A Clash With Cannavaro (4 page)

‘Vikki!’

‘No, don’t tell me. I can see you did. I’ll bet he’s a real super stud between the sheets!’

Lauren could still remember the embarrassed indignation she’d felt at Vikki’s remark, which made her cheeks burn with flaming colour.

‘Wow! That good, eh?’ Vikki enthused. ‘A bit hotter than that lascivious old banker I thought you were trying to land yourself with last night,’ she went on when Lauren was still trying to come to terms with how devious her sister seemed to have become, ‘until, of course, you saw the opportunity to set your cap at some serious money. I’m proud of you, sis. I really am. I didn’t think you’d have the courage to play for such high stakes as Emiliano Cannavaro, but your street cred’s really gone up in my estimation. Play your cards right and you could have it all there. Wealth. Position and—from the look of you—some stupendous sex as well.’

‘Vikki!’ Lauren found her voice at last, but she wasn’t prepared to discuss what had happened between her and Angelo’s brother. ‘We’re not discussing me. It’s you I’m concerned for. What did you mean about engineering your pregnancy? Surely you didn’t...’

‘Leave off the Pill and get pregnant on purpose? How else did you imagine I was going to get that confirmed playboy bachelor to propose? Five months ago, when we got back together after that last break-up, I made up my mind that things were going to be different. Such a rich, handsome package seldom comes a girl’s way more than once in a lifetime, and I was determined not to let it slip through my fingers again. But don’t you see...’ her tone was emphatic, excited, animated ‘...if you’ve hit it off with his dynamo of a brother, it’s all working out as we planned.’

Lauren frowned, so appalled and perplexed by what Vikki was saying that she was dumbfounded, lost for words.

‘OK, so you haven’t hooked Emiliano yet, and if he’s anything like his brother he’ll probably run a mile if he thinks you’re trying to. But play your cards right, sexy sister, with that demure smile and that stand-offish attitude that always has them straining at the bit, and that big hunky beast won’t know what hit him. He might think he’s in control, but he’ll just be putty in your hands.’

The cliché jarred, especially when it was her, Lauren, who had been like putty in Emiliano’s hands. But the things her sister kept coming out with had become more and more outrageous.

‘Vikki, I can’t believe—’ she started to say, only to have her reprimand curtailed by Vikki’s swift interjection.

‘That I still have the list?’

‘The
list
?’ Lauren’s confusion was so complete that those two words escaped her on what sounded like an almost hysterical little laugh. But she didn’t want her sister to think that what she was saying was funny. It wasn’t funny at all.

‘Our list of possible candidates. Most suitable husband material. These two Italian playboys were always at the number one spot.’

Voices outside and then the appearance of another guest looking for the rest rooms silenced whatever Lauren had been about to say. But, as soon as the woman retreated, Lauren launched into a tirade that left her sister in no doubt at all about how she felt.

‘If you think I condone your behaviour, Vikki, then all I can say is you’re very much mistaken, so please don’t try and include me in your unscrupulous actions. Quite frankly, I’m appalled! How you could be irresponsible enough to let yourself get pregnant when you don’t even want a baby is bad enough. But that you could do it to trap Angelo into marrying you is not only devious but downright immoral and, quite honestly, it’s beyond anything I would have believed you capable of stooping to.’

She went on to remind her sister that their dream of marrying Italian millionaires was something they’d entertained as young adolescents and which she’d thought they had both relinquished—because
she
certainly had—as soon as they’d grown up!

Her sister warned her that she was part of the very influential Cannavaro family now and begged her not to tell anyone, least of all Emiliano. ‘He could be lethal if he thought anyone was double-crossing him—or any member of his family,’ Vikki told her in a rising panic before going on to add, ‘And I do love Angelo. I really do!’

Lauren couldn’t remember what she had said to her sister after that. Only that she’d watched unhappily as Vikki and her new husband had climbed into the taxi on the first leg of their Turkish honeymoon, with Angelo fielding bawdy comments from a number of his bachelor friends and Vikki smiling brightly through a shower of confetti, looking every bit the perfect couple on their perfect day.

