A Reputation to Uphold (5 page)

Soon-To-Be Duchess Threatens to Give St George the Royal Snip.

Is Diva up to Her Old Tricks?

Watch Out, Brides! Eva’s on the Prowl.

‘Thank you, Dante Vitale.’ Writhing against the sheets, she kicked the blankets away from her over-warm skin, half-tempted to sue him for disclosure.

Then again, what on earth was she thinking kissing him in the first place? You would think the humiliation of five years ago had been enough to last her a lifetime. The only saving grace was that Dante’s scathing one-liner about taking her up against the wall didn’t appear in print!

Her pride was an ultra-fine thread stretched so taut it threatened to snap at any second.

‘Enough.’ She was quickly forgetting her new life motto: no regrets. Move on. It was time for a plan. A strategy.

Glancing over at the clock, she groaned when she saw that the small hand had only turned a quarter since the last time she’d looked. Eight forty-five a.m. Still too early.

She needed to call Prudence West. The serene soon-to-be Duchess had left a disarmingly polite message on Eva’s answering machine last night before she’d even arrived home.

‘Thank you, Claire.’

By then it had been too late to call her back and Eva knew what was coming—‘You’re fired’, delivered with dignified, heart-cracking finality. After all, she knew how destructive bad press could be. She could hardly blame the woman, especially in her position.

The lump swelling in her chest made it hard to breathe. How many more clients would she lose? How could she ensure that business kept walking through the door? This wasn’t anything like when she’d started out on her own. This time she had other staff to think about. Her seamstress, Katie, who had two little boys to feed at home. Her assistant, who would have a nervous breakdown if she couldn’t go clubbing on Friday night. Not forgetting the rent for her boutique downstairs, which was colossal.

Responsibility tore her insides to shreds. What if she could persuade Prudence West to stick by her? Surely, everyone would follow suit. If she appealed to her, told her the truth...

The buzzer shrilled through her apartment for the hundredth time since seven a.m. and Eva yanked the blankets back over her head. ‘Go away!’ This was just like when her mother died.

Princess of the Press
, Dante had called her. Four tiny words with the power to crush. Because, in all honesty, she felt ruled...almost owned by them. Blood-sucking creatures to whom decency was a foreign concept. This morning they didn’t want the truth; they wanted sensationalism. In the past, how many times had she tried to give her version of events, only for her words to be twisted beyond recognition, ensuring she was as red and fiendish as the she-devil herself?

The phone shrilled, making her temples throb, and she waited until the answering machine kicked in.

‘Eva, pick up the phone.’ Dante’s fierce bark filled the air of her apartment.

‘Oh,
great
.’

‘I am outside parked at the kerb, surrounded by reporters and I’m warning you, if you don’t pick up—’

Thrusting back the covers, she scrambled across the wide dark wood sleigh bed to retrieve her cordless from the bed-stand. Determined to be calm, composed and totally in control.

‘
What
?’ she snapped. ‘What will you do, Dante? Haven’t you done enough damage?’

‘Me
?’ he said, incredulity and exasperation lacing his voice. ‘May I remind you that your reputation precedes you? And do not speak to me of damage when I have just endured thirty minutes of female temper tantrums from my
ex
-fiancée!’

‘Ex-fiancée?’ she repeated, her mood lifting. And in that moment Eva knew she was a horrible, horrible person. The man undoubtedly brought out the worst in her. But why shouldn’t he at least feel a smidgeon of the turmoil she was in?

A long sigh poured from her lips. ‘For heaven’s sake, just tell the woman you love her.’ Where was the man’s famed intelligence? No wonder his marriage hadn’t lasted long.

A stunned silence, then, ‘
Love
? What has love got to do with it?’

‘Ah, well, say no more,’ she said sardonically. ‘It’s usually why people get married, didn’t you know?’

‘In your world, maybe,’ he growled down the line. ‘Let me up, Eva, we need to talk. There’s only one way out of this mess.’

‘I don’t want you here. It’ll make things look worse.’

‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘Things could not
possibly
get any worse.’

