by Annie West
There was something about Ravenna. Not just a face that drew the eye as a magnet drew metal so he’d had to force himself not to stare. But an elegance, a grace, that contrasted with yet magnified the earthy sexuality of her voice, and that sassy attitude of hers...
The feel of her stretched up against him, her breasts almost grazing him as she panted her fury in defiance of his superior strength, had stirred something long dormant.
Suspended in a moment of sheer, heady excitement, he’d revelled in the proximity of her soft curves and lush mouth. There’d been a subversive pleasure in her combative attitude, in watching the sparks fly as she launched herself at him.
For the first time in his life Jonas, who preferred his pleasures planned, wondered about being on the receiving end of such unbridled passion. Not just her anger, but—
‘Did you hear me?’ Fingers clicked in the air before him, dragging his attention to her flushed face.
The colour suited her better, he realised, than the milky pallor he’d noticed earlier. Then he cursed himself for the stray thought.
‘You want to know what your mother’s been up to?’ It was easy to thrust aside his unsettling distraction and focus on familiar ire. ‘She’s stolen money. My money.’
He had the satisfaction of seeing Ravenna’s eyes widen.
It galled him that she’d had the temerity to defend Silvia when they both knew the truth about her mother. Like a magpie with an eye for a pretty, expensive bauble, she’d feathered her nest with his father’s wealth.
Jonas recalled the day he’d come home unexpectedly to Deveson Hall from London and found the housekeeper in his mother’s suite, in front of a mirror, holding an heirloom choker of sapphires and pearls to her throat. Instead of embarrassment at being caught out, she’d laughed and simply said no woman could have resisted the temptation if she’d found the necklace lying there. Without turning a hair she’d put it down on the dressing table and turned to plump the cushions on a nearby settee.
‘No.’ This time Ravenna’s low voice sounded scratchy as if with shock. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t she?’ He looked around the over-stuffed room, wondering how many of the pieces were what they appeared. Money had obviously been tight enough for his father to cash in the more valuable pieces.
‘Of course not.’ Ravenna’s certainty tugged his attention back to her. No longer flushed but pale and composed, she stared back with infuriating certainty.
‘Then how do you explain the fact she forged my father’s signature in a cheque book she shouldn’t even have had access to?’
‘Why blame my mother?’
‘No one else had access. Piers would have kept it safely by him, believe me.’ He let his gaze rove the room. ‘I’m sure if we search the apartment we’ll find it.’
‘There’ll be no searching the apartment. And even if it was here, what’s to say it wasn’t Piers’ signature? His handwriting could have changed when he got ill.’
Jonas shook his head. ‘That would have been convenient, wouldn’t it? But it won’t wash. Unless you can explain how he managed to cash a cheque the day after he died.’
Her eyes widened, growing huge in her taut face.
‘I don’t believe you.’ It was a whisper but even that was like a flame to gunpowder. How could she deny her mother’s wrongdoing even now?
‘I don’t care what you believe.’ It was a lie. Her blind faith in the gold-digging Silvia was like salt on a raw wound. Perhaps because he’d never known such loyalty from his own parents. Why should she lavish it on a woman so patently undeserving?
Piers had been an absentee parent, finding plenty of reasons to stay in the city rather than at the Hall. As for his mother—he supposed she’d loved him in her own abstracted way. But she’d been more focused on her personal disappointment in marrying a man who loved not her but the wealth she’d brought with her.
Jonas slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and withdrew the photocopied cheques.
‘Here.’ He held them out, daring her to take them. ‘I never lie.’ His father had been an expert at distorting the truth for his convenience. As a kid Jonas had vowed never to do the same.
He watched Ravenna swallow, the movement convulsive, then she reached out and took the papers. Her head bowed as she stared at them.
The sound of her breath hissing in told him he’d finally got through to her. There was no escaping the truth.
The papers moved as if in a strong breeze and he realised her hands were trembling.
In that instant guilt pierced his self-satisfaction. Belatedly it struck him that taking out his anger on Silvia’s daughter was beneath him.
His belly clenched as he reviewed their encounter. Even given his determination to make Silvia pay for her crime, he’d behaved crassly. He’d stalked in, making demands when a simple request for information would have done. Worse, he’d been too caught up in own emotional turmoil to spare a thought for the shock this would be for Ravenna.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ The words shot out like bullets, rapid and harsh with self-disgust.
She didn’t say anything, just stood, head bowed, staring at the papers in her shaking hands.
Hell! Was she in shock?
He leant towards her, trying to read her expression.
All he registered was the stiff set of her jaw and the scent of warm cinnamon and fragrant woman.
And the way she bit her bottom lip, pearly teeth sinking deep in that lush fullness.
Jonas breathed in slowly, telling himself the heat whirling in his belly was shame, not arousal.
The idea of being turned on so easily by any woman was anathema to a man who prided himself on his restraint. When she was the daughter of the woman who’d destroyed his mother... Unthinkable!
‘Ravenna?’ His voice sounded ridiculously hesitant, as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet.
She looked up, her eyes ablaze as they met his. Then her gaze shifted towards the window.