Lauren hadn’t imagined she could feel any worse than she did at that moment, in not only having quarrelled with her sister on her wedding day, but having to carry the disturbing knowledge of Vikki’s deception as well. But when she’d gone back into the hotel and virtually collided with Emiliano, striding through
Reception
with his briefcase and his features as grim as a rock face, she’d felt her spirits plummet to new depths as she uttered the first words that sprang to her lips.

‘You’re leaving?’ It had been pretty obvious that he was.

‘What did you expect,
mia cara
?’ His tone clothed the rock face with sheer ice. ‘That I would stick around and be made a fool of as my brother has? Is that what you were hoping? Exactly how many times did you imagine you could sob out my name before I would crack and you could mark up one big beautiful tick against your
list
?’

Stunned by his coldness and by exactly what he had said, Lauren was only able to stand there and utter breathlessly, ‘You
heard?
’

‘
Si, cara
. I heard,’ he rasped.

‘How?’ It was all she could say, hurting not just from that scene with her sister, but from Emiliano’s harsh and very inaccurate conclusion.

‘I don’t really think I need to tell you,’ he said grimly. ‘I came to find you to ask if you would have dinner with me tonight, and all I can say now is that I am very glad I did. If I hadn’t, who knows what sort of sucker you might still have been taking me for, but, thanks to the conversation I overheard between you and your opportunistic sibling, I was able to see quite clearly what game you were playing.’

‘It wasn’t a game.’ Dear heaven! she despaired. How could he even think so?

‘Emiliano!’ Desperate to make him understand, she called after him as he made to depart. ‘How could you believe I could be party to anything that Vikki said?’

‘Very easily.’ He’d stopped, but his tone was inexorable. ‘If I remember correctly, you sounded no less than positively amused.’

She tried to protest—tried to pinpoint what might have given him reason to think she was amused by anything that had transpired during that scene with her sister, but she couldn’t think straight, let alone remember.

‘If you recall, I didn’t exactly fall over myself to get you to notice me—talk to me,’ she reminded him lamely. ‘And I certainly didn’t give you the come-on once you did.’

‘Not until you knew who I was. But wasn’t the stand-off all part of your clever technique? And it worked, did it not? Even your own sister commented on your doing so well? After all, there is nothing more challenging to a man than to be rebuffed by a beautiful woman in whom that man is more than mildly interested. Nice try,
mia bella
. But I have no intention of being a pushover on some little fortune-hunter’s list.’

It was no good trying to convince him that that list had been the product of a bit of fun on a wet Sunday afternoon, drawn up by two overly romantic adolescents when she was sixteen and Vikki fourteen, because he wasn’t in any mood to listen. Vikki had done enough with her outrageous revelation to destroy his opinion of both of them.

‘It’s been...nice,’ he told her with sickly emphasis. ‘I am usually not partial to weddings. But thanks for the diversion. You made the whole tiresome charade quite...’ his gaze tugged over her breasts and a mirthless smile touched the hard line of his mouth ‘...unforgettable.’

Then he went, leaving Lauren feeling as ashamed and degraded as he had intended.

Ten months later, Vikki’s marriage had ended and she had left her Hertfordshire home with Daniele to stay with a friend. The following month she had crashed her car during a blazing row with Angelo, when she’d been driving him back to his own car after a lunch meeting to discuss their divorce.

Only a matter of weeks later, after that upsetting visit from Angelo, Lauren had moved with Danny from her cramped little bedsit, back to the farmhouse, and, until today, had never seen or heard from Emiliano Cannavaro again.

CHAPTER THREE

C
OMING
OUT
OF
Heathrow Airport, Emiliano congratulated himself on having had a successful week.

