Читать книгу A Savage Betrayal - Lynne Graham - Страница 6

‘AND this is my executive assistant, Mina Carroll.’

Mina shook hands and smiled as yet another introduction was made by her boss, Edwin Haland. Elegantly attired in an Armani suit, her golden hair swept up into a loose Edwardian knot, she could easily have been mistaken for a wealthy patron, rather than one of the organisers of the charity benefit. Nobody would have guessed that this was the first time she had been invited to play such a prominent role or that she was a last minute stand-in for her immediate superior, who had come down with the flu.

A hand curved round her elbow, drawing her aside. ‘Where on earth did you get that suit?’ Jean, their junior PR officer, hissed. ‘Did you rob a bank?’

‘My sister’s wardrobe,’ Mina whispered with dancing amethyst eyes.

‘I wish we could swap sisters. Mine’s into Doc Martens and vampire make-up,’ Jean groaned. ‘And even if I was insane enough to want to borrow something, I’d have to mug her to get it! Yours must be an angel.’

Mina laughed. ‘Not quite.’ She frowned at the untouched buffet and the hovering waiters. ‘Why isn’t the food being served?’

‘Our VIP’s flight has been held up.’ Jean grinned. ‘Of course, I forgot. You’ve been on holiday. You won’t have met our newest sponsor yet. What a treat you have in store!’

‘He must be some VIP if Mr Haland won’t start without him.’

‘Socially prominent, mega-rich, background of family philanthropy,’ Jean told her in a mocking undertone. ‘Manna from heaven. Our directors did everything but kiss his feet. The more humble office mortals looked, longed and languished—even Polly, our man-hating tea lady.’

Mina’s beautiful face was wreathed with amusement. ‘Polly—you’re joking?’

‘Polly went out and bought a cream cake for him——’

‘You’re kidding me!’

‘I’m not. He’s drop-dead gorgeous. I was in the lift with him, praying it would break down…not that I expect he would have done anything with the opportunity.’ Jean sighed, smoothing her hands over her ample hips. ‘But you never know. Italians are supposed to like women well-stacked, and you can’t say I’m not that.’

‘He’s Italian?’ Mina had stiffened slightly.

‘And there he is.’

‘Where?’

‘Heavens, where are your eyes?’

Mina’s searching gaze shrieked to a halt on the tall, black-haired man striding down the room, flanked by two of Earth Concern’s directors. Her heart gave a frantic leap behind her breastbone and every muscle pulled taut. She could feel the blood draining from her face, the sudden cold, clamminess of her flesh. She was in the grip of a shock so extreme she was paralysed by it.

‘Cesare Falcone,’ Jean whispered. ‘Falcone Industries. Quite a coup, don’t you think? Apparently, Mr Barry gave him a copy of our newsletter at some dinner and he was so impressed, he set up a meeting the same week! He even mentioned my article on waste recycling’

‘Did he?’ Mina unpeeled her tongue from the roof of her dry mouth. Waste recycling? Cesare?

Her stomach cramping with sudden nausea, Mina turned on her heel without a word and headed for the cloakroom. Mercifully it was empty. She braced her hands on the edge of a vanity unit and slowly breathed in, struggling to combat the sick dizziness assailing her. To see Cesare again where she had least expected to see him…when, indeed, she had never expected to see him again. Dear God, but life could be cruel, she thought with sudden raw bitterness.

Anger currented through her, squaring her shoulders, stiffening her spine. Four years ago, fresh out of college with a fistful of top grades, Mina had walked into what had appeared to be the plum job of her year. Cesare Falcone had hired her as his executive assistant. Three months down the line she had been sacked without warning and in the most humiliating way possible denied entrance to the Falcone building.

And, as if that had not been bad enough, she had been refused a reference. That refusal had put a big black question mark on her employment record. It had been well over a year before Mina had found another job and she had had to settle for a low-paid position without responsibility. Cesare Falcone had wrecked her career prospects in the City.

