by Lynne Graham
Somebody screamed. In a state of utter mute paralysis, Mina watched Roberto Ecchio hit the water with an enormous splash and an expression of extreme shock.
‘We’re going home,’ Cesare snarled, tugging Mina out of her seat with one powerful hand.
‘I’ve g-got to get my clothes!’
But Cesare wasn’t listening, he wasn’t hearing. His blazing golden eyes settled on her and he just grabbed her up into his arms like an unwieldy parcel and strode away from the poolside, leaving a deathly silence in their wake.
‘Cesare!’ Mina shrieked, and then the clasp on the front of her bikini came undone and she made a frantic dive to hold it in place over her heaving breasts.
The Ferrari went down the driveway like a rocket.
‘Violently jealous’. In the thunderous silence, as Cesare took a corner on a wing and a prayer, tyres screaming in protest, Mina stole a wide-eyed look at the ferocious cast of his profile. ‘Violently jealous’. She was dumbstruck by the concept. Yet she now saw that that same concept had been staring her in the face from the very moment of meeting Cesare again. Cesare went crazy if another man so much as looked at her. First Edwin Haland, then Steve…now his best friend who had been foolish enough to bait the tiger.
He had actually been jealous of Steve. No wonder he had been delighted to realise that her former boyfriend had never been her lover. His repeated references to Steve on their wedding night were now clarified. Cesare had been so inflamed with jealousy, he hadn’t been able to think of any other solution beyond burying her alive in a remote Sicilian valley and preventing her from returning to England.
That was a demonstration of such innate insecurity that Mina was torn between helpless amusement and a kind of agonised tenderness on his behalf. She had been so blind, so pitifully hung up on the belief that she was not important to him. Only now did she see that her own insecurity had come between her and her wits. Cesare did not want to lose her…Cesare was afraid of losing her and she did not think that the volatile emotions he was struggling to control right now were anything to do with Susie.
So what on earth had he been playing at with Franca Ecchio? That didn’t make sense. Why behave in a fashion guaranteed to cause trouble? For some extraordinary reason he had allowed Franca to come on to him like a maneater while he ignored Mina.
A little smile softened the formerly strained line of Mina’s mouth. Well, sixth sense told her that Cesare would not ignore her again in company, nor would he allow another woman to flirt like mad with him. He would be too busy watching a wife he clearly considered to be fatally attractive to other men and fighting off the competition. Perhaps there was something to be said for those irredeemably basic instincts of his. They cut right through that smooth, sophisticated and polished exterior and revealed the wonderfully human emotions that lurked secretively beneath.
He snatched her up out of the Ferrari outside their villa, roared through the front door, startling the maid fixing flowers in the hall, and carted her upstairs, kicking open the door to her bedroom.
He dropped her down on the bed and looked down at her with scorching golden eyes, hunger blatant in that electrifying stare. Intense awareness throbbed in the atmosphere between them, filling Mina with a sudden surge of heat, shooting every skin cell on to red alert.
Cesare drew in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Don’t do that again,’ he warned unevenly.
Considering his mood, it was an astonishingly mild reproof. He pushed an unsteady hand through his black hair. Momentarily he looked dazed, like someone waking up after a brainstorm. The phone buzzed. Lines of strain engraving his hard features, he backed away from her. His physical retreat was so unexpected, that Mina simply stared. He answered the phone. Dark colour demarcated his savage cheekbones. He uttered a forced laugh. ‘Ciao, Roberto.’
He dropped the receiver back onto the cradle.
Mina sat up, her skin drenched with hot pink.
‘Tit for tat,’ Cesare murmured darkly, his teeth gritted.
‘P-pardon?’
‘Ten days ago you told me to find another woman.’
Mina turned pale. ‘I did what?’
‘I decided to test the water, see how you reacted…’
Belatedly she recalled all the foolish things she had thrown in that row, not one of which she had expected him to take seriously. Now it dawned on her that Cesare had believed her when she had urged him to entertain himself elsewhere. Horror gripped her, then incomprehension. Had Cesare been trying to make her jealous this afternoon?
