Riva frowned. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘You both come and live with me.’

‘Live with you?’ Shock made it come out on a squeak.

‘Si.’

‘As your kept woman?’ Shrugging off his hands, she brought herself round to face him, leaning back on her elbows, her small breasts thrust tantalisingly upwards. ‘What are you proposing, Damiano? A life of luxury for the little upstart …’ she couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice ‘… in exchange for custody of Ben, with the odd sexual favour thrown in?’

His face was a chiselled rock against the hard blue of the sky. ‘May I remind you that he’s my son too?’ He sounded quietly angry. ‘And, no. Santo cielo! That isn’t what I’m proposing.’

‘What, then?’

‘I think we should marry,’ he said.

About the Author

ELIZABETH POWER wanted to be a writer from a very early age, but it wasn’t until she was nearly thirty that she took to writing seriously. Writing is now her life. Travelling ranks very highly among her pleasures, and so many places she has visited have been recreated in her books. Living in England’s West Country, Elizabeth likes nothing better than taking walks with her husband along the coast or in the adjoining woods, and enjoying all the wonders that nature has to offer.

SINS OF THE PAST

ELIZABETH POWER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

FOR ALAN—for everything

PROLOGUE

SANTO cielo! It was her!

With his skill at addressing the immediate, whilst keeping abreast of everything else going on around him, Damiano responded to something the woman behind the desk was saying, though his glittering black eyes were trained on the younger woman who had stopped briefly in the corridor beyond the glass partition.

Red hair—not long, as he remembered it, but short and fashionably tousled. She looked, with that natural curve to her mouth and those small pointed features, like some mischievous elf. Yet it was a mischief, he acknowledged through a rising tide of shock, motivated by opportunism and greed.

‘Mr D’Amico?’

Immaculate dark tailoring couldn’t hide the whipcord strength and physical power of a man in the peak of condition, a man of impressionable force and character, whose striking features were hardening now as he brought himself back sharply to the matter in hand.

How could he allow just one glimpse of that redhead to cause his concentration to slide? He had business to attend to. A chain of leisure centres and retail outlets to get up and running. But when he had arranged this meeting to finalise details with the design team who handled all his UK developments, he hadn’t expected to come in and be confronted by a ghost from his past.

‘That girl …’ She hadn’t seen him! He had only an impression now of feathery strands against an elegantly pale neck as she let herself into the office opposite the one in which he was standing and disappeared from view.

‘You mean Miss Singleman?’ His associate’s eyes had followed his, her swept up black hair and dramatically red lips emphasising the hard edge of a successful businesswoman in her fifties. But she knew who had been stealing his attention. ‘Riva?’

‘Riva …’ The word rolled off his tongue as sensually as it was savoured. So she was still unmarried. ‘Sì.’ He was trying to appear calm. Calmer than he felt! he decided, annoyed. His manner, though, demanded more, and the woman smiled, supplying it.

‘One of our newest recruits. She specialises in the domestic environment at present. She’s young, enthusiastic, a bit off-beat sometimes in her approach, but very, very talented.’

As well as untrustworthy and a scheming liar!

For one fleeting moment he fought the urge to walk out and take his future business elsewhere, rather than let a company who could employ the type of questionable character it had obviously employed with Miss Riva Singleman loose with his money. But intrigue as to how such a dubious little drop-out could possibly have come to be working for such a reputable firm of interior designers, along with the memory of how that lying little mouth had felt beneath his, got the better of him. He had never been faint-hearted. So why shouldn’t he get his business sorted out, accept the opportunity that fate had suddenly presented him with, and satisfy his curiosity along the way?

He listened to the matriarch of Redwood Interiors assuring him that everything was going to schedule, with all his wishes being met, and that whatever members of her team were allotted to handle his affairs at any time would give him no less than two hundred per cent satisfaction.

Like hell they would! he resolved, and gave the woman one of his blazing smiles, charming her witless as he had been doing with women for the whole of his thirty-two years, as he settled on his suddenly innovative and calculating plan.

CHAPTER ONE

RIVA pulled up outside the stone building on the fringes of what had once been a thriving country estate. She could see the old manor house at the end of the long drive, boarded up, uninhabited. A ‘For Sale’ sign hung haphazardly on one of its rusty gates.

But it was the building in front of her that drew her attention as she stepped out of her car onto the gravelled courtyard. The Old Coach House.

Once a stable-block for the manor, this place looked very much inhabited. A couple of other vehicles—one a gleaming black Porsche—were parked outside.

Her light mood was enhanced by the chirruping birds and the late spring sunlight filtering down through the trees as she locked her small hatchback and tripped eagerly across the gravel. Her first real big job where she was to be given carte blanche! To conceptualise and co-ordinate all the furnishings, colours and textures for a special room inside this wonderful old house. What an opportunity!

Her hand was trembling with excitement as she pressed the gleaming brass doorbell. Her portfolio had obviously impressed someone so much that they had asked for her specifically, and if she could pull off this job to everyone’s satisfaction it could be the making of her career! No more struggling to make ends meet—to keep a very necessary roof over her head. And if she was valued enough to be given the chance to immerse herself in a project like this, perhaps one day her dreams of owning her own studio might turn into a reality, and all the anguish she’d endured over the past few years would be a thing of the past.

‘Madame Duval?’

The chic blonde in the charcoal-grey suit who opened the door to her was assessing Riva’s less conventional attire with a quizzical smile.

‘No. Madame’s not here, but you are expected. Miss Singleman, isn’t it?’

Riva nodded and followed in a slipstream of exotic perfume as she was guided up some stairs into the main body of the house. At only five feet three inches she felt dwarfed by the other girl’s height, and wondered whether she should have worn high heels, or even a jacket, but she hated conformity. Until the other woman had opened the door she had felt smart in the belted black and grey striped tunic she had teamed with a short black skirt, dark leggings and pumps.

‘If you’ll just wait here …’

Riva glanced around on finding herself alone in a large, sunny sitting room overlooking the courtyard. Whoever had furnished this heart of the house had taste and style, she decided, if the faultless décor and exemplary furnishings were anything to go by. There was a mix of fine prints—an aerial shot of some tropical islands, some brightly coloured fish, and the most spectacular palm-fringed beach imaginable—adorning the walls.

‘Well, well. If it isn’t Miss Riva Singleman.’

The deeply-accented voice, dark as velvet, enlivened every nerve with its dangerous familiarity.

She swung round so fast that the bag dangling from her hand struck the leg of a small Georgian table, almost toppling the delicate but vastly expensive-looking vase that was standing on top.

‘I do hope this isn’t an indication that you’re going to be accident-prone.’

Tall, olive-skinned, too strong-featured to be called conventionally handsome, the man in the dark suit standing in the doorway was everything she remembered: impeccably dressed, with sleek raven hair combed straight back. His face was a familiar maze of striking angles and exciting complexity, from his high forehead and sculpted cheekbones to the arrogant nose and the hard, wide mouth that was curling now in patent mockery of her clumsiness.

‘Damiano!’

If he was surprised to see her, he wasn’t showing it. Every inch of that lean and disciplined physique exuded command, self-confidence, poise, as did his easy stride as he came into the room, studying her with those penetrating dark eyes and those cunning wits that once had lured her into trusting him. Much to her cost, she reflected bitterly.

‘I thought …’ She was toying agitatedly with the black and grey beaded necklace which lay just above her small breasts. What was he doing here? From what she’d read about him nowadays his UK home was a bachelor apartment in the most fashionable suburb of London. Not this quiet, countrified retreat …

‘You thought what?’ He sent a cursory glance over his shoulder, following the direction of her gaze. ‘My secretary,’ he enlightened her, answering her unspoken question. ‘She was simply handling the appointment.’

