Visconti's Forgotten Heir

‘Your family hated me.’

‘That was my family.’

‘Especially your father.’

His face took on the cast of an impregnable steel mask. ‘And with good cause, I think. In the end.’

She wanted to ask him why. What it was she had done to make him despise her so much. But he was still too cold, too distant and far too unapproachable. And anyway she was afraid of what hearing the truth might do to her.

‘How is he? Your father?’ she enquired tentatively.

‘My father’s dead.’

From the way he said it he might easily be implying that she had had something to do with it. Oh, no! She couldn’t have, surely? she thought, shuddering at the hard, cold emotion she saw in his eyes which seemed to be piercing her like shards of ice.

‘He’s dead,’ he reiterated. ‘As you would have known if you hadn’t been so tied up with making a name for yourself.’

‘Oh, I had a name, Andreas.’ It rushed back at her, hurtful and destructive. ‘And it wasn’t very complimentary. But I suppose you think I deserved what your grandmother called me?’

Her voice was low and controlled. She was determined not to let him see her trembling. And it wasn’t just the remembered pain of that time that was ripping through her memory banks and slashing at her now with such wounding cruelty, but the cold way she had just been informed that Giuseppe Visconti had died.

She wanted to ask Andreas what had happened but was even too cowardly to do that. Instead she dropped her head into her hands and groaned as a sudden vision flashed before her eyes.

It was of plate glass and fluorescent lighting where once there had been red and white chequered curtains and candlelit windows; an internet café where the little restaurant had been. She had found herself standing outside it once a couple of years ago, not even realising why, or what she was doing there. She only remembered that the experience had chilled her to the bone.

* * *

Watching her, Andreas frowned—and then reminded himself what a good actress she was.

‘I’m afraid I’m not really taken in by this display of crocodile tears,’ he said bluntly, but as she lifted her head and dragged her fingers down her face the dark smudges under her eyes and her pallor shocked him. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned.

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not. I think you’d better come with me.’ He was urging her up from her chair before she had time to think.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked weakly as he bundled her into a waiting lift in the lobby.

‘As I said, we have to talk,’ he said, setting the lift in motion.

* * *

Released now from the pressure of his hand at her elbow, but finding his whole persona too disturbing in such a confined space, Magenta stepped as far away from him as she could.

A faint smile touched the firm, masculine mouth, as though he knew exactly why she had done that.

‘And, as I said, what about?’ She could feel the blood returning to her face and was managing to gather her wits about her again. ‘There isn’t any other vacancy, is there? You just wanted me to stay behind so that you could taunt me with whatever it is you think I did to you in the past. So go ahead. Get it all out of your system!’

At least then she might know, once and for all, what it was all about.

Instead he merely laughed, and that soft, mirthless laugh seemed as controlled and calculated as everything else about him. Then, with a suddenness that had Magenta’s instincts leaping onto red alert, he reached out and caught one end of her scarf. Winding it carefully around his finger, he drew her gently into his dominating sphere.

‘Is this a fashion thing?’ He tugged lightly at the silk. ‘Or is its purpose merely to conceal the remnants of your current lover’s carnal appetite?’

‘How dare you?’ She made to push him away, only to find her hands trapped between his own and the warm hard wall of his chest.

‘Yes, I dare,’ he growled, and his head came down, stopping with his mouth just a breath from hers.

It was the unfathomable dark emotion she saw in his eyes as her trembling gaze wavered beneath his that seemed to rob the breath from her lungs—that and the thunderous hammering of his heart.

She wasn’t sure who made the next move, but suddenly their mouths were fused in a hungry and antagonistic passion, and her arms were sliding up around his neck as his stronger ones tightened around her, welding her to him.

She was nineteen again and she was laughing with him, her heart on fire, wild with a new sense of freedom and excitement. But he wasn’t laughing with her. She was laughing all by herself. And she was being weighed down with such a feeling of remorse and shame.

Fighting Andreas, she was surprised when he let her go—and so roughly that she almost stumbled back against the far wall of the lift.

Groaning, she put her hand to her mouth, stemming a new bout of nausea. She realised it wasn’t that devastating kiss that was responsible for her crushing feeling of self-disgust.

‘Forgive me for being under the impression that you wanted that as much as I did. Even when you were sleeping with another man you were never averse to my touch.’

Whether she deserved that or not, Magenta felt her hand itch to make contact with his dark, judgmental face.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he advised, breathing as erratically as she was.

She was grateful when the lift opened, and didn’t need Andreas’s prompting to step out.

‘Where are we?’ she demanded over her shoulder. Before he answered she realised that they were on the top floor of the building, where wide windows gave a breathtaking view of the bustling capital below.

‘You aren’t feeling well,’ Andreas commented as he moved past her and used a security key to open the door to an executive suite. ‘Whether from fatigue or simply—as your weight seems to suggest—because you aren’t eating enough, I didn’t welcome the thought of you passing out on me down there.’

‘Thanks,’ Magenta responded tartly, her breathing still irregular from the unexpected and disturbing scenario in the lift. Or had she expected it? The question raged through her consciousness with the disturbance of a ten-force gale. She only knew she had wanted it. Dear heaven, had she wanted it!

A low whistle passed through her lips as Andreas let her into a luxuriously decorated office. It was all there: the solid wood floor, an imposing mahogany desk that looked out over the city, the softest leather settees, luscious plants and huge windows to complete his commercial kingdom.

‘What did you do? Win the lottery or something?’ Vague as her memories were, Magenta couldn’t equate how the son of a humble restaurateur could have gone from a virtual dogsbody in his father’s restaurant to CEO of a chain of exclusive hotels.

‘You know I never leave anything to chance.’

Fat chance. His declaration brought those two words to the forefront of her mind. It seemed to be something she had said once in connection with his telling her what he intended to do with his life.

‘I think you should have a brandy,’ he advised, already on his way over to a cabinet on the far side of the room.

‘I never drink.’ If there were still facts missing from her life then that was one fact she had never allowed herself to forget. ‘I’ve seen what it can do to people.’

He nodded, knowing what had prompted her to say it. Her mother.

Magenta recalled how hard she had battled as a teenager against her mother’s addiction, which had been constantly fuelled by a string of broken relationships.

‘In that case I’ll send for some coffee.’ Andreas picked up the phone and ordered some to be brought up in that deep, authoritative voice of his. ‘Sit down,’ he invited.