The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress

‘However, bringing a case such as this takes time, and this business is almost out of time.’ Angelo offered up that piece of encouragement to draw her out again.

‘Dad has already admitted his guilt,’ Gwenna reminded him readily. ‘He would be happy to agree to the properties being put up for sale and to the proceeds being used to repay his debt—’

‘He’s a thief, not a debtor,’ Angelo cut in drily. ‘What is more, although I hate to rain on your parade, property can take a very long time to sell.’

Her teeth worried anxiously at her full lower lip. Although she too had thought of that angle there was no getting round that potential hiccup that she could see. ‘Yes, I appreciate that…’

Ebony eyes of extraordinary power sought and held hers in a grip as strong as forged steel. ‘Of course, if I was prepared to consider such an arrangement, a valuation could be done and the properties concerned could simply be signed over. That could be achieved very quickly.’

Ready to grasp at any prospect of agreement, Gwenna nodded eagerly at that suggestion. She snatched in a ragged breath, wildly aware of his gaze and the insidious unsettling pulse of awareness at the secret heart of her body. Her lovely face suddenly flaming at that acknowledgement, she tore her attention from him and walked over to the window. She could not credit that he could have such an effect on her. He was a stranger and alien in every way to her. How could he rouse the physical consciousness that she had suppressed and buried? She refused to believe that he could. It was a long time since she had decided that she would never give her body without her heart.

‘It would also lessen the risk of anyone suffering last-minute regrets,’ Angelo pointed out, gaze glinting with triumph at his success in finally raising a reaction from her. He had seen the flare of surprise in her eyes. Not quite the ice maiden after all, it seemed. ‘Obviously your objective is to free your father from the threat of prosecution.’

Not knowing whether to be relieved or threatened by the ease with which he had deduced that fact, Gwenna spun back to face him. She lifted her chin and knotted her hands together tightly as if she was bracing herself. ‘Yes.’

‘No can do, cara. It is my personal conviction that all wrongdoers should be punished by the full weight of the law.’

‘But if that money was replaced it would benefit this business and all the people who work here!’ Gwenna protested feverishly. ‘Don’t you care about that?’

‘My heart rarely bleeds, Miss Hamilton.’

Angelo watched her brush a fine strand of honey-blonde hair back from the peach soft curve of her cheek. She was exquisite, delectable, he acknowledged, his usually disciplined body reacting with painful immediacy to the sexual charge of her presence. She was trembling almost infinitesimally. He liked the idea that he might be responsible for that potent effect. He had an almost overpowering desire to see her long hair falling loose round her shoulders in a tumbling mass of waves. She made him think of a Victorian painting he had once seen of a naked woman on horseback—Lady Godiva. That whimsical reflection surprised him but that image gave him a distinctly erotic kick.

‘But in this particular case…’ she dared to prompt.

‘Business is all about the art of profit and the bottom line here is that there’s not enough in your offer to tempt me.’

Disappointment at his refusal flooded Gwenna. She had never felt so nervous or out of her depth. At her most happy when she was working outdoors, she had acquired a host of horticultural qualifications while still regarding herself as only a keen gardener. Now, for the first time, she was uneasily conscious of her lack of sophistication. She genuinely did not know how to appeal to such a man. He had the cold, hard glitter of a very expensive and elegant diamond and he showed no emotion. It was a combination that she found utterly intimidating.

‘What would it take to…er, tempt you?’

Angelo studied her with unnerving calm. ‘You.’

Gwenna blinked. ‘I’m sorry…I don’t follow.’

‘I want you.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Her Delft-blue eyes widened and she dragged in a ragged breath. She felt incredibly stupid because of course he could not mean what she had thought he might mean. True, he had asked her out, but it had been very casual, hadn’t it?

‘Are you always this slow on the uptake?’

‘Are you talking about…sex?’ Gwenna was furious that embarrassment made her mangle that last word into an almost incomprehensible mumble.

Dense black lashes lifted over his brilliant dark tawny eyes and he managed to look very bored. ‘What else?’

