A Forbidden Seduction

Debbie nodded gloomily. Their business would be wiped out if City Lights improved its food drastically and used real, fresh produce. She visualised the final nails being hammered into her coffin. Fate was kicking them both into the gutter again; she dreaded going back to her mother with the news. Her stomach sank with the lift as the floors ticked themselves off on the display unit above, not only gravity sucking away her insides, but despair too.

‘Tell her to sort out her ethics as well as make improvements to the food,’ she muttered, and her baleful eyes clashed with his. ‘I expect no more dirty tricks from her! A fair fight—’

‘Surely it can’t be fair?’ he pointed out as they walked out into the foyer. ‘She can cut costs by buying in bulk—’

‘But we can work all the hours God sends us and cook home-made stuff that knocks spots off anything produced in quantity,’ she defended vigorously. ‘Look,’ she said, stopping in the middle of the marble floor and gazing earnestly up at him, ‘get her in line. That’s all I ask.’

‘You think I can?’ he murmured, his mouth twitching.

‘You can do anything you want,’ she said tartly. ‘You’ll always do anything you want. That’s how you are. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Possibly.’ The mobile mouth had softened into a smile.

‘OK, well, listen.’ Debbie was fighting for her livelihood now. And for her mother’s health. She didn’t care that people were stopping and staring, giggling, muttering behind their hands at the sight of the great Luciano talking to a gesticulating shepherdess straight out of a nursery rhyme.

She gave two back-from-lunch typists a haughty stare and returned to the matter in hand, a little surprised that Luciano was still standing there patiently, waiting for her to continue. But she had the impression that he was finding this amusing—at last. And so she’d play on that in order to get what she wanted. Justice.

‘City Lights has to stop working on other people’s patches,’ she said firmly. ‘I told you the kind of tricks they pull. My girls have turned up several times and found someone else has already delivered, hàving persuaded the customers that we’ve gone out of business. We’ve had staff nobbled outside our premises and offered better money. You think of a dirty trick, they’ve played it. It’s got to stop or I’ll implicate you.’

‘I agree,’ he said placidly.

She breathed a sigh of surprised relief. It wasn’t entirely what she’d wanted. It would have been better if she’d been given the chance to continue catering for his company. However, it would do. So she treated him to a shy smile which faltered after a moment.

Luciano was looking at her oddly. It could have been admiration. It could have been anything, because she wasn’t thinking straight any more. A strange, jelly-like consistency had taken up residence in her limbs, and she pressed down on her thighs in the hope that she could stop her legs trembling. He followed the movement of her hands, and then she watched in helpless fascination as his gaze made its way unhurriedly all the way up her body again till it reached her huge dove-grey eyes.

‘You must have caused traffic jams right across the city,’ he said softly.

Debbie floundered, lost for words. She was out of her depth with compliments like that—because, judging by the expression on his face, it was meant to be flattering. Was he about to make some kind of proposition? This was worrying, especially if they were going to spend time in the back of some limo.

Her aunt had said that Italians had funny morals and shocking libidos. Gio had been within earshot and had coldly reminded everyone that Italians weren’t the same as Sicilians at all. But, however he identified himself, Luciano was giving out interested vibes and therefore he must be indifferent to the fact that she was married. Since he had no idea that her marriage was dead and buried, that made him immoral.

Instinctively she dragged back her tumble of blonde hair and twisted it at the nape of her neck so that it reduced his impression of a game-for-anything woman.

‘I hated it,’ she said truthfully. ‘But I imagine my husband will be amused when he comes home tomorrow,’ she added, enunciating every word carefully so that he didn’t miss anything and emphasising the word ‘husband’. That would tell him where she stood. ‘He’ll be amused to think he has a double,’ she went on breezily. ‘What’s your brother’s name?’

Luciano’s eyes had narrowed. ‘I don’t think that matters now,’ he said quickly, and drew her firmly out to the waiting car. ‘And... I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell your husband about meeting me.’

Debbie flushed. ‘He won’t try to sting you for a loan on the basis of sharing a surname, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she said, bristling at his stiff request. He neither confirmed nor denied her assumption, and she slipped a little huffily into the passenger seat of the elegant Bentley.

There was a silence on the way back. Wrapped in some beautiful orchestral music that was probably classical, she leaned back in the seat and enjoyed the ride. He drove with a heavy, preoccupied air that didn’t encourage idle chit-chat and she, for once, was relieved to be quiet. Occasionally she glanced at the brooding Luciano and wondered how she could ever have imagined that Gio might have been his brother.

The two men were so different. Luciano vibrated with power and that fascinating, disconcerting energy, whereas Gio was... She flushed, hating the truth. When he was home, he lounged around expecting her to fetch and carry for him, even though she was working from dawn to midnight.

If he were driving now, Gio would be lounging with one hand out of the window. He’d be more reckless, too, and he wouldn’t have stopped for that party of schoolchildren or waited so patiently for the old woman to teeter over the crossing. He certainly wouldn’t have jumped out of the car and helped her to pick up the potatoes that had spilled out of her basket.

