Notorious: Ruthlessly Bedded by the Italian Billionaire / Bound by the Marcolini Diamonds
Not his manufactured cousin.
She didn’t even speak unless spoken to. She soaked up what he told her about the Rossini family and offered nothing about herself. He wished there’d been time to have Jenny Kent investigated. He was taking a risk in trusting her to fulfil the role he’d insisted upon, trusting her fear of the alternative. His gut instinct told him she would deliver, which was all he should care about, yet it was definitely tantalising that she held herself so rigidly apart from any personal connection to him.
It gave him a perverse kind of pleasure to take possession of her hand. The urge to break her passivity kept niggling at him. But she didn’t fight the contact, didn’t respond to it in any way, just waited until he released it when she was stepping into the car, then sat with both her hands linked on her lap—a pointed picture of self-containment.
She did not so much as glance his way on the drive to the heliport, staring out the side window, apparently immersed in the sights and sounds of the streets they travelled. Dante felt himself challenged by her silence, by her stubborn determination to ignore him.
‘What do you think of Rome?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ she said dismissively, still not turning her head towards him.
‘Nonno will ask. You might as well practice a reply.’
‘Then I’d sound rehearsed. Better that I don’t.’
‘I’ve been rehearsing you all week. Why stop now?’
‘Because time’s up. I’m about to go on stage and stuffing any more into my head at this point will only make me more anxious about my performance.’
It was a fair argument so he let his frustration with her slide. Whoever Jenny Kent was, she was far from stupid. Not only did she have street smarts, but also quite an impressive natural intelligence, making his task of coaching her into meeting any expectation of Isabella a relatively easy one. Her life experience was obviously a far cry from his, yet he was confident she could now fit in to the family without feeling too much like a fish out of water.
In fact, she wouldn’t just fit in, she’d shine. He’d been right about how she could look. Nonno was going to be proud to own her as his grand-daughter. She was beautiful. Quite enticingly beautiful. But he couldn’t afford to think of her like that. Nonno might see it in his eyes. Just one slip—revealing that she stirred a devilish desire in him—and the deception might unravel.
They arrived at the heliport. As Dante escorted his newly found cousin across the tarmac he watched his pilot’s reaction to her. Pierro was standing by the opened door of the helicopter, waiting to greet them and help them to their seats. He’d seen Dante with many beautiful women in tow. ‘Isabella’ lit up his eyes with a look that said ‘Wow! Knockout!’ in no uncertain terms.
Pierro couldn’t do enough for her, fussing over getting her comfortably settled in the helicopter. It won him a smile and sweetly appreciative words, neither of which had come Dante’s way all week. It was absurd to feel a twinge of jealousy, but damn it! He’d done a hell of a lot for her and she was barely civil to him.
You’ve done it to her, not for her, he reminded himself, but he was still piqued that with him she wrapped herself in a cool dignity he couldn’t penetrate. But he would. It was only a matter of time, and he’d make sure he had plenty of that with her while she was on Capri.
They landed at the villa just before noon.
Lucia, of course, was hot to meet her Australian cousin and size her up, actually coming down to the helipad instead of waiting in the shade of the colonnaded walkway. Dante felt the rush of adrenaline that always fired him up for critical meetings.
Game on! he thought, and hoped ‘Isabella’ was up to it.
‘Your cousin, Lucia,’ Dante murmured as he took Jenny’s arm, holding her steady for the high step down from the helicopter.
Jenny had already mentally identified her. Due to the shopping experience with Dante in Paris, she instantly recognised French chic. Lucia Rossini personified it: short black hair artfully cut in an asymmetrical bob; a gorgeous scarlet-and-white dress that skimmed her slim, petite figure; elegant white sandals with intricate straps around her ankles. She also carried herself with the same arrogant confidence that Jenny now associated with great wealth.
Without Dante’s intervention in dolling her up, she would have felt like dirt beneath the other woman’s feet. The style he’d chosen for her was very different, but it had more than enough unique class to make Lucia look quite miffed as she eyed her newly arrived cousin. It made her wary as Dante moved her forward for introductions.
‘Lucia, how sweet of you to welcome Isabella so eagerly!’ he drawled, his lightly mocking tone putting Jenny even more on guard.
