Mediterranean Tycoons

‘I don’t think so,’ she muttered.

‘Ah, Lucy—you should stick to art. Trust me, finance is really not your thing,’ he said bluntly. ‘Have you heard the term “asset-rich but cash-poor"? That is now you—because you have two mortgaged properties and a factory that makes little money and you cannot sell. The land you own could have been sold or even leased, but instead you’ve given away your only asset,’ he drawled mockingly, casting a blatantly suggestive glance over her body before continuing. ‘The outlined plan is for luxury housing, shops, a swimming pool and sports centre, and some less expensive housing to be available only for locals to purchase. The development to be named the Delia Steadman Park in honour of your mother. The whole town was delighted, apparently.’

‘How on earth do you know all this?’ Lucy asked.

‘I made it my business to know,’ he said, rising to his feet and pacing the length of the room. He turned and stopped beside her chair, staring down at her.

Refusing to be cowed, she met his dark eyes head-on. They were unreadable, and she placed her coffee mug on the floor as an excuse to look away from his harshly attractive face.

‘I also know that—unlike when I asked you, Lucy—this time you did sign a legally drawn-up partnership agreement with your developer friend. But your smalltown lawyer—who is, by the way, really more interested in his position as town mayor than lawyer—omitted to make it non-negotiable, and Johnson sold out to me. I am now your partner in everything except the mortgaged house in Dessington and this gallery, which you have also foolishly mortgaged. By my reckoning you won’t have this much longer.’

It was worse than she’d thought, and she looked up at him again. A cruel, sardonic smile twisted his mouth.

‘I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out to a woman like you what that means. I own you—for as long as I want.’

A woman like her … Was there no end to his insults? Her shocked glance saw his eyes were no longer unreadable. She recognised all too well the emotion that now blazed in them: dark desire, barely leashed.

‘And I do want you, Lucy,’ he said, and she could not suppress the shiver of revulsion his comment caused. An imp of devilment in her head defied her to name it for what it really was—excitement, desire, anticipation.

He stared down into her face, reading her reaction, and his hands reached for her, sliding under her arms. He lifted her bodily out of the chair, holding her high, her feet not touching the ground, and involuntarily she clutched at his shoulders to steady herself.

His smile was cruel. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said, putting her down and moving his hands around her back, drawing her closer.

The layer of fabric between them was no protection against the shower of electric sensations that tumbled through her at the feel of his warm muscular chest against her breasts, his flat stomach and muscular thighs as he slowly lowered her down his long body to her feet. Aware of his arousal, she gasped and tried to wriggle free. But his hands tightened on her hips in a grip of iron and hauled her hard against him.

‘Feel what you do to me and know what you are going to do for me.’ He deliberately ground his hips against her, enflaming her senses, but she made her hands fall to her sides rather than touch him as they ached to do, all her will-power going into fighting her own rising need.

His hands lifted from her hips to link lightly around her back, and she managed to draw away a little from the seductive warmth of his great body—but not free. She had a sinking sensation she might never be free of him.

He watched her. She could feel the intensity of his dark eyes even though she’d averted her face. And then he resumed speaking in a clipped tone, as though addressing some underling.

‘You, Lucy, will be my lover whenever I want you. And you will do exactly as I tell you on the single occasion you will visit my mother.’

‘Visit? Why? I gave you the painting—surely that is enough?’

‘I have not given it to her yet. I realised she would insist on thanking you personally. If you recall, before you shoved the painting in my hands I had offered you a very good deal to refuse all contact with her—which you turned down spectacularly.’

Lucy couldn’t believe her momentary loss of temper had led to this. ‘What if I change my mind and agree now?’ she asked.

‘Too late, Lucy. The circumstances have changed. Thanks to Teresa Lanza, the August edition of a popular Verona society magazine has a full-page spread of her nephew’s wedding—including pictures of you and I and an article about our tragically linked family histories. The so-called accident being once again in the press necessitates a change of plan. You and I will visit my mother as a couple, and you will present the painting to her as a personal gift. She will be delighted, and any speculation on the accident will fade away. Then, after a suitable period, when I tell my mother we are no longer an item she will understand the reason for no further contact and we need never meet again. In return Steadman’s will be yours, and as for the rest I’ll find you another partner.’