But he hadn’t done it alone, she conceded with painful self-loathing. She might not have deserved the brutal treatment she had been dealt but she had played a part in her own downfall. One slip…one mistake. She had fallen in love with her employer. She had become vulnerable. Her heart had got in the way of her head. Common sense had taken a hike. And when, late one evening, Cesare had broken out the champagne over a particularly successful deal, Mina had served herself up as supper…

She closed her eyes tightly, shutting out the memories, hating them, hating herself for ever having been that naïve, that reckless, that stupid. If it hadn’t been for that night, she would have sued for wrongful dismissal, but shame had choked her and kept her quiet when in any other circumstances she would have fought him to the last ditch for daring to terminate her contract on such terms. Gross misconduct. She shuddered in remembrance.

She had to drag herself back out of the cloakroom, feverishly aware that at some stage of the evening she would be forced to face Cesare. Edwin Haland was making a short opening speech by the time she returned to the crowded function-room. Everyone was already seated with their plates heaped high. Jean gave her a frantic wave from a nearby table.

Mina dropped down gratefully into the vacant seat beside the other woman. Noting her pallor, Jean frowned at her. ‘You’re not coming down with this flu bug, are you?’

‘I’m just a bit tired.’ Without appetite Mina studied the plate that Jean had helpfully filled for her.

Cesare would be seated at the top table. Mina tried hard not to look in that direction but a compulsion stronger than she was triumphed. Her heartbeat slowed to a dulled thud. ‘Drop-dead gorgeous’, Jean had called him and, ironically, the one time Mina hadn’t noticed those sensational looks of his had been at her interview when he had stretched her with so many difficult questions that she had emerged afterwards inwardly wrung out and possessed only of the memory of dark, deep-set eyes which had seemed to be cruelly willing her to trip up and fall apart under the pressure.

After all his sardonic references to her lack of experience, she had been amazed when she had got the job. But within a week of entering employment in the Falcone building she had assumed that it was her sex which had made him put her through hoops of fire. She had discovered that she was the only female above the level of secretary on the executive floor and that the men in the boardroom unashamedly rejoiced in their chauvinism, reacting to her arrival in their midst with horror and downright resentment. Staying the course had been an uphill battle from day one…

She sank back to the present, and discovered that she was still staring, her attention roaming over his strong, dark features in profile, so familiar, even after all this time, she couldn’t believe it. Her stomach clenched tight again, sudden comprehension shuddering through her to make her cringe from her own blindness.

Of course those features were familiar to her…feminised and in miniature. Hadn’t she lived with those high cheekbones, those winged brows and those dark golden eyes for over three years? Her daughter, Susie, wore her parentage like a banner.

‘You’re nervous about the directors’ meeting tomorrow,’ Jean decided, finally noticing that Mina wasn’t eating. ‘I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Your promotion’s in the bag.’

Grateful to be distracted from her painful reflections, Mina sighed. ‘Nothing’s in the bag, Jean.’

‘Mr Haland’s very keen for you to head up the finance section, and the other directors will accept his recommendation,’ Jean asserted in a bolstering tone.

‘There were other candidates.’

‘I doubt if they had your qualifications, and I would say your invitation to stand in for Simon tonight is as good as an advance announcement.’

Mina had been hoping the same thing but she didn’t say so. Her self-confidence had dive-bombed in the dole queue four years ago, and her streak of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed youthful ambition had taken a similar battering. Throughout her two-week vacation, which she had spent, as she always did, at her sister’s home, Mina had crossed her fingers and prayed that she would win that promotion, and not because she was eager for the higher status or the challenge of greater responsibility. No, not at all. Mina was quite simply desperate for the considerable rise in salary which would come with the position of finance manager.

