Her Mediterranean Playboy (3 page)

Ally swallowed convulsively. ‘Um…look…I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not who you think I—’

He stepped closer, almost touching her in the small space of the tawdry kitchen. ‘Do you realise I can have you sent to prison for this alone, not to mention the issue of the money you stole?’ he asked in a biting tone.

Ally blinked at him.
The money?
What money? What did he mean…? She felt her insides turn to liquid as she suddenly remembered.

The money currently in
her
handbag.

Her knees began to knock together slightly. She dragged in a breath that felt as if it had a bramble attached as the scorch of his accusing gaze held her fast. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she said, her head spinning at his closeness. ‘I—I didn’t deface your car, and I…I don’t know anything about any money.’

He let out a vicious swear word in his mother tongue. Even though Ally only knew a few phrases of Italian she knew it was an expletive just by the sheer force of its delivery. ‘You think I do not have proof?’ he barked at her savagely.

Ally wanted to tell him who she really was, but knew if she did so he might press charges on Alex, in spite of her fragile mental state. He certainly looked angry and ruthless enough to do so, and until she knew what Alex was being accused of she had no choice but to continue with her artifice.

‘W-what sort of proof?’ she asked, backing away as far as the kitchen counter would allow, her spine feeling as if it was being sawn in half by the pressure of the counter digging into it from behind.

‘We will deal with the car issue first,’ he said in a flint-like tone. ‘You were photographed by a passer-by on a camera phone.’ He reached inside his jacket pocket, took out a slim envelope and handed it to her.

Ally took it with fingers that felt as if the bones and ligaments
had been taken out, making the task of opening the envelope almost impossible without betraying her trepidation. But somehow she finally managed to take out the three shots of her twin, which clearly showed her gouging the shiny red paintwork of a top-model Ferrari with what seemed to be a key. Ally had no idea what had made her sister act in such a destructive way, but if the look on her face was any indication Alex had been totally out of control, with a rage so intense her eyes looked wild and her whole demeanour dangerous.

If only Ally knew what had been going on! What had caused her sister to fall apart emotionally? Alex had had numerous break-ups with boyfriends in the past, and while each one had upset her it had never been on this sort of scale. Why had this one caused such a reaction?

‘Are you still going to stand there and deny it was you?’ he asked.

Ally let out a scratchy sigh and put the photos back inside the envelope. She handed them to him. ‘There doesn’t seem much point, does there?’ she said, mentally resigning herself to the task of maintaining the charade a little longer.

He put the envelope back inside his jacket pocket, still holding her gaze. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we come to the issue of the money.’

Ally disguised a lumpy swallow. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

His eyes were like black diamonds as they tethered hers. ‘Three days ago Rocco was in possession of a large sum of company funds which he was intending to take to the bank. He told me you intercepted him, and that rather than cause a scene on the street he agreed to talk to you in the privacy of a nearby hotel room. After spending a short period of time with him you disappeared—along with the money.’

Ally felt her stomach drop in alarm. ‘I’m not sure why that necessarily means I am responsible,’ she said, pushing her chin up defiantly. ‘Anyone could have taken it. Rocco included.’

His top lip lifted in an arc of derision. ‘Rocco might not be my favourite brother-in-law, but he is a valuable asset to my investment company. I employed him because of his financial
acuity. I have never had a moment’s doubt about his professionalism. If he says you stole the money I have no reason not to believe him.’

Ally had to think on her feet, and fast. The money was burning a hole in her handbag and he had only to insist on searching the flat to find it. Her sister would not escape the heavy hand of the law—especially as she was to all intents and purposes a visitor to the country. A theft on that scale would not be overlooked. Certainly not if Vittorio Vassallo had his arrogant way about it.

‘It’s his word against mine,’ she said, throwing him a challenging glare. ‘If you go public about this I’ll give my own interview to the press on how your brother-in-law seduced me. I’m sure that will go down a treat with all your high-flying investors.’