It had been a very revealing action on Luciano’s part. She eyed his hands, now grubby from the soil on the potatoes, and knew that Gio would have cursed the old woman for being a nuisance, perhaps shouting a clever remark out of the window before driving on.

Her teeth dug into her lower lip, hating the way her thoughts were going but incapable of denying the truth.

‘Do you see your brother often?’ she ventured, hoping to banish all the uncharitable thoughts from her mind.

‘Not much,’ he said flatly, and she got the impression that it was no great loss. Perhaps that explained his casual treatment of the photograph—and his scowl. ‘He lives in the north-east of Sicily, I work in London.’ He switched the direction of the conversation smoothly. ‘Your premises are near Guy’s Hospital, you said?’

‘Yes.’ He seemed to know his way around London very well. ‘If your sister-in-law runs City Lights, she must spend a lot of time apart from your brother,’ she mused.

He gave her a quick, startled look. ‘Half running it,’ he corrected her. ‘She inherited the franchises from her father. He still controls the business on a day-to-day basis while she handles the marketing strategies and acts as a sort of ideas woman. So she does a lot of business via computer link from Sicily and spends a lot of time commuting between Palermo and London. Well, she’s been doing that for the last few months or so. I’m surprised at her interest. She never cared to work before—now she’s obsessed with it. Usually Gio comes to England with her and visits... friends.’

Debbie froze. ‘Gio. You said Gio!’ she cried, turning accusing eyes on him.

‘Did I?’ Luciano sounded a little too surprised and Debbie felt a cold hand clutching at her stomach. ‘How extraordinary,’ he said with a light laugh. ‘Must have been your saying the name so often.’

‘What is your brother’s name?’ she probed with quiet determination.

‘Valentino,’ he answered glibly. ‘Don’t pursue it any further,’ he advised tightly, his profile grim and forbidding. ‘Don’t pursue it,’ he repeated softly, like a litany, as they drew up outside her premises.

He peered at the shabby shop, once a newsagent’s, its window whitewashed to give them privacy inside while they cooked and dashed around preparing orders. ‘Is this it?’

Debbie wanted to explain that it was all they could afford, that there was living accommodation above, that the kitchens were sparklingly clean and they produced miracles inside. But she kept her mouth shut about those things.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

The van, which had been following close behind all the way, drew up behind them and the chauffeur struggled with the bent door. Debbie went over and gave it a bang in the right place, grinned at the man as it flew open, and went to the back of the van to collect the empty baskets.

Luciano was standing at the pavement, frowning at the peeling paint on the shop-front as if it offended him. She was about to thank him again, when her mother appeared in the doorway.

‘Debs?’ she asked uncertainly, her eyes switching from the chauffeur to the elegant Luciano and his glorious mirror-polished car, all of which looked extremely incongruous in the run-down little street. ‘Nothing wrong?’

‘It’s a long story, Mum,’ she said with a reassuring smile.

‘Mrs...?’ Luciano held out his hand politely.

‘Baker. Stella Baker,’ said her mother, wiping her sudsy hands on her pinny.

‘Luciano...’ He smiled so engagingly that her mother lost her uncertainty and shook the proffered hand warmly. ‘Luciano,’ he said again, with a small flicker of his eyes in Debbie’s direction as he deliberately omitted his surname. ‘Your daughter felt a little unwell,’ he explained. ‘I believe she’d been working flat out without anything to eat. Since I was coming this way,’ he lied easily, ‘I said I’d drop her here.’

‘Well!’ Her mother beamed and patted his arm. ‘You’re all right, you are. Thanks a lot.’ To Debbie’s dismay, her mother leaned her sparrow-like frame closer to Luciano and muttered, ‘Debs works twice as hard as she ought to because she thinks I’m going to fall down dead if she doesn’t. I keep telling her I’m a tough old woman.’

‘Hardly old, I think, Mrs Baker,’ demurred Luciano. ‘Let’s see... your daughter must be in her late teens, so you are...’ he dropped his voice, as if her age were a state secret ‘...late thirties? Married young? Perhaps—’

‘Oh, please!’ Her mother blushed.

Debbie’s mouth opened in amazement. When Gio had tried similar flattery before they’d married, her mother had brushed him off impatiently and said he was too smooth by half. Luciano was a better flattierer; he actually sounded as if he believed what he said.

And she, in her late teens! She tried to keep back the giggle. He’d get a shock if he knew she was twenty-five!

‘We’ve got a lot of washing-up to do. Greasy pans. Sausages to make,’ she said prosaically. ‘Me and the youngster here,’ she added straight-faced, indicating her mother, who put her arm around Debbie’s waist and gave her a hug.

‘Thanks for bringing her home,’ Stella said to Luciano. She smiled affectionately at Debbie, whose eyes instantly glowed with the warmth of love. ‘She means the world to me.’