Read the book: «A Forbidden Seduction»

CHAPTER ONE

SABOTAGE! thought Debbie immediately. Another nail in the coffin! Anger narrowed her big, soulful grey eyes beneath her sooty lashes to nothing more than a hint of gleaming charcoal. Why did trouble come when they were least able to handle it?

‘I can’t believe it! Both Penny and Judy have left us in the lurch?’ she asked incredulously.

She stalked across the kitchen floor with such vehemence that her curvaceous figure quivered with indignation and her flaxen braid swung like a bell-rope. With quick, deft movements she shed her jacket, washed her hands, and poured herself a reassuring cup of tea.

‘Without the common decency to face us,’ complained her mother bitterly, waving a piece of blue notepaper. “This was stuffed in the letter-box. They’ve had a better offer. I ask you!’

Fuming, Debbie read the brief apology. ‘It must have come after seven-thirty, when I left to take Stefano to nursery school,’ she decided after a moment. ‘What a blow.’

Her mother sniffed her disapproval of such disloyalty in their delivery girls and picked up the telephone receiver decisively. ‘I’ve been ringing round for replacements. No luck so far but I’ll have another go. I must say, those girls might have given us more notice.’

Debbie saw that the sniff covered up a secret despair and she wanted to throw her arms around her mother and hug away that tight, haunted look. Instead, she reached for an apron and tied it around her waist. Her mother would want the situation to be played down. East Enders were brought up to be tough, not to whine in a corner when things went wrong.

‘Pen and Jude are hard up, like us, Mum,’ she said with resignation. ‘Who can blame them if they’ve had a lucrative bribe to work elsewhere?’

‘I do!’ grumbled her mother, dialling the next number on the list of agencies in front of her. ‘It’s going to be hell today!’

That could be an understatement, thought Debbie as she collected the basket of freshly baked bread. Even if they did find someone else to deliver the lunch boxes, it would take twice as long as usual. ‘Try for a couple of kitchen-hands,’ she suggested. ‘One of us can do the deliveries.’

They were teetering on the brink again, trying not to topple into the abyss. Putting the loaves through the slicer, she reflected moodily that they couldn’t keep on coping with one crisis after another. They’d met so many obstacles lately: false orders, wild-goose chases to phantom addresses, customers lost to competitors and mystifying complaints about the freshness of the foodsomething they prided themselves on.

‘They’ll ring back if they find anyone,’ said her mother, replacing the receiver and sounding grim. ‘In the meantime, it’s action stations!’

Debbie frowned. ‘I wish I hadn’t hung around the nursery chatting to the mothers.’ She lifted boxes of fillings from the fridge and lined them up on the counter. ‘Sorry, Mum. I just like to stay till Stefano is settled.’

‘Course you do, love.’ Her mother picked up a large chef’s knife, briskly sliced up a heap of tomatoes and slid them into a dish. ‘Steffy’s your priority, I’ve told you before.’ The blade hovered uncertainly over a sweet-smelling tomato and Debbie suddenly noticed how pinched her mother’s face looked. She was dreadfully worried, she thought with a sudden pang. More than the other times when they’d been in trouble. The knife resumed a fiercely concentrated bout of slicing as her mother muttered, ‘He needs one of his parents to make him feel special.’

Debbie flushed at the dig. ‘Gio adores Stefano!’ she protested, struggling with her conscience and defending her ever absent husband. Gio had never hit it off with her mother. There had been a lot of rows. And his being a travelling salesman meant that he spent long, long periods away with little to show for it. Times were bad, he said. But her mother often berated him because he didn’t contribute much to the family kitty.

‘Steffy is a symbol of his virility and someone to play with when you’re too busy,’ said her mother bluntly. ‘And you? Does he adore you?’

She couldn’t answer that, because although her marriage was a sham she’d felt she had to keep it going for Steffy’s sake. So to everyone in the family she always pretended that there was nothing wrong between herself and Gio. Despite the fact that it had virtually ended less than a year after their wedding-day. And by that time she had been pregnant and desperate to make a stable background for her child. It had been a mistake, she knew that now. And when Gio came home they’d have to talk about ending the farce.

