Loe raamatut: «A Deal Sealed By Passion»

For my children:

Georgia, Eleanor, Hugo, Archie, Agatha and Millicent. Thank you for letting me stay in my cupboard.

I love you all. x

Contents

Cover

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE DARKENED bedroom of his penthouse hotel suite Massimo Sforza gazed in silence at the illuminated numerals of his watch. It was almost time. He held his breath, waiting, and then there was a quiet but audible beep. He breathed out slowly. Midnight.

His lean, dark features tightening, he shifted his gaze and stared down dispassionately at the naked women sprawled over both him and one another in the emperor-sized bed. They were beautiful and wanton and idly he tried to remember their names. Not that it mattered. He would never see either of them again. Women had a tendency to confuse intimacy with commitment but he liked variety and anyway the ‘c’ word was simply not part of his vocabulary.

The brunette shifted in her sleep, her arms flopping onto his chest. Feeling a spasm of irritation, he reached down and lifted the tangle of limbs away from his torso and onto the rumpled sheets before rolling over and out of the bed.

His breathing quiet and measured, he stood up and began to pick his way between the shoes and stockings strewn across the soft pale grey carpet. In front of the huge panoramic window that covered the length of the apartment he noticed a half-empty bottle of champagne and, leaning over, he picked it up.

‘Happy Birthday, Massimo,’ he murmured and, lifting it to his lips, he tipped it up. He made a moue of disgust. Flat and sour—like his mood. Grimacing, he looked down at the street below. He hated birthdays. Particularly his own. All that faux sentiment and ersatz celebration.

A signature on a contract. Now, that was a reason to celebrate. He smiled grimly. Take the latest addition to his ever-expanding property portfolio: a six-storey nineteen-thirties building in the exclusive Parioli district of Rome. He’d had his pick of five properties, two in the most sought-after road in the area: the Via dei Monti. His eyes gleamed. He could have bought them all—he still might. But the one he’d finally chosen hadn’t even been for sale.

Which was why he’d had to have it.

He gave a small tight smile. The owners had refused to sell. But their refusal had simply fuelled his determination to win. And he always won in the end. His smile widened. Which reminded him: those glitches in the Sardinian project should finally have been ironed out. He frowned. And about time too. Patience might be a virtue but he’d waited long enough.

Behind him, one of the women moaned softly, and he felt a frisson of lust shudder over his skin. Besides, right now, he was more interested in vice than virtue.

Savouring his body’s growing arousal, he glanced at the sky. It was nearly dawn. The project meeting was scheduled for that morning. He hadn’t been planning to attend—but what better birthday present could there be than hearing first-hand that the last remaining obstacle had been removed? And that work on his largest and most prestigious resort ever could finally begin.

His eyes narrowed as the blonde lifted her head, her lips curving into a suggestive pout. Coolly, he smiled back at her. Perhaps there was one thing...

He watched the brunette uncurl and stretch lazily and began to walk back to the bed.

* * *

Exactly fifty-one minutes later he strode into Sforza headquarters in Rome, wearing an immaculate navy suit and a deep blue shirt, his five o’clock shadow neatly trimmed.

‘Mr Sforza!’ Carmelina, the junior receptionist, gave a squeak of surprise.

‘Carmelina!’ he replied, smiling calmly.

‘I—I wasn’t expecting you in today, sir—’ she stammered. ‘I must have made a mistake. I thought it was—’

‘My birthday?’ Massimo laughed. ‘It is. You didn’t make a mistake, and I’m not planning on hanging around. I just thought I’d pop into the boardroom on my way to lunch at La Pergola. Don’t worry! I’m a big boy now. I can wait until tomorrow for my present from the staff.’

He watched Carmelina blush. She was sweet, and clearly had the mother of all crushes on him, but he never mixed business with pleasure. Nor would he—unless there was a sudden global shortage in the number of beautiful, sexually imaginative women eager to share his bed.

He paused briefly in front of the door to the boardroom and then pushed it open. There was a sudden flurry of people pushing back chairs and standing up as he walked purposefully into the room.

