Sabrina Philips – Valenti's One-Month Mistress (страница 3)

‘Over my dead body. It is not for sale.’

‘Not yet, perhaps.’ He was smiling now, and it infuriated her. ‘But I’ll wait.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Ahh—of course. How could I forget that waiting is a virtue that so eludes you, Faye? What I mean is I’m guessing it won’t be long before it is for sale.’

Faye felt the colour rise hotly in her cheeks, as much at the accusation of loose morals he had just made as at the realisation of just how much he knew. For Dante was not the kind of man who guessed anything. He hadn’t become a billionaire by burying his head in the sand. He clearly knew more about the financial state of Matteson’s than she had originally thought, and it wasn’t because of any distant interest he might have had in the restaurant, or in her. It was because he had seen an opportunity for himself. The thought was like a waterfall of ice down her spine. So now, if their profits failed to increase, Matteson’s wouldn’t just slowly fade away. He would be there to launch his brutal takeover attack.

‘Well, it looks like I’ll have to try my powers of persuasion elsewhere, doesn’t it?’ she retorted, raising her eyebrows and flashing him a smile right back. She would not let him have the satisfaction of thinking this was a fait accompli. So what if he had been her last possible resort? There was no harm in calling his bluff. Faye saw the wave of anger that momentarily crossed his face disappear as quickly as it had come. She suspected it was a rare thing for a woman to refuse him whatever it was he had set out to get.

‘Perhaps we can come to some arrangement,’ he ground out.

‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘A compromise, of sorts.’

Faye doubted he knew the meaning of the word.

Suddenly the intercom in the middle of the room burst into life. ‘I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Valenti, but Mr Castillo from the Madrid office is on the line, and he says it’s urgent.’

Dante swooped down to the device on the desk. ‘Thank you, Julietta. Please ask him if he would be so kind as to hold for just a few minutes. I am almost finished here.’

‘Of course.’ The woman’s voice was silky, reverent. As hers must have once been, Faye thought wretchedly. She could not help shuddering at the seductive way in which he had spoken the woman’s name in return, the compassionate response that suggested he was actually something other than a cold, calculating bastard. Something like jealousy coursed through her veins, and she hated herself for it.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘Sorry?’ His question caught her unawares.

‘In Rome—where are you staying?’

‘At a guesthouse near the airport. Not that it’s any concern of yours.’

‘No, you’re not. I will have someone collect your bags, and my driver will take you to Il Maia.’

Il Maia? What was he talking about? She had never wanted to see Rome again, let alone his hotel. Now he had made it clear he had no intention of helping her, she planned to catch the next flight home. ‘Even if I could afford to stay at Il Maia, it won’t be necessary. I fly home tonight.’

His voice was dangerously low. ‘No, you won’t, Faye. Unless you want to sit back and watch the remains of your family’s business crumble around you. I am willing to reconsider your proposal—on my terms. I will be in the hotel bar at eight, and we will discuss this over dinner.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, as if the prospect could not be more unappealing. ‘Since I recall that you never fulfilled the duration of your previous stay, I will kindly overlook the cost.’ He motioned towards the door. ‘I have more pressing business now. Julietta will show you out.’

‘I am not agreeing to this when all you’ve told me so far is that you wouldn’t touch my proposal with a bargepole!’ she exclaimed, incensed by both the idea of returning to Il Maia and the prospect of spending an entire evening in his company. For one thing, she hated the thought that she might feel indebted to him, and for another, the emotions he had evoked in her during this short meeting alone quite frankly terrified her. But he was already on the intercom, telling Julietta to arrange a driver, and to put through the call from Madrid.

‘Give me one good reason why I should consent to your ridiculous proposition!’ she fired out helplessly, her eyes burning with defiance.

Dante took a deep breath and turned to face her, shaking his head patronisingly. ‘Because your consent is not a requirement, Miss Matteson. You will do what I tell you because I am going to make you an offer that you can’t refuse, and because if you don’t I’ll ruin you.’

And with that he switched into perfect Spanish, and continued with his call.

Dante replaced the phone in its receiver, having rectified Castillo’s supplier crisis without issue. Faye had stormed from the room the instant he’d turned his attention away from her, exactly as he’d anticipated. It was not the first time a woman had left his office sulking when things had not gone her way, and he doubted it would be the last. And yet, as he glanced at the chair where she had been sitting, he had to admit that he had been wrong about one thing. She had practically refrained from looking him in the eye for the entire meeting. The only time she had met his gaze had been when she was being bloody defiant about the dire financial state of her restaurant, and then she had looked away again just as quickly. It frustrated the hell out of him. Did she think she could fool him all over again with that feigned look of modesty?

But she had been innocent last time, hadn’t she? a voice piped up in the back of his mind. It was accompanied by something else that felt disturbingly like guilt but which he refused to give any such name to. For her apparently artless innocence—which had to have been the trigger for the uncontrollable attraction she had once awakened in him—had lasted all of about five minutes! Yes, she had soon proved just how keen she was to rid herself of the burden of her virginity before moving on to her next victim. How long had it been? Two weeks after she had gone before she was swapping sexual favours on the other side of the Atlantic?

But God, she was just as tempting now—if not even more so. Once was not enough. Despite her coming to him begging for his money in clothes he knew she could not afford—no wonder Matteson’s had reached rock bottom!—with her fingers artificially manicured when everything about her had used to be so natural, he still wanted her. It surprised him. He had felt it as soon as she had entered his office. Just like the moment he had looked up from the menu at Matteson’s all those years ago to find a girl unlike any other looking back. A shy and talented young English waitress with hair like honey and legs to die for he had forbidden himself to touch. Her innocence had proved to be as false as those nails, but she still turned him on.

Saying no, telling her that the closest she was going to get to what she wanted would be watching him buy the land from under her, was not going to be enough. He needed her under him again. He would make her gaze into his eyes and cry out his name in pleasure, powerless to look away. Even if it did mean changing his plans a little. The end result would be the same: she would be forced to sell everything to him, to realise that if only she had been capable of a little restraint she might have been a success. He had once thought her to be unique, deserving of his respect, and he had given her the opportunity to learn from him. But she had proved that she was the same as every other woman who had tried to sink her claws into him. And now she wanted his help? Well, she had made her bed, and he was going to make damn sure she lay in it, whenever and however he chose.

CHAPTER TWO

FAYE slammed the door as soon as the hotel porter was out of sight, and flung her suitcase onto the bed. She could not remember another time in her life when she had felt her independence so utterly undermined. Yet what choice did she have but to acquiesce? She couldn’t go home knowing that Dante might have considered a compromise that would stop the family business from going bankrupt and her own dreams from being torn to shreds—that rather than sacrifice her pride and go along with his egotistical demands she had decided to fly home instead of hearing him out. How could she?

It was just dinner, she supposed. When it came down to it, she had nothing to lose. If he offered her some ridiculously small sum of money for Matteson’s she would simply refuse again, then get a taxi back here and head straight to the airport, knowing she had done everything she could.

Therefore, forty minutes earlier, Faye had begrudgingly followed his assistant to a car, exactly as he had instructed. Thankfully she had managed to persuade the driver to stop at the guesthouse so she could at least gather her own things on the way, rather than have someone else collect her luggage as Dante had suggested. And now here she was, back at Il Maia.

It was a very different arrival from that scorching hot July day when she had first set foot here, just over six years ago. That day her life had never felt so full of promise. Six weeks before she had been working at her parents’ restaurant, waiting tables, when the most alarmingly attractive man she had ever laid her eyes upon had strolled in with such self-possession she had felt as if she was part of a film set and the star of the movie had just walked in.