The Cost of Her Innocence

by Jacqueline Baird

  Tony kissed her cheek and let her go. ‘Thanks, you’re a gem. And bring me a beer as well, hmm?’

  Beth agreed, and with a huge sense of relief walked across to get a can of beer, then sprinted up the stairs of the boys’ apartment and into the kitchen.

  She recognised a couple of their friends from the bank, and responding to their chatter helped her to regain her shattered nerves as she mixed the drinks and placed them on a tray. Caution and confidence, she reminded herself. But even so she was in no hurry to go back down to the party.

  Just then Mike appeared. ‘I need more food! These people eat like horses,’ he declared, and she saw a lifeline.

  ‘You’re looking stressed, Mike.’ And, handing him the tray, she suggested, ‘Why don’t you add a drink for yourself and take these down to Tony, relax and enjoy the party? I’ll take care of the barbecue—no problem.’

  ‘You are an angel.’ He grinned and agreed.

  Beth doubted Cannavaro and Ellen would deign to eat from the barbecue. Fine dining was more their thing, and she could hopefully avoid them for the rest of the evening.

  * * *

  Tony had watched Beth depart with an appreciative eye, then turned to catch Dante doing the same. ‘So, when are you getting married, bro?’ he asked mischievously. ‘At your age you don’t want to hang around.’

  Before Dante could reply Ellen laughed and launched into a long explanation as to how difficult it was to get the right church at the right time and find the right venue for the reception. He saw Tony’s eyes glaze over with drink or boredom—more likely the latter—and he knew the feeling.

  Dante had presumed that once they were engaged all he’d have to do was pay up and turn up on the wedding day. The endless lists and arrangements Ellen expected him to be interested in and discuss had come as an unpleasant shock to him.

  Eventually Ellen ended with a date in September.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Tony said. ‘Don’t forget to send me an invite. I’ll bring Beth. Hopefully it will encourage her down the same path.’

  ‘Is that wise? The guests will be family and close friends, and though Beth seems nice how long have you known her?’ Dante demanded. Somehow the thought of the emerald-eyed beauty as a guest at his wedding was not one he wanted to contemplate.

  ‘Ever since we moved in, eighteen months ago. She’s a great girl and a fabulous cook. Her cakes are to die for. I don’t know what we’d do without her. Isn’t that right?’ Tony asked as Mike appeared with the drinks.

  ‘Yes, she is a diamond—especially to you, mate. And as we’re standing in her garden, and she prepared most of the food and has offered to take over the barbecue so I can enjoy myself, I’d say she is indispensable. And she certainly improves the view....’

  Dante had wondered why Tony insisted on living out here, and now he knew. Tony was infatuated by the woman. With a few judicious questions Dante soon found out a lot more about Beth Lazenby. She was twenty-seven, and an accountant for a prestigious firm in the centre of London. She owned a cottage by the sea, and lived in the ground-floor apartment—too close to Tony for Dante’s comfort. He wasn’t sure why, but his gut feeling was telling him there was a lot more to Beth than met the eye.

  He glanced across to the barbecue and saw her standing there, handing out plates of food to a group of men gathered around her, none of whom could take their eyes off her. Maybe that was the problem. She was tall, and so stunningly attractive few men would think to look past her surface beauty. She was an unlikely accountant. With her height and looks she could have been a model—she was slender enough. But maybe her high, firm breasts were a little too much for a fashion model, he mused.

  ‘Dante, darling.’

  Ellen’s voice stopped his musing.

  ‘I feel like dancing.’ Grasping his arm, she smiled up at him.

  ‘Not my kind of dancing, but I’ll give it a go.’

  Ellen was the lovely, intelligent woman whom he had chosen to be his wife, Dante reminded himself, and it was time he stopped worrying about the redhead and concentrated on his fiancée. Ellen had not wanted to attend this barbecue, but she was making an effort for his sake. Dancing with her was the least he could do....