Gwenna surveyed him with as much unrestrained amazement as she would have shown a zebra that suddenly appeared out of nowhere to walk across the office. She had always had a problem seeing herself as a sexual being. The passes that came her way were usually pretty half-hearted because she was much better at being sympathetic and sensible than sexy. That a guy of such immense wealth and supposed sophistication should target her as if she were a provocative siren struck her as unbelievable.

‘Is this some kind of a wind-up?’ she asked tautly.

‘I don’t do wind-ups.’

Gwenna studied him, poised there so straight and tall in his sharply tailored black designer business suit. He was devastatingly handsome but she crushed that thought as soon as it entered her mind. ‘But are you really suggesting that if I sleep with you you might reconsider prosecuting my father?’

‘Yes.’ Angelo made that confirmation.

Gwenna was stunned by that unhesitating agreement. ‘But that’s morally wrong.’

‘We’re consenting adults and you have a choice.’

Gwenna flung her head high, furious that she was dying of embarrassment like a schoolgirl, while he was behaving as though nothing untoward was happening. ‘Do you get a thrill out of insulting me like this?’

‘One woman’s insult is another woman’s compliment.’ Angelo sent her a dark smile of challenge. ‘It’s not my ego talking, but fact, when I tell you that a score of women would kill to have the same opportunity.’

Gwenna, who rarely lost her temper, learned now that she could want to kill another human being. His insouciance, his sheer arrogance, his silken insolence, indeed the whole glossy patina of his rich and rarefied existence, which he wore like armour, made her teeth grit. Absolute hatred hurtled through her in an acrid flow. ‘Well, I’m not one of them! I have higher self-esteem.’

‘Which makes you infinitely more desirable.’

‘So, you’re one of those men who always wants most what he can’t have?’

Angelo held her outraged blue gaze, more intrigued than ever by her resistance and the anger that had unexpectedly cut through her tranquil surface. ‘I have never met with a “can’t have”,’ he told her truthfully.

‘You just have,’ Gwenna told him grittily and turned on her heel. ‘My body isn’t something I’m prepared to barter, Mr Riccardi.’

‘Then your father will have to pay the piper and go to prison,’ Angelo murmured and she stopped halfway to the door and turned back, her raw pain at that likelihood etched in her candid gaze.

Torn between stalking out in angry mortification and the sinking conviction that she could not afford such a demonstration of disdain, Gwenna hovered. The very idea of her father going to prison appalled her. He had already lost so much: his job, his reputation, his friends, his financial security. His marriage might well soon slip into that same category of loss. She knew and she accepted that he had done wrong. But what dominated her thoughts was the debt she had owed to her father since the day that he had opened the doors of his home to her after her mother’s sudden death.

When her mother, Isabel, had fallen pregnant during her long-term affair with Donald Hamilton, she’d expected her lover to leave his childless wife, Marisa. Instead Isabel had learnt that she had not been his only extra-marital interest. Heartbroken and bitter, Gwenna’s mother had become a less than enthusiastic single parent.

When Gwenna was eight years old, Isabel had died in a car crash. Donald, still married to his first wife, had come to his illegitimate daughter’s rescue at a time when Gwenna had had nobody else whom she could call her own. Even though he had been almost a stranger, her father had made her feel as if she truly mattered to him. Even when his long-suffering wife, Marisa, forced him to choose between his daughter and his marriage, he had refused to put Gwenna up for adoption. Not long afterwards, Marisa had demanded a divorce. The older man had never reminded Gwenna of the price he had had to pay for choosing to raise his daughter. But in spite of her father’s subsequent remarriage to Eva, Gwenna had always felt very guilty. And the passage of time and the arrival of maturity had not altered her belief that she would always be in her father’s debt for the loving sacrifice he had made on her behalf.

‘Before you leave, hear me out,’ Angelo drawled softly, playing on Gwenna’s hesitation with skill and cool.

Blinking, Gwenna focused on him again.

‘If sufficient assets are signed over to set against the empty coffers here at Furnridge Leather and you agree to be my mistress, I will withdraw the current charges against your father,’ Angelo spelt out.

A long shiver ran through her taut, slender body. He wanted a lot, he wanted everything. Mistress? What was that fancy term for? A one-night stand? Was conquest that important to him? Could he really want to have sex with her that much? The extent of her own sexual ignorance annoyed her.

