At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command

Maybe everyone behaved as they did in private. She wouldn’t know. She was still naive, an innocent, with no other lover for comparison. At twenty-one, when they’d become lovers, she’d been untutored in the more intimate side of a relationship. He had awoken her to unbelievable delights and had cracked her ice-maiden image where sex was concerned.

Their first carnal encounter had been incredible and he’d reached a hitherto unknown, passionate side of her that had amazed them both. Over time their lovemaking had become even better, blissful and fulfilling. For her. She winced.

Every inch still burned for him, ached for the wonderful release that sex gave to her body. She groaned inwardly. It had been a mistake to let her mind run on like this!

Appalled, she averted her face to hide the flush of heat that tormented her from deep inside, through her protesting flesh and pulsing veins and out to her scorched skin.

‘Few things are what they seem on the surface,’ she muttered, thinking of his urbane manner and inner cruelty. ‘Maggots seem to head for the best-looking apple. It’s only when you bite into it that you discover the rotten core. Nothing’s perfect, is it?’

He scowled. ‘True. Though this view comes close to perfection. Perhaps that’s why I cannot resist it,’ he said cynically. ‘It will never be sullied.’

He drew in a huge breath, as if regretting that the same couldn’t be said for his wife. Miranda opened her mouth to demand to see Carlo but infuriatingly he forestalled her again.

‘My ancestors chose well to build the palazzo here three hundred years ago. My friends are envious.’ He hesitated and said carefully, ‘They all agree that anyone would leap at the chance to live here.’

Miranda’s eyes narrowed. He was excusing himself for succumbing to devious means to get his hands on the house.

‘It is very beautiful,’ she agreed coolly and drew breath to ask about Carlo.

‘The Severinis have always had an eye for beauty.’

Despite her anxiety, his velvety murmur fed her libido unnervingly. She sensed he was gazing at her and not the view, but this time she didn’t turn to confirm this. Didn’t dare. Being so close to him was already causing havoc inside her.

She must wind this up. Get Carlo. Go home. But she couldn’t resist one more dig because she was hurting so badly.

‘So have we all. The difference is that they think they can buy any beautiful thing they want,’ she replied in a withering tone.

He looked annoyed by her response. ‘Even beauty can be for sale,’ he drawled.

Did he mean her? She pruned in her mouth, refusing to give him the last word.

‘That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?’ she snapped, eyes blazing with indignation. ‘Houses, paintings, cars, women…they’re all trophies to you! I wonder how many people would have chosen an inanimate house over living flesh and blood?’

Dante’s eyes darkened with anger. ‘If the house is perfect and the flesh and blood has become rotten like your maggot-ridden apple, I imagine few would have difficulty in making a choice,’ he shot back.

She flinched, bridling at what he was implying. He thought she’d been drunk that night. It had given him the excuse to leave her. This could be her last chance to put him straight. Before she left him forever, he had to believe her. She’d never been able to bear injustices.

One day he would visit Carlo in England. Dante mustn’t ever feed lies to her son and blacken her name. Angrily she slanted her eyes in his direction and said sharply,

‘People see what they want to see. You jumped to the wrong conclusion. I was ill, not drunk.’ Her mutinous gaze met his and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from shrinking back at his look of disgust. But he was in the wrong, not her. So she tipped up her chin defiantly. ‘Have you never admitted to a mistake, Dante?’

‘I have never made one,’ he growled with force. ‘Other than that of marrying you.’

So emphatic. So sure. She shivered. Suddenly she wanted to get Carlo home. Needed her baby safe and sound and away from this megalomaniac.

‘You have made a mistake. I am determined that eventually you will know the truth.’ She drew in a rasping breath. ‘But I’ve had enough of this. I demand to see—’

‘You’re not in a position to demand anything!’ His eyes glittered like black stones and she shivered at his ruthlessness.

Weary of this, hungry for her beloved child’s embrace, she muttered tautly, ‘I think I am. You need me. You didn’t bring me here to discuss the skill of the Severinis in snaffling the most beautiful spot on Lake Como. What exactly do you want?’

‘Your cooperation,’ he replied. ‘Come inside.’