‘Mr Sforza!’ Salvatore Abruzzi, the company’s chief accountant, stepped forward, a nervous smile upon his face. ‘We weren’t—’

‘I know.’ Massimo waved him away with an impatient hand. ‘You weren’t expecting me.’

Abruzzi smiled weakly. ‘We thought you might be otherwise engaged. But please join us—and happy birthday, Mr Sforza.’

Around the table, his colleagues murmured their congratulations too.

Massimo slid into his seat and gazed calmly around the boardroom. ‘Thank you, but if you really want to give me something to celebrate then tell me when we’re going to start work in Sardinia.’

There was a strained, simmering silence.

It was Giorgio Caselli, his head of legal affairs, and the closest thing Massimo had to a friend, who cleared his throat and met his boss’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Sforza, but I’m afraid we can’t give you that information at the moment.’

For a moment, the room seemed to shrink as though the air had been sucked out of it and then Massimo turned and stared unwaveringly at the lawyer. ‘I see.’ He paused. ‘Or rather, I don’t.’ He gazed slowly around the room, his blue gaze colder than an Arctic ice floe. ‘Perhaps somebody would care to explain?’ Frowning, he leaned back in his seat and stretched out his long legs. ‘You see, I was led to believe that all objecting parties had been—’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Removed.’

There was another strained silence and then Caselli raised his hand. ‘That’s what we believed too, Mr Sforza. Unfortunately the tenant of the Palazzo della Fazia is still refusing to accept all reasonable offers. And as you are well aware, she is legally entitled to stay on at the property under the terms of Bassani’s will.’

Pausing, Caselli tapped loudly on the top of a document box on the table in front of him; several of the junior board members jumped.

‘Miss Golding has made her feelings completely clear. She’s refused to leave the palazzo—and, to be perfectly honest, sir, I can’t see her changing her mind any time soon.’ He sighed. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think we might have to think about some sort of compromise.’

Seeing his boss’s set expression, Caselli sighed again and tipped over the box. There was a muffled gasp from around the table as Massimo stared coldly at the sprawling pile of identical white envelopes. Each one was franked with the Sforza logo. All of them were unopened.

He lifted his head, his expression suddenly fierce, his eyes the darkest ink-blue. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

Now the accountant cleared his throat. ‘I think on this occasion, sir, that Giorgio is right. Perhaps we might consider some form of conciliation—’

Massimo shook his head. ‘No!’ Leaning forward, he picked up one of the envelopes, his face blanked of emotion, the intensity of the gaze belying the quiet reasonableness of his tone. ‘I don’t compromise or conciliate. Ever.’

The eyes around the table stared at him with an unblinking mixture of fear and awe.

‘But we’ve tried every option, Mr Sforza.’ It was Silvana Lisi, his head of land acquisitions. ‘She simply won’t acknowledge our communications. Not even in person.’ She exchanged a helpless glance with her colleagues. ‘She’s completely uncooperative and volatile too, apparently. I believe she threatened to shoot Vittorio the last time he visited the palazzo.’

Massimo surveyed her steadily. ‘How volatile can some little old lady be?’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘Look! I don’t care how old she is, or whether she looks like his nonna, Vittorio is paid to acquire land and properties. If he wants to care for the elderly, I suggest he looks for another job.’

His face pale with nerves, Abruzzi shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Sforza. I think you must have been misinformed. Miss Golding isn’t a little old lady.’

Lounging back in his chair, Massimo frowned. ‘I thought she was some elderly Englishwoman?’

An awkward silence spread across the room and then Caselli said carefully, ‘There was someone living at the palazzo when we first bought the estate—but she was a friend of Bassani, not a tenant, and she left the property over a year ago.’

‘So she’s irrelevant.’ His boss’s face darkened. ‘Unlike the volatile Miss Golding, who appears to have single-handedly thwarted this project and run rings around my entire staff. Perhaps she should be working for me.’

