The Devil to Pay (14 page)

Daniel quickly recovered sufficiently to kiss away Rianna’s embrace and roll over on to his side next to her. He looked at her with a surprisingly gentle, inquisitive expression, so different from the dark stormy passion that enveloped them both a few minutes earlier. “That was nice,” he murmured with a lazy smile and ran a fingertip along her collarbone. “And I don’t think it’ll be long before I want to do it all again.” He scraped his nails playfully between her breasts. “And then again.” He slid his hand down to stroke the taut sheen of her inner thigh. “And maybe some more...”

“I’m all yours for the taking,” she replied with a forced smile, hiding the sorrow she was beginning to feel that all this had to end.

As her sensuous delirium subsided, a nasty voice in the back of her mind reminded her that in a week she would be back in Wales and all this would be over and forgotten. Daniel was just having his fun, a natural urge for a virile man in his prime trapped alone with an easy woman who had virtually thrown herself at him. She could be anyone in the circumstances. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have given him so much of herself. Her body, a piece of her heart... But she couldn’t stop herself being overwhelmed with the strength of her feelings for him, bowled over by burning need as he nuzzled the soft curve of her breast.

“Don’t tease me.” Rianna groaned, pulling his head closer to the sensitive peak of her nipple.

“Then promise me you’ll never say no again when it comes to our bedroom,” he said with a grin.

Our bedroom
…

“Whatever you say,” she replied with a lump in her throat, stopping the words from slipping out, the words already carved onto the most vulnerable region of her heart.

I love you.

****

“Still working?” Daniel said, brushing the back of Rianna’s neck with his knuckles. “You’ve been slaving on that report all week. It’s Sunday. Have a break.”

“I’ve been working on it all week, when you’ve
let
me,” she answered wryly and batted his hand away from her top button. “The board meeting’s tomorrow and I want to be sure everything’s perfect. Besides, I’ve always hated Sundays.” The sound of a tolling church bell drifted on the breeze and Rianna gave him a knowing look.

“The sound brings back memories?”

“Not really, our Baptist church didn’t go in for such extravagance, but it’s symbolic enough to send a chill right through me. Every Sunday until he died. Ten-thirty on the dot. Without fail. Yellow chrysanthemums.”

Daniel laughed and drew up a chair to the table she was using on the terrace. “I wonder if your dad would have approved of me.”

“Ha! Not a chance, never.”

“Why not?”

“Insufficient criteria. You’d never have been allowed near me,” she murmured, tapping away at her laptop. “Can’t see you as a prop forward or church deacon somehow.”

“I’ve got plenty of money.”

“Even worse! Mammon, Daniel and false idols, tut tut!”

“Is that what your ex-boyfriends were?”

“They were prats,” she snapped without looking at him. “But we all make mistakes.”

“You’ve never mentioned them—talked about your past exploits—were there many?”

Rianna looked up and glared at him. “It’s got nothing to do with you! I’ve never pretended to be a virgin and in this past week together I’ve never asked you once about your girlfriends, assuming you can remember them all.”

Daniel chuckled softly. “Sorry, you’re right. Forget I said it.”

“I will,” she replied, frowning playfully and closed the lid of her laptop with a thud. “You never got any proper qualifications either, if I’m correct, which is another black mark against your eligibility. Dad wouldn’t have let you in the house.”

Daniel stretched and folded his hands behind his neck. “I got a couple of Cs somewhere along the line.”

“Were you
really
such an idle waster?” She laughed. “I find it hard to believe, looking at the man you are now. You turned the company round, you said, or were you embellishing the truth?”

“I was never idle and neither was my brain. Quite the opposite.”

“So?”

“It makes me feel awkward having to explain.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“You have to trade a secret back.”

“OK.”

“I was a gifted child, it turns out, but nobody realised until I went for some private tests after dropping out of the degree course.”

Rianna frowned. “A gifted child...but you failed academically? You
were
a lazy toad then!”

