CHAPTER THREE
‘MR RAVELLI IS in the drawing room,’ Rafe informed her.
Breathing in deeply and slowly to maintain her calm front, Belle walked into the over-furnished room where the ornate drapes and blinds cut out much of the daylight. Cristo swung round to study her and instantly her every sense went on high alert, her backbone stiffening, her slim legs bracing, her soft pink lips parting as she dragged in a sudden extra shot of oxygen.
Cristo scanned her appearance, his nostrils flaring with sudden impatience. She was dressed in a frumpy skirt and cardigan that a maiden aunt might have worn and she had inexplicably teamed that look with the kind of bold make-up a streetwalker might have flaunted like a signpost. And he realised then that there was something he wasn’t seeing, something he wasn’t grasping about this woman, because so far her long-term affair with his father wasn’t adding up at all. Whatever else might have been said about Gaetano, he had been a connoisseur of women and a sophisticate and there was no way his father had returned again and again to Ireland in order to take advantage of the charms of the woman currently standing in front of him.
‘Mr Ravelli...’ she said breathily and she turned her head away to glance out of the window, her hair a sunburst of colour, her fine profile delineated against the light, soft, glossy mouth full and pouting peach pink, long lashes fluttering up on big eyes as green and verdant as Irish grass.
And Cristo ground his perfect white teeth together on the smoulderingly sexual pull of her in that instant, recognising that she had buckets of that inexpressible quality that reduced the male mind to mush and turned a man on hard and fast. For a split second, he wanted to snatch her up into his arms and crush every line of the remarkable body concealed by the unattractive clothing to his own while he discovered if that voluptuous mouth of hers tasted as impossibly good as it looked. His hands closed into fists of restraint while he fought off the erection threatening, struggling to think of something, anything, that would take his thoughts off her mouth and her breasts and her legs and, even worse, what lay between them. That she could be affecting him on such a level outraged his every principle.
Trying to avoid direct contact with those spectacular dark-as-night eyes of his, Belle could feel her colour heightening, awareness of him leaping and pounding through her in an uncontrollable surge. She stared at him, breathless, frozen like someone cornered by a wild animal, and all the time she was noticing things about him: the way his sleek ebony brows defined his eyes, the way the faint line of colour accentuated the hard masculine angle of his high cheekbones, the way the pared-down hollows below enhanced his wide, sensual mouth. Very, very good-looking but, yes, she had noticed that before, certainly didn’t need to keep on noticing it. The atmosphere thickened and the silence screamed at her nerves as every muscle in her body tightened defensively. It was as if there were nobody else in the world but them and what she was feeling: the insidious warmth blossoming in her pelvis, the sudden tightening discomfort of her nipples.
Lean, strong face rigid, Cristo expelled his breath in a sudden hiss and took a measured step back from her and away from such treacherous ruminations as to what she might taste like, what her skin would feel and smell like. He was appalled that she could drag such a strong physical reaction from him against his will, but even more annoyed that she could somehow cloud his usual crystal-clear clarity of thought.
‘Miss Brophy.’
‘It’s Mrs actually.’
Cristo frowned. ‘You’re married?’
‘I’ve been a widow for many years,’ Belle replied tightly, straying over to the window, partially turning her back to him while she fought to regain her mental focus. The deception she had entered on demanded her whole concentration. She was Mary Brophy, Gaetano’s former mistress and the mother of five of his children, she reminded herself doggedly.
‘I invited you here today to discuss your future and your children’s,’ Cristo delivered smoothly.
Lifted by that solid assurance, Belle’s spirits perked up. ‘Yes...Gaetano has left us in a pretty awkward position.’
‘Naturally, you’re referring to your financial situation. My father was most remiss in not making provision for you in the event of his death.’
‘Yes...but he did sign the house over to me,’ Belle pointed out, keen to sound like a loyal woman in Gaetano’s defence because she could not afford to let an ounce of her loathing for the man betray her true identity in his son’s presence.