Anger exploded in his dark gaze. ‘You conniving little bitch,’ he ground out. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing you
would
do—which is why I am here to do everything in my power to stop you.’

Ally straightened her spine, even though her legs beneath it wobbled alarmingly. ‘You don’t scare me, Mr Vassallo.’

His eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Give me time, Mrs Sharpe,’ he drawled. ‘Just give me time.’

The ensuing silence was so tense the air crackled with it.

Ally stood as still as her trembling body would allow. There was a roaring in her ears, a sinking feeling in her stomach, and a tight band of tension around her forehead at the thought of taking Vittorio Vassallo on in a battle she couldn’t possibly hope to win.

She was outclassed.

She was out of her depth.

She was a fraud…

‘Rocco informed me you left your job in London to follow him here. Is that correct?’ he asked.

Ally tried not to fidget under his piercing scrutiny. ‘Er…yes.’

‘So you are currently unemployed. Is that also correct?’ he asked.

‘That is correct,’ she lied, her conscience not even niggling her this time. Why should it? she thought. She was on leave for the next two weeks, so technically she wasn’t working.

‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said into the ringing silence.

Ally lifted her chin to a pugnacious height. ‘Oh, really?’

‘My brother-in-law has been a stupid fool where you have been concerned, but he would perhaps not have succumbed to temptation if you had not pursued him so relentlessly,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine how my sister would feel to find out she has been usurped by a common little slut like you?’

Ally was incensed at his choice of words. ‘If your sister was being a proper wife to him perhaps he wouldn’t have strayed in the first place,’ she threw back.

A tiny hammer of tension began beating beneath the dark stubble on his jaw next to his mouth. His coal-black eyes blazed with simmering anger, making her stomach suddenly contract in fear.

‘You are like a bitch in heat,’ he snarled at her. ‘You will bed anyone, any time, for any cheap trinket thrown your way.’

Ally stiffened with fury. He was making her sister sound like an avaricious tramp. Although she didn’t know all the details of Alex’s life over the last twelve months, she wasn’t going to allow Vittorio Vassallo to malign her twin without fighting back.

‘Your brother-in-law is a two-timing creep,’ she snipped at him. ‘I pity his wife. I am sure I’m not the first woman he’s had on the side.’

‘You are right,’ he said, surprising her with his candidness. ‘Rocco is weak where beautiful women are concerned. His affair with you is not his first, and I dare say will not be his last.’

Ally tried to put some space between them, but the room was too small and he was too big. She could smell the lemon-based fragrance of his aftershave. It had been drifting towards her nostrils for the last few minutes, but she had been doing her best to ignore its alluring potency. And failing miserably. Her body was reacting to him in a way she had never thought possible. She was both frightened and attracted at the same time. He had a magnetic aura about him. He was the epitome of the successful businessman—wealth and prestige clung to him like a second skin—but she could see a glint of implacable ruthlessness in his eyes that secretly terrified her.

‘You have caused rather an inopportune scandal for my brother-in-law and thereby my sister,’ he said. ‘The press are like baying hounds when it comes to anything to do with my family. I want to stop this current gossip in its tracks.’

Ally realigned her sagging posture. ‘How do you propose to do that?’ she asked.

He smiled a confident smile that irked her more than if he had called her a thousand opprobrious names. ‘By diverting the attention from Rocco onto me,’ he answered.

Ally knew she was repeating herself, but asked anyway, although her voice sounded uneven. ‘H-how do you p-propose to do that?’

His dark-as-night eyes seared hers. ‘You and I will conduct a very public affair of our own. I will pay you handsomely for your time, of course.’

She looked at him in stunned horror. ‘An affair?’ she choked.
‘With you?’

Vittorio had never had such a reaction from a woman before. It made him wonder if his brother-in-law had totally misread Mrs Alexandra Sharpe. Perhaps she was genuinely in love with Rocco. If so, it would make things even more complicated than they already were.

