by Lynne Graham
‘Mina and I require no introduction,’ Cesare drawled very softly, shooting Mina’s locked facial muscles a glance of veiled amusement. ‘Didn’t she mention our prior acquaintance?’
From somewhere, heaven knew where, Mina summoned up the self-possession to say, ‘I haven’t actually had the opportunity——’
‘Strive for a little candour, cara,’ Cesare cut in smoothly. ‘She probably didn’t mention the fact that she once worked for me because I sacked her.’
Sick to the stomach, absolutely shattered that Cesare should have calmly and smoothly dropped that shameful fact without a moment’s hesitation, Mina swerved dazed eyes to Edwin. The older man’s scrutiny had narrowed in astonishment and then his mouth tightened as he pressed a supportive hand to Mina’s whip-taut spine. ‘From the first day of her employment with us, Miss Carroll has proved herself to be an excellent, committed member of our team,’ he retorted very stiffly.
‘Sì…Mina’s ability to commit one hundred per cent is one of her most memorable qualities.’ Cesare laughed suggestively half under his breath while Mina stared at him in the appalled stasis of ever-deepening incredulity. She just couldn’t believe that this nightmare was really happening to her because she could not think of one single reason why Cesare should wish to humiliate her to such an extent. ‘But, sadly, she is a distraction one should not risk in the office.’
Mina drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. ‘If you will excuse me——’
‘You’re excused, cara,’ Cesare incised in a careless aside as if she weren’t there, his full attention coolly angled on Edwin Haland’s efforts to conceal his outrage.
‘Please excuse both of us, Mr Falcone.’ The older man breathed tautly, his anger visibly warring with his uneasy awareness that Cesare was a very wealthy patron whom he had no wish to offend.
Blocking out Cesare, Mina lifted her head high, but her face was paper-white. ‘I think it’s time I went home.’
‘I’ll take you,’ Edwin offered abruptly, and for some wild reason Mina felt a hysterical giggle clogging up her convulsing throat.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ she muttered tightly, moving away a step.
‘Let her back off,’ Cesare suggested with the same unbelievable calm, the only one of the three of them in supreme control. ‘She’s in a tight corner and she doesn’t want to answer awkward questions right now.’
‘How dare you talk about me as if I’m not here?’ Mina hissed.
‘Got a little above yourself while you’ve been away from me, haven’t you, cara?’ Cesare glued her to the spot with an icy look of warning. ‘Lose the habit fast.’
‘Mr Falcone——’ Edwin began.
Mina abruptly spun on her heel and walked away and it was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life. She reached the far side of the room, perspiration beading her upper lip, a terrible trembling quivering through her slender body in waves. Abstractedly, she registered that she was shaking with simple shock.
Had Cesare deliberately sought her out to be offensive? He had not been surprised to see her. How and why could he speak to her like that in front of her employer? Why would he set out to humiliate her in public? Why should he feel the need to smear her reputation in the most offensive possible way?
His assumption that she was sleeping with the older man had shattered her, and as for his threats…his reference to a desire for revenge…And he had accused her of running away four years ago! Mina prided herself on her quick intelligence but none of it made sense. The entire episode had the quality of a nightmare. The inexplicable only happened in nightmares. Why should Cesare hate her?
He hated her. Yes, he did. Mina lifted a slim hand to her throbbing brow but all that was travelling through her chaotic mind was, Why? Why, why, and why again? He had no reason to hate her. But Mina had every good reason to hate Cesare Falcone. Quite apart from what he had done to her career prospects, he had been the man she had loved and he had hurt her very badly. In the aftermath of that evening she had been made to feel like the cheapest, lowest of one-night stands. He had punished her for an episode in which he had played a more than equal part.
‘I never mix business and pleasure, cara,’ he had murmured that night, but she hadn’t even suspected that at the same time as he was making love to her he was also planning to sack her!
