A Deal with Di Capua

“I have yet to tell you my proposition,” Angelo murmured, and tilted her face to his when she would have looked away.

“I will set you up with your first big job. You won’t need to invest in any equipment. I’ll even throw in a small car. You can pay me back when you start making money or if the cottage is sold.” He shrugged. “Or you can not pay me back at all. It’s immaterial…”

Rosie blinked. Never had such soothingly spoken words carried such dangerous intent. She was listening to him propose a pact with the devil. Her mouth parted and she made an inarticulate, strangled sound under her breath.

“I know. Thrilling, isn’t it? And just when you thought your ship had sunk.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m not a…a…”

“I think I know the word you’re striving to say, but let’s leave that unspoken. I like to think that what we have here is the perfect arrangement.”

CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

 THE SECRET CASELLA BABY

 THE NOTORIOUS GABRIEL DIAZ

 A TEMPESTUOUS TEMPTATION

 THE GIRL HE’D OVERLOOKED

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Deal with Di Capua

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ROSIE HAD NEVER been to a cremation before. Even when her dad had died eight years before, there had been a funeral. Friends—and he had had a surprising number of them, bearing in mind he had spent the majority of his life blearily watching the sun rise and set from the bottom of a whisky glass—had come to pay their respects. Rosie had known few of them. Her own friends had tagged along to give her moral support. At the age of eighteen, she had needed it. From recollection, a distant cousin who had turned out to live a scant three blocks away, in an impoverished two-bedroomed bungalow on a council estate remarkably similar to theirs, had shown up and expressed regret that he hadn’t been a more consistent family member.

For all his drunken ways and love of the bottle her father had been a jovial alcoholic and the number of people who had turned out on that brilliantly hot summer day had been testimony to that.

But this…

She had arrived late. It was bitterly cold and a series of small mishaps had made the journey far longer and more arduous than it should have been: Ice on the tracks. Rush hour on the tube. Signal problems as she had neared Earl’s Court. It hadn’t helped that she had purposefully decided to arrive late so that she could sneak into the back of the chapel and disappear before the service was finished. She had anticipated blending into the crowds.

Hovering now at the back, Rosie felt her heart begin to thud at the scant clutch of people who had shown up for the cremation of Amanda Di Capua, née Amanda Wheeler. Having made the effort to attend the ceremony, she was now desperate to leave, but her unsteady legs had a will of their own. They propelled her forwards so that she neared the group at the front. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the plump middle-aged man addressing them in a crisp, no-nonsense voice.

Of course, he would be there: Angelo Di Capua. Why kid herself that she hadn’t seen him? The instant she had stepped into the chapel her eyes had swivelled in his direction. He was easy to spot, but then hadn’t he always been? Three years was not nearly long enough for her to have buried the memory of just how tall, how striking, how impossibly good-looking he was. In a packed room, he had always had the ability to stand out. It was just the way he was built.

The horrible, sickening nervous tension that had begun to build over a week ago when she had received that phone call informing her of Amanda’s death—when she had decided that she would attend the funeral because Mandy had, after all, once been her closest friend—was spiralling into an unstoppable wave of nausea.

She forced herself to breathe and drew her thick coat tighter around her.

She wished that she had brought Jack along with her but he had wanted no part of it. His bitterness towards their one-time friend ran even deeper than hers.

The service ended whilst she was still lost in her thoughts and she felt the blood drain away from her face as the group of mismatched people began to turn around. She found that she couldn’t really recall any of the ceremony at all. The coffin had disappeared behind a curtain. In a few minutes, another batch of mourners would be arriving to replace them.

Angelo would surely come over to speak to her. Even he had some rudimentary politeness, and she forced herself to smile and walk forwards as though she was happy to mingle with the handful of people nearing her.

Angelo was among them. Beautiful, sexy Angelo. How must he be taking the death of his young wife? And had he even seen Rosie yet? She wondered whether there was still time to flee the scene but it was too late: a young woman was walking towards her, holding out her hand and introducing herself as Lizzy Valance.

“I phoned you. Remember?” She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, which she stuffed into the top of the black dress that barely seemed equipped for the job of restricting some of the biggest breasts Rosie had ever seen in her life.

“Yes. Of course…”

“I got your name from Mandy’s address book. Plus you were logged in her mobile phone, but I would have got hold of you anyway, cos she always talked about you.”

“Oh really?” Rosie’s mouth twisted. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Angelo talking to the vicar while glancing surreptitiously at his watch. He hardly looked like a grieving husband, but then what did she know? She had seen neither him nor Amanda for a very long time, had no idea how life had treated them. She was dimly aware of Lizzy talking, reminiscing over the good times she and Mandy had had, although it seemed those times had become fewer and further between towards the end because of Mandy’s drinking.

