Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 14
ОглавлениеLUCIANO’S PHONE BUZZED into life after they landed, shooting out a string of text messages and missed calls, every one of which hailed from his British lawyer, Charles Bennett. His mouth quirking as he wondered what could possibly have prompted the relaxed Charles to such an uncharacteristic display of urgency, Luciano phoned the older man as soon as he stepped inside the airport.
‘I have the worst possible news for you. We’ve all been conned,’ Charles announced with rare drama the instant the call connected. ‘Jemima Barber is not the mother of your child—’
Luciano froze and waved an impatient hand at his bodyguards to silence their chatter while he listened. ‘That’s not possible,’ he declared.
‘I haven’t got all the details yet and I won’t waste your time with speculation but I believe that the mother of your child was one of an identical set of twins. She died when she was struck by a car a couple of months ago,’ the lawyer explained curtly.
Luciano was frowning darkly. ‘Which would mean—’
‘That at best our Jemima is an aunt to the boy and a con artist,’ Charles framed drily. ‘I have a top-flight set of investigators digging into this right now and I expect to have the whole story for you by this evening at the latest.’
‘How sure are you of these facts?’ Luciano prompted, watching Jemima detach his son’s clinging fingers from her hanging golden braid. Not Niccolò’s mother? How could that be? His brain, usually so fast to adapt to new scenarios, was for some reason still struggling to find solid ground in this shift of circumstances.
‘Take it from me—she’s definitely not the woman who gave birth to the boy. I now have that woman’s real name along with a copy of her death certificate. She called herself Julie Marshall. Matters are complicated by the fact that from the very beginning of your dealings with Julie, your son’s real mother was using Jemima Barber’s identity to hide behind.’
‘But why? You believe this was a conspiracy from the start?’
‘Who can tell? With one of them dead it’s doubtful that the full truth will ever be known,’ Charles pointed out cynically.
Rage began to shadow Luciano’s rational mind as the ramifications for his son began to filter into his thoughts. His son’s mother had deceived him and his staff from day one and now she was dead and, as such, untouchable. Luciano was his son’s only living relative. He refused to credit that an aunt could possibly have a claim to challenge his own. So, naturally, Jemima had not owned up to the truth. After all, her only way of making a profit through Niccolò was by pretending to be his birth mother.
As they climbed into a limousine outside the airport Luciano watched his son nestle trustingly into Jemima’s arms and then complain loudly at being placed in the car seat instead. His lean dark features shadowed. He was finally a parent and already he had failed. He had failed to protect his son from hurt. Niccolò had been encouraged to form a bond with his two-faced, duplicitous aunt and would be emotionally bereft when the woman disappeared from his world. Who did Luciano blame for the formation of that deceptive bond? Jemima Barber! She must’ve known from the outset that her only weapon would be the baby’s attachment to her. Niccolò was only a baby but he had already been tricked into bestowing affection where he should not. Luciano, in a rage beyond anything he had ever experienced, ground his even white teeth together while he pretended an interest in the emails on his tablet.
She was a lying, cheating prostituta with a stone for a heart! And just like her late sister, the only thing that greased the wheels in Jemima’s world was money. There was no other explanation for her behaviour! At any time she could have admitted the truth but she had preferred to lie and stage a scam to ensure that she wielded the greatest power she could and made the biggest possible profit out of her dishonesty. In ignorance Luciano had agreed to settle her debts—her sister’s debts?—and had made the mistake of offering her an all-expenses-paid trip to Sicily. And she would have even more cause to celebrate when she saw what awaited her at the castle...
Of course he didn’t want her now, he told himself fiercely. He wanted nothing more to do with her and out of sight would be out of mind. How long had it been since a woman put one over on him? He suppressed a shudder of all too fresh recollection. What did it say about him that the women who most attracted him were thoroughly immoral and unscrupulous characters? Was that some hangover from his ancestral forebears? Something dark and shady in his blood that slyly influenced his choices?
