by Lynne Graham
‘At first, I hoped that matters would improve and that I would be able to catch up with the loan arrears. When that didn’t happen, I prayed that the bank would come to our rescue.’ Rising to his feet, Hunt O’Brien went over to his desk and with some difficulty tugged out a bottom drawer. ‘I’m afraid the bank turned my request down, and yesterday while I was walking in the demesne I was approached by a young man who asked me who I was and then virtually stuffed this document into my hand!’
From the cluttered desk top, the older man lifted a folded sheet. ‘I’m facing a court order for repossession of the castle.’
In the act of looking into the drawer, which was packed to bursting point with unopened envelopes, Kerry straightened to stare in appalled silence at the legal notice that her grandfather had already been officially served with.
‘I’ve spoken to the family solicitor,’ the old man confided wearily. ‘If I don’t comply with a voluntary arrangement to settle my debts, I’ll be declared bankrupt, which I believe would be worse.’
Homeless or bankrupt? What a choice! A surge of rage blistered through Kerry’s slight, taut frame. How dared Luciano threaten to evict two harmless, helpless, elderly gentlefolk from their only home at this stage of their lives? How dared he subject her grandfather’s weak heart to the stress of fear and intimidation? How dared he make her grandmother’s hands tremble with nerves? What sort of a merciless bully had prison made out of Luciano da Valenza?
Hadn’t he done enough harm yet? Wasn’t it bad enough that he had wrecked her life? She lived like a nun sooner than risk that amount of pain and disillusionment again. She no longer trusted men. The guy she adored had gone behind her back and slept with a woman who hated her. At the age of twenty-six she was so much ‘on the shelf’, as her grandmother liked to call it, that she might as well have been nailed to it!
‘I’ll look into this, Grandpa,’ Kerry murmured in a soothing undertone, eyes as bright as sparkling turquoises in her flushed and furious face.
‘If it makes you feel better, go ahead,’ he said wryly. ‘But I assure you that nothing short of a miracle could help us now.’
‘Just you go back to your book,’ Kerry advised.
‘I am hoping that we’ll be quite comfortably off once I sell my books to a publishing firm,’ Hunt O’Brien declared, startling his granddaughter with an ambition which he had never mentioned before. ‘I’ve almost finished the eighth volume. It’s my final one, you know.’
‘Congratulations,’ Kerry told him with as much enthusiastic and matching optimism as she could muster at that instant.
‘Of course, the other seven volumes could probably do with a little tweaking.’ He settled back onto his sofa and reached for his pen with a smile, the gravity of their plight clearly wiped from his mind again as he contemplated the comforting creative challenges that still lay ahead of him.
While the older man returned to his notebook, Kerry lifted out the entire drawer of unopened letters and carried it from the room. An hour later, after she had only got through about a third of what had been a one-sided effort at communication stretching back over more than four years, her heart was heavy. Interest and arrears had swollen the original debt to a colossal and terrifying size and her grandfather’s total lack of response to those warning letters had put him very much in the wrong. The loan had been secured against the castle, and the castle was her grandfather’s sole asset. There was no way that she could raise the kind of money that was now owed to Luciano. Nor were there any valuable family heirlooms left to sell: Great-Uncle Ivor’s grasping ex-wife had seen to that.
In the midst of those increasingly panic-stricken thoughts and in desperate need of fresh air to clear her buzzing head and restore her concentration, Kerry went outdoors and headed for the lake that lay below the castle. Her feet crunching on the lush green grass of late spring, she finally came to a halt beneath the spreading branches of the willow tree that overhung the water.
A low swirling mist was rising from the still surface of the lake to lend an eerie, dream-like quality to the reflection of the pale limestone battlemented walls and turrets of Ballybawn. For five years she had worked round the clock in an effort to make the great house pay for its own upkeep and she had honestly believed that she was on the brink of finally achieving that objective! Had it all been for nothing?
