Dark Angel

road with the discouraging central furrow of grass, he drove about five kilometres down the other before finding himself back at the same staggered crossroads. To say that he did not take that revelation in good part would have been an understatement. A journey that he had believed would only take him an hour had already taken him three.

Within minutes of taking the grassy lane Luciano was, however, rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of a gingerbread turret through dense thickets of trees. An imposing castellated entrance appeared round the next corner. While frowning at the huge cracks in the façade of the gateway, he received his first view of a castle straight out of a Gothic fantasy. A hotchpotch of improbable turrets and elaborate battlements broke the skyline. He was not impressed by the beauty of the limestone in the afternoon sunshine or the glory of the mature woodland that embellished Ballybawn because the very first thing he noticed was the giant tarpaulin that was lashed to part of the roof. As repairing the roof had been the main purpose of the loan he had advanced, righteous anger hardened Luciano’s lean, dark features.

Shooting the Ferrari to a halt in the rough parking area below the trees, he headed up to the castle. Three huge Irish wolfhounds charged down the grass slope towards him in an ecstasy of over-excited barking. Any notion that he might be under attack was soon dispelled by the excessive enthusiasm of his welcome. Forced to repel the onslaught of lolling tongues and giant muddy paws from dogs who had clearly not enjoyed even the most basic training, Luciano uttered a ringing rebuke. The gambolling hounds went into confused retreat and he entered the castle’s imposing porch alone. He looked in surprise at the furniture, walking sticks, boots and coats, not to mention the moth-eaten stuffed stag’s head still ornamenting the wall. Evidently, regardless of the reality that Ballybawn was now his property, the O’Briens remained in residence.

Kerry heard the dogs barking and groaned out loud. In the middle of baking for the visitors’ tour booked for the next day, she paused only to brush the flour off her skirt before racing for the front entrance to see who had arrived. There she came to a sudden shocked halt the instant she saw the tall, powerful male poised by the smoke-blackened fireplace. In his leather jacket and faded jeans, luxuriant black hair tousled by the breeze, a slight hint of a stubble already darkening his aggressive jawline, Luciano had all the stunning impact of a punch in the stomach.

‘I wasn’t expecting you this soon…’ Kerry admitted, mouth running dry, brain empty of inspirational openings as she thought in dismay of all the tasks she had yet to accomplish.

Not the slightest bit surprised by her appearance, for it had not once occurred to him that she would not live up to her threat of staying on in the castle, Luciano sent her a grim dark golden glance. ‘Where are your grandparents?’

‘In Dublin staying with a relative…I left them there yesterday.’ Kerry sucked in a steadying breath, heart thumping hard inside her tight chest as she decided that that was really all the information he required at present.

Relieved of the prospect of being forced to deal with the O’Briens in person, Luciano flung back his arrogant dark head in interrogative mode. ‘So what are you doing here?’

Self-conscious pink bloomed in Kerry’s cheeks. ‘I’m…I’m the castle housekeeper.’

As he received that declaration, black lashes with the exotic density of silk fans almost hit Luciano’s hard cheekbones. Grudging appreciation grabbed him. It was perfect. Indeed, he almost congratulated her on making such creative use of his concession that estate employees would be retained until further notice. But if she had already rehomed her grandparents in Dublin, what was her game plan? She had to have an ulterior motive and a strategy in mind. Exactly what could Kerry hope to achieve by pretending to be his housekeeper?

Proximity. As Machiavellian designs came as naturally to Luciano as the art of breathing, he was quick to decide that her most likely objective was…him. Here he was, her former fiancé, now in possession of loads of cash and her ancestral home. So what if he was an excon deemed to have played away with her stepsister? Needs must when the devil rides…hadn’t that once been one of Kerry’s cute little sayings? She could only have assumed the role of housekeeper in the hope of catching him in a weak moment and marrying him. Forewarned of that fell motive, Luciano squared his broad shoulders, wide, sensual mouth curling. He would go to his grave before he caught wedding fever in her vicinity again.

In the buzzing silence, Kerry closed her restive hands together. She could only hate him for the sheer cruelty with which her grandparents had been stripped of their possessions. Unfortunately, hatred was not an emotion she could afford to luxuriate in or risk showing him. At most she had six to eight weeks before her grandparents would have to return from Dublin. In that time, Luciano would decide whether to sell on the castle or to put it to some other use. If she was lucky, he would continue to employ her in some capacity and she would be able to share her accommodation with the older couple.