‘What does being a mistress encompass?’ she pressed without looking at him.

‘Pleasing me…’ Angelo trailed out the word with exquisite enjoyment.

She gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at that.’

‘I’m willing to give lessons at no extra cost.’

Furious resentment burned like lava inside her. ‘I think you just can’t stand being turned down…’

‘I don’t think you’re going to turn me down twice.’

Gwenna sucked in a jerky breath. Unable even to imagine taking her clothes off in front of a man without cringing, she blanked out all thought of the nitty-gritty details of actual intimacy. She was aware that lots of people had sex without making a big issue of it. It would be physical, not emotional. There was no need for her to make a major fuss about something that really wasn’t that important, she told herself urgently. She was a pragmatist. She might not be into sex but presumably she could put up with it. ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned it’s senseless and crazy, but if my sleeping with you one night will help my family—’

‘One night won’t suffice.’

Gwenna was as flattened by that unexpected comeback as if a giant rock had been dropped on her. He wanted more than one night? The silence pulsed. Newly discovered defiance made her tilt her chin. She collided with brilliant dark eyes enhanced by spiky black lashes. If eyes were truly the windows of the soul, she thought helplessly, he lacked one. ‘Only hell has no time limit,’ she told him prosaically.

Disconcerted by that comment, Angelo studied her and then flung back his dark head and laughed with grim appreciation. ‘I like your sense of humour, cara.’

‘But I wasn’t trying to be funny. I need to know how long you envisage me filling such a strange role in your life.’

Angelo lifted a broad shoulder in a fluid shrug. But in a lightning-fast change of mood unfamiliar to him he was discovering that he had gone from amusement to an emotion very much akin to anger. He was a proud man and her parade of reluctance, which he refused to believe in, was fast becoming more insulting than intriguing. Long before they parted, she would sing a different tune, he swore inwardly. She would love him as his mother had once fruitlessly loved her con artist of a father.

‘I’ll want you for as long as you provide me with entertainment.’

‘You find it entertaining when a woman hates you?’ Gwenna asked fiercely.

Liquid gold flared in Angelo’s intense gaze and it was as if all the oxygen burned up in the atmosphere between them. ‘I promise you that hatred won’t be what you feel.’

Gwenna compressed her generous mouth and recalled that she was supposed to feel honoured by his interest, like some maidservant of old catching the eye of the lord of the manor. Loathing roared through her to such an extent that she felt dizzy. But then reality penetrated and she thought of her father and of how much she loved him. Angelo Riccardi was giving her the chance and the power to protect her father from prosecution and gaol. How could she say no? How many years of freedom would her father lose if she said no? How would he endure years of being shut away from the world? He would not be the same man when he emerged from such an ordeal, whereas if she kept him out of prison he would find it much easier to embark on a fresh start. What right did she have to deny him that chance of redemption?

‘I want your answer now,’ Angelo told her flatly.

‘Yes…you’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse,’ Gwenna breathed shakily.

Angelo extended his hand.

‘But let’s not pretend that it’s a civilised offer,’ Gwenna heard herself add as she took a step back from him.

Angelo took a step forward and before she had the slightest idea of his intention he framed her cheek with long brown fingers and brought his beautiful insolent mouth down in a mocking taunt on hers. Shock held her paralysed for the first ten seconds and then a wild surge of heat flamed up between her thighs, stretching every feminine muscle wickedly taut. It was like flame in freezing temperatures, shocking and sudden and shatteringly sweet. He lifted his arrogant dark head again, his scorching dark golden gaze raking in an assessing arc over her dazed expression.

‘Being civilised can be overrated, cara. My lawyers will be in touch. If everything is in order, I’ll contact you next week.’

CHAPTER THREE

DONALD HAMILTON slowly shook his distinguished head. ‘I’ll have nothing left, not even my independence.’

‘The valuations aren’t what you hoped? Even for the city apartment?’ Gwenna questioned anxiously.

‘I would say that the figures are anything but generous.’

Gwenna frowned. ‘Of course property prices have fallen in some areas. How did the Massey garden and nursery fare in the valuation stakes?’