Caselli gave a strained smile. ‘I can only offer my apologies...’ His voice trailed off as he saw the look of impatience on his boss’s face. Sweeping the envelopes off the table, Massimo leaned forward.

‘I own that palazzo, Giorgio. I own the estate and the land surrounding it. And we’ve had approval for the first stage of the project for nearly six months and yet nothing is happening. I expect more than an apology, Giorgio—I want an explanation.’

Hastily, the lawyer shuffled through the papers in front of him. ‘Aside from Miss Golding, everything is on schedule. We have one or two more meetings with the environmental agencies. Just formalities, really. Then the regional council in two months. And then we’re done.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I know we have permission to convert and extend, but we could just modify the plans and build a brand-new palazzo on some other part of the site. We’ll have no problem getting it passed, and it would mean we can bypass Miss Golding entirely—’

Massimo stared at him, the cold blue of his eyes making the temperature in the boardroom plummet abruptly. ‘You want me to change my plans now? To modify a project we’ve worked on for over two years because of one tricky tenant? No. I think not.’ Shaking his head, he glanced angrily around the room. ‘So who exactly is this mysterious Miss Golding? Can someone at least tell me that?’

Sighing, Caselli reached into a pile of folders on the table in front of him and pulled out a slim file. ‘Her name is Flora Golding. She’s English. Twenty-seven years old. She’s moved around a lot, so there’s not much detail, but she was living with Bassani until his death. Apparently she was his “muse”.’ The lawyer stared at his boss and smiled tightly. ‘One of them, anyway. It’s all there in the file.’ Caselli licked his lips ‘Oh, and there’s photographs. These were taken at the opening of the Bassani Wing at the Galleria Doria Pamphili. It was his last public appearance.’

Massimo gave no indication that he had heard a word of this explanation. His eyes were fixed on the photographs in his hand. More particularly they were fixed on Flora Golding. She was clinging to the arm of a man he recognised as the artist Umberto Bassani, and looked far younger than twenty-seven.

She also appeared to be naked.

He felt suddenly dizzy. Wrenching his gaze away, he took a shallow breath and then felt his cheeks grow warm as he saw that she was wearing a dress of some sort of unbleached silk, perhaps a shade lighter than her skin. Noting the soft curves of her breasts and buttocks beneath the clinging dress and the triangle of pale gold skin at her throat, he drew a breath, feeling lust uncurling in the pit of his stomach.

She most definitely was not a little old lady!

He studied her face in silence. With that disdainful tortoiseshell cat’s gaze and crooked crop of fine brown hair, she was an arresting, unorthodox beauty. But she was beautiful—there was no denying that.

A muscle flickered in his jaw as he studied the photograph intently. Beautiful and greedy. Why else would a woman like that surrender her body to a man more than twice her age? Suddenly he tasted bitterness in his mouth. She might look the part, clinging on to her lover’s arm, her eyes lit with an oh-so-convincing adoration, but he knew from personal experience that appearances could be deceptive. More than deceptive! They could be damaging and destructive.

Staring down into those incredible tawny brown eyes, he felt a spark of anger. No doubt a steely will lay beneath the misty softness of their expression. That and a gaping hole where her heart should be. His anger shifted into pity. But what man was truly going to care what lay beneath that satiny skin and curving flesh? And, although he might have been one of the greatest artists of his generation, Umberto Bassani had still been just a man. A sick, elderly, lovestruck fool.

His face hardened. This girl must be quite something if she’d been willing to hook up with a dying man. A lot more than something if she’d lured him into letting her stay on in his home. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach. But was her behaviour so surprising, really? After all, who knew better than he how low a woman like that was prepared to sink in exchange for a share of the spoils?

Or a footnote in a will.

He snapped the folder shut. At least Bassani had had no children. Whatever Miss Golding’s malign influence had been over the old man, it had now run its course. Slowly, he ran a finger over the clean lines of his neatly trimmed stubble. Soon her little protest at the palazzo would be over too, and then denuded of her former powers, she would be homeless and destitute.

