Rome's Revenge. Sara Craven

nightdress and dragged it over her head.

      She said aloud, her voice firm and cool, ‘He’s a stranger, Cory. You’ll never see him again. And, anyway, didn’t you learn your lesson with Rob—you pathetic, gullible idiot? Now, go to bed and sleep.’

      But that was easier said than done. Because when she closed her eyes, the dark stranger was there waiting for her, pursuing her through one brief disturbing dream to the next.

      And when she woke in the early dawn there were tears on her face.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ROME walked into his suite and slammed the door behind him.

      For a moment he leaned back against its solid panels, eyes closed, while he silently called himself every bad name he knew in English, before switching to Italian and starting again.

      But the word that cropped up most often was ‘fool’.

      The whisky he’d ordered earlier had been sent up, he noted with grim pleasure. He crossed to the side table, pouring a generous measure into a cut-glass tumbler and adding a splash of spring water.

      He opened the big sliding doors and moved out on to the narrow terrace, staring with unseeing eyes over the city as he swallowed some of the excellent single malt in his glass. He put up a hand to his throat, impatiently tugging his black tie loose, ignoring the dank autumnal chill in the air.

      He said quietly, almost conversationally, ‘I should never have come here.’

      But then what choice did he have, when the Italian banks, once so helpful, had shrugged regretful shoulders and declined to loan him the money he needed to revitalise his vines and restore the crumbling house that overlooked them?

      And for that, he thought bitterly, he had Graziella to thank. She’d sworn she’d make him sorry, and she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

      He’d intended his trip to London to be a flying visit, and totally private. He’d planned to stay just long enough to negotiate the loan he needed, then leave immediately, without advertising his presence.

      But he’d underestimated his grandfather, and the effectiveness of his information network, he realised, his mouth twisting wryly.

      He’d barely checked in to his hotel before the summons had come. And couched in terms he hadn’t been able to refuse.

      But he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. His mother had been quite explicit.

      ‘Sooner or later he’ll want to meet you, and you should go to him because you’re his only grandchild. But don’t accept any favours from him, caro, because there’s always a payback. Always.’

      Yet he still hadn’t seen the trap that had been baited for him.

      He’d been caught off guard, of course. Because Matthew Sansom had come to him first. Had simply appeared one day at Montedoro right out of the blue.

      Rome had been shaken to find himself staring at an older version of himself. The mane of hair was white, and the blue eyes were faded, but the likeness was undeniable, and not lost on Matt Sansom either.

      The shaggy brows had drawn together in a swift glare of disbelief, then he’d recovered. ‘So—you’re Sarah’s bastard.’

      Rome inclined his head. ‘And you’re the man who tried to stop me being born,’ he countered.

      There was a smouldering silence, then a short bark of laughter. ‘Yes,’ said Matt Sansom. ‘But perhaps that was a mistake.’

      He swung round and looked down over the terraces of vines. ‘So this is where my daughter spent her last years.’ He sounded angry, almost contemptuous, but there was a note of something like regret there, too.

      He stayed two nights at Montedoro, touring the vigneto and asking shrewd questions about its operation, and paying a visit to the local churchyard where Sarah was buried beside her husband, Steve d’Angelo.

      ‘You have his name,’ Matt said abruptly as they drove back to the villa. ‘Was he your father?’

      ‘No, he adopted me.’

      The pale eyes glittered at Rome. ‘Card-sharp, wasn’t he?’

      ‘He was a professional gambler.’ Rome was becoming accustomed to his grandfather’s abrasive style of questioning. ‘He was also a brilliant, instinctive card player, who competed for high stakes and usually won.’

      ‘And you followed in his footsteps for a while?’

      Rome shrugged. ‘I’d watched him since I was a boy. He taught me a lot. But my heart was never in it, as his was.’

      ‘But you won?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Matt peered through the window of the limousine with a critical air. ‘Your stepfather didn’t invest much of his own winnings in the family estate.’

      ‘It came to Steve on the death of his cousin. He’d never expected to inherit, and it was already run down.’

      ‘And now you’ve taken it on.’ That bark of laughter again. ‘Maybe you’re more of a gambler than you think, boy.’ He paused. ‘Did your mother ever speak about your real father?’

      ‘No,’ Rome said levelly. ‘Never. I got the impression it wasn’t important to her.’

      ‘Not important?’ The growl was like distant thunder. ‘She brings disgrace on herself and her family, and it doesn’t matter?’

      Just for a moment Rome caught a glimpse of the harsh, unforgiving tyrant his mother had run away from.

      ‘She was young,’ he said, his own voice steely. ‘She made a mistake. She didn’t have to do penance for the rest of her life.’

      Matt grunted, and relapsed into a brooding silence.

      That was the only real conversation they’d had on personal subjects, Rome recalled. They’d seemed to tacitly agree there were too many no-go areas.

      His grandfather had sampled the wine from Rome’s first few vintages with the appreciation of a connoisseur, drawing him out on the subject, getting him to talk about his plans for the vigneto, his need to buy new vats for the cantina and replace the elderly oaken casks with stainless steel.

      Looking back, Rome could see how much he’d given away, in his own enthusiasm. Understood how Matt Sansom had deliberately relaxed the tension between them, revealing an interested, even sympathetic side to his nature.

      The offer of a low-cost loan to finance these improvements had been made almost casually. And the fact that it wasn’t a gift—that it was a serious deal, one businessman to another, with a realistic repayment programme—had lured Rome into the trap.

      It had only been later, after the deal had been agreed and his grandfather had departed, that he’d begun to have doubts.

      But it was finance he needed, and repayments he could afford, he’d thought. And it would be a definite one-off. Once the last instalment had been paid, he would look for future loans from more conventional sources.

      He remembered a night in Paris when both Steve and himself had emerged heavy winners from a private poker game which had been scheduled to last a week. The other players had been quietly spoken and beautifully dressed, and the air of power round the table had been almost tangible, and definitely menacing.

      ‘Are we going back?’ he’d asked eagerly, but Steve had shaken his head.

      ‘Never return to a pool where tigers come to drink,’ he’d told him, and they’d caught the next plane back to Italy.

      It was a piece of advice that had lingered. But Rome had told himself that his grandfather’s loan was a justifiable risk. The first and last visit to the tigers’ pool.

      Over the past two years communication