She looked up at him with horrified eyes. ‘You can’t possibly mean what I think you mean.’

‘To qualify—I mean a partner in the building development,’ he drawled sardonically, and she saw the way he was looking at her, his eyes running over her in an insolent masculine fashion that insulted rather than approved. ‘I am well aware you are more than capable of finding another sexual partner, but for as long as you are with me I insist on exclusivity. Don’t worry, it is not a long-term commitment. I have never kept a woman I liked for more than six months. With a woman like you it will probably be a lot less, and you will be free and clear.’

‘You really are a first-class despicable bastard.’ Her eyes flashed her contempt at him. ‘You must be out of your tiny mind to think for a second I’d agree to such a proposition.’

Lorenzo shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it,’ he said, his hands dropping from her waist. ‘I can stand the heat. I doubt if you can. But if you don’t mind going bankrupt and losing everything, do what you like.’ He glanced around the room. ‘This is a nice set-up you have here, and I doubt your artist friends will be happy to see it close.’

Lucy was free, but frozen to the spot. ‘You can’t possibly do that.’

‘Yes, I can. I can close the factory, for a start. I’m a wealthy man, and its monetary loss is negligible to me. And every attempt you make to move on with the housing development I can block for as long as I choose—certainly long enough to see you go broke. Lucky for you,’ he drawled mockingly, ‘I choose to have you in my bed.’

Colour ran up her neck and face, and her eyes sparked with frustrated rage. But he was right, damn him. Lorenzo was a powerful banker with contacts all over the world. He could pull any strings he liked and make strong men quake. What chance did she have against him? Virtually none …

She looked at him with hatred, and yet she knew deep down she was going to accept his offer. The factory, the development plan—all that she worked for—was out of her hands. He could wreck everything—even cause her to lose her home, her gallery and the friends that were her life … a life she loved.

‘So what’s it to be, Lucy? As if I need to ask.’ His sardonic eyes took in her small taut figure with mocking amusement. ‘You know you are going to agree.’

‘Yes, but first I want a binding contract with—’

‘Oh, no,’ he cut in. ‘This is strictly between you and I, and—as you once so memorably said—you will have to take me on trust. But we can shake on it in the English way.’ And he held out his hand.

She looked at his strong tanned hand, the long elegant fingers, and then up at his hard, expressionless face. She had the strangest notion he was not as sure of himself as he appeared. She lowered her eyes, her lashes sweeping her pale cheeks, and called herself a fool for trying to read more into his offer than what it was—sex for money, but on a large scale—and reluctantly placed her hand in his.

‘So polite, so prim, so British,’ he mocked as his hand tightened around hers, pulling her closer. She tried to pull away but he wrapped her hand behind her back, jerking her hard against him. ‘That’s better,’ he said, his free hand unfastening the buttons of her shirt.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked helplessly. The brush of his fingers in the valley of her breasts as he deftly opened her shirt aroused a pulsating sensation deep inside her that she fought to control. ‘I won’t enjoy it, and you will get no pleasure from me.’

‘Oh, I will, Lucy.’

He stared down at her, reading her reaction as he trailed long fingers over the curve of her breasts, dipping beneath the lace of her bra to graze a nipple. She gasped.

‘You see, sweetheart?’ He mocked her with the endearment as he teased a taut nipple between his long fingers. ‘Your pleasure is my pleasure.’ His mouth lowered to hers. The burning pressure of his kiss ignited her fiercely controlled feelings and she trembled helplessly. ‘I am so going to pleasure you, Lucy,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘What we had before will seem like a mere taste, and you will be begging me for more.’

‘Never!’ she cried, but her body seemed to have a will of its own, and she had a terrible desire to touch him, to surrender herself to the sweet agony of his kiss, his caress.

He slipped the shirt from her shoulder along with her bra strap, so he could bend his head to kiss the curve of her neck. She swayed, whimpering in protest, but as he lowered his head further, peeling down her bra to tongue her hardening nipples, the whimper changed to a moan of pleasure.