Looking up, he studied the faces of the men and women seated around the table. Finally he said, almost mildly, ‘Perhaps you’re right. Maybe we do need a new approach with Miss Golding.’

Clearly surprised by this volte face, Lisi nodded nervously. ‘We could use an intermediary.’ She glanced at her colleagues for support. The lawyer nodded. ‘I think distancing ourselves might be the solution. There are several companies here in Rome that specialise in these sort of negotiations. Or we can go farther afield—London, maybe—’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Massimo said softly. ‘We already have someone working for the company who’s more than capable of convincing Miss Golding that our way is the only way.’

Giorgio frowned. ‘We do? Who?’

Massimo stared at him calmly. ‘Me!’

There was a shocked silence and then Giorgio leaned forward, his forehead corrugated with confusion. ‘As your lawyer, I would have to advise you against such a course of action. Let’s do what Silvana suggested and find an intermediary. It won’t take long but it would be better to wait...’ His voice faded as his boss shook his head slowly.

‘I’ve waited long enough. And you know how I hate waiting.’

‘But, sir.’ Giorgio’s face was taut with shock. ‘You really shouldn’t get personally involved. This is business—’

‘Yes. My business. And it involves me personally.’

‘I understand what you’re saying, sir, but I really don’t think it’s wise for you to meet Miss Golding—’ The lawyer stopped, clearly horrified by the prospect of his uncompromising boss actually coming face to face with the shotgun-carrying, volatile Miss Golding. ‘Anything could happen!’

Massimo felt his body stir. Yes. It could! His eyes flickered over the photographs of Flora, inexorably drawn to the beauty of her body and the challenge of her gaze. His chest tightened. She would be passionate at first, and then tender, those honeycomb-coloured eyes melting as she pulled him fiercely against her...

Closing his mind to the tantalizing image of a naked, feverish Flora, he smiled and the tension around the table evaporated like early morning mist.

‘Don’t worry, Giorgio. I’ll be sure to wear my bulletproof vest,’ he said.

His lawyer grimaced and slumped back in chair. ‘Fine. You can meet her. But only if I’m there to make sure you don’t say or do anything you or more importantly I will regret!’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘I would have thought that you would have had something better to do, today of all days.’

Massimo pushed back his chair and stood up smoothly. ‘I do indeed. I have a surprise birthday luncheon waiting for me at La Pergola.’ His eyes gleamed beneath their dark brows. ‘Reschedule it for this evening! That should give Miss Golding more than enough time to sign on the dotted line. And now you and I have a helicopter to catch.’

* * *

Two hours later, Massimo closed his laptop with a decisive click. The file on Flora Golding had made an entertaining read, but she hardly offered anything in the way of a challenge. In his experience pretty, greedy young women simply needed the correct handling to help them towards the sticky end they so richly deserved.

Leaning back against the plush upholstery, he stared at the Tyrrhenian Sea through the window of his private helicopter. Away from the coastline the water gleamed flat and bluer than a gemstone, while in the distance he could just make out where the waves lapped against the island’s famous ragged granite outcrops.

He turned as the pilot leaned forward. ‘Beautiful scenery isn’t it, sir?’ he shouted over the whirring buzz of the helicopter’s rotors.

Massimo shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ He glanced down at his watch and then shifted round to face the lawyer who sat, eyes squeezed tightly shut, his face damp with sweat.

‘Open your eyes, Giorgio. You’re missing the scenery,’ he said mockingly. Frowning, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you insisted on coming. You know you hate flying. Just take deep breaths and we’ll be back on terra firma before you know it.’ He turned back to address the pilot. ‘How long before we land?’

‘Ten minutes, sir.’

Massimo frowned. ‘That was quick!’

The pilot grinned. ‘We made good time—but then this chopper’s the best on the market.’

