Praise for
Heidi Rice:

‘Heidi Rice is simply brilliant when it comes to writing sharp, sassy and sexy romantic novels!’

—Cataromance

About HOT-SHOT TYCOON, INDECENT PROPOSAL: ‘The amusing opening spins into an emotional and heartfelt story.’

—RT Book Reviews

About PUBLIC AFFAIR, SECRETLY EXPECTING: ‘I was actually breathless while reading this book…It’s a sensual ride you won’t want to lose the opportunity of reading.’

—The Pink Heart Society

‘I’m not blaming you. I’m blaming the situation.’ His eyes met hers and she saw something that stunned her for a second. Was that concern?

‘If you needed money, you should have come to me,’ he said with dictatorial authority, and she knew she’d made a stupid mistake. That wasn’t concern. It was contempt.

‘There was no need for you to become a stripper,’ he remarked.

Her heart stopped, and the blush blazed like wildfire.

Had he just said stripper?

He cupped her cheek. The unexpected contact had her outraged reply getting stuck in her throat.

‘I know things ended badly between us, but we were friends once. I can help you.’ His thumb skimmed across her cheek with the lightest of touches. ‘And, whatever happens, you’re finding another job.’ The patronising tone did nothing to diminish the arousal darkening his eyes. ‘Because, quite apart from anything else, you’re a terrible stripper.’

Unfinished
Business
with the Duke

BY

Heidi Rice

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HEIDI RICE was born and bred and still lives in London, England. She has two boys who love to bicker, a wonderful husband who, luckily for everyone, has loads of patience, and a supportive and ever-growing British/French/Irish/American family. As much as Heidi adores ‘the Big Smoke’, she also loves America, and every two years or so she and her best friend leave hubby and kids behind and Thelma and Louise it across the States for a couple of weeks (although they always leave out the driving off a cliff bit). She’s been a film buff since her early teens, and a romance junkie for almost as long. She indulged her first love by being a film reviewer for ten years. Then, two years ago, she decided to spice up her life by writing romance. Discovering the fantastic sisterhood of romance writers (both published and unpublished) in Britain and America made it a wild and wonderful journey to her first Mills & Boon® novel, and she’s looking forward to many more to come.

Recent novels by the same author:

PUBLIC AFFAIR, SECRETLY EXPECTING

HOT-SHOT TYCOON, INDECENT PROPOSAL

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

A special thanks to my Florentine specialists,

Steve and Biz,

to Katherine at the terrific Kings Head Theatre

in Islington, and Leonardo,

who answered my daft questions about architecture.

Chapter One

THE six-inch stiletto heels of Issy Helligan’s thigh-high leather boots echoed like gunshots against the marble floor of the gentlemen’s club. The sharp rhythmic cracks sounded like a firing squad doing target practice as she approached the closed door at the end of the corridor.

How appropriate.

She huffed and came to a stop. The gunshots cut off, but her stomach carried right on going, doing a loop-the-loop and then swaying like the pendulum of Big Ben. Recognising the symptoms of chronic stage fright, Issy pressed her palm to her midriff as she focussed on the elaborate brass plaque announcing the entrance to the ‘East Wing Common Room’.

Calm down. You can do this. You’re a theatrical professional with seven years’ experience.

Detecting the muffled rumble of loud male laughter, she locked her knees as a thin trickle of sweat ran down her back beneath her second-hand Versace mac.

People are depending on you. People you care about. Getting ogled by a group of pompous old fossils is a small price to pay for keeping those people gainfully employed.

It was a mantra she’d been repeating for the past hour—to absolutely no avail.

After grappling with the knot on the mac’s belt, she pulled the coat off and placed it on the upholstered chair beside the door. Then she looked down at her costume—and Big Ben’s pendulum got stuck in her throat.

Blood-red satin squeezed her ample curves into an hourglass shape, making her cleavage look like a freak of nature. She took a shallow breath and the bustier’s underwiring dug into her ribs.

She tugged the band out of her hair and let the mass of Pre-Raphaelite curls tumble over her bare shoulders as she counted to ten.

Fine, so the costume from last season’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show wasn’t exactly subtle, but she hadn’t had a lot of options at such short notice—and the man who had booked her that morning hadn’t wanted subtle.

‘Tarty, darling. That’s the look I’m after,’ he’d stated in his cut-glass Etonian accent. ‘Rodders is moving to Dubai and we plan to show him what he’ll be missing. So don’t stint on the T and A, sweetheart.’

It had been on the tip of Issy’s tongue to tell him to buzz off and hire himself a stripper, but then he’d mentioned the astronomical sum he was prepared to pay if she ‘put on a decent show’—and her tongue had gone numb.

After six months of scrimping and saving and struggling to find a sponsor, Issy was fast running out of ways to get the thirty grand she needed to keep the Crown and Feathers Theatre Pub open for another season. The Billet Doux Singergram Agency had been the jewel in the crown of her many fund-raising ideas. But so far they’d had a grand total of six bookings—and all of those had been from well-meaning friends. Having worked her way up from general dogsbody to general manager in the last seven years, she had everyone at the theatre looking to her to make sure the show went on.

Issy sighed, the weight of responsibility making her head hurt as the corset’s whalebone panels constricted around her lungs. With the bank threatening to foreclose on the theatre’s loan any minute, feminist principles were just another of the luxuries she could no longer afford.

When she’d taken the booking eight hours ago she’d been determined to see it as a golden opportunity. She’d do a tastefully suggestive rendition of ‘Life Is a Cabaret’, flash a modest amount of T and A and walk away with a nice healthy sum to add to the Crown and Feathers’s survival kitty, plus the possibility of some serious word-of-mouth business. After all, this was one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs in the world, boasting princes, dukes and lords of the realm, not to mention Europe’s richest and most powerful businessmen among its membership.

