by Abby Green
One evening after Silvio had gone to bed, Cara went out onto the terrace with a cup of tea. She faltered mid-step when she saw Vicenzo sitting at the wrought-iron table drinking coffee. He was glowering into the cup, but looked up when he heard her.
Cara’s heart started unsteadily. ‘I’m sorry…’ She turned to go.
He stood and said, ‘No, wait.’
She stopped against her will and turned again, feeling awkward. ‘Look, really—’
‘Cara, sit down. I won’t bite.’
He sounded weary, and Cara could see as she came closer that he had a sheaf of papers on the table beside him. She sat down cautiously and after a long moment asked tentatively, ‘You were working?’
He gave a short, curt laugh. ‘You could say that.’ His eyes flashed at her for a moment. ‘Sorting out your brother’s handiwork—tracing his takeover bid so that it doesn’t happen again.’
Cara’s insides lurched. ‘You’re still working on it? But I thought…I thought you said it was crude…?’
He grimaced, ‘It was…but it was his very lack of sophistication that allowed him to do so much damage…’
Almost before she realised what she was doing, Cara found herself asking, ‘Is there anything I can do to help? I knew Cormac. I might be able to see things you can’t.’ She added almost defensively, ‘I really do have qualifications.’
Vicenzo looked at her steadily, with something burning deep in eyes which looked tawny in the candlelight flickering on the table in the still night air.
After a long moment, he said consideringly, ‘Why not…I? could do with someone to help with the number-crunching. As it is, I have to go to Rome in a few days, but I’d like to get ahead of things here first.’
Cara didn’t doubt he was testing her on some level, and found herself being shown into Vicenzo’s state-of-the-art study for the first time. It was huge, with computers and fax machines and copiers. Everything anyone could need in a modern office. He took her over to a table on which lay a printout of columns and figures. Immediately Cara felt at home. She knew numbers. She’d escaped into her study of numbers for the past few years in a bid to escape from Cormac.
He gestured to the table and Cara sat down. ‘What you see in front of you is the mess I’m still clearing up. Part of his attack was unleashing numerous viruses into our accountancy program. I’ve been trying to untangle it here first, just to make sure nothing gets missed.’
Cara looked at him and tried to hide her shock. To face the reality of what her devious brother had done was disconcerting, to say the least.
‘While the company is being more securely monitored than ever before, the breach has made me nervous—which is why I’m making sure I know exactly what your brother did before anyone else does.’
Shame rushed through Cara.
He stood back, arms crossed, legs planted wide. Every inch of him the dominant, powerful male. ‘I have to admit that the thought of you, his sister, offering to sort it out has a certain delectable irony.’
Cara hitched her chin up, determined not to let him get to her. ‘Why don’t you just show me what you want me to do?’
CHAPTER TEN
VICENZO looked over to where Cara was sitting cross-legged on the floor, with papers all around her. To his surprise they’d worked companionably until far later the previous evening than he’d expected, and when he’d come to his study this morning it had been to find Cara already there, working on what she’d started last night. It had made something uncomfortable prickle in his belly.
In the past few weeks he’d witnessed how much the miscarriage had taken out of her. Guilt, along with another much more disturbing emotion, had been warring within him. He’d done his best to give her space. But the questions remained… too many questions. Along with the disturbing revelation that the last thing on his mind was sending her away and saying good riddance.
She was dressed in the ubiquitous black, her hair piled messily on her head, with a pencil stuck through the heavy mass to keep it in place. All Vicenzo could see was the exquisite line of her neck as her head bent down. And an enticing side view of firm breasts. Her legs, long and pale. Every now and then she absently put out a hand and patted Doppo, who lay nearby, gazing at Cara adoringly.
And as Vicenzo watched Cara stroke Doppo’s head he knew he wanted to feel her hand on him, stroking him. All over, and where he throbbed unmercifully. He shifted uncomfortably and saw the way Cara’s back tensed momentarily. Was she as aware of him as he was of her?
Cara heard Vicenzo’s chair move behind her. It was hard enough trying to concentrate on the figures in front of her without hearing him move around. He came into her line of vision and she had to look up. She felt dizzy because he was at such a great height, so she stood too. He leant back against the table and crossed his arms. Cara steeled herself for whatever was coming.
‘So, if you didn’t go to college how did you get a degree?’
The innocuous question threw her. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Absently she pushed some hair behind her ear, her belly tightening when she saw his eyes follow the movement.
‘I did it through the Open University… Cormac didn’t approve of my going to college.’
‘And you always did what your brother told you?’ he asked mockingly. ‘Somehow I can’t quite believe that—although I can see the logic. No doubt you were of much more use to him without a college schedule messing up your hectic social lives.’
Cara’s hands clenched into fists by her sides. She’d done what her brother had told her because she’d had no choice—unless she’d have preferred being homeless on the streets of London from the age of sixteen. The fact that she’d pathetically hoped that some day Cormac would change and become the loving and protective big brother she’d always yearned for was a mocking embarrassment now.
‘I’ve already told you before that my life with my brother was not what you think.’
‘And how was it, then, Cara? How many poor deluded heiresses did you and your brother seduce into thinking that he loved them just so you could clean them out?’
