Mistress Arrangements: Passion's Mistress / Desert Mistress / Mistress by Arrangement

The following morning she’d packed a bag, and driven steadily east until hunger and exhaustion had forced her to stop. Then she’d rung her mother, offered the briefest of explanations and assured her she’d be in touch.

That had been the last personal contact she’d had with the man she had married. Until now.

‘My daughter,’ she enlightened starkly, and watched his features reassemble, the broad facial bones seeming more pronounced, the jaw clearly defined beneath the taut musculature bonding fibre to bone. The composite picture portrayed a harsh ruthlessness she found infinitely frightening.

‘I suggest,’ he began in a voice pitched so low that it sounded like silk being razed by steel, ‘you contact the child’s father.’

Carly visibly shivered. His icy anger was almost a tangible entity, cooling the room, and there was a finality in his words, an inexorability she knew she’d never be able to circumvent unless she told the absolute truth—now.

‘Ann-Marie was born exactly seven months and three weeks after I left Perth.’ There were papers in her bag. A birth certificate, blood-group records—hers, Ann-Marie’s, a copy of his. Photos. Several of them, showing Ann-Marie as a babe in arms, a toddler, then on each consecutive birthday, all showing an acute similarity to the man who had fathered her: the same colouring, dark, thick, silky hair, and grey eyes.

Carly retrieved them, thrusting one after the other into Stefano’s hands as irrefutable proof. ‘She’s your daughter, Stefano. Yours.’

The atmosphere in the lounge was so highly charged that Carly almost expected it to ignite into incendiary flame.

His expression was impossible to read, and as the seconds dragged silently by she felt like screaming—anything to get some reaction.

‘Tell me,’ Stefano began in a voice that was satin-smooth and dangerous, ‘was I to be forever kept in ignorance of her existence?’

Oh, dear lord, how could she answer that? Should she even dare, when she wasn’t sure of the answer herself? ‘Maybe when she was older I would have offered her the opportunity to get in touch with you,’ she admitted with hesitant honesty.

‘Grazie.’ His voice was as chilling as an ice floe in an arctic wasteland. ‘And how, precisely, did you intend to achieve that? By having her turn up on my doorstep, ten, fifteen years from now, with a briefly penned note of explanation in her hand?’

He was furiously angry; the whiplash of his words tore at her defences, ripping them to shreds. ‘Damn you,’ he swore softly. ‘Damn you to hell.’

He looked capable of anything, and she took an involuntary step backwards from the sheer forcefield of his rage. ‘Right at this moment, it would give me the utmost pleasure to wring your slender neck.’ He appeared to rein in his temper with visible effort. ‘What surgical procedure?’ he demanded grimly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

With a voice that shook slightly she relayed the details, watching with detached fascination as he scrawled a series of letters and numbers with firm, swift strokes on to a notepad.

‘Your address and telephone number.’ The underlying threat of anger was almost a palpable force. She could sense it, almost feel its intensity, and she felt impossibly afraid.

It took considerable effort to maintain an aura of calm, but she managed it. ‘Your assurance that Ann-Marie’s medical expenses will be met is all that’s necessary.’

His eyes caught hers and held them captive, and she shivered at the ruthlessness apparent in their depths. ‘You can’t believe I’ll hand over a cheque and let you walk out of here?’ he said with deadly softness, and a cold hand suddenly clutched at her heart and squeezed hard.

‘I’ll make every attempt to pay you back,’ Carly ventured stiffly, and saw his eyes harden.

‘I intend that you shall.’ His voice was velvet-encased steel, and caused the blood in her veins to chill.

A knock at the door provided an unexpected intrusion, and Carly cast him a startled glance as his secretary entered the room and placed a laden tray down on to the coffee-table. It said much for the secretary’s demeanour that she gave no visible indication of having seen the deposed picture frame or the glass that lay scattered on the carpet.

Carly watched the woman’s movements as she poured aromatic coffee from a steaming pot into two cups and removed clear plastic film from a plate of delectable sandwiches.

‘Contact Bryan Thorpe, Renate,’ Stefano instructed smoothly. ‘Extend my apologies and reschedule our meeting for Monday.’

