Джоанна Рок – Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender (страница 3)

Natalie was all too aware, and for the last few months it had been keeping her awake at night. She knew why Lachlan was behaving the way he was, but there was little she could do to stop him. Lachlan had been the replacement child after Liam had died—the lost son reincarnated. Since birth he had been forced to live not his own life but Liam’s. All the hopes and dreams their parents had envisaged for Liam had been transferred to Lachlan, and lately he had started to buckle under the pressure. She was terrified that one day soon he would go, or be pushed too far.

She already had one death on her hands. She could not bear to have another.

‘How do you know Lachlan is responsible for the damage?’ she asked. ‘How do you know it wasn’t one of his friends?’

Angelo looked at her with dagger-sharp eyes. ‘The room was booked in his name,’ he said. ‘It was his credit card that was presented at check-in. He is legally responsible, even if he didn’t so much as knock a cushion out of place.’

Natalie suspected her brother had done a whole lot more than rearrange a few sofa cushions. She had more than once witnessed him in the aftermath of one of his drinking binges. Lachlan wasn’t a sleepy drunk or a happy, loquacious one. A few too many drinks unleashed a rage inside him that was as terrifying as it was sudden. And yet a few hours later he would have no memory of the things he had said and done.

So far he had managed to escape prosecution, but only because their rich and influential father had pulled in some favours with the authorities.

But that was here in Britain.

Right now Lachlan was at the mercy of the Italian authorities—which was why she had come to London to appeal to Angelo on his behalf. Of all the hotels in Rome, why had he stayed at one of Angelo Bellandini’s?

Natalie opened her bag and took out her chequebook with a sigh of resignation. ‘All right,’ she said, hunting for a pen. ‘I’ll take your word for it and pay for the damage.’

Angelo barked out a sardonic laugh. ‘You think after you scrawl your signature across that cheque I’ll simply overlook this?’ he asked.

She quickly disguised another swallow. ‘You want more than one hundred thousand pounds?’ she asked, in a voice that sounded too high—squeaky, almost.

He looked at her, his eyes meshing with hers in a lockdown that made the silence throb with palpable tension. She felt it moving up her spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. She felt it on her skin, in the ghosting of goose bumps fluttering along her flesh. She felt it—shockingly—between her thighs, as if he had reached down and stroked her there with one of his long, clever fingers.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. She could read the subtext of that dark, mocking gaze. He didn’t give a toss about the money. It wasn’t money he wanted. He had more than enough of his own.

Natalie knew exactly what he wanted. She had known it the minute she had stepped into his office and locked gazes with him.

He wanted her.

‘Take it or leave it,’ she said, and slammed the cheque on the desk between them.

He picked up the cheque and slowly and deliberately tore it into pieces, then let them fall like confetti on the desk, all the while holding her gaze with the implacable and glittering force of his. ‘As soon as you walk out of here I’ll notify the authorities in Rome to press charges,’ he said. ‘Your brother will go to prison. I’ll make sure of it.’

Natalie’s heart banged against the wall of her chest like a pendulum slammed by a prize-fighter’s punch. How long would her brother last in a foreign prison? He would be housed amongst murderers and thieves and rapists. It could be years before a magistrate heard his case. He was just a kid. Yes, he had done wrong, but it wasn’t his fault—not really. He needed help, not imprisonment.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked.

His mouth lifted in a half-smile, his eyes taunting hers with merciless intent. ‘You can’t guess, mia piccola?’

She drew in a painfully tight breath. ‘Isn’t this taking revenge a little too far? What happened between us is between us. It has nothing to do with my brother. It has nothing to do with anyone but us.’ With me, she added silently. It’s always been to do with me.

His eyes glinted dangerously and his smile completely vanished until his lips were just a thin line of contempt. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. ‘Why did you leave me for a man you picked up in a bar like a trashy little two-bit hooker?’