Edwin was rising from the table, ushering his VIP guest to the podium. Below the lights Cesare’s ebony hair had the sheen of silk, and Mina was attacked without warning by a tormentingly painful image of her own fingers sliding through those thick dark strands. Her skin burning, she dropped her head and lifted her glass of wine with an unsteady hand. Cast back in time, frantically struggling to rescue her self-discipline, she didn’t absorb a single word of Cesare’s speech.

But it must have been witty and amusing. Laughter broke out several times, interspersed by that appreciative silence which was the reward of a speaker talented enough to play his audience like a professional. But all she actually heard was the sound of Cesare’s deep, rich voice, backed by the indolent purr of his accent. Her brain seemed incapable of taking in anything more profound.

‘No wonder the directors are walking on air tonight,’ Jean murmured. ‘Cesare Falcone could take Earth Concern into the major leagues all on his own. Look how many journalists are here…we’ve never had a press turnout this good!’

People were rising from their tables and starting to mingle. Edwin signalled to Mina. With all her being she wished it were possible to ignore that gesture. She stood up, relieved to see that Cesare was being mobbed. Little wonder, she reflected cynically.

So many of their patrons only supported them because to be seen at such events lent one a certain cachet. And the chance to rub shoulders, however briefly, with Cesare Falcone, a true member of the glitterati, who when in London moved only in the most select social circles, was a chance few of their patrons would wish to miss.

‘A tremendous speech, don’t you think?’ Edwin remarked, curving a light arm to her back, making her stiffen in surprise, as he surveyed the crush which had engulfed Cesare with unhidden satisfaction.

‘Very impressive.’

‘Where on earth did you get to earlier?’ the older man demanded with faint irritation. ‘I wanted you to sit with us at the top table.’

‘I had no idea…sorry.’ But it was a challenge to look sorry. As Mina realised what a narrow escape she had had, she felt quite light-headed with gratitude. With a little luck she would be able to slip off home soon, pull herself together and decide how she would handle being introduced to Cesare, as she surely would be sooner or later.

Tell him now, a little voice urged her. She should tell Edwin that she had once worked for Cesare, even though that fact had not appeared on her carefully doctored c.v. Edwin would be surprised, but he was highly unlikely to go back and check that same document.

‘I suppose it was my fault.’ He smiled, looking down at Mina, whose tiny, delicate stature never failed to remind him of his late wife. ‘I should have asked you to join us.’

Picking up her courage in both hands, Mina parted her lips. ‘Edwin——’

‘Do you realise that this is the very first time you have called me by my Christian name?’ he chuckled.

Mina flushed. She was always very formal with the directors.

‘Please don’t apologise,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘Being called Mr Haland all the time makes me feel as old as the hills.’

‘Which you’re far from being,’ Mina said politely, a little disconcerted by the warmth she read in his eyes.

‘I certainly don’t feel it when I’m fortunate enough to be in the company of a very beautiful young woman. Indeed I feel privileged,’ Edwin asserted with vigour, shocking her into rigidity as she glanced back up at him.

‘Mr Haland?’ someone intervened from behind them.

The older man’s arm lifted from her narrow back with a reluctance that could be felt. Mina’s cheeks were pink, embarrassment and dismay having taken hold of her. She had always been aware that Edwin Haland liked her as a quiet, hard-working member of staff, but it had not until now occurred to her that he might be attracted to her.

‘Where have you been hiding yourself all evening, cara?’

Her downbent head flew up and then tipped back, amethyst eyes wide with apprehension, the colour highlighting her complexion evaporating fast as her gaze connected with molten gold.

‘Cesare…’ she whispered tautly, striving manfully to recover her composure, telling herself that she had had plenty of time to adjust to the prospect of such a confrontation but discovering to her horror that that fact seemed to make no difference to her shattered response to his sudden looming presence less than a foot from her.

‘Sì, Cesare…who remembers you well,’ he murmured in a flat undertone that chilled her, intent narrowed dark eyes scanning her pale face. ‘Do I warn the old goat that he’s about to fall into the alligator pit? Or do I keep my mouth shut?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mina framed without comprehension.