Her sister, Winona, had said bluntly, ’Could you work for him after that?’ and she had known that she could not. For Cesare, that night had been a mistake and he certainly hadn’t wanted her around the office after it. In one weak instant of surrender, Mina had apparently lost all claim to any form of respect or consideration.
If he had been so determined to get rid of her, he could have done so with decency. He could have offered her a transfer; Falcone Industries had branches in several other countries. Or he could at least have given her time in which to find other employment. Instead she had been ignominiously sacked on a trumped-up charge of misconduct which had blighted her prospects ever since and forced her to start again at the very bottom of the ladder.
Dear God, hadn’t she suffered enough? Why did he now confront her and seek to cause her more damage? Was he off his rocker? Cesare ran a conglomerate of companies whose worth ran into multi-millions. But, insane as it might seem, maybe Cesare Falcone had a screw loose somewhere in that brilliant innovative mind…and maybe there was something peculiar about her which somehow drew out this streak of wildly illogical and destructive aggression…only how come nobody else had ever had experience of his strange behaviour?
‘Do you want your coat?’
Mina blinked and found a bored-looking cloakroom attendant staring at her expectantly.
She was sliding stiff arms into her jacket when Edwin Haland appeared, looking flushed and troubled. ‘Mina…you’re leaving,’ he noted awkwardly.
‘It would appear to be the wisest solution,’ she replied.
‘I was quite appalled by his rudeness. It was inexcusable.’ The older man hesitated and then pressed on in a careful undertone, ‘When did you work for him?’
‘Just after I came out of college. It only lasted three months. He did sack me.’ Mina lifted her chin, her amethyst eyes strained but unflinchingly clear. ‘But let me assure you that that had nothing to do with my ability as an employee. I’m afraid that the reason I was dismissed was rather more personal than that,’ she completed, dry-mouthed.
Edwin looked pained, and frowned. ‘It’s most unfortunate. I can only hope Mr Falcone refrains from further comment in the presence of my fellow directors,’ he said with grave emphasis. ‘They would be most perturbed by his attitude. Mr Falcone is making a most generous contribution to our campaign, and naturally we don’t-want any friction between him and any member of our staff.’
Paler than ever, Mina whispered, ‘I understand.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
His offer of a lift hadn’t lasted long, not that she would have accepted it anyway. But she had noticed the determined formality he had pasted over his discomfiture. His usual rather old-fashioned friendliness had died a death in the interim since she had walked out of the room. And she wasn’t at all surprised. Cesare might as well have lifted a Tannoy and called her a cheap little tramp for the benefit of the room at large.
Edwin had been shocked, had initially sought to defend her, but a few minutes’ careful reflection had cooled him down and probably made him suspicious of her. After all, Cesare Falcone was a highly respected and very successful European businessman. Naturally, Edwin was now wondering what kind of behaviour it took to provoke such a derisive attack from a man of Cesare’s education and social standing this long after the event.
A hammerbeat of tension pounded now behind her temples. She had probably lost all chances of promotion. The position of finance manager, the successful candidate to be announced after tomorrow’s monthly directors’ meeting, would go elsewhere. Common sense told her that Edwin had to have reservations now. How likely
was it that he would still recommend her when he knew that Cesare Falcone despised her?
The commissionaire at the exit offered to call her a taxi. Mina shook her head. A taxi was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She lived like a church mouse, gratefully accepted her sister’s cast-off clothing, and slept in a room no bigger than a cupboard during the week, just existing for Friday nights when she could catch the train back down to her sister’s home in Oxfordshire. The train fares cost her a fortune but Mina never missed a single weekend. They were too precious. But Sunday nights broke her heart and habit hadn’t lessened the pain of those partings from Susie. She walked down the well-lit street, fighting not to give in to despair, but it was the prospect of those Sunday-night partings stretching into infinity ahead of her which she could not face.
