Читать книгу The Venetian's Midnight Mistress - Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 7

‘SO, I’VE been having wild, orgasmic sex every day with my tennis coach for over a month now.’

‘What?’ Dani gave a start as she stared across the drawing room at her friend Eleni.

The two women were putting the finishing touches to the décor of the country home Eleni would share with Brad following their Christmas wedding in a week’s time. As an interior designer, Dani had spent the last month helping Brad and Eleni choose both the furniture and décor for the spacious house that she knew the two hoped would one day be filled with their children.

‘Hang on a minute.’ Dani’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘You don’t have a tennis coach, Eleni.’

‘True.’ Eleni, a beautiful Venetian, laughed at Dani’s frowning expression. ‘But it caught your attention, didn’t it?’ She smiled wryly. ‘I’ve been talking to you for the last ten minutes, Dani, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t heard a word I’ve said!’

‘Sorry, Eleni,’ Dani apologised with a grimace.

She had been doing her best, she really had, but obviously Eleni knew her too well to be fooled for a moment. Well, for any longer than ten minutes, anyway.

The two women had first met when they were both fourteen and Eleni had arrived at Dani’s boarding school from her home in Venice, sent there for a year by her brother Niccolo, the head of the D’Alessandro family, in order to improve her English. The two girls’ friendship had been so strong by the end of that year that when it had been time for Eleni to return home she had pleaded with Niccolo to let her come back to the English school for four more years and complete her education there. A battle she had lost…

Dani gave a shudder just at the memory of her first meeting with Niccolo D’Alessandro, after Eleni had insisted that Niccolo take both girls out to lunch so that she might introduce him to her English friend. Intimidating didn’t even begin to describe the arrogantly assured Venetian.

Head of the D’Alessandro banking family for four of his then twenty-seven years, Niccolo D’Alessandro had been imposingly tall, his shoulders wide beneath his tailored suit, his stomach taut, legs long and muscular. Seeing his overlong black hair that he’d brushed back from his aristocratically handsome face, eyes of deep, brooding brown, high cheekbones, a long arrogant nose, a firm mouth that looked as if it rarely smiled, and a hard square jaw, it hadn’t been in the least difficult for Dani to imagine that Niccolo D’Alessandro was descended from pirates as well as princes; she had a little more trouble imagining any D’Alessandro male could ever have been a priest, although she had been assured some of them had.

It had been also obvious what Niccolo had thought of Dani after that single meeting—he had flatly refused to let Eleni remain at school in England, only relenting in his decision when Eleni had reached eighteen and wanted to go to university in London.

‘Man trouble?’ Eleni prompted knowingly now.

Dani shook her head as she dragged her thoughts back from that first meeting with Niccolo D’Alessandro, almost ten years ago now. ‘Not in the way you probably think.’

Eleni, her hair darkly luxurious, her brown eyes warm and glowing, shrugged slender shoulders. ‘Let me guess. Either you have a man and he’s being uncooperative. Or you don’t have a man and you want one.’

‘I had a man, remember?’ Dani pointed out dryly.

Eleni frowned. ‘I’m not sure I would call Philip that.’

‘I was married to him!’

‘Technically, yes.’ Her friend nodded. ‘But in reality we both know that the two of you didn’t even last through the honeymoon.’

To Dani’s everlasting mortification.

Philip had looked like a Greek god, and he had been charming, thoughtful, and funny. Until the honeymoon following their lavish wedding, when the jealousy he had been hiding until that point had suddenly reared its ugly head. He had turned into a monster, accusing her of being too friendly with every man she met, from the elderly porter who had delivered their suitcases to their hotel suite, to the waiter who served them dinner on their first evening in Florence.

The scene that had followed in their hotel suite after that last accusation was something that Dani preferred not to even think about!

The two of them had arrived home from the honeymoon separately. Dani had filed for divorce almost immediately, and since that time she had stayed well away from any sort of romantic involvement, no longer trusting her own judgement when it came to men.

‘I don’t have a man.’