At last! She felt her pulses quicken. Slowly he would unravel his dignity and admit that on consideration he would be magnanimous and let her take Carlo. It was almost inconceivable that he’d confess that he couldn’t handle her son without her. He was a proud man. Losing face would be unthinkable. How would he explain away his failure to banish her from Carlo’s life?

Keyed up, she allowed herself to be seated in a gloriously comfortable soft kid chair, the arms of which she could not help but stroke. Guiltily she saw Dante watching her, his dark eyes two hot globes of black silk that threatened to make her as malleable as molten metal.

‘Tea?’ he murmured silkily.

She fumed at the delay. Yet all her senses stupidly sprang into life in response to his carnal expression. That was how he’d always seen her—as a convenient womb and a sex object.

‘Thank you,’ she clipped.

He would string this out, just to make her suffer. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

Restless, impatient, she crossed one long leg over the other. Noticed those mercilessly sensual eyes contemplating their slim, golden length. Felt the stirring of desire again and wondered how on earth she could feel like this when she despised every bone in his body.

It was just a trick of her sexual memory, she told herself bleakly. In time her desperate need for his touch would go. And when that happened she would be cold and emotionless once more—except where Carlo was concerned.

‘Carlo,’ she said flatly, by way of encouragement.

‘Yes. Carlo.’

As if they had all the time in the world, he poured from the silver pot, adding a slice of lemon and placing the almost transparent bone-china cup on a Venetian table beside her, before retiring behind his vast desk. He was utterly in charge of the situation.

She glared at him sitting behind his imposed barrier without expression, her heart leaping so erratically it felt it might burst from her chest.

‘Yes?’ she felt urged to prompt before she shrieked her impatience like a banshee.

‘First, I need to say that Carlo—’ he began, and his eyes flicked down to her fingers, which had clenched into white-boned fists.

‘Get on with it!’ she jerked out, before she could stop herself.

‘My apologies. Your time is valuable. I forgot. Carlo,’ he said in a gravelly voice, ‘is not here.’

Life drained from her body. Suppressing a sob, she lifted her chin and met his simmering gaze full on, her entire body quivering with rage.

‘You rat! Is this your revenge on me?’ she choked, hating him, her eyes bleak and splintered with ice.

‘No. I am not that vindictive,’ he replied quietly.

When he sipped his tea, she saw to her surprise that his hand was shaking. Fear ripped through her, destroying the carefully erected mask of composure.

‘Dear heaven! What’s happened to him?’ she breathed, her lips parted in fear.

‘Afraid of losing your bargaining tool?’ he taunted.

‘Is—he—all—right?’ she ground out, her face bleached of colour.

‘Fine. I just wanted us to have time to discuss this.’

There was a strange light in his eyes which was almost sexual as he stared at her mouth when it parted in a relieved gasp, and she cringed back in her chair, not trusting him an inch. Her head began to pound with the crackling tension.

‘I didn’t know, you see,’ he explained, ‘how long our negotiations would take.’

Negotiations. She felt on firmer ground. Naturally he’d want to ask her for access time.

‘They’ll take a week,’ she said tartly, ‘if you continue stalling.’

‘So English,’ he murmured with a curled lip of distaste. ‘So direct.’

‘Come to the point,’ she insisted, refusing to play his game any longer.

He nodded. ‘Allora. This is the situation.’ He leaned back in his chair, watching her steadily with his melted-chocolate eyes, and she felt dizzy as the hysteria rose within her. He must have sensed her desperation because he firmed his lips and continued, ‘I need to explain why I have asked you here.’

Her entire body seemed to be turned to ice. This didn’t sound good.

‘Do,’ she managed to snap out.

He scowled and took his time while her heart rate reached alarming levels and the fear made her head spin.

‘At first,’ he said in unusually rasping tones, ‘Carlo was excited by the journey on the plane and the fun we had in my uncle’s Milan apartment where we stayed initially. I gave him my full attention and he loved that.’

‘Yes.’ Just in time, Miranda restrained herself from saying that it must have been a novelty to have his father’s undivided attention. She suspected that sarcasm wouldn’t get her anywhere.

‘Then when the palazzo was ready, we drove here.’ Dante gave a faint smile, evidently reliving happy memories. ‘He loved his playroom and new toys, the trips on the ferries across the lake…’

He paused, his voice tailing away. She realised that this was distressing him. The oh-so-perfect Dante had discovered that he wasn’t enough for his three-year-old son.

