Mistress Bought and Paid For

Cristiano angled his sleek dark head to one side and studied her with maddening cool. ‘Don’t you?’

Her tummy seemed to somersault, as if he had punched a panic button. For a crazy moment she worried that he knew her better than she knew herself, and she rushed to fill the silence. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I obtained some privileged information…’

She turned pale as milk. So he knew about the missing money. Of course he knew, an inner voice censured. She wanted to cringe, and a pronounced reluctance to look him in the face afflicted her.

Cristiano Andreotti took advantage of that moment of weakness and stepped past her. He knew her fortunes had been in a steady decline since their last meeting, but it was only now when he saw the shabby, sparsely furnished sitting room, that he appreciated how steep that descent had been. Nothing could more adequately illustrate the vast gulf between their lives, and the reality that she had only ever been a visitor in his world.

‘What happened to the window?’

‘It got broken,’ she mumbled.

‘Have you called a glazier?’

‘Not yet. It only happened late last night.’

His incisive gaze alighted on the crudely lettered and crumpled note on the mantelpiece and he reached for it. The stone was sitting on the hearth, and he guessed what had happened. A frown drew his sleek dark brows together for a split second. ‘You’ve been threatened? Have you reported this?’

In an abrupt movement she snatched the abusive note from his shapely brown fingers. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ she gasped, more mortified than ever.

‘The police should be told. The brute mentality behind that sort of intimidation is liable to get more physical. You cannot stay here alone—’

‘And where do you suggest I move to?’ she broke in tautly, deeper anxiety assailing her—for if anything the incident last night had made her even more reluctant to take advantage of her cousin’s offer of shelter. Gwenna, and her father and brother, lived in an isolated farmhouse, and she would not risk bringing trouble to their door.

‘I may be able to provide a solution,’ Cristiano murmured without the slightest change in his level of intonation.

Lydia realised that she was trembling. Looking away from him, she struggled for mastery over conflicting promptings of fear, bewilderment and discomfiture. In doing so, she registered for the first time since his arrival that she was standing in front of him wearing an old dressing gown and with messy hair. She almost died of chagrin.

‘Look, I need to get dressed…I’m not going to hang around arguing with you.’ What solution? she wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t let herself. She hadn’t even told him to get out. Didn’t she have any pride? How much lower could she sink?

Watching her climb the stairs, Cristiano caught a flash of a pale, slender silk-smooth thigh, and an instant shaft of heat travelled to his groin. He ground his even white teeth together. The sexual buzz in the atmosphere was sending his male hormones on a primal rampage. That ferocious attraction had been there from the first time he saw her. But he was convinced that once he slept with her, he would no longer want her. She was scared. If he offered her the money without further ado she would probably let him have her here and now. So what if it was sleazy? So what if he had never paid for the privilege of bedding a woman before? Dio mio, she wanted him too. Her eyes and her edginess around him were unmistakably revealing to a male of his experience. Yet she still seemed to be in denial of that truth—always backing off, primly avoiding visual contact. A guy with some class would wait and prolong the finale, he told himself grimly.

A gardening book lay open on the small dining table and he studied it with a questioning frown. Restive as a hungry panther on the prowl, he paced. It was a challenge, for the room was tiny, the hall non-existent and the kitchen not much larger. There, however, he came to a sudden halt, a black brow rising in astonishment. In defiance of the grim urban outlook, the small back yard had been transformed into a glorious green patio jungle of containerised flowers and foliage.

Employing his mobile phone, he told one of his staff to organise a glazier to replace the broken window. He said the job had to be done immediately.

Upstairs, Lydia darted into the bathroom and ran a brush violently through her tousled hair, while at the same time trying to clumsily clean her teeth. She was all fingers and thumbs as she shed her nightwear and yanked a pair of jeans and a vest top from a drawer. How could she be calm and controlled? Downstairs was the guy who had won her trust and made her love him. Downstairs was the smooth, slick operator who knew how to fake romance and act as if he was serious. But it had all been a con. She had been the victim of his cruel, demeaning charade! A dupe, a joke for macho males who got in touch with their crude masculine selves by comparing the number of notches on their bedposts. She zipped up her jeans with a trembling hand. Unfortunately, she had been so hurt and angered by that betrayal she had made herself a victim all over again. She had fallen for the stupid suggestion that she might take revenge and at least emerge with her pride intact. The consequences of that final foolish impulse had pretty much destroyed her modelling career.

