‘Let me tell you about Steve,’ she suggested, badly needing to lay that ghost for good and all.
‘No, I don’t want to talk about the past,’ Cesare asserted at speed.
‘But——’
He laid a fingertip against her lower lip. ‘No,’ he said again, with an edge of harshness.
Unwarily she opened her eyes, and sank dizzily into burnished gold. The conversation went right back out of her head.
‘Stay the night with me,’ he whispered, raising a hand and brushing his knuckles gently across one damp cheekbone.
‘It’s only four in the afternoon…’
‘I’m booking you in advance.’
‘I kind of like you on your knees,’ Mina dared.
‘It’s the only time we’re eye to eye and still vertical,’ Cesare pointed out sardonically.
‘We have to ring Susie…’
‘We’ll be with her tomorrow,’ he reminded her, leaning forward, gathering her up and easing her closer.
Her bones turned liquid. He brushed his mouth very softly over her parted lips and she stopped breathing. Her heartbeat hammered crazily. Her hands slid up to caress his hard cheekbones. As he pressed her back, the newspaper lying on the bed behind her crackled noisily. Lifting his head, Cesare wrenched it out from beneath her to toss it aside and then tensed, every muscle of his powerful physique pulling ferociously taut.
‘What?’
Even as she spoke, Cesare was already coiling back from her. The newspaper still gripped in his hand, he sprang upright. ‘Madre de Dio…’ he breathed.
Mina frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
His concentration was entirely fixed on the English newspaper she had been reading over breakfast earlier in the day. A tiny muscle jerking at the corner of his compressed mouth, he lifted his head again, all his natural colour drained from his dark skin. ‘Didn’t you see this?’ he demanded.
‘See what?’
He flipped the paper to exhibit a photo beside an article. ‘That’s Severn.’
‘Who?’ she whispered.
‘The broker you used four years ago has been arrested for serious fraud!’ Cesare spelt out rawly.
‘Severn is the broker whom…’ Mina put together uncertainly.
A spasm of incredulous frustration crossed Cesare’s taut, set features. ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you realise what this means? Severn is under investigation! The police will have seized all his papers and they will be going through them, seeking out evidence with which to prosecute him and anyone else involved in his illicit dealing!’
‘But…but I didn’t…’ Mina muttered shakily.
‘Mina.’ Cesare gripped her hand fiercely. ‘You have to face reality sometime. I suggest you face it now…although for the first time in my life I am not sure that honesty is always the best policy,’ he completed unevenly.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I HOPE we do not live to regret this,’ Cesare asserted grimly as the jet landed with a nasty judder. ‘I don’t think it was a good idea for you to return to London right at this moment.’
Mina said nothing. She hadn’t got a wink of sleep last night. Cesare had reduced her to a state of mute terror. Being convinced of one’s innocence was not a bar to fear, not when you had Cesare around, fully convinced of one’s guilt. Cesare had brooded aloud on every possible worst-case scenario and then decided that she should never, ever set foot on British soil again!
It was small consolation to discover that she had a husband prepared to spend the rest of his days helping her to evade the long arm of the law. If he told her any more about the Statute of Limitations and the unlikelihood of extradition she would climb the walls, she reflected miserably.
Cesare was ready to do anything to keep her out of prison. He had toyed with the idea of her making a full confession and then decided that there was absolutely no way she would receive a fair trial as his wife. What jury could possibly have sympathy for a rich bitch? he had asked her, and he had gone on to cite instances where he believed that other wealthy women had been more heavily punished than would have been the case had they simply been more ordinary mortals.