  * * *

  Julian, the last man standing by the barbecue, was talking about stockbroking, laughing as he described his latest gamble on the markets. Beth listened politely, her mind only partially on what he said. She seemed unable to stop her eyes from straying towards the people dancing on the patio, and the tallest man in particular. For a big man he was a smooth mover—though he wasn’t so much dancing as allowing his fiancée to flit adoringly around him. More fool her, Beth thought. In her experience most men were a waste of time. All she wanted to do was call it a night, get into her apartment and check on Binkie. But there was no way she was going to walk through the crowd of gyrating bodies.

  Luckily the music stopped and Mike came strolling over, his face flushed and smiling, obviously having enjoyed himself. ‘Sorry, Beth. I didn’t mean to leave you so long, but with it still being so light I didn’t realise the time. Tony has just gone to change the music. You go and enjoy yourself, and I’ll pack up here.’

  For Beth it already felt like the longest night of her life, and she leapt at the chance to escape. People were moving to replenish their drinks, and her route was almost clear to her back door.

  She was nearly there when the music started again—this time slow and moody—and suddenly her way was blocked as Cannavaro stepped in front of her, crowding her. She wanted to step back, but her pride would not let her.

  ‘May I have this dance? Tony is partnering Ellen, and it will give us a chance to get to know each other. We might all be family one day.’

  Beth tensed and looked up at him—which was an unusual event in itself for her. She noticed that his eyes were not black. They were the colour of molasses—dark and golden. She found herself thinking that once she fell into them she would be stuck for ever. Disturbed by the fanciful thought, she caught the gleam of mockery in those same eyes and wanted to refuse his request outright. But she did not dare. He had not recognised her, she was sure, but she had aroused his suspicion by being less than courteous when they had been introduced. She did not want to compound her mistake by showing her dislike again.

  She took a deep breath. ‘That’s not likely to happen. Tony was just teasing,’ she managed to say evenly. ‘But, yes, if you insist, I will dance with you.’

  ‘Oh, I insist, Beth.’ He drawled her name softly and his arm slid around her waist.

  He looked at her, his other hand taking hers, and she was not prepared for the tingling sensation that crept over her skin and made her shiver as he held her close to his long body.

  A reaction to the cooling night air, she told herself, but somehow her body, with a will of its own, was moving with him, automatically following his movements.

  ‘You are a very lovely lady, Beth. What man wouldn’t insist?’ he added in that deep, barely accented silken voice she remembered so well and so bitterly.

  She forgot her good intentions. ‘Are you trying to flirt with me, Mr Cannavaro?’ she demanded. ‘And you an engaged man,’ she prompted, giving him a derisory smile while trying to control her inexplicably racing pulse.

  A quizzical expression flickered across his face for a moment, and his incredible eyes seemed to bore into hers as his hand stroked up her spine to hold her closer still. To her shame she felt a fullness in her breasts when they came in contact with his broad chest.

  ‘No, Beth. I was stating the truth. But if I was flirting with you I would not have to try very hard,’ Dante opined, fully appreciating the feminine sway of her shapely body against his own, testing his control to the limit. ‘I felt you tremble when I took you in my arms, and sensed it in the softening of your body against mine. There is an instant sexual attraction between us—unfortunate, but true. Under the circumstances it is obviously not to be acted upon. But I also sense something more. You seem
afraid of me—even actively to dislike me—and I have to wonder why. Are you sure we have not met before?’

  God, he analysed everything, and talked like a lawyer even as they moved to the music. His muscular thighs brushed against hers, raising her temperature, and it took all her nerve to hold his dark gaze.

  ‘I shivered because it is getting cooler now,’ she lied. ‘And, no, we have never met before. I didn’t even know Tony had a brother. He never mentioned you until you turned up here in the garden.’

  Dante stilled and let Beth take a step back, putting space between them. His heavy-lidded eyes were shrewd and penetrating, and swept over her flushed defiant face before moving lower.

  ‘Interesting if true!’ He raised a sardonic eyebrow, noting the thrust of her nipples against her shirt.