‘Then it’s about time you did,’ Eleni said, having been happily engaged to Brad for the last year. ‘Not all men are like Philip, you know—’

‘I have no guarantee of that,’ Dani interrupted firmly. ‘And until I do, I have no intention of getting involved with anyone again. Well…not by choice,’ she muttered, sighing as the heavy weight of her earlier distraction came crowding back.

Damn her grandfather, anyway. What person in his right mind would put a clause like that in his will, for goodness’ sake? Her grandfather, apparently. If she hadn’t complied with the terms of that particular clause by the time her grandfather died, then her parents were going to lose Wiverley Hall, their home in Gloucestershire, where her father had spent years building up the reputation of his stable for training racehorses.

Eleni raised dark brows. ‘That last statement sounded very intriguing…?’

Dani gave herself a mental shake. It was a problem, yes, but not an immediate one when her grandfather was still so fit and well.

‘Not really,’ she dismissed briskly. ‘So, tell me how your plans for the reception are progressing? Have you—?’

‘Oh, no, you don’t, Daniella Bell,’ Eleni cut in. ‘I’m not going to be put off by a change of subject. Tell all,’ she demanded, her dark brown gaze avid with curiosity.

Dani couldn’t help but smile. It was difficult to believe now that Eleni’s English had ever been other than what it was. In fact, apart from the darkness of Eleni’s colouring, nowadays her friend was almost more English than Dani.

She should never have given Eleni, of all people, even an inkling that something was troubling her. Eleni was like a dog with a bone when she got her teeth into something, and she wouldn’t let this go until Dani had ‘told all’, as she had so succinctly put it.

But maybe she should tell Eleni what was worrying her. Eleni was her best friend, after all, and Dani badly needed to talk to someone about her grandfather’s will!

She heaved another heavy sigh. ‘Do you remember my grandfather Bell?’

‘How could I forget him?’ Eleni snorted. ‘I met him at your wedding, of course, and once before that, when I came to stay for a weekend at your parents’ home years ago. But that was certainly enough! He’s even more formidably conservative than Niccolo with his “young ladies should be seen and not heard”,’ she quoted in a fair imitation of Daniel Bell’s harsh tones. ‘How your poor mother has put up with him living with them all these years I’ll never know! I—Oops.’ She gave an apologetic grimace. ‘I’m sorry, Dani, that was extremely rude of me.’

Dani shook her head. ‘The fact that he’s my grandfather doesn’t make me blind to his faults. He’s always been a tyrant and a control freak,’ she confirmed disgustedly. ‘But the thing is, Eleni, it’s actually my parents who have lived with my grandfather all these years. Not the other way around. He owns Wiverley Hall.’

‘So that’s why your mother has had to put up with him,’ her friend realised.

‘Yes,’ Dani said. ‘And my grandfather has never made any secret of the fact that he’s disappointed he only had the one grandchild—’

‘How could he possibly be disappointed with you? You’re gorgeous!’ Eleni looked indignant. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a tiny redhead. Do you remember how I dyed my hair red like yours five years ago?’ Her giggle was almost girlish. ‘I thought Niccolo was going to shave my head and then send me back home on the next plane!’

Dani remembered only too well Niccolo’s visit to England five years ago. And the fury in the accusing look he’d shot in her direction when he’d arrived and seen what Eleni had done to her normally rich brown hair…

‘And I’ve always been envious of your amazing green eyes,’ Eleni continued longingly. ‘Plus, you’ve become one of the most successful interior designers in London.’

‘Mainly due to you and other mutual friends employing me,’ Dani pointed out dryly.

‘That’s irrelevant,’ Eleni said firmly. ‘Your grandfather should be proud of you and your achievements!’

Dani couldn’t help smiling at her friend’s chagrin on her behalf. ‘The thing is, my mother couldn’t have any more children after me, so that pretty well took care of there ever being a male heir.’

‘Your grandfather is only a land-owner, for goodness’ sake, not nobility!’ Eleni scoffed.

And, being descended from nobility herself, Eleni was in a position to know the difference!

