Notorious: Ruthlessly Bedded by the Italian Billionaire / Bound by the Marcolini Diamonds

‘I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Isabella. That wasn’t my intention,’ he assured her quietly.

No reply. Her jaw tightened. Dante imagined her clenching her teeth, denying the possible spilling of any more words to him. The stubborn stance irked him further. She was throwing out a challenge he’d take great satisfaction in winning, if only to see that rude rigidity wilt.

‘I’d appreciate it if you’d listen to a proposition which is very much to your advantage,’ he said, wondering if the blank wall she was holding was actually a negotiation tactic. Resistance virtually guaranteed being offered more.

The elevator doors opened. Her head jerked towards him. Her eyes slashed him with a cut-throat look. ‘I’m not interested!’

Having punched out those decisive words, she stepped into the small compartment and hit the button for her floor.

Dante stepped in after her.

She glared at him, clearly seething with frustration. ‘I told you …’

‘I’m carrying your chair up for you,’ he said blandly. ‘You are rather loaded down with the rest of your working gear.’

She rolled her eyes away. The doors closed and she pointedly watched for the floor numbers to flash up, once again set on ignoring him. He noted that every line of her body was tense, fighting the pressure of his presence. She might be ignoring him but she was acutely aware of him.

A pity she was his cousin. He’d like nothing better than to have her at his mercy on a bed, begging him to do whatever he wanted with her. Now that would be very satisfying—seeing her stiff body quivering, surrendering to his will! But a bit too incestuous, given the close blood link. His grandfather wouldn’t approve of that tactic.

The sexual scenario raised the possibility that her love life might be a barrier. ‘Is Luigi your boyfriend?’

The question startled her from her fixation on the upward journey of the elevator. ‘No.’ Worry carved a line between her brows. ‘So don’t pester him on my behalf. He’s just a fellow worker. And don’t go looking for other boyfriends, either, because there isn’t one.’

‘Good! No one to object to your coming to Italy with me.’

‘Will you get it through your head I’m not going anywhere with you!’ she cried in exasperation.

‘Why not? There’s nothing that can’t be put on hold here. Why not satisfy a natural curiosity about the family you’ve never met?’

A frantic, cornered look in her eyes.

Was it a daunting prospect for her? Did she see herself being critically examined by a bunch of strangers?

‘My grandfather … your grandfather … wants you with him, Isabella,’ he pressed, then played his trump card. ‘Marco is a very wealthy man. If you grant his wish, he will shower riches on you, give you access to more money than you’ve ever dreamed of. Financially your future—’

‘I don’t want his money!’

Horror on her face. Her whole body shuddered in recoil from the idea. Dante was so stunned by her reaction, he was totally at a loss to know what line of persuasion to try next. This woman was impossible. It was utter madness to be repulsed by the promise of financial security for the rest of her life.

The elevator came to a halt. She rushed out of it the moment the doors were open enough to make an exit, pelting along the corridor to her apartment as though the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels. Dante followed, grimly determined to get to the bottom of this crazy conundrum.

She shoved the key in the lock, was pushing against the door even before it opened. Dante knew she’d whirl inside and shut him out, given half a chance. He barged straight in after her before she could do it, not caring how outraged she’d be by the action. He’d run out of patience with trying to reason with her. If he had to tie her up and gag her, he would force her to listen to him long enough to be convinced that a trip to Capri was the best course for her to take.

‘This is home invasion!’ she yelled at him, her chest heaving in agitation. Nice breasts, Dante couldn’t help noting.

‘No reasonable person would think so. You didn’t object to my carrying up the chair for you,’ he calmly reminded her. ‘Perfectly natural for me to step into your apartment with it.’

She dropped the carry-case containing her easel. The stool which had been tucked under her arm clattered to the floor. She reached out, grabbed the folded chair from him, and pointedly let it fall on top of the carry-case. Clenched hands planted themselves aggressively on her hips. Her eyes blazed rejection of any excuse he could give for entering her apartment without permission.

‘Now get out!’ she hurled at him.

‘Not until I get satisfaction.’

