The Sicilian's Defiant Virgin. Susan Stephens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to be to do that?

      Her heart disagreed and raced with excitement. Her body wasn’t much help. It looked to casting off years of celibacy with unbounded enthusiasm. Thankfully, she had more sense. He could have any woman he wanted. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a date. It was time to get real.

      ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said politely, ‘but as we’ve never met before, I’m sure you’ll understand if I tell you that I’d feel safer here.’

      ‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked.

      There was amusement in his eyes. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said.

      And then, with the charity at the forefront of her mind, she suggested, ‘How about seven’ o clock tomorrow evening, here? Before the club gets busy,’ she explained. ‘Would that suit you?’ Whether it did or not, that was her best and final offer.

      ‘I’m looking forward to it already,’ he said.

      There was another suspicious glow in his eyes. ‘Good. So am I—and now I really do have to go.’

      ‘Of course,’ he said, turning.

      She still stared at him admiringly as he walked away, transfixed by his long, lean legs, and muscular back view. It was only when he had completely disappeared from sight she realised that they hadn’t even introduced themselves. So, was he related to Raoul Tebaldi, or not?

      He must have put something down on paper when he bought the auction lot, Jen reasoned. No one parted with that type of money without attaching a name to it.

      ‘Something wrong?’

      She turned to see Tess, the casino manager, staring at her with concern. Tess’s sixth sense where staff were concerned was unbeatable.

      ‘He wasn’t bothering you, was he?’ Tess demanded as she followed Jen’s stare to the door.

      ‘No. He wanted to have that dinner tonight, and as we’re short-handed I told him that I couldn’t do that. Did he remind you of someone?’ she added, frowning. ‘Do you remember Raoul, that lonely man who used to play the tables until he had no money left?’

      Tess shrugged. ‘I see thousands of men come through here every year. None of them hold my attention for long, unless they complain about something. Why do you ask?’

      Jen shrugged. ‘No reason. And I’m probably wrong. Anyway, I do feel better having laid down some ground rules.’

      ‘I would have done that for you,’ Tess insisted. ‘You only had to ask.’

      ‘I can handle men like him,’ Jen assured Tess with more confidence than she felt. ‘I wouldn’t deserve a job here if I couldn’t...’

      ‘But?’ Tess queried, picking up on Jen’s hesitation.

      ‘But he struck me as a man who doesn’t play by the rules,’ Jen said thoughtfully.

      ‘Unless he writes them?’ Tess suggested.

      Jen hummed. She didn’t want to burden Tess with her concerns, and it was no use brooding on them. Work would take her mind off the mystery man—she hoped.

      * * *

      It was a relief to leave the club. He dragged on the chilly London air as if it were the purest oxygen. He felt as if his head had been under water for the past half-hour. He blamed himself for not stopping Raoul’s downslide sooner. He couldn’t believe he’d been so blind to his brother’s troubles, or that things had got so bad.

      Raoul’s debts were eye-watering. He’d paid them off, dealing with an expressionless man behind a grill at the club, and then he made his donation to the charity. Next he had to unpick the story of a woman who’d just become an unlikely heiress to a fortune she knew nothing about. He had made no final decision about Jennifer Sanderson. She appealed to him with her bold challenges and her curvaceous body. It was all too easy to imagine her clinging to his arms in the throes of passion. That might not be what he was here for, but it was the thought he carried with him from the club.

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘DID THAT MAN I was talking to hand over the money for the auction lot?’ Jen asked Tess as casually as she could at the end of the night.

      ‘All ten thousand,’ Tess confirmed. ‘And he paid off his brother’s gambling debts.’

      ‘His brother?’

      ‘Raoul Tebaldi.’

      A shiver raced down Jen’s spine at the thought that, just as she had suspected, the Sicilian stranger was Raoul’s brother. Raoul had confided in her that he was on a downward spiral, and only wished he were still close to his brother. ‘If only I could confide in Luca as I used to when we were young,’ he’d said with such longing in his eyes.

      Luca...

      ‘I don’t know anything more about the guy who bought the dinner with you,’ Tess admitted. ‘My best guess is, he’ll be back to collect what he’s paid for. He didn’t strike me as the type to cut and run.’

      ‘Worse luck,’ Jen said, only half joking.

      ‘Who are you trying to kid?’ Tess demanded, shooting Jen a shrewd look. ‘It isn’t every day a man walks into the club and pays a fortune to have dinner with you—especially not one who looks like that.’

      ‘Which is exactly why I’m so suspicious,’ Jen confessed. ‘Surely, I’m hardly his type.’

      ‘He’s a generous guy with plenty of money,’ Tess argued. ‘Why read any more into it than that? My job here is to keep everyone happy and make sure things run smoothly, while yours is to make everyone feel welcome—and no more than that. You hit the right balance beautifully, Jen, which is why you’re so popular.’

      All Jen could think was, what had happened to Raoul? She didn’t have a good feeling about it. The coincidence of his brother buying time with her was just too strong. Why had he done that? What did he want? Had Raoul mentioned her to Luca? That seemed unlikely. Was it possible that while she’d been getting on with her life, another tragedy had been unfolding?

      * * *

      Friday morning, aka almost the weekend, and Jen was settling in to her day job. Officially, according to her employment records, she was a part-time student studying to be a gemologist, working in central London on day release from college, so she could gain hands-on experience of working with precious stones. In reality, she went to college three days a week, and the rest of the time she was gofer and tea lady to the distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the board at Smithers & Worseley Auction House, London

      ‘The buyer’s request is quite straightforward,’ the chairman of the prestigious house had just announced.

      Staring down his aquiline nose through gold half-moon glasses, Melvyn Worseley Esquire proceeded to explain: ‘Don Tebaldi, our venerable client from Sicily—some of you may have heard of him?’

      Sicily? СКАЧАТЬ