it with the right intentions—to help other people.’
Valente was intrigued rather than repulsed by that feisty attack. He was also surprised to discover that the thought of teaching her how to do sexy and deviant in the bedroom had a tremendous appeal that had nothing at all to do with revenge, punishment or good business.
‘To help other people?’ he traded sardonically, unimpressed. ‘Why do you always play the victim? You came here tonight because you were set on saving your own little carcass from the threat of homelessness and poverty, because you would very much enjoy the status and luxury of being my wife, and because, much as you want to deny it with your martyr act, you want a good excuse to get into my bed.’
‘That’s absolutely a lie!’ Caroline snapped shrilly, taking a jerky, uncertain step forward—before crumpling down in a heap on to the carpet like a wind-up doll whose battery had suddenly gone flat.
For an instant Valente thought she was staging a bogus faint, like in the final shot of a melodrama, and he groaned out loud. But something about the stillness of her small shape drew him closer to examine her. He crouched down beside her inanimate body and tried to rouse her again. She had not tripped or struck her head, But when she failed to show any sign of life other than continuing to breathe, grudging concern coloured his cynicism. He rang Reception and asked for a doctor to be called. Offered first aid assistance, he gave a negative answer. If, as he suspected, alcohol was the cause of her collapse, the fewer people who knew about it the better. He picked her up, only to be troubled by how little her slight body weighed, and carried her into the bedroom. He studied her stillness, wondering if he should have called an ambulance instead, or even if he should just be bundling her into his limo to head to the local A&E himself.
The smudged mascara couldn’t hide the purple shadows below her eyes that accentuated her pallor, or the reality that, with the exception of breast and hip, she was exceedingly thin. It was barely five minutes before a doctor arrived at the door; by chance, the older man had been checking in at Reception when Valente had called down and, having overheard the conversation, had offered his services.
Dr Seaborne took one frowning look at his diminutive patient and asked what age she was. Valente was outraged at having to rifle through Caroline’s bag to provide proof of her age on her driving licence before the man was satisfied that he was not some predator with a preference for underage girls. In the midst of that interrogation her mobile phone began ringing. Valente switched it off.
Deeply unimpressed by his inebriated patient, the doctor checked Caroline over as best as he could, and said that he saw no point seeking further medical help simply because she had passed out.
Although severely ruffled by the treatment he had received for the sin of harbouring a very youthful-looking drunk in his hotel suite, Valente knew he could not possibly have her delivered home unconscious without being forced to make the sort of explanation he had no intention of making to her parents. Furious with her for landing him into such an untenable situation, he stripped off her dress and slotted her into the bed—but not before wincing at her unexciting white underwear topped by the sin of tights rather than the tantalising appeal of stockings...
Caroline had to break through layers of discomfort to battle into full wakefulness. Her head ached, her mouth was dry as a bone and her stomach felt distinctly sensitive. Pulling herself up against the pillows with a moan of self-pity, she opened her eyes on a totally unfamiliar room.
In a panic, she lurched out of bed, blinking in dismay as her head swam just a little—and she recoiled in horror when the bedroom door opened wider to frame Valente.
‘I heard you get up. I’ll order breakfast for you.’
In the act of trying to wrap herself in the duvet in a hurry, her face hot enough to fry eggs on, Caroline reeled back against the bed for support. ‘No, thanks,’ she said weakly, appalled to acknowledge that she had failed to go home the night before and that she remembered next to nothing about their meeting after being ill.
Exotically, wildly handsome, and extremely well-groomed in his black designer-cut suit and cerise silk shirt, Valente leant back against the doorjamb like a model straight out of a glossy magazine. ‘Eat. It’ll make you feel better, and possibly a couple of painkillers would help too.’
‘Why didn’t you take me home?’ Caroline gasped, looking anywhere but at him. And in the midst of that evasive activity she finally noticed that the pillow beside hers bore the imprint of a head. ‘My goodness … no—we slept together?’
‘The sofa was too small for me.’
Caroline settled aghast grey eyes on him. ‘Did we …? I mean …?’
Valente gave her a slicing look of derision. ‘Do I look so desperate for sex that I would make use of a comatose body?’
As he had no doubt intended, Caroline shrank again, and hugged the duvet all the tighter to her shivering figure. ‘So we didn’t, then. That’s good,’ she managed to say.
‘Quite.’ A slanting ebony brow lifted. ‘But don’t ever drink like that again.’
‘I won’t,’ she said tightly. ‘It was a hideous mistake, and I learn from my mistakes.’
‘Some men would have taken advantage of you in that condition. You were in no state to look after yourself and that’s dangerous,’ he framed harshly.
‘Right … okay … message more than received,’ Caroline countered, squirming with shame. ‘If it’s all right with you I’m going to take a shower.’
Valente waved a helpful hand in the right direction. ‘Breakfast will be waiting when you’re ready.’
After stooping to pick up the silver-blue dress from the floor, Caroline wore the duvet into the bathroom. Only then did she wonder what time it was, and take on board the reality that she had stayed out all night. Her watch let her know it was only eight o’clock, and she knew her parents were unlikely to get home until lunchtime at the earliest since her Uncle Charles was an elderly bachelor and a most gracious host. Thanking her lucky stars for that reality, Caroline shed the concealment of the duvet and stepped into the shower.
What a disaster she had been in the seduction stakes! How could she have been so foolish as to drink so much? If anything she had damaged her own cause irreparably, because now Valente was disgusted with her. So, once more, the virtue she no longer wanted had been conserved. A shiver of regret ran through her at the thought of how unattractive her behaviour must have been. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to be attractive to Valente, she reasoned doggedly, only that that supposed attraction appeared to be the only bargaining chip she had.
Putting on the previous night’s clothes was not a pleasurable exercise either. She did the best she could with her hair, but the mirror warned her that too much alcohol had given her a pale, puffy face that looked both plain and tired. She reluctantly joined Valente in the dining annexe off the drawing room. He handed her painkillers and a glass of water first, and she took them without comment because she still felt awful. A large selection of food was on offer, and she nibbled modestly at a few items in the vague hope of settling her stomach. While she ate, and he drank copious amounts of black coffee, Valente described the doctor’s concerns of the evening before, and before very long she wanted once again to sink through the floor in shame.
‘Your phone was ringing last night. I switched it off,’ he told her finally.
Caroline hadn’t even checked her phone, and she fished it out of