But Ballybawn meant so much more to her than a responsibility: it was the only real home she had ever had. Her mother, Carrie, had walked out of her life when she was only four years old. Prior to that, Kerry had dim memories of frightening adult scenes in which her father’s rage had made him seem, perhaps unfairly, a cruel and threatening man. When the marriage had finally ended, her mother had left England to return to Ireland and her childhood home. Although it had been more than ten years since Kerry’s mother had even spoken to her parents, the older couple had offered a warm welcome to their wayward daughter and her child. It was at the castle that Kerry had first learned what it was to be happy and, even when Carrie later went away and failed to return, the O’Briens had continued to make their granddaughter feel secure and loved.
But Luciano da Valenza had never managed to make her feel secure or loved, had he? Kerry swallowed the bitter lump in her throat. Abandoning caution and common sense, she had fallen in love with the first slick and sophisticated, handsome male who looked her way. She had refused to think about the fact that she was not beautiful or even especially sexy like Rochelle or the other women in Luciano’s past. She was five feet three inches tall and her build was what her acid-tongued stepmother had once described as ‘almost asexual’. Men did not do a double take when they saw Kerry on the street. Her infuriating ringlets ran every colour between copper, russet and orange, depending on the light or indeed the observer’s outlook on red hair.
Of course, Luciano had labelled that same colour ‘Titian’, which had been a surefire impressive winner with a girl who had gone through school tagged with less complimentary nicknames…a girl whose first boyfriend had been stolen by her stepsister, a girl who was a total dreamer for all her seeming practicality. At the age of twenty-one, however, Kerry had thought of herself as mature.
But, with hindsight, she knew that when she had first seen Luciano da Valenza springing out of his sleek sports-car her very lack of experience with men had been a handicap. Taking one stunned look at Luciano, she had been so mesmerised that she had walked backwards into a flowerbed and got soaked by the sprinkler system. He had thought that was very, very funny. She squeezed her burning eyes tight shut and told herself furiously to stop thinking about him.
Broken engagement, broken heart, broken dreams. Kerry shivered and lifted her hands to her tear-wet face in shame: she had always been too sensitive, too trusting and soft. Luciano’s infidelity had devastated her. But then, that Luciano should everhave shown an interest in her had been surprising and her own father had told her that too, hadn’t he?
‘You were never da Valenza’s type. I should’ve suspected that he had an ulterior motive. Now, if he’d gone after your stepsister, Rochelle, again, well…’ Harold Linwood had stressed meaningfully. ‘That would have been the normal thing to do.’
In frustration, Kerry breathed in deep and emptied her mind of the painful memories that still taunted her. The past was over and gone, she reminded herself squarely. Ballybawn was under threat again, but this time around the threat she had to overcome came from Luciano. Luciano, who had been outraged when she handed him back his ring and as incredulous as a predatory, prowling cat suddenly punched on the nose by a mouse. Luciano, who always played to win with ruthless, relentless purpose.
But exactly what would Luciano want with a cold, comfortless castle in the hilly wilds of Co Clare? The cosmopolitan delights of Dublin city were at a most inconvenient distance. And wasn’t it truly fortunate that Luciano had come into the reputed squillions of cash left to him by his natural father? She was relieved by the idea that Luciano had become so wealthy that flogging a tu
mbledown Irish castle would not enrich him to any appreciable extent.
Unhappily, those small positive elements aside, Kerry also knew that she had only one immediate option: she would have to fly over to London and see Luciano in person, for only he would have the power to stop that repossession order progressing as far as the High Court. But how could she face seeing him again? And on such demeaning terms? Coming cap in hand like a beggar to him?
Shivering at that degrading image, Kerry felt cold inside and out. Somehow she had to find the strength to do what had to be done, for, like so many other tasks around Ballybawn, there was nobody else but her available.