  The lovely Beth was definitely lying about one part of that statement. He had met enough females in his time, and was experienced enough to recognise when a lustful attraction was mutual. But was she lying about not knowing Tony had a brother until tonight? She had not said half-brother, and if she was telling the truth surely she would naturally assume his name was Hetherington, the same as Tony’s? And yet she had called him Mr Cannavaro—even though his name had not been mentioned when the introductions had been made. He doubted Tony, who was not into formality of any kind, would have called him anything but Dante or bro in the couple of minutes before they had been introduced. So how could she know his surname unless she had met him before, or at least heard of him?

  The mystery of Beth Lazenby deepened. His legal instincts told him she was hiding something—but what? And in that moment Dante decided to make it his business to discover everything about her. Not for himself, but to protect his brother, of course.

  A wave of heat swept through Beth at his intense scrutiny and it took every scrap of willpower she possessed to control her traitorous body. But at least she was saved from having to respond as Tony and Ellen appeared.

  ‘One fiancée returned to you, bro, worn out from dancing with me—or it could be the vodka I gave her. She wants to go home.’ Tony grinned, swaying on his feet, and Beth grabbed his arm to steady him. He had definitely had too much to drink.

  ‘Thanks a bunch, Tony,’ Dante said dryly, his expression grim as he wrapped his arm around a slightly glassy-eyed Ellen. And with a goodnight and a curt nod to Beth, much to her relief he left.

  Beth took the key from her back pocket and, ignoring Tony’s drunken request to dance, slipped into her apartment and locked the door behind her. She fell back against it, breathing deeply, fighting to regain her composure.

  Binkie appeared and she picked him up in her arms and carried him through into the living room. Her knees weak, with a sigh she sank down onto the sofa, cuddling the cat on her lap, her mind in turmoil as the significance of Cannavaro being Tony’s brother sank in.

  Everyone had bad days, she reminded herself, but today hers had gone from good straight to diabolical. She glanced around the cosy room that was her sanctuary, her gaze resting on the two photographs in identical silver frames on the mantelpiece. One was of the parents she had adored, and the other of Helen, her dearest friend. All three were dead now, and moisture glazed her eyes.

  Clive Hampton, Helen’s lawyer, whom Beth now considered a friend and mentor, was the closest thing she had to family. He had been instrumental in getting her a job in the offices of a local accountancy firm, where she had got the opportunity to train in-house as an accountant. After taking the requisite exams over two years she had eventually become qualified.

  She spoke to Clive frequently on the telephone, and often visited him at his home in Richmond. She was meeting him tomorrow for Sunday lunch, and had almost forgotten in the trauma of the evening. He was over sixty now, and thinking of retiring soon, and though she talked to him about most things, telling him how she felt about Cannavaro was not one of them. It was much too personal. She had never even told Helen how badly the man had affected her in court, only that he was clever and that her lawyer, Miss Sims, had been useless against him. No, this latest development she had to take care of herself.

  Her time in prison had taught her how to build a protective shell around her emotions and present a blank face in front of warders and prisoners alike. Living in a confined environment and sharing communal showers had come as a shock, but she had quickly realised that women came in all shapes and sizes and soon thought nothing of stripping off in front of anyone. She told herself she was no better or worse than anyone else, but all her life she had always felt the odd one out and that hadn’t changed. And with her new identity she was even more wary of making friends.

  Tony and Mike were the only friends she had in London, though she had quite a few in Faith Cove.

  Wearily she let her head fall back on the sofa and closed her eyes. She had never felt as alone as she did now. Not since that fatal day eight years ago when she had stood in the dock, trembling with fear. And the same hateful arrogant man was responsible.... In her head she wished she had the nerve to tell Dante Cannavaro exactly what she thought of him, but in reality she knew she could not.

  He was a dangerously clever man: she trembled if he so much as touched her and he already thought they had met before. She was not going to take the chance of him remembering where... Not that it would matter if he did, but she did not need the aggravation in her life. What she needed to do was make sure she never met him again, and if that meant moving she would. Tony had said he hadn’t seen his brother since last year, so with luck she’d have some time to decide.

  Binkie stirred and stretched on her lap. Sighing, Beth got to her feet. ‘Come on, Binkie. I can see you want feeding, and then I am going to bed.’

