Annie West - A Night In His Arms

‘But that’s—’

‘In the past?’ His lip curled in a travesty of a smile. ‘Yet it’s a truth I live with every day.’ His eyes glowed, luminous with emotions she’d once thought him too cold to feel. His voice deepened to a low, bone-melting hum. ‘Nothing will ever take away the fact that you killed my brother.’

CHAPTER TWO

LUCY KNIGHT SHOOK her head emphatically and for one crazy moment Domenico found himself mourning the fact that her blonde tresses no longer swirled round her shoulders. Why had she cut her hair so brutally short?

After five years he remembered how that curtain of silk had enticed him!

Impossible. It wasn’t disappointment he felt.

He’d spent long days in court focused on the woman who’d stolen Sandro’s life. He’d smothered grief, the urgent need for revenge and bone-deep disappointment that he’d got her so wrong. Domenico had forced himself to observe her every fleeting expression, every nuance. He’d imprinted her image in his mind.

Learning his enemy.

It wasn’t attraction he’d felt then for the gold-digger who’d sought to play both the Volpe brothers. It had been clear-headed acknowledgement of her beauty and calculation of whether her little girl lost impression might prejudice the prosecution case.

‘No. I was convicted of killing him. There’s a difference.’

Domenico stared into her blazing eyes, alight with a passion that arrested logic. Then her words sank in, exploding into his consciousness like a grenade. His belly tightened as outrage flared.

He should have expected it. Yet to hear her voice the lie strained even his steely control.

‘You’re still asserting your innocence?’

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. Was she going to blast him with a volley of abuse as she had Rocco?

‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.’

She held his gaze with a blatant challenge that made his hackles rise.

How dare she sit in the comfort of his car, talking about his brother’s death, and deny all the evidence against her? Deny the testimony of Sandro’s family and staff and the fair judgement of the court?

Bile surged in Domenico’s throat. The gall of this woman!

‘So you keep up the pretence. Why bother lying now?’ His words rang with the condemnation he could no longer hide.

Meeting her outraged his sense of justice and sliced across his own inclinations. Only family duty compelled him to be here, conversing with his brother’s killer. It revolted every one of his senses.

‘This is no pretence, Signor Volpe. It’s the truth.’

She leaned closer and he caught the scent of soap and warm female skin. His nostrils quivered, cataloguing a perfume that was more viscerally seductive than the lush designer scents of the women in his world.

‘I did not kill your brother.’

She was some actress. Not even by a flicker did she betray her show of innocence.

That, above all, ignited his wrath. That she should continue this charade even now. Her dishonesty must run bone deep.

Or was she scared if she confessed he’d take justice into his own hands?

Domenico imagined his hands closing around that slim, pale throat, forcing her proud head back...but no. Rough justice held no appeal.

He wouldn’t break the Volpe code of honour, even when provoked by this shameless liar.

‘Now who’s playing semantics? Sandro was off balance when you shoved him against the fireplace.’ The words bit out from between clamped teeth. ‘The knock to his head as he fell killed him.’ Domenico drew in a slow breath, clawing back control. The men of his family did not give in to emotion. It was unthinkable he’d reveal to this woman the grief still haunting him.

‘You were responsible. If he’d never met you he’d be alive today.’

Her face tightened and she swallowed. Remarkably he saw a flicker of something that might have been pain in her eyes.

Guilt? Regret for what she’d done?

An instant later that hint of vulnerability vanished.

Had he imagined it? Had his imagination supplied what he’d waited so long to see? Remorse over Sandro’s death?

He catalogued the woman beside him. Rigid back, angled chin, hands folded neatly yet gripping too hard. Her eyes were different, he realised. After that first shocked expression of horror, now they were guarded.

The difference from the supposed innocent he’d met all those years ago was astounding. She’d certainly given up playing the ingénue.

She looked brittle. He sensed she directed all her energy into projecting that façade of calm.

Domenico knew it was a façade. Years of experience in the cutthroat world of business had made him an expert in body language. There was no mistaking the tension drawing her muscles tight or the short, choppy breaths she couldn’t quite hide.

How much would it take to smash through to the real Lucy Knight? What would it take to make her crack?

‘If you admitted the truth you’d find the future easier.’

‘Why?’ She tilted her head like a bright-eyed bird. ‘Because confession is good for the soul?’

‘So the experts say.’

He shifted into a more comfortable position as he awaited her response. Not by a flicker did he reveal how important this was to him.

Why, he didn’t know. She’d already been proven guilty in a fair trial. Her guilt had been proclaimed to the world. But seeing her so defiant, Domenico faced an unpalatable truth. He realised with a certainty that ran deep as the blood he’d shared with his brother that this would never be over till Lucy Knight confessed.

Closure, truth, satisfaction, call it what you would. Only she could lay this to rest.

He hated her for the power that gave her.

‘You think I’ll be swayed by your attempts at psychology?’ Her mouth curled in a hard little smile he’d never seen in all those weeks of the trial. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Signor Volpe. If the experts couldn’t extract a confession, you really think you will?’

‘Experts?’

‘Of course. You didn’t think I was living in splendid isolation all this time, did you?’ Her words sounded bitter but her expression remained unchanged. ‘There’s a whole industry around rehabilitating offenders. Didn’t you know? Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists.’ She turned and looked out of the window, her profile serene.

Domenico fought the impulse to shake the truth from her.

‘Did you know they assessed me to find out if I was insane?’ She swung her head back around. Her face was blank but for the searing fire in her eyes. ‘In case I wasn’t fit to stand trial.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I was lucky. I can’t recommend jail as a positive experience but I suspect an asylum for the criminally insane is worse. Just.’

Something passed between them. Some awareness, some connection, like a vibration in the taut air. Something that for a moment drew them together. It left Domenico unsettled.

Any connection with Lucy Knight was a betrayal of Sandro.

Anger snarled in his veins. ‘You’re alive to complain about your treatment. You didn’t give my brother that option, did you? What you did was irrevocable.’

‘And unpardonable. Is that why you spirited me away from the press? So you can berate me in private?’

She lounged back in her corner and made a production of crossing her legs as if to reinforce her total lack of concern. Even in her drab navy skirt and jacket there was no hiding the fact she had stunning legs. He was honest enough to admit it was one of the things that had drawn him the day they met. That and her shy smile. No wonder she’d always worn a skirt in court, trying to attract the male sympathy vote.

It hadn’t worked then and it didn’t work now.