‘It’s not Gio’s fault that he has to work away from home so much,’ she reasoned, ducking the question. But a little voice inside her said, Yes, it is. He could come home more often—he just didn’t want to. And to be honest she preferred it that way. Her marriage had to be ended. They couldn’t go on like this.

Her mother’s mouth tightened. ‘Your uncle offered him that job down the market. Better money, better hours. And he could have set you and Steffy up in a nice little flat instead of the one room upstairs.’

‘Not now, Mum,’ she begged uncomfortably. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel over him. There’s too much to do.’

The phone rang and she waited expectantly. But it was clear from her mother’s gloomy expression that the agency had no one to spare.

‘It’s that big convention.’ Her mother banged the receiver down irritably. ‘Anyone who happens to have two hands has been hired. So that’s it. What are we going to do?’

‘Fight, of course!’ said Debbie briskly. ‘Come on. We’re used to managing on our own.’ She’d had enough practice, she thought wryly, with Gio playing a nonexistent role in supporting her and Steffy. She smiled encouragingly at her mother. They’d do it. They had to.

Her mother gave a watery but unconvincing smile in return. Debbie grabbed a carving knife and controlled her frustration by thinly slicing a side of gammon while she thought how best to cope.

She was sick of hiring delivery girls and teaching them the job—the charm, perpetual smiles, the need for speed and safety combined, the low-level pleasant but persuasive selling techniques—only to have someone offer them more lucrative employment elsewhere.

This was the third time it had happened. And the sandwich business was so competitive that it would happen again and again till they couldn’t stand the strain any longer. Or till her mother keeled over with the stress—like last year.

Oh, God! Debbie thought, the horror sweeping through her in waves. The memory of her mother’s heart attack was still horribly vivid in her mind. Life couldn’t be that cruel. Not again. Not ever again.

A sideways glance told her that her mother’s hands were twisting and knotting around one another as if they might wring out the trouble from their lives as easily as squeezing water from a towel. So Debbie smiled with as much reassurance as she could muster, trying to make light of the appalling situation.

‘It’ll be a rush, but we can do it,’ she said with commendable conviction. When faced with an almost impossible task, you just started it and kept on going till it was finished. Sounded simple, put like that. If only! ‘I know this was to have been my afternoon off, but I can work all day today. You’ll need help with the clearing up later. They’re having a puppet show at the nursery this afternoon, so Steffy will be perfectly content.’

‘We said you had to spend as much time with him as—’

‘I know,’ Debbie said gently. ‘But this is an emergency. Steffy will be asleep half the time I’m working—he’ll hardly notice. I’ll call in later to tell them and give him a hug. OK?

‘Don’t worry, Mum. We’ll leave our oldest, most sympathetic customers till last, just in case we get dreadfully behind. Right, let’s get started; customers are waiting. Better get the show on the road. Who’s going to do what?’ she asked bossily. ‘One to cut and butter, one to dash about the City—’

‘Don’t look at me!’ said her mother hastily. ‘I’m not driving that van through central London—I haven’t driven for ten years. You’ve got to be the delivery girl for today. You know you’ve got no choice.’

‘OK, I’ll do it.’ Debbie flicked back her long braid with a sigh and untied her apron before checking the boxes by the door. ‘Are these the first orders to go?’

‘Yes, love. But you’ve forgotten something,’ ventured her mother delicately. When Debbie looked blank, her mother grinned broadly and said, ‘The costume?’

‘Costume.’ Very slowly, the penny dropped. ‘Oh, the costume!’ Two pairs of wide eyes swivelled to the froths of nonsense hanging under large polythene covers. A doubtful silence fell. Secretly appalled at the thought of wearing anything so...sweet, Debbie playfully lifted one of the dresses from its hanger and held it against her mother’s skinny body. ‘Suits moddom a treat,’ she simpered, in the tones of an adenoidal salesgirl.

They both dissolved into laughter and soon they were clutching each other, giggling hysterically. It was better than crying, she thought, upset as she always was by her mother’s fragility. It was like embracing a bony sparrow.

‘No, it doesn’t! I’d frighten the horses,’ spluttered her mother, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘Dear Debs. You are a tonic.’

Debbie beamed with pleasure. If necessary, she’d don a red nose and do comic falls to make her mother laugh. The dress was worth wearing if it meant her mother could be left to cope in a good humour.