‘The estate is listed and protected by law,’ Donald reminded her. ‘That keeps its value low because there are too many rules preventing more profitable types of development. The nursery is a small enterprise. You’ve worked wonders there but…’

‘It’s hardly big business,’ Gwenna filled in heavily.

‘Even so, if selling up protects me from having to make a court appearance, how can I possibly complain?’ her father asked her in a more upbeat tone. ‘As for what you told me about you and the owner of Rialto, that’s made all this even more amazing.’

Amazing? It seemed an odd choice of word. Gwenna coloured, her lashes concealing her bemused eyes. She was still wondering if the older man had quite grasped what she had delicately endeavoured to tell him with regard to her future association with Angelo Riccardi. In an effort to conceal her confusion, she bent down to pet Piglet, who was slumped at her feet.

‘You’re a beautiful woman and all grown up now.’ Donald Hamilton treated his daughter to a distinctly misty-eyed appraisal. ‘I mustn’t forget that. I’m not at all surprised that a man of Angelo Riccardi’s calibre should notice you and go for you in a big way.’

‘Well…he did notice me,’ his daughter muttered half under her breath, reckoning that her father could not possibly have registered the sort of liaison that she was being offered. No doubt that was a mercy, for she had worried about him kicking up a fuss even though she had packaged the unlovely truth with the pretence that she had been similarly impressed by Angelo Riccardi.

‘Perhaps you could have a little word with him about the valuations,’ the older man murmured casually. ‘Not right now, necessarily, but possibly in a week or two.’

Having tensed, Gwenna slowly lifted her head. ‘Have a word with him?’

‘You can’t be that naïve,’ Donald Hamilton said with a chuckle. ‘Obviously you’ve got influence with the man in the seat of power.’

‘I don’t think you can say that—’

‘This is not the time for false modesty,’ her father told her a touch irritably. ‘Choose your moment to speak to him about how unhappy you are over the treatment of your family. My word, do I have to paint pictures for you? Have you any idea what my life is going to be like when I don’t have a penny to call my own? When I’m forced to live off your stepmother like some ghastly ageing gigolo?’ But Gwenna was both taken aback and dismayed by his assumption that she would be able to persuade Angelo Riccardi to offer the older man a better price for his properties. She was very pale. ‘Look, I’m sorry…I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. All I’ve been thinking about is keeping you out of prison.’

Donald Hamilton winced as though she had been guilty of a gross lack of tact. ‘I think that risk has been safely laid to rest now and life does go on,’ he declared. ‘It is going to be very difficult for me to find another job.’

‘Yes, I suppose it will be. But how are you expecting me to help out by speaking to Angelo Riccardi?’ Gwenna asked apprehensively.

Her father grimaced. ‘You can be very naïve, Gwenna. For as long as you have Riccardi’s interest the world will be your oyster. Ideally I would like my job back at Furnridge Leather.’

Gwenna was staggered by that announcement. ‘Your old job?’

‘Yes.’ Impervious to her incredulity, Donald Hamilton added, ‘That would silence the scandalmongers. And help me get back on my feet again.’

Gwenna swallowed hard. ‘I honestly don’t think that I could do anything to help you to get your old job back.’

‘Well, if not it, something of equivalent status elsewhere. Why so shocked?’ he queried with dissatisfaction. ‘It would be no big deal to Riccardi to do one little favour for you.’

For once, Gwenna found it a relief to be joined by Eva and her stepsisters. She did not know how to tell her father that she did not have the influence he imagined, but she did feel that his expectations were unrealistic. At the same time, she strove to make allowances for his state of mind. He was under enormous pressure and the troubled state of his relationship with his wife was not helping.

‘Nice to see that you’re still running round in your dreary old Barbour and jeans like Little Miss Ordinary.’ Penelope treated Gwenna to a sour appraisal. ‘When does Angelo Riccardi wave his magic wand and turn you into a sex kitten? Or does mud turn him on?’

