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