‘And you didn’t like it—you didn’t like it at all,’ he drawled, but his teeth were still gritted. ‘Until Roberto decided to throw a spanner in the works——’
‘Why not? Franca is his sister!’
‘He knows I wouldn’t lay a finger on Franca. She’s been throwing herself at me for years! It’s a standing joke between us.’
‘A standing joke?’ Mina echoed, striving without success to see the gorgeous sexy brunette in that light.
‘What else would it be? A teenager carrying on like a thirty-something vamp from an old movie!’
‘A t-teenager?’ Mina stammered incredulously. ‘Franca’s a teenager?’
‘Famous and gloriously narcissistic, but then she is only nineteen.’
Nineteen…Mina was deprived of speech for the space of thirty seconds.
‘But you knew I wouldn’t realise what age she was! You took me there quite deliberately!’ she accused. ‘And as for you thinking that I would give you the freedom to stray, you’ve got another think coming, Cesare Falcone! Now I wish I’d pushed that conceited little madam into the pool!’
‘She’s a foot taller and at least two stone heavier. I would have had to wade in and rescue you, bella mia.’ Cesare strolled lithely to the foot of the bed, glittering golden eyes skimming her outraged face. ‘So if I don’t have the freedom to stray, why the bloody hell did you tell me I did?’ he suddenly raked at her fiercely.
‘I didn’t think you believed me…you laughed!’
‘I didn’t feel one bit like laughing when you started crying while I was trying to kiss you…and you know it!’
‘I didn’t know it.’
‘I’ve been afraid to touch you ever since! You made it painfully clear that you didn’t want me,’ he bit out unevenly.
Her eyes stung, making her drop her head. Both of them had been too busy hiding behind their pride, refusing to give an inch. Yet Cesare had given so much in so many other ways, she acknowledged for the first time. It wasn’t his fault that she had felt so rejected she had frozen him out on every possible occasion. Sometimes, she registered, loving meant putting your pride on the line.
‘For ten bloody frustrating days you have been totally unresponsive to my every attempt to make you happy,’ he condemned in a driven undertone.
It was true. Like a sulky child, she had stonewalled him with petty gestures of defiance, hugging her pain to herself, refusing to show it.
‘I can’t do anything right with you,’ he grated.
The tears stung even harder behind her lowered eyelids. ‘I always want you,’ she whispered. ‘Seems to me I never learned how to stop that——’
The silence hung like a deadened weight above her head. She bit her lip and tasted blood, feeling exposed.
‘Say that again,’ Cesare invited unsteadily.
She sniffed. ‘You heard me.’
He hunkered down to her level and reached out for her tightly clasped hands. She kept her eyes closed, willing back the moisture, strengthened by the warm feel of his hands enclosing hers. It felt so good even though his hands weren’t quite steady. She swallowed hard. She had been alone for a long time. She had put up so many barriers over the last four years. Once she had been open, outspoken, had known no better than to wear her heart on her sleeve. Only now did she admit that she had not hidden behind pride with Cesare. She had hidden behind the terrible fear of being hurt again. And when you were scared you didn’t give genero
usly.
She would never have made the slip of telling him that she loved him again had she not been mindless with passion in his arms. But his outright rejection of that love had cut deep. ‘You don’t believe anything I say,’ she reminded him tightly.
‘I’m learning,’ Cesare breathed very quietly, holding her hands tightly in his as if he was scared that she was about to make a break for freedom.
‘Is Roberto ever going to forgive you?’
‘I owe him an Armani suit. He’s a good sport.’
‘He was just…just joking around.’
‘Sì…I know, but coming after these last days…the strain…’ Cesare sighed heavily ‘…I blew a fuse.’