Gwenna had no wish to consider what might turn Angelo Riccardi on. Ever since that startling kiss, she had blanked him out of her mind. The discovery that he could dredge such a physical response from her had been deeply unwelcome. Indeed she was mortified to her core to appreciate that she was not impervious to his sexual charge. But, equally, forewarned was forearmed, and she had no plans to gratify his ego in that manner again.

‘You lucky, lucky cow,’ Wanda groaned with unhidden envy. ‘When I think of the effort I make to look beautiful, it’s depressing that you can go out looking like a dog’s dinner and still pull a billionaire.’

‘It won’t last five minutes,’ her stepmother, Eva, forecast with a dismissive but speaking distaste that raised goose bumps of chagrin below Gwenna’s skin. ‘These things never do.’

‘I’d better go. I’ve got orders to take to the post office,’ Gwenna muttered, keen to make her escape from the trio of cold, critical gazes fixed to her. Her stepmother’s contempt bit deepest of all.

‘Don’t forget what I’m going through here,’ her father urged, having taken the unusual step of accompanying his daughter to the door.

‘Of course, I won’t.’ Gwenna was touched by the affectionate hug he gave her.

‘See if you can work out something on my behalf with Riccardi.’

Gwenna drove slowly back to the nursery in the van. There was nothing more that she could do for her father at present, she thought unhappily. He was going to have to deal with the fact that his life was never going to be the same again, but that would take time. Her brow was pounding out her tension. Reasoning was a challenge when she felt as though the shock of recent events had set up a barrier between her and her wits. She was still struggling to accept that, in the space of ten days, her whole life had fallen down round her like a house of cards and with it the future that she had taken for granted. The village where she had lived from birth would no longer be her home. She would be barred from the gardens where she had grown up and happily worked whenever she had a moment free. The business she had laboured so hard to build would pass on to a stranger and might not even survive. After all, the profit margins at the nursery were low and, with Joyce on maternity leave, she was working alone.

Her mobile phone rang just as she finished packing the orders from the mail-order catalogue in the rear storeroom. It was Toby. Smiling with pleasure, she relaxed and went into the shop to chat and savour every piece of his news. He told her that he was in Germany. A landscape architect, Toby James had already made his name in design and he often accepted commissions abroad. Gwenna had first met him at college and saw a lot less of him than she would have liked.

‘A mate of a mate saw the story about your father in the paper and passed it on,’ Toby volunteered. ‘You must be really torn up about this. Why didn’t you tell me about it yourself?’

Piglet had started barking in the storeroom and she called out to him to hush. ‘There was no point spreading the bad news.’

‘How often have I cried on your shoulder?’ he censured.

‘Only once,’ she sighed, recalling that night with pained regret. ‘The nursery and the gardens are being sold.’

‘That is a total disaster…I can’t believe it!’

Gwenna pictured Toby raking an impatient hand through his brown hair, his green eyes glinting with concern and disappointment on her behalf. He was very attractive and tremendous fun. They had so much in common and she even got on like a house on fire with his family. It had taken a long time for her to register that their close friendship was destined to go no further because, although few people appreciated the fact, Toby was gay. By the time she’d found out she had been head over heels in love with him and had yet to meet the man who could compete with Toby’s hold on her affections, although goodness knew she had tried.

While Gwenna was enjoying her conversation with Toby, Angelo was descending from his limo that had purred to a halt outside. He surveyed his surroundings with huge disdain. The nursery as such was composed of ramshackle sheds and an ancient greenhouse. He strolled towards the open door of the shop and just as he began to frown at the strong perfume in the air he saw Gwenna. Endless long slim legs clad in slim-fit jeans, blonde hair in a pony-tail, she was leaning back against the counter, a glorious smile lighting up her lovely face. She was chattering, unaware of his presence. Instantly he knew that he would not be satisfied until she smiled at him like that.

‘It feels like a hundred years ago since I saw you…I miss you.’

Stilling in the doorway, Angelo began to listen. He was fifteen feet from her and she still hadn’t noticed him. That had never happened to him before. The average woman went on hyper-alert when he entered the building, never mind the same room. She was locked onto that phone as if it were her lover. Or, as if she were talking to her lover, eyes shining, voice husky, giggly, her entire manner in feminine flirt mode. His eyes turned to chips of black ice.

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