Visconti's Forgotten Heir

She wanted to ask him why. What it was she had done to make him despise her so much. But he was still too cold, too distant and far too unapproachable. And anyway she was afraid of what hearing the truth might do to her.

‘How is he? Your father?’ she enquired tentatively.

‘My father’s dead.’

From the way he said it he might easily be implying that she had had something to do with it. Oh, no! She couldn’t have, surely? she thought, shuddering at the hard, cold emotion she saw in his eyes which seemed to be piercing her like shards of ice.

‘He’s dead,’ he reiterated. ‘As you would have known if you hadn’t been so tied up with making a name for yourself.’

‘Oh, I had a name, Andreas.’ It rushed back at her, hurtful and destructive. ‘And it wasn’t very complimentary. But I suppose you think I deserved what your grandmother called me?’

Her voice was low and controlled. She was determined not to let him see her trembling. And it wasn’t just the remembered pain of that time that was ripping through her memory banks and slashing at her now with such wounding cruelty, but the cold way she had just been informed that Giuseppe Visconti had died.

She wanted to ask Andreas what had happened but was even too cowardly to do that. Instead she dropped her head into her hands and groaned as a sudden vision flashed before her eyes.

It was of plate glass and fluorescent lighting where once there had been red and white chequered curtains and candlelit windows; an internet café where the little restaurant had been. She had found herself standing outside it once a couple of years ago, not even realising why, or what she was doing there. She only remembered that the experience had chilled her to the bone.

* * *

Watching her, Andreas frowned—and then reminded himself what a good actress she was.

‘I’m afraid I’m not really taken in by this display of crocodile tears,’ he said bluntly, but as she lifted her head and dragged her fingers down her face the dark smudges under her eyes and her pallor shocked him. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned.

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not. I think you’d better come with me.’ He was urging her up from her chair before she had time to think.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked weakly as he bundled her into a waiting lift in the lobby.

‘As I said, we have to talk,’ he said, setting the lift in motion.

* * *

Released now from the pressure of his hand at her elbow, but finding his whole persona too disturbing in such a confined space, Magenta stepped as far away from him as she could.

A faint smile touched the firm, masculine mouth, as though he knew exactly why she had done that.

‘And, as I said, what about?’ She could feel the blood returning to her face and was managing to gather her wits about her again. ‘There isn’t any other vacancy, is there? You just wanted me to stay behind so that you could taunt me with whatever it is you think I did to you in the past. So go ahead. Get it all out of your system!’

At least then she might know, once and for all, what it was all about.

Instead he merely laughed, and that soft, mirthless laugh seemed as controlled and calculated as everything else about him. Then, with a suddenness that had Magenta’s instincts leaping onto red alert, he reached out and caught one end of her scarf. Winding it carefully around his finger, he drew her gently into his dominating sphere.

‘Is this a fashion thing?’ He tugged lightly at the silk. ‘Or is its purpose merely to conceal the remnants of your current lover’s carnal appetite?’

‘How dare you?’ She made to push him away, only to find her hands trapped between his own and the warm hard wall of his chest.

‘Yes, I dare,’ he growled, and his head came down, stopping with his mouth just a breath from hers.

It was the unfathomable dark emotion she saw in his eyes as her trembling gaze wavered beneath his that seemed to rob the breath from her lungs—that and the thunderous hammering of his heart.

She wasn’t sure who made the next move, but suddenly their mouths were fused in a hungry and antagonistic passion, and her arms were sliding up around his neck as his stronger ones tightened around her, welding her to him.

She was nineteen again and she was laughing with him, her heart on fire, wild with a new sense of freedom and excitement. But he wasn’t laughing with her. She was laughing all by herself. And she was being weighed down with such a feeling of remorse and shame.

Fighting Andreas, she was surprised when he let her go—and so roughly that she almost stumbled back against the far wall of the lift.

Groaning, she put her hand to her mouth, stemming a new bout of nausea. She realised it wasn’t that devastating kiss that was responsible for her crushing feeling of self-disgust.

‘Forgive me for being under the impression that you wanted that as much as I did. Even when you were sleeping with another man you were never averse to my touch.’

Whether she deserved that or not, Magenta felt her hand itch to make contact with his dark, judgmental face.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he advised, breathing as erratically as she was.

She was grateful when the lift opened, and didn’t need Andreas’s prompting to step out.