Oh, yes, they could—he could come up here and she could murder him for the unforgivable things he’d said to her last night. He could witness sleep-deprived Eva, eyes heavy with fatigue. But, more importantly, ‘I refuse to provide the wolf pack with even more fodder.’ And how could she approach Prudence then?
Oh, it’s okay, he always calls for a friendly brunch early on a Sunday morning?
Yeah, right.

She heard him exhale and swore she could feel his warm breath trickle over her collarbone. Reaching up, she stroked the goose-pimples dotting her skin...and then yanked her hand away. What was wrong with her? How could she still crave the man’s touch? A man so cynical. So savagely brutal.

‘I have the answer to everything,’ Dante said in a shiver-inducing low tone. A rich velvet she’d never heard before, didn’t trust. It was luring, almost spellbinding.

‘You do?’ she asked, drawn in against volition.

‘
Sì,
’ he said, silky as sin. ‘The perfect plan.’

‘What, like a miracle?’ And hold on a minute, why did he want to help her all of a sudden? Yesterday she’d been an alcoholic tramp. Goodness and hearts didn’t generally figure in the Vitale phrase book. ‘Did Finn send you?’

‘No, I have not spoken to him since yesterday. The lines are down. It’s either me or nothing.’

Lips parting, she almost told him
nothing
sounded wonderful but something stopped her. The business. Katie’s two little boys. The rent.

She thrust her hands through her hair, tugged at the roots, tried to shake out the kinks.

If Dante could help with the press in some way, maybe she should hear him out. The man wore power as comfortably as other people wore shoes and thinking of herself was selfish, right? In reality, she had nothing left to lose.

Dipping her chin, she glanced down and winced at the cosy, ratty PJs. Hardly the uber-chic designer look.

Drat. There was that pride again.

‘Okay. Give me five minutes.’

‘Three,’ he said before disconnecting.

Mouth agape, she stared at the phone...realised she was wasting valuable dressing time and tossed it across the pearly-pink throw. ‘Odious, obnoxious, offensive snake. I must be mad.’

* * *

Gripping the thick knot of his dove-grey tie, Dante pushed the silk further up his throat and straightened the lapel of his black jacket. Tension pumped through his blood, making him hard all over—energised, taut, inordinately satisfied he’d given the press the perfect picture of ruthless determination by upending every last one of them from Eva’s doorstep.

In one respect he questioned why she hadn’t given them the boot herself but on the other hand he was grateful she hadn’t unleashed her tongue. He had plans for Miss St George and the sooner he brought her round to his way of thinking the better. Obstinate to the nth degree, he knew he’d have a fight on his hands but the predator in him could already smell the scent of glory.

And why the hell was she taking her own sweet time opening the door?

A seed of a sinister thought detonated and a strange emotion settled in the pit of his stomach, curdling thick and black. Did she have someone in there? In her bed. Entertaining. Was that why she was ignoring the press?

Dannazione
, he’d never thought of that. And for the man who was renowned for meticulous planning, that should’ve told him something. Yes, he assured himself, it told him his deal was hanging in the balance and if she...

Sweat bubbled on his nape and trickled down his spine at the thought of walking in there. Seeing another man in her bed. Her full do-me lips meshed with his.

Heart twisting, it tore from his chest and dropped into the well of his stomach.

The sound of metal sliding across metal filtered from inside and scored his suddenly sensitized skin like talons down a chalkboard.

Rolling his shoulders, he inhaled slow and deep. Yet when the solid oak door swung open he realised the intense lung workout had been an utter waste of energy resources.

There she was. Tousled. With that adorable sleepy look about her. The one he remembered from sleeping over at Finn’s and watching an eighteen-year-old Eva tumble down the stairs on legs so long it had taken her an age to fathom the art of walking gracefully. It would’ve just turned noon and she’d mooch round the kitchen wearing huge earphones and skimpy cotton pyjamas, the small, tight shorts leaving nothing to the imagination.

For a moment he wondered what she wore to bed these days and then cursed inwardly as his blood pressure spiked through the roof.

So he focused on the now. This Eva. Twenty-seven years old and more beautiful than ever. All that gorgeous hair falling down around her face and caressing her bare shoulders. A tiny vest-top in a soft blush colour that threw her dense cleavage into stunning effect and a long dark pink skirt that reminded him of a gypsy. But
Cristo
, it was the bare feet that really snagged him. Perfect little toes painted pearly-white as if she walked on heavenly clouds. And there it was again. That hint of innocence he
knew
to be fake.