Daniel laughed. “It took some time and I had to see a good number of experts, but eventually I was diagnosed as a visual spatial learner. My brain works differently from most people’s, so even though I have an unusually high IQ, I struggled at school and university. I was written off as a naughty, disruptive boy. My parents were driven to distraction.”

“I’ve never heard of it. Does it affect you now?”

“I think in pictures whereas you think in words. I can’t learn step by step. I’m a whole-part learner and the education system simply isn’t geared up to people like me.” He looked away briefly. “So being a CEO suits me perfectly. I decide how things need to be done and it’s working out just fine.”

“You’re certainly successful now.”

“My handwriting’s dreadful! So now it’s your turn. Secrets. Now.”

“I’ve had a pretty boring life so far, I’m not sure I have anything very exciting to tell,” she replied awkwardly, knowing she had a very big dark secret hidden away she wasn’t prepared to share.

“The men, tell me about them,” he said quickly.

Rianna sighed. “If you must know, there were only two. I had sex with both of them. One I met at Church Youth. The other was my boss. Dad would have been happy for me to marry either of the bastards, but one, it turned out, had a secret wife and the other, well...” Rianna stood up, tucked her things under her arm and started to walk indoors.

“And the other?”

Without pausing she called out over her shoulder, “The other one was the church deacon and I got fed up being his bitch. He would only ever take me from behind.”

Chapter Ten

Daniel leaned pensively against the gnarled wood of an ancient pergola and felt the fragrant blossom of a climbing plant brush his temple as he watched her. Rianna was charming the pants off the middle-aged board members who were vying for her personal attention like children would for free sweets. The nerves she had been exhibiting earlier in the morning had disappeared with the dawn mist, and her presentation had been quite exceptional.

His presence had been a mere formality, he conceded privately. She really hadn’t needed him to fight the quarry’s corner with her. Her genuine passion for the place did all that. And she was
good.
Incredibly persuasive, convincing, businesslike... But what had he expected? Looking at it now in retrospect, he had probably expected her to stutter and fumble, fall to bits under pressure like she had in the cable car the first time. He should have known something was up straight away that morning when she had insisted on facing the demonic funivia to join the rest of the party. This woman had a hidden core of steel, a resolute strength that would not be cowed. Not for anything.

Daniel rubbed thoughtfully at his jaw. He’d never met anyone like her before and she had captivated him as a woman on a physical level, but
this
? She could give any number of his posturing executives a run for their money and he wasn’t imagining it. The board members were like fawning puppies right now and they’d not even been served their pre-lunch cocktails.
Dio
! If Rianna Peters couldn’t save the quarry, then no one could.

Not even him?

Well, that was another thing entirely, he thought defensively. He didn’t have Rianna’s motivation, her crystal clear belief and determination, her ability to win hearts and minds. And wallets.

Adrenalin rushed angrily through his body as he suddenly noticed Rianna take a few backward steps, her new designer stilettos catching in the paving slabs. A chubby arm writhed around her waist and her hands quickly moved to create a barrier between the unwanted admirer and herself. Within seconds Daniel reached them and disentangled the indignant predator.

“Allow me, Silvio,” Daniel interjected smoothly in spite of the way his heart pounded. “Your lovely wife would never forgive me if you overexerted yourself trying to save my accountant from misfortune.” He manoeuvred himself between them with the ease of a swallow in flight, hitching Rianna up against himself for good measure. “If you will excuse us, we need to attend to the luncheon arrangements.”

“I was perfectly capable of—”

“Of thumping one of your potential saviours?” Daniel muttered angrily when they were out of earshot. “Or were you prepared to accommodate every one of his lascivious requirements? Because
that
is where it would’ve led, believe me.”

“Oh, how ridiculous,” Rianna replied indignantly.

“You think so?” His expression was explosive. “You
know
so, do you?”

“Well, I really don’t think—”

“Well, I really don’t think you can afford to ignore my experience on this one.” He wheeled her by the elbow into a quiet corner of the restaurant. “And I didn’t like the way he was touching you. It was disrespectful.”

