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But their property was operating on a shoestring, already mortgaged heavily to the banks. Another mortgage, another bad season would see her father’s dream ruined.
She could not let him do that, for whatever misguided sense of loyalty he still had.
She could not let it happen.
She made another wrong turn and swore under her breath as she retraced her steps again. But all of the inconveniences of her journey, all these frustrations fed into her anger. So by the time she reached the sign on the locked gate that announced she was at the right number of the right street, she felt ready to tear the gate apart with her bare hands. Instead she pressed a buzzer, waited impatiently the few seconds for a response and asked to see Luca Barbarigo.
When she met with hesitation, she countered it with, ‘Tell him it is Tina Henderson...Valentina Henderson. He will see me.’
A few moments later the gate clicked open and a stony-faced valet met her at the door, giving her a once-over that told her that in faded jeans and a cheap zip-up jacket she was seriously underdressed for a meeting with his boss. But that was okay because she had plans for her wardrobe. ‘Signore Barbarigo will receive you in the study,’ he said, before gesturing for her backpack. ‘If you would care to leave your bag?’
‘I’m good with it,’ she said, her hand on the shoulder strap, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’ Luca would be under no misapprehension why she was there if she had anything to do with it. He would know she meant business if she turned up with her pack. Besides, if she was going to be sharing the master’s bedchamber, it was going to have to be carried upstairs at some stage.
The valet nodded, his disapproval clear on his set features, and led the way up the wide flight of stairs leading to the noble floor. A stunning palazzo, she registered as they climbed, with terrazzo floors and stuccoed walls and heavy beamed ceilings so high they were in no way oppressive.
Or were they?
Only one flight of steps, but suddenly she needed oxygen, as if the air was thinner the higher they climbed. But it wasn’t the air, she knew. It was being here, in the lion’s den, about to take on the lion at his own game.
It was anticipation, both terrifying and delicious, for what would come next.
And what could have been a spike of fear and the chance for cowardice to surface and set her fleeing down the stairs turned into a surge of strength. Did he really think she could be forced into something, to tumble meekly into his bed? Damn the man but she would not crawl to him like some simpering virgin begging for favours.
The stairs opened to a sitting room so elegant it could feature in a magazine—maybe the sofas and dark timber leant towards the masculine—but the overall effect was of light and space.
How her mother’s house was meant to look, it occurred to her. Probably had looked, before Eduardo had taken her for his wife and she’d become addicted to the factory shops of Murano and let her passion for glass suck up every last euro and every available inch of space.
Through a set of timber doors, the valet led her, and yet another reception room until finally they were at another set of sculpted timber doors where he knocked and showed her in, pulling the door closed behind him as he left.
Her heart kicked up a beat when she saw him.
The lion was in.
He sprawled arrogantly in a chair behind an acre of desk across a room that went on for ever and then some. And still he owned the room. It was an extension of him, paying tribute to his inexorable power. She wrenched her eyes from his and studied the desk before him. Antique if she wasn’t mistaken, but masculine and strong and with legs that were solid and built to last whatever the ages would throw at it.
It would do nicely.
‘Valentina,’ he said, without standing, his voice measured, his dark eyes waiting for answers. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘Is it?’ She looked around at the door. ‘Does that lock from the inside?’
He cocked his head, the shadow of a frown pulling his brows closer together. ‘Why do you ask?’
She shrugged the straps of her backpack from her shoulders, hoping no hired help was about to rush in—not with what she had planned—before letting the weight drag it to the ground at her feet, making no move to stop it hitting the floor. She summoned up confidence along with a smile she didn’t feel. ‘It would be a shame to be interrupted.’
‘Would it?’ he asked, as if he didn’t care one way or the other, and she almost panicked and fled while she could. It was so long since she’d last made love. Years since that last unforgettable night with Luca. Was she kidding herself that she could pull this off? She was so unpractised in the arts of the seductress, so unskilled.
