in his own habits and tastes away from home, had insisted that his wife wore plain clothes in the style his mother wore: skirts and sweaters, stiff formal dresses. She yanked out a cream brocade long-sleeved dress and jacket she had once worn to a wedding and went for a shower.
Matthew, she recognised for the first time, had been a bully, who had sapped her of energy and fight by continually undermining her. Her in-laws had blamed her for his constant absences, often suggesting that a child would have kept him home more. Caroline rather thought that a child would have made Matthew, who had been so determined not to grow up, run for the hills. Her marriage had been a blame game in which she’d been held responsible for everyone else’s sins and disappointments. And she would never know whether Matthew would have remained faithful if she had not been frigid in bed. Frigid. Such an awful, inappropriate word, Caroline reflected while she dried her hair and straightened it. It didn’t seem to her that that word came anywhere near describing the awful squirming panic and fear that consumed her at the threat of sex. She shivered, thinking again that it was so very typical of Valente to want what he could not have.
With a modicum of make-up applied, Caroline slid her feet into low-heeled cream shoes and went down to climb into the waiting limousine. Before she left her mother called her into the sitting room to say, ‘I’ll understand if you’re very late, but if you’ll take my advice you’ll be very restrained in your behaviour.’
Caroline almost laughed out loud with a scorn that was new to her. Here was her manipulative mother, telling her with the utmost hypocrisy that it was all right to sleep with Valente but that she believed saying no would keep him more safely hooked. But now it was her father whom Caroline was most concerned about, as he had none of her mother’s steel. If Hales shut down he would take it hard, because he would blame himself for the predicament of his former employees. What would that stress and sense of responsibility do to his heart? Caroline had to confront the risk that her father might die before he underwent the surgery that would prolong his life, and that awareness shook her up badly.
Valente watched Caroline cross the dining room to join him. Her outfit, a good deal less daring than the dress she had worn the night before, was fashioned of heavy brocade, covering her to wrist, throat and knee, and was as shapeless as a tube, barely hinting that there might be a female body beneath. Her hair, however, lay like a glossy cloud on her shoulders and framed her exquisite face. He met her huge grey eyes across the floor and recognised that she was as on edge as a condemned prisoner being herded to the gallows. It was an image that both disturbed and offended a man accustomed to female admiration and desire.
Caroline recognised the dark glow of appreciation in Valente’s intent gaze. It intimidated her, unnerved her, only reminding her of her own inability to respond. She was all covered up, nothing on show, but her modest apparel had failed to snuff out his interest.
‘That dress is so horrible I just want to rip it off you,’ Valente confided while Caroline was attempting to peruse the menu handed to her.
Caroline paled and lifted eyes that were so frankly fearful to his lean, darkly handsome face that he was pushed into adding, ‘That was a joke … okay? A joke with a sting, piccola mia. I look forward to seeing you dressed in designer clothes that fit you properly.’
‘I’ve lost weight since Matthew died … hardly anything I have fits,’ she confided, some of her tension easing at that explanation even while the frightening image of having her clothes ripped off struck her as ridiculous and finally faded from her mind.
He scored a lean forefinger over the back of her clenched hand, where it rested on the polished wood of the table. She trembled, feeling the tingling effect of his light touch the whole length of her arm. ‘Try to relax. You’re making me nervous.’
‘I didn’t think that was possible.’
‘With you, anything is possible,’ Valente riposted. ‘Are you worried about your father?’
Caroline grimaced. ‘Of course I am. He needs surgery urgently.’
‘But he is being treated by a state hospital, where there is probably a waiting list for such operations, and he will need to build up his strength before he can have one,’ Valente reminded her, for he had been present when her mother had spoken to the consultant the day before. ‘I could pay for that surgery privately, and your father could have it as soon as he was ready.’
Sheer surprise made Caroline blink, before focusing intently on his bronzed features and the stunning golden eyes fixed to her. ‘I can’t believe you’re offering me something like that—’
‘Why not? Whatever it takes, I want you back in my life.’
Her smooth brow indented, for he was so far removed from her in his way of thinking that she was appalled. ‘But you can’t bargain with people’s lives, Valente. Nobody should do that.’
Valente lounged back in his chair, black-lashed eyes reduced to a daunting sliver of hot gold resolve and challenge. ‘Whatever it takes,’ he repeated silkily, stubbornly unrepentant.
And that was the moment Caroline realised that he had made her an offer she could not in all conscience refuse …
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU’VE won,’ Caroline conceded in a driven admission. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep my father alive.’
‘That’s admirable, gioia mia. I admire loyalty,’ Valente countered smoothly. ‘That only leaves the terms to be discussed.’
Caroline wanted to empty the water jug over him, because he made no attempt to hide his strong satisfaction. Winning meant a great deal to Valente Lorenzatto, and he scared her because his ruthlessness appeared to respect no boundaries. By ‘terms’, he meant mistress or wife. He was driving her in a direction she did not want to go. For her own safety, she needed an arrangement which could not be set aside in the space of a moment. A mistress was too easily discarded—and she was convinced that he would quickly want to discard her, cutting her out of his life as quickly as he had come back into hers.
Valente wanted and expected only pleasure from her sex. In the past, women had fawned over him for his dark, sexy good-looks and potent personality. Sixth sense had warned her even then that he had enjoyed many conquests. Now, with the addition of wealth and position, Valente had to be downright irresistible to her sex. After all, even she was not totally impervious to his magnetic attraction. Although coping with a few gentle kisses was a far different challenge from sharing a bed and the ultimate intimacy with him, she acknowledged apprehensively.
The first course was served. Held by the dark shrewd gleam of Valente’s unyielding gaze, Caroline pushed the plate away.
‘Eat,’ he urged immediately, reaching across the table to push the plate back towards her again. ‘You’re as thin as a cardboard cut-out.’
Her face flamed. ‘I’m naturally thin.’
‘When I lifted you last night, you felt as light as a child in my arms.’
‘Your concern is nonsensical. I’m quite happy with myself the way I am,’ Caroline told him tartly, wondering if his tastes in women ran in the same direction as her late husband’s. She shuddered at the recollection of Matthew’s cruelly cutting comments about her boyish lack of curves.
‘If you’re planning to demand that I marry you, you’ll need to be a healthy weight to conceive,’ Valente pointed out coolly.