‘From the outside it looks as though you have your sights set on a wedding-ring, but I wonder if that’s true. You’re a devious little bitch,’ Cesare told her in a conversational tone that made what he was saying all the more shocking, ‘but you’re predictable. Evidently you’re still sleeping with the boss.’

Totally unprepared for such an offensive attack, Mina gazed back at him in utter disbelief. ‘How dare you——?’

‘At the table Haland was like a dying swan in search of his mate. It didn’t occur to me that it was your absence which was making him so restive, but it should have done,’ Cesare told her with derision. ‘There has to be some very good reason why you’re working for small bucks in a charitable enterprise. Let’s face it, Pollyanna you’re not!’

Starting to tremble, wondering crazily if Cesare Falcone had gone mad, Mina whispered jerkily, ‘Why are you treating me like this…saying such things?’

Cesare laughed softly. ‘That look of injured innocence, cara…I award you full marks for trying but I’m not a lonely old fool, hungry for the attention of a young, sexy woman. I’m Cesare Falcone…and if you hadn’t disappeared into thin air four years ago I’d have shredded you limb from limb, a piece at a time, for what you did to me!’

Unable to drag her eyes from him, Mina took an instinctive step back. She was in such shock, she couldn’t even think straight. ‘For what I did to you?’ she repeated shakily.

‘But the good news is…a Sicilian never forgets being stabbed in the back, and if he has to wait a year or two…?’ Cesare spread a frighteningly expressive lean brown hand in the air between them and smiled with such chilling satisfaction that the blood in her veins ran cold. Involuntarily, she was mesmerised. ‘Even better. The desire for revenge merely becomes keener, sharper…altogether more intense. I’ll break you.’ He closed his long fingers into his palm as if he were crushing something and laughed with wolfish amusement. ‘Running was a major mistake.’

The smouldering silence thundered in her eardrums, making her feel dizzy, disorientated.

‘I see you’ve already met Miss Carroll, Mr Falcone.’ Edwin’s voice intruded, making her flinch as she belatedly recalled that there were people all around them. Like a sleepwalker, suddenly woken up, Mina attempted to regain an awareness of her surroundings, but it was hopeless. Cesare’s insane behaviour was already exercising her brain to full capacity.

‘Mina and I require no introduction,’ Cesare drawled very softly, shooting Mina’s locked facial muscles a glance of veiled amusement. ‘Didn’t she mention our prior acquaintance?’

From somewhere, heaven knew where, Mina summoned up the self-possession to say, ‘I haven’t actually had the opportunity——’

‘Strive for a little candour, cara,’ Cesare cut in smoothly. ‘She probably didn’t mention the fact that she once worked for me because I sacked her.’

Sick to the stomach, absolutely shattered that Cesare should have calmly and smoothly dropped that shameful fact without a moment’s hesitation, Mina swerved dazed eyes to Edwin. The older man’s scrutiny had narrowed in astonishment and then his mouth tightened as he pressed a supportive hand to Mina’s whip-taut spine. ‘From the first day of her employment with us, Miss Carroll has proved herself to be an excellent, committed member of our team,’ he retorted very stiffly.

‘Sì…Mina’s ability to commit one hundred per cent is one of her most memorable qualities.’ Cesare laughed suggestively half under his breath while Mina stared at him in the appalled stasis of ever-deepening incredulity. She just couldn’t believe that this nightmare was really happening to her because she could not think of one single reason why Cesare should wish to humiliate her to such an extent. ‘But, sadly, she is a distraction one should not risk in the office.’

Mina drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. ‘If you will excuse me——’

‘You’re excused, cara,’ Cesare incised in a careless aside as if she weren’t there, his full attention coolly angled on Edwin Haland’s efforts to conceal his outrage.

‘Please excuse both of us, Mr Falcone.’ The older man breathed tautly, his anger visibly warring with his uneasy awareness that Cesare was a very wealthy patron whom he had no wish to offend.