He lifted his head and she stared up at him, her eyes fixed on his hard, irresistible mouth.

‘Still think you won’t enjoy it?’ he prompted and, dropping his hand, he removed her shirt and bra completely. His black eyes flicked over her from her pink lips, swollen from his kisses, over her slender shoulders to her breasts and the pale rose nipples betraying her arousal. ‘Your body is telling me otherwise.’

Naked to the waist, and shamed by her own weakness, Lucy made an attempt to fold her arms in front of her. But he caught her hands and held them at her sides, bent his head, his mouth finding hers again.

The slow, seductive pressure of the kiss coaxing her lips apart was irresistible, and she could feel herself weakening, responding, wanting him—and suddenly she was transported back to the first time they’d made love … the heady excitement … the swirling senses … the exquisite delight of his touch.

Without removing his lips from hers, he swung her up in his arms. With a sense of déjà vu she grasped his shoulder, her hand curving around his neck to touch his hair. Her tongue was curling with his, and any lingering thought of resistance was swept away by the flood of desire raging through her.

He carried her into the bedroom and lowered her on to the bed, removing her shorts and briefs in one deft movement. He straightened up, staring down at her with hot hard eyes as he shed his clothes, letting them fall in a heap on the floor.

Lucy did not move. She was mesmerised at the sight of him. It was still daylight outside, and every muscle, every sinew of his great body was perfectly defined. But his facial muscles were tense, his strong jaw clenched as if to control some strong reaction. She had no time to wonder why as he joined her on the bed. The press of his hard body against her, the heat and the strength of him, made her tremble. Leaning over her, he brushed his lips against her brow, the curve of her cheek, and finally her mouth, to kiss her with an oddly gentle passion that was utterly beguiling.

He moved and laid his head against her breasts, turning his face to nuzzle their creamy fullness, suckling and licking the pouting tips as his hands stroked and caressed the quivering flesh down her hips, her thighs, and between her trembling legs. Every nerve in her body was screaming with tension almost to breaking point. Perspiration broke out on her brow, her body, and her small hands clutched at his biceps, his shoulders, roaming restlessly.

Suddenly Lorenzo rolled over onto his back, lifting her over him, his strong hands grasping the top of her legs. With one mighty thrust he impaled her on the rock-hard length of him, and stilled.

‘I want to watch you fall apart,’ he grated.

Eyes wild, she looked down and saw the molten passion in the black depths of his.

She splayed her hands on his chest and tried to move, his thickness filling her. She needed to move. But a finger slid between the velvet lips where their bodies joined and her head fell back, a long groan escaping her as he delicately massaged the swelling point of pleasure until she shattered into a million pieces. His grip tightened, holding her firm as she convulsed around him in a mind-blowing orgasm.

Only then did he move his hand to her waist and lift her. Rocking his pelvis, he plunged up deeper into her, over and over again, holding her fast until her shaking body trembled on the brink again. Then he spun her beneath him and his mouth covered hers, catching her desperate whimpering moans before he thrust into her with one fierce lunge that seemed to touch her womb and his great body joined hers in a shuddering climax that went on and on in mindless ecstasy.

Lucy fought for breath her internal muscles still quivering in the aftermath of release, her heart pounding. She was conscious of the heavy beat of Lorenzo’s heart against her chest as he lay sprawled across her, his head buried in the pillow over her shoulder. How long she lay in mindless awe at what had happened she had no idea, but finally she lifted an arm to wrap it around him, then stopped and let it fall back on the bed.

In contrast to her body, hot and wet with sweat, her heart was suddenly as cold as ice. This was lust, not love, and she must never forget that. Last time when they had made love—There she was, doing it again. When they had had sex, she amended, Lorenzo had disillusioned her so brutally she had felt ashamed, cheap and dirty.

Well, not any more … It was way past time she toughened up—forgot about love and marriage and being the hopeless romantic Lorenzo had called her at Samantha’s wedding. Equality of the sexes and all that—not that she had seen much of it so far in her life. But if Lorenzo could enjoy sex for sex’s sake then so could she. Her morals were still intact—just in abeyance for a while. The fact that he had none wasn’t her problem. And if it suited the swine to pay for the pleasure, then let him.

