel said drily as Caroline was heading for the stairs.
With Koko cradled in her arms and purring like a steam engine, Caroline stilled and slowly turned round. ‘What do you mean by that?’
In the act of walking into the sitting room, Isabel heaved a sigh. ‘Naturally I knew that Matthew had other … shall we say … interests? The PA with the large chest whom he hired at such great expense? The blowsy barmaid down at The Swan? The garage-owner’s wife? Need I continue?’
‘No. I had no idea you knew. You never said anything.’ The delicate bones of Caroline’s face had set hard, and a sense of deep humiliation was creeping over her. Her mother’s calmness as she took a seat amazed her daughter almost as much as the extent of her knowledge about her late son-in-law’s extra-marital affairs. As her grip on the elegant Siamese cat tightened, Koko made a little cry of complaint and leapt down to the carpet to stalk angrily away, tail held rigidly upright to express her disapproval.
‘It was none of my business—’ Isabel contended.
Something sharp pierced Caroline and freed up her temper. ‘Wasn’t it?’ she interrupted, with a bitterness that she usually kept hidden. ‘You raved about Matthew. You thought he was perfect because he had a private education and a well-bred accent. You never looked beyond the surface. You persuaded me that my friendship with Matthew would make a much batter basis for marriage than what you called my “wild infatuation” with Valente!’
As Caroline’s voice rose in volume, Isabel frowned. ‘Control yourself, Caro. I’m willing to admit that Matthew was something of a disappointment as a son-in-law, but you could hardly expect me to have guessed that he had a secret fetish for sluttish women with big bosoms!’
White as a sheet at that unexpectedly blunt reminder of her late husband’s preferences, Caroline quivered with the fierceness of the emotions she was fighting to suppress. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you knew? It would have made such a difference to me if I’d been able to confide in you.’
‘I wouldn’t have wanted to discuss something so distasteful. You already knew what to do. Like a sensible wife, you turned a blind eye. It was nothing to do with me.’ For the second time, Isabel denied any responsibility.
Caroline spun away, her eyes burning. She had not initially chosen to turn a blind eye. Matthew had refused to tolerate what he’d angrily labelled as ‘interference’ in his private life. Time and time again her husband had reminded her that she was an abnormal wife, and that she had driven him into seeking out other women who could give him what he needed. And the women Matthew had found truly attractive had been the very opposite of Caroline—outgoing, sexually skilled and voluptuous women, willing to try everything that Caroline was not. Just thinking about how trapped she had felt with him, once he was running her family’s business and seemingly the very apple of their eyes, made Caroline feel nauseous.
‘You and Matthew had so much in common. It should’ve been a match made in heaven. His parents certainly thought so,’ Isabel remarked with regret. ‘And we thought Matthew would be perfect for our needs as well.’
Caroline’s brow pleated. ‘Your needs?’ she queried.
‘Don’t be naïve, Caro,’ Isabel censured. ‘Naturally we always hoped you’d bring home a husband who could take over the firm for us. Matthew was from the right background and he had great management experience.’
Caroline was studying the older woman in growing horror. ‘Is that why you were so keen on me marrying him?’
‘You were very attached to him. You’d known him all your life.’
‘Why did Matthew’s parents suddenly decide to invest in Hales when we got married?’ Caroline cut in tightly.
‘They wanted him to settle down, and we were all keen for him to take over the business. It was a natural development.’
‘Was it really?’ her daughter replied, less than convinced, belatedly conscious that her marriage had included an ‘understanding’ and a business angle between the two families that she had remained utterly unaware of at the time.
‘Giles Sweetman was already nearing retirement when he left us, and your father thought the firm was ready for a shake-up. Matthew was young and dynamic.’
‘So the Baileys only invested in the firm because Matthew was taking over as manager. Is that the only reason he wanted to marry me?’
An angry flush marked the older woman’s cheeks. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Caro. Matthew loved you—’
‘No,’ Caroline cut in flatly. ‘He never loved me. I can assure you of that. But he had expensive tastes, and his parents were getting tired of keeping him. I can see that back then it would’ve seemed worth his while to marry me when I was coming to him with Hales as a dowry.’