A dispute between the management and electrical engineers that had threatened to delay the launch date of Cannavaro Lines’ newest cruise liner had been resolved. Shares over the company as a whole were showing record levels. And only that afternoon he had finalised negotiations for the takeover of a European passenger ferry line, which had been on the table for some time now. All in all, he thought, as he stepped out into the dreary greyness of an English autumn afternoon, he felt justified in flying off to his private retreat and taking the break he had been promising himself for a long time—and with only one hurdle to jump. He intended to take his nephew with him.

It was pouring with rain as he set off on the long journey northwards, his car’s powerful tyres cruising through the spray as they covered the miles in the fast lane of the busy motorway.

He knew he should have telephoned Lauren to let her know that he was coming, but he hadn’t, and for a very good reason. When he had spoken to her from his Rome office earlier in the week to advise her of his wishes, they had been met with fierce opposition. There had, however, never been any problem he couldn’t overcome, or any challenge he couldn’t meet, but the most difficult, he’d learned from an early age, were often best dealt with head-on.

No one answered when he knocked on the door of the farmhouse several hours later and, going around the back, he found the rear door slightly ajar.

A toddler’s tricycle was abandoned in the little lobby to the kitchen, he noticed as he allowed himself to go through, calling her name.

Again, he was struck by the poor conditions she was living in, which were a far cry from the chic modern flat he’d imagined the woman he’d met at his brother’s wedding called home. He still couldn’t quite equate the glamorous creature who had set out to seduce him two years ago with the tousle-haired, natural-faced, but nonetheless desirable female he had confronted when he had driven up here over a week ago, because there was no doubt that he still found her desirable. More so, if that was possible...

His heart kicked over as he heard footsteps on the flagstones in the hall beyond the kitchen. A woman about the same age as Emiliano, with dark hair tied severely back in a ponytail, strode in, balancing a toddler on her hip.

The child surveyed him solemnly before his gaze skittered past him, over his shoulder. ‘Lauren...’ The little face seemed to crumple in disappointment when it was obvious that she wasn’t there.

‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded, looking him up and down. She was wearing corduroys and a thick check shirt and looked as though she wouldn’t take any messing from anyone.

Quickly, Emiliano introduced himself, before enquiring after Lauren.

‘I’m afraid she’s out,’ the woman told him with a refreshing indifference on hearing his name.

Unlike Lauren, who had come on strong to him when she had found out who he was, he reminded himself, bristling, as again his eyes took in the jaded furnishings, the cracked plaster on the ceiling and the dark patch in one corner that signified definite damp creeping up the wall. No wonder she had been out to get her clutches into some rich fool at that party! he thought, unable to forget how she had been all smiles for that other man she’d been chatting up before she’d obviously decided it would be more to her advantage to make a play for
him.

A little hand reached out to touch the dark blue stripe in his tie and a shaft of some complex emotion sliced through Emiliano as he took in the brown hair and surprisingly blue eyes of the child. His brother’s child. He couldn’t help catching the tiny hand in his.

‘And you are Daniele.’ He wished with every power he possessed that he could take the little boy with him immediately. That his brother hadn’t been as foolish and uncaring as to leave the child with his aunt—if she was to be believed—so that he could have brought him back into the Cannavaro family legally, and without all the hassle that he found himself facing now.

‘Want Lauren!’ the toddler told him pointedly.

You aren’t the only one! he thought, and decided that the sooner he took his nephew out of this damp and dreary place, the happier he would be.

‘I’m afraid he doesn’t like leaving her side for a moment,’ the woman who had introduced herself as Fiona told him more amiably now, as she hoisted the child further into her arms. ‘But I’m afraid that you, young man, are coming back with me tonight as your mother has an appointment first thing in the morning. I was hoping she’d be in before I left,’ she said, clearly worried, to Emiliano, before explaining briefly to him where Lauren had gone. ‘She should have been back...’ awkwardly, she consulted her watch behind the little boy’s back ‘...long before this.’

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he was the child’s uncle and therefore she could leave Daniele with him. He knew she would probably cave in if he pressed hard enough. But the little boy didn’t know him and he didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary distress. Apart from which, he needed to talk to Lauren alone.