Rosie didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear about her ex-friend’s trials and tribulations. The times of feeling sympathy for Amanda were long over.

“How did she die?” She interrupted Lizzy abruptly. “You just mentioned an accident—was anyone else involved?” Whatever conversation Angelo had been having with the vicar was at an end and he was turning around towards her. Rosie focused on the small, curvy brunette with the massive bosoms and willed herself into a state of composure But she had to clasp her hands tightly together in front of her to stop them from shaking.

“Thankfully, no. But she had been drinking. It’s awful. I told her over and over again that she should get some help, but she never wanted to admit that she had a problem, and she was such fun when…you know…”

“Excuse me. I really have to go.”

“But we’re all going back to the little pub by her house.”

“I’m sorry.” Rosie could sense Angelo walking towards her, breaking free of the twenty or so people around him. The urge to run away as fast as her feet could take her was so overpowering that she thought she might faint.

She shouldn’t have come. Life was a tough business and there was no room for nostalgia. She, Jack and Amanda might have started their story together, but it certainly hadn’t ended up that way, and she just should have let sleeping dogs lie.

She had known that she would see Angelo here. How could she have kidded herself that she wouldn’t have been affected? She had given her heart to him, lock, stock and barrel, and he had taken it, broken it and walked off into the sunset with her best friend. Had she really imagined that she had managed to put all that behind her sufficiently to face him once again?

Lizzy had drifted away, leaving her standing on her own, a prime target for the man bearing down on her.

“Rosie Tom. Well, well, well, you’re the last person I expected to see here. No, maybe I should rephrase that—you’re the last person welcome here.”

Of course he had seen her. The second the brief service had concluded and he had half-turned, he had spotted Rosie and instantly he’d felt every muscle in his body, every pore and nerve-ending, spasm painfully with the combined weight of loathing and a certain heightened awareness that angered him almost as much as the sight of her did.

In the winter-infused chapel, she was radiantly striking. Tall and slender as a reed, with that peculiar shade of vibrant auburn hair that never failed to draw attention. She was pale and looked as though, with that hair colouring, she should have had freckles, but her skin was satinsmooth, creamy and unblemished and her eyes were the colour of sherry.

She had the glorious, other-worldly beauty of a woman designed to make men lose their minds. Angelo’s mouth thinned with displeasure as he fought to stop the floodgates to the past that were opening up.

“This is a public place,” Rosie said coolly. “You might not welcome me here, but I have every right to pay my respects.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You and Amanda parted as sworn enemies. How did you hear about her death anyway?”

She had had her hair cut. The last time he had seen her, it had been long, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. Now it was still wavy, but cut in a graduating bob that fell to her shoulders. She looked as chic and eye-catching as she always had.

“I had a call from Lizzy, her friend.”

“And you immediately thought that you would bury the hatchet and rush here to shed big crocodile tears. Do me a favour.”

Rosie took a deep breath. She found that she couldn’t quite look at him. Too many memories. Not that it mattered whether she actually looked at him or not. In her mind, his image was stamped with ruthless efficiency. The raven-black hair close-cropped; those fabulous eyes that were a peculiar shade of opaque green; the harsh, unforgiving angles of his face that heightened his sexual appeal rather than diminished it; a body that was lean and muscular and lightly bronzed.

“I wasn’t going to shed any tears,” she said quietly. “But we grew up together. And, now that I’ve come, I think it’s time for me to leave. I just…Whatever’s happened, Angelo, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Angelo threw back his head and laughed. “You’re sorry for my loss? We’d better step outside, Rosie, because if we don’t I might just burst out laughing again, and somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate for the inside of a chapel.”

Before she could protest, her arm was in a vice-like grip and she was being frog-marched out, her breath coming and going in staccato bursts, her brain in complete shutdown mode.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Really? Surprisingly, I don’t honestly care.” They were outside, standing to one side in the bitterly cold, gathering gloom. “Now, why the hell have you shown up here?”

“I told you. I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but Amanda and I go back a long way. We were at primary school together. I felt sad about the way things turned out…”

In the darkness, she couldn’t make out the expression on his face. She didn’t have to. His voice was as sharp as a shard of glass. This had been a big mistake.

“I’m not buying it. You’re a gold-digger and, if you think that you can show up here and see if there are any nuggets for the taking, then you can think again.”

“How dare you?”

“Let’s not go down that road, Rosie. You and I both know exactly how I dare. I should have known better than to expect anything else from a semi-clad waitress I happened to meet at a cocktail bar once upon a time.”

