Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender

She gave herself a mental slap and sat up straighter in the chair. Crossing her legs and arms, she fixed her gaze on Angelo’s with a steely composure she was nowhere near feeling.

He leaned back in his own chair, with his fingers steepled against his chin, his dark gaze trained with unnervingly sharp focus on hers. ‘I’ve heard anybody who is anybody is sleeping between your sheets,’ he said.

She returned his look with chilly hauteur. ‘I don’t suppose you are doing so.’

His lips gave a tiny twitch of amusement, his dark eyes smouldering as they continued to hold hers. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

Natalie’s insides flickered with the memory of long-ago desire. She’d fought valiantly to suppress it, but from the moment she had stepped into his office she had been aware of her body and its unruly response to him. He had always had that power over her. Just a look, an idle touch, a simple word and she would melt.

She couldn’t afford to give in to past longings. She had to be strong in order to get through this. Lachlan’s future depended on her. If this latest misdemeanour of his got out in the tabloids his life would be ruined. He was hoping to go to Harvard after this gap year. A criminal record would ruin everything for him.

Their father would crucify him.

He would crucify them both.

Natalie blamed herself. Why hadn’t she realised how disenfranchised Lachlan was? Had she somehow given him some clue to her past history with Angelo? Had her lack of an active love-life made him suspect Angelo was the cause? How had he put two and two together? It wasn’t as if she had ever been one to wear her heart on her sleeve. She had been busy building up her business. She had not missed dating. She’d had one or two encounters that had left her cold. She had more or less decided she wasn’t cut out for an intimate relationship. The passion she had experienced with Angelo had come at a huge price, and it wasn’t one she was keen to pay again.

She was better off alone.

‘I understand how incredibly annoyed you are at what my brother has supposedly done,’ she said. ‘But I must beg you not to proceed with criminal charges.’

His dark brow lifted again. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You’re begging me?’

Natalie momentarily compressed her lips in an attempt to control her spiralling emotions. How like him to taunt her. He would milk this situation for all it was worth and she would have to go along with it. He knew it. She knew it. He wanted her pride. It would be his ultimate trophy.

‘I’m asking for leniency.’

‘You’re grovelling.’

She straightened her shoulders again. ‘I’m asking you to drop all charges,’ she said. ‘I’ll cover the damages—even double, if you insist. You won’t be out of pocket.’

His gaze still measured hers unwaveringly. ‘You want this to go away before it gets out in the press, don’t you?’ he said.

Natalie hoped her expression wasn’t giving away any sign of her inner panic. She had always prided herself on disguising her feelings. Years of dealing with her father’s erratic mood swings had made her a master at concealing her fear in case it was exploited. From childhood her ice-cold exterior had belied the inner turmoil of her emotions. It was her shield, her armour—her carapace of protection.

But Angelo had a keen, intelligent gaze. Even before she had left him she had felt he was starting to sum up her character in a way she found incredibly unsettling.

‘Of course I want to keep this out of the press,’ she said. ‘But then, don’t you? What will people think of your hotel security if a guest can do the sort of damage you say my brother did? Your hotels aim for the top end of the market. What does that say about the type of clientele your hotel attracts?’

A muscle flickered like a pulse at the side of his mouth. ‘I have reason to believe your brother specifically targeted my hotel,’ he said.

She felt her stomach lurch. ‘What makes you think that?’

He opened a drawer to the left of him and took out a sheet of paper and handed it to her across the desk. She took it with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. It was a faxed copy of a note addressed to Angelo, written in her brother’s writing. It said: This is for my sister.

Natalie gulped and handed back the paper. ‘I don’t know what to say … I have never said anything to Lachlan about … about us. He was only thirteen when we were together. He was at boarding school when we shared that flat in Notting Hill. He never even met you.’

Nor had any of her family. She hadn’t wanted Angelo to be exposed to her father’s outrageous bigotry and her mother’s sickening subservience.

‘You must have said something to him,’ Angelo said. ‘Why else would he write that?’

