LITMIR.BIZ

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your father is a deserving cause? A truly penitent sinner worthy of a helping hand?’

      His cold contempt lashed stinging colour into her cheeks. ‘He’s my father and I love him. Just at present, I’m ashamed of him too,’ she confided with a catch in her low-pitched voice. ‘He’s weak and he’s broken the law and he’s betrayed the trust of others, but he’s still my closest living relative—and I can’t forget how he stood by me when I was a child.’

      Angelo vented a harsh laugh. ‘And what if he didn’t stand by you in quite the way you imagine?’

      Gwenna gazed back at him in bewilderment. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Forget it. I was thinking of something else.’

      Angelo veiled his granite hard gaze. She would have to deal with the truth some time. But now when she was already upset would be very poor timing. He would tell her in Sardinia and that would cut her loose. Like most con men, Hamilton was a seasoned liar and his life had more sordid secrets than a soap opera. Once she had been made to face the reality, she would soon rethink her sentimental take on family ties. And although he thought it regrettable that she would lose that trusting naivety in the process, he was determined to do it.

      Gwenna laced her fingers through each other and threw back her slight shoulders as she steeled herself. ‘I desperately want my father to have the chance to turn his life around—’

      Angelo threw up his hands in a gesture of total derision and walked over to the window to turn his back on her. ‘Oh…please,’ he said acidly.

      ‘He’ll never do it if nobody believes in him. He’ll go to prison if the garden committee has to press charges and what choice do they have? Some very influential people donated money to the fund. Please consider replacing the money,’ she whispered shakily. ‘Even as a loan.’

      ‘Dio mio…A loan with what security?’ Angelo swung back and rested sardonic dark-as-night eyes on her. ‘You almost had me convinced that you were different and I liked that idea. A lady with principles. Until now you had the unique distinction of being the only woman who has never asked me for money…Or jewels to the value of.’

      The blood drained from below her fine creamy skin. She wanted to sink through the floor in shame and could not sustain his challenging gaze. The line that divided right from wrong was no longer as well defined as she had once believed it to be. Even while she felt bound in duty to try and protect her father, she was appalled by what she was doing.

      ‘You also told me that you couldn’t be bought,’ Angelo reminded her darkly. ‘But you just named your price.’

      Hot, prickly tears hit the backs of her eyes. ‘Angelo…I really didn’t want to do this—’

      ‘Yet you did. If I wanted to play games, I could ask you what’s in it for me. But it would be cruel to put you on the spot when I have no intention of giving you a positive response. Do I care what happens to your father? No. Do I wish to please you to that extent? I’m afraid not,’ Angelo completed with chilling cool.

      That final assertion hurt as much as an unexpected slap in the face. It was one thing to tell herself that her sole value to Angelo Riccardi was sexual, quite another to be confronted with his unapologetic confirmation of the fact. Indeed he was so cold, so unemotionally distant, that he frightened her. It was as though the last month hadn’t happened and he had reassumed the guise of a callous stranger.

      Gwenna straightened her taut shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I made the mistake of believing that you might have some compassion.’

      ‘I reserve compassion for worthy causes and your father will never feature in that category.’

      ‘Yet you can squander a fortune on stupid clothes for me! Hang diamonds worth…whatever round my neck!’ she protested in a feverish rush of incomprehension. ‘Even the way you sneer at me for caring about what happens to my father—’

      ‘I don’t sneer—’

      ‘Your voice does it for you!’

      ‘Your father is trying to use you again. Where’s your common sense? Can’t you tell? Does a decent man let his daughter pay for his freedom with her body?’ Angelo raked at her with derision.

      Gwenna gulped. ‘That’s not fair. Dad thinks we’re really involved—’

      ‘We are really involved—’

      ‘You know what I mean. He thinks we care about each other,’ she shot back wretchedly. ‘And since you said it first—does a decent man ask a woman to pay for her father’s freedom with her body?’

      Outrage flashed in Angelo’s punitive appraisal. ‘Per meraviglia. Don’t pair me with your father in the same sentence. If people could still be bought and sold like goods, he’d be the first to sell you to me at a profit!’

      ‘That’s a filthy lie! My father loves me—’

      ‘He’s a con man and a swindler,’ Angelo sliced in with cutting hauteur. ‘I’ve an even better question for you to ask yourself. What sort of man steals his eight-year-old daughter’s inheritance from her?’

      Her feathery brows lifting in a frown of incomprehension, Gwenna stared back steadily at him. ‘What are you saying? I’m sorry…what’s that supposed to mean? What inheritance?’

      Lean, darkly handsome features taut, Angelo swore under his breath for he had not intended to reveal that information. ‘Donald Hamilton forged his own version of your mother’s will.’

      It took so much effort to concentrate that Gwenna felt dizzy. ‘Forged? I beg your pardon?’

      ‘There’s a lot of solid evidence. Handwriting experts have been consulted. The will is not even a clever fake. One witness and the solicitor involved have since died,’ Angelo explained. ‘The second witness, however, has been tracked down abroad and he’s prepared to swear that the will is not the document he originally signed in your mother’s presence. Your father forged another will and named himself as the main beneficiary. He wanted the Massey Manor estate and he took advantage of your mother’s death to steal it from you.’

      Gwenna was shaking her head back and forth like a metronome. ‘This is nonsense, totally ridiculous nonsense—’

      ‘And when your father rushed to offer you a home and adopt you, everybody was surprised but impressed. Nor did anyone ask why a woman who had been known to have hated him would have left him everything she possessed.’

      ‘Angelo…this is wicked, what you’re trying to insinuate, what you’re saying,’ Gwenna told him jerkily, words and phrases getting jumbled as she attempted unsuccessfully to master her shock.

      ‘I’m sorry. It’s the truth.’

      ‘No…no, it can’t be.’ Gwenna grabbed up her bag from the seat where she had left it the night before and hauled out her phone.

      ‘Who are you calling?’

      ‘Toby.’

      Angelo snatched the phone off her. ‘What do you need with him?’

      ‘Give me my phone!’ Gwenna screeched at him.

      ‘Think before you spill the beans…can you trust Toby James with such highly sensitive information?’ Angelo set her phone down on the table between them as though it were a very dangerous weapon. ‘He’s on that garden committee, isn’t he?’

      Gwenna snatched up her phone but she did not make the call. She wanted to hit Angelo for making her think twice about contacting her best friend for support. Her throat was thick with emotion. ‘Dad did not forge my mother’s will and this entire issue is nothing to do with you.’

      ‘He signed over the property against his debt to Furnridge. If he didn’t legally own the estate, he committed another act of fraud. Perhaps you would prefer the police to investigate the matter.’

      A

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