And probably a lot more than that, Riva thought waspishly, thinking of the string of stunning high-profile women she had seen his name linked with in the gossip columns over the years. She remembered one article in particular in one of the tabloids recently, featuring society queen and grocery empire heiress Magenta Boweringham, who, being the latest lover to be discarded by this dynamic Italian, had gone to great lengths to report that, however brilliant and focused he might have proved himself to be in every other aspect of his life, where her own sex were concerned, Damiano D’Amico seemed to have a very low boredom threshold.

Ignoring a resurgence of the feelings she had had after reading that article, Riva uttered, baffled, ‘Madame Duval …’ Her tousled red hair caught the morning sunlight streaming in through the long sash window as she shook her head, trying to make sense of the situation.

‘My grandmother,’ he supplied, his easy tone only emphasising her confusion. ‘Obviously you weren’t told she was away.’

‘No, I wasn’t!’ Hot colour washed over her skin and she let her hand drop quickly when his gaze fell, picking up on the agitated way she was fingering her necklace. His grandmother was French? Her head was swimming. She wasn’t sure he had ever told her that. ‘Did you know?’ she demanded. ‘Did you know it was me Redwoods were sending?’ Her name must have aroused his interest, if nothing else.

A wide shoulder merely lifted beneath the fine cloth of his jacket. ‘It does leave me wondering how a girl who was little more than a market trader a few short years ago,’ he said, not answering her, ‘managed to reach the position she’s obviously enjoying now.’

‘She worked!’ Rose colour deepened along her cheekbones, vying with the fire of her hair. ‘She worked, Damiano! Which is more than she’s going to do for you!’

Angrily she brushed past him, her suspicions and disappointment over not being engaged solely on her merits overridden only by her staggering awareness of his masculinity as her arm collided with his.

Shaking from the contact, in a voice that reflected all the tension that was gripping her, she uttered, ‘I’ll tell Ms Redwood that it’s all been a mistake. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I can manage to see myself out!’

Disillusionment contested with a host of other, more complex emotions as she made her determined bid for the stairs. Only the deep, accented voice behind her stopped her precipitate flight along the corridor.

‘I really don’t think you should do that, Riva.’ Those dangerously soft words masked a barely concealed threat.

‘Wh-what do you mean?’ She turned around to see him dominating the narrow space outside the sitting room, and for all her twenty-four years she felt as out of her depth with him as she had as a hapless nineteen-year-old, smitten by that voice, by his earth-shattering looks, his intellect, and his irresistible Continental charm.

‘You’ve been sent here for a specific purpose, and I expect you to honour that purpose. Otherwise I shall have no hesitation in telling your very hard-nosed employer that I shall be taking my business elsewhere.’

A car engine starting up in the courtyard below the window broke the small shocked silence that stretched between them.

His secretary leaving. Leaving her alone with him, Riva decided, with an inexplicable little shudder.

Her blood started pounding, a thundering drum-roll in her ears. Of course. He was more valuable to Redwoods than she was, she realised. And if she refused to work with him, and he reported her lack of co-operation, then it would be her the firm would let go for losing such a prestigious client—not the other way around.

The green eyes looking up into the dark ebony of his sparked with accusation. ‘You mean … you’d get me fired?’ Her voice was strung with anger, disbelief.

His shoulder moved again in that subtly careless gesture. ‘You’d get yourself fired, Riva. Or not. The choice is yours.’

And if she made the wrong one, refused to do exactly as he said, he would destroy her. Just as he had destroyed her dear and oh, so vulnerable mother, because without his cruel intervention Chelsea Singleman would almost surely be alive today!

‘Go back into the sitting room,’ he ordered, in no doubt of the power he wielded.

Reminding herself of how hard she’d worked for this job, and of all she had to lose if she walked away from him, Riva thrust past him again, steeling herself against the sensations that assailed her this time when he didn’t move to allow her an easy route back and once again her arm grazed the sleeve of his jacket.

‘Do that again and I’ll take it that you’re inviting more than just my custom. And we both know what happened the last time you did that, don’t we?’

He had used her, ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly, employing that lethal mix of easy charm and magnetism to snare her. She had been too na?ve and inexperienced to recognise the calculated game he was playing, only realising it afterwards with her pride and her dignity in shreds!

‘I didn’t invite your custom, Damiano. You’re forcing it on me.’

‘Like you’ve probably convinced yourself it was me forcing you … what was it? … four and a half—nearly five years ago?’

Surprisingly, the vital images his words conjured up still had the power to make her blood race, the memory of those warm, skilled hands on her body making her cheeks flame with humiliating shame.

Because she had been a willing conquest beneath those practised hands of his, mindlessly inviting their intimate caresses, mistaking tenderness for affection, his cold, calculated seduction for something much, much more.

Acridly she murmured, ‘No. That was nothing more than my own stupidity.’

That dark head tilted slightly, and a humourless smile still played around the corners of his devastating mouth.

‘You could scarcely blame me for wanting to get at the truth.’

‘The truth? Hah! You wouldn’t recognise the truth if it uprooted itself and tried to wrap itself around your throat!’

He smiled coldly at her graphic metaphor. ‘I didn’t have to. All the evidence spoke for itself.’

Because she had lied to him—and big-time!—covering up even the most personal facts about herself. But only because she had been embarrassed, so unbearably ashamed. He’d been angry with her afterwards, but more, she’d suspected, with himself. Perhaps finding out he’d used a virgin in his plan to destroy Chelsea Singleman didn’t sit too comfortably on his conscience. If he had one! Riva thought vehemently, although she doubted it.

Green eyes glittering with a host of complex emotions, she breathed accusingly, ‘You ruined my mother’s life.’

Damiano’s mouth moved grimly. ‘Because I was instrumental in preventing her from marrying my uncle? I would have been guilty of neglecting my duty if I hadn’t. Anyway, I’m sure she got over it. Women like Chelsea—and I’m afraid to say like you, cara—aren’t left grieving too long over one lost opportunity. If she hasn’t done so yet, I’m sure that before long she’ll find some other rich … what do you English call it? … sucker who will fall prey to her devious charms.’

Pain as sharp as a whiplash cut into Riva’s heart, and it took all her self-control to stop herself lunging forward and knocking the disdain right off that hard, arrogant face.

‘My mother’s dead!’

His obvious shock was a picture she would have relished if she hadn’t felt so raw inside.

The sound of a man whistling for his dog in the quiet lane beyond the courtyard filtered through the open window—the only thing intruding on the loaded silence.

‘I’m sorry.’

She’d have to admit that he looked it, if she hadn’t known him to be incapable of such selfless emotion.

‘No, you’re not.’ How could he even say that when he had contributed so directly to the woman’s inevitable slide into the despair that had finally killed her—and at such a brutally young age?

‘What happened?’

‘What do you care?’

His features hardened at her lack of response. ‘Tell me.’

She didn’t want to. It hurt too much to talk about her once effervescent young mother—who had insisted on Riva calling her Chelsea—especially in front of the one man she had hoped never to see again.

His whole demeanour, however, commanded, and reluctantly she found herself yielding to the sway of his forceful personality by saying, ‘If you must know, it was an accidental overdose of drugs she’d been taking for depression.’ She had also been drinking too, although she didn’t tell him that. The doctors had said it was a lethal mix.

‘When?’

‘Just over a year ago.’

That firm mouth compressed. ‘As I said, I’m sorry.’

She gave a brittle little laugh. ‘Don’t be. After all, it wasn’t your fault she sank into depression after her wrecked engagement to the man she loved!’

‘You’re holding me responsible for that?’

‘If the cap fits.’

‘Unfortunately, Riva, it doesn’t.’ He glanced across to the window, his clean-shaven yet darkly shadowed jaw a statement to his hard and potent virility. ‘You know full well why Marcello broke off his engagement to your mother,’ he stated with dogmatic cruelty. ‘She was investigated and found wanting. You both were.’

