by Lynne Graham
‘You worked as an escort. I’m quite sure it wasn’t above board with all your clients,’ Dante vented with a curled lip.
A sound of impatience escaped Topsy. ‘You just don’t listen, do you? Jerome is the only client I ever had because that evening was the only time I ever worked as an escort!’ she snapped back in exasperation.
He shot her a look of wounding derision. ‘You can’t really expect me to believe that...’
‘I went out with Jerome as a favour to my mother,’ Topsy chose to admit, willing to tell him enough to satisfy him because she did not want to be forced to leave the castle just when she was beginning to get to know Vittore.
Dante frowned. ‘Your mother?’
Topsy braced herself. ‘My mother owns and runs an escort agency.’
‘An escort agency?’ Dante repeated in disbelief.
‘There’s nothing I can do about the way my mother chooses to make her living,’ Topsy pointed out curtly. ‘Unfortunately, one doesn’t get to choose one’s parents.’
Dante studied her in silence with caustic cool.
‘Yes, I can already hear the wheels of your limited imagination cranking into motion,’ Topsy told him sourly, her generous pink mouth thinning with annoyance. ‘But no, I wasn’t dragged up in a sordid household by a depraved mother. Relax—no sob story of that sort is about to come your way. I was raised in a perfectly respectable home by my eldest sister and I only got to know my mother again recently.’
‘By the sound of it you should’ve kept your distance from her,’ Dante commented, watching the tip of her tongue flicking out to moisten her full lower lip, angrily registering the stirring of arousal at his groin as perspiration dampened his skin. He only had to look at that luscious mouth and erotic fantasy took over.
Topsy was tense but the pulse of sexual awareness was like a monster running amok inside her body. She was remembering the glory of that hard sensual mouth smashing down on hers, the wonderfully solid feel of his hard, muscular power pinning her against that wall, the indescribable delight of his fingers touching her intimately and finally the waves of wickedly wanton pleasure that had followed. Her knees trembled, her breathing fracturing. ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she warned him stiffly.
‘You were telling me about your mother,’ Dante reminded her thickly, picturing her on his desk, splayed open and ready for him. He knotted his hands into fists of restraint and breathed in deep and slow, struggling to put a lid on his overactive brain and the images flying up there.
‘I needed some very important information from her,’ Topsy volunteered after a perceptible hesitation. ‘My sisters had warned me that she wasn’t to be trusted but I knew what to expect from her and I was prepared. If you want to get on the right side of my mother you have to bribe her. She said that if I stepped in for the employee who was sick and spent the evening with Jerome in her place, she would give me the information I needed. We made a deal and she understands deals. I know she was hoping that I would agree to take on other clients and work for her as an escort afterwards but I never had any intention of doing that. I’m not that stupid...’
‘What was the information?’ Dante queried, wondering if he could believe anything she told him because of course she would try to vindicate herself in any way that she could. Naturally she would swear that she had only ever worked one evening as an escort and had no plans to do so ever again.
‘That’s private.’ Topsy turned her face away from his hard appraisal, guilty colour mantling her cheeks as the movement made her long dark hair fall against her face and tumble in loose glossy curls round her tense shoulders. ‘That...isn’t for sharing.’
Especially not with a man who would happily use that information to slam another nail in the coffin of his dislike for Vittore. Dante would become even more hostile if something embarrassing from Vittore’s past were to surface to hurt or humiliate his mother.
‘I refuse to believe that you only worked one night as an escort,’ Dante drawled scornfully.
Topsy flipped back to face him. ‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’
‘I do not keep three mistresses,’ Dante told her in a roughened undertone, the denial wrenched from him without his seeming volition.
Topsy shrugged slim shoulders, face carefully nonchalant. ‘It’s nothing to me if you do.’
‘You were angry about it, gioia mia. I could see it in your face.’ Dante savoured his recollection of the moment. ‘Like me, you don’t share.’
‘The rumour must’ve started somewhere,’ Topsy replied, although she hadn’t meant to say something so revealing and cursed her unruly tongue. Now he would think she was angling for an explanation of that story.
Dante closed the distance between them, resting his hands on her narrow shoulders. ‘Once upon a time when I was very young and very randy I thought there was safety in numbers. Instead the combined demands of the three of them drove me crazy.’
His hands felt very heavy on her taut shoulders and her mouth had run dry because once again he had invaded her space. ‘I wasn’t jealous,’ she told him vehemently, recognising that that was what he was driving at and furious at the suggestion.
‘Neither was I, but the thought of you cavorting with Kusnirovich in that hotel suite outraged every skin cell in my body,’ Dante confided huskily, long fingers spreading to smooth the tops of her arms. ‘I can’t stand the idea of another man touching you.’
‘I’m not going to let you touch me,’ Topsy pointed out half under her breath, her lungs less than efficient with him so close. And she wanted to touch him back so badly that it literally hurt to deny herself.
‘Then say no now,’ Dante advised.
‘No...’ Topsy said flatly.
‘Louder and with more conviction,’ Dante urged mockingly, setting her temper on fire.