‘My goodness, what an imagination you have!’ Isabel exclaimed. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
Caroline choked back the furious words ready to leap on to her tongue and gritted her teeth, for she could see no point in arguing about a marriage that was no longer in existence. ‘I’m going up to bed now.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you.’
‘No, you’ve never understood me,’ Caroline said painfully.
‘Oh, don’t go all pathetic,’ Isabel sniped in exasperation. ‘Your father and I thought we were doing the very best we could for you when we encouraged you to marry Matthew—you used to call him your best friend!’
‘I loved Valente,’ Caroline said shakily, a great frightening wave of emotion washing through her.
‘And going by what I saw today you can still have him … if you’re clever enough to reel him in again,’ Isabel responded with superior amusement.
Caroline got into bed and cried for her own stupidity, while Koko made plaintive cries in sympathy. Caroline saw that five years earlier she had got caught like a fly in a spider’s web. Both sets of parents had had a good reason for encouraging a marriage between their offspring. The Haleses had got a healthy investment sum to bolster their transport firm, in return for the assurance that Matthew would soon be in charge of it and its ultimate owner as their son-in-law. The Baileys had wanted a safe niche for Matthew, who had demonstrated a worrying inability to settle down to one job and stick to it, and of course they had also wanted a grandchild. Only Caroline had been too naïve to spot the reality that her marriage was much more a business agreement than a relationship between two people. It infuriated and shamed her that she had not had the wit to see that background at the time.
She spent a good deal of the following day with her father, waiting patiently while he underwent tests and soothing him in the aftermath, for he hated being told to rest. Early afternoon she returned home to her workshop, to finish the order she had to complete. It was only when that was achieved that she allowed herself to recall that she was due to have dinner with Valente in less than an hour.
‘Are you only bothering to get ready now?’ Isabel snapped in disbelief when she saw her daughter heading upstairs. ‘You look a total mess!’
‘Thanks,’ Caroline replied.
‘Even beautiful girls have to make an effort,’ the older woman scolded. ‘You haven’t had your hair done, or your nails.’
Caroline gazed down stonily at her mother. ‘The only thing you ever had against Valente was that he was poor. Now he’s rich he’s acceptable—more than acceptable.’
‘If you intend to keep on harping back to the past, I’ve got nothing more to say to you. But you need to make more of an effort to hold on to a man, Caro,’ Isabel spelt out sharply. ‘Maybe Matthew would have stayed home more often if you had paid more attention to your grooming.’
Such words spoken by her mother, who must have known all along how unhappy her daughter was in her marriage, stung Caroline like a hard slap in the face. She continued up to her bedroom and rifled the wardrobe without much interest to find something to wear. There was nothing stylish. Matthew, so profligate in his own habits and tastes away from home, had insisted that his wife wore plain clothes in the style his mother wore: skirts and sweaters, stiff formal dresses. She yanked out a cream brocade long-sleeved dress and jacket she had once worn to a wedding and went for a shower.
Matthew, she recognised for the first time, had been a bully, who had sapped her of energy and fight by continually undermining her. Her in-laws had blamed her for his constant absences, often suggesting that a child would have kept him home more. Caroline rather thought that a child would have made Matthew, who had been so determined not to grow up, run for the hills. Her marriage had been a blame game in which she’d been held responsible for everyone else’s sins and disappointments. And she would never know whether Matthew would have remained faithful if she had not been frigid in bed. Frigid. Such an awful, inappropriate word, Caroline reflected while she dried her hair and straightened it. It didn’t seem to her that that word came anywhere near describing the awful squirming panic and fear that consumed her at the threat of sex. She shivered, thinking again that it was so very typical of Valente to want what he could not have.
With a modicum of make-up applied, Caroline slid her feet into low-heeled cream shoes and went down to climb into the waiting limousine. Before she left her mother called her into the sitting room to say, ‘I’ll understand if you’re very late, but if you’ll take my advice you’ll be very restrained in your behaviour.’
Caroline almost laughed out loud with a scorn that was new to her. Here was her manipulative mother, telling her with the utmost hypocrisy that it was all right to sleep with Valente but that she believed saying no would keep him more safely hooked. But now it was her father whom Caroline was most concerned about, as he had none of her mother’s steel. If Hales shut down he would take it hard, because he would blame himself for the predicament of his former employees. What would that stress and sense of responsibility do to his heart? Caroline had to confront the risk that her father might die before he underwent the surgery that would prolong his life, and that awareness shook her up badly.
