Bartering Her Innocence Read online

  ‘I’m not going,’ she said, her feet coming to a halt. I don’t want to go. I can’t go. Even though she’d told her mother she’d think about it, and that she’d call her back, when she’d never had any intention of going. She’d promised herself she’d never have to see him again and that was a promise she couldn’t afford to break. Just thinking about what he’d cost her last time... ‘I can’t go and leave you, Dad, not now, not with the shearing about to start.’

  ‘I’ll manage, if you have to go.’

  ‘How? The shearers start arriving tomorrow. Who’s going to cook for a dozen men? You can’t.’

  He shrugged as the corners of his mouth turned up. ‘So I’ll go to town and find someone who can cook. You never know, I hear Deidre Turner makes a mean roast. And she might jump at the chance to show off her pumpkin scones to an appreciative audience.’ His smile slipped away, his piercing amber eyes turning serious. ‘I’m a big boy, Tina, I’ll manage.’

  Normally Tina would have jumped at her father’s mention of another woman, whatever the reason—she’d been telling him for years he should remarry—but right now she had more important things on her mind—like listing all the reasons she couldn’t go.

  ‘You shouldn’t have to manage by yourself! Why waste the money on flights—and on paying someone to cook—when we’re already begging favours from the bank manager as it is? And you know what Lily’s like—look at how she made such a drama about turning fifty! Anyone would have thought her life was coming to an end and I bet this is exactly the same. I bet it’s all some massively overblown drama, as per usual.’

  Her father nodded as if he understood, and she felt a surge of encouragement. Because of course her father would understand. Hadn’t he been married to the woman? He, more than anyone, knew the drama queen stunts she was capable of pulling to get her way.

  Encouragement had almost turned to relief, and she was more than certain he would agree. Until he opened his mouth.

  ‘Tina,’ he said, rubbing the stubble of his shadowed jawline, ‘how long is it since you’ve seen your mum? Two years? Or is it three? And now she needs you, for whatever reason. Maybe you should go.’

  ‘Dad, I just explained—’

  ‘No, you just made an excuse.’

  She stiffened her shoulders, raising her chin. Maybe it was an excuse, and if her father knew the truth, surely he would understand, surely he would be sympathetic and not insist she go. But how could she tell him when she had kept it secret for so long? Her shameful secret. How could she admit to being as foolish and irresponsible as the woman she’d always told herself she was nothing like? It would kill him. It would kill her to tell him.

  And when defence wasn’t an option, there was always attack...

  ‘So why are you so keen to ship me off to the other side of the world to help Lily? It’s not like she ever did you any favours.’

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hauled her close, holding her just long enough for her to breathe in his familiar earthy farm scent. ‘Who says I’m keen? But she’s still your mum, love, and whatever happened between the two of us, you can’t walk away from that. Now,’ he said, putting his mug down to pick up a tea towel, ‘what’s this about a new bowling alley in town? I hadn’t heard that.’

  She screwed up her nose and snatched the tea towel out of his hands, not because she couldn’t do with the help or his company, but because she knew he had his own endless list of chores to finish before he could collapse into bed, and partly too because she feared that if he lingered, if he asked her more about her mother’s predicament and how she knew the man Lily owed money to, she wouldn’t know how to answer him honestly. ‘How about that?’ she said much too brightly as she pushed him towards the door. ‘Neither had I.’

  He laughed in that deep rumbling way he had and that told her he knew exactly what she’d been doing. ‘Your mum’s not going to know what hit her.’

  ‘I’m not going, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, you are. We can check about flights when we go into town tomorrow.’ And he came back and hugged her, planting a kiss on her strawberry-blonde hair the same way he’d done ever since she was old enough to remember and probably long before. ‘Goodnight, love.’

  She thought about her father’s words after he’d gone, as she chased cutlery around the sudsy sink. Thought with a pang of guilt about how long it had been since she’d seen her mother. Thought about how maybe her father might be right.

  Because even though they’d never seen eye to eye, even though they never seemed to be on the same wavelength, maybe she couldn’t walk away from her mother.

  And neither did she have to run from Luca Barbarigo.

  She had been running. She’d run halfway around the world to forget the biggest mistake of her life. She’d run halfway around the world to escape.

  But some mistakes you couldn’t escape.

  Some mistakes followed you and caught up with you when you least expected it.

  And some mistakes came with a sting in the tail that made you feel guilty for wishing things had been different. They were the worst mistakes of all, the ones that kept on hurting you long, long after the event.

  She pulled the plug and stood there, watching the suds gurgle down the sink, suds the very colour of the delicate iron lace-work that framed a tiny grave in a cemetery in far distant Sydney.

  Tears splashed in the sink, mixing with the suds, turning lacy bubbles pearlescent as they spun under the thin kitchen light. She brushed the moisture from her cheeks, refusing to feel sorry for herself, feeling a steely resolve infuse her spine.

  Why should she be so afraid of meeting Luca again? He was nothing to her really, nothing more than a one-night stand that had ended in the very worst kind of way. And if Luca Barbarigo was threatening her mother, maybe Lily was right; maybe she was the best person to stand up to him. It wasn’t as if there was a friendship in the balance. And it certainly wasn’t as if she was going to be charmed by him.