Really, it should be a doddle. She’d made it quite clear to her booker what a singing telegram did—and did not—entail. And Roderick Carstairs and his mates couldn’t possibly be as tough an audience to crack as the twenty-two five-year-olds tripping on a sugar rush she’d sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to last week.

Or so she hoped.

But as Issy eased the heavy oak panelled door to the East Wing Common Room open, and heard the barrage of male hoots and guffaws coming from inside, that hope died a quick and painful death.

From the sound of it, her audience were primed and ready for her—and not nearly as old and fossilised as she’d assumed. The corset squeezed her ribcage as she stayed rooted in the doorway, shielded from view.

Putting on ‘a decent show’ didn’t seem such a doddle any more.

She was staring blankly at the rows of bookcases lining the wall, mustering the courage to walk into the lions’ den, when she caught a movement on the balcony opposite. Silhouetted by the dusky evening light, a tall figure strode into view, talking into his mobile phone. It was impossible to make out his features, but déjà vu had the hair on the back of Issy’s neck standing to attention. Momentarily transfixed by the stranger’s broad-shouldered build, and the forceful, predatory way he moved in the small space, Issy shivered, thinking of a tiger prowling a cage.

She jumped at the disembodied chorus of rowdy masculine cheers and dragged her gaze away.

Focus, Issy, focus.

She straightened her spine and took a step forward, but then her eyes darted to the balcony again. The stranger had stopped moving. Was he watching her?

She thought of the tiger again. And then memory blindsided her.

‘Gio,’ she whispered, as her breath clogged in her lungs and the corset constricted like a vice around her torso.

She gasped in a breath as heat seared up the back of her neck and made her scalp burn.

Ignore him.

She pulled her gaze away, mortified that the mere thought of Giovanni Hamilton still made all her erogenous zones do the happy dance and her heart squeeze painfully in her chest.

Don’t be ridiculous.

That guy could not be Gio. She couldn’t possibly be that unlucky. To come face to face with the biggest disaster of her life when she was about to waltz into another. Clearly stress was making her hallucinate.

Issy pushed her shoulders back and took as deep a breath as the corset’s stays would allow.

Enough with the nervous breakdown, already. It’s showtime.

Striding into the main body of the room, she launched into the sultry opening bars of Liza Minnelli’s signature song. Only to come to a stumbling halt, her stomach lurching back into Big Ben mode, as she rounded the door and got an eyeful of Rodders and his mates. The mob of young, debauched and completely pie-eyed Hooray Henries lunged to their feet, jeers and wolf whistles echoing off the antique furnishings as the room erupted.

Issy’s throat constricted in horror as she imagined Little Red Riding Hood being fed to a pack of sexstarved, booze-sodden wolves while singing a show tune in her underwear.

Suddenly a firing squad looked remarkably appealing.

Go ahead and shoot me now, fellas.

What in God’s name was Issy Helligan doing working as a stripper?

Gio Hamilton stood in the shadows of the balcony, stunned into silence, his gaze fixed on the young woman who strutted into the room with the confidence of a courtesan. Her full figure moved in time with her long, leggy strides. Sequins glittered on an outfit that would make a hooker blush.

‘Gio?’ The heavily accented voice of his partnership manager crackled down the phone from Florence.

‘Si, Gio.’ He pressed the phone to his ear and tried to get his mind to engage. ‘I’ll get back to you about the Venice project,’ he said, slipping into English. ‘You know how the Italian authorities love red tape—it’s probably just a formality. Ciao.’ He disconnected the call—and stared.

That couldn’t be the sweet, impulsive and impossibly naïve girl he’d grown up with. Could it?

******

But then he noticed the pale freckled skin on her shoulder blades and he knew. Heat pulsed in his groin as he recalled Issy the last time he’d seen her—that same pale skin flushed pink by their recent lovemaking and those wild auburn curls cascading over bare shoulders.

The smoky, seductive notes of an old theatre song, barely audible above the hoots and jeers, yanked Gio out of the past and brought him slap-bang up to date. Issy’s rich, velvety voice sent shivers rippling up his spine and arousal flared—before the song was drowned out by the chant of ‘Get it off!’ from Carstairs and his crowd.

Gio’s contempt for the arrogant toff and his cronies turned to disgust as Issy’s singing stopped and she froze. Suddenly she wasn’t the inexperienced young temptress who’d seduced him one hot summer night, but the awkward girl who had trailed after him throughout his teenage years, her bright blue eyes glowing with adoration.

He stuffed his phone into his back pocket, anger and arousal and something else he didn’t want to acknowledge coiling in his gut.

Then Carstairs lunged. Gio’s fingers clenched into fists as the younger man grabbed Issy around the waist. Her head twisted to avoid the boozy kiss.

To hell with that.

The primitive urge to protect came from nowhere.

‘Get your filthy hands off her, Carstairs.’

The shout echoed as eleven pairs of eyes turned his way.

Issy yelped as he strode towards her, those exotic turquoise eyes going wide with astonishment and then blank with shock.

Carstairs raised his head, his ruddy face glazed with champagne and confusion. ‘Who the…?’

Gio slammed an upper-cut straight into the idiot’s jaw. Pain ricocheted up his arm.

‘Ow! Dammit,’ he breathed, cradling his throbbing knuckles as he watched Carstairs crumple onto the carpet.

Hearing Issy’s sharp gasp, he looked round to see her eyes roll back. He caught her as she flopped, and scooped her into his arms. Carrying her against his chest, he tuned out the shouts and taunts coming from Carstairs’s friends. Not one of them was sober enough—or had enough gumption—to cause him a problem.

‘Kick this piece of rubbish out of here when he comes to,’ Gio said to the elderly attendant who had scurried in from his post in the billiards room next door.