‘Yes, but only by you!’

‘Because Marcello was too bewitched by a pretty face and a pair of dancing blue eyes to see beyond the superficially sweet smiles and the cleverly crafted cover-up.’

‘Which you weren’t, of course?’

‘Hardly.’ His jaw-line hardened as he expounded. ‘And, while my uncle might have been treated to a watered-down version of the truth from your mother, he wasn’t the one chosen to be the recipient of the most blatant lies.’

He was talking about her, and she cringed now at the elaborate story she had woven around herself, around her background and her upbringing, shuddering from her naïveté in believing he would never find out. Nothing, though, could reverse that, and she could never tell him exactly why she had lied.

‘Now, if it’s all the same to you, you won’t mind if we get on and do the job you’ve been sent here to do.’ His outstretched arm demanded that she precede him out of the room.

Glad to let their conversation drop, Riva complied.

Watching the way she moved as he directed her back downstairs to the room he wanted redesigning, he couldn’t help noticing the proud little tilt to her pointed chin and the slim back held straight as a rod beneath the soft jersey top.

She had spirit. He had to hand her that.

He caught a waft of her perfume, flowery and fresh, and felt a kick in his loins that shook him to the very core of his being.

With that fiery hair, that milky skin, and breasts that certainly couldn’t be called buxom, she wasn’t the tall, blonde, leggy type he usually gravitated towards, but there was something about her … something that attracted him even as it irritated him. He was having to acknowledge that he still wanted the arty little creature, as he had wanted her from the moment he had first laid eyes on her all those years ago in his uncle’s villa.

When Marcello had informed him that he was getting married, he’d been naturally delighted, he remembered. His uncle—his late father’s brother—had been a widower for more than ten years. But Damiano couldn’t deny that when he had arrived at the villa at Marcello’s invitation, to meet his proposed new bride, he had been shocked to discover a woman half Marcello’s age with a fully-grown daughter in tow.

At first he had thought they were sisters. On first name terms, and so alike in build and stature, with their loose floral skirts and their long straight hair—except that, unlike the vibrant redhead, the other had been a platinum blonde.

He had been dubious about them from the start. Who were they? Where had they come from, with their joss-sticks and their beads and their home-made sandals, which the younger of the two had often preferred to discard? And what woman, still only in her thirties—as he’d discovered the older one was—would want to tie herself to a handsome, yet nevertheless elderly widower? Unless she was attracted less to his warmth and generosity of spirit than to his status as head of one of the oldest families in Italy, with all the money and influence that went with it?

That Marcello had plucked them both from a market stall selling hand-made jewellery in some English seaside resort had only fuelled Damiano’s need to find out more about them, since his uncle had been too infatuated with his new fiancée even to want to know or care.

He had put his own staff on the job, and set about pumping the more reserved though equally—as he’d believed—worldly daughter for all the information he could get out of her, while maintaining his resolve not to let her get to him in any way.

Her father, she’d told him, had been an officer in the Royal Navy. A brave man, decorated for services to his country, who’d been away from home a lot while she had been growing up. Chelsea, she had convinced him, could have used her talents as a commercial artist, but her husband had always frowned on her having her own career, believing that it was demeaning for the wife of a man in his position to have to work. He had given Riva the best possible education, she had told him with undisguised admiration, but then he’d been tragically killed in a car crash while on leave. He had left her and her mother well provided for, she had gone on to assure him, although the lovely house where they’d lived had been far too big for the two of them after he’d died.

She had given him more—far more—than he could ever have expected, he thought grimly, and not just information.

A nerve twitched in his jaw as he thought about it, because even now it still rankled with him that he had deflowered a virgin in his determination to get at the truth. Yet he had salved his conscience by assuring himself that in going to bed with him the scheming little witch must have had a very marked agenda of her own.

He shuddered now as he thought of the consequences that falling for her charade of experience and sophistication could have brought down on his head, because he had been proved right by the team he had paid to check out both her and her mother.

They were drop-outs, protest marchers—troublemakers, in his opinion—and, as he’d suspected all along, just a pair of gold-diggers. Nothing Riva had told him had held a gram of truth.

Born illegitimate to parents who had never bothered to marry, she had come from a grossly under-privileged area, attending only basic, run-of the-mill state schools. Her mother, far from being a potential career woman, had found it hard holding down even the most menial job to pay the rent—or not, as the fancy took her—on a changing assortment of cheap, downmarket digs. The closest her father had come to being a ‘naval man'—as both Chelsea and Riva had referred to him—was when he’d been employed for a time unloading barges, and the only uniform he had worn had been inside one of Her Majesty’s prisons, where he’d been serving a well-earned sentence for fraud! The one scrap of authenticity in the whole story was that he had been killed in a car accident—the year after his release and under the influence of drink!

That he had saved his uncle from the clutches of such a dubious pair of women was something Damiano would continue to be thankful for. He regretted what had happened to Chelsea Singleman. Per amor di Dio! He would hardly be human if he didn’t! But it was galling to realise that if she had married his uncle, who had sadly died after a short illness eighteen months ago, and Marcello had left everything to his grieving widow, then because of Chelsea’s unfortunate death since, this little opportunist would now be enjoying the benefits of all Marcello D’Amico’s wealth!

‘So what do you think?’ His voice was harsh from the turn his thoughts had taken as he watched her surveying what the studio had informed her was to be redesigned as a crafts and hobbies room. ‘We were imagining something with more of a Continental feel, perhaps. Are you up to the task?’

Riva took in the rather drab décor and the few pieces of furniture—mostly covered in dust sheets, apart from a tall bookcase and a large rectangular table that stood against one wall. It was a room obviously designed as a private sanctuary, tucked away at the back of the house. She could see that someone—perhaps the woman herself—had already tried to add a classical feel and fallen far short of what they had been intending. The only redeeming feature was the pair of floor-to-ceiling doors that looked out onto a quiet terrace—although some of the paving stones were broken. There was a pleasing aspect of the old manor, though, she noted, through the specimen trees.

Meeting that hostile masculine gaze now, she said, ‘Are you asking me—or telling me?’

‘I take it it’s within your capabilities?’ he pursued, ignoring her barbed question, and didn’t fail to notice the way her tight little mouth compressed.

He had her where he wanted her—jumping to his command—and she knew it, he realised. He derived a rather guilty pleasure from that.

‘What does your grandmother do?’ Grudgingly she moved away into the centre of the room, studying its lay-out, its dimensions, its position—whether or not it faced the sun. There was nothing, though, not even in the empty bookcases, she realised, dropping her bag down on the table, to give her any clue as to the woman’s character.

‘Do?’

‘Yes.’ She swung round to see him frowning. ‘Her crafts and hobbies? What are they?’

He gave a barely discernible shrug. ‘She reads. She stitches. She … er … ricamare … ‘

‘Embroiders?’ Riva supplied, guessing that that was the word that was eluding him. ‘So … she sews.’ With a little inward smile she turned away from his disturbing scrutiny and that powerful aura of sexuality he exuded, which even now—even after what he had done—turned her knees to jelly, making her breathless, her pulse throb a little too hard.

‘This room faces north, so the light stays constant … Perhaps one wall with a hint of colour.’ She was already planning, feeling her enthusiasm building—despite everything; getting excited. It always happened when she was handed a project. Even now, when the dealer of that project was the man she despised more than anyone else in the world. But it was her job, and she was a professional. She didn’t intend letting old hostilities stand in the way of her career. ‘If we enlarge on the classical theme …’ She was thinking aloud. ‘Does she like Grecian?’

‘Definitely.’

She glanced at him, wondering why he sounded so uninterested. Perhaps he thought his grandmother’s need for a sewing room trivial and frivolous, she considered waspishly, deciding that she would do her best to please the old lady, even if it bored the socks off her superior grandson!

