Coercion to Love (4 page)

'Now we talk, Mr Valenti,' she demanded grimly when he joined her. Her chin was up, her face pale but determined as she faced him.

Pausing in the process of drawing the door to Terri's room to, he sent her a narrow glance. 'Take my advice,' he suggested, ignoring her demand. 'Take a shower and a short siesta; by then perhaps tempers will have cooled and the shock of our surprise meeting will have worn off enough to allow anything we have to say to each other to be less—abrasive.' He began striding across the creamy tiled floor, every line of his body smooth and infuriatingly arrogant.

Her eyes followed him in angry disbelief. 'You expect me to calmly take a nap after the way you've just abducted us?' she choked.

'I expect you, Miss Marlow,' he informed her coldly, 'to wait on my convenience—as I have had to wait on yours for the last twelve months!'

'No!' She was beside him in an instant, grabbing his arm to stop him from opening the door. 'I want to know how long you intend keeping us here,' she insisted.

His top lip did a sardonic curl. 'You, Miss Marlow, can leave here any time you wish to do so,' he informed her with insufferable indifference. 'But Teresa stays with me.'

'No way.' She shook her bright head. 'And you have to be living in cloud-cuckoo-land if you honestly believe I'll even consider leaving her in your dubious care.'

He didn't like that; his long back stiffened, and he glared at her down the length of his arrogant nose. 'Do you live well with your conscience, Miss Marlow,' he drawled, 'knowing how you have deprived that child of her rightful father?'

'Do you mean the father who was quite happy to live with his conscience, believing her gone before she had a chance to survive?’ she threw right back. 'You bet I can, signore’ she jeered. 'My sister left Terri in my legal care, but you have done your level best to make that job impossible for me—and, by the way things are going,' she pushed on hotly when he went to interrupt, 'things are only going to get worse! Because I will not give up my guardianship of Terri to you. And neither you, nor your money, or even your bullying tactics, will make me. You can drag me through every court in Europe without winning this one, Mr Valenti, because I know, you see,' she told him, green eyes as hard and cutting as glass. 'I know how you paid my sister to have Terri aborted.'

That is a lie!' he barked, fury leaping into his eyes.

‘And you, Miss Marlow-----' he pointed a stiff warning finger at her '—would do well to be careful what you ay to me until you are in possession of all the facts, and not just those your twisted sister fed to you!'

'Don't you dare try blaming Liz for your own sins!' she cried.

'I dare,' he said harshly, 'because I knew her for what she really was, and not what you in your stupid blindness believed her to be!'

Cass sucked in an angry breath and held on to it before even daring to answer. 'My sister's only folly in life,' she breathed out eventually, 'was falling for a dirty rat like you! Don't you dare touch me!' she choked as he took a jerky step towards her.

'Touch you?' he ground out, reaching out to do just that, and grabbing her by the upper arms with hard fingers. 'I ought to beat the living daylights out of you for speaking to me like that, you vicious-mouthed little cat!'

'What's the matter, signore?’ she taunted recklessly, eyes alight with a matching aggression, the bright colour of her hair no mere quirk of nature—Cass had a temper that could erupt like Mount Etna if riled to it, and this man was dangerously close to making it do that right now. 'Has the truth hit a raw nerve?'

‘Why, you-----!'

For a horrible moment, Cass thought he was going to hit her. Certainly, one of his hands left her arm to clench into a white-knuckled fist. Then he thoroughly shook her by muttering something ungodly beneath his breath, and pulling her against him so that he could slam his angry mouth down on to hers instead of the clenched

Al that hot pulsing anger boiling between them con-I and converted itself into something far more dangerous. It shot through them both like pure electricity, fusing their mouths together and setting their bodies shaking as furiously; he ground her lips back against her tightly clenched and tingling teeth.

'You bastard,' she whispered when at last he let go of her, leaving her trembling so badly that she could barely stand.

'Something I am not, but my daughter certainly is through the crazy machinations of your sister.' His mouth tight with contempt, he grabbed hold of her wrist. 'Since you have managed to force this discussion to take place now, you will come with me, and we will get a few important points straightened out before your vile tongue gets you into further trouble.'

