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'The woman with Charles Ingram—do you know who she is?' Cesare demanded harshly.
'Sorry?' Peter Sheldon, his male acquaintance, frowned his confusion.
Cesare's mouth tightened as he bit back his impatient reply. After all, despite being at a charity dinner, the two men had been in the middle of a business conversation when Cesare's attention had wandered. He'd been captivated by the woman who stood across the room at Charles Ingram's side, looking so glitteringly gorgeous.
Next to Cesare's bitterest enemy!
Cesare gave a smile, which showed the even whiteness of his teeth against his olive skin, but which did not reach the darkness of his eyes. 'I was merely wondering who the beautiful woman is accompanying Charles Ingram…' he voiced more calmly, his tone deliberately neutral even as his narrow-eyed stare remained on the ill-matched pair.
Charles Ingram was aged in his late fifties, silver-haired, and still a handsome man. In a room full of beautiful women wearing glittering jewellery and designer gowns, and elegantly suave men in tailored dinner suits, the tall, graceful woman who stood at Charles Ingram's side still managed to stand out as extraordinary.
Her hair was the colour of honey, falling in lustrous waves halfway down her spine, and her eyes, even from this distance, were, Cesare could see, a deep, deep violet. She was laughing at something Charles Ingram said to her now, those eyes glowing. Her skin was a creamy magnolia, her mouth a full, tempting pout, her neck long and smooth, and the deep swell of her breasts was visible above the simple white gown she wore that nevertheless hugged the perfection of her alluring curves.
One of her hands—slender hands that could and no doubt did caress a man to the edge of madness—rested slightly possessively on the arm of her escort, and Cesare found himself gritting his teeth at the air of intimacy, of exclusivity, that surrounded the couple, despite the vast difference in their ages.
'A beauty, isn't she?' Peter Sheldon murmured appreciatively. 'Beautiful, but unattainable,' he added regretfully.
'Ingram has exclusive rights, you mean?' Cesare questioned hardly, his jaw clenching just at the thought of all that sensual beauty being wasted on Charles Ingram.
'Not at all,' his business acquaintance dismissed humorously. 'The lady in question is Robin Ingram—Charles's daughter,' he explained dismissively, when Cesare looked at him blankly for several seconds.
Robin Ingram.
Charles Ingram's daughter?
Not the mistress Cesare had imagined at all. She wasn't a mistress whom, just as an amusement to himself, after noting her own interested gaze fixed upon him, Cesare had been happily contemplating seducing away from her aging lover.
In the last three months Cesare had gathered all the information that he could on Charles Ingram—wanted to learn everything that he could about his sworn enemy, up to and including his shirt size.
Ingram's second child had been included in that information, of course. But Cesare had assumed—erroneously, it now seemed!—that Robin was Charles Ingram's younger son, and as such of little real interest.
'I had thought that Robin was a man's name?' Cesare enquired. His English was faultless. As was his native Italian, and his French, German and Spanish.
'It can be,' his companion acknowledged lightly. 'But it's also one of those names that can be used by either sex.'
So Charles Ingram's second child—Robin— was a woman… A beautiful, sexually alluring woman.
Which perhaps changed the direction of Cesare's plans for his revenge on the Ingram family….
'Daddy, do you know that man? No, don't look over yet,' Robin pleaded huskily, as her father would have turned to look in the direction of her own fascinated gaze. 'There's a man across the room—a dark-eyed, foreign-looking man—'
'A handsome, dark-eyed, swarthy-looking man?' her father teased lightly.
'Well…yes,' she conceded with a slight grimace. 'But that isn't the reason I noticed him.'
'No?' Her father smiled indulgently.
'No,' she insisted. 'He's been staring at me for the last ten minutes or so—'
'I would stare at you too, if you weren't my daughter!' Charles assured her laughingly. 'You look exceptionally beautiful tonight, Robin,' he added approvingly as he sobered. 'I'm glad you persuaded me to come here with you this evening. You were right. We can't keep hiding away from everyone just because they might mention Simon.'
Robin dragged her eyes away from the man staring at her so intently from across the other side of this crowded and noisy room and looked at her father instead, easily recognising the lines of grief that still creased his brow and grooved beside his nose and mouth.
The last three months hadn't been easy for either of them—the unexpected death of her brother Simon in a car accident having ripped their lives apart.
It was a loss that neither of them had come to terms with yet, and perhaps they never would completely. But she had persuaded her father to come to this charity dinner with her this evening—had felt that it was time they picked up the threads of their lives again, and that it was what Simon would have wanted.
'Anyway, let's forget about that for now and get back to your handsome dark-eyed stranger.' Her father deliberately infused jollity into his tone. 'Which one is he?' He turned to look across the room crowded with socialites who had paid five thousand pounds a head to attend this event this evening.