The old guy bobbed his head. ‘Yes, Your Grace. Will the lady be all right?’

‘She’ll be fine. Once you’ve dealt with Carstairs, have some ice water and brandy sent to my suite.’

He drew a deep breath as he strolled down the corridor towards the lifts, caught the rose scent of Issy’s shampoo and realised it wasn’t only his knuckles throbbing.

He gave the attendant a stiff nod as he walked into the lift, with Issy still out cold in his arms. She stirred slightly and he got his first good look at her face in the fluorescent light.

He could see the tantalising sprinkle of freckles on her nose. And the slight overbite which gave her lips an irresistible pout. Despite the heavy stage make-up and the glossy coating of letterbox-red lipstick, her heart-shaped face still had the tantalising combination of innocence and sensuality that had caused him so many sleepless nights a lifetime ago.

Gio’s gaze strayed to the swell of her cleavage, barely confined by dark red satin. The antique lift shuddered to a stop at his floor, and his groin began to throb in earnest.

He adjusted her dead weight, flexing his shoulder muscles as he headed down the corridor to the suite of rooms he kept at the club.

Even at seventeen Issy Helligan had been a force of nature. As impossible to ignore as she was to control. He was a man who loved taking risks, but Issy had still been able to shock the hell out of him.

From the looks of things that hadn’t changed.

He shoved opened the door to his suite, and walked through into the bedroom. Placing his cargo on the bed, he stepped back and stared at her barely clad body in the half-light.

So what did he do with her now?

He hadn’t a clue where the urge to ride to her rescue had come from. But giving Carstairs a right jab and knocking the drunken idiot out cold was where any lingering sense of responsibility both started and stopped. He was nobody’s knight in shining armour.

He frowned, his irritation rising right alongside his arousal as he watched her shallow breathing.

What was that thing made of? Armour-plating? No wonder she’d fainted. It looked as if she was struggling to take a decent breath.

Cursing softly, he perched on the edge of the bed and tugged the bow at her cleavage. Issy gave a soft moan as the satin knot slipped. He loosened the laces, his eyes riveted to the plump flesh of her breasts as the corset expanded.

She was even more exquisite than he remembered.

The pain in his crotch increased, but he resisted the urge to loosen the contraption further and expose her to his gaze. Then he spotted the red marks on her pale skin where the panels had dug into tender flesh.

‘For heaven’s sake, Issy,’ he whispered as he smoothed his thumb over the bruising.

What had she been thinking, wearing this outfit in the first place? And then prancing around in front of a drunken fool like Carstairs?

Issy Helligan had always needed a keeper. He’d have to give her a good talking-to when she came round.

He stood and walked to the window. After flinging open the velvet drapes, he sat in the gilt chair beside the bed. This shouldn’t be too hard to sort out.

The reason for her disastrous charade downstairs had to be something to do with money. Issy had always been headstrong and foolhardy, but she’d never been promiscuous. So he’d offer her an injection of capital when she woke up.

She’d never have to do anything this reckless again—and he’d be free to forget about her.

His gaze drifted to the tantalising glimpse of one rosy nipple peeking over the satin rim of the corset.

And if she knew what was good for her, she’d damn well take the money.

Issy’s eyelids fluttered as she inhaled the fresh scent of clean linen.

‘Hello again, Isadora.’ The low, masculine voice rumbled across her consciousness and made her insides feel deliciously warm and fuzzy.

She took a deep breath and sighed. Hallelujah. She could breathe. The relief was intoxicating.

‘Mmm? What?’ she purred. She felt as if she were floating on a cloud. A light, fluffy cloud made of delicious pink candyfloss.

‘I loosened your torture equipment. No wonder you fainted. You could barely breathe.’

It was the gorgeous voice again, crisp British vowels underlaid with a lazy hint of the Mediterranean—and a definite hint of censure. Issy frowned. Didn’t she know that voice?

Her eyes opened, and she stared at an elaborate plaster moulding on the ceiling. Swivelling her head, she saw a man by her bedside. Her first thought was that he looked far too masculine for the fancy gilt chair. But then she focussed on his face, and the bolt of recognition hit her, knocking her off the candyfloss cloud and shoving her head first into sticky reality.

She snapped her eyelids shut, threw one arm over her face and sank back down into the pillows. ‘Go away. You’re a hallucination,’ she groaned. But it was too late.

Even the brief glimpse had seared the image of his harsh, handsome features onto her retinas and made her heartbeat hit panic mode. The sculpted cheekbones, the square jaw with a small dent in the chin, the wavy chestnut hair pushed back from dark brows and those thicklylashed chocolate eyes more tempting than original sin. Pain lanced into her chest as she recalled how those eyes had looked the last time she’d seen them, shadowed with annoyance and regret.

Then everything else came flooding back. And Issy groaned louder.

Carstairs’s sweaty hands gripping her waist, the rank whiff of whisky and cigars on his breath, the pulse of fear replaced by shock as Carstairs’s head snapped back and Gio loomed over her. Then the deafening buzzing in her ears before she’d done her ‘Perils of Pauline’ act.

No way. This could not be happening. Gio had to be a hallucination.

‘Leave me alone and let me die in peace,’ she moaned.

She heard a husky chuckle and grimaced. Had she said that out loud?

‘Once a drama queen, always a drama queen, I see, Isadora?’

She dropped her arm and stared at her tormentor. Taking in the tanned biceps stretching the sleeves of his black polo shirt and the teasing glint in his eyes, she resigned herself to the fact this was no hallucination. The few strands of silver at his temples and the crinkles around the corners of his eyes hadn’t been there ten years ago, but at thirty-one Giovanni Hamilton was as devastatingly gorgeous as he had been at twenty-one—and twice as much of a hunk.