She looked down at his lean, beautifully shaped brown hands and an intense tide of love surged up inside her. It really didn’t matter if he didn’t love her. It really didn’t matter if her only hold on him was sex and the daughter they shared. There were a lot of shades between white and black and she could settle for mid-grey and make the best of it, because the most terrifying truth of all had to be faced. Without him there was nothing.
‘Let me tell you about Steve,’ she suggested, badly needing to lay that ghost for good and all.
‘No, I don’t want to talk about the past,’ Cesare asserted at speed.
‘But——’
He laid a fingertip against her lower lip. ‘No,’ he said again, with an edge of harshness.
Unwarily she opened her eyes, and sank dizzily into burnished gold. The conversation went right back out of her head.
‘Stay the night with me,’ he whispered, raising a hand and brushing his knuckles gently across one damp cheekbone.
‘It’s only four in the afternoon…’
‘I’m booking you in advance.’
‘I kind of like you on your knees,’ Mina dared.
‘It’s the only time we’re eye to eye and still vertical,’ Cesare pointed out sardonically.
‘We have to ring Susie…’
‘We’ll be with her tomorrow,’ he reminded her, leaning forward, gathering her up and easing her closer.
Her bones turned liquid. He brushed his mouth very softly over her parted lips and she stopped breathing. Her heartbeat hammered crazily. Her hands slid up to caress his hard cheekbones. As he pressed her back, the newspaper lying on the bed behind her crackled noisily. Lifting his head, Cesare wrenched it out from beneath her to toss it aside and then tensed, every muscle of his powerful physique pulling ferociously taut.
‘What?’
Even as she spoke, Cesare was already coiling back from her. The newspaper still gripped in his hand, he sprang upright. ‘Madre de Dio…’ he breathed.
Mina frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
His concentration was entirely fixed on the English newspaper she had been reading over breakfast earlier in the day. A tiny muscle jerking at the corner of his compressed mouth, he lifted his head again, all his natural colour drained from his dark skin. ‘Didn’t you see this?’ he demanded.
‘See what?’
He flipped the paper to exhibit a photo beside an article. ‘That’s Severn.’
‘Who?’ she whispered.
‘The broker you used four years ago has been arrested for serious fraud!’ Cesare spelt out rawly.
‘Severn is the broker whom…’ Mina put together uncertainly.
A spasm of incredulous frustration crossed Cesare’s taut, set features. ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you realise what this means? Severn is under investigation! The police will have seized all his papers and they will be going through them, seeking out evidence with which to prosecute him and anyone else involved in his illicit dealing!’
‘But…but I didn’t…’ Mina muttered shakily.
‘Mina.’ Cesare gripped her hand fiercely. ‘You have to face reality sometime. I suggest you face it now…although for the first time in my life I am not sure that honesty is always the best policy,’ he completed unevenly.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I HOPE we do not live to regret this,’ Cesare asserted grimly as the jet landed with a nasty judder. ‘I don’t think it was a good idea for you to return to London right at this moment.’
Mina said nothing. She hadn’t got a wink of sleep last night. Cesare had reduced her to a state of mute terror. Being convinced of one’s innocence was not a bar to fear, not when you had Cesare around, fully convinced of one’s guilt. Cesare had brooded aloud on every possible worst-case scenario and then decided that she should never, ever set foot on British soil again!
It was small consolation to discover that she had a husband prepared to spend the rest of his days helping her to evade the long arm of the law. If he told her any more about the Statute of Limitations and the unlikelihood of extradition she would climb the walls, she reflected miserably.
Cesare was ready to do anything to keep her out of prison. He had toyed with the idea of her making a full confession and then decided that there was absolutely no way she would receive a fair trial as his wife. What jury could possibly have sympathy for a rich bitch? he had asked her, and he had gone on to cite instances where he believed that other wealthy women had been more heavily punished than would have been the case had they simply been more ordinary mortals.