‘Let’s hope our customers think so too,’ she said drily. ‘I’m going to look a right idiot in this. Did I really send Penny and Judy out looking like demented Miss Muffets?’ she marvelled, flicking a frivolous puff sleeve as her mother did a solemn twirl with the dress against her aproned front.

‘You’re exaggerating!’ scolded her mother. ‘It’s not that bad an outfit. Rather pretty, really—sprigged muslin, and really demure. Pen and Jude loved wearing their costumes.’

‘But they were drama students, Mum,’ Debbie pointed out wryly.

A knot of nerves began to tie itself up in her stomach. She knew fate would have her wearing one of the costumes in a few minutes. Sprigged muslin wasn’t her scene; she was too tall and big-boned and her legs were so long that the dress would hang just below her knees instead of a prim calf-length.

OK, it fitted the image of her mother’s very English sandwich business—the plain, honest food, the big slabs of bread pudding, hunks of home-made pies and cakes that made City financiers’ knees go weak—but would the English country girl style look ridiculous on her?

The soft, floaty skirts with masses of petticoats had looked attractive on Penny and Jude, and had brought in the punters and made people smile sentimentally on a grey London day. But she dreaded dressing up and going out on the streets of London in anything other than the inconspicuous clothes she usually wore. The delivery girls had loved their job but they were extroverts and Debbie knew she wouldn’t have their chutzpah.

Torn between speed being of the essence and a sudden desire to crawl under a stone, she blinked at the pretty skirt, with its layers of stiffened broderie anglaise and taffeta petticoats beneath, and shuddered at the ghastly prospect of striding through central London looking like Bo-beep. People would stare. The knots inside her tightened.

‘It’s very pretty and you’ll look wonderful,’ said her mother with unusual firmness, affectionately tweaking Debbie’s thick braid. ‘You don’t get out much. Good grief, you don’t get out at all! About time you wore something nice and showed yourself off a bit.’

At the vote of confidence, Debbie gave her a quick but infinitely loving hug. ‘Could be fun,’ she said uncertainly.

‘Shut your eyes and think of England,’ suggested her mother with a smile.

‘I’d hit a bus!’ retorted Debbie drily, slipping off her apron and dropping it on a chair. Suddenly she had a new goal in life—to find out who was trying to cut them out of business, and make them walk up and down Oxford Street in fancy dress. ‘OK, let’s go for it!’ she cried with a light laugh. ‘Give the nursery a ring for me, would you?’

With commendable enthusiasm, she scooped up both dresses and dashed into the back room of the small business premises to select whichever outfit fitted the best. At last she was able to vent her impotent anger in the violent way she dragged off her blue stretch trousers, the old blouse and baggy cardigan with its much washed and wavy hemline.

The softness that characterised her usual expression had vanished completely now. In its place was a tight, shaking fury. ‘Whoever you are taking my business away,’ she vowed quietly, the words shooting with soft venom through her neat white teeth, ‘I’ll get it back. Every customer. Any way I can!’

She wasn’t born under the sign of Taurus for nothing. Her easygoing and loving nature hid a bull-headed determination. And she wouldn’t let the business go under—that could kill her mother.

Money worries had a tendency to take over their whole lives till that was all they could think about. They were surviving at the moment—nothing else. Darn it! If only they were rich! They often planned what to do if they won a million pounds. She’d love her mother to stop working.

Her dove-grey eyes darkened and her plush, sweet mouth took on a stubborn strength. They’d been struggling to keep their heads above water ever since her father had died nine years ago, trapped in the cab of his lorry on the M25 after a multi-car pile-up because some idiot had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Her lovely father. How much she missed him. How much she’d longed in the lonely days of her marriage to have a husband as kind, as thoughtful, as caring and responsible. In the pock-marked mirror she caught sight of her pale-as-milk face with its charcoal-fired eyes fringed by rapidly blinking sooty lashes. Slowly she straightened, fighting the tears.

The cycle of bad luck had to end. Who cared about wearing some stupid costume when there was so much at stake? She’d go out and win more customers, she vowed, and find the chutzpah from somewhere.

With her tall and womanly body naked in all its workhoned, creamy-skinned glory, she stepped into the frilly briefs and snatched up the larger of the two outfits to slide down the zip at the back.