Cristo went very still, allowing her to take in the faultless cut of the dark business suit he wore teamed with a bland white shirt and blue silk tie. His brows drew together in a frown. ‘Which house?’
‘The Lodge...he signed it over to me years ago to ensure that we would always have a home.’ Belle’s voice faltered slightly because he seemed so taken aback by the news, yet surely he should’ve known that already as the executor of the estate. ‘But bearing in mind the running costs and the children’s current needs I’ll probably be selling it now.’
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Cristo urged, striding out of the room into the one next door and pulling out his phone to call his father’s lawyer, Robert Ludlow. If she owned part of the property, he should’ve been informed of the fact.
Robert’s initial disconcertion over Cristo’s query trailed away as he trawled through Gaetano’s files and then emerged with the facts of a minor legal agreement drawn up about fifteen years earlier, which Robert’s elder brother had apparently handled shortly before his retirement. Robert was volubly apologetic for the oversight. Brought up to date, Cristo was triumphantly aware that he knew something Mary Brophy did not appear to know. Under no circumstances would she be selling the Lodge.
Conscious that Cristo Ravelli clearly had not known about the ownership of the Lodge, Belle paced and wondered anxiously why he had not been aware of the fact. She was trying not to recall the fact that the solicitor who had dealt with her mother’s estate had found no paperwork confirming the older woman’s ownership. He had brushed off the matter and said he would look into it, and at the time Belle had had so many other things on her plate that she hadn’t pursued it.
Cristo strolled back into the drawing room with the lithe, unconscious grace of a male who was confident that he was in the strongest position. ‘I’m afraid you don’t own the Lodge,’ he spelt out softly, his Italian accent edging his vowel sounds.
‘That’s not possible,’ Belle countered, her chin rising in challenge. ‘Your father told me it was mine—’
‘But for your lifetime only, after which it reverts back to the Mayhill estate,’ Cristo qualified smoothly.
Suddenly Belle felt as if the ground below her feet had opened to swallow her up. ‘That’s not what Gaetano led me to believe.’
‘My father had a way with words and may have wished you to believe that you owned the Lodge but, in fact, you only have the use of it.’
A shot of rage flamed through Belle like a lightning strike. That hateful, manipulative man whom her wretched mother had loved! How could he have misled her like that over something so important? Hot colour sprang into her cheeks as she parted her dry lips. ‘And this right to live there while...er I am alive, does it devolve to the children after my...er death?’ she prompted sickly.
‘I’m afraid not.’ Cristo Ravelli gave her a specious smile of sympathy, which wouldn’t have fooled her in any mood, least of all the one she was in. ‘But to all intents and purposes, the Lodge does belong to you for the present. You can’t, of course, sell it, use it as security for a loan or indeed make any extensive alterations to it, but you do have the right to live there for as long as you wish.’
Belle had lost every scrap of her angry colour by the time he had finished speaking. It was appalling news, the very worst she could have heard. Her mother was dead and the right to live in the Lodge had died with her, which meant that Belle and her siblings were illegally occupying the house. Indeed, her pretence that she was her mother could be seen by some people as an attempt to defraud. She had taken their ability to live at the Lodge for granted, she registered, stricken. Now she was being punished for it because, in reality, they were about to be made homeless.
‘My father was very...astute with regard to money and property,’ Cristo murmured softly, watching her standing there, white with shock below the garish make-up, eyes wide and stunned by what he had revealed. ‘But I’m willing to find you another property and put it into your name.’
With difficulty, Belle struggled to concentrate. ‘And why would you be willing to do that?’
‘It will be easier to sell this estate without what would be...in effect...a sitting tenant in the Lodge,’ Cristo admitted.
‘That...’ Belle made a valiant attempt to swallow the massive surge of fury heating her to boiling point and utterly failed to hold it in. ‘That...bastard! How could he do that to his own children?’ she gasped.
‘My father wasn’t a sentimental man,’ Cristo said drily. ‘And he has left a mess in his wake. I have a proposition to put to you which could solve all your problems...’
