night before, the little bristles of dangerous pleasure that had travelled down her spine to warm secret places, making her breasts ache and her knees tremble. Colour washed her cheeks, a hunger she couldn’t deny stirring like a threatening storm.
‘Are you ready to leave?’ Danilo prompted impatiently.
Topsy spun back to the older man and walked out of the door. Unfortunately the heat of the summer sun did nothing to cool her overheated skin.
The limo had barely driven off when Dante crossed the wide hall, inclining his arrogant dark head in acknowledgement of the younger man waiting by the car that had just drawn up outside. He had decided to have Topsy followed. He wanted to know who she was meeting in Florence and why she had been shaken by the invitation. The more he learned about her, the closer he might come to working out what was going on at the castle. Everybody around him was acting weird, he thought impatiently. His mother was lying about on a chaise longue like some fragile Victorian lady suffering from a decline, while Vittore was whistling under his breath and whispering in dark corners with the hired help.
* * *
Topsy’s brother-in-law looked grim when he greeted her at the door of his hotel suite. A waiter was already setting out food from a heated trolley and hovering. With a flick of an imperious hand, Mikhail dismissed him and urged Topsy to sit down.
‘So, what’s going on? What are you up to?’ he asked Topsy baldly before she even got her bottom onto a seat.
‘That’s my business,’ Topsy replied quietly as she tucked into her starter.
‘If it threatens Kat’s peace of mind, it’s mine,’ Mikhail overruled without hesitation. ‘She’s pregnant again, by the way.’
That announcement took Topsy by surprise because her sister suffered from fertility problems and having had IVF to conceive her twins had tried it again but, sadly, without success. ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s wonderful news!’ she exclaimed, knowing how much her eldest sister had longed for another child. ‘But...er...how?’
‘It happened naturally this time but you can understand why I won’t have her upset at the moment,’ he pointed out levelly. ‘It’s cards-on-the-table time, Topsy. If the draw at the castle is Dante Leonetti, you need to be aware of the kind of lifestyle he leads.’
‘Dante is not the draw and, yes, I do have a secret but it’s private and nothing to do with anyone else in the family, nor would it matter to them,’ Topsy proffered with conviction. ‘I’m almost twenty-four years old, Mikhail. Don’t expect me to explain everything I do.’
Her brother-in-law compressed his hard mouth. ‘I still remember you in your school uniform.’
‘And how many years ago is that?’ Topsy sighed. ‘I’m a big girl now.’
‘No, you’re physically tiny and still very naïve,’ Mikhail countered impatiently. ‘But don’t lay that at my door. Your sisters refuse to accept that baby has grown up.’
At that unexpected admission, which implied some understanding of her plight, Topsy relaxed a tiny bit. ‘I know. It’s ridiculous to get to my age and have to lie to lead my own life.’
Mikhail sat back into his chair. ‘Dante Leonetti?’ he queried with a raised brow. ‘How is he involved in this?’
‘He’s not. I don’t know why you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about him.’ But Topsy could feel her face burning, her eyes evading his direct look because she knew that she was insanely attracted to Dante.
‘He’s a player, Topsy. You couldn’t handle him,’ her brother-in-law told her in a tone of warning. ‘At one stage a couple of years ago he was famous in banking circles for keeping three mistresses. One in New York, one in Milan and one in Tokyo.’
Topsy was appalled. ‘Three? Seriously?’ she pressed, wide-eyed.
‘Seriously, he’s the equivalent of a suicide mission for a young woman from a sheltered background,’ Mikhail delivered.
‘Nothing’s going on, Mikhail,’ Topsy parried. ‘I have a summer job with Dante’s mother in a particularly beautiful part of the world. That’s virtually all there is to this.’
Dante had or had had three mistresses. That sleazy little fact rattled round and round in Topsy’s head throughout the drive back to the castle and left her feeling quite nauseous. What sort of a man went from one woman to another like that, treating them like interchangeable sexual utilities? And why did the X-rated imagery now assailing her overactive imagination actually wound and hurt? Why should it matter to her what he did in his bed? It wasn’t as though she were planning to have an affair with him. She couldn’t possibly be jealous of a man she barely knew. Yet neither could she doubt Mikhail’s veracity because Kat’s husband employed a highly trained investigative team. Through them, he had unparalleled access to background information about people he did business with and he was even more rigorous in checking out those who might offer a threat to members of his family.
* * *
While Topsy was lunching with Mikhail, Dante was entertaining an unexpected guest. Jerome St Charles, a member of the House of Lords and a widower, owned a house nearby where he often spent the summer with his adult children and their families. For a time, Dante had gone to school with Jerome’s son, James, and as neighbours of long standing the two families still occasionally socialised. Once, Dante had even cherished the vague hope that his mother might return Jerome’s obvious interest and admiration but nothing had come of it. Sad though it was in his view, his mother had remained impervious to male advances until Vittore came along.
‘I’m sorry to drop in on you without an invite. I would’ve phoned first but I didn’t know quite how to broach the subject,’ Jerome told him, a troubled look on his patrician face as he pushed an uneasy hand through his thick grey hair in a nervous gesture. ‘I’m afraid this is likely to be a rather embarrassing interview, but I’m fond of your mother and I felt I had to speak up and tell you what I know.’
Disconcerted as he was by that opening speech, Dante frowned at that reference to his parent and his light eyes narrowed with questioning intensity. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Jerome.’
‘It’s this...’ The older man settled a local newspaper down on the table beside the window.
Dante lifted it up and gazed down at a print photograph of his mother with Topsy standing in the background. The picture adorned an in-depth article about the charity to support women who had had miscarriages that his mother had started up about ten years earlier. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘That pretty brunette working for your mother—I’ve...er...met her before,’ Jerome divulged awkwardly. ‘In London. I spent an evening with her... I...er...paid for her time.’
His green eyes darkening and cooling by several degrees, Dante stared back at him in unconcealed disbelief. ‘Topsy? You paid for her time?’
Colour marking his cheekbones, the older man sighed. ‘It’s not quite as sordid as it sounds. She’s not—as far as I know—a prostitute, but when I spent time with her she was available for the right price as an escort. I took her out to dinner one evening. I enjoy young attractive female company now and again and very pleasant she was too,’ he acknowledged ruefully. ‘But what’s a girl like that doing working for your mother?’
‘Let
