At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command

With a start, she noticed that the chauffeur’s eyes had hardened at the sight of her pleasure and she wondered what Dante had told his staff about her.

‘Is this actually Dante Severini’s house?’ she asked, breathless with excitement.

There was a moment’s hesitation before a grudging grunt. ‘Si.’

Not ‘Si, signora,’ the usual courteous response, she noted. Miranda gritted her teeth at the deliberate insult and then dismissed it. What did it matter what lies Dante had told? She’d be shot of the lot of them in an hour and on her way back home.

The car crawled up the long driveway and her tension mounted. So this, she thought in amazement, was the estate that Dante had coveted, along with the business!

She could see why. It was breathtakingly situated on the shores of Lake Como in the north of Italy. The gardens had been laid out in a mixture of English and Italian styles, so that rhododendrons and azaleas and plane trees harmonised surprisingly well with the palms and banana plants set amid elegant terraces and statues.

And she’d never even known of its existence.

‘Jumping elephants!’ Lizzie shrieked as the house finally came into view. ‘My brother-in-law’s become a billionaire at least! Jammy devil!’

‘Lizzie!’ she scolded, humiliated by the chauffeur’s disgusted glance.

‘What? I’m only saying what’s true,’ protested her sister. ‘Forget the divorce. You’re looking great, Miranda. This is your big chance. Play your cards right as we discussed, get back into his bed, and life’ll be a ball!’

Miranda was barely listening, far more interested in studying the house. Four storeys high, the pale ochre building was both graceful and imposing. An eighteenth-century palace, fit for a prince. Or a highly ambitious man.

It was quite the most beautiful house she had ever seen, straight out of a fairy tale. It sat serenely in the lush green gardens, with what must be magnificent views over the stunning blue lake.

Yet despite its grandeur the house seemed welcoming and friendly as if centuries of love and care had given it a mellow personality of its own.

Even Lizzie had been silenced as they came to a halt by the broad stone staircase.

Now I truly understand why he schemed with such desperation, Miranda mused soberly. This was a prize that Dante could not bear to lose. Even if it meant deliberately deceiving a woman he knew was madly in love with him. Why not marry the poor sap and give her a little happiness for a short time, before consigning her to the rubbish heap?

Miranda’s heart beat a tattoo in her chest as she slid from the luxurious car. Trembling with anticipation and almost sick with excitement and joy, she watched Dante’s tall figure emerge from the imposing house and concentrated on dealing with the way her heart contracted at the sight of him. Behind her, Lizzie tumbled out, still rhapsodising in ear-splitting shrieks to some boyfriend on her mobile.

A jolt of disappointment hit her. Just Dante had appeared. No Carlo. Her stomach lurched with fear and then she steadied herself. Carlo must be having a nap. She smiled, as lovingly remembered images of her sleeping son filled her mind.

And smiling adoringly still, she lifted her gaze to the man who was watching her so intently. A spark of electricity leapt across the distance between them. The impact of seeing him was just the same as the first day she’d met him: a deep, visceral belonging, a sense of a shared destiny and warm, overwhelming joy.

Except, she sighed, those feelings had always been one-sided. He’d never loved her. And of course now she understood what lay behind his autocratic bearing and the air of perfect grooming, the perfectly tailored silk suit in a discreet honey colour, the made-to-measure casual cream shirt, and those expensive leather shoes.

Money. Buckets of it. And breeding.

She’d been ignorant of all this. When they’d lived in London their lifestyle had been comfortable but not excessively so. Now she knew that he and his family were in a different league altogether, that of the mega-rich.

She gulped, intimidated by this because he had become a stranger, just by stepping into the higher echelons of Italian society.

The chauffeur hurried up the steps to meet Dante and was gesticulating and talking rapidly. Probably, Miranda thought uncomfortably, complaining about Lizzie’s high-decibel shrieks and embarrassing remarks. Dante’s eyes narrowed in a suspicious stare and her composure wilted like her body in the blazing sun as she blushed with shame.

‘You’d think Carlo would be waiting for you,’ Lizzie complained. ‘Unless Dante’s teaching you a lesson and we’ve come on a wild-goose chase.’

Fear rooted Miranda to the ground. Had she been dragged here for revenge? To be given hope, only to be told that she could whistle for her son?

‘He’ll…be asleep,’ she said, not very convincingly.

Carlo…where? When? she thought desperately, trying to contain herself. In panic, she listened for the sounds of a child but heard nothing, only a tension-filled silence.

Feeling chilled to the core despite the hot sun, she waited for Dante to come to her because she couldn’t move an inch. Eventually he dismissed the chauffeur and his long, impeccably clad legs slowly began to descend the steps.

With infuriating nonchalance, Dante paused on the bottom step, reaching out casually to fiddle with a cascade of geraniums in an antique copper urn.

Drat him, he must know what she was going through! She’d wring his neck if he continued to play with her feelings!

‘Miranda.’ He gave her a mocking bow. No kiss. No handshake. No touching. So she just nodded back, managing to seem cool and contained. ‘Greetings, Elizabeth,’ he murmured to his star-struck sister-in-law. ‘Perhaps you would enjoy touring the house. Make yourself at home, and help yourself to champagne and pastries in the salon.’

‘Cool! You bet!’ Eyes sparkling and with her mobile still clamped to her ear, Lizzie leapt up the steps, blissfully unaware that Dante had skilfully got her out of the way.

His mocking dark eyes followed her sister and his lips curved in a faintly contemptuous smile, the sensual, cresting wave of his mouth sending shivers of remembrance down Miranda’s back.

She closed her eyes briefly as her body felt the cascade of kisses he used to shower on her. All carefully calculated, she thought bitterly, to keep her sweet until his uncle died! Cured of her stupid mooning, she snapped open her eyes again.

With a total lack of urgency, Dante turned to Miranda. His gaze slid up her taut body in an arrogant assessment of her graceful figure in the classically cut silk dress and jacket. In Dante’s favourite cornflower-blue, it matched her eyes. Into which, she’d thought with a pang of anguish when she’d selected it, he’d gazed with such devastating results.

‘You are thinner,’ he announced, his frown registering his disapproval.

She bridled immediately. Once she’d loved his intrinsically Italian interest in her body and clothes. Now his interest was insulting and intrusive. She lifted her shoulders in an eloquent uninterest.

‘My appearance is none of your business. Naturally I’ve been busy. Rushing here, dashing there…’

And from feeling sick at the sight of food. With agonising cramps in her stomach. Damn you, Dante! she inwardly seethed. Where is my son?

He corrected the frown which had drawn his brows together.

‘You’re right. Your appalling lifestyle in England is no concern of mine any longer, I am glad to say. Tea has been brought to my study,’ he said icily. ‘Follow me.’ When he began to climb the steps again she made no reply but stomped along behind him in silence, trying not to rise to his insult. ‘Nothing to say to me?’ he shot back at her.

‘No.’ She’d bide her time. See what he had to say—

‘I thought as much,’ he scorned as she caught him up. ‘You’ve just proved something to me.’

‘Oh? What might that be?’

‘That when I was around you only pretended that you loved Carlo.’

‘How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?’ she demanded indignantly.

‘You’ve been separated from him for two weeks. But you haven’t bothered to ask where he is,’ he said with bitter contempt.

So much for his intuition, she thought, intensely irritated. Didn’t he know her whole mind was screaming for information?

‘I saw no point in wasting my breath. I imagined,’ she retorted drily, proud that there was hardly a tremor in her voice at all, ‘that you would tell me when you’re good and ready and not before.’

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement. ‘How well you know me, Miranda!’ he muttered, indicating that they should enter the building.