His sister Chiara was just a couple of weeks away from the danger zone of losing her baby, after struggling through a difficult pregnancy. If he could stall the gossip long enough to ensure the safe delivery of his niece or nephew it would be worth it. He did not care how much it would cost him. Besides, it wasn’t going to be a real affair. He was determined not to sink so low as to take on the cast-offs of his brother-in-law, no matter how attractive they were. And Ally Sharpe was definitely attractive—but surprisingly not in the in-your-face way Rocco had described.

‘It will not be a real affair,’ he said. ‘We will have to be seen in public and appear to be involved intimately. That is all I will require of you.’

Ally gritted her teeth at his contemptible proposal, everything in her repulsed by the way he was vicariously demeaning her sister. ‘How much are you prepared to pay for my services as your pretend lover?’ she asked.

His eyes bored into hers. ‘How much do you normally charge for your services?’

Ally clenched her hands into fists in case she lifted one to his
face in a slap, as she was sorely tempted to execute. She abhorred all forms of violence, but his condescending manner made her whole body shake with rage. ‘I am
not
a whore,’ she bit out. ‘And nothing you say or do can make me one.’
Or my sister
, she tacked on mentally, her anger rising to an almost uncontrollable level.

His top lip lifted sardonically. ‘I am prepared to pay you generously for two weeks of masquerading as my mistress,’ he said. ‘You will no doubt need clothes and other items fitting for the position. I have high standards, so I am quite willing to foot the bill for the length of the charade.’

Ally mentally calculated the cost of the clinic and the stack of outstanding bills she had come across in her sister’s flat. It was a lot of money, and even though she was financially capable of covering most of it if she took out yet another short-term loan, she rationalised Vittorio Vassallo was a billionaire and had a lot to lose if ‘she’ didn’t co-operate. Besides, it was because of his creep of a brother-in-law that her sister was now in the dreadful state she was in. It seemed fitting that Vassallo money should cover the cost of getting Alex back to normal, even though taking a single euro of it went against everything Ally believed in.

She met his gaze head-on and named a sum that would have stunned most people—but clearly not this man. He barely raised a brow as he looked down at her, his mocking smile grating on her already jangled nerves. ‘You do put rather a high price on yourself, do you not?’ he asked.

She gave him a pert look. ‘I have always found you get what you pay for in life, Mr Vassallo. Or don’t you follow that particular credo?’

‘I do not believe in throwing good money after bad,’ he returned. ‘But if the amount you want is what will achieve the results I desire, then we will both be happy,
sì
?’

Ally didn’t roll her eyes, but she knew her acid tone delivered the same effect. ‘Deliriously so.’

‘Tell me, Mrs Sharpe,’ he said, his hawk-like gaze still fixed on hers, ‘do you feel even a tiny bit guilty about what you did to my car?’

She lifted her chin again. ‘Actually, I don’t feel guilty at all.’

His lips thinned in anger. ‘Then I will endeavour to make you feel some measure of remorse,’ he said. ‘You are an unprincipled slut who wants someone else to foot your bills. I have met women like you before. You are after a sugar daddy—that is the term, is it not? ‘

‘I want nothing of the sort,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I can pay my own way and fully intend to.’

‘Then you will pay,’ he said implacably. ‘If you do not co-operate with my conditions you will not only be responsible for the damage to my car but for all the other things you have done to cause trouble for my family. If you think my brother-in-law is a push-over then think again in your dealings with me. You are not dealing with a man driven by his primal instincts but with a man driven by revenge.’

Ally felt the word reverberate through her slim body like a powerful earthquake, making her feel more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life. Every part of her felt the tremors of terror as she realised she had just stepped into her sister’s shoes, not knowing where in the world Alex had last been walking in them…

‘P
ACK
your bags,’ Vittorio said. ‘I will give you fifteen minutes to do so.’