Blocking out Cesare, Mina lifted her head high, but her face was paper-white. ‘I think it’s time I went home.’

‘I’ll take you,’ Edwin offered abruptly, and for some wild reason Mina felt a hysterical giggle clogging up her convulsing throat.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she muttered tightly, moving away a step.

‘Let her back off,’ Cesare suggested with the same unbelievable calm, the only one of the three of them in supreme control. ‘She’s in a tight corner and she doesn’t want to answer awkward questions right now.’

‘How dare you talk about me as if I’m not here?’ Mina hissed.

‘Got a little above yourself while you’ve been away from me, haven’t you, cara?’ Cesare glued her to the spot with an icy look of warning. ‘Lose the habit fast.’

‘Mr Falcone——’ Edwin began.

Mina abruptly spun on her heel and walked away and it was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life. She reached the far side of the room, perspiration beading her upper lip, a terrible trembling quivering through her slender body in waves. Abstractedly, she registered that she was shaking with simple shock.

Had Cesare deliberately sought her out to be offensive? He had not been surprised to see her. How and why could he speak to her like that in front of her employer? Why would he set out to humiliate her in public? Why should he feel the need to smear her reputation in the most offensive possible way?

His assumption that she was sleeping with the older man had shattered her, and as for his threats…his reference to a desire for revenge…And he had accused her of running away four years ago! Mina prided herself on her quick intelligence but none of it made sense. The entire episode had the quality of a nightmare. The inexplicable only happened in nightmares. Why should Cesare hate her?

He hated her. Yes, he did. Mina lifted a slim hand to her throbbing brow but all that was travelling through her chaotic mind was, Why? Why, why, and why again? He had no reason to hate her. But Mina had every good reason to hate Cesare Falcone. Quite apart from what he had done to her career prospects, he had been the man she had loved and he had hurt her very badly. In the aftermath of that evening she had been made to feel like the cheapest, lowest of one-night stands. He had punished her for an episode in which he had played a more than equal part.

‘I never mix business and pleasure, cara,’ he had murmured that night, but she hadn’t even suspected that at the same time as he was making love to her he was also planning to sack her!

Her sister, Winona, had said bluntly, ’Could you work for him after that?’ and she had known that she could not. For Cesare, that night had been a mistake and he certainly hadn’t wanted her around the office after it. In one weak instant of surrender, Mina had apparently lost all claim to any form of respect or consideration.

If he had been so determined to get rid of her, he could have done so with decency. He could have offered her a transfer; Falcone Industries had branches in several other countries. Or he could at least have given her time in which to find other employment. Instead she had been ignominiously sacked on a trumped-up charge of misconduct which had blighted her prospects ever since and forced her to start again at the very bottom of the ladder.

Dear God, hadn’t she suffered enough? Why did he now confront her and seek to cause her more damage? Was he off his rocker? Cesare ran a conglomerate of companies whose worth ran into multi-millions. But, insane as it might seem, maybe Cesare Falcone had a screw loose somewhere in that brilliant innovative mind…and maybe there was something peculiar about her which somehow drew out this streak of wildly illogical and destructive aggression…only how come nobody else had ever had experience of his strange behaviour?

‘Do you want your coat?’

Mina blinked and found a bored-looking cloakroom attendant staring at her expectantly.

She was sliding stiff arms into her jacket when Edwin Haland appeared, looking flushed and troubled. ‘Mina…you’re leaving,’ he noted awkwardly.

‘It would appear to be the wisest solution,’ she replied.

‘I was quite appalled by his rudeness. It was inexcusable.’ The older man hesitated and then pressed on in a careful undertone, ‘When did you work for him?’

‘Just after I came out of college. It only lasted three months. He did sack me.’ Mina lifted her chin, her amethyst eyes strained but unflinchingly clear. ‘But let me assure you that that had nothing to do with my ability as an employee. I’m afraid that the reason I was dismissed was rather more personal than that,’ she completed, dry-mouthed.