Cara felt winded with hurt. How could she have forgotten for a second that once she was strong enough again Vicenzo would come after her. She whirled around to leave.
‘I don’t have to listen to this—’
But he moved fast and caught her arm, making her gasp—not in pain, but in the contact of flesh to flesh. He whirled her back round and Cara saw his raised hand. She reacted completely reflexively, flinching violently in his hold, ducking her head. Then she froze. An awful stillness descended around them and Cara’s breathing sounded unbearaby loud.
‘You think I would hit you?’ His voice was horrified.
Cara trembled from reaction and looked up, seeing Vicenzo’s eyes narrowed and how his mouth had tightened. She knew that of all things she feared about this man violence was not one of them.
She shook her head faintly. She realised now that his hand had merely been coming out to steady her. ‘No,’ she said shakily. ‘I don’t know what—’
Vicenzo was grim. ‘Someone hit you. Was it Mortimer?’
Cara couldn’t understand the feral glitter of his eyes. She shook her head again, mesmerised.
His hand gripped her even harder. He wasn’t going to let this go.
‘Who hit you, Cara?’
‘Why? Why do you even care?’ she asked desperately, wanting to find any way to avoid him seeing the inner, secretly vulnerable part of her. No one knew about this. Not even Rob or Barney. She was ashamed of it, of her weakness.
‘Tell me, Cara.’
And then he did something she couldn’t counter-attack. He gentled his hold on her and his hand became caressing, smoothing the skin it had held so tightly. Cara trembled and looked up at him, unaware of the mute plea in her eyes. But he would not budge.
She dropped her head and said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear, ‘Cormac. Sometimes when he was drunk he’d lash
out… Most of the time I avoided it…him…but sometimes…’
Vicenzo swore under his breath and let her go. Immediately Cara put space between them and rubbed her arm distractedly. She felt something move within her. ‘Like I said, not everything was as it seemed.’
‘So you keep saying’ was all Vicenzo said enigmatically as he looked at her from under hooded lids.
A long tense moment stretched between them as Cara looked at Vicenzo and willed him to believe her. And then a knock came on the door, making Cara jump minutely, her heart beating unsteadily.
Lucia appeared in the doorway and said, ‘Signore Valentini is waiting outside on the terrace for Cara…’
‘Chess…’ She looked at Vicenzo, but he still had that unreadable expression on his face. She shouldn’t have said anything. A sense of futility stole over her, zapping her energy. ‘I promised your father a game of chess this morning.’ She glanced down at the papers on the floor, the evidence of her own brother’s handiwork making her feel sick. ‘But I can stay here—’
‘No.’ Vicenzo sounded harsh. ‘Go to my father. I can clear this up.’
Vicenzo watched Cara leave the room with a straight back. The dark colours of the clothes she wore mocked him now. He raked a hand through his hair as he saw again the abject terror on her face when she’d thought he was going to hit her. That any woman should think that was absolute anathema to him. She was throwing up so many contradictions, and it made him feel strangely vulnerable. And that was not an emotion he cared to admit to. That feeling had almost devastated him once, and he would not allow it back in now.
That evening, after dinner, Vicenzo called Cara back when she would have made her escape after Silvio had retired. She turned reluctantly at the door, still smarting from their encounter earlier. Vicenzo stood and came around the table, the hands in his pockets stretching the material over his groin. Cara’s cheeks flared as she felt her body respond. The last few weeks of no contact made her skin prickle.
‘Yes?’
He looked at her steadily from under hooded lids. ‘It’s your birthday tomorrow.’
Cara blanched. It had been so long since anyone had remembered her birthday—not since her parents had died… Cormac certainly never had. She was turning twenty-three the next day.
‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly, not sure where he was going with this.
‘I have a villa on the Emerald Coast, in Porto Cervo. I’ll take you there tomorrow evening and we can go out for dinner…’
Cara gripped the door, her knuckles showing white. Suddenly the thought of leaving this villa was frightening in the extreme. ‘But why would you want to do that?’
He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Call it a truce… I think we could do with a truce, don’t you?’
Cara shrugged as well, too bemused and confused to do anything else.
‘Good, we’ll leave about four p.m. Pack something for going out.’
Vicenzo watched Cara leave the room and questioned his sanity. What was he doing? And why did he feel compelled to do something, anything, for her birthday? And why, when he’d noticed the date on her passport, had he felt such a tug of something? He comforted himself. This would be the ultimate test. He would be taking her to a place where her true colours would undoubtedly shine—and that, surely, would help to quiet these growing voices of doubt in his head…
The next day Cara waited patiently in the hall at four, with a small bag.
Vicenzo strode out of his office and looked from her to the bag. ‘That’s it?’ Incredulity laced his voice.
Cara nodded. He shrugged and hustled her out to the Jeep. After a ten-minute drive from the villa they pulled into a field, where Cara saw a helicopter waiting. Within minutes they were airborne and flying north-east over mountainous terrain. Cara looked down, captivated. Exhilaration coursed through her at being in a helicopter for the first time. Vicenzo pointed things out to her along the way, and she tried to ignore how aware she was of his big body beside hers in the small space.