‘Well, naturally I’m curious about a cousin I’ve never known, Dante,’ she tossed back at him, a flash of venom in her dark eyes.
Certainly no love lost between these two, Jenny thought.
‘You’ve had her to yourself for a whole week. Now it’s my turn,’ Lucia said, re-arranging her expression into a smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Welcome to Capri, Isabella. I aim to make you feel at home here very quickly.’
She stepped forward, put her hands on Jenny’s shoulders and air-kissed both cheeks. Jenny instinctively reared back, not used to people invading her personal space and not liking the over-familiarity, particularly since she felt no warmth coming from this cousin.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered. ‘Very kind.’
‘Isabella is Australian, Lucia,’ Dante dryly reminded her. ‘She’s not accustomed to the Italian style of greeting. A hand-shake is more their style.’
‘Oh! How stand-offish!’ Lucia shrugged. ‘I thought Australians were known for their open friendliness.’
Jenny flushed at the implied criticism. ‘I’m sorry. I guess I’m feeling a bit strange at the moment. All this is very new to me.’
‘Well, you’ll have to learn to be Italian, too, if you want to fit into this family.’
The sheer arrogance of that statement stung Jenny’s deep resentment at being forced into this situation. ‘Maybe I won’t want to fit in.’ The words were out in a flash and she didn’t regret them. In fact, it gave her a fine satisfaction to see Lucia’s eyebrows shoot up in unplanned astonishment, as though being in the Rossini family was the most desirable thing in the world. It wasn’t, as far as Jenny was concerned. ‘I didn’t ask to come here,’ she added for good measure.
Lucia turned an arch look to Dante, her eyes glinting with malicious glee. ‘This must be a first for you,’ she drawled, ‘running into resistance from a woman, not having her falling on her knees to please you. Nonno should have sent me to collect Isabella. I would have done a better job of it.’
‘I doubt your brand of sly sniping would have achieved anything,’ he replied sardonically. ‘But then you wouldn’t have wanted to, would you, Lucia? Isabella is too much a wild card for your liking, coming in at the death, so to speak.’
‘Oh!’ She feigned hurt shock. ‘That’s such a mean thing to say! Don’t take any notice of him, Isabella.’ A cajoling smile was directed at her. ‘That’s just a payback for being teased about his famous charm. I’m delighted that you’re here for Nonno.’ She waved an open invitation. ‘Now do let’s go up to the villa. It’s so hot out here.’
Jenny glanced back at the helicopter, wishing she had never set foot in this place.
‘Pierro will bring in our luggage,’ Dante quickly assured her, taking her hand again, pressing it hard to remind her there was no escape, not until he allowed it, and that would be no time soon.
She hated him in that moment, hated having no choice, hated being thrust into such foreign territory, hostile territory if Lucia’s attitude was anything to go by.
Capri was supposed to be a romantic place, a paradise for lovers. As they moved from the open heat to the shade of a colonnaded walkway, Jenny couldn’t help thinking there was at least one serpent in this Eden.
How many more would she have to meet?
She was imprisoned on this island as surely as she would have been in a women’s jail, having to work out how to deal with the other inmates and survive. The luxury of it was supposed to sweeten her term here, but wasn’t there a saying—wealth is the root of all evil?
She yearned for her own simple life.
And hated Dante for forcing her into his.
CHAPTER SIX
THE colonnaded walkway was beautiful, shaded by pine trees and masses of brilliant bougainvillea. Jenny could imagine a Roman emperor with a string of courtiers strolling along it, sandals slapping on the flagstones. She wondered if Marco Rossini presided over his family like an emperor, parcelling out power to those who pleased him. Like Dante.
‘I’ve had the blue suite in the guest wing made ready for you,’ Lucia cooed at her. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy staying there. It has a lovely view of …’
‘I don’t think so,’ Dante cut in with an air of haughty command. ‘Isabella will feel much more comfortable in the suite adjoining mine. Makes it easier for her to come to me if she has a problem. I did promise her my protection on this journey.’
It was the first Jenny had heard of his promised protection, but she didn’t contradict him, thinking she might need it if Lucia was planning to sink her snaky fangs into her. Putting her in the guest wing, away from the puppeteer’s support, was probably a ploy to make her more accessible to hostile action, as well as making her feel like an outsider, which she was, but she wasn’t supposed to be.