'I can't leave Terri here alone!' she protested when he began pulling her across the room towards the suite door.

He didn't even pause. 'Someone will come and sit with Teresa-----' he almost thrust Terri's proper name down her throat '—and the child will be quite safe here since there is not a person in this valley who would harm a single   hair   on   her   head.   Whereas   you,   Miss Marlow-----' he all but yanked her through the door and

In to the hallway '—I could quite cheerfully strangle myself and think the prison sentence worth the trouble!' Stalking them both across the hall and in through another door, he threw her angrily away from him and turned to close and lock it, making sure she noticed how he pocketed the key. Then he strode across the room to pick up a telephone.

Cass looked away from him, her hair falling untidily around her face as she concentrated on rubbing her throbbing arms where his fingers had bitten into her. She would have bruises there tomorrow, she thought angrily, listening to him bark out instructions to whoever was on the other end of the phone. She wanted to rub her bruised mouth, too, but refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that kiss had hurt her. So she lifted her head and scowled at him instead, hating him with her eyes, trying to hold down the desperation wanting to quiver through her body. That burst of violent anger between them had alarmed her more than she dared admit even to herself.

'Why do you want Terri, anyway?' she demanded the moment he came off the phone.

'She is my daughter,' he clipped, 'and I have more right to her than you do.'

'She's my niece,' Cass came back, still rubbing at her bruised arms, 'and I will always love her more than you could ever do!'

Something swept across his face, a look gone before Cass could analyse it, but, whatever it was, it seemed to drain the anger right out of him, and he sighed, starting towards her with slow, heavy strides.

'Let me see.' He took hold of her wrist, extending her arm for his inspection, mouth tightening when he saw the reddened finger-marks already forming bruises on her pale flesh. 'I apologise for this,' he said. 'I don't usually put bruises on women.'

Because they probably don't dare answer you back, Cass thought ruefully. 'Y-you don't need to do that.'

She tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn't let her. His fingers were brushing lightly over the reddened patches on her arm. Then he grimaced to himself over something, eyes lowered so that his dark lashes fell in two thick silky curves across his lean cheeks. The fingers slopped stroking and curled around her arm instead, measuring the reddened finger-marks with a gentle grimness.

'If I am so disdainful of human life, then why have I spent the last twelve months trying to meet my liter?'

'I don't know,' she shrugged. She had never been able to understand why he had pursued them so relentlessly when he hadn't given a care about Terri while Liz had been alive!

'You didn't even come to Liz's funeral, did you?' she accused him, pulling her arm from his light grip. 'Even in your capacity as one of her past employers, you could have at least shown your face there. You met her because she was doing a promotion for your hotels!' Her green eyes condemned him with a look. 'And she was good at her job, good enough to bring the punters flocking to your exclusive resorts, no doubt.'

A wretched sigh shook her, and she wrapped her arms around her body in an attempt to still the aching grief that always swept through her when she thought of her sister. 'It was weeks before you bothered to contact me about Terri,' she went on thickly, 'yet her name was plastered all over the papers alongside Liz's when they reported my sister's death. You must have known she was your daughter!'

'I was away,' he said. 'In South America, visiting my sister and her family there. I did not hear about Elizabeth's death until I returned—and also discovered that she had not terminated her pregnancy as I believed she had done,' he added grimly.

'So what is the difference now you do know your original plan was not carried out? I read your letter, Mr Valenti,' she put in quickly when he opened his mouth to defend himself.

'Enclosed, cheque,' it had begun with all the businesslike manner of a man with no heart whatsoever, then went on to lay so many insults at her sister's feet that Cass could still feel sick just remembering them. All of them had implied that Liz was one of the lowest forms of life itself. 'Under the circumstances, I would prefer it if we never meet or speak again,' the letter had coldly finished.

She shuddered. He saw it, and sighed impatiently. 'When I paid that cheque over to your sister, I did so because I believed the deed already done!'

'My sister told you so?' she challenged.

'Yes,' he nodded, holding her hard look steady.