He pushed the door shut and stood against it, blocking any move she might make to open it again. Dante wondered if she was going to fly at him and try to punch him out. Her eyes were wildly measuring his physique. Maybe she sensed that she’d stirred a dangerous male savagery in him, a savagery that would take pleasure in forcefully restraining any physical attack she made. His own hands were itching to demonstrate some mastery over her. She stepped back from the simmering flashpoint, lifted her chin to a defiant angle and spat out her next line of action.

‘If you don’t go right now, I’ll call the police.’

‘Go ahead. Call them,’ he challenged without a flicker of care, confident of justifying his presence here.

She visibly dithered over the decision.

‘While we’re waiting for them to come, you can do me the courtesy of listening to why your grandfather wants you to visit him.’

She flinched at the mention of Marco, as though the idea of a grandfather wanting her was painful. Dante wished he knew what was going on in her head. He hated dealing blindly. But listening to him was a lot less bother for her than answering to the police, so he expected to win this round.

‘Promise me you’ll leave when you finish talking,’ she demanded, hating him for forcing the choice.

He held up his hand. ‘Word of honour.’ He wasn’t about to finish talking until she agreed to come with him.

She heaved a sigh, then with a much put-upon air, moved into the sitting room and settled herself in a bucket chair, hands folded in her lap, looking at him stony-faced. She reminded Dante of a rebellious student having to endure an unfair lecture from a headmaster before she could escape.

He propped himself on the well-padded armrest of a sofa, commanding the space between her and the door. ‘What did your father tell you about the family rift?’ he asked, wondering if his uncle Antonio had painted Marco in some false light to favour himself.

She shook her head. ‘You talk. I’ll listen.’

He talked, repeating his grandfather’s story of what had led up to Antonio’s banishment, filling in some facts about the rest of the family, the death of his own parents, Marco’s grief at having lost two sons, the cancer that decreed he had only three months left to live—one month already gone—his search for Antonio which had led to Isabella, his wish to see her, get to know her.

He played on gaining her sympathy and was gratified when he saw tears well into her eyes. Sure that he could now clinch her co-operation, he finished with, ‘He’s dying, Isabella. The time is so short. If you can find it in your heart to give …’

‘I can’t!’ she cried, covering her face with her hands as she sobbed, ‘I’m sorry … sorry …’

‘I’ll organise everything, make it easy for you,’ Dante pressed.

‘No … no … you don’t understand,’ she choked out.

‘No, I don’t. Please tell me.’

She dragged her hands down her tear-streaked face, gulped in air, and raised a wet, bleak gaze to his. ‘It’s too late,’ she cried in a grief-stricken voice. ‘Bella died in a car accident six months ago. I thought she had no one. I didn’t think it would matter if I took her identity for a while. I’m sorry … sorry that your grandfather thinks she’s alive. Oh God!’ she shook her head in wretched regret. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’

Dante was totally floored. He’d been sent on an impossible mission. Another death. He closed his eyes, shutting out the imposter, thinking of his grandfather who’d been fooled into believing he had another Isabella who might look like his beloved wife. Everything within him railed against delivering such a devastating disappointment.

Anger stirred. Why hadn’t the private investigators picked up the identity swap? How had this woman deceived everyone? No problem now in understanding her responses to him. She’d been scared out of her mind about getting tripped up. He opened his eyes to glare furious hostility at her.

‘Explain to me how you managed to take Isabella’s place without anyone questioning it,’ he commanded, pushing himself upright and walking over to where she sat, standing over her, using deliberate intimidation to draw what he wanted out of her.

She didn’t try to fight him this time. Her connection to his cousin poured from her in a stream of pleading for his understanding … how she’d come to share Isabella’s apartment and use her name to get employment at the forum, the car accident, her friend burnt beyond recognition, her own identification cards destroyed in the fire, the mistake made by the authorities because of a handbag she’d been holding when she’d been thrown clear …

‘I remembered afterwards that was why I’d taken off my seat belt. Bella was driving and she asked me to get a bag of sweets out of her handbag which she’d thrown onto the back seat. I couldn’t reach with my seat belt on, so I unclipped it and leaned through the gap between the front seats, hooked my hand around the shoulder strap and dragged it onto my lap.’

