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‘Why?’ Vido barked. Seeing that she didn’t understand, he elaborated slowly. ‘Why are you living here?’
Oh, he’d love this, she thought. ‘We’ve sold the house.’
‘Money trouble,’ he purred with evident satisfaction.
Brute. Her mouth tightened. Why was he hanging around? To crow? To leer? She controlled a shiver of apprehension.
‘Rather small, after the Big House, isn’t it?’ came Vido’s warm, honeyed silk of a voice. ‘If I remember, there’s just one living room and one bedroom. I’ve been inside. I knew your gardener, you see.’ His eyes became cynical. ‘He was servant class, like me.’
She wouldn’t be riled by his sarcasm. Contemplating a haughty retreat into the cottage, she decided that he’d see that as a victory. So she stuck it out, wishing her shorts weren’t so threadbare—and short—and that her T-shirt and face weren’t streaked with dirt. All that put her at a distinct disadvantage.
‘It’s fine.’ For a midget, she thought.
‘Really? Where does your grandfather sleep?’ Vido drawled, horribly persistent. ‘On the sofa?’
Fixing him with Arctic eyes, she replied with deliberate bluntness.
‘He’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke. Selling the house devastated him. Satisfied?’ she flung.
But she was surprised to see the arrogance of his expression switch to something like dismay. It was several seconds before he commented curtly, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Like hell you are!’ she scathed.
A frown drew his black brows hard together. He seemed to be thinking rapidly. ‘How is he?’
‘He can’t speak properly and he’s partially paralysed.’ Not wanting any sympathy from him, she fought to control her shaky voice. ‘He’s tough, though.’
He nodded. ‘I think the word is hard. So you’ll be the one on the sofa,’ he taunted.
She felt irritated. Of course. Where else was there? And she dreaded the moment when she and her grandfather lived together in the tiny cottage. Since his souvenir factory had closed, he wasn’t the easiest person to be with.
Tension made her voice scratchy when she stared back at him over her shoulder.
‘I’m sure you’re not interested in my sleeping arrangements. Rescue that blonde from boredom and get out of my hair.’
His mouth twitched slightly at the corners, but he stayed his ground.
‘Interesting how fate can change people’s lives so dramatically. I am rich and you are poor.’
Suddenly hearing his husky murmur in her ear, she almost lost her balance. He’d come to crouch down beside her, his hot, hungry body alarmingly close to hers. Quickly she jumped up and moved away to the end of the border.
‘Fate? In your case, I imagine it was some dodgy deals that bought you that flashy car and designer clothes,’ she retorted, stabbing the trowel into the soil and wishing it were Vido’s evil heart.
‘Careful, Anna,’ he said softly. ‘You’re straying close to slander. I made my money by my own talent and hard work.’
‘Good looks? Charm? Beautifully purred lies?’ she scorned. ‘Or,’ she added, spitting tacks, ‘a more direct route like conning some stupid rich female into funding you?’
‘You are one hell of a vindictive woman!’ he bit.
‘Does the truth hurt, Vido?’ she slammed back.
She shot a glance at the woman in the car, who was yawning with obvious boredom. That was one high-maintenance female. The car must have cost a fortune. Thoughtfully she studied Vido, ignoring his blistering scowl and tight jaw.
His clothes were expensive and he gave off an air of a man who spent a lot of money on being immaculately groomed and turned out. She wondered if the woman was the source of his income. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been prepared to sell himself for money. She felt sick at the thought.
‘Get out of here,’ she muttered in loathing.
‘When I’m good and ready. I want to know… How does it feel to be poor, Anna?’ he enquired.
‘You should know,’ she clipped, deadheading an early rose and wishing she could eliminate him with the same ease.
She hated feeling like this. All churned up and tense. Any minute now and she’d really lose her cool. That would really make him smirk in triumph, she thought grimly.
‘Poverty is unnerving, isn’t it?’
The soft and menacing passion in his voice made her twist around to see his face. His eyes had darkened ominously and yet despite his anger there was still that blatantly sexual aura about him. A delicious shudder made her nerve endings vibrate.
