At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command
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‘Miranda, this is money with a capital M!’ gloated Lizzie. ‘Couldn’t you try to patch things up? Oh, please, please! Look what you’d be missing—’
‘I’ve told you!’ Miranda frowned with impatience. ‘I’m here for one reason only and that’s to take Carlo from that swine I stupidly married! I swear,’ she cried with low and heartfelt passion, ‘that I will move heaven and earth if necessary to take my baby back to England—’
‘You’re hopeless! All right. Get a damn good divorce settlement at the very least,’ counselled Lizzie crossly. ‘Screw him for all you can.’
The massive wrought-iron gates swung open electronically. As the limo purred through them, Miranda’s face lit up with relief and she couldn’t prevent a warm smile from seeping out at the thought of her son’s dear little body, soon to be held close to hers.
With a start, she noticed that the chauffeur’s eyes had hardened at the sight of her pleasure and she wondered what Dante had told his staff about her.
‘Is this actually Dante Severini’s house?’ she asked, breathless with excitement.
There was a moment’s hesitation before a grudging grunt. ‘Si.’
Not ‘Si, signora,’ the usual courteous response, she noted. Miranda gritted her teeth at the deliberate insult and then dismissed it. What did it matter what lies Dante had told? She’d be shot of the lot of them in an hour and on her way back home.
The car crawled up the long driveway and her tension mounted. So this, she thought in amazement, was the estate that Dante had coveted, along with the business!
She could see why. It was breathtakingly situated on the shores of Lake Como in the north of Italy. The gardens had been laid out in a mixture of English and Italian styles, so that rhododendrons and azaleas and plane trees harmonised surprisingly well with the palms and banana plants set amid elegant terraces and statues.
And she’d never even known of its existence.
‘Jumping elephants!’ Lizzie shrieked as the house finally came into view. ‘My brother-in-law’s become a billionaire at least! Jammy devil!’
‘Lizzie!’ she scolded, humiliated by the chauffeur’s disgusted glance.
‘What? I’m only saying what’s true,’ protested her sister. ‘Forget the divorce. You’re looking great, Miranda. This is your big chance. Play your cards right as we discussed, get back into his bed, and life’ll be a ball!’
Miranda was barely listening, far more interested in studying the house. Four storeys high, the pale ochre building was both graceful and imposing. An eighteenth-century palace, fit for a prince. Or a highly ambitious man.
It was quite the most beautiful house she had ever seen, straight out of a fairy tale. It sat serenely in the lush green gardens, with what must be magnificent views over the stunning blue lake.
Yet despite its grandeur the house seemed welcoming and friendly as if centuries of love and care had given it a mellow personality of its own.
Even Lizzie had been silenced as they came to a halt by the broad stone staircase.
Now I truly understand why he schemed with such desperation, Miranda mused soberly. This was a prize that Dante could not bear to lose. Even if it meant deliberately deceiving a woman he knew was madly in love with him. Why not marry the poor sap and give her a little happiness for a short time, before consigning her to the rubbish heap?
Miranda’s heart beat a tattoo in her chest as she slid from the luxurious car. Trembling with anticipation and almost sick with excitement and joy, she watched Dante’s tall figure emerge from the imposing house and concentrated on dealing with the way her heart contracted at the sight of him. Behind her, Lizzie tumbled out, still rhapsodising in ear-splitting shrieks to some boyfriend on her mobile.
A jolt of disappointment hit her. Just Dante had appeared. No Carlo. Her stomach lurched with fear and then she steadied herself. Carlo must be having a nap. She smiled, as lovingly remembered images of her sleeping son filled her mind.
And smiling adoringly still, she lifted her gaze to the man who was watching her so intently. A spark of electricity leapt across the distance between them. The impact of seeing him was just the same as the first day she’d met him: a deep, visceral belonging, a sense of a shared destiny and warm, overwhelming joy.
Except, she sighed, those feelings had always been one-sided. He’d never loved her. And of course now she understood what lay behind his autocratic bearing and the air of perfect grooming, the perfectly tailored silk suit in a discreet honey colour, the made-to-measure casual cream shirt, and those expensive leather shoes.
Money. Buckets of it. And breeding.