Disbelief glowed in her eyes. 'Then why,' she posed, 'if that was the case, is Terri sleeping peacefully at this very moment, in your house?'

'Because your crazy sister lied to me!' he snapped.

'No.' Cass refused point-blank to accept that, her expression so totally ungiving that he shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

'It is useless trying to have a fair and constructive discussion with you, isn't it? You are so completely biased that you wouldn't listen to me even if I forced my side of events down your wretched throat!'

'Terri was and is,' Cass stated grimly. 'If you didn't care one way or the other five years ago, then you can't expect me to believe you really care now.'

Muttering something beneath his breath, he spun away from her^ a hand going up to rake in frustration through his silky black hair. Then, on a sudden spurt of energy, he strode back to the desk. It was only then that Cass realised they were standing in what could only pass as his study. The room was lined with books and packed with the computerised trappings of a rich businessman. Sitting down in the chair behind the desk with a bunch of keys dangling from his fingers, he unlocked a drawer and pulled it open to withdraw a thick manila file, which he slapped down hard on the polished top.

'W-what's that?' she asked.

His eyes pinned her with the kind of grim intent one used when hell-bent on killing someone else's illusions.

1m contains everything I need to drag your sister's name and her reputation through the gutter if you make it necessary,' he said. 'But there is one item in particular I want to show to you which-----

'You're lying,' Cass cut across him, not even alarmed by the threat. He could have nothing damning on Liz. He was just bluffing. 'Liz's life—before and after you— was so clean it squeaked. ‘Try again Signor Valenti,' she derided, fine brows arching in polished-copper contempt.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and Cass gained the impression that he just wasn't used to having his word challenged. 'I have the evidence—the irrevocable proof— that your sister was nothing more than a low-down-----'

'No!' Mount Etna erupted with no warning other than that one volcanic negative, and Cass was hurling herself across the room in a frenzy of uncontrollable rage. She would not—could not—listen to him, of all people, defile her sister!

She made a grab for the file, intending to rip the lot to shreds without deigning a single glance at a single sheet of his lying proof! But he stopped her.

'No!' His denial was just as explosive, the hand lying on the file pressing down with all his weight as he shot to his feet and stood glaring at her across the width of his desk.

'You don't get your destructive little hands on this, Miss Marlow. This,' he bit out threateningly, 'contains my guarantee that you will give me full and complete guardianship of my daughter!'

'And just the very fact that you can have such a file makes me certain you are not the man to have control of Teresa!' Sucking in an angry breath of air, Cass placed her palms flat on the desk and sent him a look which said that the very sight of him made her sick to her stomach.

'I won't hand Terri over to a man who has the power to ruin her mother's memory! I won't, Mr Valenti, give you the time of day while that file-----' she sent the manila folder a scathing glance ‘remains a threat to Tern's love for her mother!'

Silence followed that. And Cass stood, shuddering in the aftermath of her own explosion, watching the dull flush mount his handsome face before it paled to a shaken whiteness, and knew—knew—she had at last managed to cut the arrogant devil down to size.

Carlo was staring at the file, his hand still protecting it from Cass's destructive intentions. Then slowly, and in a way which held her breath locked inside her chest, be picked it up and replaced it in the drawer, locked it securely, then straightened himself up to his full and imposing six feet odd height, and lifted his eyes back to hers. 'Nevertheless,' he said—no anger, no sarcastic, ‘Miss Marlow'—in fact, with no emotion whatsoever, you will do exactly as I say, or lose Teresa the hard way. And be sure,' he added levelly, 'that, if that is the course you decide to embark upon, then once I win—and I will win, I can promise you that—you will never be allowed

a step within a hundred miles of your niece again.'

Acceptance that he meant every word sent Cass stumbling back a step from the desk. 'Then God help you, Mr Valenti,' she breathed, appalled at the depths he was willing to stoop to get his own way. 'Because if you honestly believe that the end justifies the means in this case, then you are wrong. And if Teresa ever finds out how you were prepared to crucify her mother to gain control over her, then she'll hate you for it. Hate you until the day you die. And that, Mr Valenti,' she finished grimly, 'is my promise to you.'