'You can't miss him,' Robin replied ruefully, as she once again found herself the focus of eyes so dark that they appeared almost black. 'Tall. Very tall,' she amended as she realised the man stood several inches above most of the other men in the room. 'Probably aged in his late thirties. With slightly overlong dark hair,' she elaborated, affected by his glittering dark eyes. In spite of herself, a shiver of awareness ran the length of her spine. 'He's standing next to Peter Sheldon— what is it, Daddy?' She turned to to her parent anxiously as she felt the way Charles's arm suddenly tensed beneath her fingers.
'I want you to stay well away from him, Robin!' her father advised abruptly, and he deliberately moved so that he was standing protectively in front of her, rather than at her side.
'But who is he?' Robin stared up at her father, slightly taken aback by the grimness of his expression.
'His name is Cesare Gambrelli,' Charles bit out tensely.
Gambrelli… Why did that name sound so familiar to her?
Only the name, of course; if she had ever seen or met this man before Robin knew she would definitely have remembered him!
'Italian, obviously,' her father continued to explain. 'Mega, mega-rich. Amongst other things, the owner of the Gambrelli hotel chain.'
That must be why his name sounded so familiar. Of course Robin knew of the exclusive Gambrelli hotels. She had even stayed in several of them on occasion.
But who didn't know of the luxurious, exclusive establishments that graced most of the capital cities in the world? Or of the Gambrelli media consortium, the music and film studios, the Gambrelli airline?
And this man, Cesare Gambrelli, the man who had been staring at her so intently, was the owner of all of them…
Although that didn't explain her father's obvious aversion to him.
'I don't understand,' she said, puzzled. 'What— Don't look now, Daddy,' she exclaimed in a low voice, 'but I think he's coming over!'
At five feet ten inches tall, in her three-inch heeled white strappy sandals, Robin could quite easily see over her father's shoulder that Cesare Gambrelli was making his way deliberately across the room towards them.
'Charles,' Cesare greeted the older man emotionlessly as he moved to stand between father and daughter, making no effort to offer the older man his hand before turning to look at Robin Ingram with narrowed dark eyes. 'And I believe this is your beautiful daughter…?' he enquired smoothly.
'This is Robin, yes.' Charles Ingram was obviously rattled by his sudden appearance. 'I'm surprised to see you at an event like this one, Gambrelli.'
Cesare ran his vision slowly over the flawless features of Robin Ingram—the sensual pout of the fullness of her mouth was seductive, and those violet-coloured eyes were as beautifully alluring, the creamy swell of her breasts as full and tempting, as he had imagined! Then he slowly returned his attention to the older man. 'You think me an uncharitable man, Charles?' he challenged.
Robin had sensed already what her father thought of this man, and that impression was enhanced after only a couple of minutes in his company—he was dangerous!
A tall, dark, deadly predator!
And the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on. His eyes were so dark they appeared black, his nose was aquiline, his sculptured lips hard and unyielding, his chin square and determined, and his hair, as dark as ebony, was brushed back from his brow to rest silkily on the white collar of his evening shirt. His shoulders were wide and muscled, his body lithe and powerful. But he was also, without a doubt, the most dangerous looking man Robin had ever seen!
The way he had looked at her just now— those dark eyes had dissected every creamy curve of her face before lingering slightly suggestively on the warm swell of her breasts above the strapless white dress she wore—had only succeeded in deepening her awareness of him.
In fact, she could still feel the slight flush to her cheeks, and her breathing was uneven. Caused not by embarrassment or awkwardness in his company, but by the sharp, stinging sexual awareness which hardened her nipples and encouraged a moist heat between her thighs!
'Not at all.'Her father was answering Cesare dismissively. 'But this dinner is in aid of a British charity—and charity begins at home, doesn't it?'
That sculptured mouth tightened slightly. 'So the saying goes,' Cesare Gambrelli acknowledged softly. 'But you are wrong concerning my nationality, Charles,' he added. 'I am Sicilian, not Italian.'
Robin was aware of her father swallowing hard as Cesare Gambrelli silkily supplied this information, at the same time realising there was an increase in her father's tension at the challenge that could clearly be heard in the other man's honey-coated voice.
What was going on here? Because it was clear to her that something other than surface conversation was simmering between these two men.
There was a friction, a double meaning to their exchange, that implied they weren't talking about this charity dinner at all, but something much deeper…
'My mistake,' her father murmured in reply to the other man's comment.
A costly one, as far as Cesare was concerned. Sicilian men were not known for their forgiveness. As Cesare did not forgive the Ingram family for taking his sister from him—for taking Marco's mother from him.