‘You’re mistaken.’ Her voice sounded wrong, he realised, tight and hard. ‘Silvia had nothing to do with this.’
‘Stop denying, Ravenna. It’s too late for that. I’ve got proof of her forgery.’
‘Proof of forgery, yes. But not Silvia’s.’ She shifted, standing taller.
Jonas shook his head, weary of the unexpected emotional edge to this interview. ‘Just tell me where she is and I’ll deal with her.’
Those warm sherry eyes lifted to his and he stilled as he saw how they’d glazed with emotion.
‘You don’t need to deal with her. She had nothing to do with it.’ Ravenna tilted her chin up, her gaze meeting his squarely. ‘I did it. I took your money.’
CHAPTER THREE
RAVENNA’S PULSE KICKED as Jonas stiffened. Her throat dried so much it hurt to swallow. But she didn’t dare turn away. Instead she met his stare unflinchingly.
She feared if she showed even a flicker of the emotions rioting inside, he wouldn’t believe her.
He had to! The alternative, of pinning the theft on her mother, was untenable.
With Jonas’ revelation so much fell into place—Piers’ remarkable generosity in not just covering her medical costs these last months, but funding the long convalescent stay at an exorbitantly expensive Swiss health resort.
Only it hadn’t been Piers making that final, massive payment, had it? It must have been Silvia—breaking the law to help her daughter.
Ravenna’s heart plummeted as she recalled her mother’s insistence that she needed total rest to recuperate. That without the health resort there was a danger of the treatment failing. Ravenna, too weary by then to protest when all she wanted was to rest quietly and get her strength back, hadn’t put up much resistance.
She’d never sponge
d off Piers’ wealth, and had silenced her protesting conscience by vowing to pay back every last euro. It was only when she’d arrived at the Paris apartment the other day that she realised they were euros Piers and her mother could ill afford.
Guilt had struck Ravenna when she saw how much they’d sold off. But she’d never for a moment thought her mother had purloined money that wasn’t hers!
Oh, Mamma, what have you done?
Through the years Silvia had gone without again and again so Ravenna could have warm clothes and a roof over her head. And later, so she could go to the respected school her mother thought she needed. But to take what wasn’t hers...!
‘You’re lying.’ Jonas’ frigid eyes raked her face and a chill skimmed her backbone.
Ravenna smoothed damp palms down her trousers and angled her chin, trying to quell the roiling nausea in her stomach.
‘I don’t lie.’ It was true. Maybe that was why she hadn’t convinced him. Her muscles clenched as desperation rose.
She couldn’t let him guess the truth. Already a broken woman, Mamma would be destroyed by the shame and stress of gaol.
For a moment Ravenna toyed with blurting out the whole truth, revealing why her mother had stolen the funds and throwing them both on Jonas Deveson’s mercy.
Except he didn’t have any mercy.
That softer side he’d once shown her years before had been an aberration. In the six years Silvia and Piers had been together, Jonas hadn’t once condescended to acknowledge his father’s existence. He had ice in his veins rather than warm blood, and a predilection for holding a grudge.
Now it seemed he had a taste for vengeance too.
That might be ice in his veins but there was fire blazing in his eyes. It had been there since he shouldered his way into the apartment, prowling the room with lofty condescension as if his father’s death meant nothing to him.
His hatred for her mother was a palpable weight in the charged atmosphere.
He blamed Silvia for his father’s defection. He’d sided with the rest of his aristocratic connections in shunning the working-class foreigner who’d had the temerity to poach one of their own.
Ravenna had to keep this from her. If Mamma found the theft had been discovered she’d come forward and accept the penalty. Ravenna couldn’t let her do that, not when she saw the violence in Jonas Deveson’s eyes. She couldn’t condone what Mamma had done but could understand it, especially since she must have been overwrought about Piers.
‘You haven’t got it in you to do that, Ravenna.’ He shook his head. ‘Theft is more your mother’s style.’
Fury boiled in her bloodstream. She didn’t know which was worse, his bone-deep hatred of her mother or that he thought he knew either of them when at Deveson Hall family hadn’t mixed with staff.
His certainty of her innocence should have appeased her; instead, tainted as it was by prejudice, Ravenna found herself angrier than she could ever remember. Rage steamed across her skin and seeped from her pores.
‘You have no idea of what her style is or mine.’ Her teeth gritted around the words.
His damnably supercilious eyebrows rose again. ‘I’m a good judge of character.’
That was what Ravenna feared. That was why she had to work hard to convince him.
Maybe if her mother had a spotless reputation she’d ride out a trial with nothing worse than a caution and community service. But sadly that wasn’t the case.
Years before, when Silvia had been young and homeless, kicked out by her father for shaming the family with her pregnancy, she’d resorted to shoplifting to feed herself. She’d been tried then released on a good behaviour bond. That had terrified the young woman who’d been until then completely law abiding.
Much later, when Ravenna was nine, her mother had been accused of stealing from the house where she worked. Ravenna remembered Mamma’s ravaged, parchment-white face as the police led her away under the critical gaze of the woman who employed her. It didn’t matter that the charges had been dropped when the woman’s daughter was found trying to sell the missing heirloom pieces. Silvia had been dismissed, presumably because her employer couldn’t face the embarrassment of having accused an innocent woman.