Why couldn’t he have got fat, bald and ugly? It was the least he deserved.

‘Don’t call me Isadora. I hate that name,’ she said, not caring if she sounded snotty.

‘Really?’ One eyebrow rose in mocking enquiry as his lips quirked. ‘Since when?’

Since you walked away.

She quashed the sentimental thought. To think she’d once adored it when he’d called her by her given name. Had often basked for days in the proof that he’d noticed her.

How pitiful.

Luckily she wasn’t that needy, eager-to-please teenager any more.

‘Since I grew up and decided it didn’t suit me,’ she said, pretending not to notice the warm liquid sensation turning her insides to mush as he smiled at her.

The eyebrow rose another notch and the sexy grin widened as he lounged in his chair. He didn’t look the least bit wounded by her rebuff.

His gaze dipped to her cleavage. ‘I can see how grown up you are. It’s kind of hard to miss.’

Heat sizzled at the suggestive tone. She bolted upright, aware of how much flesh she had on display as the bustier drooped. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her shins as the brutal blush fanned out across her chest.

‘I was on a job,’ she said defensively, annoyed that the costume felt more revealing now than it had in front of Carstairs and all his mates.

‘A job? Is that what you call it?’ Gio commented dryly. ‘What sort of job requires you to get assaulted by an idiot like Carstairs?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What exactly do you think would have happened if I hadn’t been there?’

She heard the sanctimonious note of disapproval—and the injustice of the accusation made her want to scream.

In hindsight, she should never have accepted the booking. And maybe it had been a mistake to walk into that room once she’d known how plastered her audience was. But she’d been under so much pressure for months now. Her livelihood and the livelihood of people she loved was at stake.

So she’d taken a chance. A stupid, desperate, foolish chance that had backfired spectacularly. But she wasn’t going to regret it. And she certainly wasn’t going to be criticised for it by someone who had never cared about anyone in his entire life but himself.

‘Don’t you dare imply I’m to blame for Carstairs’s appalling behaviour,’ she said, fury making the words louder than she’d intended.

Surprise flickered in Gio’s eyes.

Good.

It was about time he realised she wasn’t the simpering little groupie she’d once been.

‘The man was blind drunk and a lech,’ she continued, shuffling over to the other side of the bed and swinging her legs to the floor. ‘Nobody asked you to get involved.’ She stood and faced him. ‘You did that all on your own. I would have been perfectly fine if you hadn’t been there.’

Probably.

She marched across the lavishly furnished bedroom—keeping a death grip on the sagging costume. What she wouldn’t give right now to be wearing her favourite jeans and a T-shirt. Somehow her speech didn’t have as much impact while she was dressed like an escapee from the Moulin Rouge.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said, his voice dangerously low.

‘I’m leaving,’ she replied, reaching for the doorknob.

But as she yanked the door, all set to make a grand exit, a large, tanned hand slapped against the wood above her head and slammed it shut.

‘No, you’re not,’ he said.

She whipped round and immediately realised her mistake. Her breath caught as her bare shoulders butted the door. He stood so close she could see the flecks of gold in his irises, taste the spicy scent of his aftershave, and feel the heat of his body inches from hers.

She clasped her arms over her chest as her nipples puckered, awareness making every one of her pulsepoints pound.

‘What?’ she snapped, cornered. The last time she’d been this close to Gio she’d been losing her virginity to him.

‘There’s no need to go storming off.’ The rock-hard bicep next to her ear tensed before his arm dropped to his side. Her breath released in an audible puff as he eased back.

‘You misunderstood me,’ he said, heaving an impatient sigh.

‘About what, exactly?’ She tilted her head, thrust her chin out.

How infuriating.

At five foot six, and with six-inch heels on, she ought to be able to look him in the eye. No such luck. Gio had always been tall—tall and lanky—but when had he got so…solid?

She tried to look bored. No easy feat, given her limited acting skills and the fact that her heart felt as if it were being ripped out of her chest all over again. She pushed the memory back, locking it back in the box marked ‘Biggest Mistake of your Life’, while his gaze roamed over her, the chocolate-brown giving nothing away. To think she’d once believed that bleak expression was enigmatic, when all it had ever been was proof Gio had no soul.

‘Carstairs deserved everything he got, and I enjoyed giving it to him,’ he said coldly, shoving a fist into the pocket of his trousers. ‘I’m not blaming you. I’m blaming the situation.’ His eyes met hers and she saw something that stunned her for a second. Was that concern?

‘If you needed money you should have come to me,’ he said with dictatorial authority, and she knew she’d made a stupid mistake. That wasn’t concern. It was contempt.

‘There was no need for you to become a stripper,’ he remarked.

Her heart stopped and the blush blazed like wildfire.

Did he just say stripper?

He cupped her cheek. The unexpected contact had her outraged reply getting stuck in her throat.

‘I know things ended badly between us, but we were friends once. I can help you.’ His thumb skimmed across her cheek with the lightest of touches. ‘And, whatever happens, you’re finding another job.’ The patronising tone did nothing to diminish the arousal darkening his eyes. ‘Because, quite apart from anything else, you’re a terrible stripper.’

Chapter Two

Issy wasn’t often rendered speechless. As a rule she liked to talk. And she was never shy about voicing her opinion. But right now she couldn’t utter a single syllable, because she was far too busy trying to figure out what outraged her the most.

That Gio thought she was a stripper. That he thought she was terrible. That he actually thought it was any of his business. Or that he should have the audacity to claim he had been her friend…

‘We’re not friends,’ she spluttered. ‘Not any more. I got over that delusion a long time ago. Remember?’

His hand stroked her nape, making it hard for her to concentrate. ‘Perhaps friendship’s not the right word.’ His eyes met hers, and what she saw made her gasp. His pupils had dilated, the chocolate-brown now black with desire. He was turned on. Seriously turned on. But what shocked her more was the vicious throb of arousal in her own abdomen.

