The righteous fire had left her eyes—stunning eyes, he noted with a stab of surprise—and she was now looking downtrodden and dejected.
Smothering a huff of impatience, he wheeled away. He had no reason to feel sorry for her. She was more than capable of standing up for herself. He’d been on the receiving end of more lectures in the short time she’d been working for him than he’d had to endure during the whole of his thirty-one years!
Pouring wine into the unused glass—clearly part of the kiss and make up scenario Trisha had had in mind—he handed it to her and said with a gentleness that further surprised him, ‘Don’t tell me that alcohol never passes your lips, Howard. It will help you recover from the unpleasant scene I forced you to witness.’
Stung, her fingers closed around the stem of the glass. What did he think she was? Some kind of hopelessly pious prude? Just because her father had been a man of the cloth!
‘I do take the occasional drink, signor.’ A barefaced lie. She had never been able to afford the stuff. ‘And I don’t wear a hair shirt, either!’
‘Touché!’ Andreo’s sensual mouth quirked as he watched her drain the glass in two reckless gulps. ‘And to put the record straight, I never had any intention of marrying Trisha Lomax—or tying myself down to any woman, come to that. She knew it. She knew exactly what to expect, I promise you. While the affair lasted—and it turned out to be of short duration—she would enjoy my complete fidelity, and when it was over there would be no hard feelings and a handsome gift as a token of my regard and respect.’
Wondering if she had the remotest idea of how these things worked, and further wondering why he should care, Andreo sat beside her on the press, prising the empty glass from her fingers and setting it on the floor, informing her drily, ‘Such arrangements aren’t unheard of.’
Mercy’s head was swimming. This close to him she felt light-headed, hot and bothered all over. ‘It sounds immoral to me,’ she muttered. Her mouth felt numb and peculiar. She really should have fought the nervous tension that had led her to swallow all that wine like that. ‘Have you thought that the poor woman might have fallen in love with you?’ As any woman with eyes to see and a spark of life left in her body would.
Dio mio! Give me patience! Andreo stemmed the impulse to tell her not to talk such juvenile rubbish. For the time being he needed her on side. ‘A woman whose feelings were deeply engaged would have returned the suite of diamonds—the parting gift, remember?’ he enforced through gritted teeth. ‘Neither would she have hung on to the numerous costly trinkets she batted her eyes at during our time together. The only thing Trisha Lomax loved, apart from herself, was the size of my bank account, which goes a long way to explaining why she was misguided enough to believe she could change my mind about marriage.’
About to inform him that that was a highly selfish and jaundiced view, Mercy fell silent when he went on to tell her without a hint of self-pity, ‘Since I reached my late teens women have been throwing themselves at me. As a testosterone-fired young man I thought I was in heaven until my grandfather, the wisest man I have ever known, warned me. The hearts that beat within those delightful breasts are full of avarice, he advised—from experience—pointing out that the size of the Pascali family fortune was well known. Enjoy the lovely creatures by all means, but never commit, he said to me. Marry when the need for an heir becomes paramount but choose a bride with wealth of her own, even if she has a face like a dustbin—glamorous mistresses are ten a penny.’
‘I’ve shocked you,’ Andreo commiserated, misconstruing his housekeeper’s appalled expression. Springing to his feet, he paced across the room to refill her wineglass. ‘But I wanted you to know where I’m coming from and to stop you accusing me of breaking that woman’s heart. The only difference between her and the rest is that she didn’t stick by the rules. She decided she could persuade me to marry her. As if!’
His brow suddenly clenching, Andreo vented an impatient sigh. He never explained himself, as he’d reminded himself once before this evening. So why break the habit of a lifetime now? Howard was his housekeeper, hired to iron his socks—or whatever was done to them—not to be privy to his lifestyle.
Handing her the glass, his brow cleared. Those amazingly big blue eyes were drenched with sympathy—maybe something could be done about them—mud-coloured contact lenses, perhaps?
Lowering himself beside her, he congratulated himself that at last she was on side. After what he’d told her she would be seeing through whatever sob story Trisha had come out with. No more righteous and misguided accusations of cruelty to make her prim her mouth and categorically refuse to do as he wanted.
Her heart swelling with pity and something else entirely as the devastating Italian again joined her on the press, Mercy stared at the glass in her hands. She hadn’t asked for it and didn’t want it—already her head was feeling peculiar. But she felt so achingly sorry for him she just couldn’t bring herself to thrust it back at him. Poor, poor thing!
He was so gorgeous, so vital, how could he believe no woman could love him for himself and not his bank balance? She could throttle his cynical old grandfather for planting the idea in his head! He must feel so lonely!
‘Howard…’
‘Yes, sir?’ Mercy glanced up at his low-pitched murmur then hurriedly transferred her gaze back to the glass she was holding. His eyes were a gleam of pure silver beneath the heavy dark fringe of his lashes and the long line of his mouth had softened with outrageous sensuality. Like a man looking at an object of desire.
Her cheeks blossoming with wild colour, she berated herself for thinking like a lunatic and buried her nose in her glass for something to do with herself just as he said, ‘Cut out the ‘‘sirs’’. We’re friends, right?’
He’d angled himself so that he was looking directly at her and here, in the intimacy of his bedroom, with him so close, close enough to smell the faint lemony drift of his aftershave, feel his body heat, it made her insides curl up with tension, her breath come in strange little gasps, her entire body tingle in a way she had never experienced before.
‘Er—right,’ she gulped strainedly and frantically tried to pull herself together. ‘Friends’ was okay. Normal, really. And with his track record he’d be used to looking at a woman—any woman from one-year-old to a hundred—that way. Just a habit. She was busy blaming her silliness on her unaccustomed intake of alcohol until he said, his dark velvet voice liberally smeared with honey, ‘I have a proposition to put to you.’
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