‘Those patio doors supply adequate light … but it still needs brightening up.’ She was assessing the space behind her. ‘It’s long enough and wide enough. Perhaps something on that wall … something bold and dramatic …’ She was getting carried away, but stopped suddenly, her arm suspended in mid-air. ‘Do you find something amusing?’ she challenged pointedly.

Arms folded, leaning back against the bookcase, the man was watching her with mocking insolence. ‘On the contrary.’ His mouth pulled down at one side. ‘I’m rather impressed.’

‘What did you expect?’ she retorted, in no mood to be gracious. ‘That I’d be out of my depth?’

‘Like you were before?’ Letting his arms fall, he moved away from the bookcase, a figure of such predatory watchfulness and cool intimidation that Riva brought her tongue nervously across her top lip.

Refusing, though, to be drawn into any further discussion with him on that subject, or anything else but the reason why she was there, she said pithily, ‘That was then, Damiano—this is now. And if you don’t mind I’d like to get on with the job the studio are paying me to do!’

She pivoted away from him, but, her temper still roused, she turned back and flung at him, ‘Why me? In view of what you think you know about me, aren’t you worried that I might decide the job isn’t really worth all the hassle? That I might decide it would simply benefit me more just to take off with a few of your—of your grandmother’s—priceless antiques?’

His mouth twisted speculatively as he weighed up that last comment.

‘One.’ He started counting out points. “Regardless of what you say to the contrary, I’m sure you value your job far too much. Two. There isn’t anything in this house worth more than having my curiosity satisfied. And three …’ His voice had grown dangerously soft. ‘Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’d find me a very lenient master if I had to come after you, Riva. You seem to be forgetting that I’ve dealt with you before, and I’d certainly have no qualms about dealing with you again.’

She wasn’t sure what he meant by dealing with her, but she certainly wasn’t going to take a chance on finding out. He was a ruthless adversary—as she knew all too well from the unscrupulous methods he had used to bring her to her knees before.

Her cheeks burned from the memory as she fought a whole heap of repressed anger and frustration.

Damiano. She’d looked it up once. The definition had said ‘one who subdues and tames'.

Well, you won’t tame me, Mr High-and-Mighty D’Amico! her brain screamed silently. But from the smile that played around his lips she knew that her body language alone had conveyed the rebellion in her.

‘You asked why you?’ Slipping a hand into the pocket of superbly tailored trousers, he perched on the edge of the table, one long leg at full stretch, the other hanging free. ‘Apart from the obvious, when my secretary rang the studio to book a consultant she was offered a very glowing report on your capabilities. In fact she was supplied with some very interesting facts about you.’

No, please!

Her heart had started racing and her stomach muscles clenched almost sickeningly. What had the studio let slip?

She saw the furrow pleating the tanned masculine forehead and wondered if the overriding feeling of panic she was experiencing was stamped all over her face.

‘I understand you’ve been there less than a year. You did a design course at home, and have more talent and flair with your limited experience than all the team at Redwoods had had at your level put together.’

Letting her breath out very slowly, Riva prompted, ‘Anything else?’ She felt—and sounded even to her own ears—as though she’d been running hard.

‘Well, that you excelled at art—’ his smile was feral ‘—but then I knew that already, didn’t I?’

Because they had talked for all those weeks when she’d felt herself blossoming in his company, opening up to him, imagining that she could trust him. While all the time she had been unintentionally helping to condemn herself in his eyes—along with her mother.

‘Anything else?’ Fear and her hatred of him laced her voice with sarcasm. ‘Like my favourite colour? What DVDs I watch? My favoured breakfast cereal?’

‘None of those things,’ he assured her with mocking amusement. ‘Particularly the breakfast menu. But as we’re to be working together perhaps we can reacquaint ourselves with the … finer facets of each other’s natures over the next few weeks.’

His scarcely veiled meaning made her tense. He might have other ideas, but there was no way, she assured herself, she would be allowing him into her private life.

‘Don’t hold your breath on that, Damiano. As far as I’m concerned you’re the lowest of the low. You might not be giving me any choice about working for you, but I do still have some say over the company I keep outside of working hours—and as far as including you in that company is concerned, I’d rather shack up with a rat!’

‘A very interesting notion.’ Surprisingly, he was still looking amused—as though her heated outburst had left him totally unmoved. ‘Well, as I said …’ He stood up now, the power and grace of his body causing Riva’s throat to go dry as the smile slid from his face, assuring her of how dangerous it would be ever to underestimate him, as he advised. ‘Shall we get on?’

And that was it? No more questions? No more startling revelations that the studio had carelessly disclosed about her?

‘That’s why I’m here.’ Her own imitation of a smile felt painfully stretched.

He didn’t know! Why should he? she reasoned hectically, her shoulders slumping with a relief that left her weak. All she had to do now was offer her advice and her skills in the way she was being paid to do, get the job done, and get out. The fact that the frighteningly potent sexuality she’d been powerless to resist before seemed to have strengthened a thousandfold since she had seen him last was something she was going to have to put up with. She only knew she would have to guard herself against it—against him—and not let her defences down for a second. After all, she wasn’t the infatuated nineteen-year-old who had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. She was a woman now, with a home and a career and the sense and wisdom to resist men like Damiano D’Amico.

The only thing that mattered was that by some miracle he didn’t know the most important thing about her, and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that he never did.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHO’S a lucky girl, then? Working for Damiano D’Amico?’ one of Redwood’s more experienced female designers declared enviously to Riva, who had just rushed into the office.

‘What?’ Flushed, feeling as though she’d been juggling twenty balls in the air to get to the studio this morning, Riva frowned. How could anyone else have known when she hadn’t even known herself until yesterday?

‘What’s she got that the rest of us haven’t got?’ another woman asked, a little less warmly.

‘Mystery, darling,’ one of the young men from Graphics piped up as he was passing. ‘Men are fascinated by enigmas—especially ones that come in small and interesting packages. She also brings out their protective streak—unlike the rest of you amazons.’

Riva shot a friendly reprimand at him, leaving a series of guffaws behind her as she made her way to her boss’s office. It didn’t matter how big or how small you were, she thought poignantly. A man like Damiano could still rip the heart out of you—with no trouble at all.

‘So how did it go yesterday?’

Brisk, forceful and efficient, her make-up as striking as ever, Olivia Redwood was leaning across her desk, eager for a report on the previous day’s assignment.

‘I didn’t realise that this Madame Duval was a relation of Damiano D’Amico’s,’ Riva stated cagily.

‘No, I didn’t make the connection myself until he rang yesterday afternoon to confirm that you’d do nicely. But apparently it was Damiano who specifically requested you in the first place, Riva—not his grandmother, as I previously thought. I did think he seemed rather taken with you when he came in to see us last week.’

‘He what?’

‘Yes, you should consider yourself honoured,’ the woman went on, oblivious to how shaken Riva was. ‘Isn’t he a personable character?’ Even the no-nonsense queen of Redwood Interiors couldn’t conceal her appreciation of the impressive Mr Damiano D’Amico. ‘And so handsome—in a forceful sort of way!’

Beneath the dark blue silk top worn over fitted black trousers Riva shrugged, quietly seething. ‘And disgustingly rich too. A definite advantage for anyone on the receiving end of his business,’ she added, with more venom than she knew was wise.

‘You don’t sound particularly enamoured.’ Shrewd dark eyes were studying her dubiously. ‘There isn’t one woman in this company who wouldn’t give her right arm to be given the opportunity to work for the family—let alone be especially chosen by Damiano himself.’

Riva shrugged again, trying to make light of it. ‘I’m afraid my arms are pretty much needed where they are.’

Olivia’s smile was fleeting. She wasn’t prone to discussing domestic issues in the office. ‘Now, you do appreciate that Mr D’Amico is one of our most valued clients—so no outspokenness.’