Edwin looked pained, and frowned. ‘It’s most unfortunate. I can only hope Mr Falcone refrains from further comment in the presence of my fellow directors,’ he said with grave emphasis. ‘They would be most perturbed by his attitude. Mr Falcone is making a most generous contribution to our campaign, and naturally we don’t-want any friction between him and any member of our staff.’

Paler than ever, Mina whispered, ‘I understand.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

His offer of a lift hadn’t lasted long, not that she would have accepted it anyway. But she had noticed the determined formality he had pasted over his discomfiture. His usual rather old-fashioned friendliness had died a death in the interim since she had walked out of the room. And she wasn’t at all surprised. Cesare might as well have lifted a Tannoy and called her a cheap little tramp for the benefit of the room at large.

Edwin had been shocked, had initially sought to defend her, but a few minutes’ careful reflection had cooled him down and probably made him suspicious of her. After all, Cesare Falcone was a highly respected and very successful European businessman. Naturally, Edwin was now wondering what kind of behaviour it took to provoke such a derisive attack from a man of Cesare’s education and social standing this long after the event.

A hammerbeat of tension pounded now behind her temples. She had probably lost all chances of promotion. The position of finance manager, the successful candidate to be announced after tomorrow’s monthly directors’ meeting, would go elsewhere. Common sense told her that Edwin had to have reservations now. How likely was it that he would still recommend her when he knew that Cesare Falcone despised her?

The commissionaire at the exit offered to call her a taxi. Mina shook her head. A taxi was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She lived like a church mouse, gratefully accepted her sister’s cast-off clothing, and slept in a room no bigger than a cupboard during the week, just existing for Friday nights when she could catch the train back down to her sister’s home in Oxfordshire. The train fares cost her a fortune but Mina never missed a single weekend. They were too precious. But Sunday nights broke her heart and habit hadn’t lessened the pain of those partings from Susie. She walked down the well-lit street, fighting not to give in to despair, but it was the prospect of those Sunday-night partings stretching into infinity ahead of her which she could not face.

A car purred to the kerb several yards ahead of her. The passenger door fell open. As she hesitated, Cesare emerged from the driver’s side and stood contemplating her over the roof of his low-slung silver Ferrari. ‘Get in. I’ll give you a lift.’

‘The knight of the road,’ Mina framed shakily, wondering whether to scream or laugh, no longer sure what might qualify as an appropriate response. Nothing she had said or done had had the slightest effect on him. He was like that truck in Steven Spielberg’s first film, Duel. She had the terrifying feeling that no matter what she did he would keep on coming at her.

‘We have unfinished business.’

Mina dropped her head, shutting out those eyes of sizzling gold which seemed to reach out and utterly intimidate. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Sending me to Coventry isn’t going to stop me,’ Cesare murmured harshly. ‘Get in the car.’

There was no hiding from the obvious. She had to find out what he meant by ‘unfinished business’ and straighten out whatever ludicrous misunderstanding lay behind his extraordinary behaviour. Stress had calmed her down, constrained the wilder reaches of her imagination. Cesare was ruthless, hot-tempered and as volatile as a slumbering volcano but he was not crazy.

She climbed in.

‘I’ll give you a choice,’ Cesare drawled, making no attempt to start the car again.

‘A choice?’ she echoed blankly.

‘You resign from your job.’

‘Resign? Are you out of your mind?’ Mina gasped in disbelief.

‘If you don’t resign, conscience demands that I drop a warning word in the relevant quarter,’ Cesare delivered in a grim undertone. ‘Finance manager—you? Sì…I know that you’re in line for promotion. And there is no way I can stand back and let you get your greedy little paws into charitable funds.’

Mina had been sitting there staring woodenly out through the windscreen, determinedly not looking at him. Now her head spun round as though he had jerked a wire. ‘Are you actually insinuating that I can’t be trusted with money?’ she spelt out in a strained whisper, her wide eyes incredulous at the suggestion.