‘Why don’t I simply go and look for her?’ he suggested, sensing that wherever this brusque but frank-speaking woman was taking his nephew, she was more than keen to go.

A few moments later, armed with directions, he was back in the comparative luxury of his car, with his headlamps cutting through the deepening murk.

* * *

‘It’s all right, boy. I’ll get you out of this,’ Lauren said soothingly to the Border Collie that was lying at her feet, although deep down she was beginning to despair.

The sheepdog, ever friendly, had followed her from the farm but, distracted by a movement in the field running alongside the lane, he had dived through a hole in the barbed wire fence and managed to get himself tangled up in the lethal wire.

She only hoped that the driver of the car that had suddenly screeched to a halt in the lane behind them might have seen them and recognised the plight they were in. She sent an urgent glance over her shoulder as she heard the car door slam.

‘Emiliano!’

He was the last person she had expected to see angling himself carefully through the broken fence in his dark business suit, and her immediate relief that someone was coming to help was replaced by a swift, unwelcome tension.

‘Your babysitter was getting worried about you.’ He straightened as he came through, his hair already misted by the relentless drizzle, and, glancing up at the heavy mist that was coming down over the fells, he said, surprising her, ‘So was I.’

She couldn’t meet his eyes, dropping hers to his polished slip-on shoes which were more suited to a boardroom than a boggy field.

‘Fiona’s my stable manager,’ she corrected him. ‘She looks after the horses for people who have them in livery with us.’ As well as being a good friend and stepping in to help with Daniele whenever Lauren needed her. ‘I just lease out the stalls.’

‘I see.’

The dog wagged his tail, despite his predicament, as Emiliano squatted down in front of him, without a care for his beautifully pressed suit trousers. The scent of his cologne drifted towards her, playing havoc with senses already in turmoil.

‘It’s all right, boy,’ he placated, patting the animal’s head, echoing Lauren’s words of a few minutes ago. Reluctantly, though, she sensed that now everything would be all right as he began to help her carefully unwind the wire from around the dog’s middle.

‘How long has he been like this?’

Beneath her thick damp sweater, Lauren shrugged. ‘About half an hour. He followed me, as he always does, but he saw a rabbit in this field and came through that gap—’ she jerked her chin towards the gaping hole behind the tangle of vicious wire ‘—and there was no way I could leave him like this.’

‘So who is Stephen?’ He didn’t look up as he asked it. ‘I was informed that you’d gone to see him at the Manor.’

She felt the urge to challenge why he wanted to know. After all, it wasn’t as if they had ever been an item, was it? she thought bitterly. But she didn’t, answering instead, ‘Stephen works in the dairy where I get my milk and eggs.’ And was fifty-three with a wife and four children, she thought, but wasn’t sure why she kept those facts to herself. ‘And the Manor is what everyone around here calls the Home Farm. Why?’ she queried, and was unable to stop herself tagging on, ‘Did you think I was fancying my chances with the local gentry? Because I couldn’t get you?’ Then she wished she hadn’t added that last bit because it sounded too much as if she was harbouring some romantic feelings for him. She regretted it even more, feeling foolish, when he didn’t even deign to give her a reply.

‘I told you I wasn’t prepared to let you take Danny out of the country,’ she reminded him, suddenly fearful that he had come to do exactly that.

‘You did,’ he agreed, with his thick hair falling over his forehead as he concentrated on easing the last few barbs away from one muddy black and white foreleg.

His fingers were long and gentle, yet strong and capable too. Hands that had stroked and caressed and excited her like no other hands had ever done...

‘There. I think that has sorted you out, boy.’

Freed at last, the dog scrambled to his feet, and Lauren was glad of the distraction from her disconcerting thoughts as he tried to shower gratitude on Emiliano, who was grinning as he dodged the over-zealous canine tongue.

