Annie West - An Enticing Debt to Pay

He frowned. Why notice that when he had more important matters on his mind?

‘Looking for Madam Ruggiero. Silvia Ruggiero.’ It surprised him how difficult it was to drag his gaze away and back to the apartment’s inner rooms.

‘You don’t have an appointment.’ There was something new in her voice. Something hard and flat.

‘No.’ His mouth curled in a smile of grim anticipation. ‘But she’ll see me.’

The young woman strode back into his line of sight, blocking his way to the salon. Jonas catalogued the lithe grace of her movements even as he told himself he didn’t have time for distractions.

She shook her head. ‘You’re the last person she’d see.’

‘You know who I am?’ His gaze sharpened as he took in her defiant stance—arms akimbo and feet planted wide, as if she could prevent him if he chose to push past! She was tall, her mouth on a level with his collarbone, and she stared up at him with complete assurance.

‘It took me a moment but of course I do.’ A flicker of expression crossed her features so swiftly Jonas couldn’t read it. But he watched her swallow and realised she wasn’t as confident as she appeared. Interesting.

‘And you are?’ Jonas was used to being recognised from press reports, but instinct told him he’d met this woman before. Something about her tugged at half-buried memory.

‘Forgettable, obviously.’ Her lips twisted in a self-deprecating smile that ridiculously drove a spike of heat through his belly.

Jonas blinked. She wasn’t smiling at him yet he reacted.

Annoyance flared. He drew himself up, watching her gaze skate across his shoulders and chest.

‘She’s not here.’ The words tumbled out in a breathless rush that belied her aggressively protective stance. ‘So you can’t see her.’

‘Then I’ll wait.’ Jonas stepped forward, only to come up against her slim frame, vibrating with tension. He’d expected her to give way. She surprised him with her determination to stand her ground. But he refused to retreat, no matter how distracting the sensation of her body against his. His business with Silvia Ruggiero was long overdue.

He looked down and her golden brown eyes widened as if in shock.

‘I’m not going away,’ he murmured, suppressing an inexplicable desire to lift his hand and see if her pale face was as soft as it appeared. The realisation threw him, making his voice emerge harshly. ‘My business won’t wait.’

Again she swallowed. He followed the movement of her slim throat with a fascination that surprised him. The scent of her skin filled his nostrils: feminine warmth and the tang of cinnamon.

Abruptly she stepped back, her chest rising and falling quickly, drawing his attention till he snapped his eyes back to her face.

‘In that case you can talk with me.’ She turned and led the way into the salon, her steps a clipped, staccato beat on the honey-coloured wood floor.

Jonas dragged his gaze from the sway of her hips in dark trousers and followed, furious to find himself distracted from his purpose even for a moment.

She settled herself on an overstuffed chair near a window framed by cloth of gold curtains. Hoping to put him at a disadvantage with her back to the light? It was such an obvious ploy. Instead of taking a seat Jonas prowled the room, knowing that with each passing moment her unease increased. Whoever she was, she was in cahoots with Silvia Ruggiero. Jonas wouldn’t trust her an inch.

‘Why should I share my business with a stranger?’ He peered at an over-decorated ormolu clock.

Was there nothing in this place that wasn’t overdone? It reeked of a nouveau riche fixation with show and quantity rather than quality. His cursory survey had revealed the best pieces in the room to be fakes. But that had been his father—all show and no substance. Especially when it came to things like love or loyalty.

‘I’m not a stranger.’ Her tone was curt. ‘Perhaps if you stopped your crude inventory you’d realise that.’

To Jonas’ surprise unfamiliar heat rose under his skin. True, his behaviour was crass, calculated to unnerve rather than reassure. But he felt no need to ingratiate himself with his father’s mistress or her crony.

He took his time swinging around to meet her eyes.

‘Then perhaps you’ll do me the courtesy of answering my question. Who are you?’

‘I thought that would be obvious. I’m Ravenna. Silvia’s daughter.’

* * *

Ravenna watched shock freeze Jonas’ features.

You’d think after all these years she’d be used to it, but still it struck her a blow.

She’d been a gawky child, all long limbs and feet and a nose it had taken years to grow into. With her dark, Italian looks, exotic name and husky voice she’d been the odd one out in her English country schools. When people saw her with her petite, ravishingly beautiful mother, the kindest comments had been about her being ‘different’ or ‘striking’. The unkindest, at the boarding school her mother had scrimped to send her to—well, she’d put that behind her years ago.

But she’d thought Jonas would remember her, even if she’d worn braces and plaits last time they’d met.

True it had taken her a few moments to recognise him. To reconcile the grim, abrasive intruder in the exquisitely tailored clothes with the young man who’d treated her so kindly the day he’d found her curled in misery behind the stables. He’d been softer then, more understanding. To her dazed teenage eyes he’d shone like a demigod, powerful, reassuring and sexy in the unattainable way of movie stars.

Who’d have thought someone with such charm could turn into a louse?

Only the sex appeal was unchanged.

She looked again into those narrowed pewter-grey eyes that surveyed her so closely.

No, that had changed too. The softness of youth had been pared from Jonas Deveson’s features, leaving them austerely sculpted and attractively spare, the product of generations of aristocratic breeding. He wasn’t a chinless wonder of pampered privilege but the sort of hard-edged, born-to-authority man you could imagine defending Deveson Hall astride a warhorse, armed with sword and mace.

From his superbly arrogant nose to his strong chin, from his thick, dark hair to his wide shoulders and deep chest, Jonas was the sort to make females lose their heads.

How could she find him attractive when he oozed disapproval? When his barely veiled aggression had kept her on tenterhooks from the moment he stalked in the door?

But logic had little to do with the frisson of awareness skimming Ravenna’s skin and swirling in her abdomen.

Steadily she returned his searching look. No matter how handsome he was, or how used to command, she wasn’t about to fall in with his assumption of authority.

‘What’s your business with my mother?’ Ravenna sat back, crossing one leg over the other and placing her hands on the arms of the chair as if totally relaxed.

He flicked a look from her legs to her face and she felt a prick of satisfaction that she’d surprised him. Did he expect her to bow and scrape in his presence? The thought shored up her anger.

‘When will she be back?’ No mistaking the banked fury in those flashing eyes. For all his outward show of calm his patience was on a short leash.

‘If you can’t answer politely, you might as well leave.’ Ravenna shot to her feet. She had enough on her plate without dealing with Piers’ privileged son. Just confronting him sapped her already low stamina. The last thing she needed was for him to guess how weak she felt. He’d just railroad her into doing his bidding—he had that look about him.

She was halfway to the door when his words stopped her.

‘My business with your mother is private.’