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‘You just have,’ Gwenna told hi I’m prepared to barter, Mr Riccardi’ ‘Then your father will have to pay the piper and go to prison,’ Angelo murmured and she stopped halfway to the door and turned back, her raw pain at that likelihood etched in her candid gaze

Torn between stalking out in angryconviction that she could not afford such a demonstration of disdain, Gwenna hovered The very idea of her father going to prison appalled her He had already lost so much: his job, his reputation, his friends, his financial security His ory of loss She knew and she accepted that he had done wrong But what dohts was the debt she had owed to her father since the day that he had opened the doors of his home to her after her mother’s sudden death

When her -term affair with Donald Hamilton, she’d expected her lover to leave his childless wife, Marisa

Instead Isabel had learnt that she had not been his only extra-marital interest

Heartbroken and bitter, Gwenna’s le parent

When Gwenna was eight years old, Isabel had died in a car crash Donald, still hter’s rescue at a time when Gwenna had had nobody else whoh he had been aler, her father had made her feel as if she trulywife, Marisa, forced him to choose

between his daughter and his e, he had refused to put Gwenna up for adoption Not long afterwards, Marisa had demanded a divorce The older man had never re to raise his daughter But in spite of her father’s subsequent reuilty And the passage of time and the arrival of maturity had not altered her belief that she would always be in her father’s debt for the loving sacrifice he had made on her behalf

‘Before you leave, hearon Gwenna’s hesitation with skill and cool

Blinking, Gwenna focused on hiain

‘If sufficient assets are signed over to set against the eree to be ainst your father,’ Angelo spelt out

A long shiver ran through her taut, slender body He wanted a lot, he wanted everything Mistress? What was that fancy terht stand? Was conquest that important to him? Could he really want to have sex with her that norance annoyed her

‘What does being aat him

‘Pleasing elo trailed out the ith exquisite enjoyment

She gritted her teeth ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at that’ ‘I’ive lessons at no extra cost’ Furious resentment burned like lava inside her ‘I think you just can’t stand being turned down…’ ‘I don’t think you’re going to turn me doice’ Gwenna sucked in a jerky breath Unable even to iing, she blanked out all thought of the nitty-gritty details of actual inti a big issue of it It would be physical, not emotional There was no need for her tothat really wasn’t that iht not be into sex but presumably she could put up with it ‘Well, as far as I’ with you one night will help ht won’t suffice’ Gwenna was as flattened by that unexpected coiant rock had been dropped on her He wanted ht? The silence pulsed Newly discovered defiance made her tilt her chin She collided with brilliant dark eyes enhanced by spiky black lashes If eyes were truly the s of the soul, she thought helplessly, he lacked one ‘Only hell has no time limit,’ she told him prosaically

Disconcerted by that co back his dark head and laughed with grim appreciation ‘I like your sense of hu to be funny I need to kno long you envisage elo lifted a broad shoulder in a fluid shrug But in a lightning-fast change of one froer He was a proud man and her parade of reluctance, which he refused to believe in, was fast beco before they parted, she would sing a different tune, he swore inwardly She would love him as his mother had once fruitlessly loved her con artist of a father