Valenti's One-Month Mistress

‘I do not doubt you have had plenty of other experience since then,’ Dante said slowly, deliberately running his eyes over her figure. ‘But clearly none of it was quite good enough, since here you are standing before me. And we both know that means you must be desperate.’

Faye ignored the insult. He might be right about the last part, but he would mock her all the more if he knew how wrong he was about what else he was implying.

‘Every business needs capital spent on it periodically. Circumstances dictate that Matteson’s needs to look for an external investor now, for the first time in fifteen years. I don’t consider that a failure.’

‘Then open your eyes.’ She recognised the harsh professional side of him she had once respected, but had never thought she would find directed at her. ‘You didn’t need cash back then because Matteson’s was current, contemporary. Now it’s fallen so far behind it’s dropped off the radar. People need change.’

Was that his personal motto? Faye wondered bitterly. And did he really suppose she was so dense that she didn’t know that? She had tried her utmost to keep the place up to date, to turn things around after her father had passed away. But there was only so far she could get using a home printer to modernise the menus, or spending her own paltry savings on paint for the walls. She knew Matteson’s needed a complete overhaul, and was desperate to give it one, but to do so she needed the means.

‘It is our intention to use any funding to update the kitchens, the interior—’

‘It’s too late.’ Dante’s voice seemed to echo every rejection ever thrust her way. ‘Matteson’s is a failing brand.’

‘Then we must agree to disagree.’

Faye raised her head, and her eyes met his for just a second before she looked back at Rome’s skyline. He did not speak, but finally moved from the window towards her, making the room behind him seem larger, brighter, but the space around her feel minute. At last he rested on the desk next to her, one immaculate charcoal-suited leg casually resting over the other.

She could see the powerful thrust of his thighs and smell the earthy, masculine scent that was so distinctly his that she was transported back to another afternoon, so different from this, altogether too painful to contemplate. But forcing the images from her mind did not help to ease the old familiar pooling in her belly. She rose, unable to stand his close proximity. She wanted to scream for him to get away from her, though they must be at least a metre apart. There was no point remaining here in this room with him, enduring his vehement loathing and torturing herself when there was no hope left that this meeting would have the outcome she had wished for. No matter that when she had forced herself to consider this failure in her mind, she had thought the saving grace would be that when she walked away she would know that the way she had felt about him back then was all down to schoolgirl infatuation. She ought to be accustomed to finding that she was wrong where he was concerned.

‘In that case I will approach alternative sources of funding,’ she continued. His silence was unnerving. She leaned forward to retrieve the proposal, her voice laced with false optimism. ‘Thank you for sparing me a moment of your precious time.’

He did not allow her to make even one complete step in the direction of the door. Before she knew what was happening he had blocked the entire movement of her body with the powerful grasp of one large, lean hand on her small wrist. Faye caught her breath.

‘Leaving again so soon?’ His voice was as mocking as before, only now it was cold and devoid of all humour. Faye was paralysed. ‘Yet again you have done what you came for, but not waited to hear what I have to say. What a surprise.’ The feel of his touch set her nerves skittering, enflaming her in places beyond the small area he touched.

‘You have something else to say?’ Her eyes were questioning, and suddenly she was the Faye of six years ago, her heart longing for some explanation to undo all the pain.

‘The location is excellent.’

Dante released his grip on her wrist and moved back to lean against the desk. His words were like a fog and she searched within them for some hidden meaning, rooted to the spot despite the absence of his grasp.

‘Wh…what?’

‘You have not asked me outright whether I am interested in any aspect of your proposal—another business fauxpas, you understand. As you rightly interpreted, I have no interest in funding Matteson’s. There is, however, something that I do find extremely desirable.’ Faye’s head was reeling. ‘The restaurant is in an exceptional location. It is in an outskirt of London I have been hoping to expand in for some time. I might consider buying the site for a very reasonable sum of money, if that is on offer.’

Swivelling round to face him, she felt things begin to fall into place in her mind. So that was why he had agreed to see her. She swallowed hard. It was his intention to finish her off completely, to usurp her family business with another Michelin-starred Valenti enterprise like the one in central London that she had taken pains to avoid for the last six years—not that she could afford to do anything but walk past. Hadn’t he conquered enough already?

‘Over my dead body. It is not for sale.’

‘Not yet, perhaps.’ He was smiling now, and it infuriated her. ‘But I’ll wait.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Ahh—of course. How could I forget that waiting is a virtue that so eludes you, Faye? What I mean is I’m guessing it won’t be long before it is for sale.’

Faye felt the colour rise hotly in her cheeks, as much at the accusation of loose morals he had just made as at the realisation of just how much he knew. For Dante was not the kind of man who guessed anything. He hadn’t become a billionaire by burying his head in the sand. He clearly knew more about the financial state of Matteson’s than she had originally thought, and it wasn’t because of any distant interest he might have had in the restaurant, or in her. It was because he had seen an opportunity for himself. The thought was like a waterfall of ice down her spine. So now, if their profits failed to increase, Matteson’s wouldn’t just slowly fade away. He would be there to launch his brutal takeover attack.

‘Well, it looks like I’ll have to try my powers of persuasion elsewhere, doesn’t it?’ she retorted, raising her eyebrows and flashing him a smile right back. She would not let him have the satisfaction of thinking this was a fait accompli. So what if he had been her last possible resort? There was no harm in calling his bluff. Faye saw the wave of anger that momentarily crossed his face disappear as quickly as it had come. She suspected it was a rare thing for a woman to refuse him whatever it was he had set out to get.

‘Perhaps we can come to some arrangement,’ he ground out.

‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘A compromise, of sorts.’

Faye doubted he knew the meaning of the word.

Suddenly the intercom in the middle of the room burst into life. ‘I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Valenti, but Mr Castillo from the Madrid office is on the line, and he says it’s urgent.’

Dante swooped down to the device on the desk. ‘Thank you, Julietta. Please ask him if he would be so kind as to hold for just a few minutes. I am almost finished here.’

‘Of course.’ The woman’s voice was silky, reverent. As hers must have once been, Faye thought wretchedly. She could not help shuddering at the seductive way in which he had spoken the woman’s name in return, the compassionate response that suggested he was actually something other than a cold, calculating bastard. Something like jealousy coursed through her veins, and she hated herself for it.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘Sorry?’ His question caught her unawares.

‘In Rome—where are you staying?’

‘At a guesthouse near the airport. Not that it’s any concern of yours.’

‘No, you’re not. I will have someone collect your bags, and my driver will take you to Il Maia.’

Il Maia? What was he talking about? She had never wanted to see Rome again, let alone his hotel. Now he had made it clear he had no intention of helping her, she planned to catch the next flight home. ‘Even if I could afford to stay at Il Maia, it won’t be necessary. I fly home tonight.’

His voice was dangerously low. ‘No, you won’t, Faye. Unless you want to sit back and watch the remains of your family’s business crumble around you. I am willing to reconsider your proposal—on my terms. I will be in the hotel bar at eight, and we will discuss this over dinner.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, as if the prospect could not be more unappealing. ‘Since I recall that you never fulfilled the duration of your previous stay, I will kindly overlook the cost.’ He motioned towards the door. ‘I have more pressing business now. Julietta will show you out.’

‘I am not agreeing to this when all you’ve told me so far is that you wouldn’t touch my proposal with a bargepole!’ she exclaimed, incensed by both the idea of returning to Il Maia and the prospect of spending an entire evening in his company. For one thing, she hated the thought that she might feel indebted to him, and for another, the emotions he had evoked in her during this short meeting alone quite frankly terrified her. But he was already on the intercom, telling Julietta to arrange a driver, and to put through the call from Madrid.

‘Give me one good reason why I should consent to your ridiculous proposition!’ she fired out helplessly, her eyes burning with defiance.

Dante took a deep breath and turned to face her, shaking his head patronisingly. ‘Because your consent is not a requirement, Miss Matteson. You will do what I tell you because I am going to make you an offer that you can’t refuse, and because if you don’t I’ll ruin you.’

And with that he switched into perfect Spanish, and continued with his call.

Dante replaced the phone in its receiver, having rectified Castillo’s supplier crisis without issue. Faye had stormed from the room the instant he’d turned his attention away from her, exactly as he’d anticipated. It was not the first time a woman had left his office sulking when things had not gone her way, and he doubted it would be the last. And yet, as he glanced at the chair where she had been sitting, he had to admit that he had been wrong about one thing. She had practically refrained from looking him in the eye for the entire meeting. The only time she had met his gaze had been when she was being bloody defiant about the dire financial state of her restaurant, and then she had looked away again just as quickly. It frustrated the hell out of him. Did she think she could fool him all over again with that feigned look of modesty?

But she had been innocent last time, hadn’t she? a voice piped up in the back of his mind. It was accompanied by something else that felt disturbingly like guilt but which he refused to give any such name to. For her apparently artless innocence—which had to have been the trigger for the uncontrollable attraction she had once awakened in him—had lasted all of about five minutes! Yes, she had soon proved just how keen she was to rid herself of the burden of her virginity before moving on to her next victim. How long had it been? Two weeks after she had gone before she was swapping sexual favours on the other side of the Atlantic?

But God, she was just as tempting now—if not even more so. Once was not enough. Despite her coming to him begging for his money in clothes he knew she could not afford—no wonder Matteson’s had reached rock bottom!—with her fingers artificially manicured when everything about her had used to be so natural, he still wanted her. It surprised him. He had felt it as soon as she had entered his office. Just like the moment he had looked up from the menu at Matteson’s all those years ago to find a girl unlike any other looking back. A shy and talented young English waitress with hair like honey and legs to die for he had forbidden himself to touch. Her innocence had proved to be as false as those nails, but she still turned him on.

Saying no, telling her that the closest she was going to get to what she wanted would be watching him buy the land from under her, was not going to be enough. He needed her under him again. He would make her gaze into his eyes and cry out his name in pleasure, powerless to look away. Even if it did mean changing his plans a little. The end result would be the same: she would be forced to sell everything to him, to realise that if only she had been capable of a little restraint she might have been a success. He had once thought her to be unique, deserving of his respect, and he had given her the opportunity to learn from him. But she had proved that she was the same as every other woman who had tried to sink her claws into him. And now she wanted his help? Well, she had made her bed, and he was going to make damn sure she lay in it, whenever and however he chose.

CHAPTER TWO

FAYE slammed the door as soon as the hotel porter was out of sight, and flung her suitcase onto the bed. She could not remember another time in her life when she had felt her independence so utterly undermined. Yet what choice did she have but to acquiesce? She couldn’t go home knowing that Dante might have considered a compromise that would stop the family business from going bankrupt and her own dreams from being torn to shreds—that rather than sacrifice her pride and go along with his egotistical demands she had decided to fly home instead of hearing him out. How could she?

It was just dinner, she supposed. When it came down to it, she had nothing to lose. If he offered her some ridiculously small sum of money for Matteson’s she would simply refuse again, then get a taxi back here and head straight to the airport, knowing she had done everything she could.