A car purred to the kerb several yards ahead of her. The passenger door fell open. As she hesitated, Cesare emerged from the driver’s side and stood contemplating her over the roof of his low-slung silver Ferrari. ‘Get in. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘The knight of the road,’ Mina framed shakily, wondering whether to scream or laugh, no longer sure what might qualify as an appropriate response. Nothing she had said or done had had the slightest effect on him. He was like that truck in Steven Spielberg’s first film, Duel. She had the terrifying feeling that no matter what she did he would keep on coming at her.
‘We have unfinished business.’
Mina dropped her head, shutting out those eyes of sizzling gold which seemed to reach out and utterly intimidate. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Sending me to Coventry isn’t going to stop me,’ Cesare murmured harshly. ‘Get in the car.’
There was no hiding from the obvious. She had to find out what he meant by ‘unfinished business’ and straighten out whatever ludicrous misunderstanding lay behind his extraordinary behaviour. Stress had calmed her down, constrained the wilder reaches of her imagination. Cesare was ruthless, hot-tempered and as volatile as a slumbering volcano but he was not crazy.
She climbed in.
‘I’ll give you a choice,’ Cesare drawled, making no attempt to start the car again.
‘A choice?’ she echoed blankly.
‘You resign from your job.’
‘Resign? Are you out of your mind?’ Mina gasped in disbelief.
‘If you don’t resign, conscience demands that I drop a warning word in the relevant quarter,’ Cesare delivered in a grim undertone. ‘Finance manager—you? Sì…I know that you’re in line for promotion. And there is no way I can stand back and let you get your greedy little paws into charitable funds.’
Mina had been sitting there staring woodenly out through the windscreen, determinedly not looking at him. Now her head spun round as though he had jerked a wire. ‘Are you actually insinuating that I can’t be trusted with money?’ she spelt out in a strained whisper, her wide eyes incredulous at the suggestion.
‘I know you can’t be trusted.’ Cesare slanted her a look of stony derision. ‘Nor am I impressed by this infantile act of innocence. You committed a criminal offence four years ago and the law may not have been fast enough to pick up on the trail…but I was,’ he drawled in a seething undertone, shooting her a smouldering glance of menace. ‘I still have the evidence that could send you to prison——’
‘Prison?’ The single word exploded from between her dry lips, shrill and strangled, as she stared back at him in disbelief.
‘Insider dealing. The courts frown heavily on the offence. You could still be tried for it.’
Every scrap of colour had drained from her cheeks. Mina tried and failed to swallow. Insider dealing. He was accusing her of having used confidential information to trade for her own benefit on the Stock Exchange. The practice was illegal.
‘You’re crazy…I would never have done anything like that,’ Mina protested in a voice that was weak from sheer shock that he could believe her capable of such an act.
‘You’d have done it more than once if I’d given you the chance,’ Cesare asserted with icy bite, his profile golden and granite-hard in the street-light slanting through the windscreen. ‘But I didn’t. I sacked you and you took your ill-gotten gains and disappeared off the face of this planet!’
‘That’s not true. There weren’t any ill-gotten gains because I didn’t do it!’ she exclaimed shrilly, her heart pounding madly with fright against her ribcage.
Cesare’s ice-cold stare told her just how unimpressed he was by her protests.
‘I thought you sacked me because—because I slept with you!’ She had to force out the statement and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
‘Dio mio! The jury will surely break down and cry when they hear that defence,’ Cesare said with flat derision. ‘It is on record that you were sacked for gross misconduct.’
‘I know, but I——’
‘Popular report suggests that some prisons harbour big butch women. At seven stone and built like a doll, maybe you should consider getting into training.’
Mina was in such turmoil that she shrank back against the passenger door in horror. ‘I’m not going to prison…I haven’t done anything!’
‘Well, you’re certainly not about to do anything in the charity world.’ Cesare shot the assurance at her with cold threat. ‘With your talent for accounting, you could work any number of scams. I want you out of there as of now——’
‘But I haven’t done anything…I’m not dishonest!’ Mina slung back at him in helpless repetition and growing apprehension.
