Sins of the Past. Elizabeth Power
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had been proved right by the team he had paid to check out both her and her mother.
They were drop-outs, protest marchers—troublemakers, in his opinion—and, as he’d suspected all along, just a pair of gold-diggers. Nothing Riva had told him had held a gram of truth.
Born illegitimate to parents who had never bothered to marry, she had come from a grossly under-privileged area, attending only basic, run-of the-mill state schools. Her mother, far from being a potential career woman, had found it hard holding down even the most menial job to pay the rent—or not, as the fancy took her—on a changing assortment of cheap, downmarket digs. The closest her father had come to being a ‘naval man'—as both Chelsea and Riva had referred to him—was when he’d been employed for a time unloading barges, and the only uniform he had worn had been inside one of Her Majesty’s prisons, where he’d been serving a well-earned sentence for fraud! The one scrap of authenticity in the whole story was that he had been killed in a car accident—the year after his release and under the influence of drink!
That he had saved his uncle from the clutches of such a dubious pair of women was something Damiano would continue to be thankful for. He regretted what had happened to Chelsea Singleman. Per amor di Dio! He would hardly be human if he didn’t! But it was galling to realise that if she had married his uncle, who had sadly died after a short illness eighteen months ago, and Marcello had left everything to his grieving widow, then because of Chelsea’s unfortunate death since, this little opportunist would now be enjoying the benefits of all Marcello D’Amico’s wealth!
‘So what do you think?’ His voice was harsh from the turn his thoughts had taken as he watched her surveying what the studio had informed her was to be redesigned as a crafts and hobbies room. ‘We were imagining something with more of a Continental feel, perhaps. Are you up to the task?’
Riva took in the rather drab décor and the few pieces of furniture—mostly covered in dust sheets, apart from a tall bookcase and a large rectangular table that stood against one wall. It was a room obviously designed as a private sanctuary, tucked away at the back of the house. She could see that someone—perhaps the woman herself—had already tried to add a classical feel and fallen far short of what they had been intending. The only redeeming feature was the pair of floor-to-ceiling doors that looked out onto a quiet terrace—although some of the paving stones were broken. There was a pleasing aspect of the old manor, though, she noted, through the specimen trees.
Meeting that hostile masculine gaze now, she said, ‘Are you asking me—or telling me?’
‘I take it it’s within your capabilities?’ he pursued, ignoring her barbed question, and didn’t fail to notice the way her tight little mouth compressed.
He had her where he wanted her—jumping to his command—and she knew it, he realised. He derived a rather guilty pleasure from that.
‘What does your grandmother do?’ Grudgingly she moved away into the centre of the room, studying its lay-out, its dimensions, its position—whether or not it faced the sun. There was nothing, though, not even in the empty bookcases, she realised, dropping her bag down on the table, to give her any clue as to the woman’s character.
‘Do?’
‘Yes.’ She swung round to see him frowning. ‘Her crafts and hobbies? What are they?’
He gave a barely discernible shrug. ‘She reads. She stitches. She … er … ricamare … ‘
‘Embroiders?’ Riva supplied, guessing that that was the word that was eluding him. ‘So … she sews.’ With a little inward smile she turned away from his disturbing scrutiny and that powerful aura of sexuality he exuded, which even now—even after what he had done—turned her knees to jelly, making her breathless, her pulse throb a little too hard.
‘This room faces north, so the light stays constant … Perhaps one wall with a hint of colour.’ She was already planning, feeling her enthusiasm building—despite everything; getting excited. It always happened when she was handed a project. Even now, when the dealer of that project was the man she despised more than anyone else in the world. But it was her job, and she was a professional. She didn’t intend letting old hostilities stand in the way of her career. ‘If we enlarge on the classical theme …’ She was thinking aloud. ‘Does she like Grecian?’
‘Definitely.’
She glanced at him, wondering why he sounded so uninterested. Perhaps he thought his grandmother’s need for a sewing room trivial and frivolous, she considered waspishly, deciding that she would do her best to please the old lady, even if it bored the socks off her superior grandson!
‘Those patio doors supply adequate light … but it still needs brightening up.’ She was assessing the space behind her. ‘It’s long enough and wide enough. Perhaps something on that wall … something bold and dramatic …’ She was getting carried away, but stopped suddenly, her arm suspended in mid-air. ‘Do you find something amusing?’ she challenged pointedly.
Arms folded, leaning back against the bookcase, the man was watching her with mocking insolence. ‘On the contrary.’ His mouth pulled down at one side. ‘I’m rather impressed.’
‘What did you expect?’ she retorted, in no mood to be gracious. ‘That I’d be out of my depth?’
‘Like you were before?’ Letting his arms fall, he moved away from the bookcase, a figure of such predatory watchfulness and cool intimidation that Riva brought her tongue nervously across her top lip.
Refusing, though, to be drawn into any further discussion with him on that subject, or anything else but the reason why she was there, she said pithily, ‘That was then, Damiano—this is now. And if you don’t mind I’d like to get on with the job the studio are paying me to do!’
She pivoted away from him, but, her temper still roused, she turned back and flung at him, ‘Why me? In view of what you think you know about me, aren’t you worried that I might decide the job isn’t really worth all the hassle? That I might decide it would simply benefit me more just to take off with a few of your—of your grandmother’s—priceless antiques?’
His mouth twisted speculatively as he weighed up that last comment.
‘One.’ He started counting out points. “Regardless of what you say to the contrary, I’m sure you value your job far too much. Two. There isn’t anything in this house worth more than having my curiosity satisfied. And three …’ His voice had grown dangerously soft. ‘Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’d find me a very lenient master if I had to come after you, Riva. You seem to be forgetting that I’ve dealt with you before, and I’d certainly have no qualms about dealing with you again.’
She wasn’t sure what he meant by dealing with her, but she certainly wasn’t going to take a chance on finding out. He was a ruthless adversary—as she knew all too well from the unscrupulous methods he had used to bring her to her knees before.
Her cheeks burned from the memory as she fought a whole heap of repressed anger and frustration.
Damiano. She’d looked it up once. The definition had said ‘one who subdues and tames'.
Well, you won’t tame me, Mr High-and-Mighty D’Amico! her brain screamed silently. But from the smile that played around his lips she knew that her body language alone had conveyed the rebellion in her.
‘You asked why you?’ Slipping a hand into the pocket of superbly tailored trousers, he perched on the edge of the table, one long leg at full stretch, the other hanging free. ‘Apart from the obvious, when my secretary rang the studio to book a consultant she was offered a very glowing report on your capabilities. In fact she was supplied with some very interesting facts about you.’
No, please!
Her heart had started racing and her stomach muscles clenched almost sickeningly. What had the studio let slip?
She saw the furrow pleating the tanned masculine forehead and