‘Her handbag must have contained her driver’s licence,’ Dante tersely pointed out. ‘The identification photo …’

‘It wasn’t a good one of her. We both had long curly hair, hers darker, but that could have been from bad lighting when the camera shot was taken, and she was smiling so you couldn’t tell her mouth wasn’t as wide as mine. Her eyes were squinted up so their different shape wasn’t so obvious, and I guess my face was bruised and puffy from the accident, making it look rounder. Even so, there was enough doubt about who I was for the police to call in the employment manager from the forum to identify me and because of my working under Bella’s name …’

‘Very convenient for you.’

She flushed at his acid sarcasm. ‘I was in a coma for two weeks after the accident. The identification was made while I was still unconscious. I didn’t know about it until after I woke up, and then all the medical staff was calling me Miss Rossini … and I let them. I let them because I had nowhere else to go and I needed recovery time from my other injuries, and I didn’t think Bella would mind …’

‘How could she?’ Dante savagely mocked. ‘She was dead.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed miserably. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know about you. Bella told me she was an orphan like me. No family. I didn’t think it mattered when the police came again after I woke from the coma and I identified the driver as my flatmate, Jenny Kent … a nobody who wasn’t connected to anyone. And that was the end of it.’

‘Not the end. You took over Isabella’s life because she had more than you,’ he accused mercilessly. Money was a prime motivation. It always was. She’d just proved him right again.

‘I only meant to do it for a while. Until I could …’

‘Well, you fooled everyone effectively. You can go on fooling them for another two months.’

He would not fail his grandfather on what was virtually a death-bed request. It didn’t matter who this woman was. She could make up for the deception she had played by being a good and loving grand-daughter to Marco until he died.

She shook her head, pained bewilderment in her eyes. ‘I was going to leave here tonight, become Jenny Kent again. I’m sorry I …’

Ruthless purpose surged in Dante, cutting her plan of escape dead. ‘I will not allow you to destroy the hope that made my grandfather send me on this mission. You will come to Italy with me. You will stay with him in the villa on Capri until he no longer needs you. He will know you as Isabella …’

‘No! No!’ She leapt to her feet in panic, hands wildly gesturing protest. ‘You can’t! I can’t!’

He gripped her flailing arms. His eyes burned through the glaze of horror in hers with unshakeable determination. ‘I can and you will. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll call the police and have you arrested for identity-theft and fraud, and I promise you your term of imprisonment will be a lot longer than two months!’

Shock, fear, despair chased across her face.

‘So what do you want to be, Jenny Kent?’ he mocked. ‘A common criminal rotting in jail or a pampered grand-daughter living in luxury?’

CHAPTER FIVE

Rome

One Week Later

JENNY stood in the bedroom assigned to her in Dante’s palatial apartment and stared at her reflection in the mirror, barely recognising herself. She had been transformed into someone else—the Isabella Dante wanted to present to his grandfather. It was incredible what money could do; incredible, fascinating and frightening. It had the power to make anything possible.

She now had a passport in Isabella’s name, an entire wardrobe of fabulous designer clothes—some acquired in Sydney while they waited for the passport, the rest bought during a stopover in Paris—a face that had been made over by a beautician, her once thickly tangled mass of hair cleverly cut into a tousled cascade of wild sexy curls, newly applied perfect fingernails, polished in a natural tone, plus a whole range of fantastic accessories to complement her new look—belts, bags, shoes, jewellery.

She’d flown halfway around the world in a private jet, been waited upon hand and foot, eaten food she’d never been able to afford, stayed in penthouse suites at the Gondola Hotels, and any minute now Dante would come and collect her for the helicopter flight to Capri. A different life, she thought. A totally different life which still didn’t feel quite real to her.

This image in the mirror was Dante’s puppet, moving and acting to his will. Even how it was dressed …

‘Wear the Sass and Bide outfit,’ he’d instructed. ‘This first lunch at the villa will be informal, and the design is something fresh and individual. Lucia would not have seen it anywhere. She’s not into Australian fashionistas.’

