A Savage Betrayal. Lynne Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ more by environmental awareness than good business sense and strict control of their funds. And along comes Mina like a fox into a coop of little fluffy chicks waiting to be plucked. Haland’s blood would freeze in his veins if he knew what you were capable of!’

      ‘How dare you call me a confidence trickster?’ Mina objected strickenly, her breath rasping in her throat. ‘There has been some hideous misunderstanding——’

      ‘And it would appear to be on your side.’ Cesare treated her to a look from hooded golden eyes that was curiously chilling. ‘I’ve tracked you down and I know exactly what you are. Don’t preach to the converted. Watching you simper up at Haland and blush took me way back. And you’re so cute, you’re so little,’ he stressed, studying her slight figure with blistering derision, his mouth twisting and then compressing into a bloodless line. ‘You make men feel protective. You stitched me up, too. I don’t blame the old goat for falling for the fragile feminine act hook, line and sinker. Dio mio, didn’t I fall for it too?’

      The atmosphere was explosive. Suppressed rage quivered through every syllable in that final statement. Anger so fierce that she could taste it vibrated in him. Her mouth was dry, ‘Cesare, I——’

      He reached out a powerful hand, closed it round one slender wrist and yanked her bodily forward. ‘Shut up,’ he intoned with vicious bite. ‘I won’t ever fall for it again, cara. I know how clever you are, but your greed betrays you as surely as a streak of fundamental stupidity. You’re a treacherous bitch, but life as you know it is about to change. Betraying me was a big mistake.’

      Trembling, trapped by his immensely greater strength, she gaped at him. ‘I didn’t betray you!’

      ‘You betrayed me in every way there was. As an employee and as a lover!’ Cesare raked at her. ‘One unforgettable night when my every fantasy was fulfilled. A virgin, but a whore in the making!’

      Mina lifted her free hand and hit him a crack across one hard cheekbone that numbed her fingers. And then she froze, appalled by the violence that had roared up inside her from a place she didn’t know. She had never struck another human being before.

      ‘Relax…you were the best I ever had.’

      Mina went white, her lower lip wobbling. Cesare hadn’t even flinched from that ringing slap. Disorientatingly, he smiled, and that smile chilled her to her bones. It was like the smile on the face of a tiger after drawing first blood. He knew she had lost control and he was triumphant, even amused. With a soft laugh, he released her wrist.

      Her breath sobbed in her throat as she made a frantic attempt to get out of the car, but the door wouldn’t open.

      ‘It’s locked,’ Cesare said gently, and fired the engine.

      ‘Where are you taking me?’

      ‘Back to your pathetically poor bed-sit. Presumably chosen to yank at Haland’s heart-strings. He must be very naïve,’ Cesare delivered. ‘Ain’t no way what you’ve got on your back fits the poverty-stricken image you’re striving to put out for his benefit.’

      ‘The suit is borrowed,’ Mina said jerkily, and she didn’t even know why she was bothering to make that trivial explanation. Her nerves felt like elastic cruelly stretched and ready to snap.

      ‘Sure it is,’ Cesare mocked. ‘Fits like a glove, too. You just happen to have a best friend as short as you are?’

      Mina pressed an unsteady hand against her throbbing temples. ‘How do you know where I live?’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Please let me out of this car.’

      ‘So that you can scarper? One false move in that direction, cara, and you’ll live to regret it for the rest of your life.’

      ‘Stop threatening me!’

      ‘Beginning to feel those claustrophobic prison walls closing in around you, cara?’ he chided.

      ‘Since there is not the remotest chance that I could be in danger of going to prison for something I haven’t done,’ Mina stressed in the sudden fury that finally broke through layer after layer of shock, ‘I’m not too bothered!’

      ‘Liar…you’re shaking in your child-sized shoes. But it ought to be a relief to escape the shackles of the cleanliving, do-gooding role you’ve been playing for Haland’s delectation. Not that you appeared to enjoy having your image dented this evening,’ Cesare reminded her without remorse.

      ‘What you said was unforgivable!’

      ‘I told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I was tempted to tell him a whole lot more but I would have looked tacky then,’ he conceded wryly.

      ‘I am not resigning from my job.’

      ‘Then I bring the roof down on you. I withhold my donation to Earth Concern’s excellent work in the field of environmental awareness——’

      ‘You wouldn’t!’ Mina exclaimed in horror.

      ‘And I explain that I cannot place such a large sum of money in the control of a charity employing a woman I know to be untrustworthy and dishonest.’

      Mina bent her head, utterly shattered by the speed of that unflinching assurance.

      ‘I should think you would be as welcome at the office as a blizzard in July after that.’

      ‘I could sue you for defamation of character!’ Mina threw at him wildly.

      ‘And the evidence I would produce would throw the case out of court on the first day and leave you facing other, even less palatable options. I’d nail you to the wall—why risk marking that beautiful skin?’

      He could not have evidence of something she hadn’t done! But evidently someone in Falcone Industries, someone at board level had been insider dealing. Cesare had found evidence and mistakenly traced it back to her. Was that some horrible accident or was it possible that the real guilty party had deliberately laid a false trail which implicated her? Was she being paranoid? Her flesh chilled at the idea that four years ago somebody she worked with might well have set her up as a target to protect his own back.

      In the thundering silence Cesare pulled the Ferrari into the kerb and killed the engine. ‘Where do you go at weekends?’ he murmured lazily.

      Mina went rigid, her golden head spinning round, stricken amethyst eyes wide before she hurriedly veiled them.

      Cesare lounged back in his seat, his vibrantly handsome features hard as marble in the shadows. ‘Every weekend…every vacation,’ he spelt out, toying with her by revealing how much he already knew about her movements. ‘Do you have a husband tucked away somewhere—a partner in crime?’

      ‘Don’t be r-ridiculous!’

      ‘A lover, then,’ Cesare decided with complete impassivity. ‘He’s out. I won’t be giving you weekends off——’

      ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

      Or the freedom to sneak into other beds. Though I doubt that you’ll have the energy. СКАЧАТЬ