‘Yes,’ she admitted in a husky whisper. Why was he here? Why torment her like this? He was enjoying her reduced circumstances. The man was sick.
‘I remember the sleepless nights,’ he muttered as if on a white-hot tide of anger. ‘I’d lie awake worrying about where the next penny was coming from. I’d have a sense of panic when the bills came in. And I knew that however hard I worked, I was in a trap I’d never escape.’
She shut her eyes briefly, his words reverberating in her head, and it occurred to her that he had painted her circumstances exactly. Being overwhelmed by the day-today struggle to make ends meet, she was beginning to understand—though still to condemn—his means of escaping poverty.
‘Well, it looks as if you managed to get out.’ She pushed back the black satin strands of hair that had fallen to half-conceal her face. She wanted him to see the depths of her contempt. ‘But then,’ she said steadily, ‘you weren’t too proud to take the money my grandfather offered for you to leave the village and me before the police caught up with you. He saved your mother from shame—and he gave you a start in life. You should be grateful to him.’
‘Che Dio mi aiuti!’ A terrifying fury swept his expressive features and made her shrink back in alarm. ‘Grateful?!’
The rawness of his hostility filled the air with its crackling venom. Anna felt profoundly shaken that he should hate her so much. It was clear that he didn’t appreciate being reminded of his crime, she thought grimly. It didn’t fit with his inflated opinion of himself.
Vido’s fists clenched so hard that his nails dug sharp crescents into his palms. She didn’t know. Willoughby had only told her half the story. He hadn’t explained that despite being threatened with the police, he’d refused the money and told the old man to go to hell in a dustcart.
It was then that Willoughby had told him that it had been Anna who had taken the money from the factory workers’ holiday fund and planted it in his locker to teach him a lesson. The old man had reminded him that it had been easy for her since she had worked every Saturday as a junior cashier in the souvenir factory.
That would have been that. Except that he’d discovered his mother weeping inconsolably. Her sister in Italy had offered them a home. For his mother’s sake he had swallowed his pride and accepted Willoughby’s offer of money so they could fly out and start a new life.
Going back to the old man, cap in hand, was one of the lowest moments in his entire life and he wanted to wipe it from his memory.
For a split-second he contemplated telling her all this, but he decided not to bother. She’d find out in time. Then he checked himself, frowning as he remembered Willoughby’s stroke.
Dannazione! He’d wanted Anna to hear what Willoughby had said from the old man’s own lips. Now what chance did he have?
He scowled in frustration. One way or another, he’d find a means to make her confess that she’d planted the money. Then he’d explain why he’d accepted Willoughby’s bribe. Perhaps he could approach her a different way. Use the highly charged sexual attraction that still, inexplicably, lay between them.
Anna watched the changing emotions on his face warily. At first she thought he was going to bluster that he was innocent, but then he checked himself and said something else that threw her off balance completely.
‘Allow me to compliment you on your new nose.’
She blanched and her fingers flew to it for reassurance that he wasn’t mocking her. It was an automatic reaction. She still found it hard to remember she looked relatively normal now.
‘It makes you look very beautiful.’ Despite the slivers of dark anger in his eyes, his tone throbbed with a carnality that swept over her like a suffocating blanket.
And her body responded with longing even while her head told her that he was playing some nasty little power game. She shuddered, fear crawling all over her.
‘So I’ve been told,’ she said flatly.
His eyebrow lifted. The downward sweep of his dark lashes alerted her to the fact that he was checking her left hand for signs of a ring. But she didn’t wear it when cooking or gardening. And she wasn’t going to prolong this conversation any longer.
The coldness of her silvered eyes ought to have given him frostbite. But his mouth had softened and the sensuality of his thoughtful expression slid effortlessly into her hungry body. Helpless to resist, she almost wished she still loved him. At least that would have given her an excuse for the raw, ungovernable feelings that were taking her over.
She had never ached like this. Never wanted to leap on any man—let alone Vido—and beg for sexual release. The violence of her need, and the accompanying hatred, shocked her. Mentally she was kissing the contours of his face; those raw cheekbones, the pure line of his beautiful jaw.
