LITMIR.BIZ

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forced herself to meet his gaze, and then wished she hadn’t when she saw the black hatred glittering there. ‘I was only twenty-one,’ she said, looking away again. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted back then.’

      ‘Do you know now?’

      She caught the inside of her mouth with her teeth. ‘I know what I don’t want,’ she said.

      ‘Which is?’

      She met his gaze again. ‘Can we get to the point?’ she asked. ‘I’ve come here to pay for the damage my brother allegedly caused. If you won’t accept my money, then what will you accept?’

      It was a dangerous question to be asking. She knew it as soon as she voiced it. It hung in the ensuing silence, mocking her, taunting her for her supposed immunity.

      She had never been immune.

      It had all been an act—a clever ploy to keep him from guessing how much she’d wanted to be free to love him. But the clanging chains of her past had kept her anchored in silence. She couldn’t love him or anyone.

      Angelo’s diamond-hard gaze tethered hers. ‘Why don’t you sit down and we can discuss it?’ he said, gesturing to a chair near to where she was standing.

      Natalie sank into the chair with relief. Her legs were so shaky the ligaments in her legs felt as if they had been severed like the strings of a puppet. Her heart was pounding and her skin was hot and clammy in spite of the air conditioning. She watched as he went back to the other side of his desk and sat down. For someone so tall he moved with an elegant, loose-limbed grace. His figure was rangy and lean, rather than excessively gym-pumped, although there was nothing wrong with the shape of his biceps. She could see the firm outline of them beneath his crisp ice-blue shirt. The colour was a perfect foil for his olive-toned skin. In the past she had only ever seen him in casual clothes, or wearing nothing at all.

      In designer business clothes he looked every inch the successful hotel and property tycoon—untouchable, remote, in control. Her hands and mouth had traced every slope and plane and contour of his body. She could still remember how salty his skin tasted against her tongue. She still remembered the scent of him, the musk and citrus blend that had clung to her skin for hours after their making love. She remembered the thrusting possession of his body, how his masterful touch had unlocked her tightly controlled responses like a maestro with a difficult instrument that no one else could play.

      She gave herself a mental slap and sat up straighter in the chair. Crossing her legs and arms, she fixed her gaze on Angelo’s with a steely composure she was nowhere near feeling.

      He leaned back in his own chair, with his fingers steepled against his chin, his dark gaze trained with unnervingly sharp focus on hers. ‘I’ve heard anybody who is anybody is sleeping between your sheets,’ he said.

      She returned his look with chilly hauteur. ‘I don’t suppose you are doing so.’

      His lips gave a tiny twitch of amusement, his dark eyes smouldering as they continued to hold hers. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

      Natalie’s insides flickered with the memory of long-ago desire. She’d fought valiantly to suppress it, but from the moment she had stepped into his office she had been aware of her body and its unruly response to him. He had always had that power over her. Just a look, an idle touch, a simple word and she would melt.

      She couldn’t afford to give in to past longings. She had to be strong in order to get through this. Lachlan’s future depended on her. If this latest misdemeanour of his got out in the tabloids his life would be ruined. He was hoping to go to Harvard after this gap year. A criminal record would ruin everything for him.

      Their father would crucify him.

       He would crucify them both.

      Natalie blamed herself. Why hadn’t she realised how disenfranchised Lachlan was? Had she somehow given him some clue to her past history with Angelo? Had her lack of an active love-life made him suspect Angelo was the cause? How had he put two and two together? It wasn’t as if she had ever been one to wear her heart on her sleeve. She had been busy building up her business. She had not missed dating. She’d had one or two encounters that had left her cold. She had more or less decided she wasn’t cut out for an intimate relationship. The passion she had experienced with Angelo had come at a huge price, and it wasn’t one she was keen to pay again.

       She was better off alone.

      ‘I understand how incredibly annoyed you are at what my brother has supposedly done,’ she said. ‘But I must beg you not to proceed with criminal charges.’

      His dark brow lifted again. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You’re begging me?’

      Natalie momentarily compressed her lips in an attempt to control her spiralling emotions. How like him to taunt her. He would milk this situation for all it was worth and she would have to go along with it. He knew it. She knew it. He wanted her pride. It would be his ultimate trophy.

      ‘I’m asking for leniency.’

      ‘You’re grovelling.’

      She straightened her shoulders again. ‘I’m asking you to drop all charges,’ she said. ‘I’ll cover the damages—even double, if you insist. You won’t be out of pocket.’

      His gaze still measured hers unwaveringly. ‘You want this to go away before it gets out in the press, don’t you?’ he said.

      Natalie hoped her expression wasn’t giving away any sign of her inner panic. She had always prided herself on disguising her feelings. Years of dealing with her father’s erratic mood swings had made her a master at concealing her fear in case it was exploited. From childhood her ice-cold exterior had belied the inner turmoil of her emotions. It was her shield, her armour—her carapace of protection.

      But Angelo had a keen, intelligent gaze. Even before she had left him she had felt he was starting to sum up her character in a way she found incredibly unsettling.

      ‘Of course I want to keep this out of the press,’ she said. ‘But then, don’t you? What will people think of your hotel security if a guest can do the sort of damage you say my brother did? Your hotels aim for the top end of the market. What does that say about the type of clientele your hotel attracts?’

      A muscle flickered like a pulse at the side of his mouth. ‘I have reason to believe your brother specifically targeted my hotel,’ he said.

      She felt her stomach lurch. ‘What makes you think that?’

      He opened a drawer to the left of him and took out a sheet of paper and handed it to her across the desk. She took it with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. It was a faxed copy of a note addressed to Angelo, written in her brother’s writing. It said: This is for my sister.

      Natalie gulped and handed back the paper. ‘I don’t know what to say … I have never said anything to Lachlan about … about us. He was only thirteen when we were together. He was at boarding school when we shared that flat in Notting Hill. He never even met you.’

      Nor had any of her family. She hadn’t wanted Angelo to be exposed to her father’s outrageous bigotry and her mother’s sickening subservience.

      ‘You must have said something to him,’ Angelo said. ‘Why else would he write that?’

      Natalie chewed at her lip. She had said nothing to anyone other than that her short, intense and passionate affair with Angelo was over because she wanted to concentrate on her career. Not even her closest girlfriend, Isabel Astonberry, knew how much her break-up with Angelo had affected her. She had told everyone she was suffering from anxiety. Even her doctor had believed her. It had explained the rapid weight loss and agitation and sleepless nights. She had almost convinced herself it was true. She had even taken the pills the doctor had prescribed, but they hadn’t done much more than throw a thick blanket over her senses, numbing her until she felt like a zombie.

      Eventually

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