Belle was rigid, furious that she had cursed Gaetano to Cristo’s face but unable to overcome the bitter resentment threatening to consume her like a living flame. He was so calm, so assured, so very much in control that she hated him with every fibre in her straining body.
Cristo watched her snatch in another audible breath, eyes green as emeralds in sunlight and literally alight with fury. She was highly volatile, a woman with strong emotions she couldn’t hide and everything he had always avoided in her sex. But she looked magnificent and the seductive shimmy of her lush rounded breasts below the silky blouse every time she moved was incredibly attention-grabbing.
‘Pro-proposition?’ Belle framed shakily, fighting like mad to maintain control over her temper. So, she’d had bad news and she was going to have to deal with it. She stared stonily back at Cristo, clashing with stunning dark eyes nailed to her with unsettling intensity. In the rushing silence that had fallen, her throat closed over and her mouth ran dry.
‘I want to ask you to consider the idea of having your children adopted,’ Cristo suggested quietly. ‘It would surely be best for them to leave their troubled and questionable parentage behind them and have the opportunity to live a normal life.’
‘I can’t believe you just said that to my face,’ Belle confided between gritted teeth of restraint.
‘I would make the sacrifice very well worth your while,’ Cristo continued evenly as if what he was suggesting were perfectly normal and acceptable. ‘My father should have ensured that you have a home and an income but since he hasn’t done it, I will take care of it instead.’
‘No decent mother would surrender her children for financial gain,’ Belle declared in a raw undertone while shooting him a look of scorn that he could even suggest otherwise. ‘What sort of women are you used to dealing with?’
‘That’s not your affair. I am not my father and I have no children,’ Cristo replied with cold dignity.
‘And don’t deserve any either!’ Belle lashed back at him. ‘For goodness’ sake, those children you’re talking about are your own brothers and sisters!’
‘I do not, and will not, acknowledge them as such,’ Cristo retorted with icy hauteur.
‘Why? Aren’t they good enough to be Ravellis?’ Belle shot back at him resentfully. ‘The housekeeper’s kids...not very posh, is it? Not quite the right background, am I right? Well, let me tell you something—’
‘No. I don’t want you to tell me anything while your temper is out of control,’ Cristo cut in with the cutting edge of an icy scalpel.
‘And you pride yourself on being an iceberg, don’t you?’ Belle launched back fearlessly, her generous mouth curling with contempt. ‘Well, I’m not ashamed to be an emotional person and ready to do what’s right no matter how unwelcome or difficult it is!’
‘Does your ranting ever get you to the point?’ Cristo enquired witheringly.
Belle’s slender hands coiled into tight fists. She had never wanted to hit another living person before and she was shocked by the fact that she would very much have liked to slap him. How dared he stand there looking down on her and her siblings as if they were so much lesser than him? How dared he suggest that her brothers and sisters be torn away from the people they loved and settled in another home with adoptive parents? Couldn’t he appreciate that the children were living, breathing people with emotions and attachments and a desperate need for security after the losses they had already sustained? And couldn’t he accept that while Mary Brophy might have had her flaws when it came to picking reliable men, she had also been a wonderful loving mother every day of Belle and her siblings’ lives?
‘The point is...’ Belle breathed in a voice that literally shook with the force of her feelings. ‘My mother may only have been a housekeeper and she may have been your father’s mistress for years, but she was also a very special, kind and caring person and, having lost her, her children deserve the very best that I can give them.’
‘Your...mother?’ Cristo repeated flatly. ‘Mary Brophy was your mother?’
And Belle froze there, her skin slowly turning cold and clammy with shock as she realised what she had revealed in her passionate attempt to bring Cristo round to her point of view. For a moment, she had totally forgotten that she was pretending to be her mother in her desperate need to defend the older woman’s memory.
‘So, if you’re not Mary Brophy...where is she? And who are you?’ Cristo framed doggedly, incensed that she had dared to try and fool him.
‘I’m Belle Brophy. My mother died about a month after your father. She had a heart attack,’ Belle admitted with pained green eyes, accepting that she could no longer continue the pretence and that her own unruly temper had betrayed her when she could least afford for it to do so. Unfortunately Cristo Ravelli’s unfeeling detachment and innate air of command and superiority were like vinegar poured on an already raw wound.