He saw discovery and subsequent prosecution as inevitable, although it might take many months for evidence incriminating her to come to the fore in the police investigation, he had told her. On the other hand, since black pessimism seemed to be the order of the day, Mina knew that if the police were waiting for them on the tarmac as the jet landed he would probably not be too surprised, which was one of the main reasons why he had wanted to return alone to collect Susie.
Mina was in turmoil. Just when everything had been coming together for them, this had blown up in their faces: her supposed fraud. She had gone beyond bitterness but it did seem unnecessarily cruel that what had wrecked her life four years previously should now return to haunt her with even worse fears. If Cesare could not credit for one second that she was innocent, how the heck could she expect the police to believe her?
And how on earth could she feel confident when she sensed that Cesare was frantic on her behalf? Cesare…frantic and worried sick. Not something she had ever thought to witness. That scared her even more, because it underlined the seriousness of her situation. What was the point of repeatedly reiterating her innocence to him? And what were the chances that the real culprit would somehow be dug out of the woodwork and forced to answer for his crime? For his two crimes, Mina adjusted tautly. After all, a serious offence had been committed against her. She had been deliberately set up and falsely accused. But why? Why had someone taken the trouble to do that? The true offender could not have known that his broker would be arrested four years down the line and thus expose him to the possibility of prosecution.
Her head was aching so badly by the time they reached the limousine that, once inside, she rested her head back and closed her eyes, hoping to ease the throb of unbearable tension behind her temples.
Cesare reached out and closed his hand around hers. ‘I can’t let you go through this,’ he said abruptly, harshly.
‘What are you——?’
‘We can’t live with this threat hanging over us,’ he contended with hard emphasis. ‘I find it easier to meet trouble head-on rather than wait for it to find me. I will tell the police that I was the prime mover in the fraud and that you acted on my instructions.’
Her lashes swept up in shock. ‘No…nobody’s going to believe that!’
‘Why not? Being wealthy does not mean that one cannot also be greedy,’ Cesare retorted. ‘An employee in love with her boss…it is credible that you could have been persuaded to break the law on my behalf. In fact if you acted dumb you could probably persuade the police that you didn’t even know that what you did was illegal and you can’t be forced to testify against me——’
Mina had jerked upright again. ‘But you can’t take the blame for it!’
Her throat closed over. She met those brilliant dark eyes of his in a full-tilt collision. Cesare was not the sacrificial type, no martyr to anyone else’s cause, and there was a terrible irony in the fact that he would not have considered committing such an offence-—no, not even if the reward had been millions. She was devastated by the lengths he was prepared to go to in order to protect her. It was not as though he believed her innocent, not as though he believed she had been led astray by someone else.
‘Susie could get by without me for a while…but not without you,’ he pointed out wryly. ‘Meanwhile, just to hedge our bets, you get pregnant——’
‘Pregnant?’ Mina echoed, sinking into an even deeper daze of incredulity.
‘If I confess and you are pregnant it makes your prosecution even less likely,’ he said drily.
Her throat thickened with tears. ‘You can’t do it,’ she said flatly. ‘I won’t let you do it. This is my problem, not yours!’
‘You’re my wife——’
‘What the hell does that have to do with it?’ Mina slung at him in unhidden distress, and then she realised—or thought she realised—and the suspicion that occurred to her shook her inside out. Did he love her? Or did he simply see protecting her and Susie as his duty?
‘Everything.’ His lean fingers tightened fiercely on hers as he tugged her inexorably across the distance separating them.
Her tension suddenly gave way and with a muffled little moan, she threw herself into the heat and solidity of him, her hands frantic to touch, to hold and in some way repel the fear threatening to consume her. All she could see was their lives being ripped apart. ‘You can’t,’ she told him and she meant it, knew that no matter what happened there was no way she was going to hide behind him.
‘Bella…bella mia, have a little sense.’ With his thumb he rubbed at the bloodless line of her compressed mouth in reproof.
Her lips parted tremulously, the drugging heat of awareness leaping through her like sudden fire, inflamed by more than an edge of sheer desperation.
