sly smile, bringing Zaccheo back to the room and the three aristocratic faces staring at him with varying degrees of disdain and fear.
He smiled, almost amused by the older man’s growing confidence. ‘Harry Fairfield is providing you with a bridging loan of fifteen million pounds because the combined running costs of the Pennington Hotels and The Spire have you stretched so thin the banks won’t touch you. While you desperately drum up an adequate advertising budget to rent out all those overpriced but empty floors in The Spire, the interest owed to the Chinese consortium who own seventy-five per cent of the building is escalating. You have a meeting with them on Monday to request more time to pay the interest. In return for Fairfield’s investment, you’re handing him your daughter.’
Eva glared at him. ‘So you’ve asked a few questions about Penningtons’ business practices. That doesn’t empower you to make demands of any of us.’
Zaccheo took a moment to admire her newfound grit. During their initial association, she’d been a little more timid, and in her father’s shadow, but it looked as if the kitten had grown a few claws. He curbed the thrill at what was to come and answered.
‘Yes, it does. Would you be interested to know the Chinese consortium sold their seventy-five per cent of The Spire to me three days ago? So by my calculation you’re in excess of three months late on interest payments, correct?’
A rough sound, a cross between a cough and a wheeze, escaped Pennington’s throat. There was no class or grace in the way he gaped at Zaccheo. He dropped back into his chair, his face a mask of hatred.
‘I knew you were a worthless bet the moment I set eyes on you. I should’ve listened to my instincts.’
The red haze he’d been trying to hold back surged higher. ‘No, what you wanted was a spineless scapegoat, a capro espiatorio, who would make you rich and fat and content and even give up his life without question!’
‘Mr Giordano, surely we can discuss this like sensible business-minded individuals,’ Sophie Pennington advanced, her hands outstretched in benign sensibility. Zaccheo looked from the hands she willed not to tremble to the veiled disdain in her eyes. Then he looked past her to Eva, who’d returned to her father’s side, her face pale but her eyes shooting her displeasure at him.
Unexpectedly and very much unwelcome, a tiny hint of compassion tugged at him.
Basta!
He turned abruptly and reached for the door handle. ‘You have until I ready my chopper for take-off to come to me, Eva.’ He didn’t need to expand on that edict. The or else hung in the air like the deadly poison he intended it to be.
He walked out and headed for the terrace, despite every nerve in his body straining to return to the room and forcibly drag Eva out.
True, he hadn’t bargained for the visceral reaction to seeing her again. And yes, he hadn’t quite been able to control his reaction to seeing another man’s ring on her finger, that vulgar symbol of ownership hollowing out his stomach. The knowledge that she’d most likely shared that hapless drunk’s bed, given the body he’d once believed to be his to another, ate through his blood like acid on metal. But he couldn’t afford to let his emotions show.
Every strategic move in this game of deadly retribution hinged on him maintaining his control; on not letting them see how affected he was by all this.
He stepped onto the terrace and all conversation ceased. Curious faces gaped and one or two bolder guests even tried to intercept him. Zaccheo cut through the crowd, his gaze on the chopper a few dozen yards away.
She would come to him. As an outcome of his first salvo, nothing else would be acceptable.
His pulse thudded loud and insistent in his ears as he strolled down the steps towards the aircraft. The fireworks amid which he’d landed had long since gone quiet, but the scent of sulphur lingered in the air, reminding him of the volatility that lingered beneath his own skin, ready to erupt at the smallest trigger.
He wouldn’t let it erupt. Not yet.
A murmur rose behind him, the fevered excitement that came with the anticipation of a spectacle. A scandal.
Zaccheo compelled himself to keep walking.
He ducked beneath the powerful rotors of his aircraft and reached for the door.
‘Wait!’
He stopped. Turned.
Three hundred pairs of eyes watched with unabashed interest as Eva paused several feet from him.
Behind her, her father and sister stood on the steps, wearing similar expressions of dread. Zaccheo wanted them to stew for a while longer, but he found his attention drawn to the woman striding towards him. Her face reflected more defiance than dread. It also held pride and not a small measure of bruised disdain. Zaccheo vowed in that moment to make her regret that latter look, make her take back every single moment she’d thought herself above him.
Swallowing, he looked down at her body.
She held the flimsy wrap around her like armour. As if that would protect her from him. With one ruthless tug, he pulled it away. It fluttered to the ground, revealing her luscious, heart-stopping figure to his gaze. Unable to stem the frantic need crashing through him, he stepped forward and speared his fingers into the wild tumble of her hair.
Another step and she was in his arms.
Where she belonged.
* * *
The small pocket of air Eva had been able to retain in her lungs during her desperate flight after Zaccheo evaporated when he yanked her against him. Her body went from shivering in the crisp January air to furnace-hot within seconds. The fingers in her hair tightened, his other arm sliding around her waist.
Eva wanted to remain unaffected, slam her hands against his chest and remove herself from that dangerous wall of masculinity. But she couldn’t move. So she fought with her words.
‘You may think you’ve won, that you own me, but you don’t,’ she snapped. ‘You never will!’
His eyes gleamed. ‘Such fire. Such determination. You’ve changed, cara mia, I’ll give you that. And yet here you are, barely one minute after I walked out of your father’s study. Mere hours after you promised yourself to another man, here you are, Eva Pennington, ready to promise yourself to me. Ready to become whatever I want you to be.’
Her snigger made his eyes narrow, but she didn’t care. ‘Keep telling yourself that. I look forward to your shock when I prove you wrong.’
That deadly smile she’d first seen in her father’s study reappeared, curling fear through her. It reeked with far too much gratification to kill that unshakeable sensation that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, and that, should she fall, there would be no saving her.
She realised the reason for the smile when he lifted her now bare fingers to his eye level. ‘You’ve proved me right already.’
‘Are you completely sure about that?’ The question was a bold but empty taunt.
The lack of fuss with which Harry had taken back his ring a few minutes ago had been a relief.
She might not have an immediate solution to her family’s problems, but Eva was glad she no longer had to pretend she was half of a sham couple.
Zaccheo brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed her ring finger, stunning her back to reality. Flashes erupted as his actions were recorded, no doubt to be streamed across the fastest mediums available.
Recalling the conversation she’d just had with her father, she tried to pull away. ‘This pound-of-flesh taking isn’t going to last very long, so I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts. I intend to return to my life before midnight—’
Her words dried up when his face closed in a mask of icy fury, and his hands sealed her body even closer to his.
‘Your