‘If you push me I’ll tell Haland, and I can back my allegations up with cold, hard evidence,’ Cesare returned with slashing cool. ‘And a man like Haland, with all those fine, upstanding principles, might just feel that when he’s informed of an illegal act it is his duty to report it to the authorities——’
‘And if you were so convinced I was guilty, why didn’t you call them in?’ Mina demanded wildly, fighting to find some angle on which she could base a defence.
‘It would have been like reporting a murder without the corpse. You’d vanished like a thief in the night.’ Cesare lounged back with indolent relaxation and surveyed her intently, eyes slivers of molten gold beneath the luxuriant fringe of his ebony lashes. ‘And I did entertain myself briefly with a vision of you becoming a prison mascot, but ultimately it didn’t satisfy me. I think the punishment should fit the crime——’
‘I haven’t committed any crime…why won’t you listen to me?’ she gasped.
‘You used pillow-talk for profit——’
‘Pillow-talk?’
‘You ripped off that information like a professional. You made a fool of me. I could have been dragged down in the dirt with you. Guilty by association. I have no doubt you intended to say that you traded on my behalf if you were caught,’ Cesare told her very softly, every accented syllable dropping into the throbbing silence. ‘Pull the dumb dizzy blonde act and insist you had no idea that what you were doing was against the law.’
‘You’re out of your m-mind!’ Mina was white, barely able to vocalise.
‘Say you were seduced, used,’ Cesare continued with harshened emphasis, pinning her to the spot with smouldering dark golden eyes that burned. ‘If you were a man I’d have killed you…but you’re a woman and I intend to use you exactly as you used me…’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I BEG your pardon?’ Mina was still reeling with shock, her brain thrown into total chaos by the shattering accusation that Cesare Falcone had dropped on her four years after the event.
There was too much for her to take in all at once. But, devastated though she was, there had been a terrifying ring of reality to his derision when she had tried to protest her belief that she had been fired for the sin of once sharing his bed. No matter how insane his allegations, she suddenly had no doubt that he truly believed that she had committed a crime. It explained his attitude towards her. Both in the present and in the past. His hatred and his aggression now made sense out of what had e
arlier seemed like insanity.
Her mind was working in slow motion, one tiny step at a time. Cesare thought she had been guilty of insider dealing. Worse, he believed she had used information which he had given her in trust. Worse still, he was convinced that if she had been apprehended by the authorities she would have lied and said she had been acting on his behalf and not her own.
‘I shall use you as you once set out to use me,’ Cesare asserted.
She cleared her throat with difficulty. ‘And how are you planning to do that?’
‘How do you think?’ Cesare dealt her a look of grim amusement. ‘I don’t think you’ll ever tangle with a Sicilian again.’
Mina drew in a deep, shaky breath. ‘I intend to take legal advice about the allegations you have made against me.’
‘Cast-iron allegations with proof.’
‘You couldn’t possibly have proof of something I didn’t do!’
‘If you’ve got any of that money left, I intend to take it off you. By the time I am finished with you——’
‘You’re not even going to start with me!’ Mina told him, suddenly frantic to get out of the Ferrari but wanting to do so with dignity.
A hard smile slashed Cesare’s expressive mouth. ‘Don’t tell me I can’t do what I’ve already begun. Did you really think that I would let you get away with it? You should have known I would be on your trail. It made my day when I saw your photo——’
‘My photo?’
‘On the front of Earth Concern’s newsletter. That was a careless move, but then you were unlucky. My staff deal with the charity flyers. Rarely have I had such literature thrust at me at dinner parties,’ Cesare said very drily. ‘But there you were, looking all prim and proper, standing beside Haland at some fund-raiser.’
Mina had forgotten that she had featured in that same newsletter which Jean had mentioned as having ignited Cesare’s interest in the charity. She had assumed that their meeting tonight had been a ghastly coincidence and that he had not realised that she worked for Earth Concern until he’d seen her. The news that he had had that prior knowledge shook her.