CHAPTER TWO
FOUR days later, pink in the face, out of breath and all too well aware that her delayed flight out of Shannon to London had made her almost fifteen minutes late for her two o’clock appointment with Luciano, Kerry sank down in the smart reception area on the top floor of his brand-new office building.
In an effort to get a grip on her own mounting stress level, Kerry made herself concentrate on the challenge ahead. She needed to tell Luciano why the loan was in arrears and ask for more time to make good on the payments. He was first, foremost and last a businessman. If she could convince him that he would make more money letting her grandparents stay on in the castle, surely she would have a chance of winning his agreement to a stay of execution on that repossession order? With an anxious hand she checked that the business plan she had drawn up was still safe in her bag.
Striving to steady herself, she then looked around herself, desperate for anything that would take her mind off the coming confrontation. Her opulent surroundings had that classic sharp-edge design flair that distinguished a successful business. It had been eighteen months since Roberto Tessari’s death and, regardless of Luciano’s imprisonment, his father’s companies had continued trading. In those circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Luciano should have decided to set up a London base of operation for da Valenza Technology. But how it must have galled him to have to work through and rely on intermediaries rather than have access to and sole control of what was his.
Luciano had never, ever been a team player. Or, crept in the anxious thought, very hot on the forgiveness and understanding front, Kerry reflected miserably. That she had arrived late for their meeting would have struck another bad note. Luciano had an inner clock that never let him down and he equated poor timekeeping with a lack of respect.
Kerry breathed in deep, struggling to keep herself calm, but minute by minute her nerves were winding up like coiled springs. For four days solid, she had fought not to think about what it would be like to see Luciano again. But now, even before she saw him, she was finding out. It was terrifying. Her brain felt like mush and her palms were sweating.
‘Luciano will see you now…you have fifteen minutes left!’
Startled by that snappy but familiar voice, Kerry rose hurriedly to her feet.
Costanza Guiseppi strolled forward. Clad in an enviable blue cropped jacket and shift dress, Luciano’s PA looked like a million dollars. It took only one scathing glance from Costanza for Kerry to be aware that her own dated grey skirt suit was the poorest of shabby comparisons.
‘How does it feel to be a leech?’ Costanza turned her head to enquire with venom as Kerry accompanied her down the corridor.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Kerry tilted her chin, telling herself that she ought to have been prepared for that attack, for the brunette was very loyal to Luciano and very fond of him. Their friendship was a close one, for Costanza had, after all, first met Luciano at school. As ambitious as Luciano was to succeed in the world, she had gone to work for him as soon as she left college.
‘I don’t suppose it even occurred to you five years ago that Luciano could have done with that loan being returned. If he’d had more funds, he could’ve afforded top-flight legal counsel and he might never have gone to prison.’ The Italian woman watched Kerry turn ashen pale in shock. ‘You cost him and you’re still costing him, and that makes you a leech on my terms!’
‘If Luciano had asked for the money back then my grandfather could still have given it back,’ Kerry protested sickly.
But Costanza wasn’t listening. ‘I’m so looking forward to viewing your Irish castle without you in it.’ The other woman savoured that assurance. ‘Your cheek in coming here today is your biggest mistake so far.’
As Costanza cast open the door ahead, Kerry walked in past her without even hearing that final taunt, for she was much too keyed-up about seeing Luciano again after so long.
‘Thank you, Costanza,’ Luciano murmured drily, knowing that the brunette’s satisfied expression meant that she had exercised her sharp tongue with barracuda-like efficiency.
As Luciano strolled forward, Kerry found herself just staring and staring. She was helpless in the grip of that overwhelming compulsion to take her visual fill. Even though she had already seen a half-dozen newspaper photos of him, the sight of him in the flesh and poised only feet from her reduced her mind to a literal wasteland.
‘Take a seat,’ Luciano suggested, his dark, deep drawl achingly familiar to her.