‘Where are we?’ she demanded over her shoulder. Before he answered she realised that they were on the top floor of the building, where wide windows gave a breathtaking view of the bustling capital below.

‘You aren’t feeling well,’ Andreas commented as he moved past her and used a security key to open the door to an executive suite. ‘Whether from fatigue or simply—as your weight seems to suggest—because you aren’t eating enough, I didn’t welcome the thought of you passing out on me down there.’

‘Thanks,’ Magenta responded tartly, her breathing still irregular from the unexpected and disturbing scenario in the lift. Or had she expected it? The question raged through her consciousness with the disturbance of a ten-force gale. She only knew she had wanted it. Dear heaven, had she wanted it!

A low whistle passed through her lips as Andreas let her into a luxuriously decorated office. It was all there: the solid wood floor, an imposing mahogany desk that looked out over the city, the softest leather settees, luscious plants and huge windows to complete his commercial kingdom.

‘What did you do? Win the lottery or something?’ Vague as her memories were, Magenta couldn’t equate how the son of a humble restaurateur could have gone from a virtual dogsbody in his father’s restaurant to CEO of a chain of exclusive hotels.

‘You know I never leave anything to chance.’

Fat chance. His declaration brought those two words to the forefront of her mind. It seemed to be something she had said once in connection with his telling her what he intended to do with his life.

‘I think you should have a brandy,’ he advised, already on his way over to a cabinet on the far side of the room.

‘I never drink.’ If there were still facts missing from her life then that was one fact she had never allowed herself to forget. ‘I’ve seen what it can do to people.’

He nodded, knowing what had prompted her to say it. Her mother.

Magenta recalled how hard she had battled as a teenager against her mother’s addiction, which had been constantly fuelled by a string of broken relationships.

‘In that case I’ll send for some coffee.’ Andreas picked up the phone and ordered some to be brought up in that deep, authoritative voice of his. ‘Sit down,’ he invited.

Magenta stood there, thinking of the young man whose hands she had been so drawn to when he’d set that first cup of coffee he had made down in front of her. She couldn’t get over how this new present-day Andreas didn’t even have to perform that simple task himself.

‘So what happened, Andreas?’ she asked, still standing her ground. ‘I know you’re dying to tell me, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me up here.’ Unless, of course, he had it in his mind to take up where they had left off in the lift, she thought, her mind rejecting the idea as strongly as her body was responding to it, just to mock her.

‘You’re perfectly safe—if you’re thinking what I think you are,’ that masculine voice intoned, startling her into obeying his silent command to sink down onto one of the huge and plushly inviting settees. ‘I don’t intend to make overtures to a woman who showed such repugnance at my kisses. You put on a good show of displaying that out there—even if we both know that that’s really all it was. A show,’ he emphasised.

He was entirely miscalculating the reason for her shattering reaction in the lift—something she was certain he didn’t do very often.

‘I had a lucky break when an uncle I never knew died and left me three restaurants between Naples and Milan.’

‘So you do believe in luck?’ she uttered, reminding him of what he’d said a few moments ago about never leaving anything to chance.

‘If one can expand on that luck and make things happen.’

‘Which you did, of course.’

‘It was a gruelling, round-the-clock enterprise, building up those restaurants and then opening more in the States, where I was living until less than a year ago, then investing in and turning around the fortunes of a series of small hotels. That led on to bigger things that finally brought me here. Nothing is impossible if you’re prepared to work hard enough.’

That judgmental note was back in his voice again, and unthinkingly she uttered, ‘Instead of trading on one’s physical attributes like you seem to want to accuse me of doing?’

He gave her a withering look but didn’t actually comment as he crossed the room and came and stood in front of her. ‘Tell me about your son,’ he said without any preamble. ‘It can’t be any picnic, bringing up a child on your own.’

His words triggered something that was too elusive to grasp, yet what lingered in the forefront of her mind was a real and crushing fear. An intangible yet instinctive knowledge that if this man realised she’d had his child he wouldn’t hesitate to try and take Theo away from her....

‘What...what do you want to know?’ she faltered, casting her eyes down briefly, her lashes dark wings of ebony against the wells of her eyes. Had he detected the tension in her? she wondered when she saw the deepening groove between his thick black brows. Guessed at the reasons for her reluctance to discuss her little boy?

