A Passionate Revenge

In his dreams! Reserved though she might be, she wasn’t a pushover. He’d get no satisfaction from taunting her.

Hopefully he’d get bored and go soon then she could run indoors and beat the life into some bread dough to release her pent-up anger. And, she thought in despair, to ease the desolation of her untouched body.

‘We’ll meet again,’ he said, his eyes dark with lustful promise.

She struggled to catch her breath. ‘Not if I see you first,’ she said with quiet fervour. ‘This has not been a pleasure.’

‘It has for me,’ he murmured and the air fizzled between them setting her pulses leaping erratically. ‘And it will be even more enjoyable next time. That’s a promise.’

The threat alarmed her. Confused by his low, husky tone, she swivelled around so she didn’t have to look at his dark and broodingly handsome face any more.

As she buried her head in a clump of blowsy daffodils, she listened hard, her breath held until her lungs were bursting. First she heard his footsteps, light and easy as he strode away. Then the thud of the car door slamming, followed by Vido’s murmur and a tinkling female laugh.

Anna let out her breath in a rush of venomous loathing and gritted her teeth. He’d be gone in a moment and that would be that. An engine thrummed throatily, the sound increased in volume and then died away.

Suddenly the air seemed to clear of tension. Her scrunched-up muscles stopped screaming at her as she relaxed them. Unsteadily, she got to her feet and stumbled indoors, feeling as if she’d been caught in a washing machine on high spin. Her hands were shaking. Legs, too.

Ridiculous! He had such a terrible effect on her and for no reason at all. He had been in the wrong. She was the one who’d been his intended victim.

Wincing, she remembered how, after he’d fled to Italy, it had seemed that everyone at school had ganged up on her. She’d been bullied so unmercifully that eventually she had left school and her grandfather had grudgingly paid for private coaching.

It had been awful. Even more isolated than ever, she’d only been able to forget her unhappiness when she was cooking. And once her nose job had been successfully completed, she’d enrolled in a catering college, where she’d shone for the first time in her life.

Anna grimly scrubbed her hands and reached into the cupboard for a mug, desperate for a coffee. Preferably laced with an entire bottle of brandy, she thought ruefully.

The very core of her body ached and throbbed. It was a physical feeling entirely new to her and she hated it—hated her defencelessness against Vido’s potent masculinity. It meant she was as capable of being desperate for loveless sex as Vido. And what did that make her?

Shuddering, she boiled the kettle and made her drink.

‘Wretched man!’ she muttered venomously, spooning in far too much sugar in her distraction. ‘Just don’t cross my path again. My life’s enough of a hell as it is.’ Too furious to think straight, she took a sip of coffee and gasped as the scalding liquid burnt her mouth. ‘Damn you, Vido!’ she seethed, slamming the mug down so hard that coffee splashed over her hand. She swore. And had to choke back unexpected tears.

Pain, she told herself grimly. Not misery or longing. Just anger and pain. She didn’t do self-pity any more.

CHAPTER TWO

‘VIDO? They’re ready for you.’

Sorting a stack of papers, he nodded curtly at Camilla, who’d popped her head around his study door. ‘I’ll take a quick look at them.’

‘Do that. You’ll be fascinated,’ she drawled, looking amused.

Seeing that his PA wasn’t going to elaborate, he rose and headed for the office, thinking that it was good to be settled here at last.

For the past two months since he’d bought the house for Solutions Inc, the British branch of Il Conciliatore, he’d been busy in London closing down his office there and juggling his clients. At the same time, he’d been handling the renovations at his new base in Shottery by e-mail and telephone.

Most of the necessary repairs and maintenance had been completed in record time, with the exception of the kitchen—something beyond his control.

All the while he’d chafed at the delay in moving his business—mainly because he looked forward to pinning Anna down, preferably beneath him. And then under his heel. However, the matter of his good name and Anna must wait; a moment to enjoy anticipating and to relish slowly when it came.

Fired up with his usual dynamic energy, he pushed open the door to the office, which had been converted from a small anteroom. He looked around in pleasure and inhaled the scent of lilac, which filled the elegant vase on the window sill.