Lucia … Bella’s other cousin.

Every time Dante mentioned her it was with a cynical twist. He didn’t like her. Jenny had the strong impression he wanted his Isabella creation to outshine Marco’s real grand-daughter. Which felt terribly wrong to her, but maybe there was some good reason behind his antipathy towards his cousin. It was not her role to make judgements on the Rossini family. She had to follow Dante’s edicts or … A convulsive shudder ran through her at the thought of imprisonment in a women’s jail.

She couldn’t face it. The rigid discipline of the orphanage still haunted her in nightmares. Being subjected to that kind of uncaring authority again—the unrelenting system of punishment for any infringement of the rules, fighting to survive with some sense of self intact—anything was better than suffering through another soul-destroying environment.

Somehow for the next two months she had to think herself into Bella’s skin, be as true as she could to what her friend had told her about her life. If her presence helped Marco Rossini to die peacefully, maybe the deception wasn’t such a bad thing. Whatever happened, this was Dante’s choice, Dante’s family, so he had to deal with the outcome. Though she was irrevocably tied to it.

No way out, she thought, hating the sense of being trapped, frightened of failing, frightened even more of never regaining her freedom. Two months … two months of a life she knew too little about. Would this incredible makeover Dante had orchestrated really help to blind the Rossini family to seeing she was not one of them?

The Sass and Bide outfit was startling, fascinating in its creative use of fabrics. The patchwork on the blue denim vest was quite wild with bits of lace, decorative buttons, braiding and embroidering. The short-sleeved white T-shirt underneath ended in jagged handkerchief points, just lapping over the matching blue denim hipster jeans which also had embroidery running down the legs, and buttons detailing the short side splits at her ankles.

She wore embroidered rope sandals on her feet, decorated with tiny lacy shells, and a matching rope handbag was slung over her shoulder. But that was where the trendy casual image ended. Dante apparently scorned costume jewellery. Sapphires went with blue denim; sapphire and diamond drop earrings and a gold chain watch with a sapphire face and diamonds marking the hours. In short, she was wearing a fortune, and the woman in the mirror could have stepped out of a magazine featuring incredibly wealthy celebrities.

‘Ready?’

Her heart jerked. He even had a string on that, Jenny thought as she swung around to face the all-powerful puppeteer. She’d left the bedroom door open for his manservant to collect her luggage which was all packed and ready to go. The man moved in behind Dante to do precisely that while his master—her master—strolled towards her, his gaze taking in her appearance from head to toe, making every nerve in her body twang with the need to be approved.

She took a deep breath, stiffened her spine and answered, ‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

He smiled, apparently satisfied with how she looked, his dark eyes glittering with a sexy appreciation of the woman he’d fashioned to suit what he wanted. ‘You look beautiful, Isabella,’ he purred at her, and her whole body seemed to vibrate with self-awareness.

She’d never bothered much about her appearance. Clean and tidy was all she’d cared about, buying most of her clothes in charity shops, shying away from spending money on non-essentials because she might need it for living. Being dressed like this, being looked at as Dante was looking at her, evoked feelings she’d never felt before and she wasn’t comfortable with them.

‘I guess fine feathers make fine birds,’ she muttered mockingly, thinking he always looked superb. He probably never glanced at a price-tag to see how much anything cost. He hadn’t while shopping with her. No doubt the blue jeans and white sports shirt he wore carried designer labels. They certainly showed off his top-of-the-line physique—mega-male, oozing classy sex appeal.

‘Don’t duck your head,’ he instructed, lifting a hand to her chin, tilting it up, forcing her gaze to meet his. ‘Hold it high. You’re proud to be Isabella Rossini. You’ve led an independent life and you won’t kowtow to anyone. You’re here because your grandfather invited you and that gives you every right to be treated as a respected member of the family, not Cinderella. Understand?’

It was difficult to find breath enough to speak when he was this suffocatingly close. ‘Yes,’ she choked out.

