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‘No.’
Kelda waited. ‘Is that it? Is that all you think you have to say? No? And the little woman says sorry for asking!’
‘You signed the usual contract with St Saviour Villas?’
Kelda frowned. It had come over by special messenger within hours of Ella’s call. ‘Yes, but the contract was a blind—’
‘I can assure you that Max will stand by it if I ask him to,’ Angelo murmured softly. ‘It would be your word against his that there was never an assignment in the first place. I would ensure that he sued you for breaking the contract. He would say that you had walked out. Can you afford to be sued for default right now?’
Her lips had parted in disbelief. ‘You couldn’t do that!’
‘I never threaten what I can’t deliver. Think about it...you return to London, inform the agency that you were—what?’
‘Blasted well lured out here by a crackpot and his accomplice in crime!’ Kelda shot at him in outrage.
‘I do believe my reputation and my influence would upstage yours, cara. Who would believe such a thing of me?’
Kelda couldn’t credit what she was hearing. ‘I would believe it!’ she shrieked tempestuously.
‘But it is scarcely credible that I, Angelo Rossetti, would go to such lengths to entrap a woman—’ he countered with silky emphasis.
Kelda stared at him with wide furiously frustrated eyes. She wanted so badly to hit him, she didn’t trust herself to get any closer. Her nails dug into her palms.
‘You see ca
ra...my reputation is considerably more...shall we say...clean than yours?’ Angelo added in offensive addition.
‘You lousy, rotten, calculating bastard!’ she hissed.
He offered her a fresh roll as she collapsed down into a seat opposite him. Her knees had given way. She took a deep breath. ‘Angelo, you wouldn’t do that—’
‘But I wouldn’t be doing it. I would be safely behind the scenes, quietly pulling the strings,’ he responded gently. ‘Did you really think that I brought you here without covering myself on all fronts?’
Half an hour ago, she had felt rather like a fluffy lamb gambolling on a deep, lush and grassy meadow. It had been a game. All of it. A glorious and exciting game that challenged her. But now, she was feeling sick and shaky. Angelo was making it indisputably clear that the kind of game he liked to play had suicidally high stakes.
‘This...this Max St Saviour,’ she framed, ‘why would he lie for you?’
A hint of a smile curved his ruthlessly sensual mouth. ‘He couldn’t afford not to lie if I told him to—’
‘Hell’s teeth!’ Kelda exclaimed in horror. ‘You don’t mean that you would put pressure on the poor man simply to punish me!’
Angelo sipped at his coffee with inhuman calm. ‘I should dislike the necessity,’ he conceded very softly. ‘But to cover my own back? Yes, I would do it. In a tight corner I always come out fighting. One cannot be sentimental about the weapons one employs.’
‘I’ll go to my mother, tell her everything!’ Kelda threatened wildly.
‘And she’ll think you’ve suffered a resurgence of your infatuation with me and been cruelly rejected,’ Angelo inputted sardonically. ‘And she will be terribly, terribly upset on your behalf—’
‘My m-mother knows me better than that!’ Kelda swore, her cheeks flaming with outraged colour. ‘I was never infatuated with you!’
‘We know that,’ he said lazily. ‘But does she?
Kelda tugged with shaking fingers at the clasp of the necklace. Suddenly it felt like it was strangling her. ‘Take this bloody thing off me now!’ she demanded.
‘It has a trick fastening for security.’
‘I’ll break it!’
‘You value beauty too much to destroy it.’ Angelo lifted a careless hand and stroked an amused forefinger along the tremulous line of her generous mouth. ‘And so do I,’ he murmured in a wine dark undertone of intimacy. ‘You really must stop underestimating me, cara. It’s such a waste of your energies.’