Had she inherited her mother’s uncontrollable passions that had shocked her grandfather? She’d heard so many stories of her mother’s inappropriate behaviour—though to Anna, her mother had sounded like fun.
The impromptu parties. Dancing on the lawn at midnight. Running barefoot in the snow. Kissing her father enthusiastically at every opportunity. A woman of passionate feelings that were never curbed. Was it possible to inherit such feelings?
All she knew was that her desire for Vido was running away with her, making her want to kick the traces and fling off the restraints she’d imposed on herself all these years.
The need to be physically caressed by a man—and this one in particular—was frightening her. She screwed her fingers into tight fists. Years of containment ensured that she fought through the too-enticing haze of desire that slithered into every corner of her body. And for her own self-preservation, she turned herself to stone.
‘Don’t keep London waiting,’ she said coolly.
There was that mocking twitch of his mouth again. She felt a weird surge of excitement. It was as if he felt challenged by her and was contemplating a battle between them, to assert his will over hers.
In his dreams! Reserved though she might be, she wasn’t a pushover. He’d get no satisfaction from taunting her.
Hopefully he’d get bored and go soon then she could run indoors and beat the life into some bread dough to release her pent-up anger. And, she thought in despair, to ease the desolation of her untouched body.
‘We’ll meet again,’ he said, his eyes dark with lustful promise.
She struggled to catch her breath. ‘Not if I see you first,’ she said with quiet fervour. ‘This has not been a pleasure.’
‘It has for me,’ he murmured and the air fizzled between them setting her pulses leaping erratically. ‘And it will be even more enjoyable next time. That’s a promise.’
The threat alarmed her. Confused by his low, husky tone, she swivelled around so she didn’t have to look at his dark and broodingly handsome face any more.
As she buried her head in a clump of blowsy daffodils, she listened hard, her breath held until her lungs were bursting. First she heard his footsteps, light and easy as he strode away. Then the thud of the car door slamming, followed by Vido’s murmur and a tinkling female laugh.
Anna let out her breath in a rush of venomous loathing and gritted her teeth. He’d be gone in a moment and that would be that. An engine thrummed throatily, the sound increased in volume and then died away.
Suddenly the air seemed to clear of tension. Her scrunched-up muscles stopped screaming at her as she relaxed them. Unsteadily, she got to her feet and stumbled indoors, feeling as if she’d been caught in a washing machine on high spin. Her hands were shaking. Legs, too.
Ridiculous! He had such a terrible effect on her and for no reason at all. He had been in the wrong. She was the one who’d been his intended victim.
Wincing, she remembered how, after he’d fled to Italy, it had seemed that everyone at school had ganged up on her. She’d been bullied so unmercifully that eventually she had left school and her grandfather had grudgingly paid for private coaching.
It had been awful. Even more isolated than ever, she’d only been able to forget her unhappiness when she was cooking. And once her nose job had been successfully completed, she’d enrolled in a catering college, where she’d shone for the first time in her life.
Anna grimly scrubbed her hands and reached into the cupboard for a mug, desperate for a coffee. Preferably laced with an entire bottle of brandy, she thought ruefully.
The very core of her body ached and throbbed. It was a physical feeling entirely new to her and she hated it—hated her defencelessness against Vido’s potent masculinity. It meant she was as capable of being desperate for loveless sex as Vido. And what did that make her?
Shuddering, she boiled the kettle and made her drink.
‘Wretched man!’ she muttered venomously, spooning in far too much sugar in her distraction. ‘Just don’t cross my path again. My life’s enough of a hell as it is.’ Too furious to think straight, she took a sip of coffee and gasped as the scalding liquid burnt her mouth. ‘Damn you, Vido!’ she seethed, slamming the mug down so hard that coffee splashed over her hand. She swore. And had to choke back unexpected tears.
Pain, she told herself grimly. Not misery or longing. Just anger and pain. She didn’t do self-pity any more.
CHAPTER TWO
‘VIDO? They’re ready for you.’
Sorting a stack of papers, he nodded curtly at Camilla, who’d popped her head around his study door. ‘I’ll take a quick look at them.’
‘Do that. You’ll be fascinated,’ she drawled, looking amused.