Because she was renowned for it, Riva realised with a mental grimace. ‘Of course.’

‘I’ve heard he can be a hard taskmaster, as well as a consummate perfectionist, but then he wouldn’t be the success story he obviously is if he didn’t run a tight ship and expect anyone who works for him to tow the line. We’re only as good as the last job we do for him, so this company’s relying on you to ensure we continue to secure all his return custom. Bear that in mind.’

‘Of course,’ Riva reiterated, wondering what the woman would say if she knew the things her newest employee had flung at her most treasured client the previous day. Olivia was generous towards her staff, and had given Riva’s career a kick-start in the world of interior design because she had seen her potential. Even so, Olivia Redwood was a canny businesswoman, and Riva knew there would be no tolerance or favouritism if she did anything to jeopardise the firm’s success.

‘He seemed to know a lot about me.’ Reaching the door, Riva turned back, her fingers unusually tense around the door handle.

‘He’s a very important man. He naturally wanted some insight into how long you had been here and how qualified you were before taking you on.’

‘But you didn’t tell him about … my situation?’ she ventured hesitantly.

‘Was I supposed to?’ Riva looked quickly away from the speculative eyes. ‘I didn’t think he’d want to know about your private life, Riva. You can tell him yourself if—or when—the need arises. Apart from which, I didn’t want to say anything that might deter him from engaging you. I’m giving you a chance, Riva. Don’t blow it. We’ve got targets to reach, and I’m counting on you to make sure we reach them.’

She spent the rest of the morning working on paperwork for a job she was winding up. Then after lunch, armed with her laptop and her camera, she set off to take photographs of the room she was redesigning at the Old Coach House, as arranged with Damiano the previous day.

Letting herself in with the key he had given her, though he had said he would be back there again today, all her tensions released themselves with bone-weakening relief when she discovered that the place was empty—which left her free to get on with her planning without the distraction of the man’s disturbing presence.

It was much later in the afternoon when she heard a car growl into the cobbled courtyard at the front of the house, and instantly her whole body tightened up.

The desire to trip along the hall and sneak a glimpse out of the window was curbed by the mortifying thought of Damiano seeing her—because there was no doubt, from the throbbing power of that engine, that it was him.

Every tight, tense cell alerted Riva to the front door closing a few moments later, and then that steady stride coming along the hall, and her fingers were making nonsense of the characters on her computer screen as she tried to keep typing, feigning a total lack of interest in his arrival.

‘Buon giorno.’ The velvety softness of his greeting made her look up, and she wished she hadn’t when the sheer impact of his masculinity made her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth.

Sleek black hair—damp, as if he had just showered—accentuated the pristine whiteness of his shirt, which was partially unbuttoned, exposing the crisp dark hair of his olive-skinned chest. His arm was resting against the doorjamb, and where the jacket of his light beige suit had parted she could see how tight and firm his waistline was, how the fabric of his trousers stretched across the hard, lean breadth of his hips.

‘Were you so engrossed in your innovative ideas that you didn’t hear me come in, Riva? Or is it a determined effort on your part to show me that you aren’t the least bit interested one way or the other?’

She shivered at how easily he could read her.

‘You lied to me,’ she breathed accusingly. She didn’t have to enlighten him. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

‘That makes two of us.’ There wasn’t an ounce of compunction in that lean, hard body as he strode in.

She glanced quickly away as he came towards her, uncertain which part of his splendid anatomy she’d feel comfortable looking at. What chance had she had against that potent masculinity, she thought, when she had been a naïve creature of nineteen?

‘I was beginning to think you wouldn’t be here today.’ That was preferable to asking him why he’d lied. She knew why. He’d known she would have wriggled out of the job if she’d been forewarned.

‘I forgot to mention that I was scheduled for a couple of very punishing hours of squash this afternoon.’

‘Really?’ She didn’t believe that a man as influential and powerful as Damiano D’Amico would forget anything. He had probably relished the thought of keeping her in suspense as to when he was coming back! ‘Did you win?’ She didn’t know why she asked it. She couldn’t imagine anyone punishing him—in any sense whatsoever. Physically he was built like a god who paid homage to health and strength and fitness, and heaven help anyone who tried to pit their wits against that awesome brain!

‘It was a satisfactory outcome.’

‘Satisfactory for you? Or for your opponent?’ She didn’t need to ask. She just couldn’t seem to contain the desire to bait him at every given opportunity. And that way lay disaster if she had any intention of hanging on to her job, she reminded herself sharply.

The freshness of the shower gel that still clung to his body invaded her nostrils as he came over to the table where she was sitting and picked up a sheet of paper, examining the various sketches that she had been making.

‘I would have thought experience would have taught you, Riva. I always play to win.’

She sucked in an audible breath. ‘No matter who gets hurt?’ She couldn’t look at him as she said it. She couldn’t seem to breathe either, too aware of his scent, the sound of his voice, his disconcerting nearness, and, as he returned her sketches to the table, of the dark lean strength of his hands.

‘No one gets hurt as long as they know their limits,’ he assured her, ‘and don’t indulge in games which are totally out of their league. But if you’re referring to that little game you were playing with me in the past—which I’m sure you are—don’t try and pretend to me that I hurt you, Riva. Oh, perhaps a little physically—but then you didn’t exactly prepare me for your … innocence.’ His voice derided. As well it might, she realised bitterly. A virgin she might have been, but he hadn’t seen her sacrifice and everything that had led up to it as anything other than part of a calculated plan. ‘If you had, I would never have let things get so out of hand.’

‘What would you have done?’ Her tone was wounded, hurt, shrill. ‘Locked me in a room and used an interrogation lamp on me instead? Well, if it’s any consolation to your macho pride and your failing judgement about me, I would never have gone to bed with you if I’d known I’d be sleeping with a snake!’

‘What did you expect? That I’d be taken in as easily as Marcello? The fact is it is something that we both have to live with. But just for the record … I don’t recall that much sleeping was done.’

Wings of bright colour suffused her pale cheeks, and she felt decidedly sticky under her silky top.

Pushing herself disconcertedly to her feet, she crossed the room to put some distance between them, and started making more than a show of measuring the floor area. The red glow of the laser tape measure cut through the space like his brutality had once cut into her young, unsuspecting pride.

‘As far as I’m concerned, Damiano, you were just an unfortunate episode in my life.’

‘And how many more … fortunate episodes have there been, Riva?’

‘That’s none of your damn business!’

‘Or should I amend that to profitable?’

‘How dare you? You make me sound like …’

‘Like what? ‘

Features contorted with disgust, she couldn’t bring herself to answer. What was he saying? Who did he think he was?

‘As you said to me … What was the expression again …? If the cap fits …’

‘And as you said to me—’ she was striding purposefully back across the room ‘—it doesn’t!’

He was perched on the edge of the table as she came around the other side, putting the safe shield of her chair between them. She made a show of picking up papers, tidying them up and putting them down again. She wanted to sit down, get on with her work. She wished he would move.

‘All right. So it’s an episode we both want to forget. We both had an agenda. You lost. That’s life. But, regardless of our individual motives, I don’t think that either of us can deny that it was a very pleasurable experience.’

A small strangled sound escaped Riva, and the eyes she fixed on his were wide with disbelief. ‘You’re not for real! If you think I enjoyed it, then your ego’s even bigger than I imagined it was. If you want the truth, the whole experience just made me sick!’

She wanted her stapler, which was on the other side of the table. She had to go around him to retrieve it and did so, giving him a significantly wide berth.

‘I’m not a tyrant, cara, but if you’re determined to treat me like one then we are not going to have a very satisfactory working relationship. And that’s something I think we’d better put an end to right now.’