Dani smiled wistfully. ‘Same thing as far as Grandfather Bell is concerned. “Land is wealth”,’ she quoted in almost as good an imitation of her grandfather as Eleni’s a few minutes ago. ‘Anyway, whatever the reason, he’s never made any secret of his disappointment that he only has one grandchild—me. When my marriage to Philip ended in divorce, and childless to boot, I thought he was going to have a heart attack!’

‘Doesn’t he know why it ended in divorce?’

‘Can you imagine any of the family even attempting to explain Philip’s problem to Grandfather Bell?’

Her grandfather was approaching ninety years of age; trying to explain Philip’s pathological jealousy, his violent behaviour after he and Dani were married, would probably only result in her grandfather stating that the demand for equality from woman nowadays—that he so disapproved of!—was obviously to blame.

‘But the failure of your marriage wasn’t your fault, Dani.’ Eleni reached out a hand to grasp one of Dani’s. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’ She frowned. ‘I only ask because I know there hasn’t been a single man in your life since that awful marriage.’

‘Nor a married one, either!’ Dani retorted cheekily.

Although, in all honesty, it wasn’t a subject she found in the least amusing. Not when her sex life, or lack of it, was the basis of her current problem!

‘Very funny,’ her friend drawled sarcastically as she straightened. ‘But I still don’t see how any of this affects you, Dani.’

In the normal course of events it shouldn’t have; when her grandfather died, Dani’s father should quite naturally inherit Wiverley Hall and the stables. Except her grandfather had decided otherwise…

‘My father will only inherit Wiverley Hall and the Wiverley Stables if I have produced—or at least shown signs of producing—an heir before my grandfather dies.’ Dani winced at just putting into words the terms of the clause that her grandfather had recently told her he had added to his will, let alone actually acting on it! ‘Otherwise the whole thing is to be sold and the money given to charity.’

Eleni gasped as she sat back in obvious shock. ‘But that’s—that’s positively Machiavellian!’

‘Tell me about it,’ Dani agreed, relieved to have talked to someone other than her parents about this at last.

Her parents had obviously been distressed a week ago, when Daniel Bell had called them all together to inform them of the changes he had made to his will, but not as shocked as Dani herself.

As Eleni had already pointed out, Dani had stayed well away from becoming involved in any sort of relationship since her ill-fated marriage to Philip, so how she was supposed to produce this heir any time in the near future she had no idea. Solicit some poor unsuspecting man off the street? Pay someone to get her pregnant? The whole thing was ludicrous!

As she might have known they would, her parents had totally dismissed the clause, advising Dani to ignore it too. They’d stated that when the time came they would move the stables elsewhere.

But Dani knew that was easier said than done when her grandfather controlled the purse strings, too.

Eleni gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘So is his idea that you get married again?’

‘I have no intention of marrying again. You know that,’ Dani said.

‘But Dani—’

‘I will never put myself in such a vulnerable position ever again, Eleni,’ she stated emphatically. ‘Even seeing your own happiness with Brad as an example of how good a relationship can be,’ she added tactfully. ‘Besides, Grandfather hasn’t said I have to actually get married again, only produce the Bell heir.’

‘Incredible.’ Eleni still looked dazed. ‘I thought Niccolo was being unreasonable a year ago when he was so against my wanting to marry an Englishman, but your grandfather’s behaviour is positively archaic!’

Dani had been present on the day that Eleni told her brother she intended marrying Brad and living in England with him—moral support, Eleni had called it!—and could clearly remember Niccolo D’Alessandro’s icy disapproval that his sister should be contemplating marrying anyone who was not a Venetian.

She also remembered the way Niccolo had looked so coldly down his arrogant nose at her that day, as if he suspected her of being responsible for Eleni’s stubborn refusal to back down. Not true, of course, but Dani had known there was no point in even trying to defend herself against such prejudice.

As Eleni and Brad’s wedding was due to take place next weekend it was obvious who had won that particular battle—and that was yet another thing Niccolo D’Alessandro would no doubt blame Dani for!