She’d been ignorant of all this. When they’d lived in London their lifestyle had been comfortable but not excessively so. Now she knew that he and his family were in a different league altogether, that of the mega-rich.
She gulped, intimidated by this because he had become a stranger, just by stepping into the higher echelons of Italian society.
The chauffeur hurried up the steps to meet Dante and was gesticulating and talking rapidly. Probably, Miranda thought uncomfortably, complaining about Lizzie’s high-decibel shrieks and embarrassing remarks. Dante’s eyes narrowed in a suspicious stare and her composure wilted like her body in the blazing sun as she blushed with shame.
‘You’d think Carlo would be waiting for you,’ Lizzie complained. ‘Unless Dante’s teaching you a lesson and we’ve come on a wild-goose chase.’
Fear rooted Miranda to the ground. Had she been dragged here for revenge? To be given hope, only to be told that she could whistle for her son?
‘He’ll…be asleep,’ she said, not very convincingly.
Carlo…where? When? she thought desperately, trying to contain herself. In panic, she listened for the sounds of a child but heard nothing, only a tension-filled silence.
Feeling chilled to the core despite the hot sun, she waited for Dante to come to her because she couldn’t move an inch. Eventually he dismissed the chauffeur and his long, impeccably clad legs slowly began to descend the steps.
With infuriating nonchalance, Dante paused on the bottom step, reaching out casually to fiddle with a cascade of geraniums in an antique copper urn.
Drat him, he must know what she was going through! She’d wring his neck if he continued to play with her feelings!
‘Miranda.’ He gave her a mocking bow. No kiss. No handshake. No touching. So she just nodded back, managing to seem cool and contained. ‘Greetings, Elizabeth,’ he murmured to his star-struck sister-in-law. ‘Perhaps you would enjoy touring the house. Make yourself at home, and help yourself to champagne and pastries in the salon.’
‘Cool! You bet!’ Eyes sparkling and with her mobile still clamped to her ear, Lizzie leapt up the steps, blissfully unaware that Dante had skilfully got her out of the way.
His mocking dark eyes followed her sister and his lips curved in a faintly contemptuous smile, the sensual, cresting wave of his mouth sending shivers of remembrance down Miranda’s back.
She closed her eyes briefly as her body felt the cascade of kisses he used to shower on her. All carefully calculated, she thought bitterly, to keep her sweet until his uncle died! Cured of her stupid mooning, she snapped open her eyes again.
With a total lack of urgency, Dante turned to Miranda. His gaze slid up her taut body in an arrogant assessment of her graceful figure in the classically cut silk dress and jacket. In Dante’s favourite cornflower-blue, it matched her eyes. Into which, she’d thought with a pang of anguish when she’d selected it, he’d gazed with such devastating results.
‘You are thinner,’ he announced, his frown registering his disapproval.
She bridled immediately. Once she’d loved his intrinsically Italian interest in her body and clothes. Now his interest was insulting and intrusive. She lifted her shoulders in an eloquent uninterest.
‘My appearance is none of your business. Naturally I’ve been busy. Rushing here, dashing there…’
And from feeling sick at the sight of food. With agonising cramps in her stomach. Damn you, Dante! she inwardly seethed. Where is my son?
He corrected the frown which had drawn his brows together.
‘You’re right. Your appalling lifestyle in England is no concern of mine any longer, I am glad to say. Tea has been brought to my study,’ he said icily. ‘Follow me.’ When he began to climb the steps again she made no reply but stomped along behind him in silence, trying not to rise to his insult. ‘Nothing to say to me?’ he shot back at her.
‘No.’ She’d bide her time. See what he had to say—
‘I thought as much,’ he scorned as she caught him up. ‘You’ve just proved something to me.’
‘Oh? What might that be?’
‘That when I was around you only pretended that you loved Carlo.’
‘How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?’ she demanded indignantly.
‘You’ve been separated from him for two weeks. But you haven’t bothered to ask where he is,’ he said with bitter contempt.
So much for his intuition, she thought, intensely irritated. Didn’t he know her whole mind was screaming for information?
‘I saw no point in wasting my breath. I imagined,’ she retorted drily, proud that there was hardly a tremor in her voice at all, ‘that you would tell me when you’re good and ready and not before.’
