Everything up in smoke! Acrid tears burned her eyes. How long would it take her to find another job? How long to prove herself again? Her plans to bring Susie up to London to live with her as soon as she could afford somewhere better to live had been blown to smithereens, and she had worked so long towards that goal.
Now, all of a sudden, she was back where she had been three years ago but far less optimistic. Dear heaven, why had she ever got involved with Cesare Falcone? He was like a curse following her around. What had she ever done to deserve this? Awash with rage and humiliation, Mina’s sense of injustice was bitterly intense, but beneath all of that was this terrible pain that Cesare could have sunk so low.
She was walking down the street where she lived when she saw the Ferrari. Ferraris were not a regular sight there. The glossy paintwork gleamed in the sunshine, a jewel in a sea of beat-up cars. She knew it was Cesare. When she was within twenty feet, he sprang out and strode round the bonnet.
She stopped dead, smitten with bloodlust at the sight of him, finding every single detail of his immaculate appearance offensive: the light grey Italian suit, tailored to a perfect fît over those wide shoulders and long, lean legs, the pale blue silk shirt which accentuated the all-the-year-round gold of his skin, the hand-stitched shoes. A couple of giggling teenage girls on the other side of the street wolf-whistled at him. Par for the course for Cesare. He was a visual feast, she conceded with a spasm of self-hatred.
‘Mina…’
‘Come to gloat?’ she slashed back at him, wondering why he wasn’t smiling like the shark he was. In fact, as he stilled in the sunlight, she noticed his tension. It sprang out at her in the tautness of stance, his clenched jawline, the darkness of his deep-set eyes below his level brows.
‘It wasn’t me who spoke to Haland. I was out of the office,’ he intoned flatly.
Why did that sound so much like a plea for understanding? What a crazy idea, she thought, consigning it to oblivion. Cesare knew how to do an awful lot of things, but pleading didn’t feature in the list. And what did he mean by saying that he hadn’t spoken to her former employer?
‘He saw Sandro,’ Cesare completed.
Cesare’s brother, Sandro the creep, Mina reflected with an inner shudder of distaste. Her stomach heaved at the awareness that Sandro was apparently acquainted with the murky details of her so-called dishonesty.
A mere year Cesare’s junior, Sandro was a foulmouthed, workshy, ignorant boor who without the protection of his big brother would not have been employed by any reputable company. That Sandro had been in a position to destroy her reputation in a cosy little chat with Edwin Haland was somehow the most gross betrayal of all. It was the ultimate humiliation.
‘It doesn’t really matter who saw him, does it? Unless you’re back-tracking on what you said last night and were planning to mount a cover-up on my behalf!’ Mina vented a sharp little laugh at that ridiculous idea and surveyed him with unhidden loathing.
Cesare was oddly pale beneath his bronzed skin. His gaze flared gold as he connected with that look of hers, and his beautifully shaped mouth twisted. Mina stood there, quivering with bitter resentment and distress, and damned him with her eyes.
‘We need to talk,’ he murmured in a taut undertone.
‘The only person I need to talk to right now is a solicitor, and I am so grateful that your slime-bag of a brother has put himself in the hot seat beside you, because now I can kill two birds with one stone…and, believe me, I intend to!’ Mina slung at him rawly, yet knowing even as she spoke that there was no way she would carry out such a threat. ‘Now get out of my way!’
His strong jawline clenched. ‘I would not advise approaching a solicitor——’
‘Oh, boy, I just bet you wouldn’t! After all, it’s a free world, isn’t it? It’s OK for you to go around telling filthy lies about me and putting me out of yet another job, but no, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try and defend myself. Who do you think you’re kidding?’ Mina demanded aggressively, her fists clenching when he still neglected to step out of her path. ‘Move, Cesare!’
Cesare continued to stare at her as though he was mesmerised, brooding golden eyes intently fixed on her. Outraged by his lack of response, Mina planted a small hand against his broad chest to thrust him out of her way. A lean hand whipped up and unexpectedly trapped hers, preventing her from withdrawal.
‘What the heck are you——?’ she began.
Without the smallest warning he grabbed her right there in the middle of the street. Two strong hands clamped to her waist as he lifted her up against him and brought his mouth smashing down on hers with an explosive sexual hunger that travelled through her like forked lightning.
A stifled gasp of shock escaped low in her throat and then, equally abruptly, Cesare was lowering her back to the pavement again, sliding her with instinctive sensuality against every fiercely taut line of his long, powerful body.
Her head swimming, her mouth tingling, every thought an effort, she discovered for herself what had provoked that sudden assault. Her cheeks burned as she felt the unmistakable thrust of his male arousal. In the middle of an argument, too, she conceded, hopelessly disconcerted by the mysteries of the masculine libido.
‘Dio!’ he grated in a seething undertone. ‘I want you so much, I ache…’
CHAPTER THREE
SUDDENLY appalled by the awareness that she was standing submissively in the circle of his arms, Mina broke free, clumsily side-stepped him and vanished through the battered door a few feet behind him. She thudded up the narrow stairs, reaching the top landing in record time as she fumbled for her key and stuck it in the lock. She only heard Cesare behind her as she pushed open the door.
‘Go away!’
In one long stride he was in front of her, preventing her from slamming the door in his face. ‘Per amor di Dio…’ he whispered, looking over the top of her head at the tiny, claustrophobic room as bare and tidy as a cell.
‘I don’t want you in here!’ Mina snapped.
With an arrogant hand, Cesare pressed her back and stepped inside. There was very little floor space. There was a bed, a small table against one wall to carry a two-ring burner, and a curtained alcove for storage on the other. He surveyed his surroundings with an air of incredulous distaste.
‘It’s clean. You’re not likely to catch anything.’ Mina was horribly embarrassed but struggling not to show the fact. ‘Maybe you’d like to conduct a search for the loot you’re so convinced I’ve got!’
Cesare angled his dark head back to her. ‘You cleared over a quarter of a million pounds on the stock-market. I assume you have it salted away somewhere safe—perhaps in property down in the country where you spend your weekends?’ Diamond-hard dark eyes glittered over her, scanning for the smallest change of expression.
Her lower lip dropped from her upper. ‘A quarter of a million, and you think I’d be living here like a rat in a cage?’
‘It would have been very foolish of you to flaunt it, but this…’ Cesare spread fastidious brown fingers as he took another almost fascinated glance around. ‘This dump is decided overkill. Your salary at Earth Concern might have been low, but it would certainly have enabled you to live more comfortably than this,’ he informed her drily.
‘Maybe I have expenses you don’t know about.’ As soon as she said it she regretted it, her profile pinching tight with tension. ‘A quarter of a million,’ she muttered in a hurried aside,