The material whispered over the silky gleam of her skin, giving her an alien and luxurious feeling as it glided upwards. Letting the dress sit in soft folds around her waist, she realised she’d have to dispense with her bra because the dress had been cleverly cut and boned by her aunt to lift and separate without recourse to any bra. And lift and separate it did, shaping beautifully around her generous bosom and startling her with the effect. The only mercy was that the neckline was decent, with enough broderie anglaise to hide the upper swell of her breasts. But their existence was only too plain.

Debbie blinked at the hot-cheeked woman who bore only a passing resemblance to herself. The outfit was really quite flattering; but she didn’t want that because she hated people noticing her.

‘Oh, boy.’ she groaned, appalled to think that her figure was so clearly on display. ‘I can’t do it,’ she muttered in growing panic.

‘Debbie?’ yelled her mother. ‘People are demanding their orders.’

‘Oh, dam!’ she cursed softly. Hastily she tried on the replica eighteenth-century shoes, with their criss-cross ribbon laces and Louis heel. A bit tight, but bearable. ‘I’m on my way,’ she yelled back, bowing to the inevitable and fastening the huge bow of the little apron that snuggled into the sensuous dip of her waist.

‘Here I am,’ she cried brightly, all rustling taffeta and frothing petticoats. And despite her inner qualms she brazened it out for her mother’s sake, striking a theatrical pose in the doorway. ‘Voilà! What do you think? Am I sweet and countryish?’

‘You look lovely,’ said her mother fondly. ‘Stunning. The dress does a lot more for you than it did for Penny.’

Debbie looked down at her bosom in alarm. ‘It’s not too obvious, is it?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No. I wouldn’t let you out if it were,’ reassured her mother. ‘You just look beautiful, darling. Except for your hair. It’s all wrong.’

‘Mum...oh, Mum!’

Debbie suffered the unpicking of the slippery silk braid and allowed her mother to tease out the rippling waves till her hair hung in a great springy fall down her back. It didn’t seem very ‘country girl’ to her, but time was going on and she didn’t dare stop to argue. Besides, it might serve to hide her face if she blushed when people stared.

A quick check of the map, then, ‘Cannon Street and Cheapside, here I come,’ she said cheerfully, picking up the laden baskets. ‘You know where the list is for the other orders, Mum. The cakes will go in the oven at the usual time. I’ll be back for the next batch of deliveries if I’m not arrested for frightening horses.’ She grinned. ‘Here we go. Is this going to be fun!’

No, she thought morosely, it’s not. Dreading the coming day, she drove as close to her first delivery point as possible, parked, and hesitantly ventured out, the taffeta petticoats sounding irritatingly noisy to her sensitive ears, as if she was deliberately drawing attention to herself.

This was ridiculous, she thought grimly, suffering the double takes of several passers-by as she set off. She was having to make a spectacle of herself because some mean-minded competitor was acting sneakily. Her teeth jammed together in rage. Wait till she found out who it was—she’d grill than and serve them on toast to selected customers!

Sheer anger kept her working that morning. The journeys through the streets of London became something of a nightmare. People had seemed to think that because she was in costume she must be some footloose and fancy-free exhibitionist—despite the demure impression the outfit must have given. Soon she’d collected four invitations to dinner, three to the nearest beefburger bar and two other suggestions of the kind she’d never expected to receive now that she was a married woman—kind of married, she amended.

Remembering she was a moving advert for her business, she’d smiled sweetly and dropped a leaflet into every leering guy’s car, or stuffed one into his pocket, when she’d wanted to scowl and offer knuckle sandwiches all round instead of beef and home-cared gammon. This wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life!

But this was her last customer: nice old Mr Porter, one of the first people she’d ever canvassed. She smiled with joyous relief as she distributed lunch packs around the office. Slowly it dawned on her that the staff seemed tenser than at the office conference a month before, when she and her mother had done the catering. There was fear in the atmosphere. Very odd.

The lift took her to the penthouse suite. The doors slid open and she gingerly walked across the midnight-blue marble floor. Midnight-blue! Her eyes widened. Where was the beige industrial-weight carpet? Mr Porter had transformed the place!

