working for my mother!’
‘My goodness but you’re prejudiced,’ Topsy declared, her own temper rising. ‘Astonishingly prejudiced and narrow-minded for a man in possession of three mistresses! I would’ve assumed that a live and let live mentality would be more appropriate in your circumstances.’
Dante froze where he stood, eyes widening slightly and then veiling below thick black lashes. Dark blood outlined his hard cheekbones while his firm mouth compressed into an unsmiling line. ‘Where did you get that information from?’
Topsy flushed and made no reply. He hadn’t denied it anyway. Maybe she shouldn’t have thrown it but she had wanted to level the playing field. Why should she stand there being force fed his ethical objections when he himself was leading a far from moral life? ‘You’re a complete hypocrite,’ she condemned.
‘Mikhail Kusnirovich. He told you,’ Dante guessed, struggling for the first time in many years to get a hold on what felt like an ungovernable rage. Dante never ever allowed himself to be out of control.
‘If you’ve found out that I was meeting Mikhail in Florence, you’ve been spying on me,’ Topsy gathered, fierce resentment lancing through her soft brown eyes and hardening them. ‘What gives you the right to invade my private life?’
‘I have the right to protect my mother from a woman likely to cause her distress and embarrassment. And a woman who has worked as an escort and who responds to booty calls from Mikhail Kusnirovich is not an acceptable employee on my terms!’
So inflamed with anger that she was on automatic pilot, Topsy stalked forward and lifted her arm. ‘Don’t you dare call me a whore or malign Mikhail!’ she snapped back at him furiously.
A hand like an iron vice clamped round her wrist to prevent her from delivering the slap she intended. ‘Keep your hands to yourself,’ Dante growled soft and low before dropping her fingers again in a gesture of scorn.
The vibration of his accented drawl seemed to hit a sensitive spot somewhere deep down inside Topsy and she quivered in treacherous response, eyes flying wide to connect with his as sensual shock engulfed her. Something about the way he looked at her called up a deep driven response within her. Regardless of how she felt about it, her wretched body was awakening and suddenly awash with sensations she would have done anything to deny. Her breasts were swelling, the heat of awareness surging to her feminine core. An intoxicating mix of shame and mortification gripped her that she could still be so susceptible to him. ‘That wasn’t what you were saying last night!’ she launched back at him accusingly.
‘Last night I didn’t know that I was dealing with a practised little tart,’ Dante fielded grimly.
‘Whatever turns you on,’ Topsy quipped unevenly, tensing at the straining tightness of her nipples and the warm feeling of sensitivity pulsing like a taunt between her thighs. The atmosphere in the room was as thick and suffocating as the quiet before a thunder storm. ‘And although it is absolutely none of your business, I was not acting like a whore with Mikhail. I know his wife and his children well—I was having lunch with him and catching up on news.’
Dante dealt her an unimpressed appraisal. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Topsy moved towards the door. ‘That’s your prerogative.’
‘You’re not leaving...I haven’t finished with you yet,’ Dante objected vehemently.
‘But I’ve finished with you!’ Topsy said sharply, yanking the door wide to make her escape.
Before she could guess what he intended, Dante wrenched the door from her grasp and slammed it loudly shut again in her face. Shocked by that very physical intervention, Topsy flipped round and leant back against the door, needing the temporary support of the solid wood against her spine. She looked up into scorching green eyes that glittered like stars, so bright against his darker skin. He was seething and he couldn’t hide it. ‘Underneath the bankers’ suit, you’re not Mr Cool at all, are you?’ she murmured in helpless fascination.
‘Not when it comes to protecting my family,’ Dante traded without apology.
‘You’re crowding me,’ Topsy told him, because he was inside her space, way too close for comfort, the familiar scent of his hot male body distracting her when she could least afford to be distracted.
‘Deal with it,’ Dante grated unhelpfully.
‘No, you deal with your temper,’ Topsy advised, shooting straight from the hip. ‘Exactly what did Jerome tell you about me?’
‘That he hired you as an escort and you went out for a meal. He recognised you from a newspaper photo that was taken of you with my mother and decided that it was his duty to speak up.’
Topsy rolled her eyes in mockery, wishing he would back off, wishing he weren’t so domineeringly tall that he made her feel like a ridiculously undersized freak. It was one more way in which they were a poor match: her list of desirable male attributes specified a male no more than nine inches taller. It would be more comfortable for her to be with someone closer to her own size. Her sisters’ husbands were all tall and whenever she disagreed with any of them she carefully kept her distance, having always understood that her diminutive height almost invited a bullying approach.
‘You seem quite unconcerned by what Jerome told me,’ Dante noted in a low gritty drawl. ‘But my mother would be very much shocked.’
‘I think Sofia would be shocked if she thought I’d slept with him, but not that I once dined out with him in a public place,’ Topsy countered drily.
Dante stared down at her radiating frustration. ‘That’s not the point. He paid for your company.’
‘And that’s all he got. Don’t make it sound like I acted like a hooker,’ Topsy urged, big brown eyes increasingly defiant. ‘I worked as an escort for only that one night.’
Dante finally took a step back and she breathed again, peeling her spine off the door, shrugging her taut shoulders to loosen their tension. ‘Do you really think I’m going to believe that you only did it once?’ he derided.
‘You obviously want to think the worst and that’s not being fair to me,’ Topsy complained, sliding past him in a sudden movement that took him by surprise and walking back over to the window where there was too much space for him to corner her again. ‘I went out with Jerome that night as a favour for someone. His usual companion was off sick and I was her replacement. It was totally above board and unworthy of your suspicions.’
‘You worked as an escort. I’m quite sure it wasn’t above board with all your clients,’ Dante vented with a curled lip.
A sound of impatience escaped Topsy. ‘You just don’t listen, do you? Jerome is the only client I ever had because that evening was the only time I ever worked as an escort!’ she snapped back in exasperation.
He shot her a look of wounding derision. ‘You can’t really expect me to believe that...’
‘I went out with Jerome as a favour to my mother,’ Topsy chose to admit, willing to tell him enough to satisfy him because she did not want to be forced to leave the castle just when she was beginning to get to know Vittore.
Dante frowned. ‘Your mother?’
Topsy braced herself. ‘My mother owns and runs an escort agency.’
‘An escort agency?’ Dante repeated in disbelief.
‘There’s nothing I can do about the way my mother chooses to make her living,’ Topsy pointed out curtly. ‘Unfortunately, one doesn’t get to choose one’s parents.’
Dante studied her in silence with caustic cool.
‘Yes, I can already hear the wheels of your limited imagination cranking into motion,’ Topsy told him sourly, her generous pink mouth thinning with annoyance. ‘But no, I wasn’t dragged up in a sordid household by a depraved mother. Relax—no sob story of