Although Jemima was trying not to stare at Luciano she was convinced that something unpleasant had happened. She had watched his lean, darkly handsome face freeze into rigidity while he was talking on the phone at the airport. Had he received bad news? Some business setback? Or something of a more personal nature? Jemima acknowledged how very little she actually knew about Luciano Vitale. He was a widower who had lost a wife and a daughter and that was the summit of her information. But whatever was amiss, Luciano’s jaw was rock hard with tension and he had barely acknowledged the existence of Jemima and his son since the jet had landed. Ironically, Nicky, who acted up whenever Luciano actively tried to get closer to him, now chose to stretch out an inviting hand towards his father, who might as well have been on another planet for all the interest he was showing in him. Still, there was yet another similarity between the two of them, Jemima reflected helplessly. Neither one of them could bear to be ignored...and ten to one that was exactly why Nicky was vying for attention now.
The limousine came to a halt and Jemima looked out of the window, surprised to see various aircraft parked. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘A private airfield. I use a helicopter to fly to my home,’ Luciano divulged, his firmly modelled lips compressing.
Jemima’s eyes widened in surprise. She had never been on a helicopter before and yet he evidently regularly used them just to travel home. Nothing could have more easily illustrated the vast gulf between their worlds. While they were boarding the helicopter, there was no further conversation, which was probably just as well because Jemima was concentrating on her exciting new experience.
As the helicopter took off Jemima peered out of the window to watch a slice of sea appear at a crazy angle. Her brow pleated in astonishment when the craft then flew out directly over the water. Where on earth were they going? Naturally she had assumed that Luciano’s home was either in a city or in the mountainous interior but as the minutes passed on their seabound journey it was clear that their destination could only be another island.
She watched land appear again with keen interest. A bright patchwork of forested slopes, olive groves and a vast brown building on the shoreline of a long beach appeared. The building had towers and turrets like a castle, and as the helicopter dropped down to land in the manicured grounds enclosed by tall boundary walls she realised that it was a genuine castle.
‘What’s this place called?’ she asked as she hopped down onto the grass and approached Luciano to take Nicky back off him.
‘Castello del Drogo. The island is named for it. I’ll keep him,’ Luciano told her, hoisting the sleepy baby against his shoulder in a blatantly protective movement, his eyes as dark and cool as the night sky and about as far from melting honey as eyes could get, she thought ruefully.
Refusing to be quieted by his discouraging coldness, Jemima smiled. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘A couple of years. It has the privacy I need. Intruders can only approach by sky or sea and both are monitored. I can walk by the sea here without fear of a camera appearing from the bushes,’ he spelt out flatly.
They got into the beach buggy waiting to waft them up to the doors of the castle. Jemima was smiling, her earlier concerns forgotten as she rejoiced in the warmth of late afternoon and the beautiful gardens surrounding them. It would be really interesting to stay in a castle, she thought absently, studying the imposing fortress before her. ‘How old is it?’
‘The oldest section is medieval, the youngest eighteenth century.’
They mounted shallow steps to the giant porticoed entrance where two women awaited their arrival. Both wore black, one of possibly pensioner age and the other around fortyish.
The hall was an imposing oval shape with a marble floor and black ebonised furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Jemima was silenced by the sheer splendour of the castle, especially when she compared it to her parents’ tiny retirement home. How could she ever have denied Nicky the wealthy lifestyle that his father evidently enjoyed?
‘Do you own the whole island?’ she whispered, unable to contain her curiosity.
‘Yes,’ he admitted in the sort of tone that implied that it was not a very big deal to own your own island, and in Jemima’s mind the gulf between them stretched even wider.
Luciano introduced the older woman as his housekeeper, Agnese, and the younger as her daughter and Nicky’s new nanny, Carlotta. He settled the baby into Carlotta’s arms and addressed her in Italian. Jemima reminded herself doggedly of her agreement to step back from Nicky as he was borne off screaming, presumably to be fed and put to bed. As Carlotta mounted the stairs Jemima could hear her talking softly and soothingly to the distressed baby and her concern eased a little.
