Mistress Arrangements. Helen Bianchin

      She didn’t move, couldn’t, for the muscles activating each limb appeared suspended and beyond any direction from her brain.

      It was impossible to gauge his reaction, for the only visible sign of anger apparent was revealed in the hard line of his jaw, the icy chill evident in the storm-grey darkness of his eyes.

      The strident ring of the phone made her jump, its shrill sound diffusing the electric tension, and Carly watched in mesmerised fascination as Stefano crossed to the console and picked up the handset.

      He listened for a few seconds, then spoke reassuringly to whoever was on the other end of the line.

      More than anything, she wanted to storm out of the room, the building, his life. Yet she couldn’t. Not yet.

      Stefano slowly replaced the receiver, then he straightened, his expression an inscrutable mask.

      ‘So,’ he intoned silkily. ‘Am I to assume from that emotive reaction that you aren’t carrying the seed of another man’s child, and are therefore not in need of an abortion?’

      I carried yours, she longed to cry out. With determined effort she attempted to gather together the threads of her shattered nerves. ‘Don’t presume to judge me by the numerous women you bed,’ she retorted in an oddly taut voice.

      His eyes darkened until they resembled shards of obsidian slate. ‘You have no foundation on which to base such an accusation.’

      Carly closed her eyes, then slowly opened them again. ‘It goes beyond my credulity to imagine you’ve remained celibate for seven years.’ As I have, she added silently.

      ‘You’re here to put me on trial for supposed sexual misdemeanours during the years of our enforced separation?’

      His voice was a hatefully musing drawl that made her palms itch with the need to resort to a display of physical anger.

      ‘If you could sleep with Angelica during our marriage, I can’t even begin to imagine what you might have done after I left!’ Carly hurled with the pent-up bitterness of years.

      There was a curious bleakness apparent, then his features assumed an expressionless mask as he cast his watch a deliberate glance. ‘State your case, Carly,’ he inclined with chilling disregard. ‘In nine minutes I have an appointment with a valued colleague.’

      It was hardly propitious to her cause continually to thwart him, and her chin tilted fractionally as she held his gaze. ‘I already thought I had.’

      ‘Knowing how much you despise me,’ Stefano drawled softly, ‘I can only be intrigued by the degree of desperation that forces you to confront me with a request for money.’

      Her eyes were remarkably steady, and she did her best to keep the intense emotion from her voice. ‘Someone I care for very much needs an operation,’ she said quietly. It was true, even if it was truth by partial omission. ‘Specialist care, a private hospital.’

      One eyebrow lifted with mocking cynicism. ‘A man?’

      She curled her fingers into a tight ball and thrust her hands behind her back. ‘No,’ she denied in a curiously flat voice.

      ‘Then who, Carly?’ he queried silkily. His eyes raked hers, compelling, inexorable, and inescapable.

      ‘A child.’

      ‘Am I permitted to know whose child?’

      He wouldn’t give in until she presented him with all the details, and she suddenly hated him, with an intensity that was vaguely shocking, for all the pain, the anger and the futility, for having dared, herself, to love him unreservedly, only to have that love thrown back in her face.

      Seven years ago she’d hurled one accusation after another at the man who had steadfastly refused to confirm, deny or explain his actions. As a result, she’d frequently given vent to angry recrimination which rarely succeeded in provoking his retaliation.

      Except once. Then he’d castigated her as the child he considered her to be, and when she’d hit him he’d unceremoniously hauled her back into their bed and subjected her to a lesson she was never likely to forget.

      The following morning she’d packed a bag, and driven steadily east until hunger and exhaustion had forced her to stop. Then she’d rung her mother, offered the briefest of explanations and assured her she’d be in touch.

      That had been the last personal contact she’d had with the man she had married. Until now.

      ‘My daughter,’ she enlightened starkly, and watched his features reassemble, the broad facial bones seeming more pronounced, the jaw clearly defined beneath the taut musculature bonding fibre to bone. The composite picture portrayed a harsh ruthlessness she found infinitely frightening.

      ‘I suggest,’ he began in a voice pitched so low that it sounded like silk being razed by steel, ‘you contact the child’s father.’

      Carly visibly shivered. His icy anger was almost a tangible entity, cooling the room, and there was a finality in his words, an inexorability she knew she’d never be able to circumvent unless she told the absolute truth—now.

      ‘Ann-Marie was born exactly seven months and three weeks after I left Perth.’ There were papers in her bag. A birth certificate, blood-group records—hers, Ann-Marie’s, a copy of his. Photos. Several of them, showing Ann-Marie as a babe in arms, a toddler, then on each consecutive birthday, all showing an acute similarity to the man who had fathered her: the same colouring, dark, thick, silky hair, and grey eyes.

      Carly retrieved them, thrusting one after the other into Stefano’s hands as irrefutable proof. ‘She’s your daughter, Stefano. Yours.’

      The atmosphere in the lounge was so highly charged that Carly almost expected it to ignite into incendiary flame.

      His expression was impossible to read, and as the seconds dragged silently by she felt like screaming—anything to get some reaction.

      ‘Tell me,’ Stefano began in a voice that was satin-smooth and dangerous, ‘was I to be forever kept in ignorance of her existence?’

      Oh, dear lord, how could she answer that? Should she even dare, when she wasn’t sure of the answer herself? ‘Maybe when she was older I would have offered her the opportunity to get in touch with you,’ she admitted with hesitant honesty.

      ‘Grazie.’ His voice was as chilling as an ice floe in an arctic wasteland. ‘And how, precisely, did you intend to achieve that? By having her turn up on my doorstep, ten, fifteen years from now, with a briefly penned note of explanation in her hand?’

      He was furiously angry; the whiplash of his words tore at her defences, ripping them to shreds. ‘Damn you,’ he swore softly. ‘Damn you to hell.’

      He looked capable of anything, and she took an involuntary step backwards from the sheer forcefield of his rage. ‘Right at this moment, it would give me the utmost pleasure to wring your slender neck.’ He appeared to rein in his temper with visible effort. ‘What surgical procedure?’ he demanded grimly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

      With a voice that shook slightly she relayed the details, watching with detached fascination as he scrawled a series of letters and numbers with firm, swift strokes on to a notepad.

      ‘Your address and telephone number.’ The underlying threat of anger was almost a palpable force. She could sense it, almost feel its intensity, and she felt impossibly afraid.

      It took considerable effort to maintain an aura of calm, but she managed it. ‘Your assurance that Ann-Marie’s medical expenses will be met is all that’s necessary.’

      His eyes caught hers and held them captive, and she shivered at the ruthlessness apparent in their depths. ‘You can’t believe I’ll hand over a cheque and let you walk out of here?’ he said with deadly softness, and a cold hand suddenly clutched at her