Awed, she swept into the thickly carpeted reception-room which was luxuriously decorated in soft greens and blues, with enormous emerald and sapphire armchairs and huge displays of country flowers in shades of gold and orange. Even the paintings of autumnal English landscapes harmonised perfectly and the music in the background was sensual and seductive, smooth and easy on the ear. Stunning.

‘Morning, Annie!’ she said cheerfully to the secretary who was guarding the entrance to Mr Porter’s office. ‘I’ve got lunch for Mr Porter. One home-cured gammon, one smoked fish, slab of cheddar and one bread pudding. What’s happened to him? The office is wonderful—and he’s even changed his choice of food...’

Her voice trailed away, her surprised gaze fixed on the panelled door of the managing director’s office. Hugh Porter’s name had gone. In its place was a new name: Luciano Colleoni.

‘That’s my surname!’ she cried in astonishment. ‘How extraordinary. It’s a remarkable coincidence; my husband doesn’t have any family, you see. But what a surprise.’

‘Hugh’s gone!’ said Annie, stating the obvious in a conspiratorial whisper.

Before Debbie could ask any questions, the intercom buzzed and an irritable and very deep, alluringly accented voice said, ‘Where’s my lunch, Miss Howard? It’s late.’

‘The delivery girl’s just arrived, Mr Colleoni.’

‘Send her in,’ he grated in the ominous tones of a man organising a firing-squad.

Annie shot a doubtful look at Debbie’s costume. So did Debbie. ‘Um... I can bring your lunch in, Mr Colleoni—’

‘The girl!’ rasped Colleoni.

Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Don’t be put off,’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid he’s been in a filthy mood ever since he had his post.’

‘Fear no longer. I think I’m guaranteed to give him a smile,’ said Debbie wryly, tweaking her pinny.

Curious to meet the new boss, she knocked on the door and walked meekly into the huge and elegantly decorated room whose buttermilk and moss-greens screamed good taste. She came to a respectful halt.

Sitting at a new and richly polished mahogany desk was a man with dark, almost blue-black hair and eyes that would cut metal. Dark eyes, like Gio’s. Perhaps Sicilian, like him too—but without her husband’s smooth charm and easy smile. This man didn’t look as if he knew what a smile was.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, he was frowning at her appearance, the broad shoulders in the beautifully cut black pin-striped suit rising a good inch or two in what she interpreted as the weary resignation of a man who had seen it all and appeared to be reluctantly seeing it again. There was a similarly visible swell of the sharp white shirt and the royal blue tie too, and the atmosphere in the penthouse office dropped by several degrees. Oh, Lord, she thought, a man of unimpeachable taste; he didn’t approve of fancy dress during office hours.

Debbie suddenly felt very self-conscious and very foolish. But she smiled her sweetest smile and approached the desk, wishing that nice Mr Porter were sitting there instead of the bad-tempered dark ogre who was eyeing her outfit as if he was afraid she’d whip out a snake and do some impromptu dance with it.

‘What the hell are you supposed to be?’ asked Colleoni abruptly.

Debbie swallowed the urge to giggle at his reaction. ‘An olde Englishe wench, I think,’ she said cheerfully.

‘I had my doubts about the costume suiting me too,’ she admitted with engaging honesty. His frostiness didn’t dissolve by one iota as she pressed on. ‘I must apologise for the late delivery...’ she began, hoping to placate him.

‘I said twelve-thirty.’

He radiated confidence and authority—in the way he sat, the way he commanded the room, the way he spoke, his voice very Sicilian in the way it dropped at the end of his sentences as if he’d said something that was not to be questioned. It made Debbie feel like a schoolgirl who’d been hauled in front of the headmaster for some grave misdemeanour. And she had a wicked urge to hang her head sullenly, swing her body from side to side and mutter, Yes sir, sorry sir; it won’t happen again, sir.

But she remembered that she had to be charming at all times and so she willed herself to approach the forbidding area between her noisily rustling skirt and the desk. She placed the box on his pristine blotter and kept the pleasant smile firmly in place.

‘Both of our delivery girls were pinched by a rival,’ she explained calmly.

His black brow had arced up sardonically because her cockney accent had become more pronounced—perhaps in contrast to his classy tones, she had decided it would be best to be herself. He’d see through any attempt she made to sound refined.

‘I’m not surprised, if they were wearing such revealing costumes.’