Seeing that his PA wasn’t going to elaborate, he rose and headed for the office, thinking that it was good to be settled here at last.
For the past two months since he’d bought the house for Solutions Inc, the British branch of Il Conciliatore, he’d been busy in London closing down his office there and juggling his clients. At the same time, he’d been handling the renovations at his new base in Shottery by e-mail and telephone.
Most of the necessary repairs and maintenance had been completed in record time, with the exception of the kitchen—something beyond his control.
All the while he’d chafed at the delay in moving his business—mainly because he looked forward to pinning Anna down, preferably beneath him. And then under his heel. However, the matter of his good name and Anna must wait; a moment to enjoy anticipating and to relish slowly when it came.
Fired up with his usual dynamic energy, he pushed open the door to the office, which had been converted from a small anteroom. He looked around in pleasure and inhaled the scent of lilac, which filled the elegant vase on the window sill.
His priority was to appoint a decent chef now that his staff had moved in. With luck he’d find one by the end of the day. The applicants had been whittled down to a shortlist by his secretary and were comfortably settled in the drawing room with magazines and refreshments, waiting for him to interview them.
Briskly he marched to the console, which controlled the security cameras. With a flick of his finger he activated the screen. Twenty or so people sat in various attitudes of tension.
Except one. And that one in particular made him stop breathing for a moment.
‘See what I mean?’ Camilla smiled.
‘Anna!’ he muttered, his eyes as hard and as brilliant as jet.
Of course. It all came back to him. Her love of cooking, how his mother’s warmth and enthusiasm had encouraged the shy, silent girl.
‘The passion that’s hidden in that Anna!’ his mother had marvelled and he’d found himself secretly agreeing. He’d known then that the silent and reserved Anna concealed vast reserves of emotion that could match his own.
He recalled how the light had shone in her eyes when she’d released all her hidden aggression and anger on an unsuspecting heap of pasta dough. And he’d marvelled at her transparent joy as she baked and tasted, her face transformed by rapture.
It was then that he’d felt the first stirrings of desire. When her breasts were dusted with flour, her eyes sparkling with delight and her mouth soft and lush as her lips closed around a morsel of penne in salsa, the sauce leaving a tempting little smudge of scarlet on her upper lip.
Till she licked it off with sensual relish and left him a quivering mass of tormented hormones. The memory made him shift uncomfortably in the director’s chair.
A chef. It figured. But…his chef? The very idea excited him more than he cared to admit even to himself. Yet he dismissed it out of hand. He had to think of his staff. It would be the height of madness to employ her. They both carried too much baggage and she was a spiteful little hellcat.
Though it might be amusing to put her through the interview. He found himself hoping that it might be a prelude to…other activities.
Aware of his PA’s shrewd eyes on him, he took pity on his lungs and began to breathe properly again.
‘Keep her till last. Don’t let her see you. Get Steve to do the honours.’
With that, he swept out, hoping Camilla didn’t realise that he’d wanted to feast his eyes on Anna while she sat there unaware that she was being observed.
Throughout all the interviews, her image remained in his head. Her dark hair had been neatly smoothed into a chignon that shone like a sheet of black glass. The delicate beauty of her face had made her stand out from all the others—to say nothing of her calm composure.
She’d been quietly reading one of the cookery books he’d deliberately left on the table, her expression rapt. All the others were restlessly flicking through magazines—fashion or cars, depending on their sex.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that he wasn’t the only one eyeing her fabulous legs, which were smooth and straight, tucked primly to one side and looking even longer than ever with the addition of high-heeled shoes. Several of the male applicants had been mesmerised too.
Vido bade an abrupt farewell to a hopeful chef whose CV was almost as fanciful as a science fiction novel. Disappointingly, no one had lived up to his high expectations and only Anna remained to be seen. A wasted day, then.
His stomach clenched as he buzzed on the intercom. ‘Next one, Steve.’ The tightness in his chest intensified and he wondered wryly if his digestion would cope with the stress.