So what was Cristiano Andreotti doing in Wales? Why had he come to see her? A solution? She couldn’t see why he would wish to help her in any way. When she’d left his Georgian mansion with Mort she had struck a blow at Cristiano’s ego. There had been nothing else to take aim at, she acknowledged painfully. Cristiano Andreotti did not have a heart or a conscience. Had he come to gloat over more of her unending misfortunes?

Slowly, Lydia descended the stairs. ‘What do you want with me?’ she asked defensively.

‘What do most guys want?’ Cristiano traded, smooth as glass, while he scanned the silvery pale waves tumbling round her oval face, her luminous blue eyes and her sultry lips, which were slightly parted to show the moist inner pink. He wasn’t really listening; he was rejoicing in her visual allure.

Hot colour flooded her cheeks. The direction of his gaze was not lost on her, and she shot him a look of loathing. ‘At least you’re not pretending to be a nice guy any more!’

Dark eyes flaring to gold, Cristiano inclined his arrogant dark head in acknowledgement. ‘You’d take advantage of a nice guy. I’m much more your style.’

‘In your dreams!’ Lydia slung back at him.

‘How often does Mort Stevens figure in yours now?’ Cristiano riposted without skipping a beat.

That merciless retort made her blench, and she semi-turned away, presenting him with a view of her delicate profile. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

Sideways on, her slender build made her look disturbingly fragile. Without hesitation he reached out and closed his hands over hers.

In surprise, she gasped, ‘What the heck—?’

‘Just checking…’ Having scanned her arms for any suspicious marks that might have indicated drug abuse, and satisfied himself that that was not her problem, Cristiano released her again.

‘I do not do drugs…I never have and I never will!’ she protested furiously.

‘Glad to hear it.’ But she needed to eat more, Cristiano reflected as his attention skimmed from her narrow white shoulders to the pert outline of her small breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He tensed, infuriated by his own thoughts and behaviour. What was he? A schoolboy again? Since when had the female form entertained the slightest mystery for him?

‘Did you only come here to insult me?’

‘No, there is always purpose in what I do. You’re facing a prison sentence.’

Taken aback by that unequivocal assurance, Lydia snatched in a sharp breath. ‘You don’t know that…how could you? You know nothing about it—’

‘Crimes that entail cash and deception and female offenders always attract a more severe punishment,’ Cristiano murmured silkily. ‘Defrauding a charity was not a good idea—particularly one engaged in raising funds for disadvantaged children.’

Her skin felt cold and clammy. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Were you in debt? Were you being pursued for payment? You stole a very large amount of money, but I don’t see much evidence of ill-gotten gains.’

That Cristiano had no doubt of her culpability cut across Lydia’s tender skin like a whiplash. A painful tide of colour lit her face. On the strength of rumour, he had decided that she was guilty as charged.

‘Why should you care either way?’ she queried, throwing back her pale head, her chin at a truculent angle.

Cristiano surveyed her with eyes as cool and hard as tempered steel. ‘I don’t. But I can keep you out of prison…’

She stiffened, eyes widening, while a crazy little leap of hope surfaced somewhere inside her. ‘And how could you possibly do that?’

‘By repaying the money you took with the addition of a handsome donation to oil the wheels of charitable forgiveness,’ Cristiano explained softly.

‘It wouldn’t be that simple—’

‘Don’t be foolish. I never talk about what I can’t do.’ His wide, sensual mouth curled. ‘A discreet approach has already been made to the director of the Happy Holidays fund, and the response to that particular suggestion has been a very positive one.’

Her restive fingers clenched in on themselves with fierce tension. ‘But why would you offer to replace the missing cash?’

‘Obviously because I want something in return,’ Cristiano delivered, soft and low, his dark drawl as erotic as velvet trailing over silk.

Her heart jumped behind her breastbone. She met bold, dark golden eyes shaded by luxuriant black lashes. Breathing normally became a distinct challenge. His lean dark features were wholly intent on her. Something that felt like a tiny hot wire was pulling taut in her pelvis. It was a sensation that fell somewhere between pleasure and pain, and the surge of heat that followed made her tremble.

His sizzling, sexy smile slashed his beautiful mouth. ‘And I do believe you will enjoy giving it to me, cara mia.’