  Not a second time.

  She wasn’t that stupid!

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE was coming.

  Just as her mother had said she would.

  Luca stood at the darkened balcony overlooking the Grand Canal, his senses buzzing with the knowledge, while even the gentle slap of waters against the pilings seemed to hum with anticipation.

  Valentina was coming to save her mother. Expecting to rescue her from the clutches of the evil banker.

  Just as he’d intended.

  A smile tugged at his lips.

  How fortuitous that her mother was a spendthrift with a desperate need for cash. So desperate that she was not bothered to read the terms of any loan agreement too closely. How naive of her to assume that marrying his uncle somehow made her eligible for special treatment.

  Special treatment indeed.

  And now the noose he’d tied was so tight around the neck of the former beauty that she was about to lose her precious palazzo from beneath her once well-heeled feet.

  A water taxi prowled by, all sleek lines and polished timbers, the white shirt of the driver standing out in the dark night, before both taxi and driver disappeared down one of the side canals. He watched the wake fan out across the dark canal and felt the rhythm of water resonate in the beat of his blood; heard it tell him that the daughter was drawing ever closer.

  He searched the night sky, counting down the hours, imagining her in the air, imagining her not sleeping because she knew he would be here in Venice, waiting for her to arrive.

  Waiting.

  He smiled, relishing a sense of anticipation that was almost delicious.

  It was delicious.

  He was no gambler. Luck was for suckers. Instead he thrived on certainty and detail and left nothing to chance. His version of luck happened when excellent pr
eparation met with sublime opportunity.

  The seeds for both had been sown, and now it was time to reap the harvest.

  The palazzo had been his uncle’s once, before that woman had stuck her steely claws into him and hung on tight, and now it was as good as back in the family fold again. But the satisfaction of returning the palazzo to the family fold was not what drove him now. Because Lily Beauchamp had something far more valuable that he wanted.

  Her precious daughter.

  She’d walked out on him once. Left the mark of her hand bright on his jaw and walked away, as if she’d been the one on high moral ground. At the time he’d let her go. Waved good riddance. The sex had been good but no woman was worth the angst of chasing her, no matter how good she was in bed.

  He’d put her from his mind.

  But then her mother had called him, asking for help with the mire of her finances, and he’d remembered the daughter and a night of sex with her that had ended way too prematurely. He’d been only too happy to help then. It was the least he could do for his uncle’s widow, he’d told her, realising there might be a way to redress the balance.

  So now fate was offering him the chance to right two wrongs. To get even.

  Not just with the spendthrift mother.

  But with the woman who thought she was different. Who thought herself somehow better.

  He’d show her she was not so different to her mother after all. He’d show her he was nobody to walk away from.

  And then he’d publicly and unceremoniously dump her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ARRIVING in Venice, Tina thought, was like leaving real life and entering a fairy tale. The bustling Piazzale Roma where she waited for her bag to be unloaded from the airport bus was the full stop on the real world she was about to leave behind, a world where buildings were built on solid ground and transport moved on wheels; while the bridges that spanned out from the Piazzale crossing the waterways were the ‘once upon a time’ leading to a fairy tale world that hovered unnaturally over the inky waters of the lagoon and where boats were king.

  Beautiful, it was true, but as she glanced at the rows of windows looking out over the canals, right now it almost felt brooding too, and full of mystery and secrets and dark intent...

  She shivered, already nervous, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Why had she thought that?

  Because he was out there, she reasoned, her eyes scanning the buildings that lined the winding canal. Luca was out there behind a window somewhere in this ancient city.

  Waiting for her.

  Damn. She was so tired that she was imagining things.

  Except she’d felt it on the plane too, waking from a restless sleep filled with images of him. Woken up feeling almost as if he’d been watching her.

  Just thinking about it made her skin crawl all over again.

  She pushed her fringe back from her eyes and sucked in air too rich with the scent of diesel fumes to clear her head. God, she was tired! She grunted a weary protest as she hauled her backpack over her shoulder.

  Forget about bad dreams, she told herself. Forget about fairy tales that started with once upon a time. Just think about getting on that return plane as soon as possible. That would be happy ending enough for her.

  She lined up at the vaporetto station to buy a ticket for the water buses that throbbed their way along the busy canals. A three-day pass should be more than adequate to sort out whatever it was her mother couldn’t handle on her own. She’d made a deal with her father that she’d only come to Venice on the basis she’d be back at the farm as soon as the crisis was over. She wasn’t planning on staying any longer. It wasn’t as if this was a holiday after all.

  And with any luck, she’d sort out her mother’s money worries and be back on a plane to Australia before Luca Barbarigo even knew she was here.

  She gave a snort, the sound lost in the crush of tourists laden with cameras and luggage piling onto the rocking water bus. Yeah, well, maybe that was wishful thinking, but the less she had to do with him, the better. And no matter what her frazzled nerves conjured up in her dreams to frighten her, Luca Barbarigo probably felt the same way. She recalled the vivid slash of her palm across his jaw. They hadn’t exactly parted on friendly terms after all.