For a brief heart-sinking moment she thought that he was going to call it a day. Report back to the studio that she wasn’t up to the job and get someone else to come in and work on his precious brief. Bitter experience, though, should have warned her about underestimating Damiano D’Amico: men like him didn’t need anyone else to do their dirty work for them.

Perched, as he still was, on the edge of the table, when she made to move past him he reached out and in one fluid movement caught her by the wrist.

Her senses leaping, she felt the little blue vein beneath his thumb start to thrum with the blood that was pumping through her, and with sinking dismay knew that he could feel it too.

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she murmured, the way her breath shivered through her from this devastating contact with him giving the lie to her trembling statement.

He smiled without warmth. ‘Good.’ His eyes were glittering like midnight pools in moonlight, so mesmerising that as he pulled her towards him she felt like a heap of pulsing jelly and could only clutch at the fabric of his other sleeve to stave off the feeling of tumbling down and down into their dangerous depths.

In a voice that was shaking as much as she was, she challenged, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

His lips moved in a parody of a smile. ‘I always believe in putting my theories into practice,’ he said, his long ebony lashes coming down as those disturbing eyes dropped to the fullness of her trembling mouth, and before she could find her voice to demand what those theories were his face went out of focus and that mocking mouth was suddenly claiming hers.

He was still leaning against the table and, caught between his legs, she felt her senses start to reel from the warmth of his powerful thighs, from the movement of muscle beneath the quality cloth of his jacket, and from the hard insistence of his deepening kiss.

She had to stop this! Some smothered sense of reason tried to warn her that all he was doing was trying to humiliate her, make her pay for what she had just said to him, trying to cut her down to size.

As his arms tightened around her, though, her body paid no heed to the warning, letting her down as every galvanised cell leaped in recognition of his masculinity.

Her mouth widening beneath his, she gave a defeated little sound, the hands that had come up to grasp his shoulders now moving of their own volition to plunder the dark, damp hair at the nape of his neck.

Pulled closer against his hard, lean length, Riva gasped from the magnitude of her crazy response to him, sensations multiplying like locusts at the irrational thrill of this man’s lips and hands that had once turned her into a woman with their skill and their expertise, this man who had been her first lover—and her last!

Rigid with a sexual tension she couldn’t believe she was feeling, she heard a small voice inside her surface, to remind her of just how and why he had scarred her for any other man with his mind-blowing seduction before the cruel and devastating realisation that he had only been using her.

With a bitter little sob she wrenched herself away from him, and through gritted teeth managed to grind out, ‘You conceited oaf!’

Though he had allowed her some merciful space, his hands were still gripping her shoulders. ‘Deny it all you like,’ he said, his strong features flushed, his breathing laboured. ‘But we both know that your body is in conflict with that scheming little brain of yours, don’t we? I might have exposed you and your mother for what you were, but there’s much more to your venomous feeling for me than that, isn’t there, Riva? You don’t like me, cara, because of how I made you feel, because I reduced you to a whimpering mass of sensuality just begging me to take her, which didn’t quite fit in with your plans to bring me to my knees and have me as putty in your greedy little hands.’

Which was what he had to keep reminding himself of, Damiano thought savagely, thrusting her away from him because—mamma mia!—it had only taken one kiss to convince him of how much he still wanted her. Even now the ache in his loins was so acute that it hurt.

‘Believe that if you want to,’ Riva retorted in a small, shaky voice, all the fight gone out of her after the shocking way she had responded to him—a man she hated, and with just cause!

Trembling from her response, and unsteadied by the way he had so brutally released her, she clutched at the table behind her, breathing deeply to try and regain some composure, staring at the broad span of his impeccably clad back.

It was no good reminding him of how his interference in her mother’s affairs had indirectly caused the woman’s death. She didn’t even dare to goad him with that now.

He was angry—really angry—but there was something else, Riva realised. Something that had made him swing away from her, as though he couldn’t bear to look at her. As though he were weary of the constant battle he was fighting with her. Or was it some sort of battle with himself?

Pulling herself up to her full height, which didn’t seem to make a scrap of difference against his dominating six feet plus, surprisingly she found herself saying, ‘If you’ve finished humiliating me, I’ve mapped out a few ideas on the computer that you might like to see.’

He was shrugging out of his jacket, tossing it down on a chair, and Riva averted her eyes from his hard, tanned torso—visible through the fine shirt—as he came and stooped over the table, pressing keys on her laptop, using the mouse himself.

‘Olivia was right,’ he said, after studying her ideas for a few breath-catching moments—because he was much too close, the sight and scent and sound of him invading her senses, and because she wanted his approval of her professional capabilities even if he despised every last bone in her body. ‘You’re very good.’

Such praise from him in the past would have made her glow with pleasure. All she felt now, though, was relieved acceptance and a strange, inexplicable regret.

‘I like to think I’m a better judge of shapes and designs than I am of people,’ she stated pointedly, glancing surreptitiously at her wristwatch when she thought he wasn’t looking.

‘Are you in some particular hurry to leave?’ He was using the scroll wheel, and hadn’t even looked up from the screen. But then that shrewd brain of his wouldn’t miss a thing, Riva decided, resenting him, resenting his cleverness, his sharp wits, his cold and calculating mind.

Nervously, she swallowed. ‘I have an appointment.’

‘An appointment?’ He glanced up at her now, his dark eyes raking over her face. ‘An appointment?’ he repeated, straightening up. ‘Or a hot date?’

She wouldn’t tell him that she didn’t date—not seriously, anyhow—any more than she would tell him that she’d been burned so badly by him during that summer in Italy that she had never allowed herself to get that close to any man since. But if he wanted to think that there was some man in her life who might mean something to her, then let him think it! she thought acridly. Perhaps that way, at least, she would be safe from him—and from herself!

‘Damiano …’ The sudden notion that she might need any protection from herself where he was concerned was as abominable as it was startling. Had she wanted him to kiss her? Surely not! Because if that was the case then she was no better than a Judas, even entertaining such ideas about him. How could she dismiss the way her mother had suffered—and at his hands? Forget her lack of will? The drinking? Her depressions?

He hadn’t even responded to that last supplication. He was still contemplating the rough paper sketches she had made, no doubt mentally adding ideas of his own.

‘Damiano …’ It came out sounding much more desperate now. It was absolutely vital that she got away on time.

Casually he reached around her to drop the sketches down on the table, so close that the tangible warmth of his body made her drag in her breath.

‘Who is this special person who makes you plead?’ That familiar mocking smile was back, but there was curiosity too in those interrogative eyes.

‘I’m not pleading.’ Damn! Was that what he thought he could do to her? ‘I just have to get away on time.’

He leaned back against the table and folded his arms, giving her all his attention now.

‘This is no appointment, I think. Definitely a special date. Well, don’t worry, cara mia. If he’s worth his salt, he’ll wait.’

Trying not to appear too alarmed, Riva shook her head. So much for letting him think there was another man in her life! ‘I made a promise. I have to keep it.’

He picked up her mobile phone, which was lying close by. ‘Then call him,’ he invited, holding it out to her.

Trying to keep her anxiety in check, Riva snatched it from him. ‘I don’t need to,’ she uttered, hating him provoking her like this. ‘I just need to be on time!’

‘So much devotion!’ He was like a cat playing with a mouse, relishing every second of her discomfiture. ‘He must be pretty special.’

Angrily, she snapped, ‘He is!’ then wished she hadn’t, when those luxurious brown eyes narrowed to speculative slits and that hardening male mouth seemed to turn to stone.

‘Does he know that another man only has to touch you to make you forget just how special he is.’ His tone derided, and his cruel reminder of what had transpired a few moments ago made Riva’s pale cheeks flame.

‘If you’re talking about your assault on me just now, I was taken totally off-guard, that was all.’

‘Really?’ Mockery gave a cruel curve to his lips again. ‘In that case I’d be interested to witness how you’d react if I. prepared you, carissima.’

