A Forbidden Seduction

A Forbidden Seduction
SARA WOOD

Passion in RebellionThe Colleoni family was bad news for Debbie. Her marriage to their son had turned out to be no marriage at all. Now she was alone, and fighting for her child's inheritance with his commanding and charismatic half brother - Luciano. Obviously she couldn't trust him, but a passionate attraction was flowing between them.She was vulnerable; she was under the disapproving glare of the Colleoni family; this seduction was foolish, taboo and… wildly irresistible!

“I find you entrancing.” (#u8bcdce41-2987-597b-90f5-5e0ada0681c2)About the Author (#u4fea3e4e-aa43-5345-b9e8-827cc5b24a68)Title Page (#u136d9482-0901-508c-921d-0969fbdbb1e7)CHAPTER ONE (#u59ea3359-1edd-548d-83b3-c5d946e24e72)CHAPTER TWO (#uc64f910b-d12d-5c8e-9651-7ba045923560)CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I find you entrancing.”

Luciano murmured, “Make no mistake about it. If you stay, you must take responsibility for encouraging me.” His eyes gleamed. “I’m aroused every time I’m near you. I can’t go on like that, can I? I’ll be a nervous wreck,” he said disarmingly.

“This is part of your ploy to make me go!” said Debbie. “Everyone can find self-control if they try,” she mumbled primly, wishing she could find a little more herself.

“Not always. Sometimes—” Luciano’s sculptured mouth arched sensually “—sometimes our passionate natures rebel against being held under control. That’s what has happened to me, to you.”

Childhood in Portsmouth, England, meant grubby knees, flying pigtails and happiness for SARA WOOD. Poverty drove her from typist and seaside landlady to teacher until writing finally gave her the freedom her Romany blood craved. Happily married, she has two handsome sons: Richard is married, calm, dependable, drives tankers, Simon is a roamer—silversmith, roofer, welder, always with beautiful girls. Sara lives in the Cornish countryside. Her glamorous writing life alternates with her passion for gardening, which allows her to be carefree and grubby again!

A Forbidden Seduction

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

SABOTAGE! thought Debbie immediately. Another nail in the coffin! Anger narrowed her big, soulful grey eyes beneath her sooty lashes to nothing more than a hint of gleaming charcoal. Why did trouble come when they were least able to handle it?

‘I can’t believe it! Both Penny and Judy have left us in the lurch?’ she asked incredulously.

She stalked across the kitchen floor with such vehemence that her curvaceous figure quivered with indignation and her flaxen braid swung like a bell-rope. With quick, deft movements she shed her jacket, washed her hands, and poured herself a reassuring cup of tea.

‘Without the common decency to face us,’ complained her mother bitterly, waving a piece of blue notepaper. “This was stuffed in the letter-box. They’ve had a better offer. I ask you!’

Fuming, Debbie read the brief apology. ‘It must have come after seven-thirty, when I left to take Stefano to nursery school,’ she decided after a moment. ‘What a blow.’

Her mother sniffed her disapproval of such disloyalty in their delivery girls and picked up the telephone receiver decisively. ‘I’ve been ringing round for replacements. No luck so far but I’ll have another go. I must say, those girls might have given us more notice.’

Debbie saw that the sniff covered up a secret despair and she wanted to throw her arms around her mother and hug away that tight, haunted look. Instead, she reached for an apron and tied it around her waist. Her mother would want the situation to be played down. East Enders were brought up to be tough, not to whine in a corner when things went wrong.

‘Pen and Jude are hard up, like us, Mum,’ she said with resignation. ‘Who can blame them if they’ve had a lucrative bribe to work elsewhere?’

‘I do!’ grumbled her mother, dialling the next number on the list of agencies in front of her. ‘It’s going to be hell today!’

That could be an understatement, thought Debbie as she collected the basket of freshly baked bread. Even if they did find someone else to deliver the lunch boxes, it would take twice as long as usual. ‘Try for a couple of kitchen-hands,’ she suggested. ‘One of us can do the deliveries.’

They were teetering on the brink again, trying not to topple into the abyss. Putting the loaves through the slicer, she reflected moodily that they couldn’t keep on coping with one crisis after another. They’d met so many obstacles lately: false orders, wild-goose chases to phantom addresses, customers lost to competitors and mystifying complaints about the freshness of the foodsomething they prided themselves on.

‘They’ll ring back if they find anyone,’ said her mother, replacing the receiver and sounding grim. ‘In the meantime, it’s action stations!’

Debbie frowned. ‘I wish I hadn’t hung around the nursery chatting to the mothers.’ She lifted boxes of fillings from the fridge and lined them up on the counter. ‘Sorry, Mum. I just like to stay till Stefano is settled.’

‘Course you do, love.’ Her mother picked up a large chef’s knife, briskly sliced up a heap of tomatoes and slid them into a dish. ‘Steffy’s your priority, I’ve told you before.’ The blade hovered uncertainly over a sweet-smelling tomato and Debbie suddenly noticed how pinched her mother’s face looked. She was dreadfully worried, she thought with a sudden pang. More than the other times when they’d been in trouble. The knife resumed a fiercely concentrated bout of slicing as her mother muttered, ‘He needs one of his parents to make him feel special.’