  Tourists jockeyed and squirmed to get on the outer edge of the vessel, cameras and videos at the ready to record this trip along the most famous of Venice’s great waterways, and she let herself be jostled out of the way, unmoved by the passing vista except to be reminded she was on Luca Barbarigo’s patch; happy to hide in the centre of the boat under cover where she couldn’t be observed. Crazy, she knew, to feel this way, but she’d found there were times that logic didn’t rule her emotions.

  Like the time she’d spent the night with Luca Barbarigo.

  Clearly logic had played no part in that decision.

  And now once again logic seemed to have abandoned her. She’d felt so strong back home at the kitchen sink, deciding she could face Luca again. She’d felt so sure in her determination to stand up to him.

  But here, in Venice, where every second man, it seemed, had dark hair or dark eyes and reminded her of him, all she wanted to do was hide.

  She shivered and zipped her jacket, the combined heat from a press of bodies in the warm September air nowhere near enough to prevent the sudden chill descending her spine.

  Oh God, she needed to sleep. That was all. Stopovers in Kuala Lumpur and then Amsterdam had turned a twenty-two hour journey into more like thirty-six. She would feel so much better after a shower and a decent meal. And in a few short hours she could give in to the urge to sleep and hopefully by morning she’d feel halfway to normal again.

  The vaporetto pulled into a station, rocking sideways on its own wash before thumping against the floating platform and setting passengers lurching on their straps. Then the vessel was secured and the gate slid open and one mass of people departed as another lot rushed in, and air laced with the sour smell of sweat and diesel and churned canal water filled her lungs.

  Three days, she told herself, as the vessel throbbed into life and set course for the centre of the canal again, missing an oncoming barge seemingly with inches to spare. She could handle seeing Luca again because soon she would be going home.

  Three short days.

  She could hardly wait.

  The water bus heaved a left at the Canale di Cannaregio and she hoisted her pack from the pile of luggage in the corner where he’d stashed it out of the way. And this time she did crane her neck around and there it was just coming into view—her mother’s home—nestled between two well-maintained buildings the colour of clotted cream.

  She frowned as the vaporetto drew closer to the centuries-old palazzo. Once grand, her mother’s house looked worse than she remembered, the once soft terracotta colour faded and worn, and with plaster peeling from the walls nearly up to the first floor, exposing ancient brickwork now stained yellow with grime at the water level. Pilings out the front of a water door that looked as if it had rusted shut stood at an angle and swayed as the water bus passed, and Tina winced for the once grand entrance, now looking so sad and neglected, even the flower boxes that had once looked so bright and beautiful hanging empty and forlorn from the windows.

  Tourists turned their cameras away, searching for and finding more spectacular targets, an old clock tower or a passing gondola with a singing gondolier, and she almost felt ashamed that this was her mother’s house, such an unworthy building for a major thoroughfare in such a beautiful city.

  And she wondered what her mother could have done with the money she had borrowed. She’d said she’d needed the money to live. Clearly she hadn’t spent much of it on returning the building to its former glory. She disembarked at the next stop, heading down one of the narrow calles leading away from the canal. The palazzo might boast
its own water door but, like so many buildings fronting the canals, pedestrian access was via a rear courtyard, through an ornate iron gate in yet another steeply walled lane, squeezing past clumps of strolling tourists wearing their cruise ship T-shirts and wielding cameras and maps, or being overtaken by fast moving locals who knew exactly where they wanted to go and how to get there in the shortest possible time.

  For a moment she thought she’d found the right gate, but ivy rioted over the wall, unkempt and unrestrained, the ends tangling in her hair, and she thought she must have made a mistake. Until she peered closer through the grille and realised why it looked so wrong.

  She remembered the courtyard garden being so beautifully maintained, the lawns mowed, the topiary trees trimmed to perfection, but the garden looked neglected and overgrown, the plants spilling from the fifteenth century well at its centre crisp and brown, the neat hedge along the pathway straggly and looking as if it hadn’t been clipped for months. Only two bright pots spilling flowers atop the lions guarding the doorway looked as if anyone had made an effort.

  Oh, Lily, she thought, looking around and mourning for what a sanctuary this garden had once been. What had happened to let it go like this?

  There was no lock on the gate, she realised, the gate jammed closed with rust, and she wondered about her mother living alone, or nearly alone in such a big house. But the gate scraped metal against metal and creaked loudly as she swung it open, a sound that would no doubt frighten off any would-be thief.

  It wasn’t enough to bring her mother running, of course—Lily was too much a lady to run—but Carmela, the housekeeper, heard. She bustled out of the house rubbing her hands on her apron. Carmela, who she’d met a mere handful of times, but greeted her now with a smile so wide she could have been her own daughter returning home.

  ‘Valentina, bella! You have come.’ She took her face between her hands and reached up to kiss each cheek in turn before patting her on the back. ‘Now, please...’ she said, wresting her backpack from her. ‘I will take this. It is so good you have come.’ A frown suddenly came from nowhere, turning her face serious. ‘Your mother, she needs you. Come, I take you.’