‘You had no intention of telling me that your mother was dead... You lied to keep the Lodge,’ Cristo condemned without hesitation.
Dismay assailed Belle at how quickly he had leapt to that unsavoury conclusion and had assumed she had had a criminal motivation for her masquerade. ‘It was nothing to do with the Lodge. Until I came here today I believed my mother owned it and that as her children it became ours after her death,’ she reminded him. ‘But I didn’t think you’d listen to what I want for the children if you knew I was only their sister and not their mother.’
Cristo had a very low tolerance threshold for people who lied to him and tried to deceive him. He was remembering the long-legged redhead crossing the lawn the evening before and guessing that that had been Belle Brophy all along. Outrage swept through his big powerful body, sparking his rarely roused temper. Anger fired his dark eyes gold and he took a sudden livid step towards her. ‘You pretended to be your mother... Are you crazy? Or simply downright stupid?’
Her heart suddenly thumping very fast at the dark masculine fury etched in his lean, strong face, Belle sidestepped him and raced for the door. She never hung around long when a man got mad in her vicinity; her childhood had taught her that rage often tumbled over the edge into physical violence.
Cristo closed a hand round her slender forearm as she opened the door. ‘You’re not going anywhere yet.’
‘Let go of my arm!’ Belle slung up at him furiously, feeling intimidated by the sheer size of him standing that close. ‘I made a mistake but that doesn’t give you the right to manhandle me!’
‘I’m not manhandling you!’ Cristo riposted in disgust. ‘But you do owe me an explanation for your peculiar behaviour!’
Her green eyes flared with anger and she yanked her arm violently free of his hold. ‘You’re a Ravelli! The day I owe you anything there’ll be two blue moons in the sky!’
For a split second, Cristo watched her stalk across the hall, stiletto heels tap-tapping, slender spine rigid, red corkscrew curls beginning to untidily descend from her inexpertly arranged chignon. ‘Come back here!’ he roared at her, out of all patience.
Belle spun round angrily, watching him move towards her, and then she spun out a hand and grabbed up a heavy vase from the table beside her and brandished it like a weapon. ‘Don’t you dare come any closer!’ she warned him.
‘Is it normal for you to act like a madwoman?’ Cristo asked softly, mastering his fury and his exasperation with the greatest of difficulty.
‘I’m going to take you to court, force you to recognise the children!’ Belle spat back at him in passionate challenge. ‘They have legal rights to a share of your father’s estate and you can’t prevent them from receiving it. And I am not a madwoman.’
An inner chill gripped Cristo at the threat of a court case in which every piece of Gaetano’s dirty linen would be aired with the media standing by happy to scoop up and publicise every sordid detail. ‘Calm down,’ he advised tersely. ‘And we’ll talk.’
‘I don’t trust you!’ Belle hurled back. ‘Let me leave or I’ll throw this at you!’
An instant later, Cristo could not comprehend that he had walked forward in the face of that warning instead of just letting her go, particularly when it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to get a sane word out of her until she had calmed down.
Belle flung the vase at him and fled, cringing from the sound of breaking porcelain hitting the tiled floor as she hauled open the front door and raced down the front steps.
‘Technically that was an attempt to assault you,’ his bodyguard, Rafe, remarked from the stairs as Cristo brushed flakes of porcelain from his suit, his handsome mouth compressed and lean, dark face a grim mask.
‘She couldn’t hit a barn door at ten paces. Next time, I won’t jump out of the way,’ Cristo breathed from the steps as he watched her stalk down the driveway, her head held high like an offended queen. She was mad, completely and utterly mad, nutty as a fruitcake. How was he supposed to negotiate with a woman like that? But he had to deal with her or face a very public and embarrassing court case.
‘There’ll be a next time?’ Rafe could not help responding in surprise.
Cristo’s smile was as cold and threatening as a hungry polar bear’s. ‘Oh, there’ll be a next time all right.’