‘I told Isobel,’ Mrs Chandler said hurriedly, giving her daughter a reproving, sidelong look, ‘that I couldn’t possibly foresee what the hitches might be. Perhaps you feel the company, on closer inspection, is not worth what you’re prepared to pay? You can be quite honest with us, Lorenzo. After all, we go back a long way.’
‘Businessmen are never honest, Mum,’ Isobel said. ‘They’re diplomatic. Like politicians and salesmen.’
‘Your father was honest.’
Isobel looked away at that. She thought of Jeremy, she thought of her marriage, she thought of sacrifices made before she was even old enough to enjoy life to the fullest.
‘The price has nothing to do with it, Mrs Chandler,’ Lorenzo said abruptly into the silence. He leaned forward, deposited his glass on the table in front of him and relaxed back on the sofa. ‘You say that you want honesty, so I’ll be blunt. This deal would have been wrapped up over a week ago, but I felt that I lacked the necessary co-operation from your daughter.’
‘Isobel?’
Lorenzo glanced across to where Isobel was trying to conceal an expression of stony anger, and continued in an unhurried voice, ‘I feel that in a town of this size it’s imperative that I have every backing from the family members of the firm. Perhaps if I had been an outsider it would have mattered less, but everyone knows that Isobel and I know one another, and most people know that we were…involved at one point.’
‘What does that have to do with it?’ Isobel asked sharply, feeling her colour mount.
‘Quite a bit. You see, if I take over Chandlers without the backing of your daughter, Mrs Chandler, it won’t be long before tongues begin to wag. People will begin to wonder whether it was perhaps a hostile take-over, whether you had been forced to sell against your will. It would only be a short step before they began to have suspicions about me as a person. After all, Chandler has been a name in this town for as long as I can remember. Business would suffer because it would be impossible to operate successfully here with hostility in the air.’
‘Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little?’ Isobel asked, recognising a trap and wriggling to squirm out of it.
He shook his head. ‘In a big city you’re anonymous. In a town like this you’re not. There’s a constant process of symbiosis at work. You think what would happen if Tom Wilkins sold his pub to someone who wasn’t accepted. How long would it be before the pub began having trouble attracting customers? How long would it be before it was forced to close down completely?’
Mrs Chandler was nodding in slow agreement.
‘I am perfectly willing to sell Father’s company to him,’ Isobel muttered, feeling guilty and then angry that she should when she had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
Was it her fault that he had laid down conditions which were impossible to meet? Was it her fault that he had returned with only one thing on his mind: revenge?
‘You haven’t been very enthusiastic though, darling, have you?’ Mrs Chandler asked with gentle reproof, which made Isobel redden even more.
‘Not enthusiastic at all,’ Lorenzo murmured, in a disappointed voice, sliding his eyes across to her and only just managing to contain his amusement.
‘Darling.’ Mrs Chandler stood up and her voice was very firm. ‘I hope you’ll think very carefully about this; I hope you will do everything in your power to convince Lorenzo that he has your full backing. I shall go and see to the food and let you two discuss it between yourselves.’
‘You…! You…! Words fail me, Lorenzo Cicolla!’ she said as soon as the door closed behind her mother.
He smiled.
‘Your mother did say that she wanted honesty.’
Isobel helped herself to another glass of wine, because her nerves needed further bracing, and tried to formulate a suitably scathing reply to that.
‘You have to admit that what I said made sense,’ Lorenzo carried on, before she could think of her scathing reply.
‘I have to admit nothing of the sort!’
‘Your mother agrees with me.’
‘You talked your way around her,’ Isobel muttered darkly. ‘That lecturer of yours was right. You should have studied law. You have a mind devious enough.’
‘Is that a compliment?’ He looked perfectly relaxed, his mouth curved into an amused smile.
‘No, but I’m sure you’ll take it as one. How could you turn my mother against me?’
‘I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. I was simply pointing out that I needed your co-operation if this venture was to succeed the way I’d like it to.’