Massimo nodded. To him, the helicopter was simply a means of transport. He had no interest in the make or model. Nor did its stupidly high price tag excite him. In truth, all of his ‘toys’—the cars, jets and luxury yachts—left him cold. What truly excited him was the pursuit of some unattainable deal. He loved going head to head with an opponent. And the more he—or she—tried to outmanoeuvre him, the more single-minded and ruthless was his desire to bring them down.

As Miss Flora Golding was about to find out.

The pilot pointed out of the window. ‘That’s the Palazzo della Fazia, sir. If you don’t mind, I’ll probably bring her down over there.’ He gestured towards a large, flat patch of land at the end of the drive.

Massimo nodded, but his eyes were fixed on the honey-coloured building in front of him. The helicopter touched down lightly and as the rotors slowed, he stepped onto the parched grass, his gaze continuing to rest on the palazzo. He owned many large and impressive properties, but he found himself holding his breath as he stared at the golden stucco shimmering beneath the Majorelle blue sky. He was transfixed not by its grandeur but by its serenity and its sense of reassuring immutability—as though the building had grown up out of the land itself.

‘Thank goodness that’s over!’

Massimo turned sharply as Giorgio came and stood beside him, patting his pallid, sweating face with a handkerchief.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked drily.

The lawyer smiled weakly. ‘I feel okay.’

Massimo frowned. ‘Really? You look terrible. Look... Why don’t you wait here? I don’t think you being sick in the flowerbeds is going to help close this deal, do you?’

Giorgio opened his mouth to object. Then took one look at his boss’s face and closed it again.

Massimo smiled. ‘Don’t look so worried. This won’t take long.’

The driveway definitely needed some attention, he thought critically, as he sidestepped a crater-like pothole. Up close, the palazzo too had clearly seen better days. Parts of the stucco were crumbling, and there were small plants poking through the plaster like loose threads on a jumper. And yet still there was something magical about its faded glamour.

He scowled, irritated by this sudden and wholly uncharacteristic descent into sentimentality. There was nothing magical about bricks and plaster. Especially when they were reduced to rubble. And as soon as Miss Flora Golding signed over her tenancy rights that was exactly what was going to happen.

Eyes narrowing, he climbed up the steps to the large front door and pulled purposefully on the bell rope. Tapping his fingers impatiently against the brickwork, he frowned and then pulled on the rope again. There was no answering jangle from inside and stifling a stab of irritation, he hammered hard against the peeling paint, resting his hand on the wood, the heat of it somehow feeding his anger.

Damn her! How dare she keep him waiting like this? Craning his neck, he looked up at the first-storey windows, half expecting to see a face, the eyes dancing with malice. But there was no face, and for the first time he realised that the windows—all the windows—were shuttered. Gritting his teeth, he straightened up. The message could hardly be clearer: Miss Golding was not at home to visitors. Ever.

His head felt full to spilling with rage. Turning on his heel, he walked down the steps and strode along an untidy path beside the palazzo, his shoes crunching explosively on the gravel. Each shuttered window seemed to jeer at him as he passed, and his anger swelled with every step. Reaching the end of the path, he found a gate, the latch broken and with what looked suspiciously like a woman’s stocking tied around it to keep it shut. Irritably, he tore at it with his fingers.

Stalking past a pile of discarded masonry and rusting iron railings, he felt a quiver of excitement as he stepped through a crumbling stone archway into a walled garden. In contrast to the front of the building, all the shutters and the windows at the back of the building were open, and then, turning towards the palazzo, he noticed a half-empty glass of water and the remains of an apple on a marble-topped table. So she was here! But where, exactly?

Blinking in the sunlight, his spine stiffened as he got his answer. Somewhere in the gardens, a woman was singing.

He stared fiercely around the terrazza, but it was empty except for a handful of sunbathing salamanders. For a moment he was rooted to the spot, the pounding of his heart drowning out the song, and then, forcing himself to breathe more slowly, he lifted his head. But it was too late. She’d stopped singing.

