The Italian's Inherited Mistress

Why wasn’t she dealing with the reality that she had developed more feelings for Alissandru than was safe in such a scenario? He only wanted sex. Maybe that volatile temper of his spurred his lust for her but lust didn’t amount to much, did it? It wasn’t feelings, it wasn’t caring...

Was that what she was looking for and had hoped to find with him? When she was at the point of tearing her hair out by the roots with frustration over her distinctly confusing reactions to Alissandru, Constantia arrived at the front door with Puggle.

Isla was as wreathed in blushes as a shamefaced teenager at being confronted by Alissandru’s mother the morning after the night before. She invited the older woman in for coffee, apologised profusely for the messy kitchen and grabbed a tray to carry the cups out to the pretty terrace that overlooked a rather overgrown garden at the back of the house. Once there she concentrated on practicalities and asked if there were any local charities who might welcome a donation of clothes and things. Constantia was very helpful, and she asked Isla about her friendship with Paulu, visibly relaxing over the freedom to talk about her late son.

‘Your sister made my son very, very happy,’ the older woman said quietly. ‘At times she also made him very unhappy but I am grateful for the happiness he did find with her.’

‘Did you get to know Tania well?’ Isla asked curiously.

‘No. I was her mother-in-law and she was wary of me, fearful that I might be the interfering type. I’ve never been in this house before,’ Alissandru’s mother confided, startling Isla. ‘Your sister would never have invited me in. She guarded her privacy fiercely.’

‘I didn’t get to know her well at all because she wasn’t the confiding type and I can hardly blame her for that when I was so much younger,’ Isla conceded ruefully.

‘She was very independent, possibly because she was making her own living from an early age,’ Constantia remarked reflectively. ‘Alissandru and Tania clashed from day one but that was inevitable with them both being such strong-willed individuals.’

‘I clash with Alissandru, too,’ Isla heard herself confess and then was stunned that she had spoken so freely.

‘That won’t do him any harm.’ Constantia’s smile was warm with amusement. ‘Alissandru always thinks he knows best. He was the same in the nursery...bossy and bold.’

‘And quick-tempered?’ Isla prompted helplessly.

‘Oh, yes,’ Constantia agreed. ‘But the flipside of that was that he was also very honest and responsible. Paulu would’ve lied sooner than admit he had done something wrong but Alissandru was always fearless.’

When the bell went, Isla was mulling over that conversation while she guiltily cleaned the kitchen she had ignored the night before, but only because of Alissandru’s unexpected arrival, she reminded herself wryly.

She went to the door and received an exuberant arrangement of white flowers, all ready for display in a sparkling crystal vase. She didn’t need to read the card in the foliage but she opened it with compressed lips, scrutinising Alissandru’s initials with reluctant amusement. He was being very discreet because there was no message or proper signature to reveal the identity of the sender.

When the bell went a second time, she was filling bin bags with Paulu’s and Tania’s clothing while carefully checking pockets or bags for anything that should be retained. This time it was a man in a chauffeur-driven car who formally presented her with a gift-wrapped shallow box, clicked his heels with military precision and climbed back into the car. Once again she found an initialled gift tag and she rolled her eyes, ripping open the package with little ceremony as she stood in the kitchen, which was flooded with sunlight. A disconcerted look on her face, she flipped open the shallow jewellery case and the blinding sparkle of the diamond necklace within knocked her for six. She lifted it out, stunned by the shimmering rainbow glitter of the row of diamonds, and rage engulfed her in a flood.

Alissandru thought he could give her diamonds after spending the night with her? Some sort of payoff—a don’t-ring-me-I’ll-ring-you cop-out on decent behaviour? Well, he could take a flying jump off the edge of the planet!

She leapt into the hire car, Puggle accompanying her, and drove up to the palazzo, powered on the fuel of fury alone. The manservant, Octavio, whom Constantia had confessed ran her son’s household with the efficiency of the former soldier he had been, ushered her in and, when she requested Alissandru, escorted her at a stately pace along a corridor where he knocked on a door for her and then departed.

‘Avanti!’ Alissandru called.

Isla plunged over the threshold with the eagerness of a cavalry charge, stopping dead one foot in the door to press it closed behind her while glowering at Alissandru, who was seated behind a laptop at his desk.

‘Isla!’ he exclaimed as though she were a welcome, if unexpected, visitor.

He lunged upright, black hair untidy above startlingly bright dark golden eyes, a smile curving his sculpted mouth. He wore faded jeans and an open black shirt and was visibly in weekend relaxed mode. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’ he asked, feasting his attention on the vision she made in a rather shapeless grey linen shift, which should in his opinion have looked dowdy but which inexplicably merely set off her wonderfully vibrant hair and eyes and accentuated the grace of her slender limbs.

Unfortunately his dark deep voice, which was utterly seductive in the darkness of the night hours, acted on Isla like a flame thrower. ‘Thank you for the flowers,’ she told him curtly. ‘But no thank you for the jewels!’

As she slapped the jewel case loudly back on his desk, Alissandru stiffened and frowned at her, dark brows pleating, stunning eyes narrowing beneath his curling fringe of black lashes. ‘Cosa c’è che non va? What’s wrong?’ he demanded, taken aback by her mood.

‘If you spend the night with me, you don’t pay for it with diamonds!’ Isla informed him with fierce pride.

‘It wasn’t a payment, it was a gift,’ Alissandru contradicted with emphasis, studying her with frowning intensity, wondering how something so simple could be interpreted as something so wrong.

‘I don’t want gifts that expensive!’ Isla fired back at him. ‘I won’t accept them.’

‘Duly noted,’ Alissandru said drily. ‘But does a poor choice of gift really demand this vehement a refusal?’

Isla bridled, reluctant to go into what had made her so very angry, determined not to betray herself in such a way. ‘You offended me.’

‘Obviously,’ Alissandru conceded, marvelling that he had once believed she was a carbon copy of her infinitely more avaricious sister. ‘But it was a gift, a small sign of my appreciation for the night we shared.’

Isla gritted her teeth. ‘Staying around for breakfast would have been better received.’

‘But that would have been indiscreet and I did promise you discretion,’ he reminded her silkily. ‘If I’m home before dawn, nobody notices, but a later return attracts witnesses and I wasn’t sure that you would be comfortable with a more public unveiling of our intimacy.’

Hot colour washed Isla’s face in a slow, burning and very uncomfortable flush, because she didn’t want anyone on the Rossetti estate knowing about that ‘intimacy’. ‘I want last night to remain a secret,’ she told him without hesitation.

‘Not a problem,’ Alissandru agreed carelessly, stooping down to snatch up the document case that Puggle had dug his teeth into, contriving to lift both document case and dog together into the air.

Moving forward, Isla hurriedly detached Puggle and gave him a sharp word of reproof when he growled at Alissandru. ‘Give him some food and he’ll stop trying to bite you.’

‘What about discipline? Training?’ Alissandru suggested in wonderment. ‘Wouldn’t that be more sensible?’

‘Food is quicker and easier, but if I don’t watch out he’s going to get fat.’ Isla sighed.