She jumped in before she felt sorry for him. ‘And then?’

His jaw worked. Pain tore at his mouth. To her surprise, a pang ripped at her chest, though why she should feel any sympathy she couldn’t imagine for the life of her.

Very softly he said, ‘I regret to say that all my entertaining and affection could not replace the love that he has for you.’

He took a deep breath. Miranda stifled a sudden rush of joyful relief. ‘I’m not surprised.’

‘I am. But remarkably, despite your poor mothering skills, Carlo is clearly missing you.’

She bit back a wrenching sob so that Dante wouldn’t notice how deeply she’d been affected by that last remark. Poor baby, she thought in an agony of despair. They’d never been parted before. Most of his waking hours had been spent with her. He’d been miserable. Had probably cried pitifully…

And suddenly her control snapped. She couldn’t hold back her misery, her mind tortured by flashes of cinematic images of Carlo in tears, his small face screwed up in bewilderment and despair.

‘Of course he’s missing me!’ she stormed. ‘How could you hurt him like this? You must have known this would happen!’

‘But I didn’t!’ he protested. ‘I thought he’d miss his nanny more, since you’d largely abandoned him to her care!’

‘Not true—!’ she gasped.

‘I heard different!’ he hurled.

Her eyes blazed and she clenched her fists. ‘From whom?’

‘Someone close to you.’

‘The nanny—Susan?’

He shook his head, his black eyes never leaving her tense face. ‘Someone else. I know that Carlo rarely saw you—’

‘That’s a lie!’ she spat in outrage.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said tightly. ‘I was the only one who gave him any time and affection—’

‘Ridiculous! You were never home during those last few months!’ she accused.

‘An exaggeration!’ he retorted. ‘Certainly I visited my uncle frequently, because he was ill—’

‘And rich!’ she goaded.

‘However, when I was home,’ Dante went on, grimly ignoring her, ‘Carlo had my devoted attention. It was obvious that he lacked affection. He clung to me. Wouldn’t let me go—’

‘Because he felt insecure about you! He never knew when you’d go and when you’d come back—’

‘He loves me!’ Dante hurled. ‘You know he does!’

‘Yes,’ she agreed coldly. ‘But he’s precious to me—’

‘Because you can use him?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she cried in astonishment.

The black eyes were like stones. ‘He’s good currency,’ he said coldly. ‘You know I want him—’

‘Oh, the Severini heir!’ she scathed, fear clutching at her heart. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘He is my son! That’s why I want him!’ Dante flung in passion and she knew she had a battle on her hands. ‘I know you see him as a meal ticket—perhaps, as I said, something to bargain with. Or perhaps as a revenge because your days of sucking me dry are over—’

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said, trying to keep the lid on her temper. ‘I don’t see Carlo as a means of getting revenge or money. He is my child and I love him. I am here to take him home because he needs me. Whatever this…lying person says, I am devoted to Carlo. You’ve seen that for yourself, Dante! Are you blind?’

‘You’re not particularly demonstrative,’ he snapped.

‘Are you comparing me with Italian mothers?’ she demanded. ‘You know how I am. I’m not effusive—never have been. I try not to spoil him. But I do hug and kiss him and think of his welfare all the time. I won’t have you saying I don’t love my own son when it’s written in my eyes for anyone to see! I absolutely adore him! I am his mother!’

‘To my eternal regret.’ Dante scowled. ‘And I find it inexplicable that he’s been asking for you every single day.’

Anguish mingled with delight and longing in her expression. Dante glanced away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.

‘Poor little scrap!’ she exclaimed, horrified by the trauma Carlo must have suffered. Dante had no option but to realise that she must have custody of their son. Emboldened, she lifted her head belligerently. ‘He must have been bewildered when you whisked him off! It’s unbelievable that you put him through this, Dante!’

‘I could hardly leave him with you after what I’d witnessed,’ he snarled.

‘Me? Supposedly drunk—?’

‘If only that were all!’ Loathing spilled from his eyes. ‘You’re a trollop, Miranda. You entertained a man in our bed, knocking back champagne with him and, by the state of you when I arrived, you might have been taking recreational drugs too. While our son lay neglected—’

‘None of that’s true!’ she cried in horror. ‘How can you say that—?’

