An Enticing Debt to Pay

Except right now his hands shook with the force of his feelings. He swept the gilded room with a contemptuous glance and assured himself it was inevitable his father’s flashy love nest would evoke a reaction.

‘Well? I’m waiting.’

At her husky voice he turned to survey her.

Ravenna Ruggiero. He’d never have recognised her as the tear-stained girl he remembered. Then she’d been lanky with the coltishness of youth, her features still settling and her hair in ribbons, as if to remind him she was still a child. Only her mouth and her stunning eyes had hinted at beauty. And the low register of her voice that even then had unsettled him with its promise of sensuality to come.

It had come all right.

Silvia Ruggiero had been a stunning woman in her prime. But her daughter, even dressed in sombre, loose clothes, outshone her as a flawless diamond did a showy synthetic gem.

There was something about Ravenna. Not just a face that drew the eye as a magnet drew metal so he’d had to force himself not to stare. But an elegance, a grace, that contrasted with yet magnified the earthy sexuality of her voice, and that sassy attitude of hers...

The feel of her stretched up against him, her breasts almost grazing him as she panted her fury in defiance of his superior strength, had stirred something long dormant.

Suspended in a moment of sheer, heady excitement, he’d revelled in the proximity of her soft curves and lush mouth. There’d been a subversive pleasure in her combative attitude, in watching the sparks fly as she launched herself at him.

For the first time in his life Jonas, who preferred his pleasures planned, wondered about being on the receiving end of such unbridled passion. Not just her anger, but—

‘Did you hear me?’ Fingers clicked in the air before him, dragging his attention to her flushed face.

The colour suited her better, he realised, than the milky pallor he’d noticed earlier. Then he cursed himself for the stray thought.

‘You want to know what your mother’s been up to?’ It was easy to thrust aside his unsettling distraction and focus on familiar ire. ‘She’s stolen money. My money.’

He had the satisfaction of seeing Ravenna’s eyes widen.

It galled him that she’d had the temerity to defend Silvia when they both knew the truth about her mother. Like a magpie with an eye for a pretty, expensive bauble, she’d feathered her nest with his father’s wealth.

Jonas recalled the day he’d come home unexpectedly to Deveson Hall from London and found the housekeeper in his mother’s suite, in front of a mirror, holding an heirloom choker of sapphires and pearls to her throat. Instead of embarrassment at being caught out, she’d laughed and simply said no woman could have resisted the temptation if she’d found the necklace lying there. Without turning a hair she’d put it down on the dressing table and turned to plump the cushions on a nearby settee.

‘No.’ This time Ravenna’s low voice sounded scratchy as if with shock. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’

‘Wouldn’t she?’ He looked around the over-stuffed room, wondering how many of the pieces were what they appeared. Money had obviously been tight enough for his father to cash in the more valuable pieces.

‘Of course not.’ Ravenna’s certainty tugged his attention back to her. No longer flushed but pale and composed, she stared back with infuriating certainty.

‘Then how do you explain the fact she forged my father’s signature in a cheque book she shouldn’t even have had access to?’

‘Why blame my mother?’

‘No one else had access. Piers would have kept it safely by him, believe me.’ He let his gaze rove the room. ‘I’m sure if we search the apartment we’ll find it.’

‘There’ll be no searching the apartment. And even if it was here, what’s to say it wasn’t Piers’ signature? His handwriting could have changed when he got ill.’

Jonas shook his head. ‘That would have been convenient, wouldn’t it? But it won’t wash. Unless you can explain how he managed to cash a cheque the day after he died.’

Her eyes widened, growing huge in her taut face.

‘I don’t believe you.’ It was a whisper but even that was like a flame to gunpowder. How could she deny her mother’s wrongdoing even now?

‘I don’t care what you believe.’ It was a lie. Her blind faith in the gold-digging Silvia was like salt on a raw wound. Perhaps because he’d never known such loyalty from his own parents. Why should she lavish it on a woman so patently undeserving?

Piers had been an absentee parent, finding plenty of reasons to stay in the city rather than at the Hall. As for his mother—he supposed she’d loved him in her own abstracted way. But she’d been more focused on her personal disappointment in marrying a man who loved not her but the wealth she’d brought with her.

Jonas slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and withdrew the photocopied cheques.

‘Here.’ He held them out, daring her to take them. ‘I never lie.’ His father had been an expert at distorting the truth for his convenience. As a kid Jonas had vowed never to do the same.

He watched Ravenna swallow, the movement convulsive, then she reached out and took the papers. Her head bowed as she stared at them.

The sound of her breath hissing in told him he’d finally got through to her. There was no escaping the truth.

The papers moved as if in a strong breeze and he realised her hands were trembling.

In that instant guilt pierced his self-satisfaction. Belatedly it struck him that taking out his anger on Silvia’s daughter was beneath him.

His belly clenched as he reviewed their encounter. Even given his determination to make Silvia pay for her crime, he’d behaved crassly. He’d stalked in, making demands when a simple request for information would have done. Worse, he’d been too caught up in own emotional turmoil to spare a thought for the shock this would be for Ravenna.

‘Do you want to sit down?’ The words shot out like bullets, rapid and harsh with self-disgust.

She didn’t say anything, just stood, head bowed, staring at the papers in her shaking hands.

Hell! Was she in shock?

He leant towards her, trying to read her expression.

All he registered was the stiff set of her jaw and the scent of warm cinnamon and fragrant woman.

And the way she bit her bottom lip, pearly teeth sinking deep in that lush fullness.

Jonas breathed in slowly, telling himself the heat whirling in his belly was shame, not arousal.

The idea of being turned on so easily by any woman was anathema to a man who prided himself on his restraint. When she was the daughter of the woman who’d destroyed his mother... Unthinkable!

‘Ravenna?’ His voice sounded ridiculously hesitant, as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet.

She looked up, her eyes ablaze as they met his. Then her gaze shifted towards the window.

‘You’re mistaken.’ Her voice sounded wrong, he realised, tight and hard. ‘Silvia had nothing to do with this.’

‘Stop denying, Ravenna. It’s too late for that. I’ve got proof of her forgery.’

‘Proof of forgery, yes. But not Silvia’s.’ She shifted, standing taller.

Jonas shook his head, weary of the unexpected emotional edge to this interview. ‘Just tell me where she is and I’ll deal with her.’

Those warm sherry eyes lifted to his and he stilled as he saw how they’d glazed with emotion.