His thumb stroked her cheek. The hard ruthless gleam in his eyes softened to a wry appeal. ‘I may not be allowed to stay at your side. If Nonno wants you to himself … be kind to him, Isabella. Put him at ease with you. I want him to be happy that you’ve come.’

Panic undermined the seductively soothing intent of his caress. Being left alone with Marco Rossini was a terrifying prospect. If Dante wasn’t there to pull the strings … if she made a mistake … if she unwittingly revealed a different person to the one she had to portray …

Dante was frowning at her.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she promised in a rush.

‘There’s nothing to fear,’ he assured her, still frowning, his dark eyes stabbing his own indomitable confidence into hers. ‘I’ve paved the way for this meeting. Nonno will not be testing you about your identity. He’s an old man, facing a painful death, wanting the pleasure of making your acquaintance. All you have to do is respond to him as warmly as you can.’

He made it sound easy. Maybe it was, though the deception still weighed on her mind. She scooped in a deep breath, trying to calm her jangling nerves, and lifted her chin away from his touch, needing to feel some independence. He had taken over her life to such an extent, it was difficult to be confident of standing alone, without his all-pervasive support.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she repeated, and meant it, not wanting to be a source of distress to a dying man.

‘It’s in your best interests to do so,’ he reminded her.

‘Yours, too,’ she said with a flash of resentment at the ruthless power he had wielded.

He smiled, amused by her counter-thrust at him. ‘Yes. We’re in this together, aren’t we? You could say it forms an intimate bond.’

The hand he had dropped from her chin took possession of one of hers, fingers interlacing, gripping hard, enforcing a physical bond that burned like a branding iron, linking her inexorably to him. Jenny’s heart fluttered wildly as the heat from his hand spread through her entire body, igniting a mad desire for an intimate relationship with Dante Rossini that was not based on deception.

‘Time to go,’ he said.

And Jenny went with him, once more a slave to his command, tugged along by his hand while her mind, which he couldn’t completely dominate, was in a helpless whirl over the shocking realisation of finding herself actually wanting him to want her as a woman.

This situation was playing some weird sexual havoc on her. She’d been almost constantly in his company for a week, compelled into his world, and she supposed it was natural enough to have her normal, sensible self seduced by how beautiful and powerful and masterful he was—the kind of man that featured in foolish, romantic dreams, turning a Cinderella into a princess.

But this prince was not being driven by any desire for her.

She knew that.

He was determined on making his plan work, nothing more, nothing less.

It had to be these extraordinary circumstances causing her to be affected like this. They were thrown together by a conspiracy that probably bred a sense of closeness—a very temporary sense, she sternly reminded herself. When Dante no longer had any need for her co-operation, he’d cast her off as quickly and as ruthlessly as he’d picked her up.

To allow any attachment to him to develop was sheer stupidity. She had to keep remembering that Jenny Kent was not and would never be a person of serious interest to Dante Rossini. All he wanted of her was a brief impersonation of his cousin. If she played that role well enough, she’d be free to go at the end of it. That was what she had to aim for. Feeling swamped by this man’s magnetic attraction could only create a problem for her and she had problems enough.

So don’t go there.

Ever.

Dante was sharply aware of steel sliding into Jenny Kent’s backbone as he walked her down to the car that would take them to the heliport. She held her head high, straightened her shoulders and adopted an aloof air, ignoring the fact that he was still holding her hand. He briefly wondered if the idea of having some blackmail power over him was inspiring the change. Or was she simply taking courage from his assurances?

For the most part, she’d given him passive obedience since he’d forced her to take on the role of Isabella. The only rebellion she’d staged was her refusal to talk about her own life, flatly telling him he didn’t need to know. He wanted her to be Isabella and that was his only claim on her.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t easy to shrug off his curiosity about Jenny Kent, probably because most of the women he met were only too eager to tell him about themselves, courting his interest, wanting him to know them. Of course, none of them had been an unwilling captive in his company, but he was willing to bet that a week of being pampered with luxury, beautified, outfitted with ‘fine feathers’ would normally thaw any resistance they might have to giving him whatever he wanted.