“Daniel, I hate to say it, in fact, I’m afraid to say it, but it’s almost as if you’re jealous or something!”

Jealous or something?

He was incandescent! As far as Rianna was concerned, she was his. For now. He might not be her one and only lover, but she was still naive, far too trusting, far too responsive and therefore, he reasoned quickly, he had responsibility over the way she proceeded with her sex life. But those disgusting old men... He shook his head silently. No. The thought was making him feel sick. He shouldn’t even be thinking that way. He’d known women who’d sleep with anyone to get their own way, but Rianna wasn’t like them. She’d never stoop to that for the sake of a pit full of gravel. She was worth so much more, and she needed protecting, but he still needed to justify his possessive and controlling behaviour to her.

“I just didn’t want you to throw away all the good work you’ve put in this morning. Your presentation was impeccable, but as for Silvio Gozzi, the slime can’t help himself when it comes to a beautiful and intelligent woman.”

“So that was why you had your hand on his throat?”

“You are mistaken—”

“You don’t remember?”

Daniel ground his jaw ferociously as he stared into the genuine honesty of her face. He couldn’t have gone that far... It was unthinkable. And he wasn’t going to think about it for a second longer. “Let’s get the cocktails moving and see if we can get this over with, shall we?” He looked around the restaurant with agitation. “I’ll get Gianpiero to take you back to the villa once you’ve made your excuses. They’ll reach a decision much faster if they’re able to discuss it over lunch, unhindered by your presence. It will also prevent Silvio from trying to grope you under the table.”

Rianna’s eyes flashed like bayonets. “I don’t agree! I need to see this right through to the end, to give it everything.”

“Then leave your ego at the door and bow out gracefully,” he ground out. “I know what I’m doing. You have to trust me on this.”

****

Rianna bit the inside of her cheek to stop her chin quivering with anger and disappointment. “If you think it’s best,” she replied stiffly as she realised Daniel was bulldozing her out of the way and effectively ordering her off the premises. She was infuriated at his high-handedness, but at the same time, if there was a danger she might compromise the final decision in some way, she couldn’t afford to take the risk, not for the sake of her smarting pride. She picked up a tray of Bellinis. “Very well, I’ll circulate with these and say my good-byes.”

Daniel snapped his gaze away from her, his face set like granite. “No. You must leave now,” he replied.

****

Daniel leant against the hot bonnet of the Bugatti parked below the villa, folded his arms across his chest and stared out at the dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea. For the first time he could ever remember, he wondered how to deal with the situation he had been presented with, whilst tempering his own wishes and desires. He had deliberately not phoned Rianna when the board meeting was over. This was news that had to be delivered in person and like it or not, he had to do it now. No more uncharacteristic procrastination, he had to get indoors and just tell her straight. She’d been waiting for a verdict all afternoon so he couldn’t postpone any longer and she was already angry with him. He could do it. He had no choice in the matter.

“Rianna,” he announced as her head spun round from the arched window of the principal living room. “I think you’d better sit down.”

Her face was pale. “I’m OK here. Tell me.”

“Sit down and I will,” he replied sharply.

With an irritated toss of her hair, she slid onto the sofa next to him.

“I’ll get straight to the point,” he began grimly. “The board reached a final decision this afternoon.” His heart twisted at the pain etched over her delicate features. He took her hands from her lap and encased their cold smallness in the warm strength of his own. “Your proposal for the quarry, the tunnel and the financing,”—he took a long breath—“has been rejected.”

“Rejected?” Rianna’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You mean...”

“They’re selling.”

She drew a shaking hand across her forehead. “So that’s it then. It’s all been for nothing.”

He gently took hold of the tops of her arms and forced her to look him in the eye. “No, it hasn’t. This last week has been—”

“What
has
this week been?” she snapped. “Silvio told me about you delaying the meeting for a week when I asked if he’d recovered from the cruise. He looked at me like I was mad. He’d had a bit of a cold, that’s all. Can you imagine how I felt when he said they’d had an email to say I needed more time to prepare? That the email came from you personally?”