‘Your idea of co-operation and my mother’s idea of co-operation aren’t exactly the same though, are they?’ Isobel asked with sarcasm. ‘What do you think she would say if I told her the truth? That what you had in mind wasn’t along the lines of the occasional invitation to dinner and cheery greetings on the street, but a ring on my finger.’
‘Who knows? She might be thrilled.’
‘And if I told her that the only reason you wanted my so-called co-operation was for motives that had nothing to do with the company?’
‘She probably wouldn’t believe you.’
Their eyes met and Isobel felt her head spin. Too much wine. She hardly ever drank. She should have fortified her nerves with mineral water or orange juice.
She half closed her eyes and said, ‘I feel giddy.’
‘My poor darling,’ he murmured, with a low, sexy laugh. ‘Is that because you’re overwhelmed at the realisation that you’re going to marry me, like it or not, or because you’ve had too much to drink?’
‘I haven’t had too much to drink.’
‘Three glasses.’
‘I hate people who count how much other people have had to drink. And I’m not going to marry you.’ She should be feeling angry, furious, in fact, but she really did feel light-headed, and somehow she couldn’t summon up the energy for an argument.
When her mother returned and announced that dinner would be ready shortly, Isobel stood up, hoped that she would be able to walk a straight line across the room, and announced that she needed to go and change.
Under a stream of lukewarm water she tried to get her muddled thoughts into some kind of coherent order, and in the end abandoned the unequal struggle.
Lorenzo, who from of old could run rings round most people, had succeeded very thoroughly in running rings around her.
She wasn’t going to give in, she knew that, but she felt too relaxed to think about how she was going to stop him without incurring her mother’s disapproval.
When she emerged fifteen minutes later, in a pair of jeans and a jade-green jumper, she could hear her mother’s laughter and Lorenzo’s low, deep voice wafting from the sitting-room.
They both looked around as she walked in, and her mother, still smiling, said, ‘No more shop talk tonight. Lorenzo’s been telling me all about America. I’ve always wanted to visit there.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ Isobel said, wondering whether she dared indulge in one last glass of wine—after all, the evening was hardly over—and deciding that she would. She felt much better after her shower. Not so languorous and floaty. ‘You and Dad hated having holidays outside England. The few times you went to Europe you always came back looking exhausted.’
‘True,’ Mrs Chandler conceded with grace. ‘But Lorenzo makes it sound terribly exciting.’
Lorenzo, Isobel wanted to point out, could make sitting in a room and watching paint dry sound terribly exciting.
She frowned. Of course that was a long time ago, before she discovered that she hated him. Or was it, she thought confusedly, and if it wasn’t, then what did that mean?
‘Did you know that he now owns several companies, darling?’ her mother asked.
‘Really?’ Isobel tried to invest her voice with interest. ‘Staggering. I’m deeply impressed.’
‘It must have been terribly hard work,’ Mrs Chandler said thoughtfully, turning her attention back to Lorenzo.
‘I have heard that America is a very competitive place. Is it?’
‘Highly.’ He had helped himself to another glass of wine and he took a mouthful of it. ‘For the first year I was there, I think I must have had two hours’ sleep every night. I was working crazy hours. Not that I minded.’ He laughed and Mrs Chandler laughed with him. When he decided to be charming, Isobel thought, there were very few people who could resist him, least of all members of the opposite sex.
‘I was living in such a hell-hole,’ he continued, ‘that the office was palatial in comparison.’
‘How awful for you,’ Mrs Chandler said, looking at her daughter for some contribution to the conversation.
Isobel murmured obligingly, ‘How horrendous. However did you cope?’ She had worked it all out. If she were seen to be co-operating with him, at least in front of her mother, then, when the deal fell through, well, no blame could be laid on her doorstep, could it?’
Lorenzo was looking at her, his eyes narrowed and serious. ‘I coped, Isobel, with thoughts of returning here in due course. I had gone to America to find success, and success was precisely what I intended to bring back here with me.’