‘Did Rushford really dump you before you’d even reached the full term of your pregnancy?’

So he was still insisting that Marcus Rushford had been her lover. The thought of sleeping with her former exploitative agent made her stomach queasy, even though he was an attractive and very worldly man. That was preferable, though, to the possible consequences of explaining to Andreas that he was the father of her child, and crazily she uttered, ‘If it makes you feel smug, believe it.’

His response to that was merely a slight twitching of his mouth. ‘So...does Rushford even see his son?’

Magenta’s mouth felt dry. She wished the coffee would come as she struggled for composure under this very disturbing line of questioning.

‘His name is Marcus. And, no, he doesn’t ever see Theo.’

‘What?’ Hard lines of disbelief lined Andreas’s face. ‘Never?’ He looked and sounded appalled.

‘Never,’ she uttered dismissively, deciding to end the conversation there and then. ‘There never was another vacancy, was there?’ she accused again, deciding he really had only brought her up here to satisfy some warped agenda of his own. ‘So now you’ve shown me just how well you’re doing...’ quickly she got to her feet ‘...and clarified that all those rumours you heard about me were probably true, I’ll be on my way.’

Trying to save face before she walked away from him, wondering how in the world she was ever going to pay her mounting bills, she forced back her concerns and told him, ‘This wasn’t the only job I was being interviewed for today.’

She hadn’t even reached the door when she heard him say confidently, ‘Liar.’

She swung round, speechless at his mocking arrogance.

‘I haven’t got where I am today without gaining some insight into human nature,’ he disclosed, moving towards her with the self-possessed demeanour of a man who knew he was right. ‘A woman doesn’t normally go to pieces over losing the prospect of a job, as you nearly did down there, if she has another package tucked neatly up her sleeve and hasn’t pinned her hopes on just one that she thinks might be a little way out of her league.’

Was that what he thought? That she wasn’t suitable for the post? ‘I didn’t think any such thing! And I wasn’t going to pieces, as you’d like to imagine I was.’

‘Weren’t you?’ The trace of a smile played around his mouth. ‘You seem to forget—I know you. Although you’ve done your level best since we met again last Friday to try and make me believe you’re suffering from some sort of selective memory loss, I do know you, Magenta. Very well. I know how your eyes always glitter when you’re inviting me to challenge you. How the excitement of some delightful reprisal serves to put colour in your cheeks.’

He was moving purposefully towards her, making her instincts scream in rejection. Her body, though, trembled with the excitement he had spoken of—even as she feared that he might just remind her of what other responses he could evoke in her, as he had done on the way up here.

‘Apart from which,’ he added, coming to a stop just centimetres in front of her, ‘you were almost visibly shaking. Just like you’re doing now.’

She wanted to protest and say that she wasn’t shaking, and that the other responses he had mentioned were just a figment of his self-deluded ego. But if she did that then they’d both know that she was guilty of doing what he had accused her of doing a few moments ago. Telling lies.

He was playing with her just for his own warped sense of satisfaction, she guessed, feeling the burn of humiliating tears sting the backs of her eyes again, and she knew she had to get out of there before she showed herself up completely.

‘Goodbye, Andreas.’

He was at the door, blocking her exit, even before she had time to reach for the handle.

‘Do you really think I asked you up here just for my own amusement?’ he drawled, startling her with how close he had come to reading her thoughts. But then—as he had said—he knew her, didn’t he?

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘All right, I brought you up here,’ he amended casually, as though it was of no consequence. ‘But at the time you didn’t seem in a fit state to handle anything else.’

His eyes were raking over her face as though looking for signs of her earlier weakness, but his subtle reference to that kiss they had shared earlier was far too disconcerting and Magenta swallowed, taking a step back.

‘Do you have a point?’

That smile touched his lips again as he moved around her, away from the door.

‘Ah, the same old Magenta. Always cutting to the chase.’

‘I’m in a hurry.’

‘Of course. Your other interviews.’ His tone mocked. ‘However, despite all your accusations and suspicions regarding my ulterior motives, there is another position becoming vacant in this company.’

‘There is?’ Magenta’s heart gave a little leap of hope, although she was still viewing him with suspicion.

‘Another PA is taking an indefinite spell of leave,’ he told her with a grimace. ‘Rather sooner than we expected her to. We haven’t yet found anyone suitable to fill the post.’