Natalie chewed at her lip. She had said nothing to anyone other than that her short, intense and passionate affair with Angelo was over because she wanted to concentrate on her career. Not even her closest girlfriend, Isabel Astonberry, knew how much her break-up with Angelo had affected her. She had told everyone she was suffering from anxiety. Even her doctor had believed her. It had explained the rapid weight loss and agitation and sleepless nights. She had almost convinced herself it was true. She had even taken the pills the doctor had prescribed, but they hadn’t done much more than throw a thick blanket over her senses, numbing her until she felt like a zombie.

Eventually she had climbed out of the abyss of misery and got on with her life. Hard work had been her remedy. It still was. Her interior design business had taken off soon after she had qualified. Her online sales were expanding exponentially, and she had plans to set up some outlets in Europe. She employed staff who managed the business end of things while she got on with what she loved best—the designing of her linen and soft furnishings range.

And she had done it all by herself. She hadn’t used her father’s wealth and status to recruit clients. Just like Angelo, she had been adamant that she would not rely on family wealth and privilege, but do it all on her own talent and hard work.

‘Natalie?’ Angelo’s deep voice jolted her out of her reverie. ‘Why do you think your brother addressed that note to me?’

She averted her gaze as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He must have known it would cause immense trouble for you,’ he said.

Natalie looked up at him again, her heart leaping to her throat. ‘A hundred thousand pounds is a lot of money, but it’s not a lot to pay for someone’s freedom,’ she said.

He gave an enigmatic half-smile. ‘Ah, yes, but whose freedom are we talking about?’

A ripple of panic moved through her as she held his unreadable gaze. ‘Can we quit it with the game-playing?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come straight out and say what you’ve planned in terms of retribution?’

His dark eyes hardened like black ice. ‘I think you know what I want,’ he said. ‘It’s the same thing I wanted five years ago.’

She drew in a sharp little breath. ‘You can’t possibly want an affair with someone you hate. That’s so … so cold-blooded.’

He gave a disaffected smile. ‘Who said anything about an affair?’

She felt a fine layer of sweat break out above her top lip. She felt clammy and light-headed. Her legs trembled even though she had clamped them together to hide it. She unclenched her hands and put one to her throat, where her heart seemed to have lodged itself like a pigeon trapped in a narrow pipe.

‘You’re joking, of course,’ she said, in a voice that was hoarse to the point of barely being audible.

Those dark, inscrutable eyes held hers captive, making every nerve in her body acutely aware of his sensual power over her. Erotic memories of their past relationship simmered in the silence. Every passionate encounter, from their first kiss to their blistering bloodletting last, hovered in the tense atmosphere. She felt the incendiary heat and fire of his touch just by looking at him. It was all she could do to stay still and rigidly composed in her chair.

‘I want a wife,’ he said, as if stating his desire for something as prosaic as a cup of tea or coffee.

Natalie hoisted her chin. ‘Then I suggest you go about the usual way of acquiring one,’ she said.

‘I tried that and it didn’t work,’ he returned. ‘I thought I’d try this way instead.’

She threw him a scathing look. ‘Blackmail, you mean?’

He gave an indifferent shrug of one of his broad shoulders. ‘Your brother will likely spend up to four years waiting for a hearing,’ he said. ‘The legal system in Italy is expensive and time consuming. I don’t need to tell you he is unlikely to escape conviction. I have enough proof to put him away for a decade.’

Natalie shot to her feet, her control slipping like a stiletto on a slick of oil. ‘You bastard!’ she said. ‘You’re only doing this to get at me. Why don’t you admit it? You only want revenge because I am the first woman who has ever left you. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Your damned pride got bruised, so now you’re after revenge.’

His jaw locked down like a clamp, his lips barely moving as he commanded, ‘Sit down.’

She glared at him with undiluted hatred. ‘Go to hell.’

He placed his hands on the desk and slowly got to his feet. Somehow it was far more threatening than if he had shoved his chair back with aggressive force. His expression was thunderous, but when he spoke it was with icy calm.