  But once she was in bed disturbing thoughts of Dante Cannavaro filled her mind. The first time she had seen him across the courtroom she had felt an instant connection with him. Her stomach had churned and her heart had leapt and naively she had thought he was her savior. But he had betrayed her. Again tonight he’d ignited those same sensations in her, but she told herself that this time it was anger and hatred for the man.

  Yet, as she tossed and turned, hot and restless beneath the coverlet, remembering the strength of his arms holding her as they danced, the heat of his long body moving her to the music, she had the growing suspicion that he could be right. Never in her life had she responded to any man the way she did to Cannavaro. She had met plenty of men in the last few years, and quite a lot had asked her for a date, but she could count on one hand the rare occasions she had accepted.

  For all the harm Cannavaro had done to her, could her intense awareness of him, the rush of sensations he aroused in her, be purely sexual, as he said, and not just hatred as she believed? She saw in her mind’s eye his broodingly handsome face, the compelling dark eyes, and a shiver quivered through her body. How could she know for sure?

  The first boy she had kissed had been the slimy liar Timothy Bewick, and when Cannavaro had questioned her at the trial he had implied their kiss had been a lot more. She hadn’t recognised the femme fatale he had made her out to be, but the jury had believed him.

  By the time Beth had got out of prison she’d been determined to allow no man to get close to her. Her friend Helen had still been in prison, serving a twenty-year sentence for killing her bully of an ex-husband. Helen had spent years living with his violent rages, and it had only been when she had seen his anger directed at their daughter, Vicky, that Helen had found the courage to divorce him. Five years later Vicky had died while staying at her father’s holiday villa in Spain. According to her father, Vicky had slipped and cracked her head open. The Spanish authorities had believed him. But Helen had known he’d finally gone too far and she’d snapped, deliberately running him down with her Land Rover outside his London home.

  Helen had told Beth her story, and told her to look around at the rest of the women they’d shared the prison with. Most of the women had been there because of a man. A man who’d told them what to do, wh
ether they were thieves, prostitutes, drug mules or anything else. And they’d done it because they’d been deluded enough to believe the man loved them. In Helen’s case she had let grief and hatred of her ex take over, and in destroying his life had destroyed her own too. Helen had warned her never to let any man take over her life.

  Helen’s words of wisdom still held true, and they strengthened Beth’s resolve to put as much distance between herself and Dante Cannavaro as she possibly could.

  In a moment of insight Beth realised that her cottage in the village of Faith Cove was the only place she felt truly herself.

  When Beth finally fell into a restless sleep the nightmare she had not suffered from for a long time returned with a vengeance—only the ending wasn’t the same. She was in the dock, with a big handsome man in black tormenting her, twisting every word she said. Then he was smiling, his deep voice and dark eyes drawing her in. And then the nightmare turned into an erotic dream of strong arms holding her, firm, sensuous lips kissing her, hands caressing her, thrilling her.

  She cried out and woke up, hot and moist between her thighs and with her heart pounding like a drum.

  * * *

  The next day Beth drove to Richmond for Sunday lunch with Clive, and discussed with him what she had been thinking of doing since the last time she had stayed at the cottage. With Clive’s full approval Beth made the decision to leave London.

  She was going to move to Faith Cove and refurbish the cottage Helen had gifted to her in her will. Ironically, Helen’s brute of a husband, never thinking his wife would have the nerve to divorce him, had put the cottage in Helen’s name to avoid tax when he had bought the house fifteen years earlier. When she had divorced him there had been nothing he could do about her keeping it.

  Now Beth had plans for the cottage. Although ‘cottage’ was actually a misnomer, as the place was really a large house with six bedrooms, often rented out to families. First she would convert the roof space of the multi-car garage at the rear of the property into a three-roomed apartment. That way she could carry on renting out the house as a holiday let while living permanently either in the apartment or the house when it was vacant. Beth was sure she could make a comfortable living out of it, and she could continue as an accountant for private clients. Maybe she could even convert part of the garage into a surfers’ shop later, which would give her even more independence and ensure she could stay away from the man who haunted her dreams.