The deliberate hesitation, plus the endearment, were heavy with meaning, and she was reminded—as he’d intended her to be—of just how expertly he had ‘prepared’ her before.

That riveting sexual tension made her too slow to respond, and she stiffened as he spoke again in a voice now stripped of anything but professionalism.

‘Is this what I am to expect? Your darting off at a moment’s notice every time we have a meeting?’

‘Of course not,’ she uttered defensively, breathing again. ‘It wouldn’t have seemed like a moment’s notice if you’d been here so I could let you know earlier that I had to get away sharply tonight.’

‘Very well,’ he conceded at last. ‘As long as you realise in future that while you’re doing this job your first loyalty is to me.’

Like hell! Riva thought, closing down her laptop before grabbing her bag and her papers and racing away.

CHAPTER THREE

THE clock on her dashboard was showing ten past five as she swung out of the cobbled courtyard and along the leafy lane towards the dual carriageway.

‘How could it have happened?’ she demanded fiercely of anyone who might be listening. How could she—after not seeing the detestable Damiano D’Amico for nearly five years—suddenly be working for him? And not just working for him—at his beck and call!

The snarl of her car’s engine reflected her mood as she pulled out into the rush-hour traffic, and despite all the concentration needed to keep her mind on the road the past suddenly rushed upon her like a submerging tide.

Born when her mother was barely eighteen, Riva knew everything about deprivation and financial hardship. Her father she could only remember as a shadowy figure, flitting in and out of their lives, absent more than he was around. By the time she was old enough to know him he was already in prison, and that, and then his early death shortly afterwards, had plunged Riva and her mother into inescapable poverty.

Young, artistic and pretty, Chelsea had had no end of possible suitors who might have taken her and her daughter on. Strong-willed and free-spirited, though—a champion of causes—Chelsea Singleman had been determined to ‘go it alone'.

Scarred and disillusioned after her experience with

Riva’s father, her mother had always warned her of the dangers in succumbing to sexual desire. When Riva had met Damiano D’Amico, therefore, she had been ill-equipped to match his hard sophistication—which was why it had been so easy for him to turn her lack of experience to his own ends, she thought, hating him with a passion she couldn’t believe she could feel for anyone. But with just cause, she assured herself, feeling emotion surfacing as hot tears in her eyes at the way she was allowing him to use and manipulate her—unavoidably—now.

She couldn’t forget the impact he had made upon her the first time she had seen him standing there in the drawing room of Marcello’s villa—the dark excitement of his features, the blazing charm of his smile, the breath-catching power of his smouldering sexuality. Nor could she forget the way he had looked at her with a fire in his eyes that had touched the secret places of her young, untutored body. But there had been suspicion too—that she’d been too inexperienced to recognise—as he’d looked from her to her mother and then back at Riva again, with a hard, concealed intent behind that lazy urbane charm which she had foolishly mistaken for mutual attraction.

His exciting masculinity had blinded her to everything—even the truth—because he had come to vet his uncle’s new fiancée under the pretext of merely celebrating Marcello D’Amico’s betrothal.

A picture flashed through Riva’s mind of the gentle silver-haired man who had captured Chelsea Singleman’s heart and who, for the first time in Riva’s life, it had seemed, had made her struggling parent perfectly happy. He’d been nearly twice her mother’s age, and yet Riva had had no problem with that. Her mother had been head over heels in love with Marcello, and he with her, and Riva had been happy for them both without a thought for how wealthy he was. She’d been only aware and pleased that all the struggles Chelsea had endured throughout her life, her loneliness and her sometimes inevitable depressions, were finally going to be things of the past.

After a celebratory lunch, tipsy with champagne, they had giggled like schoolgirls while strolling arm in arm through Marcello’s spectacular gardens, on one of those sultry, halcyon days before the storm broke.

‘I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you,’ Chelsea had commented when their conversation had turned, as it always had, to the disturbing subject of Damiano. ‘I’ve seen, all right—and all I can say is that he’s trouble, Riva. And I don’t mean trouble like your father was. I mean the type most women imagine they want and then wind up regretting with a passion—especially when he tosses them aside for the next easy conquest, as I’m sure a lot of women must have found to their cost.’

As if her mother’s words alone had conjured him up, he had appeared on the hot flagstones in front of them.

‘Well … Damiano … Or should I call you Nephew?’

His smile for Chelsea Singleman didn’t actually touch his eyes, and he seemed to be assessing the mere ten years or so between their ages.

‘A little premature, I think.’ With that almost detached air—just one of the many things about him that excited Riva—he dismissed the familiar way in which her mother had addressed him. ‘I believe Marcello’s looking for you. I think he feels he has been deserted.’

Even the mention of her fiancé's name had made Chelsea’s eyes light up.

Keen to get back to him, she turned a little too quickly and almost lost her footing on a crack between the stones. Riva’s arm shot out to steady her.

Chelsea had giggled, Riva remembered, obviously self-conscious about making a fool of herself in front of a man of such formidable poise and self-possession. ‘Come on then, Riva,’ she’d encouraged, eager to get away. ‘Let’s get back.’

‘Not you, signorina.’

His soft command had been startling, causing excitement to leap wildly in Riva. But more startling had been the dark, warm hand that had suddenly entrapped hers—because that was how it had felt. Like a trap, Riva thought bitterly, wishing she had followed her instincts and fled from the reckless danger she had sensed, which Chelsea had warned her about. But she had been too flattered and too attracted to him, as well as far too inexperienced and swept off her feet, to care.

‘I think your mother has had a little too much champagne,’ he’d commented, turning from the figure of the older woman tripping back to the villa with her blonde hair billowing out behind her, like her loose white cotton sundress, and Riva had sensed an edge of disapproval in his tone.

‘No, she hasn’t. She’s just happy.’ Instantly she flew to Chelsea’s defence. ‘And if she has, then why not? She’s celebrating her forthcoming marriage, after all.’ She didn’t know why she suddenly needed to feel protective of her mother. ‘Don’t you approve of anyone being happy?’ she challenged him, and then with a sidelong glance at him from under mahogany lashes she tagged on, far more coquettishly than she had intended, ‘Don’t you like being happy, Damiano?’

She felt the burn of his gaze move over her face and touch the gentle swell of her breasts, just visible above the multi-print gypsy-style blouse she was wearing with a long plain calico skirt, and she felt their tender tips drawing into tight buds.

‘Sì. I like being happy,’ he breathed, the downward sweep of those thick black lashes unable to conceal the heated desire in his eyes that promised her that what would make him happy would be to tug loose the strings securing her tantalising blouse and show her pleasure such as she had never known. ‘And you, Riva? What do you suppose I should call you if your mother marries my uncle? Cousin?’ The intimate way in which he enunciated the word, with those visual images already in her mind of him, stroking and arousing her with those long hands, and that voice that was designed for loving a woman, sent molten heat coursing through her veins.

‘What do you mean “if"? It’s “when", surely?’ She exhaled, her cheeks tinged with colour from the feelings he aroused, which were a wild concoction of sexual excitement, indignation and inexplicable unease.

He smiled that lazy smile, the type that made her feel she was drowning in those incredible ebony eyes. Then he was pulling her gently towards him, allowing his lips to brush hers in a feather-light kiss that sent her rocketing senses into overdrive, before he breathed—humouring her, she realised now—in that dark, seductive and oh, so caressing voice, ‘Sì. When.’

That had been the first of many such blissful times when they were alone together, though she’d never fully lost her nervousness with him, amazed as she’d been that such a frighteningly attractive man could be interested in her.

He’d wanted to know everything about her. Where she came from, who she was, what made her tick. No one had ever made her feel so special—or so aware of herself as a woman. But knowing that he would reject her out of hand if he knew the truth, unable to bear it, she had woven a fanciful and glamorous picture around herself, mixing fact and fiction in a story she’d dearly wanted to believe, unaware of how dangerous he was, oblivious to the sensual and deadly trap he had been laying for her.