Thirty seconds max to pull himself together. His gaze drifted to the picture of his late mother on his desk. He deliberately made himself remember her shame and horror when she’d learned he’d been branded a thief. His mind went back to that terrible moment when he’d walked the length of the factory floor from Willoughby’s office, meeting a wall of hatred from the employees. Their curses had rained down on him. Then they’d spat in his face and flung paint at him for attempting to rob them of their hard-earned savings. It was then that he’d sworn to take his revenge on the Willoughbys one day and to redeem his honour.
To his relief, he found that his hunger for Anna had subsided. He was himself again; the tireless, driven businessman reputedly with a heart of gold beneath the grim exterior, who had forged a successful team in which even the most modestly paid employee had an equal input.
But there would be no chef to join that happy gang today. He let out an irritable sigh.
Not one of the applicants would have fitted into the tightly knit group. That meant further advertising—and in the meantime they’d have to exist on bought-in meals, when he was longing for home cooking. He scowled in frustration.
Anna waited, fidgeting now in the empty room. She had felt more and more nervous as a cheerful, casually dressed young man had collected her fellow applicants. One by one they had left, never to return, till she was the only one remaining.
She and a couple of others waiting to be interviewed had been given a sandwich lunch—from the local pub—and strawberries that were probably from the garden. During the long wait she’d read a marvellous cookery book from cover to cover and put it down with a sigh of regret, her head teeming with ideas.
All she could do now was to surreptitiously admire the redecorated, refurbished drawing room. In a palette of cool beiges and white, with occasional splashes of eau-de-Nil and turquoise, the room gave off an air of understated luxury and comfort, the fabrics oozing sensuality.
It was wonderful to be back in the house. Her heart had lifted with joy the moment she’d walked in the door to see that the interior had been transformed.
Here in this room, heavily draped curtains pooled on the thick carpet and framed the floor-to-ceiling windows. The elegant period furniture was of the highest quality, the satiny wood inviting her touch.
Flowers from the garden burst in exuberant displays from stylish vases, their perfumes wafting across the room with a heady fragrance. She loved it. The new owners had enviable taste—
‘Miss Willoughby?’
This was it. Heart fluttering in time with the butterflies in her stomach, she jumped up and followed the young man who took her to the panelled hall.
‘I’m Steve. General dogsbody,’ he said with a friendly grin.
‘Anna. Pizza cook in Stratford and ditto,’ she ventured with an answering smile.
‘Welcome to our paradise on earth,’ he said with genuine enthusiasm. ‘It’s a great place to be. And good luck.’
‘Thanks, I need it,’ she said gratefully, comforted a little by Steve’s glowing assessment of the company.
This was so important to her. A two-bedroomed apartment came with the job, which would allow her to live in comfort with her grandfather. And he’d been touchingly moist-eyed to think that he might walk in his beloved gardens again. She desperately wanted the job for his sake.
It was important to Peter, too. Her fiancé had spent ages coaching her in high-powered interview techniques. According to him, Solutions Inc was the troubleshooting company to be with. It had a fantastic reputation in business and employee relations and Peter was mad keen for her to work for them.
It would, he’d said, give him a better chance to get on their pay roll himself, an ambition he’d harboured ever since the company had hit the London scene. And for her, of course, it would be a high-profile job with money to match, one she’d dreamed of for years.
‘Don’t be nervous,’ said the young man sympathetically, pausing in the hall.
‘Help! Does it show that much?’ she asked in panic.
‘It’s the whites of your eyes that’s the give-away,’ he teased and she found a shaky grin. ‘Take deep breaths.’ Steve waited, seeming to be in no hurry. ‘Better?’
She nodded and said as they strolled on, ‘Marginally! I’m no longer frantic. Just Richter scale four on the earthquake gauge. My hands are shaking enough to demolish an entire building all on their own. I want this job very badly, you see.’
He laughed in delight. ‘Good for you! Hope you get it. Here we are.’
They stopped outside her grandfather’s old study, where Steve knocked, and pushed open the door for her. It was an odd feeling to be here again, in an entirely different capacity. Heiress to employee in one bound, she thought, her smile rueful now.
‘That’s it. Smile away. Mr Pascali likes us to be happy,’ Steve confided.
She blinked at the young man, wondering if she’d heard him properly. It felt as if she’d been dropped down an elevator shaft in a twenty-storey building.