He gave a grunt of acknowledgement. ‘How well you know me, Miranda!’ he muttered, indicating that they should enter the building.
Know him? On the contrary. How could you know a devious, deceitful snake? She would never trust him again. Suddenly, doubts as to his motive for bringing her here filled her head and she came to a halt.
‘Just tell me one thing,’ she said evenly, ‘otherwise I see no reason to go any further. Am I going to see my son soon?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Dante’s eyes flickered. ‘I give you my guarantee that the two of you will be reunited. Please enter. We will talk inside.’
Her breath shuddered out. It seemed that her fears were groundless and all she needed to do was keep her dignity until Dante relented and let her take Carlo into her arms. Only then would she risk giving way to joy. And tears. She could hardly believe it. The nightmare was almost over.
CHAPTER THREE
SUDDENLY she felt unbelievably tired. It was as though all her mental and physical energies had carried her through to this moment. Now she and Carlo were about to be reunited, she could begin to let go.
Exhaustion washed over her as she followed his tall figure through the huge carved doors. If anything, he seemed better-looking than ever. Her resentful eyes noted the perfect curve that his neat black hair made on the rich, dark skin of his neck. The breadth of his shoulders in the crisp Milanese jacket.
And in her mind’s eye she could see his sensational back as if he were naked: the firmness of its triangular shape, the slender hips and tight, neat buttocks. The smooth flesh golden and inviting her touch, muscles moving beneath the well-fitted clothes, the thick cords on either side of his spine proclaiming his athleticism and physical power.
Her heart ached. She could have wept for everything they had lost. Not only those sweet, amazingly fierce explosions of erotic pleasure they’d shared, but also the intimacy, the companionship of the early years together. Even, she sighed, if that had been not real, but a clever deception on his part so that she had suspected nothing while his uncle was alive.
It had been an arranged marriage. The trouble was, she hadn’t known that. Her spirits sank lower.
‘Welcome to my home.’
He turned to her as though he might be inviting her opinion of it. She made a show of looking around as if that was what she’d been doing all along.
The palazzo—for that was what it must surely be—seemed no longer friendly, but daunting in its grandeur. In the cool darkness of the shuttered hall, glass and gold gleamed mysteriously. As they crossed the marble floor, her stilettos tapped with an intrusive echo.
Dante’s ancestors, captured in oils and enclosed in ornate gold frames, checked her out, their dark eyes following her speculatively as she and Dante approached the theatrical double staircase.
Her surroundings had the effect of making her feel uncomfortable. These were riches on a grand scale. Few ambitious men could have remained indifferent when tempted with such luxury, such power, and the prospect of heading a five-hundred-year-old dynasty.
If only she hadn’t been caught in Dante’s honey trap! Guido had explained that his brother knew she had fallen in love with him. Dante had leapt at the chance to marry hastily, before his sick uncle had carried out his threat to leave everything to a more distant, married member of the family.
She winced. The scheming Dante must have waited to hear of his uncle’s death like a vulture hovering over a sick animal. No wonder he’d enquired after Amadeo Severini’s health so often and so earnestly. Her eyes hardened. It must have been very frustrating when Amadeo had hung on to life for nearly four more years!
‘What do you think of the house?’ Dante asked coolly. ‘Does it appeal to your tastes?’
Her frosty gaze slanted chillingly in his direction. ‘I’m sure you don’t care about my opinion.’
‘It interests me to know what you think.’
Haughtily she lifted her chin. She had no intention of bolstering his inflated ego. ‘Too big for one man,’ she said in dismissal.
‘I agree,’ he said to her surprise, pausing as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘That’s why Amadeo didn’t live here and just used it for entertaining.’
‘But you will?’ she hazarded, her eyes narrowing, knowing the answer. He clearly adored his new position. He’d sacrificed a good deal for it.
‘Correct.’
The first doubt slid into her mind. If he thought it was too big for him on his own…surely he wasn’t thinking of keeping Carlo! Her pulses began to quicken with alarm but she hid her apprehension. Whatever game he was playing, he’d see no sign of weakness from her. Perhaps, she consoled herself, he was planning for his mother to join him. And Guido.
‘I was always under the impression that Amadeo’s main residence was the penthouse in Milan,’ she observed icily. ‘You didn’t tell me he owned a palazzo as well.’