‘How about we kiss and make up?’ he said, purpose and demand clear in the husky voice.

Before she could respond he brushed his lips across hers, then dipped his head and kissed the swell of her left breast. Raw desire assailed her, paralysing her tongue as he nipped at the sensitive flesh. Her breath gushed out and her head bumped against the door, shock and panic obliterated by the swift jolt of molten heat.

Stop him. Stop this.

The words crashed through her mind. But the only thing that registered was the brutal yearning to feel his mouth on her breast. She could still remember the way his insistent lips had once ignited her senses. Her arms relaxed their death grip on the corset, and the ripe peak spilled out.

She sobbed as he circled the rigid nipple with his tongue, then captured it between his lips and suckled strongly. Vivid memory and raw new sensation tangled as she arched into his mouth. Her thigh muscles clutched and released as she surrendered. He pushed the sagging bodice down, cupped her other breast. She moaned as he tugged at the swelling peak.

The firestorm of need twisted and built. Dazed, she clasped his head, gripping the silky waves—and felt the sharp knock on the door rap against her back.

Her eyes popped open as he raised his head.

‘Hell, ten years isn’t enough,’ he murmured, the sinful chocolate gaze hot with lust and knowledge.

She scrambled away, shame shattering the sensual spell. Drawing in a ragged breath, she grasped the sagging corset, covered herself, wincing as the cool satin touched tender flesh.

The knock sounded again, and panic skittered up her spine.

What had just happened? What had she let happen? How could he still have this effect on her?

‘Excuse me, Your Grace.’ The tentative voice, muffled by the door, broke the charged silence. ‘Would you like me to leave the tray here?’

‘Just a minute,’ Gio shouted, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Stand over there,’ he murmured, nodding to a space behind the door that would keep her out of sight.

She bristled at the note of command, but stepped back. She had to get out of here. Before this got any worse.

‘I have your brandy and iced water, Your Grace,’ the footman announced as Gio swung open the door. ‘And the lady’s coat. It was on the hall chair downstairs.’

‘Great,’ Gio said curtly as he took the coat from unseen hands. Glancing her way, he passed it to her.

She stuffed her arms into the sleeves. Hastily tying the corset laces, she belted the mac as she watched Gio hand over a large tip and take the tray from the invisible footman.

He scowled as he pushed the door shut. ‘Let’s talk,’ he said, sliding the tray onto the table beside the door.

‘No, let’s not,’ she said, pleased that she’d stopped shaking long enough to cover some of her modesty.

She stepped forward and gripped the door handle, but she had wrestled it open less than an inch before his hand slapped against the wood, holding it closed.

‘Stop behaving like a child. Surely after ten years you’re over that night?’

She flinched at the impatient words. Then straightened, his casual reference to the worse night of her life forcing her pride to finally put in an appearance. Better late than never.

‘Of course I’m over it,’ she said emphatically, ignoring the ache under her breastbone. ‘I’m not a child any more. Or an imbecile.’

She’d rather suffer the tortures of hell than admit she’d cried herself to sleep for over a month after he’d gone. And lived with that pointless spurt of hope every time the phone rang for much longer. It was pathetic. And all completely academic now.

She might still have a problem controlling her body’s reaction to him. But thankfully her heart was safe. She wasn’t that overly romantic child any more—who’d believed infatuation was love.

But that didn’t mean she was going to forgive him.

‘I may have been young and foolish.’ She tried not to cringe at the memory of how young and foolish. ‘But luckily I happen to be a fast learner.’

Fast enough to know she would never fall that easily again. And especially not for a man like Gio, who didn’t understand love and had no idea what it was worth.

‘What’s the problem, then?’ He shrugged, as if that night had never happened. ‘There’s still a powerful attraction between us.’ His eyes lowered to her lips. ‘The way you just responded to me is proof of that. So why get upset because we acted on it?’

‘I’m not upset!’ she shouted. She paused, lowered her voice. ‘To get upset, I’d actually have to give a damn.’

She turned to make her getaway again, but his hand slammed back against the door.

‘Will you stop doing that?’ she said, exasperated.

‘You’re not leaving until we sort out your situation,’ he said, with infuriating patience.

‘What situation?’

‘You know very well what situation.’

His mouth had flattened into a grim line. What on earth was he on about?

‘In case you haven’t noticed, Your Dukeship, this is a free country. You can’t hold me here against my will.’

‘Nothing’s free—and you know it.’ His eyes raked over her outfit. ‘Let me spell it out. I’m here in the UK having Hamilton Hall renovated, which means I can transfer the money you need by the end of today.’

What?

Her tongue went numb. Good God, he’d rendered her speechless again.

‘And don’t tell me you like working as a stripper,’ he continued, clearly oblivious to her rising outrage, ‘because I saw how petrified you were when Carstairs put his paws on you. My guess is this was your first job. And I intend to ensure it’s also your last.’

‘I’m not a stripper,’ she all but choked. Of all the arrogant, patronising, overbearing…‘And even if I were, I would never be desperate enough to ask you for help.’

She’d always stood on her own two feet, had worked hard for her independence and was proud of what she’d achieved—even if it was all about to belong to the bank.

‘If you’re not a stripper,’ he said, scepticism sharpening his voice, ‘then what on earth were you doing downstairs?’

‘I was delivering a singing telegram.’

His brow furrowed. ‘A what?’

‘Never mind.’ She waved the question away. Why was she explaining herself to him? ‘The point is, I don’t need your help.’

‘Stop being stupid.’ He gripped her arm as she tried to turn. ‘Whatever you were doing, it’s obvious you must be desperate. I’m offering you a way out here. No strings attached. You’d be a fool not to take it.’