‘Very single-minded.’ Her mother approved, apparently. She had married a man who had been ambitious as well. It was an ethos which she could understand. ‘I do so hope that you’ll buy David’s company.’ Her eyes lost some of their unreserved sparkle. ‘I know it will be in safe hands with you.’ She turned to Isobel. ‘You do see, don’t you, darling?’
‘If you want me to,’ Isobel muttered, which met with a disapproving frown from her mother, and she quickly amended her remark, adding, ‘I’m sure Lorenzo would make sure that it was firing on all cylinders in no time at all.’ Be seen to co-operate, she thought.
Her mother was nodding. ‘David was worried about it for quite some time before he died,’ she said, which made Isobel look at her in surprise. Her father had been worried about the company? He had never let on!
‘Why?’ Lorenzo asked, and Isobel could see his ears pricking up.
Mrs Chandler shrugged sadly. ‘He knew that there were loopholes in the management, but he was desperately against firing old friends, and of course quite a few of the hierarchy in the company were old friends.’ She glanced at Lorenzo. ‘You know what it’s like here. We all know one another.’
‘A dangerous situation.’
‘It can be, but also a comforting one. David spent so much time trying to work out a solution. The only other time I have ever known him to be worried to that extent was years ago. He never told me what was wrong and eventually, whatever it was, he sorted it out.’ She stood up. ‘Well, so much for memory lane. I shall go and see to that casserole. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.’
Which, of course, was Isobel’s cue to jump up and offer to do it instead, but her mother shook her head and murmured, ‘No, darling, you stay here and entertain Lorenzo. You haven’t seen each other for such a long time.’ She looked at him with affection and Isobel felt very much like telling her that she would do better to expend her affection on a swarm of killer bees.
‘And remember, you two, no shop talk!’
As soon as Mrs Chandler had left the room, Lorenzo looked at Isobel, his eyes veiled.
‘Still feeling giddy?’ he asked. He sounded amused and she scowled at him.
‘Not in the slightest,’ she said airily.
‘You soon will if you finish that glass of wine. Four was always your limit.’
Isobel blushed and finished the glass of wine. ‘I’m surprised you remember that,’ she remarked. ‘With only two hours’ sleep every night, for years on end, you’d think that your powers of recall might have dulled a bit.’
He laughed, and it was the laugh she had known years ago, that wicked, amused laugh that made her bones go funny. Or was it her imagination?
‘Don’t think that you’re going to get your way just because I’m not arguing with you,’ she rushed in, uncomfortably aware that the room was too hot, or too small, or too something, because she was feeling awfully conscious of his presence there on the sofa, semisprawled, his trousers contouring his muscular legs in a way that she found quite fascinating.
‘Perish the thought.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Isobel asked, with less bitterness than she might have normally. ‘You’re enjoying watching my discomfort.’
‘I have always enjoyed watching you, Isobel,’ he said ambiguously, which made her go red. She stood up agitatedly and began pacing through the room, her body as tense as a coiled spring because she knew that his eyes were on her, following her.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop prowling,’ he ordered, and she gave him a wry look.
‘You’ve become very fond of giving commands, Lorenzo,’ she said silkily, pausing next to his chair to look down at him.
With a swift gesture his fingers circled her wrist, and he pulled her down on to the arm of the chair. Only some instinctive sense of balance saved her from falling on to his lap, but the suddenness of the action winded her and she looked at him in angry embarrassment.
‘That’s better,’ he said comfortably, still gripping her so that she had no option but to remain where she was or else initiate a struggle which she knew she would lose. He was a strong man. Right now he was pinning her down with ease, as effortlessly as a tiger pinning a mouse under its paw.
‘You may think that the only reason I’m here is because I get some sort of vicarious thrill in putting your nose out of joint, but as a matter of fact I’m here because I wanted to see your mother, believe it or not. It’s been a long time.’ His voice was deep and velvety, and altogether hypnotising. Isobel looked at the dark, chiselled contours of his face and tried very hard not to betray her confused awareness of him.