‘Agnese will show you to your room,’ Luciano announced.
Agnese’s small creased face was as frozen as an ice sculpture. Telling herself that that was still preferable to a dirty look, Jemima followed the older woman upstairs and down a tiled passageway with ancient stone walls. Double doors were flung wide and light flooded across the most amazing bedroom Jemima had ever seen. Tall windows cast sunshine over the sumptuously hung four-poster bed. Gorgeous furniture vied with opulent fabric and a glorious floral arrangement to take her attention. Taken aback as she realised that the palatial room was for her use, Jemima hovered by the little table bearing the magnificent flowers and watched wide-eyed as an actual maid in a uniform appeared through one of the several additional doors to smile and stand back as though waiting to usher Jemima into the room she had vacated.
The housekeeper indicated with her hand that Jemima should take the invitation and Jemima obediently walked into a very large dressing room lined with built-in furniture. And that was when the show began. The maid began opening doors and rifling through hangers packed with garments to display them. Racks of shoes, drawers filled with silky lingerie and a dressing-table unit packed with cosmetics below a mirror surrounded by special lighting were duly shown off. Jemima’s jaw dropped while she attempted to work out what all these items could possibly have to do with her. The maid passed her a tiny gift envelope and she slid out the card.
With my compliments, Luciano.
Jemima blinked and looked again, fingers tightening round the card as it slowly sank in on her that she had not been measured up for a nanny uniform as she had assumed but for a new wardrobe. She broke out in perspiration, her jeans uncomfortably warm. Luciano had given her a vast new wardrobe and as she flipped with anxious hands through the nearest selection she realised that it was all designer stuff, filled with famous fashion labels that even she, who didn’t follow fashion, had heard of. She was gobsmacked, so gobsmacked that when the maid and the housekeeper departed she simply sank down on the boudoir chair by the dresser and stared back at her own unadorned face. Her face looked weird in the fancy lights, oddly bare and shocked, and she breathed in deep and stumbled upright to peel off her jeans before she could expire from heat exhaustion. In the bedroom she opened the suitcase she had travelled with and yanked out a cool cotton skirt to step into it.
But she still couldn’t think straight. Indeed all she could think about was the contents of the dressing room. What on earth had she done to give Luciano the impression that such an extravagant gesture would be welcome? Her tummy gave a nauseous flip and she shut her eyes tight, hot colour burning her cheeks. Oh, yes, she knew what she had done. She hadn’t said no when she should’ve. She hadn’t said yes either, she reflected numbly. She had simply let him do what he wished. And evidently that had been sufficient to encourage Luciano to go out and spend thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds to enable her to dress like a queen. Hands cool now with shock, she pressed them to her hot cheeks and groaned out loud. My goodness, what was she going to do?
She was supposed to be Julie and Julie would have been ecstatic. Julie had adored clothes and everything her sister wore had carried a logo. Jemima blinked and wandered back into the dressing room. She trailed an uncertain hand across the soft smooth briefs still visible in an open drawer and sighed heavily. The clothing had been tailored to her exact height and size, but how could she wear it? How could she possibly say thank you and just wear it?
Neither a borrower nor a lender be and being wary of unexpected gifts was how Jemima had been raised. She also knew that old adage about being true to oneself. And accepting such largesse when she had done nothing to deserve it ran contrary to her principles. She swallowed back a heartfelt groan while she surveyed the racks of shoes. If Jemima had a weakness, it was for shoes and she swore her toes tingled like a water diviner’s when she saw the cross-strapped green high heels studded with tiny twinkly stones. They called out to her feet and, kicking off her serviceable pumps, she slid her yearning toes into those tempting shoes. Yes, this was the way to be gracious, the only way not to throw all of Luciano’s generosity back in his teeth; she would accept one small item to show gratitude. Having bolstered herself with that argument, Jemima tottered downstairs in her wholly inappropriate footwear.
