The Platinum Collection: Claiming His Innocent. Lynne Graham

every possible step had been taken to apprehend the perpetrators? So how could Cesario protect her father from being held responsible for his actions?

      Letting her other, waiting three dogs out of their fenced run, Jess headed indoors. The cottage was cold and untidy. The old coal-fired kitchen stove had gone out and she sighed, hurrying off to change into clean clothes. She would grab something quick to eat and go out and tend to the animals’ needs first. Magic, her deaf Scottish black terrier, bounced round the room as though he were on springs, full of pent-up energy. In between getting changed and washed she repeatedly threw his ball down the hall for him to retrieve. Weed, a skinny grey lurcher, hovered ingratiatingly by the door. Years of loving care had failed to persuade Weed that he could afford to take his happy home for granted. Harley, a diabetic Labrador with a greying muzzle, lay quietly on the floor by the bed, just content to be with her again.

      Standing by the kitchen window, Jess ate a sandwich and drank a glass of milk before heading out into the fading light of a late spring evening to take care of the usual evening routine of cleaning, feeding and watering her charges. When she finished and went back indoors, she still had to relight the stove, which always took more than one attempt. Gritting her teeth, she got on with the task.

      The phone call came when she was getting ready for bed and so bone-weary that she had all the animation of a zombie.

      ‘It’s Cesario…’ He reeled off his name in that dark deep rich drawl of his as naturally as if he were in the habit of phoning her, when in actuality it was the very first time he had made a personal call to her.

      ‘Yes?’ she queried, cautious in tone as she swallowed back an instinctive urge to ask him angrily who had given him her mobile number.

      ‘Can you come back up to the house at nine tomorrow morning? I have a proposition to put to you.’

      ‘A proposition?’ Jess repeated, intense curiosity leaping high inside her to release a tide of speculative thoughts. ‘What kind of a proposition?’

      ‘Not the sort that can be discussed over the phone,’ he murmured crushingly. ‘May I expect you?’

      ‘Yes, tomorrow’s my day off.’

      Jess came off the phone, her face pale and still, and then she let out an explosive whoop that startled her pets and jumped up and down on the spot in a helpless release of the tension that had held her fast all day. Evidently, Cesario di Silvestri had listened to her! That phone call had to mean that he had listened to her and mulled over what she had told him. Now, in response, he had come up with a ‘proposition’, which was really just another label for that other word ‘deal’, which she abhorred.

      Acknowledging that truth, her ready sense of optimism and relief began swiftly to recede in the face of less comforting thoughts. After all, an eye-for-an-eye guy would be very unlikely to pardon her imprudent father in return for nothing. Hadn’t he said so himself? What would be in it for him? Was sex likely to be involved? With his reputation and the interest he had previously shown in her, it was difficult to believe it would not be. She winced in the cosy cocoon of her sensible pyjamas, thinking of the scars on her abdomen and back, shivering. It was little wonder that she had never been keen to strip to reveal those blemishes to a man or relive the horror of explaining what had caused them. Sex was out of the question. In any case, bearing in mind what she had read in the sleazier newspapers’ ‘kiss ‘n’ tell’ accounts made by his former lovers, she would never be able to measure up to Cesario’s exotic and adventurous habits in the bedroom.

CHAPTER THREE

      CESARIO had a clear view of Jess climbing out of her old Land Rover with several dogs leaping out in her wake.

      She had said it was her day off and he had naturally assumed she would dress up for the occasion. Smarten up for their meeting even a little? Surely that was a normal expectation? But she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt roomy enough to fit him below a tweedy woollen cardigan that would not have shamed a scarecrow. Nothing she wore fitted or flattered. He clenched his even white teeth, acknowledging that if, against all the odds, they contrived to reach an agreement, there was definitely going to have to be a lot of compromise on both sides of the fence. She might not do couture, but he definitely didn’t do dog hairs.

      Tommaso beamed at Jess as if they were old friends and showed her into an imposingly large reception room decked out with almost rock-star glamour in dramatic shades of black and purple. Sumptuous velvet sofas, glass tables and defiantly modern art set the tone. A few minutes later, the older man reappeared with a tray of coffee and biscuits and assured her that his employer would be with her very shortly.

      ‘Business…always business,’ he lamented, mimicking a phone to his ear with one hand and rolling his eyes with speaking disapproval.

      So jumpy that she couldn’t sit still, Jess lifted her cup of coffee and wandered over to examine a colourful painting, struggling to work out if what looked vaguely like a weird face really was meant to be a face. Her taste in art was strictly traditional and very much confined to country landscapes and animal portraits. She would not have given houseroom to Cesario’s valuable collection of contemporary art. Her mobile phone trilled and she dug it out one-handed, hastening over to a side table to set down her coffee once she realised that it was her mother, Sharon, calling.

      Sharon was in floods of tears, which made it hard to distinguish what she was saying, but Jess soon picked up the gist. Her father had bared his soul over breakfast and had then beat a very fast masculine retreat from the questions and reproaches hurled at him in the aftermath of his confession. Her mother was in emotional bits, convinced her husband was on the brink of being dragged off to prison for his part in the robbery at the hall.

      ‘That stupid holiday…all this over that stupid holiday I could very well have done without!’ Sharon sobbed heartbrokenly. ‘And we’ll lose the house into the bargain…’

      Jess’s brows pleated. ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘Well, Mr sodding di Silvestri is not going to let us stay in one of his properties after what your father’s done to him, is he?’ Sharon wailed. ‘I’ve lived here since I was eighteen and I couldn’t bear to lose my home too. And what about your brothers’ jobs on the estate? Mark my words, Martin faces won’t fit at Halston Hall any more and some way will be found to get rid of us all!’

      Jess said what she could to calm her down but Sharon was an emotional woman and a natural pessimist. In Sharon’s mind the worst that could happen had happened, and she and her family were already homeless, jobless and broke. Having promised that she would call in later that morning, Jess finally got off the phone and found Cesario watching her from the doorway.

      For a split second, she just stared, totally unnerved to find herself the target of that silent scrutiny. Formally clad in a dark business suit and vibrant silk tie, Cesario was effortlessly elegant and intimidating, only the shadow of dark stubble around his strong jaw line making it clear that his morning had commenced at a much earlier hour. She had always thought he was very good-looking but at that moment he looked stunningly handsome, his need for a shave adding a sexy rough edge to his usual immaculate appearance.

      ‘My mother…my father finally worked up the courage to tell her what he had done,’ Jess explained awkwardly as she put away her phone, her cheeks pink from her thoughts. ‘She’s very upset.’

      ‘I’m sure she must be.’ Cesario noted the level of stress etched in the tightness of her delicate features. It was an immediate source of satisfaction to him that it was within his power to banish that anxiety from her life. He had lain awake half of the night working out exactly what he wanted and what would work best: a simple straightforward arrangement free of demanding emotions and unrealistic hopes. In the most essential way they would each retain their independence.

      ‘You mentioned a proposition…’ she muttered nervously, digging her hands into her pockets, unable to conceal her tension from him

      ‘Hear