‘I know you can’t be trusted.’ Cesare slanted her a look of stony derision. ‘Nor am I impressed by this infantile act of innocence. You committed a criminal offence four years ago and the law may not have been fast enough to pick up on the trail…but I was,’ he drawled in a seething undertone, shooting her a smouldering glance of menace. ‘I still have the evidence that could send you to prison——’

‘Prison?’ The single word exploded from between her dry lips, shrill and strangled, as she stared back at him in disbelief.

‘Insider dealing. The courts frown heavily on the offence. You could still be tried for it.’

Every scrap of colour had drained from her cheeks. Mina tried and failed to swallow. Insider dealing. He was accusing her of having used confidential information to trade for her own benefit on the Stock Exchange. The practice was illegal.

‘You’re crazy…I would never have done anything like that,’ Mina protested in a voice that was weak from sheer shock that he could believe her capable of such an act.

‘You’d have done it more than once if I’d given you the chance,’ Cesare asserted with icy bite, his profile golden and granite-hard in the street-light slanting through the windscreen. ‘But I didn’t. I sacked you and you took your ill-gotten gains and disappeared off the face of this planet!’

‘That’s not true. There weren’t any ill-gotten gains because I didn’t do it!’ she exclaimed shrilly, her heart pounding madly with fright against her ribcage.

Cesare’s ice-cold stare told her just how unimpressed he was by her protests.

‘I thought you sacked me because—because I slept with you!’ She had to force out the statement and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

‘Dio mio! The jury will surely break down and cry when they hear that defence,’ Cesare said with flat derision. ‘It is on record that you were sacked for gross misconduct.’

‘I know, but I——’

‘Popular report suggests that some prisons harbour big butch women. At seven stone and built like a doll, maybe you should consider getting into training.’

Mina was in such turmoil that she shrank back against the passenger door in horror. ‘I’m not going to prison…I haven’t done anything!’

‘Well, you’re certainly not about to do anything in the charity world.’ Cesare shot the assurance at her with cold threat. ‘With your talent for accounting, you could work any number of scams. I want you out of there as of now——’

‘But I haven’t done anything…I’m not dishonest!’ Mina slung back at him in helpless repetition and growing apprehension.

‘If you push me I’ll tell Haland, and I can back my allegations up with cold, hard evidence,’ Cesare returned with slashing cool. ‘And a man like Haland, with all those fine, upstanding principles, might just feel that when he’s informed of an illegal act it is his duty to report it to the authorities——’

‘And if you were so convinced I was guilty, why didn’t you call them in?’ Mina demanded wildly, fighting to find some angle on which she could base a defence.

‘It would have been like reporting a murder without the corpse. You’d vanished like a thief in the night.’ Cesare lounged back with indolent relaxation and surveyed her intently, eyes slivers of molten gold beneath the luxuriant fringe of his ebony lashes. ‘And I did entertain myself briefly with a vision of you becoming a prison mascot, but ultimately it didn’t satisfy me. I think the punishment should fit the crime——’

‘I haven’t committed any crime…why won’t you listen to me?’ she gasped.

‘You used pillow-talk for profit——’

‘Pillow-talk?’

‘You ripped off that information like a professional. You made a fool of me. I could have been dragged down in the dirt with you. Guilty by association. I have no doubt you intended to say that you traded on my behalf if you were caught,’ Cesare told her very softly, every accented syllable dropping into the throbbing silence. ‘Pull the dumb dizzy blonde act and insist you had no idea that what you were doing was against the law.’

‘You’re out of your m-mind!’ Mina was white, barely able to vocalise.

‘Say you were seduced, used,’ Cesare continued with harshened emphasis, pinning her to the spot with smouldering dark golden eyes that burned. ‘If you were a man I’d have killed you…but you’re a woman and I intend to use you exactly as you used me…’