And the implicit question was there: why not?
Dante regarded her with unreadable eyes. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘Which were?’ she pushed.
He hesitated and then said in a flat tone, ‘I had hoped that you would be marrying me for the person I was, not for any material benefits I could give you.’
So he’d wanted to be loved! Huh! She felt like hitting him. He’d wanted someone so wrapped up in him that he could remain in control. Someone who didn’t matter to him. What about her? Hadn’t she been entitled to love, too?
‘You were wrong,’ she snapped. Wrong to marry her for convenience. Wrong to use her.
‘So I have discovered,’ he growled.
Grim-faced, he set off again, striding so fast along the broad landing that she had to half-run to keep up.
‘Talking about houses,’ he flung back at her curtly, ‘I might as well tell you that I am selling my place in Knightsbridge. I will live here in future.’
‘Suits me,’ she muttered.
Coming to a halt in front of an enormous pair of double doors flanked by huge Chinese vases, he glanced without pity at her glacial profile.
‘I’m not sure you realise the implications. When the Knightsbridge house is sold, you will have nowhere to live,’ he informed her, clearly imagining she would gasp with horror.
So she did nothing of the kind. She’d manage. Always had. ‘I expected no less from you,’ she assured him loftily and was pleased when he flushed at the insult.
Despite Lizzie’s urging to take Dante to the cleaners, she’d decided to keep her dignity and independence. Apart from a modest maintenance for Carlo, she wouldn’t take a penny from him. She’d rather starve than be beholden to a man who’d treated her so callously.
Dante scowled at her. ‘My lawyers will see that you get nothing from me in a divorce settlement. You can support yourself.’
‘Yes. There’s always whoring,’ she said sarcastically, reminding him of his vile suggestion on the e-mail. She felt some satisfaction when he stiffened, his entire body taut with suppressed fury. Glancing at the door and with her stomach doing somersaults, she asked, ‘Is Carlo in here?’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘It’s my study. Come in.’
Her disappointment was profound. Apparently she was to wait till Carlo woke up. And she could do nothing to hurry him. Out of sheer spite, he’d make her wait. Well, wait she would. As long as it took.
Dante opened the door and with a characteristic, gentlemanly gesture he stood to one side. But his manners were only superficial. No gentleman would have behaved so badly.
Steeling herself to perhaps an hour of hanging around, Miranda stalked into the room—only to catch her breath in wonder.
‘Oh! That’s incredible!’ she whispered in reluctant awe.
Her huge eyes were fixed on the open glass doors on the opposite side of the room, which framed the most wonderful view she’d ever seen in the whole of her life. Drawn to it, unable to resist its invitation, she crossed the Persian-carpeted floor and stepped onto the balcony outside as if in a dream. But when she placed her hands on the wrought-iron rail, she found it was hot to her hands and snatched them away with a small cry.
‘I should have warned you,’ Dante muttered.
Striding rapidly out to join her, he turned her hands over and examined her palms, frowning at the pale pink bar of heat on each one. For a moment she felt dizzy, assailed equally by heavenly perfumes from the garden and the nearness of him—his flawless olive skin, the dark brows and thick black lashes, that peaking mouth she had kissed and tasted and hungered for so many times.
‘It’s…nothing!’ she insisted huskily. ‘I’m fine!’ Shaken by her lingering desires, she stared up at him in dismay.
And, looking a little startled by her halting protest, he jerked his hands from hers, which were tingling, darn them, and that was nothing to do with the very minor marks on her palms. Because she also tingled down the entire length of her body and way, way within. Delicious. Devastating. She shifted unhappily.
‘Not hurt at all, then,’ he drawled.
‘It would take more than that to wound me,’ she retorted, hating his sarcastic tone.
‘Yes. You have a monumentally thick skin.’
‘I’d call it a determination to tough things out,’ she countered.
And, taking a deep breath, she concentrated on the reason she’d come out to the balcony: to drink in the magical view and to take a minute or two to recover her energies before she could collect Carlo and start the journey home.
As she thought of that wonderful moment, almost immediately her shoulders relaxed. And because there was nothing else to do till her son woke from his sleep, she surrendered to the enjoyment of the scene before her. Even the most uptight person would have been entranced and she was momentarily spellbound, gazing at the view in rapt silence.