‘But Isabella is safely here,’ Lucia argued. ‘What possible problem could she have now?’
‘Do as I say, Lucia.’ No moving him on that point.
‘It can’t be done,’ she said with a much put-upon sigh and a smug look at Dante. ‘Anya Michaelson is already in the suite adjoining yours. Which is where you wanted her on previous visits.’
Dante’s grip on Jenny’s hand tightened, revealing a rise in tension. She glanced at his face. Displeasure was written all over it. ‘Anya came here uninvited?’ he bit out in cold anger.
If Anya was his current girlfriend, she’d just made a bad move, Jenny thought. Dante Rossini liked to order things his way, and not even the lure of sexual pleasure right next door changed that aspect of his character.
‘No, no. I invited her,’ Lucia replied, still smug about her initiative. ‘I flew over to Rome to do some shopping and ran into her on the Spanish Steps. She was most upset about your leaving so abruptly, without a word to her, so I explained about Nonno sending you off to fetch Isabella, and then I thought you’d like some relaxation with Anya after such an arduous trip….’
‘In short, you interfered with what was none of your business.’
His tone would have made most people shrivel, but Lucia obviously thrived on his anger, positively enjoying herself.
‘You should be more caring of your women, Dante,’ she trilled back at him. ‘I was simply saving you from a nasty scene with Anya when you finally caught up with her again. I’m sure she’ll now be ever so sweet to you, all primed to smooth away your travel fatigue.’
Jenny felt a strong distaste for this conversation. She looked at the pots of flowers spaced between the columns, pretending total disinterest in Dante’s sex life, trying to keep herself emotionally separated from affairs that had nothing to do with her. Absolutely nothing.
Of course he would have a woman. What man like Dante Rossini wouldn’t? And no doubt Anya was beautiful and very beddable. Despite his annoyance at Lucia’s interference, Jenny expected him to choose the ready pleasures of a lover, especially since the arrangement was already in place. The potted flowers were lovely; geraniums, petunias, impatiens …
‘Bad judgement, Lucia,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Family takes priority at a time like this. You can deal with moving Anya out while I’m introducing Isabella to Nonno.’
A huge tide of relief swept through Jenny. His connection with her remained firm. She was more important to him than anything else. No, the deception was, she quickly corrected herself. He wasn’t about to abandon her during this testing time, not when his grandfather’s peace of mind was at stake. That came first. She kept her gaze trained on the flowers, but she heard real shock in Lucia’s response.
‘Don’t be so unreasonable!’ she snapped. ‘It’s not going to hurt Isabella …’
‘This is not open to argument, Lucia. You chose to invite Anya. She’s your responsibility. Do whatever you like with her, but Isabella is to occupy the suite next to mine. Make no mistake about that,’ he said with steely authority.
‘Anya won’t like it!’
‘Anya should have waited for me to contact her. If I wanted to.’
‘How can you be so cruel! She loves you.’
‘Since when have you become an authority on love?’ he mocked.
‘The two of you have been an item all this year.’
‘Don’t play games with me, Lucia. You’ll lose. Every time.’
His tone had moved to studied boredom. Jenny had no doubt that for him the issue was closed. She could feel Lucia seething with frustration, but had no sympathy for her. To her mind, people who set out to make mischief should be caught in their own net and made to pay.
‘One day your insufferable ego will be your undoing, Dante,’ Lucia warned venomously.
A little shiver of apprehension ran down Jenny’s spine. It was probably Dante’s ego that refused to accept failure, forcing her into this false identity. If Lucia somehow uncovered the deception …
‘Don’t hold your breath waiting for that day, Lucia,’ he drawled, emitting a confidence that eased Jenny’s spurt of fear, though didn’t completely eliminate it. Two months was a long time to be under the gun from this ‘cousin.’
‘Anyway, I can’t deal with Anya now. Nonno is waiting for us on the terrace.’
‘He’s not waiting for you,’ Dante coldly corrected her.
‘I won’t be shut out of Nonno’s first meeting with Isabella. He expects us to be all together.’
‘I’ll tell him you’ve already met Isabella. I doubt you’ll be missed. Nonno will want to focus all his attention on the grand-daughter he doesn’t know yet.’
‘It’s a point of hospitality, Dante,’ she grated out angrily.