Valente watched Caroline cross the dining room to join him. Her outfit, a good deal less daring than the dress she had worn the night before, was fashioned of heavy brocade, covering her to wrist, throat and knee, and was as shapeless as a tube, barely hinting that there might be a female body beneath. Her hair, however, lay like a glossy cloud on her shoulders and framed her exquisite face. He met her huge grey eyes across the floor and recognised that she was as on edge as a condemned prisoner being herded to the gallows. It was an image that both disturbed and offended a man accustomed to female admiration and desire.
Caroline recognised the dark glow of appreciation in Valente’s intent gaze. It intimidated her, unnerved her, only reminding her of her own inability to respond. She was all covered up, nothing on show, but her modest apparel had failed to snuff out his interest.
‘That dress is so horrible I just want to rip it off you,’ Valente confided while Caroline was attempting to peruse the menu handed to her.
Caroline paled and lifted eyes that were so frankly fearful to his lean, darkly handsome face that he was pushed into adding, ‘That was a joke … okay? A joke with a sting, piccola mia. I look forward to seeing you dressed in designer clothes that fit you properly.’
‘I’ve lost weight since Matthew died … hardly anything I have fits,’ she confided, some of her tension easing at that explanation even while the frightening image of having her clothes ripped off struck her as ridiculous and finally faded from her mind.
He scored a lean forefinger over the back of her clenched hand, where it rested on the polished wood of the table. She trembled, feeling the tingling effect of his light touch the whole length of her arm. ‘Try to relax. You’re making me nervous.’
‘I didn’t think that was possible.’
‘With you, anything is possible,’ Valente riposted. ‘Are you worried about your father?’
Caroline grimaced. ‘Of course I am. He needs surgery urgently.’
‘But he is being treated by a state hospital, where there is probably a waiting list for such operations, and he will need to build up his strength before he can have one,’ Valente reminded her, for he had been present when her mother had spoken to the consultant the day before. ‘I could pay for that surgery privately, and your father could have it as soon as he was ready.’
Sheer surprise made Caroline blink, before focusing intently on his bronzed features and the stunning golden eyes fixed to her. ‘I can’t believe you’re offering me something like that—’
‘Why not? Whatever it takes, I want you back in my life.’
Her smooth brow indented, for he was so far removed from her in his way of thinking that she was appalled. ‘But you can’t bargain with people’s lives, Valente. Nobody should do that.’
Valente lounged back in his chair, black-lashed eyes reduced to a daunting sliver of hot gold resolve and challenge. ‘Whatever it takes,’ he repeated silkily, stubbornly unrepentant.
And that was the moment Caroline realised that he had made her an offer she could not in all conscience refuse …
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU’VE won,’ Caroline conceded in a driven admission. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep my father alive.’
‘That’s admirable, gioia mia. I admire loyalty,’ Valente countered smoothly. ‘That only leaves the terms to be discussed.’
Caroline wanted to empty the water jug over him, because he made no attempt to hide his strong satisfaction. Winning meant a great deal to Valente Lorenzatto, and he scared her because his ruthlessness appeared to respect no boundaries. By ‘terms’, he meant mistress or wife. He was driving her in a direction she did not want to go. For her own safety, she needed an arrangement which could not be set aside in the space of a moment. A mistress was too easily discarded—and she was convinced that he would quickly want to discard her, cutting her out of his life as quickly as he had come back into hers.
Valente wanted and expected only pleasure from her sex. In the past, women had fawned over him for his dark, sexy good-looks and potent personality. Sixth sense had warned her even then that he had enjoyed many conquests. Now, with the addition of wealth and position, Valente had to be downright irresistible to her sex. After all, even she was not totally impervious to his magnetic attraction. Although coping with a few gentle kisses was a far different challenge from sharing a bed and the ultimate intimacy with him, she acknowledged apprehensively.
The first course was served. Held by the dark shrewd gleam of Valente’s unyielding gaze, Caroline pushed the plate away.
‘Eat,’ he urged immediately, reaching across the table to push the plate back towards her again. ‘You’re as thin as a cardboard cut-out.’
Her face flamed. ‘I’m naturally thin.’