Debbie flushed at the dig. ‘Gio adores Stefano!’ she protested, struggling with her conscience and defending her ever absent husband. Gio had never hit it off with her mother. There had been a lot of rows. And his being a travelling salesman meant that he spent long, long periods away with little to show for it. Times were bad, he said. But her mother often berated him because he didn’t contribute much to the family kitty.

‘Steffy is a symbol of his virility and someone to play with when you’re too busy,’ said her mother bluntly. ‘And you? Does he adore you?’

She couldn’t answer that, because although her marriage was a sham she’d felt she had to keep it going for Steffy’s sake. So to everyone in the family she always pretended that there was nothing wrong between herself and Gio. Despite the fact that it had virtually ended less than a year after their wedding-day. And by that time she had been pregnant and desperate to make a stable background for her child. It had been a mistake, she knew that now. And when Gio came home they’d have to talk about ending the farce.

‘It’s not Gio’s fault that he has to work away from home so much,’ she reasoned, ducking the question. But a little voice inside her said, Yes, it is. He could come home more often—he just didn’t want to. And to be honest she preferred it that way. Her marriage had to be ended. They couldn’t go on like this.

Her mother’s mouth tightened. ‘Your uncle offered him that job down the market. Better money, better hours. And he could have set you and Steffy up in a nice little flat instead of the one room upstairs.’

‘Not now, Mum,’ she begged uncomfortably. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel over him. There’s too much to do.’

The phone rang and she waited expectantly. But it was clear from her mother’s gloomy expression that the agency had no one to spare.

‘It’s that big convention.’ Her mother banged the receiver down irritably. ‘Anyone who happens to have two hands has been hired. So that’s it. What are we going to do?’

‘Fight, of course!’ said Debbie briskly. ‘Come on. We’re used to managing on our own.’ She’d had enough practice, she thought wryly, with Gio playing a nonexistent role in supporting her and Steffy. She smiled encouragingly at her mother. They’d do it. They had to.

Her mother gave a watery but unconvincing smile in return. Debbie grabbed a carving knife and controlled her frustration by thinly slicing a side of gammon while she thought how best to cope.

She was sick of hiring delivery girls and teaching them the job—the charm, perpetual smiles, the need for speed and safety combined, the low-level pleasant but persuasive selling techniques—only to have someone offer them more lucrative employment elsewhere.

This was the third time it had happened. And the sandwich business was so competitive that it would happen again and again till they couldn’t stand the strain any longer. Or till her mother keeled over with the stress—like last year.

Oh, God! Debbie thought, the horror sweeping through her in waves. The memory of her mother’s heart attack was still horribly vivid in her mind. Life couldn’t be that cruel. Not again. Not ever again.

A sideways glance told her that her mother’s hands were twisting and knotting around one another as if they might wring out the trouble from their lives as easily as squeezing water from a towel. So Debbie smiled with as much reassurance as she could muster, trying to make light of the appalling situation.

‘It’ll be a rush, but we can do it,’ she said with commendable conviction. When faced with an almost impossible task, you just started it and kept on going till it was finished. Sounded simple, put like that. If only! ‘I know this was to have been my afternoon off, but I can work all day today. You’ll need help with the clearing up later. They’re having a puppet show at the nursery this afternoon, so Steffy will be perfectly content.’

‘We said you had to spend as much time with him as—’

‘I know,’ Debbie said gently. ‘But this is an emergency. Steffy will be asleep half the time I’m working—he’ll hardly notice. I’ll call in later to tell them and give him a hug. OK?

‘Don’t worry, Mum. We’ll leave our oldest, most sympathetic customers till last, just in case we get dreadfully behind. Right, let’s get started; customers are waiting. Better get the show on the road. Who’s going to do what?’ she asked bossily. ‘One to cut and butter, one to dash about the City—’

‘Don’t look at me!’ said her mother hastily. ‘I’m not driving that van through central London—I haven’t driven for ten years. You’ve got to be the delivery girl for today. You know you’ve got no choice.’

‘OK, I’ll do it.’ Debbie flicked back her long braid with a sigh and untied her apron before checking the boxes by the door. ‘Are these the first orders to go?’

‘Yes, love. But you’ve forgotten something,’ ventured her mother delicately. When Debbie looked blank, her mother grinned broadly and said, ‘The costume?’

‘Costume.’ Very slowly, the penny dropped. ‘Oh, the costume!’ Two pairs of wide eyes swivelled to the froths of nonsense hanging under large polythene covers. A doubtful silence fell. Secretly appalled at the thought of wearing anything so...sweet, Debbie playfully lifted one of the dresses from its hanger and held it against her mother’s skinny body. ‘Suits moddom a treat,’ she simpered, in the tones of an adenoidal salesgirl.

They both dissolved into laughter and soon they were clutching each other, giggling hysterically. It was better than crying, she thought, upset as she always was by her mother’s fragility. It was like embracing a bony sparrow.

‘No, it doesn’t! I’d frighten the horses,’ spluttered her mother, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘Dear Debs. You are a tonic.’