Rosie saw red. Her hand flew up and she felt the sting of flesh meeting flesh as it hit his cheek, sending his head back. Before she could back away, he was holding her wrist, pulling her towards him until she could breathe in that uniquely masculine scent she had always found so intoxicating.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t try that again.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, appalled at her lack of self-control and even more appalled at the way her body was reacting to the proximity of his. She tried to wriggle free of the steel band of his fingers around her wrist and just as suddenly as he had caught her hand, he released it to step back.

“I just don’t appreciate being called a gold-digger. I’m not here to see what I can get from you, Angelo. You must think I’m crazy, to imagine for a second that I would—”

“Once an opportunist, always an opportunist.”

“I’ve already told you that—”

“So you have. It’s a well-worn road, Rosie, and not one I’m about to travel down again.” His mouth twisted in a cynical half-smile. Even after all this time, and with enough loathing and bitterness towards the woman standing in front of him to sink a ship, Angelo still couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Any more than he could have controlled his reaction when he had felt her supple body pressed up close against his.

“Angelo, I haven’t come here to argue with you.”

“Fine.” He shrugged in a gesture that was exotically foreign and typically sexy.

From the very first instant she had laid eyes on him, Rosie had been bowled over. She had been working in London for over a year, serving drinks in an expensive club for well-heeled members, most of whom, she had clocked very early on, were married men either having illicit affairs or arranging to. Not even on the rough council estate where she had been brought up had she had to fend off so many unwanted advances.

It wasn’t exactly what she had dreamt of when she had left behind her life of no hope and limited chances. Growing up, she’d had big plans to work in one of the high-class restaurants, starting from the bottom and working her way up and into the catering side of it. She loved cooking. She was good at it. But the high-class restaurants had all knocked her back. Do you have any qualifications? Have you been to any cookery schools? No? Well…sorry. Don’t call us, we’ll call you if anything comes up…

So she had ended up dressed in skimpy clothing, serving over-priced drinks to overweight businessmen. Her incredible looks had assured her a generous income and what choice had she had? She’d needed the money. And then, one night, dead on her feet, she had looked across the room and there he was—Angelo Di Capua. Six-foot-four of pure, unadulterated alpha male surrounded by six well-dressed businessmen, wearing a bored expression on his face. Had she but known it at the time, that was the very instant her fate had been sealed.

She surfaced from memory lane to find Angelo staring down at her with eyes that were as cold as the wind whipping through the layers of her clothes.

“You want to be civil?” Angelo shot her a curling smile that sent shivers racing up and down her spine. “Let’s play that game, then. What have you been up to for the past few years? Still trawling cocktail bars in search of wealthy men?”

“I never did that.”

“So many things we disagree on.” Yet it hadn’t always been that way. Before everything had collapsed, he had considered her to be the best thing ever to have happened to him. Just thinking about it now made something deep inside him twist with pain.

“I…I haven’t done any waitressing for a while,” Rosie told him, determined to keep the conversation as remote and as polite as possible. She knew that what she should really be doing was leaving, walking away, but she couldn’t fight the small cowardly part of her that wanted just a little bit longer in his company because, like it or not, such a big part of her was still wrapped up in him.

“In fact, I finished at catering college a couple of years ago and I’ve been cooking at one of the top restaurants in London ever since. It’s hard work, but I enjoy it.”

“I can’t picture you behind the scenes. Nor can I picture you giving up a lucrative lifestyle of generous tips to take a pay cut.”

Rosie flushed. “I don’t care whether you can picture it or not. It’s the truth. You know I always wanted to go into the food business.”

“I stopped believing what I thought I knew about you a long time ago. But you’re right. Who wants to waste time bickering over a piece of history that has little relevance now? Let’s change the subject. Have you managed to net some poor guy? I can’t imagine you’d still be single after all this time.”

Angelo had no idea what possessed him to ask that question, but why fight the truth? It was something he had wondered about over the years. He didn’t like himself for his curiosity, not about a woman he had so thoroughly eliminated from his life. But, like some low-level virus, the question had circulated in his bloodstream, pernicious and resistant to the passage of time.

Rosie stilled. She could feel the sudden grip of clammy perspiration.

“I’m still single.” She tried to laugh but there was a nervous edge to her laughter.

Angelo looked at her narrowly, head tilted to one side. He hadn’t seen her for years, yet it seemed that he could still tune in to the nuances in her voice, the slight pauses and small hesitations that were always a clue as to what was going through her head. So there was a man in her life. His lips thinned as the silence hummed between them, broken only by the hushed voices of the people waiting to enter the crematorium.

“Now, why is it that I don’t quite believe that?” he asked softly. “Why lie, Rosie? Do you think I care one way or the other what’s going on in your life?”