Ally stared at him, her mouth opening and closing until she could find her voice. ‘You want me to…to…come with you?
Now?
’

‘But of course,’ he answered smoothly. ‘You are now my mistress—in the eyes of the press, at least. You will move into my
palazzo
overlooking the Villa Borghese immediately.’

Ally felt her heart begin to slam against her breastbone again in panic. ‘But—’

‘Do not argue with me, Mrs Sharpe.’ He cut her off impatiently. ‘I spoke with your landlord on the way in. He wants you out of here within a matter of days, otherwise he is threatening to take legal action. I took the liberty of paying him what you owed, so now I am the one you owe. You will do what I say or suffer the consequences of your actions. Staying in a
palazzo
for a couple of weeks will be much more pleasant than several months in a cramped cockroach-infested prison cell,
sì
?’

Ally tried to disguise her shudder of revulsion, but she was sure there was little that escaped his intelligent brown eyes. She could feel their dark intensity holding hers in a battle of wills she had no hope of winning. She knew all she had to do was show him the photo she had hidden earlier to bring an end to this madness right here and now. She could explain her sister’s illness, hoping he would understand. But it was a risk she wasn’t
prepared to take—or at least not yet, not until she knew what sort of man Vittorio Vassallo was. For all she knew he would go ahead and press charges, and with the sort of affluence and connections he possessed she could imagine he would succeed in bringing about the revenge he spoke of earlier.

‘If you don’t mind I would rather stay in a hotel or something,’ she said, desperately trying to quell her rising dread. ‘We could still conduct our pretend affair. Moving in with you seems rather…er…extreme, don’t you think?’

His jaw was set in a determined line. ‘My brother-in-law might be content with conducting his secretive assignations in slum-like apartments or hotels, but I am afraid I am not prepared to give you such a convenient escape route. I know as soon as my back is turned you will disappear. I am not prepared to risk such a possibility. As my current mistress you will have a suite of rooms at my
palazzo
and be treated with the respect afforded to any other guest in my home. Besides, I wish to make it clear to everyone in my family that this is a real affair, even if in private it is not.’

Ally felt her stomach go hollow. ‘H-how will you…? I mean, how will we convince people this is a
real
affair?’

His gaze contained that hint of mockery that had annoyed her from the first moment she had met him. ‘You opened your legs for my brother-in-law, Mrs Sharpe,’ he said, running his eyes over her in contempt. ‘I am sure it will not stretch your capabilities to endure the occasional public kiss or hand-hold from me. That is all that will be required of you. I have no interest in anything else.’

Ally ran her tongue across her lips, and then wished she hadn’t as his eyes dipped to her mouth, lingering there for a pulsing moment before he returned his dark enigmatic gaze to hers.

‘So…any other questions?’ he asked, as he ran a finger around the collar of his shirt as if he found it suddenly too tight.

‘I think the press will find it strange to hear you call me Mrs Sharpe, don’t you think?’ she asked.

‘You are right,’ he said. ‘Ally it will be from now on.’

The way he said her name made her skin feel ticklish, as if he had touched her all over with his fingertips in a light-as-air caress. ‘W-what do you want me to call you?’ she asked, feeling
her colour begin to rise in spite of every effort on her part to remain unaffected by his disturbingly attractive presence.

He looked down at her for a moment or two, his eyes doing that drilling thing again. ‘Vittorio will be fine. As I said, only my family and close friends call me Vito.’

‘You don’t consider any of your lovers as friends?’

‘No, I do not,’ he answered. ‘I have found it impossible to maintain a platonic relationship with any of my ex-partners. Women do not seem to understand when it is time to move on.’

‘And I suppose you are always the one who ends the relationship?’ she said with a cynical look. ‘I read an article about you recently which said you change mistresses as often as some people change their shirts.’

He returned her gaze without flinching. ‘I admit I am easily bored,’ he said. ‘I do not see the point in dragging out a liaison which no longer holds any interest to me. It is better for both parties if things are terminated before anyone gets hurt.’