‘No, Dante no!’ Topsy shouted back at him furiously, wishing he would learn how to take no for an answer.
A loud knock prefaced the abrupt opening of the door. Dante swung round with angry words on his lips, intending to rebuke the offender, only to see his stepfather standing in the doorway with a frown of indecision stamped on his face. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but I heard raised voices,’ Vittore declared. ‘Sofia was concerned when Topsy didn’t come upstairs.’
Dante vented a soft laugh. ‘We were arguing. I want to give her a driving lesson but she’s not sure she’s willing to trust me,’ he murmured smoothly.
Taken aback by the speed with which he had come up with the excuse, Topsy blinked rapidly. ‘Er...yes,’ she contributed, not one half as smooth as him in a tight corner.
‘If she doesn’t wish to learn to drive she doesn’t have to,’ Vittore commented. ‘It’s not important.’
‘I think it is,’ Dante overruled. ‘It would make her independent. She would be able to work much more efficiently if she could drive.’
‘Right...OK, I’ll take that on board,’ Topsy promised, moving towards the door, desperate to make her escape and willing to use Vittore’s arrival to facilitate it.
‘And there’s no time like the present,’ Dante quipped, drawing level with her, one determined hand pressing lightly to the base of her spine to guide her across the hall. With the other he withdrew his cell phone and instructed someone to bring his mother’s car out of the garage.
‘It’s a small and easily manoeuvred car,’ he remarked, walking her outside into the sunshine. ‘Perfect for the purpose.’
‘I don’t want to do this,’ Topsy told him grittily. ‘I don’t like driving and I don’t want you trying to teach me.’
‘All you need to do is concentrate and you can’t have got a doctorate in advanced maths without that ability,’ Dante countered with assurance.
Topsy chewed her lower lip in vexation. She had never felt less like getting behind the wheel
of a car. Her nerves were ragged after the row they had had, her emotions were still reeling from the shock of being called a whore and her temper remained in highly sensitive mode. Virtually everyone who had ever tried to teach her to drive had ended up shouting at her or at the very least raising their voice, convinced she wasn’t listening properly to their directions. She was also convinced that domineering, impatient and far from even-tempered Dante was the last man alive to take on such a challenge.
‘Climb in,’ Dante urged, opening the door of the small hatchback with a flourish. ‘Once you’ve got over your nerves, I’ll hire an instructor to take charge. You have an entire estate of private roads here on which to practise.’
Perspiration beading her short upper lip, Topsy accepted the keys he passed her with a hand that already felt damp. He ran through every move she was to make first and then told her to start the car. ‘Promise you won’t shout,’ she breathed before she put the key in the ignition.
‘Of course I’m not going to shout,’ Dante retorted drily. ‘I’m not the excitable type.’
Well, that was a lie for a start, Topsy thought wryly. He had a really bad temper and when he touched her he was decidedly excitable and anything but cool or calm. In fact he already qualified as the most passionate male she had ever met.
‘Are you planning to sit here doing nothing all afternoon?’ Dante enquired drily.
He also had the patience of a jet plane forced to travel in the slow lane.
Topsy gazed out of the windscreen at the spacious cobbled courtyard and switched on the engine, which seemed very noisy in the rushing silence. A trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts.
‘Run through your mental checklist first,’ Dante advised.
Her mind was a blank and her teeth clenched together. ‘I don’t want to do this with you,’ Topsy admitted starkly.
‘Stop dramatising yourself—just get on with it!’ Dante told her impatiently.
Thoroughly fed up with him and keen to get the experience over with, Topsy rammed the car into gear and hit the accelerator. The vehicle shot back so fast a startled gasp was wrenched from her. Dante shouted something and then there was a sickening crunch and a violent jolt that rattled every tooth in her head, the seat belt cutting into her midriff as it clamped tight.
‘You total maniac!’ Dante roared at her, leaping out of the car as though she had branded him with a burning torch.
Topsy switched off the engine and breathed in deep to ward off the nausea and the dizziness of shock. Detaching the seat belt, she opened the car door and shakily climbed out.
‘You didn’t even look in the mirror before you reversed!’ Dante launched at her incredulously as he bent down to examine the damage to the bonnet of his precious Pagani Zonda.
‘I wasn’t planning to reverse... It’s an unfamiliar car and I went into the wrong gear!’ Topsy protested, folding her arms defensively while trying not to stare at the crunched-up metalwork that now marred the previously pristine paintwork of both vehicles.
Dante flung up his hands in a dramatic gesture. ‘How could you accidentally go into reverse?’
‘You were irritating the hell out of me...distracting me,’ Topsy complained.
Brilliant green eyes targeted her. ‘Oh, so now it’s my fault, is it?’
‘You knew I didn’t want to get behind the wheel. I made it quite clear,’ she argued. ‘I’ll go and apologise to your mother about her car.’
‘Are you going to apologise to me about what you’ve done to my car?’ Dante demanded.
Topsy couldn’t bring herself to say sorry. The accident was his fault, absolutely his fault. ‘You had an argument with me, called me horrible names and then demanded that I drive even though I made it clear that I didn’t want to!’ she condemned bitterly. ‘So, if you ask me, you got what you deserve!’