“I know you don’t. And it’s none of your business whether I have someone in my life or not.” She was tempted to tell him about Ian, to pretend that there was someone significant in her life, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. In fact, just the thought of Ian made her feel a little ill.

“I should go,” she said with a hint of desperation. She took a couple of steps back and nearly stumbled. She was no longer accustomed to wearing heels.

“Good idea,” Angelo said smoothly. “And then we can put an end to this charade of pretending that we’re actually interested in each other’s lives.” He turned away abruptly, but couldn’t walk away because the group who had attended the cremation, now standing outside, was splintering apart.

Rosie guessed that they would be making their separate ways to whatever pub they intended to go to. She saw Lizzy give her a little wave and wondered what the other woman must be thinking—that a friend had rolled up and after a three-year absence had shown surface interest before disappearing outside with the husband of the deceased.

She had barely paid attention to any of the other people there, but now she could recognise that a short, rotund man bearing down on them had also been there in the front row and she forced herself to stand her ground. As did Angelo, although once again she saw him glance at his watch.

She wondered what their marriage had been like. She had walked away and never looked back. Had they been happy? She couldn’t think so, but who knew?

“Foreman.”

Angelo greeted the man curtly before reluctantly turning around to make introductions.

It seemed that James Foreman was a lawyer.

“Nothing big and fancy.” James extended his hand out to Rosie. “Small practice near Twickenham. Brr, cold out here, isn’t it? Still, what can you expect in the middle of February?” He seemed to suddenly remember that he was at a funeral and altered his tone accordingly. “Terrible shame, all this. Terrible shame.”

“Miss Tom is in a bit of a rush, Foreman.”

Rosie nodded awkwardly. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it to the pub—one of Amanda’s friends mentioned that everyone would be gathering there to pay their respects. I’ve travelled all the way from East London and I really need to be getting along.”

“Of course, of course! But I need to corral the pair of you for a word.” James Foreman looked around him with a little frown, as though searching for somewhere convenient into which the corralling could take place. Rosie, by now, was thoroughly confused. More than anything else, she wanted to be gone. It had been a mistake seeing Angelo again. That part of her life was a chapter that should be firmly closed. Coming here had reopened it and now she knew that their brief, embittered encounter would prey on her mind for weeks ahead.

“What’s this about, Foreman?” Angelo asked in a clipped voice.

“Stroke of luck finding you both here. Of course, Mr Di Capua, I knew that you would be here but…Well, put it this way, Miss Tom, it’s saved me a bit of bother tracking you down…not that it would have been difficult. All part of the business.”

“Cut to the chase, Foreman.”

“It’s about a will.”

Rosie had no idea what this had to do with her. She did know, however, that the longer she stood still the colder it felt. She glanced across to Angelo, her eyes drawn to the harsh, beautiful lines of his face like the unerring and dangerous tug of a moth towards an open flame.

The last conversation they had ever had was imprinted on her brain. The coldness in his eyes, the contempt in his voice when he had told her that he wanted nothing more to do with her. They had been dating for nearly a year, the most wonderful year of her entire life. She had not stopped marvelling at how this terrific, wealthy, sophisticated guy had pursued her. Later he had told her that the second he had laid eyes on her he had wanted her, and that he was a man who always got what he wanted. He had certainly got her and she had been on cloud nine.

Of course, on the home front, things had not been quite so rosy. Jack’s problems had been deteriorating steadily and Amanda…How could she not have guessed that, whilst she had been waxing lyrical about the love of her life, her best friend had been busily storing up jealousy and resentments that would one day spill over into the horror story from which none of them had emerged intact?

While the past threatened to overwhelm her, James Foreman was still talking in a low voice, ushering them away from the chapel and towards the car park which was shrouded in darkness.

“Hang on a minute.” Rosie stopped dead in her tracks and the other two men turned to look at her. “I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t care. I need to get back home.”

“Have you been listening to a word Foreman’s been saying?”

Actually, no, she hadn’t. “So Amanda left a will. I don’t see what that has to do with me. I haven’t seen her for over three years.” She looked apologetically at the lawyer who probably hadn’t a clue what was going on. “We had a bit of a falling out, Mr Foreman. Amanda and I used to be friends, but something happened. I only came here because I felt sad about how things had ended between us.”

“I know all about the falling out, my dear.”

“Do you? How?”

“Your friend—”

“Ex-friend.”

“Your ex-friend was a very vulnerable and confused young woman. She came to see me when…eh…she was having certain difficulties…”

“Difficulties? What difficulties?” Rosie laughed bitterly. Mandy had played her cards right and she had got exactly what she had wanted—Angelo Di Capua. “All’s fair in love and war,” she had once said to Rosie when they were fifteen. Rosie had come to see just how tightly her so-called friend had been prepared to cling to that outlook.