Ever the fatalist, she knew she’d have to be an idiot to turn down the deal he was offering. Anyway, she didn’t have a choice—unless she wrecked a host of other people’s lives, and that she could not do. On the plus side, she had no doubt he would soon tire of her, and then she could forget he’d ever existed and get on with her life the way she wanted to.

‘I’m too heavy for you, and I need the bathroom,’ Lorenzo said practically, and disappeared into the bathroom. Of course he never forgot protection—which was good in the circumstances. But then a man like Lorenzo—powerful and a control freak—had had plenty of practice.

He practised a lot more when he came back to join her on the bed, and when he finally slid off the bed and dressed he stared down at her for a moment. ‘Sort out tomorrow when you can take three days off—preferably within the coming month.’

‘I can’t possibly. I have a business to run … ‘

‘Yes, you can. Your friends will be out of work if you don’t.’

‘Only Elaine works for me, and she can’t run the place on her own. Sid and Leon just display their work here, and I get ten percent of their sales.’

‘Ten?’ He shook his head. ‘It should be much more than that.’ And, bending over her, he dropped a kiss on her nose, a sensual gleam in his dark eyes. ‘You have many good points, Lucy, that I am well acquainted with.’ He smiled. ‘But at the risk of sounding repetitive, trust me—business really isn’t one of them.’ He chuckled, and left.

Lucy lay where he’d left her. She knew she should be furious—and she would be later—but right at this moment all she felt was a languorous sense of physical satisfaction, and she fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE tourist trade fell off as children returned to school. The summer was virtually over and Lucy was in a plane flying to Italy, trying to come to grips with the course her life had taken. It wasn’t easy. She looked out of the window and below her could see the snow-covered peaks of the Alps, sparkling in the sun. Their beauty was lost on her. She was, for want of a better description, Lorenzo’s mistress. She had become accustomed to travelling in a chauffeured car and a private jet … how bizarre was that.?

Lorenzo, after that fatal night when he had given her no choice but to become his lover, had virtually taken over her life, and the following morning had charmed Elaine into believing he was genuinely interested in Lucy. Obviously she could not deny it, and it had left her playing the part of his girlfriend all day, every day. The strain was beginning to tell.

That first day Lorenzo had whisked her away for dinner at the luxury country house hotel he had stayed at before, and the pattern had been set. Sometimes he would arrive and take her to the hotel—other times he’d send a car to take her to Newquay or Exeter Airport and the short flight to London, where Lorenzo kept a hotel suite when he was working in the city—which he had been doing a lot lately. Though now she had not seen him for five days—the longest they had been apart. Maybe it was not coincidence. He had stipulated at the beginning that she was to visit Italy in a month. It was exactly a month today. She had a growing feeling this visit would be the conclusion of their relationship. He had got what he wanted. As for Lucy, she was not sure what she wanted any more.

Lorenzo was a highly-sexed man, and they rarely got further than the bed—though a desk and the shower and on one memorable occasion a chair outside on the balcony had all figured in their sex-life.

Yet Lucy knew him little better now than she had the first time they’d met. He was for the most part a reserved, emotionless man, who gave little away except in the bedroom, where sometimes, with his dry wit and humour, he made her laugh. Other times he could be incredibly tender, and kiss and caress her as though he adored her. He always called her to arrange their meetings, but occasionally he called just to talk, and she could almost believe they were a normal couple. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part. Alone in her own bed at night, aching for him deep down, she knew for her it was more than just sex.

One thing she had learned about him and liked best was that he wore gold-rimmed glasses when working. Somehow they made him look younger and even more attractive, softening his hard face.

Well, maybe not best—because she could not deny the sex was fantastic. He had, with skill and eroticism, taught her more about the sensual side of her nature than she had imagined possible. She no longer made any attempt to resist, but welcomed him with open arms, and she knew when it was over between them there would be no other man for her. She could not imagine doing with any man what she did with Lorenzo … didn’t want to.

The flight attendant—a handsome young man about her age—appeared, and offered to fasten her seat belt as they were about to begin their descent to the airport. She refused and fastened it herself, because there was something about the way he looked at her she didn’t like. But then he was probably accustomed to ferrying women around the world to meet up with his boss, so she could hardly blame him for thinking the worst.

