‘Even if I was to accept this highly improbable story,’ Luciano drawled with sardonic bite, ‘why didn’t Hunt himself come forward with it long before now?’
‘He couldn’t handle it and so he tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. He blamed himself terribly for what happened with Ivor’s will and it knocked the heart out of him. I could show you an entire drawer full of letters from your accountant and your solicitor that Grandpa didn’t even open…the minute they arrived, he must’ve put them in there. Luciano…I honestly did only find out about this a few days ago!’ she told him in helpless appeal.
As the phone buzzed Luciano turned away to answer it and Kerry pleated her restive hands together, striving to gauge his reaction from his chiselled bronze profile. She studied the arrogant jut of his nose, the proud angle of his cheekbone, the unyielding edge to his wide, sensual mouth. He had been so very kind to her grandparents when they had come over to London to meet him. He had liked the older couple, had not seemed to find them as eccentric as other people did. Surely there was something of that tolerant compassion still left in him?
Replacing the phone, Luciano swung back to her, and as she dredged her troubled gaze from him her cheeks warmed with self-conscious colour.
‘In business, it’s important that you stick to the issue,’ Luciano delivered with cool golden eyes, cold anger having checked his powerful libido. ‘However, it seems that you need me to clarify what that issue is and what it isn’t. It doesn’t relate to your great-uncle Ivor or your grandfather’s foolishness or even whether I believe in either claim. But by telling me that Hunt concealed the fact that he only owned part of the estate against which the loan was secured, you’ve done his cause no favours.’
Unnerved by that caustic speech, Kerry said vehemently, ‘I thought that when things had reached such a serious climax, honesty was the best policy—’
‘What are you? A little girl in Sunday school?’ Luciano shook his proud, dark head in wonderment at her naivety, for she had just given him more ammunition for the repossession order. ‘The bleeding-heart routine doesn’t have a place here. So before I lose patience or we run out of time, I suggest you keep your end of the bargain and confess why you ditched me…and, more importantly, you have to tell me who told you to do it.’
Even as Kerry coloured at that crack about bleeding hearts, her brows pleated. ‘Who told me to do it?’ she repeated in bewilderment. ‘What are you trying to suggest?’
Luciano settled shimmering golden eyes on her with incisive force. ‘That it’s cards-on-the-table time. I had only one reason for agreeing to see you today and it had nothing to do with how much money you owe me. That reason is that the Linwood half of your family tree set me up for five years in a prison cell!’
At that far-reaching condemnation, Kerry stared back at him with astonished incomprehension. ‘How is it my family’s fault that the police didn’t investigate your case properly? And why should you believe that anyone set you up?’
‘Right out of the blue you broke off our engagement and the next morning I was arrested. Now, only a fool would credit that those two events weren’t closely connected,’ Luciano continued in the same soft, sibilant undertone that from the outset of that disturbing speech had had the most terrifyingly chilling effect on her. ‘To save you and your family from embarrassment, one of your Linwood relatives warned you to dump me and I want to know which one of them it was. Why? Because whoever did that was involved up to their throat in framing me!’
‘I can’t believe that you’ve been thinking like this about my family and me all this time,’ Kerry admitted shakily half under her breathe, stark strain visible in the prominence of her fine facial bones. ‘But I had good reason to tell you that day that I didn’t want to marry you any more. I certainly didn’t need anyone else to tell me to end our relationship. Your behaviour did that for me all on its own.’
‘My behaviour? After what I’ve come through, I’m not prepared to swallow your insults.’ As she spoke, scorching anger had flamed in Luciano’s intent scrutiny and his lean, strong face was rigid. ‘So stop right there and think very hard about what you’re about to say to me. In fact I think you ought to sleep on it!’
Kerry gave him an even more perplexed look. ‘Sleep…on it?’
‘Your time’s up. I h
ave a meeting to attend and I see no reason why other people should be kept waiting on your behalf,’ Luciano asserted with acerbic bite. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning at eleven.’
‘You can’t expect me to come back here again tomorrow!’ Kerry argued in disbelief.
‘You should’ve been on time this afternoon.’
Kerry jumped to her feet. ‘For goodness’ sake, I have a flight booked home this evening!’
‘Then you have a problem. And do think very carefully about what you plan to tell me tomorrow because you won’t get a second chance to spill the beans.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Hasn’t anything I’ve said today made the slightest impression on you?’ Kerry pressed in dismay.
‘Nothing,’ Luciano admitted.
At that uncompromising confirmation, her heart sank. Recognising that she had no choice whatsoever but to meet his demand that she return the next day, Kerry dug into her bag to remove the file and walked over to set it on his desk. ‘Then at least look at my business plan for Ballybawn before I come back…that is sticking to the issue and practical and should be much more your style.’
‘Kerry…one final word of advice.’ Luciano shot her a grim look of incredulity. ‘The very last thing I’m likely to be interested in is your business plan for a property that will soon be mine!’
A sense of desperation surged up so hard and fast in Kerry that it made her feel light-headed. She had got nowhere with him but then, she dimly recognised, she was not firing on all cylinders, was she?
‘I can’t quite believe that I’m here with you,’ she muttered out loud, belatedly recognising her own maddening sense of dislocation throughout their meeting. ‘It doesn’t feel real.’
Smouldering golden eyes rested on her delicate features. Not a single reference had she made to his imprisonment for a crime he had not committed. Not a single word of even insincere regret had she proffered. A story-book princess in a fairy-tale tower could not have been more detached from the hard realities of his recent past.
‘I can make it feel real,’ Luciano murmured silkily, snapping his hands over hers and drawing her close before she could even guess his intention.
‘What are you d-doing?’ Every skin cell in Kerry’s body leapt in shock as he used his strong hands to clamp her to his lean, muscular frame. Her heart felt as though it was about to burst right out of her chest.
‘Making it feel real, cara mia.’ A hard, slashing smile on his lean, dark face, Luciano looked down at her, the lush black screen of his lashes merely accentuating the fiery gold challenge of his gaze. ‘When was I ever in your radius this long without touching you?’