Ally flashed him a scornful glare. ‘I hope one day you get your comeuppance, then,’ she said. ‘Men like you make me sick. You want your fun, but you don’t want to commit to making a relationship work. It takes time and effort to make a relationship a good and fulfilling one.’

His eyes glinted with brewing anger. ‘You are a fine one to talk, Mrs Sharpe. I believe you were the one who left your ex-husband, not the other way around?’

Ally wondered how much he knew of her sister’s past, and how he had come by the information. Had Vittorio conducted his own investigation? It was a terrifying thought. There was so much she didn’t know. The doctor had warned her not to stress her sister unnecessarily. The last thing she wanted to do was set off another breakdown by asking Alex probing questions about what had been going on over the last few weeks.

‘I told you not to call me by that name,’ she said, firing another fiery glare his way. ‘And, even though it’s really none of your business, I married young and regretted it from day one. I don’t like discussing it. It distresses me to think of how impulsive I was back then.’

His eyes centred on hers. ‘How old were you?’ he asked.

Ally looked away. She hated lying to his face; it seemed much harder to do so with each lie she told. She felt as if she was constructing a precarious house of cards around herself; any minute a breath of truth would send them all toppling and expose her completely. ‘I was eighteen,’ she mumbled.

‘Did your parents approve of the marriage?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said, unable to stop a little sigh escaping. ‘Our…I mean my father left when I was a toddler, and my mother died when I was a few months off turning fifteen.’

‘Who brought you up after your mother died?’

Ally found his questions deeply unsettling. She had spoken to so few people over the years about her and her sister’s tragic background. Their various stints in foster care soon after the suicide of their mother had triggered the first episode of psychosis in her twin. It had been devastating to watch her rapid slide into insanity that had meant change after change of foster home as each carer found Alex’s condition harder to cope with. Ally had fought hard to stay with her sister, which had made finding alternative placements all the more difficult.

Once they had turned sixteen she had left school to look after Alex full-time, gradually getting her back on her feet. It had been a struggle to go to night school to complete her education and then go on to do a degree—something Alex had never quite managed to achieve—but Ally felt she had done what needed to be done to provide for them both. Her job as a stock analyst for a European-based company director meant she could support them both financially during the periods her sister was out of work due to a relapse of her illness.

It had been almost three years since Ally had had to step in, which was why this episode was so upsetting as it seemed so out of the blue.

‘Ally?’

She turned around to look at him, suddenly struck by the concerned way he was looking at her, as if he genuinely cared about what had happened to her in the past. ‘I’m sorry…what did you ask me?’ she said.

‘I asked who looked after you after your mother died,’ he said, his dark brown eyes momentarily losing their glittering hardness. ‘Fourteen or even fifteen, particularly for a girl, is very young to be without an adult in her life. I have a niece who is close to that age. She adores her father, but I cannot imagine what she would do if she lost her mother. You had neither.’

Ally felt the burn of tears at the back of her eyes—tears she had forbidden herself from shedding for more than a decade. What was it about this man that affected her so? He was a playboy; he had admitted as much himself. He moved from one relationship to another like a child with a toy that no longer held any appeal. ‘I was fostered out,’ she said, lowering her eyes from his. ‘Thank God there are still good people out there who open their homes for children in difficulties.’

Vittorio wondered why Rocco hadn’t told him of his lover’s tragic background, or if he had even known of it himself. It made sense that she craved security, given her young life had been disrupted so devastatingly, although a part of him wondered if it was all an act. What better way to garner sympathy than to construct a history of neglect and misery? Few people could resist a hard luck story; it drew on most people’s heartstrings to think how tough others had it in life.

But there was something about the slim young woman before him that didn’t quite add up. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was just a feeling he had. She was guarded around him, watching him from beneath the lashes of her brilliant blue eyes as if she was just waiting to be caught out. Although just for a moment he’d thought he had seen a film of moisture in her eyes before she had turned away, and it made him wonder if there was far more to Ally Sharpe than he had accounted for. He decided it might be in his interests to do a little covert digging to find out more about her background. Who knew what he might turn up?

