tonight, and according to her calculations she should

have reached her destination by now. Where on earth

was she? The road was climbing so steeply…

"You, I take it, are responsible for this? It has your

manipulative, destructive touch all over it, Caterina,"

Lorenzo Niccolo d’Este, Duce di Montesavro, accused

his cousin-in-law with savage contempt as he

threw his grandmother’s will onto the table between

them.

"If your grandmother took my feelings into account

when she made her will, then that was because—"

"Your feelings!" Lorenzo interrupted her bitingly.

"And what feelings exactly would those be? The same

feelings that led to you bullying my cousin to his

death?" He was making no attempt whatsoever to conceal

his contempt for her.

Two ugly red patches of angry colour burned betrayingly

on Caterina’s immaculately made-up face.

"I did not drive Gino to his death. He had a heart

attack."

"Yes, brought on by your behaviour."

"You had better be careful what you accuse me of,

Lorenzo, otherwise…"

"You dare to threaten me?" Lorenzo demanded.

"You may have managed to deceive my grandmother,

but you cannot deceive me."

He turned his back on her to pace the stone-flagged

floor of the Castillo’s Great Hall, his pent-up fury

rendering him as savagely dangerous as a caged animal

of prey.

"Admit it," he challenged as he swung round again

to confront her. "You came here deliberately intending

to manipulate and deceive an elderly dying

woman for your own ends."

"You know that I have no desire to quarrel with

you, Lorenzo," Caterina protested. "All I want—"

"I already know what you want," Lorenzo reminded

her coldly. "You want the privilege, the position, and

the wealth that becoming my wife would give you—

and it is for that reason that you harried a confused

elderly woman you knew to be dying into changing

her will. If you had any compassion, any—" He broke

off in disgust. "But of course you do not, as I already

know."

His furious contempt had caused the smile to fade

from her lips and her body to stiffen into hostility as

she abandoned any pretence of innocence.

"You can make as many accusations as you wish,

Lorenzo, but you cannot prove any of them," she

taunted him.

"Perhaps not in a court of law, but that does not

alter their veracity. My grandmother’s notary has told

me that when she summoned him to her bedside in

order to alter her will, she confided to him the reason

that she was doing so."

Lorenzo saw the look of unashamed triumph in

Caterina’s eyes.

"Admit it, Lorenzo. I have bested you. If you want

the Castillo — and we both know that you do — then

you will have to marry me. You have no other

choice." She laughed, throwing back her head to expose

the olive length of her throat, and Lorenzo had

a savage impulse to close his hands around it and

squeeze the laughter from her it. He did want the

Castillo. He wanted it very badly. And he was determined

to have it. And he was equally determined that

he was not going to be trapped into marrying

Caterina.

"You told my grandmother I loved you and wanted

to make you my wife. You told her that the fact that

you were so newly widowed, and that your husband

Gino was my cousin, meant that society would frown

upon an immediate marriage between us. And you

told her you were afraid my passion would overwhelm

me and that I would marry you anyway and

thus bring disgrace upon myself, didn’t you?" he accused

her. "You knew how na..ve my grandmother

was, how ignorant of modern mores. You tricked her

into believing you were confiding in her out of concern

for me. You told her you didn’t know what to

do or how you could protect me. Then you ""helped""

her to come up with the solution of changing her will,

so that instead of inheriting the Castillo from her — as

her previous will had stated — I would only inherit it

if I was married within six weeks of her death. As

you told her, everyone knows how important to me

the Castillo is. And then, as though that were not

enough, you conceived the added inducement of persuading

her to add that if I did not marry within those

six weeks, you would inherit the Castillo. You led her

to believe that in making those changes she was enabling

me to marry you, because I could say I was

fulfilling the terms of her will rather than following

the dictates of my heart."

"You can’t prove any of that." She shrugged contemptuously.

Lorenzo knew that what she had said was true.

"As I’ve already told you, Nonna confided her

thoughts to her notary," he continued acidly. "Unfortunately,

by the time he managed to alert me to what

was going on, it was too late."

"Much too late — for you." Caterina smirked at him.

"So you admit it?"

"So what if I do? You can’t prove it," Caterina repeated.

"And even if you could, what good would it

do?"

"Let me make this clear to you, Caterina. No matter

what my grandmother has written in her will, you will

never become my wife. You are the last woman I

would want to give my name to."

Caterina laughed. "You have no choice."

Lorenzo had a reputation for being a formidable

and ruthless adversary. He was the kind of man other

men both respected and feared — the kind of man

women dreamed excitedly of enticing into their beds.

He was also a superb male animal, strikingly handsome,

with a hormone-unleashing combination of arrogance

and a predatory, very dangerous male sexuality—

a sexuality that he wore as easily as a panther

wore its coat. He was not just a prize, but perhaps the

most coveted prize amongst the very best of Italy’s

most eligible and wealthy men. All through his twenties

gossip columns had seethed with excited interest,

trying to guess which high-born young woman he

would make his duchess. It certainly wasn’t from any

lack of willing partners to share his wealth and his

title, along with enjoying the sexual pleasure of mating

with such a vigorously sensual man, that he had

escaped into his thirties without making any kind of

formal commitment to the women who had pursued

him.

Lorenzo looked at his late cousin’s wife. He despised

and loathed her. But then, he despised most

women. From what he had experienced of them they

were all willing to give him whatever he wanted because

of what he had, what was outside the inner him:

wealth, a title, and a handsome male body. What he

actually was was of no interest to them. His thoughts,

his beliefs, all that went to make up the man who was

Lorenzo d’Este didn’t matter to them anywhere near

so much as his money and his social position.

"You have no choice, Lorenzo," Caterina repeated

softly. "If you want the Castillo you have to marry

me."

Lorenzo permitted his mouth to curl in sardonic

disdain.

"I have to marry, yes," he agreed softly. "But nowhere

does it say that I have to marry you. You have

obviously not read my grandmother’s will thoroughly."

Her face blanched, her narrowed eyes betraying her

confusion and distrust.

"What do you mean? Of course I have read it. I

dictated it! I—"

"I repeat, you did not read the will my grandmother

signed thoroughly enough," Lorenzo told her. "You

see, it stipulates only that I must marry within six