Gently examining the dog as best she could for any wounds that might need medical attention, before satisfying herself that there was no real harm done, Lauren picked up the carton of milk which she’d fetched from the farm earlier and discarded on the ground and then, grabbing the animal’s collar, steered him through the metal gate that Emiliano had just opened, patting the dog’s rump as she told him, ‘Go home now, Brutus. Go on!’

When the dog finally obeyed, loping back towards the farm, Lauren glanced at Emiliano. His hair was glistening with droplets of fine rain. There was mud on the front of his shirt beneath the immaculate jacket, and one downward glance showed that his black shiny shoes were now muddy too.

‘Oh,
no!
You’ve snagged your sleeve!’ A thread had been pulled in the expensive fabric of his jacket, just beneath his now not so immaculate shirt cuff.

‘It is only a suit,’ he stated laconically, closing the gate, which was nothing compared with freeing a painfully trapped animal. Was that what he was saying?

She preferred to think he’d meant that he had more designer suits than he could possibly hope to get his money’s worth out of wearing, because anything else might have made him more likeable to her. And she didn’t want to like him.

‘We were talking about Danny,’ she said, remembering why he had come.

‘You
were talking about Daniele,’ he answered pointedly.

‘Did you see him?’ It suddenly occurred to her that he’d probably met his nephew if he’d been to the house first. ‘Emiliano...’ She ran after him as he strode purposefully back to the car.

‘Not the time, nor the place,’ he said dismissively as he skirted the vehicle and proceeded to open the front passenger door. ‘I am wet and I am muddy and you look as if another five minutes out in this...’ he tossed a glance towards the rain-hung trees and the heavier rain clouds that were gathering thickly across the valley ‘...will have you in bed with pneumonia.’

‘I’m used to it,’ Lauren told him, trying to sound nonchalant because the way his eyes were travelling over her drenched hair and her damp sweater and jeans was causing little flames of desire to lick along her veins, making her aware, for the first time since he’d arrived on the scene, of what an untidy mess she must look.

‘Used to what?’ he queried with a mocking twist to his mouth, holding open the car door. ‘Being in bed with pneumonia? Or running round the countryside rescuing stray dogs?’

‘Brutus isn’t a stray. He’s Stephen’s dog,’ she said with deliberate casualness and, from the formidable look she earned herself as she stepped into the car, gleaned a guilty satisfaction from knowing that her drenched hair was probably dripping all over his immaculate creamy leather upholstery.

* * *

Boiling a kettle of water in the farmhouse kitchen, Emiliano heard the pipework juddering from the flow of water in an upstairs bathroom.

‘Go and shower,’ he’d insisted as soon as she had let them in and, although she had resisted at first, she had seemed quite relieved to give in.

He couldn’t get over how he had found her, out in these unpleasant conditions, trying to free that dog. Any more than he could get over how a cunning, gold-digging little siren of her calibre fitted into a run-down, home-spun environment like this.

Well, he would make her coffee and then he would tell her of his proposition. And if she didn’t like him being fully involved in his nephew’s life...then tough! She had had him to herself long enough. Now it was time for Daniele Cannavaro to know his father’s family and to grow up fully aware of just who he was and exactly where he came from, even if Lauren Westwood didn’t agree. There was no way he was going to relinquish responsibility for the boy, or abandon him, as his father had done. Nor would he ever allow him to feel pushed aside—as he himself had been.

Staring out of the multi-paned window at the wet and murky stable yard, he was so deep in thought that he hadn’t realised that the water had stopped flowing in the pipes.

Suddenly a sound behind him had him swinging round, and the sight that met him stalled the breath in his lungs.

Lauren was coming through the doorway in a short silk floral robe that showed off every movement of her body—whether intentionally or otherwise—and her rough-towelled red hair, now left to dry naturally, was falling wildly about her shoulders. But every inch of her, right down to those long, slender feet with their clear varnished nails, was making Emiliano’s mouth go dry and, in spite of all the terrible things he had been thinking about her, a shaft of hot desire was suddenly scorching through him.