‘Do you need help to pack your things?’ he asked after a little pause.

She gave him another one of her guarded looks. ‘No…thank you. I haven’t much with me. It won’t take me more than a few minutes.’

Vittorio waited for her in the sitting room, his eyes sweeping
the surfaces for anything that would give him a clue to who Alex Sharpe was. But there was nothing. No photos of loved ones, no personal belongings, no indication of where she had come from or where she was going. He knew she was Australian, although her accent was not as broad as some he had heard.

As was Rocco’s way, he had only told Vittorio what he had wanted him to know of his relationship with Alex. Perhaps there was more to his brother-in-law’s affair than he was letting on? All Rocco had told him was that she had come from Sydney and had spent a year working in London as an assistant in a budget fashion chainstore before moving to Rome. Apart from that he knew very little else. He knew his brother-in-law would not have taken the time to get to know her as a person; he would have been attracted to her physical attributes as any red-blooded man would be.

For God’s sake, he was fiercely attracted to her himself! Being in the same room as her, smelling her feminine fragrance, seeing her cast her eyes downwards in that shy manner she had perfected to an art, had stirred his senses more than he would have thought possible. His blood had been boiling in his veins at standing so close to her just moments before. It had been unnervingly tempting to reach out and pull her into his arms and taste the sensual promise of her blood-red lips. He had never felt the urge to touch someone quite so intensely before. His relationships were always on his terms and his terms only. He started them and ended them as he saw fit. The thought of becoming involved with one of his brother-in-law’s cast-offs was anathema to him. Apart from Chiara, Rocco had appalling taste when it came to women.

Thinking of his younger sister made him all the more determined to do whatever it took to keep this scandal out of the papers. Chiara had always been a little blind to Rocco’s faults; she loved him so desperately she could not see how little he cared for her in return. They had only been married a year, and during that time Vittorio had been sickened to learn how many times Rocco had betrayed her. He just hoped that in time Chiara would feel strong enough to leave Rocco and build a better life for herself. But in the meantime there was not only his sister to worry about but the tiny baby she was carrying. If Alex Sharpe
gave a damning interview to the press as she had threatened, it would devastate his sister and possibly jeopardise the baby’s safe arrival.

He was
not
going to let that happen.

Ally carried two suitcases to the small sitting room, and had barely taken a step through the door when Vittorio strode over and took them both out of her hands. The brush of his long, strong fingers against hers sent her pulses suddenly soaring, the jolt of sexual energy from his body to hers something she was totally unprepared for. She snatched her hand away, her colour rising as she met his dark fathomless gaze.

‘Is this all you want to take?’ he asked.

She nodded, quickly lowering her eyes. ‘The flat is a fully furnished one. I don’t have much else but clothes.’
And the clothes and simple possessions of my sister in that second bag,
she thought, glancing at it nervously. It was starkly different from her conservative black one, with its simple green ribbon on the handle as an identifier. Alex’s was bright yellow, and covered with colourful travel stickers, but if Vittorio Vassallo had noticed any difference he showed no sign of it on his face.

‘My driver is waiting outside,’ he informed her after a small pause. ‘I would normally drive myself, but my car is in the workshop being resprayed.’

Ally followed him out of her sister’s apartment on leaden legs, her heart doing crazy back-flips in her chest at the thought of what she had agreed to on Alex’s behalf. When they were young they had often changed places, and usually very successfully. Not even their mother had been able to tell them apart at times. But somehow this was different.

It
felt
different.

It felt dangerous…

Vittorio exchanged a few words in Italian with his driver as he handed over the suitcases. Ally dearly wished she could understand what was being said, but from what she could make of the driver’s expression when he looked at her he evidently realised he was in
no position to argue with his employer over his choice of companion even if he wanted to. He clearly valued his job too much.