The Lady's Man. Stephanie Howard

he had tricked her. Caterina glared at him, quite speechless for a moment. He had known all along why she was trying to edge him out—not out of concern for his heavy workload at all, but because she couldn’t stand the prospect of working with him.

      And he refused to play ball. Well, that was to be expected. But the matter wasn’t settled yet, even though he seemed to think it was. She’d tried the soft approach first; now it was time to get tough.

      She fixed him with a direct look. ‘I think you’re making a big mistake.’

      ‘A mistake?’

      ‘It wouldn’t work.’

      He feigned innocence. ‘Why on earth not?’

      ‘You really need to ask?’ Caterina grimaced as she elaborated, ‘We’re not even capable of conducting a civil conversation. How on earth could we possibly contemplate working together?’

      ‘It might be hard, I confess.’ He smiled. ‘Think of it as a challenge.’

      Caterina did not smile back. ‘There are challenges and challenges. And this one, I’m afraid, just doesn’t appeal to me. No, you and I will not be working together.’

      One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He regarded her narrowly for a moment then put to her, ‘I take it this means you’ll be handing over to someone else?’

      ‘No, it doesn’t mean that. This project is my baby. I wouldn’t dream of handing it over to someone else.’

      ‘In that case, you’ve lost me.’ The dark eyes regarded her unblinkingly and it was impossible to tell what was going on in his head. ‘If neither of us is planning to hand over to someone else, surely that means we’ll be working together?’

      ‘No, it doesn’t. You see, whether you like it or not, you won’t be doing the Bardi job.’

      ‘Won’t I?’ His tone was low but had a definite edge to it. ‘You’re going to have to explain why. I’m afraid that makes no sense to me.’

      As she faced him, Caterina’s heart was thumping inside her. And now that the moment had come she found herself hesitating. It was harder than she’d thought, playing the heavy.

      ‘Quite frankly,’ she said, ‘I’d hoped to avoid this sort of unpleasantness—’

      ‘Unpleasantness?’ He continued to watch her.

      ‘What kind of unpleasantness are you talking about?’

      Caterina swallowed hard. Damn and blast him, she was thinking. Why did he have to cross my path in the first place? But she couldn’t back down now, even though what she had to do came far from naturally. She simply had to get him off the job.

      She swallowed again. ‘The sort of unpleasantness, I’m afraid, that could ruin your career and have you thrown out of San Rinaldo. You see,’ she hurried on before her nerve deserted her, ‘I know things about you... things you wouldn’t want made public...and I’m prepared to use them against you unless you withdraw from this job.’

      There, she had said it, and as she stopped speaking her blood was pounding. Breathing carefully, she watched him, waiting for his response.

      She did not have long to wait. He began to rise to his feet. In a voice like sandpaper he said, ‘So, that’s what this is all about? Well, I think I’ve heard enough.’ He flicked her a look as hard as granite. ‘But you’re wasting your time. I won’t be withdrawing.’

      ‘Oh, yes, you will. You’ll have no choice in the matter once my brother gets to hear the things I know. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell him everything. Unless,’ she stressed again, ‘you drop out of the Bardi job. If you’re prepared to do that, I won’t say a thing.’

      Matthew said nothing for a moment, then he fixed her with a stony look. ‘Blackmail’s an ugly thing, you know. It doesn’t really suit you.’ Then, as she looked away, fighting a blush—for he was right, this didn’t suit her—he added in a tone grown suddenly heavy with contempt. ‘No doubt this is one of the unsavoury little tricks you learned in the course of your association with Orazio?’

      It was like a slap across the face. Caterina’s sense of unease vanished. She looked back at him now, seeing only the hated face of the man who had been responsible, with his lies and his slanders, for all the emotional hurt she’d recently suffered.

      Her heart filled with bitterness. Why should she feel uneasy about employing a bit of blackmail on a man like Matthew Allenby—a man who, in spite of the high moral tone he was taking, was far from being a stranger to such methods himself? Why, his hands were as black as the blackest corners of his soul!

      She told him, her tone cutting, ‘No, I didn’t learn it from Orazio. I’m simply using the sorts of tactics that I feel sure you’re familiar with.’

      ‘Well, they won’t work, I’m afraid. Face facts. You’re a novice.’ The dark eyes flayed her. ‘I’m way out of your league.’

      Quite possibly he was, but he was still not as invulnerable as he believed. As he started to turn away, she angrily informed his back, ‘I’m not bluffing, you know. I know all about you. And I have evidence in my possession. Real, tangible evidence. I shall expose you for the cheat and the charlatan that you are.’

      Matthew was almost at the door when she finished the sentence. Unhurriedly, he turned round and looked into her face and his eyes were a pair of steel hooks tearing into her.

      ‘You know,’ he informed her, ‘you’re making a big mistake. I’m really not the best man to pick a fight with. People who pick fights with me invariably end up regretting it. And I guarantee,’ he added in a tone like a whiplash, ‘that you will be no exception to the rule.’

      Never before had Caterina seen such a look in a man’s eyes. A look without mercy. Black and menacing. But instead of feeling scared, or outraged, or angry, what she felt was a sudden flare of reckless excitement and a trickle of anticipation like cool fingers down her spine. She was going to thoroughly enjoy the fight ahead.

      Matthew continued to watch her, then, with a quick, cynical smile, he inclined his head briefly in his usual parody of a salute.

      ‘Goodbye for now, Lady Caterina. Until dinner this evening.’

      Then he turned and strode swiftly from the room.

      

      There was only one thing for it after that encounter with Matthew Allenby—a nice long bubble bath laced with oil of patchouli to help restore her frayed and tattered nerves.

      ‘Help!’ she’d told Anna, her personal maid, when she’d returned to her private quarters still seething with anger. ‘Be an angel and run a bath for me. I think I’m going to explode!’

      And that was where she was now, up to her chin in scented bubbles, listening to Anna happily singing to herself next door as she got Caterina’s things ready for the dinner this evening. Though she was only listening with half an ear. Most of her attention was focused on trying to sort out the hopeless jumble in her head. Her brain felt as though it had been attacked by an electric blender.

      Damn Matthew Allenby! Damn him to infinity! What had she ever done to deserve this blight on her life?

      She lay back, letting her hair trail in the water, and gazed up at the painted and gilded ceiling with its pictures of water nymphs and seashells and dolphins. In a way, she felt appalled by the stance she’d been forced to take with him, threatening to ruin him and have him kicked out of San Rinaldo. She must have sounded like some heavy in a second-rate gangster movie! But what alternative did she have? She simply could not work with him. And anyway, after what he’d done to her, he deserved every nasty thing she could fling at him.

      She sighed. In the beginning, of course, she hadn’t realised he was such a viper. She’d known little about him, other than that he worked for