Natalie couldn’t hold his gaze. It wasn’t a lie she was particularly proud of. But back then it had been the only way she could see of getting him to let her go. He had fallen in love with her. He had mentioned marriage and babies. He had already bought an engagement ring. She had come across it while putting his socks away. It had glinted at her with its diamond eye, taunting her, reminding her of all she wanted but could never have.

She had panicked.

‘I wasn’t in love with you.’ That was at least the truth … sort of. She had taught herself not to love. Not to feel. Not to be at the mercy of emotions that could not be controlled.

If you loved you lost.

If you cared you got hurt.

If you opened your heart someone would rip it out of your chest when you least expected it.

The physical side of things … well, that had been different. She had let herself lose control. Not that she’d really had a choice. Angelo had seen to that. Her body had been under the mastery of his from the first time he had kissed her. She might have locked down her emotions, but her physical response to him still echoed in her body like the haunting melody of a tune she couldn’t forget no matter how hard she tried.

‘So it was just sex?’ he said.

Natalie forced herself to meet his gaze, and then wished she hadn’t when she saw the black hatred glittering there. ‘I was only twenty-one,’ she said, looking away again. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted back then.’

‘Do you know now?’

She caught the inside of her mouth with her teeth. ‘I know what I don’t want,’ she said.

‘Which is?’

She met his gaze again. ‘Can we get to the point?’ she asked. ‘I’ve come here to pay for the damage my brother allegedly caused. If you won’t accept my money, then what will you accept?’

It was a dangerous question to be asking. She knew it as soon as she voiced it. It hung in the ensuing silence, mocking her, taunting her for her supposed immunity.

She had never been immune.

It had all been an act—a clever ploy to keep him from guessing how much she’d wanted to be free to love him. But the clanging chains of her past had kept her anchored in silence. She couldn’t love him or anyone.

Angelo’s diamond-hard gaze tethered hers. ‘Why don’t you sit down and we can discuss it?’ he said, gesturing to a chair near to where she was standing.

Natalie sank into the chair with relief. Her legs were so shaky the ligaments in her legs felt as if they had been severed like the strings of a puppet. Her heart was pounding and her skin was hot and clammy in spite of the air conditioning. She watched as he went back to the other side of his desk and sat down. For someone so tall he moved with an elegant, loose-limbed grace. His figure was rangy and lean, rather than excessively gym-pumped, although there was nothing wrong with the shape of his biceps. She could see the firm outline of them beneath his crisp ice-blue shirt. The colour was a perfect foil for his olive-toned skin. In the past she had only ever seen him in casual clothes, or wearing nothing at all.

In designer business clothes he looked every inch the successful hotel and property tycoon—untouchable, remote, in control. Her hands and mouth had traced every slope and plane and contour of his body. She could still remember how salty his skin tasted against her tongue. She still remembered the scent of him, the musk and citrus blend that had clung to her skin for hours after their making love. She remembered the thrusting possession of his body, how his masterful touch had unlocked her tightly controlled responses like a maestro with a difficult instrument that no one else could play.

She gave herself a mental slap and sat up straighter in the chair. Crossing her legs and arms, she fixed her gaze on Angelo’s with a steely composure she was nowhere near feeling.

He leaned back in his own chair, with his fingers steepled against his chin, his dark gaze trained with unnervingly sharp focus on hers. ‘I’ve heard anybody who is anybody is sleeping between your sheets,’ he said.

She returned his look with chilly hauteur. ‘I don’t suppose you are doing so.’

His lips gave a tiny twitch of amusement, his dark eyes smouldering as they continued to hold hers. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

Natalie’s insides flickered with the memory of long-ago desire. She’d fought valiantly to suppress it, but from the moment she had stepped into his office she had been aware of her body and its unruly response to him. He had always had that power over her. Just a look, an idle touch, a simple word and she would melt.

She couldn’t afford to give in to past longings. She had to be strong in order to get through this. Lachlan’s future depended on her. If this latest misdemeanour of his got out in the tabloids his life would be ruined. He was hoping to go to Harvard after this gap year. A criminal record would ruin everything for him.