‘I know that, and you know that, but my grandfather has never claimed to be a reasonable man,’ Dani said.

‘But—’

‘Can we please not talk about this anymore today, Eleni?’ Dani cut in. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else for the last week, and it just gives me a headache.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Eleni frowned. ‘You should have talked to me about it before, Dani,’ she admonished her friend. ‘I can’t believe your mother and father would really lose Wiverley Hall and the stables if you haven’t—’

‘Eleni, please! Can we talk about your wedding next week instead?’ Then Dani shuddered as a thought occurred to her. ‘Has Niccolo arrived yet?’ she asked tentatively.

Eleni, diverted by Dani’s obvious aversion to seeing her brother again, shook her head. ‘I’ve never understood why you and Niccolo have never become friends.’

‘Probably because we are both of the opinion that the less we see of each other the better,’ Dani retorted.

‘But you’re the two people I love most in the world—apart from Brad, of course—and I can feel the antagonism start to rise the moment the two of you are in the same room together!’ Eleni wailed.

Niccolo D’Alessandro was thirty-seven now, to Dani’s almost twenty-four, and the crush Dani had once had on the arrogant Venetian had—as Eleni so rightly pointed out—developed into antagonism on both sides. Out of dislike and disapproval on Niccolo’s side—especially after Dani’s brief marriage and divorce—and out of pure self-defence on hers.

She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘We just don’t like each other.’

‘But why don’t you?’ Eleni pressed, frustrated. ‘I know I’m his sister, but you have to admit that Niccolo is the epitome of “tall, dark, and handsome”, and he has such a dangerous sexual aura about him he should come with a public health warning. And you’re absolutely gorgeous—’

‘So you already said,’ Dani teased. ‘None of which alters the fact that your brother makes me break out in a rash every time I see him, and that I seem to have the same effect on him.’

‘It’s a total mystery to me,’ Eleni continued. ‘Niccolo is usually so stiffly correct, so—so Venetian, that I simply don’t understand his behaviour whenever he’s around you.’

Dani chuckled softly. ‘One of life’s mysteries you’re just going to have to live with, I’m afraid.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Now, I really will have to go; I have another appointment in town later this morning.’

‘But I haven’t told you about our plans for the honeymoon yet,’ Eleni protested.

‘And I would really rather you didn’t. Besides, I really don’t have any more time.’

‘Don’t forget we have the final fitting for your brides-maid’s dress in the morning,’ her friend reminded her.

‘As if!’ Dani slung her capacious bag over her shoulder. She was wearing her usual work clothes: fitted black trousers and, today, a cashmere sweater the same deep green as her eyes. ‘Although I doubt anyone will even notice what I’m wearing once you appear in that delectable froth of white lace.’

‘I have every intention of introducing you to all my eligible male cousins next Saturday, you know,’ Eleni promised.

Dani shook her head. ‘Introduce away, Eleni, but I can assure you I won’t fall for any of them.’ Especially if they were anything like the arrogantly forceful Niccolo D’Alessandro!

‘Maybe not at the wedding next weekend, but how about at my masquerade party here next summer?’

Dani knew that was part of the reason that Eleni had fallen in love with this particular house. Her friend had taken one look at the spacious garden with its numerous trees and shrubs and instantly decided that the following August she would throw a real Venetian masquerade party there. In fact, her friend was almost as excited about the party next summer as she was about her wedding next week!

‘Not then, either,’ Dani said dryly.

‘But everyone falls in love during the Venetian Festival,’ her friend protested. ‘I remember my Aunt Carlotta telling me that she once spent the whole evening at one of the festivals flirting with her own husband—my Uncle Bartolomeo—without even realising it!’

Dani grinned. ‘I bet he was surprised!’

‘From the becoming blush on my aunt’s cheeks when she told me about it afterwards I would say they both were!’

‘Eleni!’ Dani chided laughingly.

‘You’ll see at the party next year,’ her friend promised. ‘The festival is a way for everyone to misbe have without anyone needing to feel guilty about it.’

‘Even your brother?’ Dani taunted.