She tried to wrestle free, glaring at him when his fingers only tightened. ‘I’d be an even bigger fool to take anything from you.’ Anger and humiliation churned, bringing back the feeling of defeat and inadequacy that had dogged her for years after he’d walked away. And she hit back without thinking. ‘Haven’t you figured it out yet, Gio?’ she said, hating the bitterness and negativity in her voice. ‘I’d rather do twenty stripteases for Carstairs and his whole entourage than accept a penny from you. I happen to have a few principles, and I would never take money from someone I detest.’

His fingers released as the words struck home.

She fumbled with the door and darted out of the room, determined not to care about the shock on his face.

‘Your body may be all grown up, Isadora.’ The deep voice taunted her as her booted heels clicked on the polished parquet. ‘What a shame the rest of you still has a way to go.’

She squared her shoulders as the door slammed at her back, and plunged her fists into the pockets of the mac, battling the blush burning her scalp. As she rushed down the hallway she played her parting shot over in her mind.

If only she did detest him.

Unfortunately, where Gio was concerned, nothing was ever that simple.

Gio strode into the living room of the suite and dumped the tray on the coffee table. Sitting on the fussy Queen Anne chaise-longue, he kicked off his shoes, propped his feet on the equally fussy antique table, and for the first time in years fervently wished for a cigarette.

Reaching for the generous glass of vintage cognac, he chugged it down in one punishing swallow. The burn in his throat did nothing to alleviate the pain in his groin, or the frustration making his head start to throb.

Issy Helligan was a walking disaster area.

He stared at the thick ridge in his trousers.

If that didn’t go down in a minute he’d be forced to take a cold shower. Dropping his head against the sofa’s backrest, he gazed at the ceiling. When had he last been stuck with an erection this persistent?

The vivid memory of Issy, her lithe young body moulded to his as he rode his motorcycle through the leafy country lanes to the Hall, instantly sprang to mind. And the blood pounded even harder.

Unbelievable. He could still recall every detail of that twenty-minute trip. As if it had happened ten seconds ago instead of ten years. Her full breasts flattening against his back, her thighs hugging his backside, her arms clinging to his waist—and the earlier shock to his system when she’d first strolled out of the school gates and climbed aboard the reconditioned Harley.

He’d expected to see the plump, cute tomboy he remembered—not a statuesque young woman with the face and figure of a goddess.

At twenty-one, he had been far more experienced than most men his age, and lusting after a girl of seventeen—a girl who had once been his only friend—had seemed wrong. But he hadn’t been able to control his reaction to her then any more than he had today.

He cursed. If it hadn’t been for the footman’s welltimed interruption five minutes ago things would have gone a great deal further.

The second his lips had tasted her warm, fragrant flesh, and he’d heard her breath catch and felt her shudder of response, instinct had taken over—as it always did with Issy. His mouth had closed over her breast and he’d revelled in the feel of her nipple swelling and hardening under his tongue.

He blew out a breath and adjusted his trousers.

But Issy had changed. She wasn’t the sweet, passionate teenager who had once adored him, but a vibrant, self-aware and stunningly beautiful young woman—who detested him.

Gio placed the brandy glass back on the tray, frustrated by the strange little jolt in his chest. He pressed the heel of his hand against his breastbone. He didn’t care what she thought of him. Why should he?

Women tended to overreact about this stuff. Look at most of the women he’d dated.

He always made it crystal-clear he was only interested in recreational sex and lively companionship but they never believed him. And recently the triple whammy of career success, reaching his thirties and inheriting a dukedom had only made them harder to convince.

Angry words had never bothered him before when the inevitable breakup occurred. So why had Issy’s?

Gio frowned and pushed the hair off his brow.

Why was he even surprised by his odd reaction? Nothing made sense where Issy was concerned, for the simple reason that he stopped thinking altogether whenever she was around. He was probably lucky the sudden rush of blood from his head hadn’t left him with permanent brain damage.

Gio brought his feet off the table and rested his elbows on his knees. He poured himself a glass of the iced water and gulped it down. Much more concerning was his idiot behaviour this afternoon.

He’d decided at an early age never to be controlled by his lust or his emotions—yet he’d been controlled by both as soon as he’d spotted Issy downstairs.

But then, this wasn’t the first time Issy had torpedoed his self-control.

Images swirled of Issy at seventeen, her eyes brimming with adulation, her beautiful body gilded by moonlight, the scent of fresh earth and young lust in the air.

She’d caught him in a moment of weakness ten years ago, but he still didn’t understand why he’d given in to her innocent attempts to seduce him. The way things had ended had been messy and unnecessary—and he had to take the lion’s share of the blame.

He rolled the chilled glass across his forehead. Damn Issy Helligan. At seventeen she had been irresistible. How could she be even more so now?

Standing, he crossed to the window and peered out at the tourists and office workers jostling for space on the pavement below.

Why was he even worrying about this? He would never see Issy again. He’d offered her money, and she’d declined. End of story.

But then his gaze caught on a familiar shock of red curls weaving through the crowd. With her raincoat barely covering her bottom, and those ludicrous boots riding halfway up her thighs, she stood out like a beacon.

As he studied her, striding away disguised as a highclass hooker, a picture formed of Issy ten years ago, with the vivid blue of her eyes shining with innocence and hope and a terminal case of hero-worship. He heard the echo of her voice, telling him she would love him forever.

And the jolt punched him in the chest again.

‘Iss, I’ve got dreadful news.’

Issy glanced over as her admin assistant Maxi put down the phone, peering over the teetering pile of papers on her desk. Maxi’s small pixie-like face had gone chalk white.

‘What is it?’ Issy asked, her heart sinking. Had one of the company broken a leg or something equally catastrophic? Maxi was exceptionally calm and steady. Panicking was Issy’s forte.

