Caleb jerked his head back towards the hotel. ‘Maggie is trying to control the Chinese whispers. Care to tell me who that was and why there’s a media scrum back there?’
Vicenzo shook his head. As much as he admired and respected his friend, he couldn’t begin to articulate this out loud.
Caleb laughed softly, ‘A word of warning, my friend. Those redheads are dangerous. I should know. From the minute I set eyes on Maggie she turned me upside down and inside out.’
Vicenzo fought to bring his seething anger under control and smiled as urbanely and carelessly as he could. ‘Believe me, this is nothing like you and Maggie.’
Caleb just looked at him and lifted a brow, and as Vicenzo led the way back into the hotel he felt that tightening feeling in his chest again—except this time it didn’t seem to be going away.
Cara returned to her building the following evening after another fruitless day of job hunting. She’d gotten up that morning with the nausea even worse than usual—no doubt as a result of her impetuously stupid actions of the night before. She’d been jumpy all day, half expecting Vicenzo to spring out of somewhere and throttle her.
As she approached her apartment now, though, the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. The door was ever so slightly ajar. In that moment she knew she’d prefer to catch a burglar in the act rather than face the person she knew was waiting for her. And she knew there was no point trying to run. She felt his ominous presence in every fibre of her being and, with her heart thumping, she pushed open her door.
Vicenzo Valentini stood by the threadbare couch in a wide-legged, dominantly powerful stance. Dark jeans hugged hard thighs, and a dark polo shirt and well-worn brown leather jacket made him look devilish and so gorgeous that she felt winded. She couldn’t speak as she stood on the threshold and took him in. She didn’t even bother to formulate the question as to how he might have got in.
He looked at her with no discernible expression. Only a muscle twitching in his jaw told her he was far from happy. He held out a white piece of paper and asked, almost conversationally, ‘Why is Sebastian Mortimer blackmailing you?’
The letter.
‘How dare you snoop through my private things?’ Panic flooded Cara, galvanising her, and she marched over to snatch it out of his hand. But Vicenzo caught her arm and held the letter well out of reach.
‘Why is Sebastian Mortimer blackmailing you?’ he repeated with a steely tone.
‘Because I didn’t sleep with him,’ Cara spat out. She tried to jerk her arm away from his grip but he wouldn’t let her go. She held herself tensely and glared up at him, feeling horribly exposed; if he still doubted her word about that then he still didn’t believe she’d been a virgin. This man was so dangerous to her now, in so many ways, but she had to defend herself. His misconception of her character was so bad that she knew even if he believed her explanation about Mortimer she’d remain in the gutter in his eyes. She had nothing to lose.
‘He paid off Cormac’s debts without my knowledge and came to me presenting it as a fait accompli. He hoped that I’d show my gratitude by…’ She swallowed the bile. ‘By becoming his live-in mistress.’ She shuddered lightly as she remembered how close he’d come to forcing himself on her.
Vicenzo still held Cara’s arm, and absurdly she felt somehow protected. It confused her in the midst of the shock at seeing him here and his obvious disbelief.
‘The thought didn’t appeal then?’
She shook her head mutely, trying to gauge what was going on in that dangerous mind of his. She glanced at the letter. ‘He’s threatening to revert the debt back into my name if I don’t change my mind.’
Vicenzo’s face was like stone. ‘He was obviously confident enough of your response, however, to pay in advance.’
Cara stung at his quick condemnation—a repetition of what he’d said to her on that morning two months ago. The truth was that Sebastian Mortimer was an arrogant sociopath who had an inflated notion of his own attractiveness. As Cormac’s confidant, he’d been aware of Cara’s vulnerable position and had counted on it, assuming she’d go along with his plans. When she hadn’t, he’d turned nasty in an instant.
‘Well,’ she bit out painfully, ‘he didn’t get the response he expected.’
Vicenzo frowned suddenly, and his hand tightened. ‘Did he hurt you?’
Cara sucked in a breath at the way he suddenly bristled. She couldn’t halt the awful memory of Mortimer coming closer and closer, the panic as she’d tried to placate him, her search for an escape route in the face of his huge overweight bulk coming ever nearer. And then he’d reached her, his mouth in a lascivious grin…
She willed the memory down and shook her head hurriedly. ‘No…He…the concierge came to the door. I was able to get rid of him before anyth
ing happened.’
Vicenzo looked at Cara carefully. She was avoiding his eye, but to his surprise in that moment he didn’t doubt that the terror he’d seen cross her face was real, as if she’d been reliving something. He quelled the protective surge that came from nowhere rational. But on the back of that came the heavy sinking weight of realisation—he believed her. And that was largely because he’d finally had to concede last night that he also believed she’d been a virgin. The signs he’d ignored that night couldn’t be denied.
And yet why hadn’t she taken what Mortimer had offered? He felt her quiver lightly under his hand and his natural cynicism asserted itself. He welcomed it almost with relief. She must have believed she’d hook a bigger fish—after all, what else had she been doing in the club that night? And he, like a prize fool, had been it…
Cara realised that her breath was coming swift and fast. Her body’s reaction to seeing Vicenzo again was disturbing. She finally pulled free of his grip and put some distance between them, standing near the kitchen area. Defusing the reaction in her body with all her strength, she said, ‘And before you accuse me of it, I had nothing to do with that media circus last night. Someone in the ballroom must have tipped them off.’
Vicenzo allowed his unpalatable thoughts to be diverted momentarily, and quirked an incredulous brow as he stepped forward. Cara took a hasty step back towards her tiny adjoining kitchen.
‘What? No little whispered words before you came in to drop your public bombshell?’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I don’t buy it for a second. You orchestrated the whole thing because you’ve now seen a way to claim the ultimate prize for yourself. After all, even if Allegra had married your brother, her inheritance is only a slice of what I own. You’re a smart girl. You would’ve figured that out the minute you knew who I was. You must have congratulated yourself on your gamble to keep your virginity for the highest bidder—or was it just that Mortimer disgusted you physically and your brother’s death necessitated the need to dispose of it quickly? Perhaps,’ he drawled, clearly not finished, ‘you were planning on going to back to Mortimer if you didn’t find a more attractive, wealthier protector?’
Everything in Cara seized at his insulting words. She felt so dizzy for a second she thought she might pass out. Anger and pain, pure and white-hot, surged upwards. ‘You absolute—’