‘Well…perhaps not Niccolo,’ Eleni conceded. ‘But the party is months away, Dani, and if you haven’t solved the problem with your grandfather’s will by then, an evening of anonymity could be the answer.’

‘No, Eleni,’ Dani said, easily able to guess what her friend was about to suggest, and having no intention of being seduced into the shrubbery by one of Eleni’s male cousins in order to become pregnant. ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking, and the answer is most definitely no,’ she repeated firmly.

‘But—’

‘No, Eleni.’

‘It was just an idea.’ Her friend shrugged ruefully.

‘Well, it was a lousy one—oh!’ Having intended making her way out of the house to her car in the driveway, Dani instead found herself crashing painfully into something very hard and unyielding.

A man’s chest, she realised, once the pain in her jarred chin had abated to a mild throb.

Niccolo D’Alessandro’s chest, Dani discovered breathlessly when she raised her gaze reluctantly to look at his handsome face above a black silk sweater.

Brooding dark eyes chillingly returned her startled gaze, and that same coldness was in the derisive twist of Niccolo’s sculptured lips as he grasped the tops of her arms with elegantly long hands and put her firmly away from him.

‘Daniella,’ he acknowledged as he released her. ‘I should have guessed.’

Dani’s eyes narrowed at his sarcastic tone. ‘Should have guessed what, exactly?’ she challenged, two bright wings of colour in her cheeks. Colour she knew would not be complementary to the bright red of her straight below-shoulder-length hair.

But at least she had the answer to her earlier question—Niccolo had obviously arrived in England for the wedding next Saturday.

And he was looking even more devastatingly gorgeous than ever, making Dani’s pulse race and her breath catch in her throat. The colour burning her cheeks was from physical awareness this time. Complete physical awareness. Of Niccolo D’Alessandro.

Her breasts tingled uncomfortably and a fierce heat gathered between her thighs.

Oh, God!

She had thought she was over this infatuation—had imagined that no man would appeal to her ever again after what Philip had done to her. But she knew she had been wrong as every nerve ending, every part of her, silently screamed her attraction to Niccolo—of all men!

She looked up at him from beneath lowered dark lashes. Maturity had given him lines beside those chocolate-brown eyes and the firmness of his mouth, but instead of detracting from his good looks they merely added another layer to his attraction, giving him that dangerous sexual aura Eleni had alluded to earlier.

Niccolo was dangerous, Dani acknowledged to herself. He exuded power, a complete domination over everything and everyone within his vicinity.

Well, not her. She’d had enough of domineering men—Philip and her grandfather to name but two—to last her a lifetime.

She turned away abruptly. ‘Never mind,’ she said, in answer to her own question.

‘I thought this morning would be the perfect opportunity for Niccolo to come by and look at the house,’ Eleni said awkwardly.

Dani knew by the way Eleni refused to meet her gaze that there was a lot more to it than that. By inviting him here at the same time as Dani, Eleni had perhaps been hoping for yet another chance of reconciling her brother with her best friend.

Dani sighed in irritation. ‘I really do have to go now, Eleni.’

‘Surely you are not leaving on my account, Daniella?’ Niccolo taunted softly, his voice moving like husky velvet across Dani’s already sensitised flesh.

Dani’s chin rose at the challenge she heard in his tone. ‘No, I was leaving anyway,’ she snapped.

Niccolo watched Daniella Bell from between narrowed lids, noting that she wore her red hair longer than when he had seen her at Eleni’s engagement party a year ago. Now styled in layers, it tumbled fierily onto her shoulders and down her spine. Long, dark lashes were lowered over eyes he knew to be an unfathomable green. Her nose was small and pert and dusted with a dozen or so freckles. Her face was thinner than he remembered, her cheeks hollow, giving those softly pouting lips a fuller appearance above her determinedly pointed chin. Her loss of weight was also borne out by the slenderness of her waist and narrow hips, although her breasts were still firmly full.

And unless he was mistaken—and Niccolo felt sure that he wasn’t—they were also naked beneath that clinging green sweater!