Issy steeled herself for very bad news. But, really, how much worse could it get?

After her aborted singergram a week ago, the singing telegram business had dried up completely. The three grants they’d applied for had been awarded elsewhere, and all her sponsorship requests had come back negative. She’d spent the week frantically cold-calling a new list of potential but even less likely donors, while also arranging the schedule for a season of plays that would probably never go into production. And the boiler had sprung another leak. Not a problem in the height of summer, but come autumn it would be another major expenditure they couldn’t afford. Assuming they still had a theatre to heat.

‘That was the bank manager,’ Maxi muttered.

Issy’s heart sank to her toes. Okay, that was worse.

‘He’s demanding payment of the interest in ten working days. If we don’t find the thirty thousand to cover the payments we’ve missed, he’s calling in the bailiffs.’

‘What the—?’ Issy shouted.

Seeing Maxi flinch, she held on to the swear word that wanted to fly out of her mouth and deafen the whole of Islington.

‘That toerag,’ she sneered. ‘But we paid something. Not the full amount, I know, but something.’ Her fingers clenched so tightly on her pen she felt as if she were fighting off rigor mortis. ‘He can’t do that.’

‘Apparently he can,’ Maxi replied, her voice despondent. ‘Our last payment was so low it amounts to defaulting on the loan. Technically.’ She huffed. ‘Toerag is right.’

‘Remind me not to send Mr Toerag any more complimentary tickets,’ Issy replied, trying to put some of her usual spirit into the put-down. But her heart wasn’t in it, her anger having deflated like a burst party balloon.

This wasn’t the banker manager’s fault. Not really. The theatre had been skirting the edge of a precipice for months; all he’d done was give it the final nudge into the abyss.

Issy crossed to the office’s single dust-covered window and stared at the back alley below, which looked even grottier than usual this morning.

Maybe a broken leg wouldn’t have been so bad. Three weeks laid up in bed on a morphine drip with excruciating pain shooting through her entire body couldn’t make her feel any worse than she did at this moment.

She’d failed. Utterly and completely. How was she going to break the news to everyone? To Dave their principal director, to Terri and Steve and the rest of their regular crew of actors and technicians, not to mention all the ushers and front-of-house staff? They’d worked so hard over the years, many of them offering their time and talent for free, to make this place work, to make it a success.

They’d have to stop all the outreach projects too, with the local schools and the church youth group, and the pensioners’ drop-in centre.

She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip to stop it trembling.

‘Is this finally it, then?’

Issy turned at the murmured question to see a suspicious sheen in her assistant’s eyes.

‘Are we going to have to tell Dave and the troops?’ Maxi asked carefully. ‘They’ll be devastated. They’ve worked so hard. We all have.’

‘No. Not yet.’ Issy scrubbed her hands down her face, forced the lump back down her throat.

Stop being such a wimp.

The Crown and Feathers Theatre wasn’t going dark. Not on her watch. Not until the fat lady was singing. And until Issy Helligan admitted defeat the fat lady could keep her big mouth shut.

‘Let’s keep it quiet for a bit longer.’ No point in telling anyone how bad things were until she absolutely had to. Which would be when the bailiffs arrived and started carting away crucial parts of the stage. ‘There must be some avenue we haven’t explored yet.’

Think, woman, think.

They had two whole weeks. There had to be something they could do.

‘I can’t think of any,’ Maxi said. ‘We’ve both been racking our brains for months over this. If there’s an avenue we haven’t tried, it’s probably a dead end.’ Maxi gave a hollow laugh. ‘I even had a dream last night about us begging Prince Charles to become our patron.’

‘What did he say?’ Issy asked absently, eager to be distracted. Her head was starting to hurt.

‘I woke up before he gave me an answer,’ Maxi said dejectedly, giving a heartfelt sigh. ‘If only we knew someone who was loaded and had a passion for the dramatic arts. All our problems would be over.’

Issy swallowed heavily, Maxi’s words reminding her of someone she’d been trying extra hard to forget in the past seven days.

Not that. Anything but that.

She sat back down in her chair with an audible plop.

‘What’s the matter?’ Maxi asked, sounding concerned. ‘You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

‘I do know someone. He’s a duke.’

‘A duke!’ Maxi bounced up. ‘You’re friends with a duke, and we haven’t approached him for sponsorship yet?’ She waved the comment away as she rushed to Issy’s desk, her eyes bright with newfound hope. ‘Does he have a passion for theatre?’

‘Not that I know of.’ And they weren’t exactly friends either.

Heat rose up her neck and her nipples pebbled painfully as the memory she’d been trying to suppress for a week burst back to life.

No, they definitely weren’t friends.

‘But he is loaded,’ she added, not wanting to extinguish the excitement in Maxi’s gaze.

Or she assumed Gio was loaded. She had absolutely no idea what he did for a living, or even if he did anything. But he was a duke. And he kept a room at the swanky gentlemen’s club. And hadn’t he said something about renovating Hamilton Hall? Surely it made sense to assume he must be loaded?

Issy crossed her arms over her chest as her breasts began to throb. Something they’d been doing on a regular basis for days, every time she thought about Gio and his hot, insistent lips…She shook her head. Those thoughts had been coming a lot thicker and faster than she wanted to admit. And not just those thoughts, but other ones—which involved his lips and tongue and teeth and hands on the whole of her naked body, driving her to untold…

Issy squeezed her pulsating breasts harder as all her nerve endings started to tingle.

‘When are you going to see him again? Can you contact him today?’

She tensed at Maxi’s eager question.

‘What’s wrong?’ Maxi asked, the light leaving her eyes. ‘You don’t look all that enthusiastic.’

‘It’s a long shot, Max. At best.’

