met him, making wild accusations against him and forming even wilder assumptions, saying he would only use and abuse her, insisting that he was only interested in marrying her because she stood to inherit Hales. A good part of their melodramatic reaction had been based on Valente’s deprived background and lack of money, and Caroline had almost come to hate her parents for their arrogant prejudice.
Within weeks she had gone from being a devoted daughter to a deeply unhappy rebel, defying their demand that she give up Valente. But Matt had proved equally opposed to the relationship, and as he’d been a close friend his opinion had naturally influenced her.
‘You don’t have anything in common with him. He’s not one of us,’ Matt had argued loftily. ‘You’ve never gone without anything you wanted. How could you possibly cope with the life you would have with him? And don’t you owe your parents more than this? It’s not unreasonable for them to want their only child to stay in the UK and marry an Englishman, willing to treat them with the respect and consideration they deserve!’
Gnawing guilt had taken the edge off her every moment with Valente, and then her feelings had swung violently against her parents when Hales had stopped giving work to Valente. She’d had no doubt that he was being deliberately excluded. He’d had to find other loads and runs to continue making a living and coming to the UK. That had been when she’d agreed to be his wife, outraged by the unjust treatment he had suffered at her family’s hands.
Tearing herself free of those disturbing memories, and shrinking from an awareness of her immaturity and over-reliance on the opinions of others, Caroline studied her reflection in the mirror afresh and took another slug of vodka for good measure. She could be strong again. She could change everything around if she could just manage to share a bed with Valente for one night. Could that be so difficult? Once she had been madly in love with Valente. He was gorgeous. And surely he was so sexually experienced that he would soothe her nerves and help her to relax with him?
Downstairs the doorbell buzzed and she checked her watch. It was the taxi she had ordered. She descended the stairs, still feeling horribly sober and nervous, and wondered in dismay when the kick of the alcohol would hit and hopefully give her the backbone she lacked.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHILE a business report was being summarised for his benefit by a member of his personal team Valente checked his watch, his dark, reflective gaze continually straying to the entrance door to his hotel suite. The growing pressure at his groin increased in concert. Would Caroline dare to put in an appearance?
His wide, sensual mouth hardened into a sardonic line. He had set her a trap and he was keen to see if she would fall into it and drown. After all, if she was willing to respond to so demeaning a sexual summons, it pretty much proved that there was nothing she would not do to get her hands on his wealth. And if there was one field in which Valente Lorenzatto excelled, it was in his ability to spot women so greedy that they would mortgage their souls to the devil for money.
Caroline, however, existed on an altogether more devious plane, and Valente had discovered that fact too late. Five years earlier he’d had complete faith in her. Indeed, her apparent vulnerability and innocence had charmed him, and that awareness still rankled. Right up until that day in the church it had never occurred to Valente that she might be a clever, deceitful fake—the kind of woman who would calculatingly pit one man against another to achieve her own ends. And the exercise had worked very well for her. Bailey, who’d had a womanising reputation, had got jealous and soon afterwards decided to marry her. Valente had learned the truth about Caroline the hard way, and this time around he was determined not to be influenced by crocodile tears or sad tales about her devoted parents.
Caroline got giggly in the hotel lift, and when she closed her eyes the world around her seemed to revolve. She so rarely touched alcohol—and never in quantity—that she was unsure whether she was mildly tipsy or guilty of having seriously overdone it. In addition, instead of discovering a new strain of confidence and sparkling sexiness, she felt nervous, abstracted and dizzy.
The door of the suite was opened not by Valente, as she had expected, but by one of his staff. She walked with care in the high heels she wore. Valente’s veiled dark eyes locked on to her, taking in the unbound tumble of her silvery blonde hair, lingering on the raspberry-tinted pout of her full mouth before skimming down to the swell of her breasts framed by the low neckline and the long silky length of leg revealed by the short skirt.
She took Valente’s breath away: she was all woman, in a way he had never seen her before. Gone was the girlie-girl with the demure look he remembered, and gone was the stressed-out frumpy widow he had met that morning. From her shiny fall of pale hair to her huge misty grey eyes and the perfectly packaged little body below, she looked spectacular. The pressure at his groin became an aggressive throb of arousal. She had virtually nosedived into the trap he had set. He had not bargained on the discovery that he might fall into the same trap with her … for the desire to send her back home was nowhere to be found.
As she settled herself with surprising clumsiness into an armchair across the room, and her dress slid up over her slender thighs to expose more of their perfection than he wanted to share with his companions, Valente quickly dismissed his staff.
‘Valente,’ she whispered as the door closed on their departure. On her inviting lips the syllables of his name ran together with the suggestion of a slur. In his grey striped shirt—he had discarded both jacket and tie—he had a vital male presence that made her heart race. A five o’clock shadow of dark stubble roughened his handsome jawline and his tousled black hair was beginning to form curls. Through the fine cotton shirt she could see more than a hint of the dark whorls of hair outlining his powerful pectoral muscles. Matthew had liked to wax, but Caroline had always liked a man to look like a man, and few met the demands of that role as easily as Valente did. His height, breadth and strength, not to mention his strikingly handsome features, gave him a uniquely masculine quality of raw potent sexiness. Her mouth ran dry.
‘I thought you wouldn’t come,’ he admitted with cruel candour.
Colour lining her cheekbones as she registered that he had been working, because he had really not expected her to meet his challenge, Caroline closed her hands together tightly. ‘Obviously you’re better at blackmail than you realise.’
‘But one always has a choice, cara mia,’ he reminded her lazily, watching her fingers dig into the back of her other hand and knowing she was drawing blood.
‘Perhaps I should have told you to go to hell,’ Caroline slung back, surprise at his attitude awakening her temper as well as a savaging sense of stupidity—because it seemed to her that he had only invited her as an exercise in humiliation.
‘But you didn’t,’ Valente drawled, noting that she was slurring her words again and wondering if it was possible that she could have been drinking heavily. When he had known her she had hardly touched alcohol.
‘It’s not too late! Is this some sort of a game you play? You tell me what you want and once it’s there you don’t want it any more?’ Caroline demanded shakily, because her brain was almost too befuddled to find the right words with which to fight her own corner.
Valente dealt her a wondering appraisal. ‘Haven’t you learned yet that that’s what men are like?’ he breathed. ‘Most of us find that what we can’t have is much more desirable.’
‘I think I should leave.’ Caroline reared upright in one driven movement, and in the same instant her stomach gave a violent lurch of nauseous response that made her skin break out in perspiration.
‘Porca miseria … no!’ Torn between