* * *
Sofia handled the news of the damage to her car with complete aplomb, pointing out that she currently wasn’t using it and that the local garage would soon have it fixed. Topsy insisted that she would pay for the repairs and apologised again. ‘I’m afraid I don’t get on very well with Dante,’ she admitted.
A wry smile crossed his mother’s mouth. ‘My son is accustomed to calling the shots. I knew you would clash but don’t let it worry you. I’m happy with the way you’re handling everything for me.’
For the first time, Topsy asked to have her evening meal on a tray in her room. The prospect of facing Dante across the dinner table was too much for her. She knew she should have apologised. What had happened to her manners? But Dante brought out a side of her nature that she didn’t recognise, provoking only an angry resentful response. He had called her a whore. How dared he? She didn’t feel the least bit forgiving about that. One evening working as an escort did not make a woman a whore. Busying herself checking the guest list for the fancy-dress ball, Topsy made a note of jobs to be accomplished the following day after her trip to Florence with Vittore.
She felt guilty because going to Florence meant she would be taking most of the day off. Vittore worked part time as a financial advisor in the city and generally Topsy went sightseeing while she waited for him to finish and give her a lift back to the castle. Finally, recognising that her shattered nerves were keeping her stress level at an all-time high, she went for a bath to unwind.
When someone knocked on the door about an hour later, she stifled a yawn, knotted the sash of her wrap round her waist and went to answer it.
It was one of the maids carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers already arranged in a crystal vase. ‘For me?’ Topsy commented in surprise, plucking the gift card from the foliage as the smiling maid settled the vase down on a table by the window.
Dante.
Topsy frowned in surprise, distrusting the gesture. Why would he send her flowers? What was he playing at? At this season the castle gardens were bursting with flowers and she could have picked an armful without anyone even noticing. Involuntarily she bent down, nostrils flaring on the intoxicating perfume of the roses, straightening with a jerk as yet another knock sounded on her bedroom door.
It was Dante, always, she suspected, quick to take advantage of any window of opportunity, any moment of weakness. He was very much a predator. She collided warily with his stunning emerald-green eyes. Colour warmed her cheeks and her mouth ran dry.
‘May I come in?’ he asked, smooth as silk, his self-discipline absolute, a faint smile even softening the hard, handsome lines of his lean dark features.
Even so, regardless of appearances, Dante was still recovering from the demeaning realisation that he had hit a hell of an own goal earlier that day. His temper had got the better of him and he still could not explain to his own satisfaction why that had happened. But he knew he should not have confronted Topsy about what Jerome had told him. He should have kept that information to himself and used it to his advantage because he could gain nothing by making her into an enemy.
In speaking up without logical consideration of what the consequences might be, he had not only made her hostile but also forced her to come up with the ultimate silly story in an effort to excuse her work as an escort. Could she really believe that he would swallow all that nonsense about her having traded a one-off evening as an escort in exchange for some indeterminate piece of information from her own mother? It seemed that she liked to play the poor exploited innocent and he was willing to play along with that to see where it led.
Topsy measured the risk of inviting Dante into her bedroom against the potential embarrassment of being seen trading words with him in her nightwear and slowly, reluctantly, stepped back to open the door wider, deeming discretion to be the wiser approach.
‘I am sorry about your car,’ she proffered on the better-late-than-never principle.
Dante expelled his breath on a sigh. ‘I did force you into dr
iving when you didn’t want to. Understandably you were in the wrong mood.’
‘You called me a whore,’ Topsy reminded him bluntly. ‘That was completely unacceptable.’
‘Sadly, your work as an escort would make you unacceptable to many people. I’m not the only person around here who is prejudiced,’ Dante pointed out steadily, noticing the way the fine silk of her wrap defined the pouting swells of her breasts and the luscious curve of her hips. His jaw line clenched in fierce denial of his burgeoning erection. ‘But you are correct—working a while as an escort doesn’t automatically make you a whore and I should never have called you one.’
‘I spent one wretched evening working as an escort!’ Topsy exclaimed, out of all patience at his judgemental attitude. ‘It shouldn’t make you think of me differently.’
‘You can’t be that naïve.’
As he was the first man to find out about that evening and his reaction was much worse than she had expected, she was beginning to think that she had been just that naïve. She frowned at the thought of how her sisters would have reacted to the news, knowing they would be furious with her, particularly when they had already warned her to be cautious around their mother. But only Odette had had the power to tell Topsy who her father really was and, hurt and bewildered by the discovery that the man she had always believed was her father was not, Topsy would have done almost anything for that knowledge.
‘But maybe you are, gioia mia,’ Dante breathed soft and low in continuance, gazing down at her with an intensity that burned.
‘I always try to think the best of people,’ Topsy declared, her breath shortening in her throat, the undertones in the atmosphere beginning to make her skin prickle with awareness.
‘That’s asking for trouble.’
‘I don’t want to look at the world that way!’ Topsy protested vehemently.
A sardonic smile slashed Dante’s stubborn mouth. ‘But to protect yourself, you must,’ he told her drily.
