he let go of her hand and said softly, ‘So. This is why you want to stay.’
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. ‘Yes. Partly.’
She looked up at him hesitantly. She never talked to anyone about her real work. Most people on the island simply assumed that she was Umberto’s muse, and it was true—she had often posed for Umberto. But she’d only modelled for him as a favour. Her real passion, ever since she was a little girl, was flowers, although not many people took her seriously when she told them—probably because they were too busy pointing out the fact that her name was Flora and she liked flowers: a joke which had stopped being funny years ago.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m actually writing a thesis on orchids. The island’s home to some very rare species. That’s why I came here in the first place.’ Feeling suddenly a little shy, she gave him a small tight smile. ‘I didn’t even know about the palazzo or Umberto before I arrived. I just bumped into him in a café in Cagliari.’
Massimo studied her assessingly. She made it sound so innocent, so unplanned. As though her relationship with Bassani had been a matter of chance. His face hardened. Yet here she was with her name on the tenancy agreement. He gritted his teeth. However she spun the story, he knew she had been looking for some sort of sugar daddy, and in Sardinia there was only one man who fitted the bill.
A muscle flickered in his jaw. Women like Flora Golding did their homework. Nothing was left to chance. Because if their efforts succeeded then, like his stepmother Alida, they need never work again—although spending his father’s money had pretty much been a full-time job for her. His body stilled as he allowed himself a brief memory of his stepmother’s icy disdain, and then he gazed coolly at Flora.
No doubt she’d found out where Bassani had liked to drink and set the whole thing up. He could well imagine the older man’s greedy excitement on discovering this beautiful young girl sipping cappuccino in some shabby little bar. And then all she’d had to do was pose for him. Naked. At the thought of Flora slipping out of her faded sundress, her eyes dark and shiny with triumph, he felt almost giddy with envy and lust.
For a moment he lost all sense of time and place, and then he breathed out slowly. ‘How fortuitous,’ he said smoothly. ‘To find your own blank canvas here at this palazzo—the very place you have chosen to make your home.’
He stared broodingly across the garden, blind to its beauty. He should have been satisfied by this final proof that she was as disingenuous and manipulative as he’d suspected, but beneath the satisfaction was an odd sense of disappointment, of betrayal. And of anger with himself for responding to her obvious physical charms.
His jaw tightened. But wasn’t it always so with women? Especially women like Flora Golding, who had duplicitous charms ingrained in them from an early age. Flora. It was a name that seemed to suggest a honeyed sweetness and an unsullied purity. And yet it tasted bitter on his tongue.
His gaze sharpened as she looked up at him, her light brown eyebrows arching in puzzlement at the shift in his voice. ‘I do love the gardens, but it’s more of a hobby than anything else. My real work is my dissertation and if I’m going to finish my thesis I need peace and quiet. And that’s what I get living here.’
Massimo smiled. Her tone was conversational, her words unremarkable, but she had unwittingly given him the means to her end.
They had reached the front of the palazzo. Abruptly he turned to face her. ‘It’s been an enlightening visit, Miss Golding. Don’t worry—we won’t be contacting you anymore. And there certainly won’t be any more financial incentives. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you’re not motivated by money, and I respect that.’
Flora blinked in the sunlight. Even though the day was now suffocatingly hot, she felt a chill run down her spine. His voice sounded different again—almost like a sneer or a taunt. But nothing had changed. Maybe it was just the heat playing with her senses...
‘Good,’ she said quickly, trying to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach. ‘I’m just sorry you had to make a personal trip to understand how I feel.’
He stepped forward, and she felt a spurt of shock and fear for this time there could be no confusion. His face was cold and set.
‘Don’t be. I always like to meet my enemies face to face. It makes closing a deal on my terms so much easier.’
It took a moment for the implication of his words to sink in. ‘Wh-what deal?’ she stammered. The word echoed ominously inside her head. ‘There is no deal,’ she said hoarsely. ‘You said so. You said you wouldn’t be contacting me or offering me money again.’
He smiled coolly, a contemplative gleam in his blue eyes. ‘I won’t. You won’t be getting a penny of my money. Not now. Not ever.’
She stared at him, chilled by the undisguised hostility of his gaze. ‘I don’t understand...’ she began, but her words died in her throat as he shook his head.
‘No. I don’t suppose you do. So let me make it clear for you. Like I said earlier, cara, I always get what I want.’ His face seemed to be no longer made of flesh and blood, but cold stone. ‘And I want you out of here. Normally I’d pay, but as money’s not an option I’m going to have to use some other method to get what I want. But believe me I will get it. And by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be begging to sign any contract I put in front of you for free.’
She stared at him, her heart pounding against her ribs. ‘What do you mean?’ But already he had begun walking down the drive. ‘Y-you’re wrong! Y-you can’t do anything!’ she called after him. ‘This is my home!’
She was panting, stuttering, her anger vying with her fear. He was bluffing. He had to be. There was nothing he could do.
But as she watched the helicopter rise up into the sky and slowly disappear from view she knew that it was she who was mistaken. She had thought he had come to the palazzo simply to broker a deal. And maybe it had started out that way. But that had been before she threw his deal back in his face. She felt a rush of nausea. Now there would be no more deals, for his parting words had been a declaration of war. And she knew with absolute certainty that when Massimo Sforza came back next time he would be bringing an army.
ROLLING OVER IN her large wrought-iron bed, Flora stared miserably out of the window at the cloudless sky. She’d slept badly again. Her night had been filled by images of Massimo Sforza, his eyes darker than his bespoke navy blue suit, beckoning her towards him only for the floor to open up beneath her feet.
Her cheeks grew warm, and she shifted uncomfortably beneath the bedclothes. The nightmares had been horrible, but the dreams were far more unsettling. Dreams of a naked Massimo, his lean, muscular body pressed against hers, those long, supple fingers drifting lazily over her skin and—
And what? Irritably, she sat up. He’d probably take the bed, with her still in it, and push it out to sea—and frankly she’d deserve it.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled on a faded black T-shirt and a pair of sawn-off jeans and stomped downstairs. Holding her breath, she forced herself to look at the letter cage hanging on the back of the door, but there was no heart-stopping white envelope to greet her, and she breathed out slowly.
It had been three weeks since Massimo had turned up at the palazzo, but still she sensed his
