Moth to the Flame(7)

Santino Vallone, Juliet could well believe that he would carry out

any threat that he might utter. The dark face wore an expression of

almost patrician disgust as he stared at her, but there was a

ruthlessness about its hard lines that it was impossible to ignore.

Formidable was a word she rarely used, but it applied to him.

The thought came to her that Jan might have been expecting this

visit and might have deliberately absented herself, but she crushed it

under. Jan had gone away to get married, and this man was here to

put a spoke in the wheel of her wedding plans if he could.

Only-he thought she was Jan, and clearly he had no idea that her

marriage to his brother was so imminent.

All she had to do was explain, show him her passport from her

handbag in the bedroom and he would leave. But he would leave in

search of Jan and Mario and it was possible, even probable, that he

would find them and perhaps even prevent the wedding taking

place. Jan was obviously more disturbed by his influence than she

had revealed, or why her hurried and secretive departure?

But if-if she let him go on believing that she was Jan, it was just

possible that she could keep him on a string for a few days until the

wedding was over and his interference no longer mattered. At the

very least, she could give Jan and Mario a head start.

She flung her head back and lifted her chin. Her eyes sparked back

at him. 'Orders, signore? Who, gave you the right to give me

orders?'

He made an impatient gesture. 'We are not here to talk of rights,

signorina,' he said coldly. 'I have come to offer you for the last time

the terms I stated in my letter. I understood from your reply that you

were willing to consider them, but I am not prepared to put up with

any more prevarication from you.'

Juliet digested his words in silence, her brain whirling feverishly.

She seemed to be getting into deep water already. What could he

mean? Had Jan actually written to him, and if so had she merely

been pretending to agree to his terms in order to win time? Surely

that was the answer. She could never have seriously considered his

offer to buy her off. Juliet wouldn't believe it. Jan could never have

permitted such a consideration to enter her mind, she argued with

herself vehemently. Her sister must simply have been playing for

time.

She gave a little shrug. 'You're clearly so used to having people

accede to your slightest wish, signore, I was afraid what the shock

might do to you if I said what I really thought.'

The tawny eyes swept over her and she was aware of a daunting

blaze in their depths.

'Indeed, signorina?' he drawled. 'I think my system can stand the

strain. What was wrong with the offer? Didn't it contain sufficient

money?'

A cold fury possessed Juliet. Whatever faults Jan might have, she

was her sister, and no arrogant Italian male, however wealthy, was

going to insinuate that she was some kind of cheap gold-digger

eager to be bought off for some unknown amount of cash.

Her tone was dulcet, but her smile was dangerous as she said, 'You

don't have sufficient money, signore. It's Mario that I want, and no                       
       
           



       

amount of bribery by you can alter that, so please don't try.'

His lip curled. 'I admire the note of conviction, signorina, but I

don't believe it. I also have my convictions, and one of them is that

most men have their price, and all women; I am merely waiting to

hear yours.'

She longed to do something thoroughly unladylike, like slapping

him hard or raking her fingernails down his smooth tanned cheek,

but she had to forget her own angry impulses and play the scene as

if she were Jan.

Jan wouldn't allow herself to be thrown by her deshabille and damp

hair. She would have smiled, pouting a little at his discourtesy, and

pushed back her hair, letting the robe open slightly at the front so

that Santino Vallone was aware that under it she wore nothing but

her perfume. She would have enticed him to a more approachable

frame of mind, and played him like a fish on a hook with her

audacious beauty.

But knowing what Jan would probably have done and acting on it

herself were two entirely different things. And the depressing part

of it was that Juliet didn't have a clue where to start. Men like the

arrogant Santino Vallone were totally out of her league. Yet she had

to try if she was to continue to convince him that she was Jan.

'Lost for words, signorina?' came the jibing remark. 'Or are you too

busy doing sums in your head?'

She made herself smile at him. 'Actually, signore, I was just

thinking I find your low opinion of women in general and myself in

particular rather distressing.' She strove for lightness of tone. 'I'm

wondering what I can do to redress the balance.'

His brows rose sardonically. 'So the little bird has decided to sing a

different tune. Bravo! And yet you are very charming when you're

angry, cara, or at least when you're pretending to be. No wonder

you've had such a devastating effect on my gullible brother. But that

little game's over now-or was when you decided to break the

rules, so let's not waste any more time.'

'I'm sorry,' Juliet shrugged, and felt the towelling robe slip away

from one shoulder. Her immediate instinct was to drag it back into

place and it took all the self-command of which she was capable to

leave the revealing folds of fabric where they were. She could feel

his eyes on her, frankly assessing, lingering over the exposed line of

her throat and the creamy skin of her bare shoulder, and she could

feel a tight knot of fear in her chest-fear and something perilously

approaching excitement. Her hands began to ball into fists at her

sides and she made herself relax. Jan, she thought wryly, would

never tie herself into a mass of tensions just because a man was

looking at her. Besides, she was supposed to be a successful model

who was used to being looked at. And to be fair to herself, she

wouldn't be fighting this strange sort of panic under normal

circumstances. Only these were not really normal circumstances, '

and this was not just any man.

She rallied herself defensively. 'But I don't quite understand you,

signore. What game are you referring to and what rules am I

supposed to have broken?'

'Quite the guileless innocent, aren't you, cara, when it suits you to

be. The game is love, for want of a better word, and the rule is that

a woman like you does not expect the man to marry her.'

She had half expected what he was going to say, but the shock of

hearing it brutally spelled out was sickening. She felt as if a fist had

been driven into the pit of her stomach, and her breathing quickened

perceptibly.

His words did not apply to her-she knew that, and that should

have lessened their impact, yet that was impossible because they

applied to Jan instead. How dared he? she thought as hurt and

bewilderment fought with the anger inside her. How dared he say

such things-make such insinuations about Jan?

. Clearly he must know that she and Mario had been living together,

at least on a casual basis, and this was the reason for his

condemnation. That was the traditional viewpoint after all. The man

could be as wild as he chose, but the girl must be pure, jealously

guarding her virginity for her wedding day. And because Jan had

transgressed this unwritten law with her future husband, she was

regarded as an outcast. The colour rose faintly in her cheeks as she

realised that Santino had probably recognised the bathrobe that she

was wearing at that moment as Mario's and drawn his own

conclusions.

She remembered too Jan's bitter remarks about his hypocrisy. It was

the ultimate in male chauvinism, she thought angrily, to use women

for his own cynical pleasure and then despise the woman who had

been his partner in that pleasure. Besides, Jan and Mario loved each

other. Didn't that enter into the reckoning? She found her own

resolution hardening. She and Santino Vallone would play a whole                       
       
           



       

new game, and this time she would invent the rules.

She smiled at him, her long lashes brushing her cheeks. 'Your

argument should be with Mario, signore. After all, it was he who

proposed marriage to me, not the other way round.'

'But I only have your word for that, cara,' he said softly, with a

sting underlying every word.

She pretended to wince, laughing a little as she did so, controlling

her own rage and contempt. 'Ouch, you play dirty, signore, and

that's not in the rules either.'

'I write my own,' he said quite pleasantly, and she believed him.

Quite inconsequentially she found herself wondering how he would

react when he discovered the truth about her deception, but she

comforted herself with the reflection that by the time that happened

she would be safely back in England and Jan and Mario would have

to bear the brunt of his wrath together. Besides, she reasoned, Jan

could always say with perfect truth that she'd had no idea what her

sister had been up to in her absence.

'You seem nervous,' he observed.

'Is it any wonder?' She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

She had not intended it to be provocative- her lips were genuinely