'I have to marry, yes,' he agreed softly. 'But nowhere
does it say that I have to marry you. You have
obviously not read my grandmother’s will thoroughly.'
Her face blanched, her narrowed eyes betraying her
confusion and distrust.
'What do you mean? Of course I have read it. I
dictated it! I—'
'I repeat, you did not read the will my grandmother
signed thoroughly enough,' Lorenzo told her. 'You
see, it stipulates only that I must marry within six
weeks of her death if I want to inherit the Castillo
from her. It does not specify who I should marry.'
Caterina stared at him, unable to conceal her anger.
It stripped from her the good looks which had in her
youth made her a sought-after model, and left in their
place the ugliness of her true nature.
'No, that cannot be true. You have altered it,
changed it — you and that sneering notary. You
have— Where does it say? Let me see!'
She virtually flung herself at him and Lorenzo retrieved
the will he had thrown down onto the table
earlier. Seizing it, she read it, her face white with
rage.
'You have changed it. Somehow you have— She
wanted you to marry me!' She was almost hysterical
with fury.
'No.' Lorenzo shook his head, his face impassive
as he watched her. 'Nonna wanted to give me what
she believed I wanted. And that, most assuredly, is
not you.'
As Lorenzo stood beneath the flickering light of the
old-fashioned flambeaux, the small abrupt movement
of his head was reflected and repeated in the shadows
from the flames.
The Castillo had been designed as a fortress rather
than a home, long before the Montesavro Dukes of
the Renaissance had captured it from their foes and
then clothed and softened its sheer stone walls with
the artistic richness of their age. It still possessed an
aura of forbidding and forbidden darkness.
Like Lorenzo himself.
Dark shadows carved hollows beneath the sculptured
bone structure he had inherited from the warrior
prince who had been the first of their line, and his
height and the breadth of his shoulders emphasised
the predatory sleekness of his body. His mouth was
thin-lipped—'cruel', women liked to call it, as they
begged for its hardness against their own and tried to
soften it into hunger for them. It was his eyes, though,
that were his most arresting feature. Curiously light
for an Italian, they were more silver than grey, and
piercingly determined to strip away his enemies' defences.
His well-groomed hair was thick and dark, his
suit hand-made and expensive. But then, he did not
need to depend on any inheritance from his late maternal
grandmother to make him a wealthy man. He
was already that in his own right.
There were those who said, foolishly and theatrically,
that for a man to accumulate so much money
there had to be some trickery involved — some sleight
of hand or hidden use of certain dark powers. But
Lorenzo had no time for such stupidity. He had made
his money simply by using his intelligence, by making
the right investments at the right time, and thus
building the respectable sum he had been left by his
parents into a fortune that ran into many, many millions.
Unlike his late cousin, Gino, who had allowed his
greedy wife to ruin him financially. His greedy widow
now, Lorenzo reminded himself savagely. Not that
Caterina had ever behaved like a widow, or indeed
like a wife.
Poor Gino, who had loved her so much. Lorenzo
lifted his hand to his forehead. It felt damp with perspiration.
Caused by guilt? It had after all been by
claiming friendship with him that Caterina had first
brought herself to Gino’s attention.
Lorenzo had been eighteen to Caterina’s twenty-
two when he had first met her, and was easily seduced
by her determination. It hadn’t taken him long,
though, to recognise her for the adventuress that she
was. No longer, in fact, than her first hint to him that
she expected him to repay her sexual favours with
expensive gifts. As a result of that, he had ended his
brief fling with her immediately.
He had been at university when she had inveigled
herself into his kinder cousin Gino’s heart and life,
and the next time he had seen her Caterina had been
wearing Gino’s engagement ring whilst his cousin
wore a besotted expression of adoration. He had tried
to warn his cousin then, of just what she was, but
Gino had been in too deeply ever to listen, and had
even accused him of jealousy. For the first time that
Lorenzo could remember they had quarrelled, with
Gino accusing Lorenzo of wanting Caterina for himself,
and she had cleverly played on that to keep them
apart until after her and Gino’s marriage.
Later, Lorenzo and his cousin had been reconciled,
but Gino had never stopped worshipping his wife,
even though she had been blatantly unfaithful to him
