The Cost of her Innocence. JACQUELINE BAIRD

THREE

      IT WAS A blazing-hot day, and Beth’s carefully straightened hair was already beginning to wave in the heat as she searched the kitchen one more time.

      ‘Got you!’ she cried triumphantly and, cradling Binkie in her arms, she carried him into the hall and closed the kitchen door with her hip. Finally she was ready to go. Her luggage was loaded into the boot of her car, and had been for hours, but Binkie was not. It was a five-hour drive to Devon, and she had planned on leaving at one. It was now three, but with luck she would easily make it before dark.

      She eyed the cat carrier standing open in the hall. Binkie hated travelling, which was why she had spent ages trying to coax him out from under the kitchen units, after having chased him around the garden and the apartment. Now all she had to do was put him in the carrier and they could go.

      Beth had given in her notice at work on Monday and, with the three weeks’ holiday she had yet to take, did not need to return to the office. She had spoken to Tony last night, but had not mentioned she was leaving permanently. She intended to do that when she came back to clear her apartment. Tony had promised to keep an eye on the place, and had also told her his brother’s engagement was off. Dante had gone to work in America for a while, conveniently escaping the flak from their mother over the cancelled wedding. She had already bought a hat!

      Tony’s news had been music to Beth’s ears, and she’d realised she had probably worried unnecessarily. But she was pleased that Dante’s appearance in her life again had focused her mind and forced her to make a decision. Now, sun, sea and a new chapter in her life beckoned, Beth thought happily, bending down to lower Binkie into the carrier—which was easier said than done. He had leapt out of it twice already.

      ‘Stop wriggling, you useless ball of fur,’ she told him, and was just about to draw one hand free to shut the carrier when there was a ring at the front door—peremptory and sharp.

      Ignoring it, Beth leant over, using her body to block Binkie’s escape, and swiftly closed the lid.

      ‘All right, all right—I’m coming!’ she yelled as the bell rang again and kept on ringing.

      She got to her feet and, leaving the carrier on the floor, walked to the door. Probably some salesman, she thought. But whoever it was she would get rid of them quickly. She opened the door.

      The social smile froze on her lips and she simply stared at the man standing before her. A dark, unsmiling figure in a charcoal pinstriped suit, jacket unfastened, the white shirt beneath open at the neck and startlingly brilliant against his tanned throat. Her stomach clenched and she stiffened, straightening her shoulders. It was the man she hated with a passion but had dreamed of far too often in the past two weeks for her peace of mind. Cannavano …

      Dante had received the report on Beth Lazenby a week ago in New York, and what he had read had confirmed his suspicions about her. He had arrived back in London this morning, and after a shower and a change had leapt in his car and driven here. Now he was on her doorstep. His features hardened as slowly he took in every detail of the way she looked: her hair was dishevelled, her face clear of make-up—and as for what she was wearing …

      If he’d had the slightest doubt of the investigator’s findings that Jane Mason and Beth Lazenby were one and the same, it vanished as he noted the snug fit of denim shorts that showed off her long legs and the skimpy white top that revealed a tantalising cleavage and stopped six inches short of the toned flesh of a slender waist and abdomen. She was slimmer than before, but still had curves in all the right places, and she was more striking than ever.

      He felt a surge of lust and saw again in his mind’s eye the image of that girl in the picture, wearing almost the same outfit as this woman wore now, but with one dramatic difference. The girl in the picture had had long black hair—as had the girl who’d stood in the dock and been found guilty of being a drug dealer.

      He had been right to be suspicious of the redheaded beauty who had captivated his brother. She had latched on to a younger boy when she was a teenager, and been prepared to use his infatuation for her to ruin him and save her own neck when she had been caught in her reckless drug dealing. It would seem that she had ensnared his younger brother in much the same way. She obviously had not changed—only in the colour of her hair, which couldn’t be real. The thing that surprised him was that he had not recognised who she was sooner.

      ‘Hello, Beth. Or should I say Jane?’ he queried sardonically.

      ‘My legal name is Beth Lazenby,’ Beth stated bluntly.

      The air between them was crackling with tension.

      ‘Maybe now. But it wasn’t when you were in the dock at nineteen.’

      ‘You’ve finally recognised me. Bully for you,’ she snapped sarcastically, seeing no point in denying it. So he had remembered where he had seen her before? Her temper rose at the audacity of the man, confronting her on her own doorstep.

      ‘Not exactly. But the investigator I hired to check on you refreshed my memory.’

      Beth’s temper very nearly exploded at that revelation, and only by a terrific effort of will did she control the anger simmering inside her—along with other emotions she refused to recognise. She reminded herself she was no longer a gullible teenager but a confident woman, and she flatly refused to let Cannavaro intimidate her again.

      ‘Shame you wasted your money. I’m going on holiday now, and have already spent ages chasing the cat—which has made me late. You need to leave.’ And she caught the door handle with the intention of slamming the door in his face.

      ‘Not so fast.’ He put his foot in the door. ‘I want to talk to you.’

      ‘Well, tough. Because I have absolutely nothing to say to you.’ She turned, hanging on to her temper by a thread, and went to retrieve the cat in order to go.

      But, remembering the time and pain Cannavaro had already cost her, she decided she had nothing left to lose, and spun back to find him towering over her.

      She looked up at him, her green eyes spitting fury. ‘Except to say you have some nerve investigating me. Call yourself a lawyer? You are without doubt the most arrogant, devious, manipulative, lying bastard it has ever been my misfortune to meet. Got it? Now, go.’

      His face was like carved granite and his eyes hard as he watched her mouth spew out the angry words. Suddenly he moved and a long arm shot around her. His large hand splayed across her back whilst the other grasped the back of her head and jerked her body towards him. He dipped his head, his mouth crashing down on hers, relentlessly prising her lips apart with the powerful thrust of his tongue. Shocked and furious, she tried to pull away, but his hands clamped her in position. Her head was so close to his she could not drag it from beneath his all-consuming mouth. The steel band of his arm was holding her pressed hard against his long body. She tried to struggle, but he was too strong—and shamefully, instead of feeling revulsion, she was floundering in the wave of heady sensation flowing through her body.

      Frantically she tried to lift her hands and shove him away, but she was held so tightly against the hard wall of his chest that all she could do was claw at his broad shoulders as he wreaked sensual havoc with his penetrating kiss. Still she tried to resist, but he explored her mouth, hotly igniting a flame of arousal deep inside that scorched through her defences—and suddenly she wasn’t clawing, but clinging to him.