More than a long shot, if she were being totally honest. She’d told Gio she detested him, for goodness’ sake. Like a spoilt child. And, while it had given her some satisfaction at the time, and she doubted he cared what she thought of him, it wasn’t going to make begging him for money any easier.

Maxi cocked her head to one side, looking concerned. ‘Exactly how well do you know this duke? Because you’ve gone bright red…’

‘Well enough.’ Maybe too well.

She needed a strategy before she saw Gio again. A foolproof strategy. If she was going to have any hope of winning a stay of execution for the theatre—and keeping even a small part of her dignity intact.

Issy felt as if she’d travelled back in time as she stepped off the train at the tiny Hampshire station of Hamilton’s Cross and walked down the platform. It was a journey she’d done dozens of times during her childhood and adolescence when her widowed mother Edie had been housekeeper at the Hall.

Seeing her reflection in the glass door of the ticket office—which never seemed to be open then and wasn’t now—Issy congratulated herself on how much her appearance had changed from that dumpy schoolgirl with the fire-engine red hair. The chic emerald silk dress with matching pumps, accented with her favourite chunky necklace and designer sunglasses, looked a good deal more sophisticated than the ill-fitting school uniform, for starters. Teased into a waterfall of corkscrew curls instead of the unruly fuzzball of her childhood, even her vivid red hair now looked more Rita Hayworth than Little Orphan Annie.

The thought gave her a confidence boost as she headed for the newspaper booth which doubled as a mini-cab office. A boost she desperately needed after spending half the night struggling to figure out a workable strategy for her meeting with Gio.

If only she hadn’t told him she detested him!

Unfortunately the strategy she’d settled on—to be businesslike and efficient and not lose her cool—seemed disappointingly vague and far from foolproof as zero hour approached.

She tucked the stray curls behind her ear and gripped the shoulder strap on her satchel-style briefcase. Full of paperwork about the theatre—including details of the loans, financial projections, the stunning reviews from their summer season and her plans for next season—the briefcase put the finishing touch on her smart, savvy career-woman act.

Not that it was an act, per se, she corrected. She was smart and savvy and a career woman—of sorts. Unfortunately she was also a nervous wreck—after a sleepless night spent contemplating all the things that could go wrong today.

Having discarded the idea of informing Gio of her visit beforehand—fairly certain he would refuse to see her—she had surprise on her side. But from what she’d learned about Gio after scouring the internet for information, surprise was about all she had.

The startling revelation that Gio was now a worldrenowned architect, with a reputation for striking and innovative designs and a practice which was one of the most sought-after in Europe, hadn’t helped with her nervous breakdown one bit.

Okay, Gio was definitely rich. That had to be a plus, given the reason why she was here. But the discovery that the wild, reckless boy she had idolised had made such a staggering success of his life had brought with it a strange poignancy which didn’t bode well for their meeting.

And that was without factoring in the way her body had responded to him a week ago. Which, try as she might, she still hadn’t been able to forget.

She was here for one reason and one reason only, and she was not going to lose sight of that fact. No matter what. Or the theatre’s last hope would be dashed for good.

She had to stick to her plan. She would promote the theatre and do her absolute utmost to persuade Gio that investing in a sponsorship would give his company added profile in the British marketplace. If all else failed she’d remind him that he had offered her financial help. But under no circumstances would she let their history—or her hormones—sway her from her goal. No matter what the provocation—or the temptation.

‘Good Lord, is that you, Issy Helligan? Haven’t you grown up!’

Issy beamed a smile at the short, balding man sitting in the mini-cab cubicle. ‘Frank, you’re still here!’ she said, delighted to see a familiar face.

‘That I am,’ the elderly man said bashfully, as his bald patch went a mottled red. ‘How’s your mother these days? Still living in Cornwall?’

‘That’s right, she loves it there,’ Issy replied, grateful for the distraction.

‘Awful shame about the Duke’s passing last summer,’ Frank continued, his smile dying. ‘Son’s back you know. Doing up the Hall. Although he never saw fit to come to the funeral. ’Spect your mother told you that?’

Edie hadn’t, because her mother knew better than to talk to her about Gio after that fateful summer.

But the news that Gio hadn’t bothered to attend his own father’s funeral didn’t surprise Issy. He and his father had always had a miserably dysfunctional relationship, evidenced by the heated arguments and chilly silences she and her mother had witnessed during the summers Gio spent at the Hall.

She’d once romanticised Gio’s troubled teenage years, casting him as a misunderstood bad boy, torn between two parents who hated each other’s guts and used their only child as a battering ram. She’d stopped romanticising Gio’s behaviour a decade ago. And she had no desire to remember that surly, unhappy boy now. It might make her underestimate the man he had become.

‘Actually, I don’t suppose you know whether Gio’s at the Hall today? I came to pay him a visit.’

According to the articles she’d read, Gio lived in Italy, but his office in Florence had told her he was in England. So she’d taken a chance he might be at the Hall.

‘Oh, aye—yes, he’s here,’ said Frank, making Issy’s pulse skitter. ‘Came in yesterday evening by helicopter, no less—or so Milly at the post office says. I took the council planners over to the Hall for a meeting an hour ago.’

‘Could I get a lift too?’ she said quickly, before she lost her nerve.

Frank grinned and grabbed his car keys. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’

He bolted the booth and directed her to the battered taxi-cab parked out front.

‘I’ll put your journey out on the house, for old times’ sake,’ he said cheerfully as he opened the door.

Issy tensed as she settled in the back seat.

No way was she going to think about old times. Especially her old times with Gio.

She snapped the seat belt on, determined to wipe every last one of those memories from her consciousness.

But as the car accelerated away from the kerb, and the familiar hedgerows and grass verges sped past on the twenty-minute drive to the Hall, the old times came flooding back regardless.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.