‘And you’re offering me the position?’ Something like relief started to trickle through her veins. Could this mean that there was an end in sight to her endless and ever-increasing money worries? That she wouldn’t be forced to impose on her great-aunt’s generosity when Josie had given so much of herself already?

‘Why so surprised, Magenta? Your CV looks promising, if a little lacking in experience, and it does say that you can start right away. The PA in question is taking time off to look after her mother during a period of scheduled surgical operations and she’s expected to be away for four or five months. She’s the one, incidentally, whom you were trying very hard not to let me catch you looking at in the bar the other night. I was trying to talk her out of going so soon, but circumstances dictate that I have to be a gentleman about it and comply with her wishes. In short, Magenta, you’ll be working for me.’

A tremulous little laugh left her lips—something between amazement and utter disbelief. ‘Tell me you’re joking?’ A crushing disappointment was replacing her premature relief.

‘I never joke about business matters.’

‘Why? Why, when you so obviously don’t like me, would you want to employ me?’

‘You know...I’ve asked myself that very question,’ he said.

He moved closer to her—close enough to reach out and lift her chin between his thumb and forefinger. His warmth seared her skin, making her catch her breath.

‘And?’ It came out as a croak. She was trying not to let him affect her, trying not to breathe in the tantalising freshness of his cologne.

He shrugged. ‘I need an assistant. You’re looking for a position.’

‘I had a position—or as good as,’ she interjected. ‘Until you came and snatched it from me.’

His hand fell away from her, although his eyes never left her face. ‘Well, maybe I’m just nursing a masochistic need to have you working for me.’

‘So you can remind me every day of how badly I treated you?’ If she had treated him badly. Think! she urged herself, but nothing would come.

Andreas’s laugh was infused with irony. ‘I thought I made that clear when I saw you last Friday? Your actions in the past left no indelible marks.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?’ she breathed, silently disturbed by his chilling declaration. ‘And you’d still take me on after you’ve intimated that the job I was applying for was out of my league. This is obviously a far more responsible position, and you’ve already said I’m lacking in experience. What makes you imagine I’m up to meeting all your requirements?’

‘Oh, you’ll meet them, Magenta. Rest assured about that.’

He wasn’t saying anything, but something in the dark penetration of his eyes made her shiver. Somehow he didn’t seem to be just talking about his requirements of a PA.

‘Well, thanks, but no thanks,’ she said, turning away.

‘You’ll walk away knowing that the lease on your flat is hanging in the balance and that you don’t even have the resources to renew it?’

She swung round to face him, the tears she had been fighting since the moment he’d strode in and ripped all her hopes apart now glistening unashamedly in her eyes. ‘How did you know that?’

‘You’ve just confirmed it,’ he said. ‘Apart from which one of my colleagues who attended your first interview mentioned the letter that you asked for.’

‘The letter?’ she murmured, and was suddenly mortifyingly aware of what he meant.

She’d made a fool of herself at that first interview by prematurely believing, from the way the conversation was going, that they were already offering her the job. She’d been so desperately relieved that she’d asked if she could have their offer in a formal letter, which she could pass on to her landlord’s agents. It didn’t take half a brain—let alone a keen mind like his—to work out the reason why.

‘So you decided to capitalise on my misfortune?’

‘I’m offering you a job.’

‘Not the sort I’m willing to take.’

‘On the contrary, Magenta. I think you’ll take any job you can get. And may I point out that I’m not the one implying anything improper? You are.’

‘You’re not?’

‘No. And I’m not sure what you’re getting so falsely modest and indignant about,’ he stated. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’d sold yourself to the highest bidder.’

It was obvious that he believed what he was saying, and that he would never cease to remind her of it or to exact retribution for it—which was the only reason, she was sure, that he was offering her the position now.

‘I’ve never sold myself!’ she emphasised, trying to ignore the goading little voice inside her head that was asking, How do you know? ‘I haven’t,’ she reiterated, trying to convince herself in spite of it. ‘And I’m not selling myself to you, Andreas,’ she tagged on. But there was desolation in her eyes as she realised that for her own sake, and especially for Theo’s welfare, she had very little choice but to accept his offer.

His mouth compressed with evident satisfaction as a knock on the door announced the arrival of the coffee.

‘Well, we’ll see, shall we?’ he said, knowing as well as she did that she was beaten.

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