His priority was to appoint a decent chef now that his staff had moved in. With luck he’d find one by the end of the day. The applicants had been whittled down to a shortlist by his secretary and were comfortably settled in the drawing room with magazines and refreshments, waiting for him to interview them.

Briskly he marched to the console, which controlled the security cameras. With a flick of his finger he activated the screen. Twenty or so people sat in various attitudes of tension.

Except one. And that one in particular made him stop breathing for a moment.

‘See what I mean?’ Camilla smiled.

‘Anna!’ he muttered, his eyes as hard and as brilliant as jet.

Of course. It all came back to him. Her love of cooking, how his mother’s warmth and enthusiasm had encouraged the shy, silent girl.

‘The passion that’s hidden in that Anna!’ his mother had marvelled and he’d found himself secretly agreeing. He’d known then that the silent and reserved Anna concealed vast reserves of emotion that could match his own.

He recalled how the light had shone in her eyes when she’d released all her hidden aggression and anger on an unsuspecting heap of pasta dough. And he’d marvelled at her transparent joy as she baked and tasted, her face transformed by rapture.

It was then that he’d felt the first stirrings of desire. When her breasts were dusted with flour, her eyes sparkling with delight and her mouth soft and lush as her lips closed around a morsel of penne in salsa, the sauce leaving a tempting little smudge of scarlet on her upper lip.

Till she licked it off with sensual relish and left him a quivering mass of tormented hormones. The memory made him shift uncomfortably in the director’s chair.

A chef. It figured. But…his chef? The very idea excited him more than he cared to admit even to himself. Yet he dismissed it out of hand. He had to think of his staff. It would be the height of madness to employ her. They both carried too much baggage and she was a spiteful little hellcat.

Though it might be amusing to put her through the interview. He found himself hoping that it might be a prelude to…other activities.

Aware of his PA’s shrewd eyes on him, he took pity on his lungs and began to breathe properly again.

‘Keep her till last. Don’t let her see you. Get Steve to do the honours.’

With that, he swept out, hoping Camilla didn’t realise that he’d wanted to feast his eyes on Anna while she sat there unaware that she was being observed.

Throughout all the interviews, her image remained in his head. Her dark hair had been neatly smoothed into a chignon that shone like a sheet of black glass. The delicate beauty of her face had made her stand out from all the others—to say nothing of her calm composure.

She’d been quietly reading one of the cookery books he’d deliberately left on the table, her expression rapt. All the others were restlessly flicking through magazines—fashion or cars, depending on their sex.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that he wasn’t the only one eyeing her fabulous legs, which were smooth and straight, tucked primly to one side and looking even longer than ever with the addition of high-heeled shoes. Several of the male applicants had been mesmerised too.

Vido bade an abrupt farewell to a hopeful chef whose CV was almost as fanciful as a science fiction novel. Disappointingly, no one had lived up to his high expectations and only Anna remained to be seen. A wasted day, then.

His stomach clenched as he buzzed on the intercom. ‘Next one, Steve.’ The tightness in his chest intensified and he wondered wryly if his digestion would cope with the stress.

Thirty seconds max to pull himself together. His gaze drifted to the picture of his late mother on his desk. He deliberately made himself remember her shame and horror when she’d learned he’d been branded a thief. His mind went back to that terrible moment when he’d walked the length of the factory floor from Willoughby’s office, meeting a wall of hatred from the employees. Their curses had rained down on him. Then they’d spat in his face and flung paint at him for attempting to rob them of their hard-earned savings. It was then that he’d sworn to take his revenge on the Willoughbys one day and to redeem his honour.

To his relief, he found that his hunger for Anna had subsided. He was himself again; the tireless, driven businessman reputedly with a heart of gold beneath the grim exterior, who had forged a successful team in which even the most modestly paid employee had an equal input.

But there would be no chef to join that happy gang today. He let out an irritable sigh.

Not one of the applicants would have fitted into the tightly knit group. That meant further advertising—and in the meantime they’d have to exist on bought-in meals, when he was longing for home cooking. He scowled in frustration.