His Wedding Ring Of Revenge. Julia James

But she could not banish the shaft of anguish that went with the vision.

      She raised her hand in a sharp, sweeping movement, as if to brush away the feelings ripping through her.

      With monumental effort she fought back to take control of her emotions, to keep this conversation where it had to be—at the level of business, nothing more. Where Vito Farneste would gain something he wanted and so would she.

      ‘This is irrelevant,’ she said dismissively. ‘The sole issue is whether you want the Farneste emeralds back again—on the terms I’ve just set out. I want your ring on my finger. For no more than a few months—’ she fought to keep her voice steady as she spoke ‘—and that’s all. You can have your precious emeralds back on our wedding day. No cash will be necessary.’

      She bit out the final sentence.

      Vito stared at her. His expression was veiled. And suddenly the way he was looking at her was far, far worse than when his eyes had been dark with fury, his face cold with disgust.

      She felt her heart start to quicken, her stomach plunge as though she’d just swallowed an ice-cube.

      ‘Why?’ he asked quietly, but there was no softness in his voice, just a low, disturbing shimmer of menace. ‘Why?’ he asked again.

      His shoulders eased into the soft leather curve of his executive chair and it swung slightly at the redistribution of weight. His eyes never left her face.

      She shifted uneasily. What was going on? Why was he looking at her like that?

      She tightened her jaw.

      ‘Why what? Why don’t I want money for the emeralds?’

      ‘No. Why do you imagine that I would entertain, even for a nanosecond, your…proposal?’

      His voice was still quiet, but it withered the flesh on her body.

      ‘Because,’ she answered, through gritted teeth, ‘you want the emeralds back. And this is the only way you’re going to get them.’

      Something flashed in his eyes. In a single fluid movement he was on his feet.

      His hand flew up.

      ‘Basta! This idiocy has gone far enough! I am prepared to buy back the emeralds in cash—but I am not prepared to have my time wasted a second longer with this farce! So either take the cheque or get out!’

      She was reeling from the force of his anger. Her fingers dug into the soft leather of her handbag.

      ‘If I walk now you’ll never get your precious emeralds back!’

      She tried to hurl her words at him, but they came out shaking.

      ‘Never is a long time,’ he retorted caustically. ‘At some point you’ll sell them—just to realise their value. And if you don’t sell them to me, what do I care? I’ll buy them from whoever you sell them to.’

      ‘My mother will never sell them!’ An image of the way Arlene had let the green jewels run through her fingers, gloating with triumph over her possession of them, shot through her mind. ‘Never!’

      ‘Then you can bury them in her grave with her!’

      Rachel’s face whitened, draining of blood. Faintness drummed in her ears.

      ‘You bastard,’ she whispered.

      His face stayed unrelenting, like unyielding marble. ‘No—that’s you. Remember?’

      It finished her. Finished her totally.

      Numb, she turned on her heel, walking back towards the closed double doors that seemed suddenly to be a hundred metres away. The urge to run, to get out, was overwhelming. Only at the door did she find one last vestige of courage. She took the handle, steadying herself.

      Then she turned. Her face was totally blank.

      ‘May you rot in hell, Vito Farneste!’

      She swung back, yanking open the double doors, and walked out. She just made it inside the lift before her legs all but buckled beneath her, and she had to sag against the bronzed wall for support.

      As the lift plunged downwards, so did her heart.

      She had blown it. Totally blown it. Her wild, stupid, insane idea had failed utterly, miserably.

      Despair filled her, and in its wake the floodgates to grief opened yet again, drowning her.

      In his office, Vito stood for one long, last moment, his face rigid. Fury so overwhelming he thought it would burst through tore at him, but he leashed it tight, with rigid control.

      How dared she come here! Stroll into his office and coolly, insolently, lay down conditions for the return of his own property?

      And such conditions…

      His eyes narrowed with cold, disbelieving rage.

      Had she really imagined that he would pay the slightest consideration to what she demanded? Could she really be that insane? Walking in, out of the blue, three years after he’d finally torn Arlene Graham’s grasping claws from the Farneste coffers, and thinking that he might actually consider, let alone accept paying such a price for the purloined Farneste emeralds?

      Out of what sordid hole had she crawled, anyway? And why now? Were times hard for the pair of them these days? He’d made sure Arlene Graham had taken the minimum of booty with her when he’d despatched her after his father had died, but a woman like her would have squirrelled away funds for years. Other than sending his useless pack of lawyers to try and extract the one trophy she had managed to carry off, he’d let Arlene Graham rot, glad that he’d finally got her out of Italy. Where she’d gone he neither knew nor cared. If she’d taken another protector he’d have been surprised—her youth had gone and her market rate was all but zero.

      Another thought seared across his mind.

      Had she turned her daughter to the same trade? Leeching off rich men in exchange for sleeping with them? She was certainly dressed as if a rich man had paid for her appearance…

      Even at the thought something stabbed at him. So brief that he dismissed it. Instead he found himself jabbing at the intercom to his PA.

      ‘The woman who left my office just now. Have her followed.’