Agnese was waiting for her like a little old witch in the hall.
‘I’m looking for Luciano,’ Jemima announced with a pleasant smile.
Agnese was eying the frivolous shoes with rampant censure. ‘Il Capo is in the library.’
Il capo meant ‘the boss’, Jemima translated, having watched enough Godfather movies to recognise the lingo. Walking with precise but wobbling care in the direction of Agnese’s pointing hand, Jemima wondered if the new wardrobe had given Agnese the wrong idea about the precise nature of Jemima’s relationship with Luciano, and then she scolded herself for wondering, reckoning she had more to worry about than the suspicion that the staff had disliked her on sight.
* * *
Luciano had had four drinks in succession while he waited for Charles to call. His father had been a drinker and it was very rare for Luciano to drink to excess but his impatience to know the finer details of the scam was literally eating him alive. He couldn’t wait to confront Jemima but he would not do it until he knew everything there was to know about her. He was so angry with her, so bemused by the strange conflict tearing at him. He was in turmoil and he didn’t know why, which simply added another layer of hostile frustration to his mood.
Frowning at the sound of the knock on the library door, Luciano strode across the room to drag it open and discover who had dared to disturb him when he had requested peace. When he focused on Jemima’s glowing, eagerly smiling face, he found himself taking a step back because he was initially surprised to see that she was happy. But then she didn’t know yet that he knew. Of course she was happy, he ruminated bitterly, rage arrowing through him afresh. What else would she be but happy when he’d put her in a bedroom next door to his and given her a fortune in designer clothing? She was a gold-digger; naturally she was happy with her rewards. By bringing in Carlotta, he had even released Jemima from the burden of constant childcare and very probably she was even happier about the prospect of greater freedom as well...
‘Luciano...’ she said softly and then her eyes flew off him to dart round the book-filled shelves. ‘Oh, my, what a wonderful room! You are so lucky to have so much space for books,’ she remarked chirpily.
‘Is there a reason for your visit?’ Luciano enquired forbiddingly, his attention clinging to her when she lurched a little on her path towards his desk at the centre of the room. His gaze skated down over her back view, lingering with pleasure on the ripe, rounded curve of her bottom shaped by the stretchy, clinging texture of the skirt she wore. His attention was then unwillingly caught by the colourful, glittery and ridiculously high-heeled shoes she wore below the skirt. For some reason she had teamed incongruous party shoes with her drab outfit and she could hardly walk in them, he registered in surprise as she clutched the side of his desk to steady herself.
Jemima studied Luciano and any hint of clear thought wilfully evaded her. No male that extraordinarily gorgeous could possibly encourage rational reflection in a woman, she conceded ruefully. He looked so tense and angry. His cheekbones were starkly defined, the line of his strong jaw rock hard. Yes, something had definitely gone wrong in his life. She was knocked sideways by the sudden realisation that just as Nicky’s bad moods made her want to fix things for him, Luciano provoked the same need in her, only she didn’t for one moment think that a cuddle and a soothing bottle would provide a magic cure for whatever ailed him.
Yet she still could not resist the temptation to offer. ‘Can I help with whatever’s wrong?’
‘Why the hell would you think there’s something wrong?’ Luciano demanded harshly, hugely disconcerted by the question when in his experience other people couldn’t read him at all well.
‘Because there so obviously is,’ Jemima pointed out, wishing he didn’t have such stunning eyes. So dark and lustrous and sexy and absolute killers when fringed by black curling lashes into the bargain.
Unsettled by that assurance, Luciano gritted his teeth.
‘You’re so cross,’ Jemima pointed out gently.
‘I am not cross,’ Luciano growled.
‘I’ll just mind my own business, then,’ Jemima muttered, caving into the tension sparking like lightning rods through the atmosphere.
‘Perhaps that would be best,’ Luciano riposted very drily.