Pain was slashing into every line of his face. ‘With great difficulty!’ he snarled. ‘I know what I saw. You were disorientated and totally out of it. The evidence of your partying, your infidelity, was there for anyone to see—’

‘It’s an out-and-out lie!’ she croaked. ‘If that’s what you’re pretending…’

Dante jerked around, the ferocity of his expression drying her throat so that she couldn’t continue. His face was taut with anger. In his eyes blazed a hatred so intense, so murderous that it was as if he’d stabbed her in the heart.

‘Pretending? Pretending?!’ he cried, in a slicingly cold voice that lashed her more surely than if he’d yelled at her. ‘I did not imagine that I came home unexpectedly from Milan and found you virtually comatose, the sheets soaked in champagne, and my son abandoned and screaming his head off in the nursery!’ he ripped out. ‘You were drugged, drunk and incapable. And from the marks on your body you’d clearly had rough sex with some,’ he choked and forced out, ‘some common thug—’

‘No! That’s a vile lie!’ Reliving that evening, she felt as if her head might burst. Everything that had happened was a terrible, sickening blur… ‘Of one thing I’m certain!’ she cried with passion. ‘I’ve never been unfaithful to you! I’ve told you that over and over again! I had flu—’

‘But no temperature. I checked,’ he said stonily.

‘I don’t care! That’s the only explanation—’

‘No. Regrettably, it is not.’

‘Flu!’ she insisted vehemently.

‘And champagne is a cure?’ he flung. ‘In two glasses?’

Her hand strayed to her forehead. She felt nauseous, as she had on that day. Whenever she went to sleep now, she woke up sweating from terrible nightmares in which she seemed to be living out Dante’s fantasy that she’d had sex that night. Someone rough and uncaring was ripping off her clothes. Hurling her on the bed. Holding her down.

She blanched. It was true she’d had bruises the next morning. Had that been Dante? she wondered in sudden shock. Taking his revenge?

‘Oh, God!’ she whispered.

And suddenly her shoulders were being shaken, and she came back to the present time to find the black-eyed Dante standing in front of her and glaring at her in contempt.

She stared at the flare of his jacket where it sat snugly over his slender hips. She must convince him of her innocence. Find out what he’d done. Then close the matter forever if she was ever to move on and reclaim her life.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ she ripped out hoarsely. ‘But I swear—’

‘Swear all you like. One thing is clear. To this day you have no idea what you were doing,’ he said in disgust. ‘Do you think that makes it all right?’ He sucked in a huge breath. ‘There could have been a football team enjoying your favours in your bedroom for all you know! You were too drunk and too drugged to have any idea what was happening!’ he exploded.

‘I wasn’t! None of that is true—!’

‘Yes! I was there! I saw you, remember?’

He glared down at her with a look that told her he was about to say something significant.

‘What…what is it?’ she asked shakily.

There was pure loathing in his eyes. ‘Surely you realise that under the circumstances,’ he snarled, ‘I can’t ever trust you to look after Carlo?’

Horror-struck, she searched his implacable face. The room spun and she gripped the arms of the chair with clawing hands. Chalk-white, she desperately swallowed down the huge lump of emotion that was sitting like a leaden weight in her throat.

‘You—you mean…!’ Hardly able to breathe, she grabbed the cup and gulped down the still scalding liquid so that she could speak. ‘Is that it? Why you’ve brought me here? To tell me that…I—I can’t take Carlo home with me?’ she wavered.

The black eyes scorched her into terror-struck silence.

‘Precisely,’ he clipped.

CHAPTER FOUR

LOSING control completely in her misery and anger, Miranda leapt up and slapped his arrogant, smug face, her hand cracking with a sound like a pistol shot.

‘You brute!’ she yelled. Blindly she launched herself at him, beating her fists against his chest. ‘You dragged me here, raising my hopes, deliberately taunting me… And all the time you never meant to let me have Carlo! I hate you! Loathe you! You’re utterly contemptible! He needs me, Dante! You know he does!’ she raged. ‘My baby needs me and I need him! You promised me I’d see him! You promised!’

He grabbed her hands and wrestled them behind her back. He was breathing hard, his nostrils flared and white in contrast to the scarlet marks on his high cheekbones, his perfect white teeth bared in a grimace.