Debbie blinked, wondering if he’d made a joke, and decided he was far too po-faced to do any such thing. ‘By pinched I meant that our girls were lured away, given alternative employment,’ she explained, and checked herself to see if the broderie anglaise insert had come adrift from her bosom. All was in place. ‘It’s not revealing,’ she protested mildly.

‘It is from where I’m sitting.’

His eyes wandered critically down her body, inch by inch, and she felt the tightness of the material increase, proving his point.

She blushed and felt an urge to wrap her arms around herself defensively. ‘Well, it wasn’t made for me.’

‘I guessed.’

‘You’re lucky you got any food at all,’ she confided. ‘I’ve been breaking the world speed record to make sure you didn’t miss out.’ She beamed.

He didn’t look impressed or grateful. ‘The world speed record wasn’t fast enough for me,’ he drawled sarcastically.

‘Oh. Mr Porter wouldn’t have minded.’

‘I’m not Mr Porter.’

‘No. He was bald.’ She flashed him an innocent grin to dispel his perfectly reasonable suspicion that she was sending him up. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she asked in genuine concern. ‘He’s not been sacked by the board, has he?’

The man was clearly taken aback, as if people—especially Bo-Peeps in aprons—didn’t normally talk to him so frankly. ‘Golden handshake. I bought the bank,’ he said drily.

His eyes seemed to be everywhere, appraising her with the confidence of someone who expected to be found attractive. And his arrogant gaze lingered particularly on Debbie’s straining bosom. It felt hot and prickly. She was so uncomfortable that she decided she’d better leave.

‘I hope Mr Porter got a good solid handshake from you,’ she said, longing to find a human spark in the man. ‘He was a darling. I’d like to think of him on some desert island, swigging gin and swatting flies.’ The glittering black eyes hadn’t even flickered. She decided to give up on him. ‘Well, my feet are killing me, so I’ll be off.’

‘Wait.’ The word was softly spoken but carried so much authority that it halted her in mid-stride as she headed for the door. And although her back was turned to him she felt his eyes burning into her spine and doing funny things to her nerves. ‘I want to check the food first,’ he murmured.

Stifling a groan, she returned to his desk and, carefully moving aside a stack of mail and a half-opened parcel, patiently undid the string on the box to reveal the contents. ‘It’s all fresh,’ she said brightly. ‘I baked the bread this morning.’

‘You?’ he said in frank disbelief, fingering a fountain-pen thoughtfully.

‘At dawn,’ she retorted, widening innocent eyes.

‘While the mists were lifting from the Thames and the sky lightened from rose to saffron?’

Was that sarcasm? She wasn’t sure—the dark face was deadpan, the eyes so intense and magnetic that she had to make a real effort to drag her gaze away. ‘Not quite. While the dustmen banged about outside and next door’s cat yowled in the yard,’ she corrected him with a wry grin.

‘Well, don’t bother on my account in future,’ he said, apparently not possessing a sense of humour. The hard male mouth hadn’t as much as quivered in amusement. He poked about in the box, a faint curl to his upper lip. Then he looked up and met her concerned gaze with a cold, hostile stare. ‘I’m re-assigning the catering to another firm.’

Debbie’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘You’re what? Why?’ she asked in dismay. ‘The food’s terrific—’

‘I don’t have to give a reason,’ he snapped irritably.

‘I think you do!’ she cried in protest, deciding to stick her neck out and get to the bottom of Colleoni’s brushoff. ‘I need to know what we’ve done wrong—we could put it right.’

The black eyes flashed a warning. ‘I’m busy,’ he said curtly. ‘I don’t discuss decisions.’

The strong nose had lifted with the haughtiness of a Roman emperor and Debbie suddenly felt she’d been relegated to a servant level. ‘Particularly with delivery girls?’ she asked quietly.

His glacial stare never wavered but she felt the scorn pouring from him like an acid river. ‘Out,’ he grated through perfect white teeth.

He bent his glossy head and scowled at some papers in front of him, effectively dismissing her. She was stunned. They needed the business to pay the gas bill. Her body trembled at the prospect of more debts, more arrangements to pay instalments from a rapidly diminishing income. She thought of how the news would affect her mother and steeled herself to face him, since she had nothing to lose and a lot to win. She stood her ground.