When he had made a point of extending his visit to the villa, idiotically she’d convinced herself that it was because of her.

‘Be careful, Riva,’ Chelsea, aware of her excitement, had warned her daughter again.

They’d been in Riva’s suite, experimenting with make-up, because Marcello was taking Chelsea out to dinner. She’d looked young and modern and sensational, Riva remembered with a swift sharp shaft of pain. Because Chelsea had borrowed a dress from her that her mother adored.

‘I know he’s handsome and mature and far more exciting than any of the boys you’ve brought home, but he’s too experienced for someone of your age. I know we might not look so different, but I’ve been around a bit longer than you have, and I don’t want to see my baby getting hurt.’

‘I’m not your baby any more, Chelsea,’ Riva had reminded her gently. ‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown up.’

‘I know.’ Standing behind her at the dressing table mirror, Chelsea had bent and kissed the top of her head. ‘And dangerously dynamic creatures like Damiano D’Amico have noticed it too—and that’s what worries me.’

Oh, Mum! Riva mourned now—now it was too late. If only I’d listened to you!

‘Don’t worry. I can handle him,’ she remembered telling her anxious mother.

What a misconception! What a joke!

She’d been so far out of her depth she hadn’t realised that her feet weren’t even touching the bottom any more, that she was playing with a hard, masculine sensuality that was more dangerous than a lethal current. Unaware that there was no safety net to catch her—nothing to stop her from drowning beneath her own stupidity. Because, desperate to keep him from guessing how inexperienced she was, she had woven an illusion of sophistication around herself that had fooled even a man as worldly as Damiano D’Amico.

‘You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ he had groaned that night in his private rooms, when things had got so out of hand between them, when her hands had stolen inside his shirt and slipped it off his shoulders so that she could see him, touch him, feel the satin of his pulsing flesh that clothed the exciting strength of his body. The night she had allowed him to lead her into the bedroom, realising that unless she admitted the truth there would be no turning back.

Scared by what her boldness had instigated as she’d allowed her hands and lips free rein over his muscular, hair-feathered chest, she’d been even more afraid of his turning away from her in disgust if she told him the truth, perhaps ridiculing her innocence and her lack of sophistication. There was no way she could have suffered the humiliation of that. It would have been too demoralising and degrading, as well as agonizing, to have him reject her. And so, aroused to fever-pitch by his lips and those skilled and oh, so capable hands on her body, when he’d asked her if she was on the pill, she had murmured tremulously that she was.

He had known almost at once, of course, that she had lied, but things had gone too far, and the fire that had raged between them had been too hot and consuming even for his disciplined will.

As pain had made her cry out, she’d heard his groan of rejection, swiftly followed by one of defeat as he lost control.

It had been an experience she could never have imagined. Rivers of sensation had tumbled through every electrified cell in her body, making her cry out again, but this time in ecstasy from the earth-shattering strength of her climax.

He’d waited until she’d slumped back against the pillows, gasping and spent, before rolling away from her with the swiftness of the mistral that blew down from the mountains in winter, and to Riva it had seemed just as chillingly.

‘What the devil was all that about?’

Riva recoiled from the white-hot emotion running through his burning question.

‘You lied to me! Why the hell did you think you could get away with lying to me?’

He was angry. She couldn’t understand how he could be so angry. Not if he loved her! He should have been pleased, flattered …

‘I—I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Reduced by the experience of a lifetime and then his frightening anger, she let slip the charade of sophistication that had resulted in her winding up in bed with him.

‘You didn’t think I’d mind!’ On his feet now, he swung away from the bed, slapping his forehead as he did so. ‘My dear, reckless girl. Mamma mia! Did you even think?’

Shamed by his unexpected reaction, and by how irresponsible he thought her, she covered her small breasts with the sheet and asked candidly, ‘Why is my virginity so anathema to you?’ And, in view of how gladly she had sacrificed it for him, she murmured, ‘Shouldn’t you be glad?’

‘No, I darn well shouldn’t! What did you imagine I would say? “Grazie, signorina? That was very generous of you"?’

‘Stop it!’ She couldn’t bear it! Not his mood, nor his angry words, let alone the meaning behind them. He was reducing what they had just done to nothing. No—worse than that—to something sordid, making her feel no better than a whore.

‘And what if I’ve made you pregnant? Had you thought of that?’

Yes, she had, she remembered thinking, but only fleetingly, caught up in too many other emotions—desire, passion, embarrassment, the fear of rejection.

‘Do you really think I will have any sympathy with you if you come crying to me in a few weeks saying you’re going to have my baby?’

Numbed by the significance of what those last words could only mean—that he didn’t love her—Riva couldn’t believe he could hurt her any more until, with eyes narrowing into cold, speculative slits, he added, ‘Or was that all part of the plan?’

Pain and bewilderment crumpled her forehead. ‘What?’ She couldn’t even follow what he was saying. ‘What plan?’

‘Is that why you lied to me about being on the pill?’ His features were growing harder with every syllable. ‘Were you hoping to snare me in the same way your mother has snared poor, unsuspecting Marcello? Was the magnanimous gift of your virginity just one more clever ploy to try and feather your own nest? The older woman takes on the uncle, while the younger little siren makes a bid for the even wealthier deluded nephew!’

Even now Riva winced from the spearing cruelty of his words. He had been using her, although she hadn’t realised it then, but he hadn’t been able to swallow the knowledge that he might possibly have been a victim of the same treatment—which he certainly hadn’t been.

‘No!’ she’d flung back, rejecting every cruel sentence he’d seemed to think it was his right to throw at her. ‘And anyway, I am on the pill!’ She couldn’t bear him knowing she had been such a fool—not after his cold and lacerating accusations. ‘And my mother hasn’t snared Marcello. How you can say that?’

Ignoring her wounded question, he said only, ‘You were a virgin.’

She gave a miserable little shrug. ‘So? I knew I was coming to Italy.’ Wretchedly she went on, compounding the lies and worsening the situation for herself in an attempt to prevent him thinking that she was reckless and foolish, and most of all that she might possibly be in love with him. ‘Every girl has to start somewhere.’

‘So you chose me to initiate you?’ He began pulling on his clothes, his body fit and tanned and agile. ‘I’m flattered!’ His voice, his face and the hard purpose of his actions assured her he was anything but.

‘Why not?’ She was near to tears but dared not show it, although her voice was so close to trembling that she didn’t risk saying any more.

‘Well, I sincerely hope I didn’t disappoint you! Unless those cries of pleasure to which you treated me were as fake as you are!’ He left her then, with his shirt flying open, his angry exit punctuated by the thunderous closing of the door.

A couple of days later her mother came crying to her because Marcello had broken off the engagement. Damiano, it seemed, had had both women investigated, and had convinced his uncle of their unsuitability to marry into the D’Amico family. He had found out about Riva’s father, Chelsea’s protest marches, her jobs in downmarket pubs and restaurants. Her emotional breakdowns. The flat she had once vacated, dragging a sleepy six-year-old with her in the night, in a hurry, and without paying the rent.

Though she’d never actually disclosed any of this, Riva realised that it was the innocent seeds she had sown in his mind during their long conversations which had nurtured the suspicions he’d already had about them both, and led him to discover all the things that her mother—that both of them—had tried to cover up, or rather wanted to forget.

Riva confronted him about it, shaking with anger and wounded pride, and it was then that he took great satisfaction from calling her a liar. After all, she was, she thought, unable to defend herself. The way she had behaved with him, pretending to be sophisticated, experienced, not letting on about her true background, her upbringing.

‘You’ll excuse me if I’m not too distressed by not seeing the name of my family dragged down by the likes of you and your mother, carissima.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.