by Pippa Roscoe
Scalding emotion curdled the raw acid in Katie’s stomach. All her life she’d strived to meet everyone else’s requests and demands as she’d desperately tried to fit in and stay safe. But in this instance she was sick of staying silent and being good. Because almost no one ever asked what she wanted.
Fury filled her, fuelled by total humiliation. ‘I’m so glad I could give you a joke for the day,’ she spat sarcastically. ‘Forget I ever said anything.’
‘I’m unlikely to ever forget that.’
He strolled around his desk with deceptively casual strides, swiftly moving to where she stood, only three feet into his office.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice veered up in an embarrassing squawk as he stepped deep into her personal space.
He didn’t reply. Instead he surveyed her dispassionately, rather as if she was a curiosity in a natural history museum. Then he leaned closer still.
‘Are you sniffing me?’ Outraged, she flinched away from him.
‘Yes. Have you been drinking?’ He reached out and grasped her chin.
Katie stilled, attempting to fix him with a furious gaze.
Unconcerned, he turned her face to one side then the other, intently studying her features. ‘On drugs?’
‘What? No.’ She jerked free of his hold. ‘Look, I’m perfectly sane.’ The truth slipped out, and so did all the hurt and hopelessness. ‘I’m just in trouble, and you’re the only person I could think of who might be able to help me. Obviously you can’t, so I’ll leave now.’
She turned sharply as emotions whacked her with a one-two punch. She’d never been as embarrassed or as violently angry. She suddenly spun back, slamming her fury into his face.
‘I don’t know why I thought you’d understand the desire to protect the person you love most—to prevent her losing the thing she loves more than anything,’ she yelled at him. ‘I don’t know why I thought you’d ever understand that!’
He stared at her for a long second, his mouth compressed. Sudden emotion flared in his eyes and he stepped forward. ‘Katie—’
She shoved past him, rage giving her strength, but just as she reached the door he slammed his hand high above hers to hold it shut, stopping her from storming out. She tugged, but couldn’t beat his weight or strength and the door remained sealed. She tugged harder.
‘Katie, stop,’ he said eventually.
Belatedly she stilled, realising too late what an exhibition she was making of herself. She breathed hard, trying to block the sensations caused by his invasion of her personal space. He was right behind her, leaning so close she could feel his heat. Something insidious shifted inside her. Something deep...something tempting. Something she intuitively knew she needed to ignore.
She closed her eyes in embarrassment.
‘You can’t just storm in, demand something so outrageous and then flounce off without an explanation. You need to speak,’ he added firmly. ‘Sit down and start from the beginning.’
She remained locked in place for another mortified moment. He was right. And she’d been so wrong. She should never have come—what had she been thinking?
But he wasn’t going to let her leave without a proper explanation. And didn’t she owe him that at least? Hell, she was every bit the useless idiot Brian had called her...
Slowly she released the door handle and pivoted awkwardly on the spot. Because Alessandro didn’t stand back to give her room to move. He still had his palm pressed on the door, as if he didn’t trust her not to try to escape again. He was still so close she almost felt giddy.
Breathe, Katie, breathe.
But she was looking into his eyes and all kinds of confusion clouded her mind. She’d been such a fool to think she could handle him.
He gazed at her, his clear blue eyes compelling and uncharacteristically serious. ‘Take a seat and talk to me.’
He suddenly swung aside so she could walk back into the room.
She quickly bypassed him and sank into the nearest chair, her knees strangely wobbly. ‘White Oaks is in debt,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Apparently we’re about to lose it. Susan doesn’t know.’
‘But isn’t it Susan’s estate?’ Alessandro folded his arms and leaned back against the door, still blocking the exit.
‘Yes.’
Her foster mother had lived there all her life—had inherited it upon her parents’ death. And now, as she faced the disease that was slowly killing her, it was her sanctuary. Katie couldn’t sit back and watch Susan lose it.
‘But she left the business side of it to Brian when her health began to deteriorate. She focused on the gardens—you know she loves them. All these years...’
She shook her head. She’d had no idea that the estate finances were so dire—that Brian had mismanaged everything so badly and hidden it, to boot. His betrayal hurt.
‘He only told me the depth of the trouble we’re in yesterday.’
Katie couldn’t let Susan lose all that was her love and her life. She’d thought the garden tours she’d organised and the sauce business she’d started would be enough to keep the books she’d seen balanced, but she’d been wrong.
‘Brian says he’s made a deal. If I marry Carl Westin, Carl will absorb our debt and Susan and Brian can stay at White Oaks.’
‘If you marry Carl Westin?’ Alessandro pushed away from the door and walked towards her, his gaze narrowing. ‘Of Westin Processing?’
‘You know him?’
Alessandro looked shocked. ‘He’s only a little younger than Brian—’
‘And a lot older than me, yes.’
‘Not to mention unreliable and—’
‘Creepy,’ she interrupted fiercely. ‘I can’t marry him.’
Alessandro rubbed his hand across his mouth, hiding the smile that felled a thousand women. ‘This is twenty-first-century London, Katie. I don’t think Brian can bully you into a marriage you don’t want.’