Her face flamed and she roamed restively over to the tall windows that overlooked flower beds surrounded by low box hedges and an ancient mossy fountain. ‘I came down to speak to you about the new clothes you bought for me.’ In emphasis she lifted a foot to show off the shoe she wore and very nearly fell over. All dignity abandoned, she grabbed at the back of an armchair to stay upright and hastily put that foot back on the floor. ‘Er...these shoes are gorgeous... In fact it’s all gorgeous, but with the possible exception of these shoes I can’t possibly accept an entire wardrobe.’
‘Why not?’ Luciano shot back at her, startling her with that blunt comeback. ‘And turn round and face me when you’re speaking to me.’
With great reluctance and carefully slow movements, Jemima turned and straight away registered why she preferred talking to him without looking at him. Face on he was too much of a distraction. She lowered her lashes, blocking him out to some extent, her soft mouth unusually taut with nerves. ‘Well, I’m very grateful for your generosity but I don’t believe in accepting expensive gifts from people—’
‘I’m not people!’ Luciano cut in with ruthless bite. ‘And I would hazard a guess that you have often accepted such gifts from men—’
‘Yes...er...but that doesn’t mean it was right. Having done it before, I don’t have to keep on doing it,’ Jemima pointed out, gathering steam in her argument. ‘Maybe I think it’s time for me to change my ways?’
‘Maybe there are two blue moons in the sky,’ Luciano incised with ringing derision.
‘Being with Nicky has changed me,’ Jemima argued, setting off on another tack. ‘It’s made me appreciate what’s really important in life.’
‘Within hours of his birth you had already decided what was really important to you...more money,’ Luciano reminded her cruelly.
Jemima lifted her chin. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t develop a different outlook. And I have changed. If you must know, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.’
His dark eyes glittering like polished jet, Luciano vented a laugh of unholy amusement. ‘I assume that’s your idea of a joke...’
‘No, it’s not actually,’ Jemima told him tightly, thinking sadly of the number of times her late twin had spoken of that same ambition to her. ‘Everybody has to start somewhere when they make changes. I mean, why would you give me all those clothes anyway, for goodness’ sake?’
‘You’re not that naïve.’
Her colour heightened. ‘So, obviously it was a gift made with certain expectations, and if I’m not prepared to meet those expectations, I can’t possibly accept it.’
‘Of course you’re prepared to meet my expectations.’ Luciano surveyed her with galling assurance, smouldering dark golden eyes roaming over her with a potent sexuality that made her tremble. Her nipples prickled below her clothing and a tiny burst of heat ignited in her pelvis, starting up a nagging throb of awareness.
‘I’m only here for a few weeks of summer for your son’s benefit,’ Jemima reminded him stubbornly. ‘His benefit, not yours.’
Luciano said a rude word in English that made her flinch.
‘I’m trying to be reasonable and honest here to avoid misunderstandings,’ she told him in growing frustration.
Luciano stalked closer, silent and graceful as a night-time predator, and said an even ruder word in dismissal of that statement. What did such a woman know about honesty? What had she ever known?
He was so close now that Jemima could have reached out and touched him. Her heart was thudding out a staccato beat of apprehension and her breathing had ruptured into winded audible snatches.
She stiffened her spine and tilted her head to one side. ‘I don’t like your language.’
‘I don’t like what you’re saying. I get very irritated when those around me talk nonsense or tell lies,’ Luciano told her grittily, his Italian accent liquefying every vowel sound. ‘You’re trying to say that you don’t want me and that is a huge lie!’
Her pale blue eyes widened. ‘Are you always this sure of your own attraction?’
Long brown fingers lifted her braid from her shoulder and detached the tie on the end. He began to unlace the long golden strands. ‘I want to see your hair loose...’
A new leaf, he was ruminating in disbelief. Could she really believe that he would be impressed by such drivel? How could she look at him with those luminous ice-blue eyes that seemed so candid and continue to lie and lie to his face? She was a completely shameless and stupid liar. Anger, bitter and jagged as a knife edge, cut through Luciano, burning and scarring wherever it touched. He was all too familiar with the cunning cleverness of female lies.