‘When I lifted you last night, you felt as light as a child in my arms.’
‘Your concern is nonsensical. I’m quite happy with myself the way I am,’ Caroline told him tartly, wondering if his tastes in women ran in the same direction as her late husband’s. She shuddered at the recollection of Matthew’s cruelly cutting comments about her boyish lack of curves.
‘If you’re planning to demand that I marry you, you’ll need to be a healthy weight to conceive,’ Valente pointed out coolly. ‘But I hope that isn’t the option you’re thinking of choosing.’
‘Why?’ Caroline asked starkly.
Valente slotted a knife and fork into her empty hands with military precision and no lack of determination. ‘I’m being honest. I don’t want to marry you. I’m not the same person I was five years ago. I don’t think the same. I don’t feel the same, either.’
Hotly flushed in receipt of that blunt rejection, coming at her even before she had voiced her own feelings, Caroline breathed, ‘You’re telling me. You used to be much warmer and more caring.’
‘Only those sterling qualities didn’t get you to the church on time,’ Valente fired back with sardonic bite, watching her eyes fall from his in discomfiture. He smiled a razor-edged smile. ‘I don’t want a wife. I want a mistress. I will be much more generous if you come to me on my terms.’
Caroline swallowed hard and skimmed her gaze round the dining room, noting that several women were looking in their direction, with Valente providing the focus for their attention. Other women would always want him, she reflected unhappily. And now she was about to work a confidence trick on him—because, while she might rail against his ruthlessness, wasn’t it dishonest of her to opt for marriage when she knew that she was unlikely to consummate it? Shame filled her, closely backed by fear, for she dreaded entering the minefield of matrimony again and the threatening challenge of the marital bed.
Valente watched her, trying to read the significance of her lowered lashes and the quivering vulnerability of her very kissable ripe pink mouth. It had been a torture to lie beside her without touching her the previous night. He had only to imagine what he would do with her when he got the opportunity and his body hardened instantly, the fierce, urgent arousal that had already disturbed his sleep for two nights returning to dig talon claws of very real hunger into his tall, powerful frame. What was it about her that made her so much more sexually alluring than other women?
But marriage would be a ridiculously high price to pay for fulfilment, he conceded grimly. In all likelihood the slaking of his desire for her would result in a rapid cooling-off of his interest, and a wife was not as easily shed as a mistress. On the other hand a child from such a marriage would ensure that he did not have to tie himself down on a more permanent basis to another woman in the future. It was imperative that he have a child at some stage to continue the family line, protect the extensive Barbieri estates for the next generation, and take charge of his own vast business empire.
‘It would have to be marriage.’ Caroline had to force out her final answer, because cheating didn’t come naturally to her and she was convinced that what she was doing was just that. But he had offered to cover the cost of her father’s heart surgery, to let her parents remain at Winterwood, and to ensure that jobs were safe at Hales Transport. It was his own fault that he had heaped the scales so heavily in his own favour. How could she possibly turn him down? He had the power to turn all their lives around, but if she married him he would also have the power to destroy her and complete the task that Matthew had begun.
In negotiation mode, Valente studied her like a cat studied a mouse getting ready to make a break for freedom. ‘Why?’
Feeling too warm under such pressure, Caroline unbuttoned her jacket and slid out of it, revealing a tantalising amount of bare skin, for the dress beneath was not as modest in cut when she bent down to eat. ‘Dad would never accept the other option. He’s an old-fashioned man …’
‘Plenty of couples live together these days without a wedding ring.’ Valente feasted his eyes shamelessly on the stimulating view of the rounded globes of her breasts and imagined having the right to touch and stimulate that sweet soft flesh. If he married her she would always be available, not just waiting at the end of a phone line for his call. It was a seductive thought, and the pressure that built at his groin was an exquisite pain.
‘I don’t think I could trust you to keep your promises unless I was your wife,’ Caroline stated forthrightly, and set down her knife and fork, amazed to discover that she had cleared her plate.
Valente was shocked out of his erotic reverie by that comeback.
Her grey eyes were silvery pale as frost and full of challenge, her fragile bone structure tautly outlined below her fair skin.
‘You don’t trust me,’ he said, unamused.
‘You don’t trust me, either.’
‘I won’t be a great husband.’