Discomfort clawed at her innards. Alessandro didn’t know the subtle ways in which her foster father had undermined her over the years. How did she explain something so complex? Explain that something so important had been shredded by stealth over time? By subtle comments and control?
‘There’s physical force, but then there’s the more emotional kind...’ Her throat tightened, shame silencing her. She hated her powerlessness, her lack of real strength.
The remnants of his smile faded as he watched her struggle to finish her sentence. ‘Your supposed debt to Susan?’
It wasn’t ‘supposed’. Susan had cared for Katie. She was the first—the only—person to have done that.
Katie had gone to them when she was almost two, when Susan had finally got Brian to agree to fostering after they’d spent years trying for children of their own. But Brian had never agreed to adoption, and there’d always been the threat that Katie could be sent back into the care system.
In truth, Brian was as controlling of Susan as he was of Katie. It was only that Susan seemed mostly blind to it.
‘She’s vulnerable.’ She glanced at Alessandro. ‘She’s in a wheelchair now. She can’t be left alone for long.’
As Susan’s neurological disease progressed, she lived in her own world, safe in the grounds of the estate. A world Katie cared for with her.
‘It would kill her to have to leave White Oaks.’ Katie had to keep it secure for Susan until the end. ‘It’s her life.’
She loved her gentle foster mother dearly. Susan had welcomed her, and they’d spent so much time together sheltered on the estate... Though over the last decade their roles had slowly reversed. Katie now read to Susan, kept her company and comfortable. She’d do almost anything for her.
But Katie couldn’t talk to Susan about how bad things had become financially, or about Brian’s insane plan—she was too fragile to be burdened with that. For a while now Katie h
ad been shielding Susan from several problems Brian had wrought.
‘So, if Carl gets you, White Oaks stays safe for Susan.’ Alessandro summed it up bluntly. ‘But why does Carl want you?’
She flinched, hit by a hot flash of embarrassment. Yeah, she was hardly catch of the day. ‘You don’t think he finds me attractive?’ she mumbled, knowing her face was blushing beetroot.
He had the grace to shoot her a rueful look. ‘If he actually wanted you he wouldn’t woo you with an ultimatum like this.’
‘Maybe he can’t get anyone else to say yes to him? Maybe he thinks he’ll get an obedient wife?’ she said bitterly. ‘This way he’ll be able to control me. He’s used to getting what he wants, however he has to do it.’
Alessandro stepped towards her, the whisker of a smile in his eyes. ‘And you think I’m different?’
A hot fury built within her. ‘I’m sure you’re used to getting what you want. Fortunately you don’t want me.’
He blinked and that smile fully resurfaced. ‘How do you know I don’t want you?’
She laughed bitterly. ‘You never so much as looked at me.’
‘If I recall, the last time we met you were little more than a child. It would have been unacceptable in every way if I’d looked at you then.’ He angled his head. ‘But I’m looking at you now.’
As if that was going to make any difference!
‘Don’t bother,’ she snapped. ‘You have hundreds of gorgeous women you really want. All of them. At once—’ She broke off, realising she’d got herself into a quagmire of excruciating embarrassment.
‘Hundreds at once?’ he echoed with mild incredulity.
‘Oh, whatever.’ She shook off his amusement. ‘You know you don’t need to threaten a woman to get your way with her. You don’t need to use blackmail—emotional or otherwise.’
‘But that’s what Brian does to you.’ All amusement had dropped from his expression.
She drew in a deep breath and sighed. ‘He’s used to me doing what he says.’
Because she’d always worked to keep the peace, for Susan. But in asking this of her Brian had gone too far. It wasn’t a business deal he’d arranged, it was marriage—intimate and personal. And Brian’s brutal response to her refusal had horrified her. So she’d decided to figure out a deal of her own with the one man Brian despised. The only man she’d been able to think of.
‘But you’re not his daughter,’ Alessandro said.
‘Thank you for that reminder,’ she said stiffly, swallowing back the burn of pain.
It was stupid how much it hurt. There’d always been those little comments from Brian—constantly reminding her that she wasn’t family, that she had to be grateful and good, keep her on her best behaviour... The few times she’d tried to fight back, he’d squashed her.
‘I’m no blood relative to any of them.’
And that was what gave Brian even more power over her.
‘You don’t think of me as family?’ Alessandro asked.
She glanced up at him. ‘You weren’t there. How could you be?’
Alessandro had only appeared from boarding school during holidays and formal occasions. Her aloof ‘step-cousin’ couldn’t have been less interested in forming a relationship with his new family.
‘And thank you for that reminder,’ he echoed with a soft jeer. An arrogant smile curved his lips for a fleeting second. ‘I chose to leave—why can’t you?’
‘I’m not like you,’ she said. ‘I can’t just walk out. I can’t talk to Susan about it—she doesn’t know about any of this.’ Katie was protecting her on several levels. ‘I’d buy out the debt myself, if I could, but I have hardly any money.’
His gaze narrowed. ‘You said your sauces sell well?’
She bristled at his belittling tone. ‘They do okay. They’re even stocked in Sybarite, here in London.’