Renate didn’t blink. ‘Yes, of course.’ She straightened from her task, her smile practised and polite as she turned and left the room.

Carly eyed the sandwiches with longing, aware that the last meal she’d eaten was breakfast. The coffee was tempting, and she lifted the cup to her lips with both hands, took a savouring sip, then shakily replaced it down on to the saucer.

The need to escape this room was almost as imperative as her desire to escape the man who occupied it, for despite her resolve his presence had an alarming effect on her equilibrium, stirring alive an entire gamut of emotions, the foremost of which was fear. The feeling was so intense that all her senses seemed elevated, heightened to a degree where she felt her entire body was a finely tuned instrument awaiting the maestro’s touch. Which was crazy—insane.

‘There’s no need to cancel your appointment,’ she told him with more courage than she felt, and she collected her bag and slid the strap over one shoulder in a silent indication of her intention to leave.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Stefano said in a deadly soft voice, and she looked at him carefully, aware of the aura of strength, the indomitable power apparent, and experienced a stirring of alarm.

‘Home.’

‘I intend to see her.’

The words threw her off balance, and she went suddenly still. ‘No,’ she denied, stricken by the image of father and daughter meeting for the first time, the effect it would have on Ann-Marie. ‘I don’t want the disruption your presence will have on her life,’ she offered shakily.

‘Or yours,’ he declared with uncanny perception. His eyes were hard, his expression inexorable. ‘Yet you must have known that once I was aware of the facts there could be no way I’d allow you to escape unscathed?’

A shiver shook her slim frame; she was all too aware that she was dealing with a man whose power was both extensive and far-reaching. Only a fool would underestimate him, and right now he looked as if he’d like to shake her until she begged for mercy.

‘There is nothing you can do to prevent me from walking out of here,’ she said stiltedly.

‘I want my daughter, Carly,’ he declared in a voice that was implacable, emotionless, and totally without pity. ‘Either we effect a reconciliation and resume our marriage, or I’ll seek legal custody through court action. The decision is yours.’

A well of anger rose to the surface at his temerity. ‘You have no right,’ Carly retaliated fiercely. ‘No—’

‘You have until tomorrow to make up your mind.’ He stroked a series of digits on to paper, tore it from its block, and handed it to her. ‘You can reach me on this number.’

‘Blackmail is a criminal offence!’

‘I have stated my intention and given you a choice,’ he said hardly, and her eyes glittered with rage.

‘I refuse to consider a mockery of a marriage, with a husband who divides his time between a wife and a mistress!’

His eyes narrowed, and Carly met his gaze with fearless disregard. ‘Don’t bother attempting to deny it,’ she advised with deep-seated bitterness. ‘There was a succession of so-called friends and social acquaintances who took delight in ensuring I heard the latest gossip. One, in particular, had access to a Pressclipping service, and never failed to ensure that I received conclusive proof of your infidelity.’

‘Your obsession with innuendo and supposition hasn’t diminished,’ Stefano dismissed with deadly softness.

‘Nor has my hatred of you! ‘

His smile was a mere facsimile, and she was held immobile by the dangerous glitter in his eyes, the peculiar stillness of his stance. ‘It says something for your maternal devotion that you managed to overcome it sufficiently to confront me.’

Angry, futile tears diminished her vision, and she blinked furiously to dispel them. ‘Only because there was no other option!’

Without a word she turned and walked to the door, uncaring whether he attempted to stop her or not.

He didn’t move, and she walked down the carpeted hallway to Reception, her head held high, pride forcing a faint smile as she inclined a slight nod to the girl manning the switchboard before sweeping out to the foyer.

A lift arrived within seconds of being summoned, and it wasn’t until she reached ground level that reaction began to set in.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_23c5ddbd-aca4-53f2-8f0d-021596182c15)

IT TOOK AN hour for Carly to reach Manly, and she uttered a silent prayer of thanks to whoever watched over her as she traversed the car-choked arterial roads leading north from the city. Concentration was essential, and her own was in such a state of serious disarray that it was a minor miracle her sedan survived the drive intact.