‘This is getting too...too intense,’ Jemima muttered uncertainly.
Luciano wound long fingers into the golden mane of her hair to tug her closer. ‘You shouldn’t lie to me. If you knew how angry it makes me, you wouldn’t do it.’
Her nostrils flared on the scent of him that close. Some expensive lemony cologne overlaid with clean, husky male and a faint hint of alcohol was assailing her and her tummy performed a nervous somersault. ‘I’m going back home in just a few weeks,’ she reminded him shakily. ‘I’m only here for Nicky.’
‘Liar...my son was not your primary motivation,’ Luciano derided in a raw undertone, thoroughly fed up with her foolish pretences. ‘You came here to be with me. Of course you did.’
Her brows pleated in dismay. ‘Luciano...you’re not listening to me—’
‘Why would I listen when you’re talking nonsense?’ he demanded with sudden harshness.
Jemima looked up at him, scanning the dark golden eyes that inexplicably turned her insides to mush and made her knees boneless. As he lowered his head her breath caught in her throat and her pupils dilated. Without warning his arms went round her, possessive hands delving down her spine to splay across the ripe swell of her hips and haul her close. His mouth crashed down on hers with hungry force and in the space of a heartbeat she travelled from consternation to satisfaction. That kiss was what she really wanted, what her body mysteriously craved.
He kissed her and the world swam out of focus and her brain shut down and suppressed all the anxious thoughts that had been tormenting her. It was simultaneously everything she most wanted and everything she most feared. To be shot from ordinary planet earth into the dazzling orbit of passion and need by a single kiss was what she had always dreamt of finding in a man’s arms, but Luciano was by no stretch of the imagination the male she had pictured in such a role. After all, Luciano wasn’t for real. She might be inexperienced but she wasn’t stupid and she knew that sex would only be a game with him and that he would only play with her without any intention of offering anything worthwhile. A woman needed a tough heart to play such games as an equal and she knew she wasn’t up to that challenge.
‘You want me,’ Luciano grated against her red swollen mouth, his breath warming her cheek and bringing the faint scent of alcohol to her awareness.
Jemima shivered violently against the unyielding confines of his lean, muscular body. She loved the strength and hardness of his well-honed frame. Even through their clothes she could feel him hot and ready against her and the tight ache at the heart of her was like a strangling knot that yearned for freedom. The taste of his mouth was still on hers, nerve cells jangling with the longing for a repeat and the erotic plunge of his tongue. With a receptive shudder that signified the strength the gesture demanded, she brought up her hands and pressed against his broad chest to drive some space between them.
‘No, not like this,’ she mumbled gruffly, fighting herself as much as she was fighting his attraction.
She wanted him. He was right about that. She had never wanted anything or anybody as much as she wanted Luciano at that moment. Pulling free of him, stepping back, physically hurt as unsated cravings set up a drumbeat of angry dissatisfaction throughout her quivering body. Kicking off the silly shoes that limited her mobility was the work of seconds and her sudden loss of height disconcerted him into lifting his arms off her in surprise. Ducking out of reach and barefoot, Jemima darted round him and pelted out of the door as though baying hounds were chasing her.
Black brows pleating, Luciano swept up the abandoned shoes and looked at them incredulously. Did she think she was Cinderella or something? In bewilderment, because a woman had never before treated him to such stop-go tactics, he poured himself another stiff drink. He didn’t get it. He really didn’t understand why she was running away. Why would she do that? What possible benefit could she hope to attain by infuriating him?
And then the proverbial penny dropped and he wondered why he had not immediately grasped her strategy. After all, it was an exceedingly basic strategy: she wanted more. In fact Jemima or Julie or whatever she and her late twin had chosen to call themselves had been born wanting more. And she knew he was rich enough to deliver a lot more. Only he wouldn’t, Luciano thought angrily, stoking up his resentment and his hostility. He was determined not to further reward a woman who had lied and schemed to make a profit out of his infant son as though he were a product on sale to the highest bidder.