Damn it! He turned slowly on the spot, his eyes narrow slits of frustration. Where the hell was she? And then he heard it—the same husky voice—and he felt another flicker of excitement. With light, determined steps, he ducked under an archway festooned with roses—and then stopped almost immediately. It was just another empty terrace. His disappointment aching like a blow to the stomach, he glanced through a fringing of leaves at a large sunken ornamental pond and a collection of marble nymphs.

What the hell was wrong with him? Chasing after a singing girl like some foolhardy sailor bewitched by a siren...

And then his breath stopped his throat and his heart seemed to miss a beat as across the garden he saw one of the nymphs reach out to touch a cluster of pale pink oleanders.

Dry-mouthed, he watched her bend and twist in silence, his breath still trapped somewhere between his throat and his stomach. With the sunlight gleaming on her wet body she looked like a goddess fresh from her morning bath. Her beauty was luminous, dazzling. Beside her the exquisite marble nymphs looked dull and blandly pretty.

Staring hungrily at the slender curl of her waist, the small upturned breasts, he felt the blood start to pulse in his neck. His eyes followed the soft curve of her backbone down to the firm, rounded bottom. The vertebrae looked both defenceless and dangerous and he watched, silently mesmerized as she lifted her arms, and stretching languidly, began to hum. And then his breath almost choked him as he saw that she wasn’t completely naked but was wearing a tiny flesh-coloured thong.

The scrap of damp fabric tugged at his gaze.

His chest tightening, he stared at her hungrily, his blood pulsing thickly as she dipped her feet into the pond and then began to sing again in the same sweet, light voice.

Massimo smiled. He recognised the song, and with the breath spinning out of him like sugar turning to candyfloss he started to whistle the tune.

The girl froze, her head jerking upwards. Taking a step forwards, she frowned. ‘Who’s there?’

Moving out from under the archway, Massimo held his hands out in front of him. ‘Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I hope I didn’t scare you.’

She stared at him fiercely, and he realised with surprise that she didn’t seem scared. Nor had she made any attempt to cover her nakedness. But then given the beauty of that body, why should she? His own body hardened painfully as she looked up at him defiantly.

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t creep about in the bushes. This is private property and you’re trespassing. I suggest you leave now before I call the police.’

Her Italian was fluent, and bore no trace of an English accent, and he felt another stab of surprise and admiration too. But neither showed on his face as he smiled at her coolly.

‘The police! That might be a little premature.’ His English was perfect and, watching her eyes widen with surprise, he smiled grimly, gratified to see that he had got under that delectable skin. ‘Don’t you want to know who I am first?’

‘I know who you are, Mr Sforza.’ Her voice was clear and calm. She lifted her chin. ‘And I know what you want. But you’re not going to get it. This is my home, and I’m not about to let you turn it into some ghastly boutique hotel for loud, sweaty tourists, so you might as well leave.’

‘Or what?’ His eyes drifted casually over her naked breasts. ‘If you’re concealing a weapon, I’d really like to know where.’ He stared at her mockingly. ‘This is my property and my land and you are my tenant. As your landlord, I’m entitled to inspect what’s mine. Although, to be fair, I think you’ve pretty much shown me everything there is to see.’

Flora glared at him, her eyes flashing with anger. So this was the famous Massimo Sforza—or was that infamous? The man whose arrogant swirling signature had dominated her days and dreams for so many weeks. He was everything she had imagined him to be: slickly clever, charming yet ruthless. But now, with that glittering blue gaze locked onto hers, it was clear she had underestimated the ratio of charm to ruthlessness. Meeting his eyes, she felt a shiver of fury run through her body. He clearly believed that his presence was dazzling enough to overpower her objections to his stupid hotel. If so, he was sadly mistaken. She’d had her fill of men simply assuming that she would fit in with their plans. Particularly one as smug as Massimo Sforza.

Her heartbeat began to quicken. He was completely, irredeemably loathsome. So why then was her pulse fluttering like a moth near a candle? Heat burned her cheeks and she shook her head in denial—but there could be no denying her body’s treacherous, quivering response to his. Nor the fact that he was the most wickedly attractive man she’d ever met.