She’d been so delighted when the gourmet deli had put in a repeat order only a week ago, taking almost all her stock.
‘Sybarite? Wonderful.’ He said with light mockery. ‘Then why aren’t you paid accordingly?’
‘I put all the profit back into the business... I don’t need a lot personally.’
His eyebrows shot up.
‘I live in,’ she explained irritably. ‘I have accommodation and food. I don’t need fancy things.’
He skimmed a glance over her outfit and she shrank at the hint of disdain in his eyes.
But then she fought back. ‘I knew things weren’t good—that’s why I started the garden tours as well. I owe it to them to work hard...to help Susan.’
She’d heard that phrase so many times and Brian was right, she did owe them. They’d plucked her from a life of poverty and neglect... Who knew what her life would have been like if it hadn’t been for their generosity?
‘You don’t owe them the rest of your life,’ Alessandro said bluntly.
‘No, but I love Susan,’ she said fiercely. ‘And she needs me now.’
‘There’s no one else? Not her husband?’ he said dryly.
Katie froze at the disparagement in his tone. ‘All the times I’ve tried to stand up to Brian... In the end I’ve given in...’
‘Because of Susan?’
‘Yes.’
But Alessandro was right, wasn’t he? She didn’t have to sacrifice her whole life.
‘I guess because of her...he has a hold over me,’ she said lamely.
‘And I don’t?’
‘Of course not.’
But she couldn’t meet Alessandro’s eyes. He had a hold over her in a way that she could never admit to herself, let alone to him.
‘So you think that if you marry someone else then you won’t have to marry Carl?’
‘Yes.’
But when he put it as baldly as that it sounded crazy.
‘Why me?’ he asked.
‘Because you’re outrageous enough to actually do it,’ she said bluntly.
No one would expect the infamous playboy to settle, and somehow she thought he might enjoy that unpredictability.
‘And, according to the rich list, you have more money than you know what to do with.’
‘Now, that’s what I originally expected.’ His twisting smile held little mirth. ‘You want me to rescue White Oaks financially? Why not just ask me for the money? Why do we have to marry?’
‘Because it’s a language Brian understands. If I’m not married—without the protection of a man,’ she spat sarcastically, ‘I’ll still be controllable. If I’m married, he’ll back off. I don’t want just to be out of reach. I want to be repulsive.’
‘Repulsive?’ Alessandro echoed awfully. ‘And there’s no better way to do that than by marrying me? Wow.’ He leaned forward. ‘You make it sound so eighteenth-century... Will you be sullied for ever if you’re with me?’
‘Married to you, yes.’
She’d never forgotten the look of anger on Brian’s face when he’d seen an article featuring Alessandro in the newspapers.
‘Brian will hate that I’ve come to you.’
He drew in a sharp breath.
Katie suddenly realised what she’s said and sent him a contrite look. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘Don’t apologise for being honest.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘You’ll do anything to look after Susan?’
‘Almost anything.’ A welter of guilt swamped Katie.
His sympathetic glance was laced with sarcasm. ‘You’d rather sell yourself to a wealthy tyrant of your own choosing?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So, between Carl and me, I’m the lesser of two evils? The more attractive?’
A frisson of danger lent steel to his light query. She suddenly felt afraid of something, felt fear slicing through her too sensitive, too thin skin.
‘You’r
e temporary,’ she said bravely. ‘You like temporary. You never hold on to anything for long. Not women or companies. You take what you want and move on.’
‘You really think you’ve done your research on me, don’t you?’ He looked down at her, grimly thoughtful. ‘How can you go back there if you defy Brian so overtly?’
‘I think he’ll accept it when he realises his financial problems are resolved. And he’ll see he can’t reach me any more.’ She’d finally be free of his hold over her.
‘But what will Susan say about you marrying me for my money? Me, the spurned step-nephew, cast out all those years ago? Won’t she be disappointed in you?’
A flush of heat singed her skin. ‘I wouldn’t tell her... I’d have to...’
‘Fake it?’ he jeered softly. ‘Pretend you’re in love with me?’
‘It wouldn’t be for long. Then White Oaks will be safe and Susan can stay there for as long as she has left. Brian can’t bully us into anything. He can’t send either of us away if I own it. I’ll have the power.’
Alessandro regarded her steadily. ‘Sounds like a fine plan when you put it like that.’ He hunched down in front of her and whispered. ‘But what’s in it for me?’
She stared into his gleaming eyes, wondering how to convince him—playing to his sympathetic side seemed unlikely to succeed. ‘I thought you might enjoy it...’ she muttered.
‘What—being married to you?’ That tantalising smile curved his lips, all arrogance.
She blushed furiously. ‘Having revenge on them.’
He pressed his hand to his heart in mock distress. ‘You really don’t think much of me, do you?’ he said slowly, but that edge was still in his eyes.
‘You don’t want to take something from them when they took something from you?’
That glint sharpened. ‘What do you think they took?’
‘Your father’s company.’ She swallowed, remembering that fight and the fury with which Alessandro had stormed out of White Oaks.
There was a moment of pure stillness. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind those fiercely burning eyes. She only knew that he was thinking rapidly—but what he was thinking was clear only to him.
