Bartering Her Innocence. Trish Morey

not sleeping because she knew he would be here in Venice, waiting for her to arrive.

       Waiting.

      He smiled, relishing a sense of anticipation that was almost delicious.

      It was delicious.

      He was no gambler. Luck was for suckers. Instead he thrived on certainty and detail and left nothing to chance. His version of luck happened when excellent preparation met with sublime opportunity.

      The seeds for both had been sown, and now it was time to reap the harvest.

      The palazzo had been his uncle’s once, before that woman had stuck her steely claws into him and hung on tight, and now it was as good as back in the family fold again. But the satisfaction of returning the palazzo to the family fold was not what drove him now. Because Lily Beauchamp had something far more valuable that he wanted.

       Her precious daughter.

      She’d walked out on him once. Left the mark of her hand bright on his jaw and walked away, as if she’d been the one on high moral ground. At the time he’d let her go. Waved good riddance. The sex had been good but no woman was worth the angst of chasing her, no matter how good she was in bed.

      He’d put her from his mind.

      But then her mother had called him, asking for help with the mire of her finances, and he’d remembered the daughter and a night of sex with her that had ended way too prematurely. He’d been only too happy to help then. It was the least he could do for his uncle’s widow, he’d told her, realising there might be a way to redress the balance.

      So now fate was offering him the chance to right two wrongs. To get even.

      Not just with the spendthrift mother.

      But with the woman who thought she was different. Who thought herself somehow better.

      He’d show her she was not so different to her mother after all. He’d show her he was nobody to walk away from.

       And then he’d publicly and unceremoniously dump her.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ARRIVING in Venice, Tina thought, was like leaving real life and entering a fairy tale. The bustling Piazzale Roma where she waited for her bag to be unloaded from the airport bus was the full stop on the real world she was about to leave behind, a world where buildings were built on solid ground and transport moved on wheels; while the bridges that spanned out from the Piazzale crossing the waterways were the ‘once upon a time’ leading to a fairy tale world that hovered unnaturally over the inky waters of the lagoon and where boats were king.

      Beautiful, it was true, but as she glanced at the rows of windows looking out over the canals, right now it almost felt brooding too, and full of mystery and secrets and dark intent …

      She shivered, already nervous, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Why had she thought that?

      Because he was out there, she reasoned, her eyes scanning the buildings that lined the winding canal. Luca was out there behind a window somewhere in this ancient city.

       Waiting for her.

      Damn. She was so tired that she was imagining things.

      Except she’d felt it on the plane too, waking from a restless sleep filled with images of him. Woken up feeling almost as if he’d been watching her.

      Just thinking about it made her skin crawl all over again.

      She pushed her fringe back from her eyes and sucked in air too rich with the scent of diesel fumes to clear her head. God, she was tired! She grunted a weary protest as she hauled her backpack over her shoulder.

      Forget about bad dreams, she told herself. Forget about fairy tales that started with once upon a time. Just think about getting on that return plane as soon as possible. That would be happy ending enough for her.

      She lined up at the vaporetto station to buy a ticket for the water buses that throbbed their way along the busy canals. A three-day pass should be more than adequate to sort out whatever it was her mother couldn’t handle on her own. She’d made a deal with her father that she’d only come to Venice on the basis she’d be back at the farm as soon as the crisis was over. She wasn’t planning on staying any longer. It wasn’t as if this was a holiday after all.

      And with any luck, she’d sort out her mother’s money worries and be back on a plane to Australia before Luca Barbarigo even knew she was here.

      She gave a snort, the sound lost in the crush of tourists laden with cameras and luggage piling onto the rocking water bus. Yeah, well, maybe that was wishful thinking, but the less she had to do with him, the better. And no matter what her frazzled nerves conjured up in her dreams to frighten her, Luca Barbarigo probably felt the same way. She recalled the vivid slash of her palm across his jaw. They hadn’t exactly parted on friendly terms after all.

      Tourists jockeyed and squirmed to get on the outer edge of the vessel, cameras and videos at the ready to record this trip along the most famous of Venice’s great waterways, and she let herself be jostled out of the way, unmoved by the passing vista except to be reminded she was on Luca Barbarigo’s patch; happy to hide in the centre of the boat under cover where she couldn’t be observed. Crazy, she knew, to feel this way, but she’d found there were times that logic didn’t rule her emotions.

       Like the time she’d spent the night with Luca Barbarigo.

      Clearly logic had played no part in that decision.

      And now once again logic seemed to have abandoned her. She’d felt so strong back home at the kitchen sink, deciding she could face Luca again. She’d felt so sure in her determination to stand up to him.

      But here, in Venice, where every second man, it seemed, had dark hair or dark eyes and reminded her of him, all she wanted to do was hide.

      She shivered and zipped her jacket, the combined heat from a press of bodies in the warm September air nowhere near enough to prevent the sudden chill descending her spine.

      Oh God, she needed to sleep. That was all. Stopovers in Kuala Lumpur and then Amsterdam had turned a twenty-two hour journey into more like thirty-six. She would feel so much better after a shower and a decent meal. And in a few short hours she could give in to the urge to sleep and hopefully by morning she’d feel halfway to normal again.

      The vaporetto pulled into a station, rocking sideways on its own wash before thumping against the floating platform and setting passengers lurching on their straps. Then the vessel was secured and the gate slid open and one mass of people departed as another lot rushed in, and air laced with the sour smell of sweat and diesel and churned canal water filled her lungs.

      Three days, she told herself, as the vessel throbbed into life and set course for the centre of the canal again, missing an oncoming barge seemingly with inches to spare. She could handle seeing Luca again because soon she would be going home.

      Three short days.

      She could hardly wait.

      The water bus heaved a left at the Canale di Cannaregio and she hoisted her pack from the pile of luggage in the corner where he’d stashed it out of the way. And this time she did crane her neck around and there it was just coming into view—her mother’s home—nestled between two well-maintained buildings the colour of clotted cream.

      She frowned as the vaporetto drew closer to the centuries-old palazzo. Once grand, her mother’s house looked worse than she remembered, the once soft terracotta colour faded and worn, and with plaster peeling from the walls nearly up to the first floor, exposing ancient brickwork now stained yellow with grime at the water level. Pilings out the front of a water door that looked as if it had rusted shut stood at an angle and swayed as the water bus passed, and Tina winced for the once grand entrance, now looking so sad and neglected, even the flower boxes that had once looked so bright and beautiful hanging empty and forlorn from the windows.

      Tourists