‘Are you entertaining in your bed?’ he asked, his voice so hard it almost cracked his skull. And, just to make sure there was no misunderstanding, he rephrased. ‘Are you sleeping with anyone at all?’

‘Did you really just say that?’

‘Yes.’ After all, it would ruin all his plans if she had a multitude of boyfriends all over the place. Was her rock star still on the scene? A man with a perpetual hangover. The perfect couple.

Dante ground his back teeth. ‘Just answer my question, Eva.’

His don’t-mess-with-me tone was met with an arch of her delicate blonde brows.

‘Good morning to you too,’ she said, hand braced on the door frame as if she was half-tempted to slam it in his face. ‘You’re in a lovely mood this morning.’

He smiled. It was an evil twist, he knew it. ‘I’ll be in an even better mood when you answer me.’

Firing darts of ire, her eyes drifted to the wall above the door frame, breasts rising and falling as she grappled for control. ‘No. I don’t... I haven’t...’ Chin down, she straightened to her full impressive height. ‘What exactly does my private life have to do with you, anyway?’

‘Plenty, considering the newspapers this morning,’ he said, striding past her, not entirely convinced by her claims to single status but willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. For now. ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re the new golden couple.’

She laughed—a hollow sound that serrated his spine. ‘There’s nothing golden about
you
. Anyway, I haven’t managed to get past the front page yet.’

‘Then I assure you, you’re in for a real treat.’

Dante heard the door click shut and her mocking remark, ‘Come in, why don’t you,’ as he strode down the narrow hallway and found himself in a...cosy lounge flooded with light.

Cream muslin hung in swathes at the wide windows, softening the stark glare of December and bleaching the dark oak floors. Huge, squashy gold sofas—the curling up with a book type—framed a large coffee table and took centre stage around a black Edwardian fireplace. Frames in every shape and size covered the hessian-covered walls—large gilt mirrors and reprints of times gone by—brides of every era and the accompanying fashions. There wasn’t a moneyed feel at all. It was tastefully eclectic with a subtle romantic ambience. But,
maledizione
, the clutter sent ants crawling across the back of his neck as if marching down a vine.

‘You are still messy,’ he said. It used to drive Finn insane. Between Eva and her mother, their family home had been a constant artistic chaos. It was a sure bet you’d be pricked by a sadistic pin or three from sitting on a perfectly innocent-looking chair.

‘So shoot me.’

Reluctantly his mouth curved at the petulance in her voice, until his eyes fell on a dressmaker’s dummy filling one corner of the room with a voluminous frothy tulle skirt tacked around the waist. Stepping closer, his breath snatched—the retail connoisseur in him enchanted by the sight of delicate pearls stitched into the weave.

‘By hand?’ he asked. Knowing it to be impossible because it would have taken her—

‘Yes, of course. Took me almost a week.’

Every day he was shown a multitude of beautiful clothing, but this... ‘It’s exquisite. I see you have inherited your mother’s eye for detail. Her unmistakable genius with fabric.’

Even as she stood behind him he could sense frank bewilderment that he’d complimented her work.

Having been subjected to his father’s particularly vicious brand of criticism since the day he’d been torn from his mother’s graveside, he had no problem with dishing it out. No longer did it make him angry to hear; it only made him strive to be harder, stronger, more powerful than ever before. But the beauty in Eva’s raw talent stopped him dead in his tracks for there was not one fault in any stitch or placement of pearl.

‘Why didn’t you tell me the extent of your success last night? Your boutique?’

She gave a little huff. ‘Oh, come off it, Dante. You had no interest in my life or anything I had to say.’

He didn’t mistake the touch of hurt in her voice and he was man enough to admit he deserved it. One desperate phone call from Finn, one look into those dazzling green eyes and he’d known trouble was coming. Deflecting it, however, hadn’t brought out the best in him and in the end it had been a pointless pursuit.

‘I had no idea about your work.’ Now he wished he hadn’t closed his ears to Finn’s animated renditions. Without them, he’d been left with one possible avenue.