‘What do you think of Lake Como?’ Dante asked, close by and strangely tense.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s stunning,’ she replied softly.
‘Quite breathtaking,’ he growled.
‘It must be a glorious view to see when you wake. How long have you been here?’ she enquired curiously.
Only inches away from her, he replied, ‘A week.’ When she nodded and continued to gaze dreamily ahead, he muttered under his breath something that sounded like, ‘Irresistibile.’
Her head jerked around, her eyes wide and startled. ‘What?’
He frowned. ‘The view.’ His eyes became cruelly mocking. ‘Surely you didn’t think I meant you?’
‘Hardly!’ Hastily she dragged her brain into gear. She would keep calm. She must maintain her dignity.
‘To me,’ he said, ‘this place is more beautiful, more precious, than all the paintings on the walls, all the priceless antiques in the house. It is simply the perfection of nature.’
She wondered why he was giving the house the hard sell. To make her envious? Or… She swallowed nervously. To force her to agree that Carlo would be better off here?
Dante certainly seemed besotted with his inheritance. Though it wasn’t surprising. Like him, she gazed with appreciation across the lake at the huddle of ochre and sienna houses of the little villages nestling at the foot of wooded hills. High mountains—she presumed the Alps—rose behind them, their peaks slicing jaggedly into the sky.
Wildness and serenity combined. An extraordinary combination and one that reached deep into her and touched her heart.
Beside her, Dante shifted imperceptibly. She could feel his very warmth and detected the faint hint of vanilla, which perfumed his favoured aftershave and shower lotion. That—or tiredness—made her quiver.
‘You must be thrilled with what’s landed in your lap,’ she remarked with deliberate tartness, fighting her attraction for him.
He studied her, his gaze lingering a little too long for her comfort. ‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘Smell that air.’
‘Yes.’ She leaned cautiously over the balcony. ‘What is that wonderful scent?’
‘It comes from the fragrant ozmanthus by the pergola.’
‘It’s very intense,’ she said jerkily, bemused by the electric atmosphere. And all she could do was to utter banalities in the hope that her pulse rate would consequently fall.
Dante muttered something under his breath. ‘Yes. It’s the heat. And because there’s not a breath of wind. Como has many moods, which can change by the hour. At the moment the water could almost be a sheet of glass,’ he mused idly into the hushed, heady air, saturated with the divine scent.
Miranda despaired. Despite her suspicions about his motives for enthusing about the house, she was holding her breath again, unable to take her eyes from his rapturous face, which the late-afternoon sun had lit so that his profile looked as if it had been carved from beaten gold.
With a jolt she realised an unpalatable fact. He loved this house more than he’d ever loved her.
Tartly she hoped he’d be very happy with it. And that it would keep him satisfied at night. His love affair with the house was all-embracing. Well, she’d rather have the love of her child. She fidgeted, anxious now to turn the conversation to Carlo, but he spoke before she could do so.
‘There was a violent storm that night we first came,’ he reminisced in a low murmur, seemingly in no hurry to see if her son was awake. Impatiently she listened, watching his expressive face, loving, hating, and hurting. ‘I discovered that the lake can be dangerous. Like a tempestuous woman.’ His dark eyes seemed to simmer like hot coals as they settled on hers. ‘The water was not the deceptively calm surface we see now. It was wild and turbulent. And exciting at the same time.’
Something jerked inside her. What was he doing? The curl of his sensual mouth left her in no doubt as to his meaning. He’d often commented on the passion that simmered beneath her own cool exterior. Miranda struggled for mastery over the sudden rush of sexual hunger he’d deliberately aroused.
It was hardly surprising she still felt stirrings of desire. They’d been so good together. Shockingly uninhibited. They’d made love everywhere, any time, seemingly unable to get enough of one another.
Guido had put her straight about that. ‘Every man will grab the chance of having sex,’ he’d explained. ‘Doesn’t matter what the woman’s like. And Dante’s the most over-sexed man I know.’
She bit her lip. Had it just been sex and nothing else? Had he needed the strong stimulation of those erotic situations so that he could make love to her? She shrank from that explanation. It would be too humiliating.