Her mouth running dry, her heartbeat speeded up in the taut silence but still she was looking at him. His sleek, dark business suit had the smooth, perfect fit of expensive tailoring over his wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, powerful legs. But even in that first moment she immediately recognised the changes in him: the shorter, more aggressive cut of his black hair, the cleaner, tougher angle of his proud cheekbones, the bleak, uncompromising line of his beautiful sculpted mouth. He was still extravagantly gorgeous, she thought painfully, but there was a quality of indifference stamped to his lean, dark features that was new to her.
Unwarily, Kerry tilted her head back and finally collided with narrowed dark golden eyes that stilled her in her tracks. Beautiful, bold, brilliant eyes, framed by a dense black fringe of lashes. As a tiny sliver of snaking heat curled low in her belly, she went rigid and dragged her gaze from his. Indeed a whole array of secret sensations that she had almost managed to forget she could feel assailed her in punishing reminder: the sudden melting weakness deep down inside, the stirring swell of her breasts within her bra, the feel of her skin tightening over her bones in excitement. Embarrassed colour washed her face, stark shame engulfing her. One look was all that it had taken to strip away her defences and make her cringe at her own failure to remain untouched by his powerful magnetism.
‘It’s been a long time…’ she mumbled, sitting down in haste and trying not to wince at the inanity of her own greeting.
A long time, a very long time, yet her own grief at losing what she had once felt they had still felt as fresh as yesterday to Kerry. She had been crazily, wildly happy with him and that was impossible to forget. She had believed that he was sincere and honourable and that had proved to be a cruelly empty illusion. The day after he had been sampling the gold satin sheets in her stepsister’s bed, he had lied without hesitation about his movements. And he was one very smooth liar, she recalled painfully, for not once during that phone conversation had she sensed anything amiss. What a pathetic judge of character she had been!
Just then Luciano was recalling how long it had taken for him to stop lusting after her skinny, undersized little carcass. That same self-applied verbal-aversion therapy hastened to inform him that he could not be attracted in any way to a skinny, vertically challenged woman with child-sized feet and hands. Not even one with translucent skin as smooth as silk, eyes the clear, glorious colour of a mountain lake and a mouth as tempting and luscious as a ripe fruit. He watched her lower her head. Straying curls from the riot of Titian hair that swung clear of her slight shoulders glinted like fiery question marks against the pale, delicate curve of her cheek. He saw the faint purple shadows etched by too little sleep below her eyes. Without the smallest warning, the dark, bitter anger that he had believed he had under full control seethed up in him with formidable effect.
‘I suggest that you start talking fast,’ Luciano advised flatly.
Her brain a sea of conflicting promptings, Kerry went for what mattered most to her at that moment and broke straight into speech. ‘Costanza said that if we’d offered to return the loan after you were arrested, you could’ve hired a better lawyer to defend yourself!’
His wide, sensual mouth took on a cynical slant. ‘Untrue. Back then, I had touching faith in the British legal system. I didn’t realise that I needed a hotshot defence team. I assumed that such outrageous charges could never be made to stick.’
His rebuttal of Costanza’s contention only eased Kerry’s sick sense of guilt a little. Her conscience had always been easily stirred but she was also uncomfortably aware that the first six months after his arrest were still just a blur of unimaginable pain in her own memory. It had been a very long time before she had regained the ability to think with any clarity.
‘Even so,’ Kerry said tautly, ‘I wish that my grandfather or indeed I had thought of that angle for ourselves.’
Ironically, Luciano was inflamed by the apparent sincerity with which she expressed that regret. Why didn’t it occur to her that that oversight had been the very least of her sins of omission? Even had her decision not to marry him had no relation to his subsequent arrest, what about the faith that she should have had in him and the support she could still have offered him? Instead she had turned her back on him as totally as if he had never existed.
‘You’re not here to catch up on my life,’ Luciano derided with a roughened edge to his accented drawl. ‘It has been five years since I last saw or heard from you. But then, I imagine you felt quite secure sitting over in Ireland and ripping me off—’