His mouth tightened. Ten years ago he had not approved of or understood Eleni’s affection and friendship for the gawky English girl she had only known for less than a year, and had absolutely refused to allow his sister to complete her education in England so that she could remain in England with her new friend. Eleni had eventually complied with his decision, of course, and instead continued the friendship by telephone and letter.

Then, at the age of eighteen, a much more stubbornly determined Eleni had informed him that she intended attending an English university, and she had instantly met up with Daniella Bell again. If anything, the friendship between the two women had become all the stronger as they had matured.

Admittedly Daniella had grown into a self-assured woman of passable beauty, and Eleni reported she was very successful as an interior designer, but Niccolo still did not approve of her as a friend for his young sister. Even less so after Daniella’s brief marriage two years ago, followed by an equally hasty divorce. It just proved how fickle she really was.

‘I’ll see you later.’ Daniella moved to kiss Eleni on the cheek. ‘Mr D’Alessandro.’ She gave him a curt nod as she straightened.

Daniella didn’t exactly approve of him either, Niccolo recognised with wry self-mockery.

‘What? You have no parting kiss for me, Daniella?’ he asked, a smile curving his lips as she stared at him incredulously.

‘We’re hardly kissing acquaintances, Mr D’Alessandro,’ she finally managed to splutter in disgust.

‘Possibly not.’ He drawled his amusement. ‘Perhaps when we meet again at the wedding…?’

Those green eyes flashed. ‘I believe I will forgo that dubious pleasure!’ she came back waspishly.

Niccolo’s gaze was intent on Daniella as he ignored his sister’s snort of laughter at his expense.

Daniella, he knew, had been in awe of him when they’d first met almost ten years ago—an awe that had quickly turned to infatuation. An infatuation he had been aware of, but had chosen to ignore, even to deliberately rebuff; to a man of twenty-seven years of age Daniella Bell’s calf-like devotion as she’d watched his every move with those deep green eyes had been a danger as well as a nuisance.

It was an infatuation she’d seemed to have got over completely by the time the two of them had met again years later, when he’d delivered Eleni to England at the start of the university term.

But Daniella had grown up in the last five years, Niccolo recognised, and in her maturity she was certainly no longer in awe of him.

In fact, it was safe to say that over the last five years Daniella had become less in awe of him than any other person of his acquaintance!

As head of the D’Alessandro family, and of D’Alessandro Banking, Niccolo was accustomed to wielding power and authority, to having his every instruction obeyed. His domestic needs at the D’Alessandro palace—his title of prince had fallen into disuse several centuries ago—were supplied quietly and efficiently, usually before he had even made them known. And no one, in any sphere of his life, stood up to him or answered him back in the frank way that Daniella Bell did on the rare occasions they met.

‘The prospect of the two of us ever kissing seems just as unpleasant to me, I do assure you,’ he said, deliberately baiting her.

‘Then it’s so nice to know we’re agreed on something!’ Daniella snapped, before turning sharply on her heel and leaving.

‘Why do you do that, Niccolo?’ Eleni asked gently once the two of them were alone.

He turned to look at his sister. ‘Do what?’

‘Behave like such a—a—an overbearing Venetian!’ she accused.

‘But Eleni, I am an overbearing Venetian,’ he returned mockingly.

‘Yes, but you don’t have to keep proving it!’ His sister glared at him.

Niccolo gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘Your friend brings out the worst in me, I am afraid.’

‘And you bring out the worst in her!’ Eleni muttered with a frown.

Niccolo was unconcerned. ‘Then it seems we are all agreed it is best if Daniella and I stay well away from each other.’

‘I suppose so,’ Eleni conceded heavily, disappointed they both so obviously felt that way.

‘Cheer up,’ Niccolo teased affectionately. ‘After the wedding she and I will probably have no further reason ever to meet again.’

‘What about my masquerade party in the summer?’ his sister protested. ‘The two of you are sure to meet again then.’

Not if Niccolo first ensured that he knew exactly which of Eleni’s masked guests was Daniella Bell—and then avoided her like the plague!