Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

Vicenzo stood away from the window with a violent movement, halting her words. And somewhere Cara marvelled at how she was already thinking of him as Vicenzo. Enzo had long gone.

‘Yes, but nothing. You knew, and you had as much a hand in the plans as your brother. Tell me, were you the perfect little confidante to Allegra? Buttering her up, telling her how much your brother loved her? Priming her for the fall?’

Cara recoiled, her eyes huge. ‘No. I didn’t know what Cormac was planning—that is not until last week, I swear. I liked your sister…’

Pain gripped Cara again at how she’d failed to help—and yet she hadn’t had enough time. Vicenzo advanced towards the bed and she recoiled back even further. He said something rude in Italian—undoubtedly a curse.

‘Of course you liked my sister, Miss Brosnan. She represented your easy ride to a future where you would never have to worry about money again.’ He clicked his fingers, making Cara flinch. ‘All your brother’s debts gone, in an instant.’

When he called her Miss Brosnan she felt her heart shrivel a little inside her. It cast a slur on the passion they’d shared in this very room. She could see it now: his resemblance to Allegra. She’d noticed it last night, but of course she had had no frame of reference for it.

Cara found some strength under the laser-like gaze and scooted up in the bed, kneeling, holding the sheet around her with both hands. She still had to make sense of all of this. Her head hurt with so many questions.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ll help you, shall I?’

Cara gulped. He looked positively intimidating, a muscle beating in his tight jaw, glaring down at her. A million miles from the man who had become her first lover.

‘As soon as your brother realised that Allegra was heiress to a substantial part of the Valentini fortune he pursued her with nothing more in mind than to rape her for her wealth.’

Cara flinched at his words but he went on.

‘He introduced her to drugs to make her more malleable, make her dependent on him totally. And all the while he was doing this he was keeping me busy at home with a bogus takeover bid, ensuring I wouldn’t check up on her.’ Vicenzo laughed harshly. ‘After all, she was here working—a grown woman, as she kept reassuring me, well able to take care of herself. Why should I be worried about her?’

Cara felt sick. She’d witnessed her brother’s actions. What Vicenzo said now didn’t surprise her, but she’d had no idea how influential Cormac had been over Allegra. She’d only ever seen Allegra come and go, stay the night a few times. She’d seemed sweet, perfectly happy. It had only been when he’d revealed his plans that she’d begun to see Allegra as a potential victim. And that revelation had come far too late.

Cara swallowed painfully. ‘If you knew this—’

‘That’s the problem.’ His voice was unbearably harsh, the lines in his face tightly drawn. ‘I didn’t know. Until we figured out that Brosnan’s bid was bogus. Immediately I suspected he was up to something more, and I also realised that he was the new boyfriend Allegra had been so cagey about. I put an investigative secret security detail on her and your brother.’

‘That’s how you knew me,’ Cara breathed, new shock flooding her system.

He didn’t answer. Just continued ruthlessly. ‘Your brother had quite a taste for trust fund girlfriends, but he was in dire straits and desperate when he met Allegra. Unfortunately by the time I found all this out and got to London…it was too late.’

The bleak, haunted tone in his voice reached out to Cara, hitting her heart directly. But before she could say anything in her defence he was rounding on her.

‘And you…’ His eyes flicked up and down, taking in her half-covered body, derision and disgust in his eyes. ‘You and your brother killed my sister. But he’s gone and can’t be held accountable. You, however, walked away from that crash without a scratch.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Isn’t fate serendipitous?’

The true horror of her situation finally spread through Cara. She sank back on her heels, her hands shaking now, unable to stay upright. Vivid images of the crash came back—the awful driving rain, the twisted metal. the smell of petrol and smoke. The dreadful silence after the terrible screeching and tearing had finally stopped.

‘It was an accident,’ she said faintly, her insides in a black knot. Only the other day she had sent a sympathy card to the Valentini offices in London, not having any idea of their address in Sardinia. She’d felt so ineffectual…had wanted to do something—make some kind of contact with Allegra’s family. She’d asked at the hospital but they’d been tight-lipped about what the family were doing, where they were, and Cara had figured that they must have already taken Allegra home. Evidently he hadn’t received the card. Or if he had, she imagined now that it would have added salt to the wound.

He was as cold as ice. Utterly unmoved. ‘It may have been deemed a tragic accident, thanks to the weather, but I’ve no doubt that if you both hadn’t seen fit to use my sister so heinously then she would still be alive today.’

Cara clutched at her chest, her pain indescribable—because his raw words hit home with the precision of an arrow. His grief was tangible. ‘Please—you don’t understand. I played no part in my brother’s life.’ Except as his unpaid slave.

Vicenzo laughed out loud and stepped back. The sound jarred. ‘Oh, really? From the age of sixteen you’ve lived with him in that luxurious penthouse apartment. There’s no record of you attending school or for that matter college in the UK—despite your claim to have obtained a degree. From the age of seventeen you became a regular at his favourite club, and from what I saw last night you learnt how to seduce and beguile at an early age. I have photos of you falling out of that club at four a.m. under the arm of various Z-list celebrities.’

Cara remembered seeing that actress in the queue last night and felt bile rise. ‘Stop it. That’s not how it was.’

But he didn’t stop. He paced, making her feel dizzy. ‘You and your brother were thick as thieves, Miss Brosnan. You hostessed his parties for him—no doubt entertaining his friends along the way.’

The minute he said that the horrible memory of the other night came back to her—what Cormac’s friend had expected of her in repayment of a debt she’d not even known about.

‘Please. Stop,’ she begged weakly. Cara knew she was retreating somewhere inside herself, unable to believe how twisted Vicenzo believed everything to be. How horribly wrong he was.

He finally stopped, and looked at her with an expression so dispassionate it was almost worse than all the words and revelations.