‘If you insist on accompanying us, I’ll let him know just how inhospitable you’ve been, putting your guest ahead of the very special family member Nonno wants to feel welcomed here.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the Blue Suite! Isabella, I promise you it’s beautiful.’
Jenny didn’t want to be dragged into the argument, but the direct appeal to her couldn’t be ignored. The colonnaded walkway had led into a fantastic atrium where they had come to a halt while the conflict was settled. It had a central water feature—a pool covered with gorgeous water-lilies—and she reluctantly lifted her gaze from these to look at Lucia.
Her younger ‘cousin’s’ dark eyes burned with the demand that she fall in with her plan, woman to woman against the man who divided them. For a moment Jenny was almost tempted, just to rattle Dante’s overbearing power, but the situation was too tricky for her to negotiate alone.
‘I’m sorry you’re being put to so much trouble on my account, Lucia,’ she said as calmly as she could, trying to maintain a composure that hid a growing mountain of nervous tension. ‘It is difficult, being a stranger to all this.’ She gestured to the exotic surroundings. ‘Dante has shepherded me around all week. Having him close by will make it easier for me.’
The hand holding hers squeezed approval, making her feel too connected to him again, too aware of him in a way that would not lead to anything good for her. He was her captor, her jailor, and while he probably meant to give her a sense of safety, he kept shaking her up with an attraction she knew was treacherous. Having him in the suite next to hers was not going to make life here easier for her, yet being separated from him was too scary to contemplate.
‘A fine start, Lucia,’ Dante mocked. ‘You’ve had Isabella apologising twice to you in the past ten minutes, making her feel uncomfortable.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ she flared at him, furious at being out-manoeuvred.
‘Then you can demonstrate a kinder nature by making instant amends.’ He waved her towards one of the wide hallways which ran off from the atrium. ‘I’ll make your excuses to Nonno.’
Her jaw clenched. Every atom of her being exuded hatred of defeat, the knowledge that she was forced to accept it. This time around. Dante had her cornered with no way out. He was very good at that, Jenny thought with black irony.
Lucia managed to stretch her mouth into a smile aimed at her. ‘I truly had no intention of making you feel uncomfortable, Isabella. Please forgive my thoughtlessness.’
‘I don’t mean to be difficult, either,’ she replied with an answering smile. ‘I guess I haven’t yet recovered from the shock of being presented with a family I knew nothing about. I can understand it’s a shock to you, as well.’
Lucia seized the excuse. ‘Yes. Hard to know what to do for the best. I’ll go and fix everything up for you and join you on the terrace as soon as I can.’ With a last challenging glare at Dante, she turned on her heel and walked briskly to the hallway he’d indicated.
‘Well done,’ Dante murmured, his warm breath wafting over Jenny’s ear, making her flinch away from the tingling sensation.
Her head jerked up, her eyes rejecting any form of intimacy with him as they met and held his. ‘Bella might very well have walked away after one day of this rotten family rivalry,’ she said in a fierce whisper. ‘Why don’t I do that, Dante? Remove any danger of being caught out. You got me here, which is all your grandfather asked you to do. Be satisfied with …’
‘No!’ He cut her off, ruthless determination stamping on her rebellion. ‘I’ve paid for the performance. You give it.’
‘One day is enough,’ she argued on a wave of panic.
‘It won’t be for Nonno.’ He released her hand and took hold of her upper arms, forcing her to face him. His dark eyes blazed with relentless purpose. ‘While ever he lives, you stay here, giving him whatever he wants of you.’
She instinctively fought against the overwhelming pressure of his demands, frantically searching for some way out. ‘What if he doesn’t like me?’
‘He will.’
‘Why should he? He doesn’t know me.’
‘Neither do I but I like you, Isabella.’ The tension on his strong face broke into a slow, sensual smile. ‘I’m beginning to like you very much.’
Her heart skittered in wild alarm as she felt her resistance melting. Her mind screamed that he had a woman and she must not allow his famous ‘charm’ to get to her. ‘I haven’t given you any reason to,’ she snapped.
He laughed, effectively zooming up his attraction quotient which was already far too discomforting for Jenny. Her head whirled with the need to block it out, stay indifferent to him.
‘All this time we’ve spent together, not once have you whined or wailed or wept about your fate.’
‘There was no point in kicking and screaming over what I can’t change.’