‘I know that!’ he seethed. ‘So this is what whips you into a frenzy! The thought of losing the chance to use Carlo to screw me for half my fortune—!’

‘I don’t want your money! I don’t care about your ill-gotten gains!’ she wailed. ‘It’s Carlo I care about! Punish me all you like, but don’t punish a three-year-old child!’

Her body slammed into his with a controlled force. Her upturned face was inches from Dante’s grim mouth and she felt a sharp stab of fear at the blazing fury in his coal-black eyes.

‘Listen to me!’ he snarled. ‘I do not intend to give Carlo one more day’s distress! How dare you think I could hurt him? Why do you think I’ve swallowed my pride and compromised my honour to bring you over here? I never wanted to see you again. Whenever I think of you and the filth you’ve been consorting with, my guts scream with pain and disgust! I am ashamed that you have shamed the name of Severini. I wish I didn’t have to see you, a shallow, heartless woman who chose to marry purely for material gain—!’

‘I what? That’s absolute rubbish!’ she cried in astonishment.

‘—and even now you’re plotting to make as much as you can from this miserable situation! “Play your cards right”!’ he mimicked, aping Lizzie’s greedy tone.

She gulped, her heart sinking. ‘You’ve got it wrong!’

‘I don’t think so. I was warned from the start about you and your motives!’

‘Who by?’ She quivered with indignation.

‘Never you mind. But you aren’t what you seem, that I know. You might even be thinking of wheedling your way back into my bed. And, if that fails, you mean to snatch Carlo away and to get yourself a nice, fat divorce settlement—’

‘You’re mad! Where did you get that idea?’

‘From Lizzie’s own mouth!’

She froze, her face appalled. The chauffeur! He’d reported Lizzie’s remarks…

‘Dante!’ she choked. ‘I—’

‘Listen to me!’ he growled, giving her a little shake. ‘This is a desperate measure for me to take, don’t you understand? I am risking everything by doing this! You’re a loose cannon—God knows what damage you might do to my son! But I’ve got to take the risk because he’s pining for you.’

She blinked, faltering, trying to understand. Crushed against him, she suddenly became aware of the power he had over her. Power to bend her to his will. Power, also, to arouse her with his hard, male body that burned like a furnace of intense heat against hers. She was consumed by him. Drowning in wanting.

Desperately she tried to keep her mind clear. ‘What risk? If I’m not to collect Carlo and take him home, then why on earth have you brought me here?’ she stumbled. ‘This is a nightmare!’ she moaned. Helplessly she gazed up at him. ‘I’ve long since stopped trying to understand you!’

He released her, his eyes glittering with anger behind his lowered lashes. Yet his lips had curved and parted as if he contemplated kissing her till she couldn’t breathe. Awash with his compelling sexuality, she blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of this contradiction. And put it down to his high libido.

‘And I, you,’ he muttered, his mouth now cruel. ‘Pay attention. This is my proposition.’

‘You expect me to sleep with you?’ she blurted out in panic, knowing she’d shamefully betray her need for him if he ever tried to caress her.

Dante immediately flinched, as though the idea was repulsive. ‘You were a little quick to come up with that suggestion,’ he taunted. ‘Is that what you’ve been banking on? That sheer lust would drive us together again?’

‘N-no!’ she husked.

But to her eternal shame her eyes gave the lie to that, and his contemptuous expression told her that he’d recognised the needs of her throbbing body.

‘You can forget the idea. I do not touch soiled goods,’ he clipped in contempt. ‘My standards are above that. I have never understood the need for men to resort to whores.’

‘This is the mother of your son you are talking about,’ she whispered, appalled that he should regard her in such low esteem.

‘And don’t I regret that you are!’ he snapped, smoothing down his shirt and adjusting his jacket, which had been disarrayed by her frenzied attack. ‘Whatever your ice-queen appearance may suggest to the contrary, I know how eager you are for sex. I have personal experience of your wantonness. And your wild outburst just now shows that you are ruled by passions you cannot control—’

‘You’re denying me my child!’ she cried, white-faced and terrified. ‘Any woman would go crazy with grief—!’

‘Spare me the hearts and flowers,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t buy that one. The trouble is, Miranda, you didn’t hear me out. You were too ready to condemn me, to jump to conclusions. You cannot deny that I have Carlo’s interests at heart.’