Mud stuck and innocence didn’t seem to matter in the face of prejudice.
Look at the way Jonas already judged her. If she went to trial he’d dredge up her past and every scurrilous innuendo he could uncover and probably create a few for good measure. His air of ruthlessness that chilled Ravenna. His lawyers would make mincemeat out of her mother.
Ravenna couldn’t allow it. Especially since her mother had stolen to save her.
Hot guilt flooded her. How desperate Mamma must have been, how worried, to have stolen this man’s money! She must have known he’d destroy her if he found out.
Which was why Ravenna had to act.
She stepped forward, her index finger prodding Jonas’ hard chest. It felt frighteningly immovable. But she had to puncture his certainty. Attack seemed her best chance.
‘Don’t pretend to know my mother.’ Furtively she sucked in air, her breathing awry as her pulse catapulted. ‘You weren’t even living at home when we moved to Deveson Hall.’
‘You’re telling me you masterminded this theft?’ His tone was sceptical. ‘I think not.’
‘You—’ her finger poked again ‘—aren’t in a position to know anything about me.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ Warm fingers closed around her hand so that suddenly she was no longer the aggressor but his captive. Tendrils of sensation curled up her arm and made her shiver. ‘I know quite a bit about you. I know you hated school, especially maths and science. You wanted to run away but felt you had to stick it out for your mother’s sake.’
Ravenna’s eyes widened. ‘You remember that?’ Her voice faded to a whisper. She’d assumed he’d long forgotten her teary confession the day he’d found her wallowing in teenage self-pity.
‘You hated being made to play basketball just because you were tall. As I recall you wanted to be tiny, blonde and one of five children, all rejoicing in the name of Smith.’
It was true. Living up to her mother’s expectations of academic and social success had been impossible, especially for an undistinguished scholar like Ravenna, surrounded by unsupportive peers who treated her as a perennial outsider. For years she’d longed, not to be ‘special’ but to blend in.
‘And you didn’t like the way one of the gardeners had begun to stare at you.’
Ridiculously heat flushed her skin. That summer she’d been a misfit, neither child nor adult. She hadn’t known what she wanted.
But she hadn’t minded when Jonas Deveson looked at her or, for one precious, fleeting moment, stroked wayward curls off her face.
Ravenna blinked. She wasn’t fifteen now.
‘You remember far more of that day than I do.’ Another lie. Two in one day had to be a record for her. Maybe if she kept it up she could even sound convincing.
Did she imagine a slight softening in those grey eyes?
No. Easier to believe she’d scored her dream job as a pastry chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant than that this steely man had a compassionate side.
‘You haven’t changed that much.’ His deep voice stirred something unsettling deep inside.
‘No? You didn’t even recognise me.’ She pulled back but he didn’t loosen his grip. He held her trapped.
For a moment fear spidered through her, till she reminded herself he had too much pride to force himself on an unwilling woman. His hold wasn’t sexual, it was all about power. The charged awareness was all on her side, not his.
She had no intention of analysing that. She had enough to worry about.
‘You’ve changed a lot.’ Her tone made it clear it wasn’t a compliment. At twenty-o
ne he’d been devastatingly handsome but unexpectedly kind and patient. She’d liked him, even more than liked him in her naïve way.
Now he was all harsh edges, irascible and judgemental. What was there to like?
‘We’re not here to discuss me.’ His eyes searched hers. Stoically she kept her head up and face blank. Better to brazen out her claim than show a hint of doubt.
Yet inside she was wobbly as jelly. The past days had taken their toll as she saw how grief had ravaged her mother, making her seem frail. Ravenna had sent her away from the apartment so ripe with memories of Piers. She’d offered to pack up the flat and deal with the landlord, but even those simple tasks were a test of Ravenna’s endurance. Now this...
‘We’re here to discuss my money.’ Jonas’ fingers firmed around her. ‘The money stolen from my account.’
Ravenna swallowed hard at his unrelenting tone.
Just what was the penalty for theft and forgery?
* * *
Jonas felt her hand twitch in his.
A sign of guilt or proof she lied about being the one who’d ripped him off?
Her soft eyes were huge in her finely sculpted face, giving her an air of fragility despite her punk-short hair and belligerently angled chin.
Jonas wasn’t sentimental enough to let looks mar his decision-making. Yet, absurdly, he found himself hesitating.
He didn’t want to believe Ravenna guilty.
Far easier to believe her rapacious mother had organised this swindle. After years keeping his emotions bottled up he’d almost enjoyed the roaring surge of fury against his father’s mistress that had borne him across the channel in a red-misted haze.
But what bothered him most was the recognition he didn’t want it to be Ravenna because he remembered her devastating innocence and honesty years ago. He didn’t want to reconcile that memory with the knowledge she’d become a thief.
Jonas’ lips twisted. Who’d have thought he still had illusions he didn’t want to shatter? He’d been too long in the cut-throat business world to believe in the innate honesty of mankind. Experience had taught him man—and womankind were out for all they could get.