‘Exactly. Which is a surprisingly intelligent response from a woman.’
‘Then you can’t know many intelligent women.’
‘Or you’re not practised in using feminine wiles to win what you want.’
He was right. She’d never learnt to use feminine wiles, never been in the kind of environment where they might have been of use. In any event, if she read his character correctly, they would have been futile weapons in this situation.
‘Would they have worked on you?’ she asked, showing her scepticism.
‘No. But that wouldn’t have stopped most women from using them.’
‘Waste of time and energy,’ she muttered.
‘True. And I appreciate your pragmatic attitude. Needs must to get the job done. You’ve actually given me many reasons to like you, Isabella. Not least of which was the deft way you handled Lucia.’
‘As you said, you’ve paid for the performance. I was simply following your lead.’
‘With a nice little embellishment of your own at the end.’ He smiled again as he lifted a hand to touch her cheek in an admiring salute. ‘I’m sure you’ll handle the meeting with Nonno just as well.’
Her skin burned under the light caress. Her eyes burned with resentment over the cavalier way he touched her as he liked, always reinforcing the inescapable link between them. An increasingly dangerous link in Jenny’s mind.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ she said tersely.
‘It will go better if you relax.’
‘I’ll relax more quickly if you get your hands off me.’
He raised his eyebrows at the too-revealing comment and Jenny cursed herself for letting it slip. He lifted his hands out in a gesture of meaning no offence, and she felt herself flushing as she rushed into answering the heart-pumping speculation in his eyes.
‘You might own me in one sense, Dante Rossini, but there are some liberties you have no right to take.’
He nodded but the speculation didn’t go away and she inwardly squirmed under it, knowing she had just shown a vulnerability that completely undermined any pose of indifference.
‘Another first,’ he murmured in dry amusement. ‘No woman has ever objected to my touch before.’
‘I’m your cousin,’ she fiercely reminded him. ‘And don’t you forget it.’
‘Cousins can and do show physical affection.’
‘I can do without Lucia’s brand of affection. And yours.’
He cocked his head musingly. ‘Nonno will like your feisty sense of independence. I think you’re ready to meet him now.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so.’ She waved a careless hand, doing her utmost to appear relaxed. ‘Lead on. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’
Out of the corner of her eye she could see him smiling as he ushered her over to a set of double glass doors which opened to a terrace overlooking the sea they had flown over only a short while ago. The old saying—’caught between the devil and the deep blue sea’—slid into her mind. It was precisely how she felt.
Focus on what Bella would be feeling, she swiftly told herself. Here she was, meeting her grandfather for the first time, a man who’d wanted nothing to do with her family until now. Any sense of affection was impossible. Curiosity, yes. Perhaps resentment, too, at being called in so late in the day, too late for her own father who’d died in exile, never knowing any forgiveness for his grave teenage sin.
She mentally blocked out Dante, training her gaze on the old man being helped up from a sun-lounge by a woman caregiver. He still had a full head of thick wavy hair, shockingly snow-white, framing a face that seemed all bones, the flesh obviously wasted by the cancer that was eating him from the inside. His skin was tanned from lying in the sun, possibly in an attempt to look healthier than he was. He wore a loose white tunic over baggy white trousers. Neither hid the frailty of a body which had probably once been as big and strong as Dante’s.
He was a dying man, maybe in considerable pain, warranting some sympathy despite the other circumstances that had brought her here. It was clearly an effort for him to stand straight and tall, determined on meeting her with dignity. Pride doesn’t die, Jenny thought, and Bella might well be prickly with pride, too, the outcast who hadn’t asked to be rejoined to this Rossini family and had no reason to bow to this patriarch.
Hold your head high, Dante had instructed.
She did.
And met Marco Rossini’s penetrating dark gaze with determined steadiness.
I am Bella. You are my grandfather and you don’t know me. This is not just a test for me. It’s a test for you, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY stood, face-to-face, studying each other in a silence that stretched Jenny’s nerves so far she could feel them twanging with tension. Marco Rossini was taking in every feature of her face as though trying to match them against some picture in his mind, and fear squeezed her heart as she read disappointment in them. Inevitable, she knew, because she had no Rossini genes, though maybe his disappointment was good for her. He mightn’t want to keep her here, since she didn’t look like the son he had banished.