When they landed, and he helped her out, her legs nearly buckled because they were so wobbly. To her mortification he lifted her up. When she started to protest he kissed her for a long moment. He pulled back and Cara looked up, bewildered, her whole body alive with desire.
And then he said, ‘We’re a newly married couple, remember? Smile for the cameras.’
Cara looked around and was nearly blinded by the flashing of cameras from just beyond a chain fence a few feet away. The real world was back. Vicenzo bundled her into a Jeep with darkened widows and they took off.
She crossed her arms and faced him, feeling ridiculous disappointment rushing through her. ‘If this is some exercise in bolstering your image as a newly converted family man, then—’
His mouth was grim. ‘It’s not. Believe me. I’d forgotten that the paparazzi always lie in wait there.’ And that caught him up short. He’d arrived with countless other women at this small airfield, used mainly by VIPs, and he’d never once before been caught out.
Something about Cara’s sheer joy in the helicopter and the way she’d been so endearingly shaky afterwards had distracted him. He fought down the doubts that mocked his justification for bringing her here. This was her territory. No doubt she would love this. Once she saw the villa…the club.
The villa Vicenzo took Cara to was about as different as it was possible to get from his family villa. This was an architect’s dream: all sharp abstract angles and corners, glass everywhere, and entirely white inside. There was an infinity pool that had a view looking right out over the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was perfectly nice, thought Cara, but…cold. Unlived-in. A place for mistresses.
That thought caught her up short. Was this where he brought his lovers?
He must have seen something cross her face, because he said, ‘This is where I do most of my entertaining—where I host business or social events…’
Cara flushed. Was he planning on entertaining here with her? The thought made her stomach clench. She tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice, not knowing why she felt the need to be polite. ‘It’s…very…clean.’
He laughed out loud, head thrown back, and the sound was so alien and his smile so heart-stoppingly beautiful that she could only gawp at him stupidly.
‘That’s certainly not how I’ve heard it described before.’
She felt prickly. ‘Excuse my inarticulate response.’
He came close then, and reached for her hand, raising it to his mouth to press a kiss there. His eyes were locked onto hers and her stomach felt all fluttery. ‘We leave in an hour. I’ll show you where you can get ready.’
An hour later Cara entered the reception area, and Vicenzo looked up from where he’d been flicking through some papers. He was dressed in a black suit, a white shirt open at the neck. Her body responded dramatically to the way his hot gaze was looking over her, and she did her best to clamp down on the response. She was dressed in a long flowing sheath of silk from neck to toe. It was sleeveless, and had a bare back that made her feel self-conscious. She’d left her hair down in an effort to try and detract from the nakedness she felt.
He strolled over to where she hovered uncertainly and held out a dark red velvet box. ‘Something for your birthday—and they’ll go with the dress.’
Vicenzo’s mouth thinned as he took in the dark royal blue of that dress. It made her look even more pale. More vulnerable.
Cara looked up at Vicenzo warily. And then at the box. And then back to him.
Why was she looking at the box so suspiciously? Vicenzo stifled a frisson of irritation and opened the box, expecting to see the usual response—the widening eyes, the feigned surprise, the preening in front of the mirror, the gushing, clinging gratitude.
Cara’s eyes widened, all right, but that was where the comparison ended. She looked from him to the stunning sapphire drop earrings nestling on white velvet. She reached out a hand to touch them reverently. Her cheeks flushed. She looked up again and Vicenzo had t
o restrain himself from throwing the box down and taking her in his arms. She looked so beautiful. Barely any make-up, skin lightly golden, luxuriously freckled from the sun.
‘They must have cost a fortune.’
They had. And no other woman had ever commented on the cost of jewellery. ‘They’re a birthday present…go on, put them on.’ He thrust the box towards her, feeling more and more at sea after her reaction.
Cara nearly recoiled. ‘But what if I lose one?’
‘They’re insured,’ he gritted out. They weren’t, but if it made her feel better…
‘Are you sure?’ she asked suspiciously.
He thought of what they had cost compared to his vast fortune. ‘Yes,’ he reiterated.
Only then, with the utmost care, did she take them from their velvet home and put them in her ears. She didn’t even check in the mirror to see how they looked. They swung and shone against her pale skin, standing out brilliantly.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
‘You’re welcome.’ Vicenzo snapped the box shut, and had an awful feeling of foreboding that the rest of the evening wasn’t going to go exactly as he’d planned either.
* * *
And it didn’t. He took her to a restaurant that had just opened, with a waiting list that already stretched into next year. She smiled politely, but seemed ill at ease, uncomfortable. And if he wasn’t mistaken, completely oblivious to the envious glances of women and the admiring glances of men.
At one point he asked, ‘Is everything okay?’
She rushed to say, ‘Oh, yes, it’s lovely—really breathtaking…’
‘But?’
She looked shamefaced for a moment, before saying, ‘Well, it’s just all a bit like the villa…clean and crisp and haute cuisine.’ She smiled self-deprecatingly, taking his breath away. ‘I always had an image in my head of being in the Mediterranean, sitting in a local trattoria overlooking the sea…’