‘How is her illness?’ he asked quietly, and she lowered her eyes.
‘She copes with it. She always has.’
‘She’s always been a strong woman.’
‘That’s what Richard says.’
His eyes sharpened at that, as did his grip on her wrist.
‘Ah. Dr Adams. We hadn’t finished our little discussion on him, had we? Does he say that during working hours or out of them? Were you fooling around with the single, attractive Dr. Adams? You haven’t answered me that.’
‘We’re friends,’ she informed him. Was he jealous? Her heart gave a swoop of pleasure at the thought of that, but the pleasure didn’t last long. If he was jealous, it had nothing to do with emotional reasons. If he was jealous it would be because a man in her life would detract from her vulnerability and he wanted her vulnerable, he wanted her in a position where he could hurt her the way she had hurt him four years ago.
No amount of wine should relax her into forgetting that, she thought to herself.
Besides, she decided, why should it matter what he feels for me? She looked at that dark, handsome face and, somewhere at the back of her mind, an answer to that began to take shape. She shoved it aside quickly, though.
‘She took Dad’s death very badly,’ Isobel heard herself saying in a hurried, nervous voice. ‘They had been together for such a long time, I suppose, and, of course, she was always very dependent on him. He took care of everything. She had no idea how to manage the most basic of her finances.’
Was he listening to her? He was staring at her but he didn’t appear to be taking in a word she was saying. She began to feel more addled.
‘Can I have permission to return to my chair now?’ she asked, clearing her throat.
His voice, when he answered was husky. ‘No. I rather like you here.’
‘And how is your mother?’ Isobel stammered, clearing her throat again. She sounded breathless and a little choked. Would he believe her if she said that she had been suffering from a sore throat? Would he let her go if she told him that she was in dire need of a couple of throat lozenges? Perhaps she could mention her giddiness again, although right now she felt too rigidly tense to be giddy.<
br />
‘Fine. Looking forward to the possibility of moving back here.’ He idly crossed his legs and relaxed back in the chair. ‘She’s in Italy at the moment. She’ll probably be there for a couple of months, until things are more settled here with me.’ He absentmindedly began stroking the inside of her wrist with his thumb and her body began feeling feverish. ‘Tell me what’s been happening around here for the past four years,’ he murmured softly, coaxingly. ‘In a calm, non-argumentative fashion, because you’re supposed to be co-operating with me, aren’t you?’
‘It would take too long.’ She fidgeted on the arm of the chair. ‘Besides, I’m very uncomfortable in this position.’
‘Are you?’ he asked with a wicked smile, then he pulled her down so that she tumbled in an undignified heap on to his lap, and she began to struggle uselessly.
‘What the hell do you think you’re up to?’ she said, out of breath. He had one arm around her neck, and the other resting on her thighs. She wriggled again, and the arm moved from her thighs to her chest, so that his hand was spread just beneath her breastbone. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and under her jumper she could feel her breasts grow heavy and painful, she could feel her nipples hard, aching, erect with excited longing.
‘My mother,’ she said, enunciating as carefully as she could, ‘will have a heart attack if she walks into this room and finds us like this.’ She was so close to him that she could see the little flecks of deeper grey in his irises, the fine lines around his eyes. She knew that if she wasn’t careful his nearness would go to her head like incense, and—and what? she wondered with an inward shudder.
‘It might force us to tell her that I intend to be her son-in-law. Besides, she’s safely ensconced in the kitchen, taking care of dinner,’ he murmured.
‘There’s just so much time someone can spend on preparing vegetables and setting a kitchen table,’ Isobel said, ignoring his suggestion, even though it stirred something in her, something treacherous, a reluctant fire waiting to be rekindled. Keep it calm, she told herself shakily, pretend that his hand isn’t inches away from your breast, that his mouth isn’t inches away from yours, and you’ll be all right.
Vengeful Seduction (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) Page 8