Lucy walked down the steps from the plane, blinking in the bright light, and smoothed the skirt of the red suit she wore down over her hips. A suit Lorenzo had bought for her the one day he had taken her out for lunch in London on what could pass for a date. Afterwards he had insisted on taking her shopping in Bond Street. She had tried to refuse, but he’d reminded her he was the boss and he wanted to see her in fine clothes and lingerie.

She looked up to see Lorenzo striding towards her, as immaculately dressed as ever in a grey suit, his hair as black as a raven’s wing gleaming in the midday sun. Her heart turned over. He stopped in front of her and she glanced up through the thick fringe of her lashes, suddenly feeling too warm.

‘Good—you made it,’ he said coolly and, taking her arm, added, ‘This is a private airfield and Customs are a mere formality.’ He led her across the tarmac.

No greeting or kiss, Lucy noted. But then sadly they did not have that kind of relationship.

Ten minutes later she was sitting in the back of another chauffeured car, her nerves jangling as Lorenzo slid in beside her, his muscular thigh lightly brushing hers. She could sense the tension mounting in the close confines of the car as the silence lengthened, and finally found her voice. ‘How long does it take to get to Lake Garda?’

He turned his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. ‘We are going to my apartment in Verona first.’

Lifting a hand, he swept a tendril of hair that had escaped from her severely styled chignon behind her ear, and she felt the touch of his fingers down to her toes, a flush of heat staining her cheeks.

‘I think you need to relax before travelling further. I know I do,’ he said with a predatory smile that left her in no doubt as to what he had in mind.

To her shame, she felt an immediate physical response. Hastily she looked away, and heard him chuckle.

Lorenzo’s apartment was a shock. Lucy stood in the huge living room, eyes wide in surprise. She had expected something formal—and it was. Elegant blue and cream drapes hung at the tall windows of the main reception room, and two huge blue silk-covered sofas flanked a white-veined marble fireplace. The bookshelves either side were stuffed with books—hardback and paperback, shoved in haphazardly—and in front stood a big leather captain chair in scarlet! A large low glass table had papers and magazines scattered all over it. The room was a bit of a mess.

But a fabulously expensive mess, she realised. An antique bureau had a bronze statue of a naked lady—pure Art Deco—standing on it, along with an incredible yellow and blue glass sculpture of a fish and a carved wooden statue of what looked like a Native American Indian. But it was the walls that really captured her attention. She recognised a Picasso from his Blue Period, a Matisse, and what she was sure was a Gauguin, along with some delicate watercolours and a huge Jackson Pollock that almost filled one wall.

She turned to Lorenzo and saw he had shed his jacket and had tugged his tie loose so the knot fell low on his chest. ‘This is nothing like I imagined.’ She waved her hand around, grinning delightedly.

‘I know it looks a bit untidy, but Diego, my houseman, is on holiday, and I am not in the least domesticated,’ he said wryly.

‘I had noticed,’ Lucy quipped, recalling the way he stripped off and dropped his ruinously expensive clothes anywhere, without a second thought, every time they met. ‘But what I meant was I love the room—it is so colourful, and the art work is incredible. Some of it I would never have expected you to like.’

He reached for her then, his dark eyes holding hers and his hands closing over her shoulders ‘Not quite such a staid old banker as you thought?’ he queried, his hands slipping beneath the lapels of her jacket to peel it off her shoulders and drop it on the back of the sofa.

‘I never think of you as old,’ Lucy murmured, and the tension between them thickened the air as a different silent conversation took place. She was braless, and the white camisole she wore suddenly felt like a strait-jacket.

He glanced down at her breasts, knowing he would see her nipples jutting against the silk. He raised his eyes, reaching for her hair and pulling out the pins. ‘I love … your hair.’ He ran his long fingers through the silken length. ‘The colour is incredible—tawny like a lion is as near as I can get,’ he murmured, and closed his arms around her. His dark head bent and the smouldering flame of desire glittered in his eyes as he touched his mouth gently against hers.