A Savage Betrayal

‘But I needed to see that evidence,’ Mina told him tensely, a giant surge of frustration currenting through her taut body. ‘I wanted to——’

‘Make up nonsensical stories to explain every piece of it away?’ Cesare derided. ‘That’s why I wouldn’t have shown it to you.’

‘So I’m not to be allowed the chance to defend myself——’

‘I want no more lies,’ Cesare interposed coldly. ‘I’ve heard enough of them. As for the money…on that count I suspect you are telling me the truth. I don’t think you have anything left to stash away.’

Mina took a deep breath, ‘I didn’t do it,’ she murmured with taut emphasis. ‘You have to give me the chance to prove that.’

His strong face hardened. ‘When you talk in this vein, you anger me more. The subject is closed until you are prepared to admit the truth. Buonanotte, cara.’

If t

here had been anything within reach she would have thrown it at him! Balked of even the smallest chance to clear her name, Mina was inflamed by raw resentment. But she had learnt something which she had naively failed to grasp until now. Cesare was still determined to make her pay for her supposed crime. He might not have been prepared to report her to the authorities but that was only because he intended to deal out punishment personally.

And he was considerably more ruthless than any judge would have been. She was not to be allowed any form of hearing. Cesare had decided that she was guilty and that was that and now the sentence was being carried out. She was to be marooned in isolation until she showed signs of repentance.

What form of repentance did Cesare envisage? She was to confess and no doubt do a lot of weeping and begging for forgiveness until honour was satisfied. He was really putting on the thumbscrews, she reflected hysterically. No shopping, no nightclubs, no other men…wow! How on earth would she ever survive such deprivations? He even seemed to think that simply being at home with Susie all day would be a punishment, not realising that that was a luxury she was eagerly looking forward to.

But Cesare had also told her that he loved her four years ago…That tore her in two. Yet what kind of love had it been that he had judged her guilty with such immediacy that he had instantly sacked her? He hadn’t even been prepared to wait until he returned from Hong Kong. He had not questioned her guilt. Nor had he allowed his feelings to come between him and his sense of right and wrong. It occurred to Mina for the first time that the evidence against her must have been overwhelming.

Right now if she persisted in raising the subject and continually reiterating her innocence it would push them even further apart, and yet how could she remain silent? Someone in Falcone Industries had set her up. She no longer had any doubt of that fact. Cesare had only been in Hong Kong for ten days and on the fifth day she had been sacked.

So who had given Cesare the information which had made her the victim of someone else’s fraud? It had all happened so incredibly fast. And finally, where had that fifty thousand pounds gone when it had finally been removed from her account?

She decided to write to her bank but she wondered ruefully if they would even consider divulging such information or if they would retain records of such a transfer this long after the event. Yet surely whoever had accepted back that money had to be the real perpetrator of the crime, or at the very least an accomplice? The ability to prove that that money had left her account again would mean nothing. Cesare would merely assume that she had shifted it somewhere else. But she had to try, didn’t she? She had to at least try.

Impulsively she scrambled back out of bed, yanked a nightie out of a drawer, slid into it in a rush and then opened the communicating door. The room beyond was in darkness but for a triangle of light showing from an ajar door at the other end. She could hear a shower running. She switched on the light beside the bed and hovered.

A few minutes later, Cesare emerged towelling his hair dry. He stopped dead, flaring golden eyes shimmering over her slender figure. Suddenly Mina became awesomely conscious both of the flimsy nature of the silk nightdress and the nudity of his lean, golden body.

‘Do you ever think of anything else?’ she heard herself demand helplessly, her skin burning with awareness at the explicit sensuality of his unashamed appraisal. ‘I came in here to talk seriously about something and I only want you to listen.’

He cast aside the towel, shifted a shoulder in an infuriatingly careless shrug. It was not encouraging but Mina was determined to say her piece. She told him about the money which had appeared and then disappeared from her bank account four years previously. His dark features remained maddeningly uninformative. When she came to a breathless halt, he strolled past her and closed the door between their bedrooms.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she prompted tautly.

‘For a story right off the top of your head, it’s agile…even clever. It would be very difficult to prove or disprove after this length of time,’ Cesare drawled.

Mina linked her hands together tightly and looked levelly back at him. ‘I thought that maybe you could help me to check it out.’

‘Madre di Dio…do I look that gullible?’ he raked back at her incredulously.

Wild colour sprang up in her cheeks, her eyes glittering. ‘No, you look stupid!’ Mina hissed back at him hotly. ‘Stupid…stubborn and self-satisfied, and I’m fed up to the back teeth with you!’

Cesare quirked an ebony brow. ‘Is that why you drifted in here dressed to kill?’

‘Dressed to what?’ Mina gasped, studying him with splintering amethyst enquiry. ‘You’d find a sack an enticement, wouldn’t you?’

‘On you…probably,’ Cesare conceded without skipping a beat as he strolled closer. ‘As you said, I’m way down the evolutionary ladder, cara.’

‘Back off, you conceited jerk! If you think I came in here——’

‘To stay? I do think that,’ he confirmed, reaching out a lean hand and snapping it round her wrist. ‘Dio mio, cara…do you really think I’ll let you walk away in a huff just because I neglected to swallow your entertaining but wholly improbable fairy-tale?’

As he propelled her closer, Mina attempted to free herself from his hold. ‘It wasn’t a fairy-tale, damn you!’

In a lightning-swift movement he enclosed her other wrist and drew her firmly towards him, a fiercely intent look stamped on his lean features.