Luciano gazed down at her with gleaming dark golden eyes. ‘And what do your duties as a housekeeper entail?’

Bright turquoise eyes carefully veiled, Kerry tilted her chin. ‘You’re the boss…you tell me.’

‘You can start by showing me to the main bedroom.’

‘It’s in the tower but, although my grandfather used it, I don’t think it’s suitable for—’

‘Then the tower is where I want to be.’ Luciano moved fast to crush any suggestion that he would settle for anything less than an O’Brien born to the privilege.

Kerry compressed her lush mouth and opened the door that closed off the spiral stone staircase and kept the worst of the cold draughts out of the rest of the castle. If he wanted to bath in lake water in Ballybawn’s very oldest bath and freeze, that was his business. Or was it? Did she want him to be uncomfortable at Ballybawn? Her own best hopes depended on him retaining ownership.

‘It’s quite cold in the tower. My grandparents liked it that way. Grandpa thought it was healthier,’ she admitted uneasily.

‘I’ll survive.’ At the very top of the stone staircase that climbed four floors, Luciano strode past her into the mediaeval pannelled room which had a shabby four-poster bed as a centrepiece. A wonderful barrel-vaulted wooden ceiling soared above and he was impressed. The narrow casement windows gave a spectacular view of the rolling wooded hills backed by the distant blue mountains.

Folding her arms, her slim body taut, Kerry studied him while he stood there. Light gleamed over his cropped black hair and delineated the hard, bronzed lines of his classic profile. His sleek leather designer jacket moulded his muscular physique with the same fidelity as the denim jeans that hugged his lean hips and long, powerful thighs. Something hot and forbidden curled low in her tummy, tensing her up even more. In punishment for her own weakness, she dug her fingernails hard into the tender skin of her elbows.

Aware of her watching him with the fine-tuned senses that made him the very dangerous enemy that he was, Luciano pictured her sprawled naked across the bed. In his imagination, he saw her clear as day: glorious hair flaming in contrast against the simple white quilt, small, pouting breasts, pale, perfect limbs. Before he could dredge himself back out of that erotic daydream, the damage was done. His body clenched hard in urgent sexual response, and all the volatile impatience that lay at the heart of his forceful character surged to the fore.

‘I still want you,’ Luciano confessed without hesitation, ebony lashes low over the smouldering golden onslaught of his challenging gaze. ‘And you want me just as much. Let’s ditch the flirtatious foreplay and just go to bed.’

For the count of ten endless seconds, Kerry stared back at him with wide, disconcerted eyes and parted lips from which no sound emerged. He still wanted her? Even now, he could find her attractive? That startling revelation sliced right through Kerry’s every defence. Immediately she felt different about that kiss at his office. If that had been prompted by a passionate impulse rather than a desire to humiliate her…what? What? There her disturbing thought-train screeched to a guilty, confused halt. How on earth could she be allowing herself even to think about Luciano in such intimate terms again?

‘Time feels very precious to me right now. I intend to live every moment,’ Luciano confided huskily, shrugging free of his jacket and tossing it in a careless, graceful movement onto a chair. ‘Live it with me.’

He was the very last word in smooth and cool and he had been born knowing all the best lines, Kerry thought with angry pain. He might still be so heartbreakingly gorgeous that he could dazzle her but she now had the distinct advantage of knowing what a cruel and ruthless bastard he was at heart. He was the male who in the wake of the repossession order had allowed a valuer to come in to lay claim to the few saleable items that still remained in the castle…everything, from furniture right down to the family portraits, her grandfather’s beloved books and even her grandmother’s pathetic collection of damaged Chinese porcelain.

‘I really can’t believe you’re talking to me like this after what you’ve done to my family over the last few weeks,’ Kerry condemned unevenly, her face firing with colour when she found herself still having to fight to drag her attention from the magnetic lure of his gaze.

Luciano gave a slight wince that implied that she had clumsily touched on an indelicate subject. ‘Debts have to be settled.’

‘Yeah…right,’ Kerry conceded on a rising note of helpless bitterness. ‘So Grandpa was conned into acting like an old-fashioned gentleman and agreeing to a voluntary arrangement with your representative to meet those debts. Then, guess what? The valuer decides that Ballybawn is a tumbledown white elephant and undervalues it, so that even after you get the castle Grandpa still owes you money—’

‘What are you talking about?’ Luciano cut in.