No!
He thought she was Bella. Which meant he hadn’t known her friend. He must have got the name from one of the stall-holders who knew her as Isabella Rossini. Was he playing some supposedly seductive pick-up game with her? But why would he? ‘I beg your pardon!’ she said with as much indignation as she could muster, hating the idea of him digging for information about her, and thinking he could get some stupid advantage from it.
He gestured an apology. ‘Forgive me for not being more direct in my approach. The estrangement in our family makes for a difficult meeting and I hoped to ease into it. My name is Dante Rossini. I’m one of your cousins and I’m here to invite you back to Italy for a reunion with all your other relatives.’
Jenny was totally stricken by this news. Bella had told her she had no family. There’d been no talk of any connections in Italy. But if there had been an estrangement, perhaps she’d never heard of them, believing herself truly orphaned by the plane crash which had killed her parents. On the other hand, was this man telling the truth? Even if he was, how would Bella have responded to it? No one from Italy had cared about her all these years. Why bother now?
Fear fed the burst of adrenaline that drove her to her feet. Fear chose the words that sprang off her tongue. ‘Go away!’
That jerked him out of his air of relaxed confidence.
Jenny didn’t wait for a response to her vehement command. She slammed down the stick of charcoal, ripped the half-done portrait off the easel, crumpled the sheet of paper up in her hands and threw it in the wastebin to punctuate an emphatic end to this encounter.
‘I don’t know what you want but I want no part of it. Just go away!’ she repeated, her eyes stabbing him with fierce rejection as he rose from the chair, suddenly taking on the appearance of a formidable antagonist.
‘That I cannot do,’ he stated quietly.
‘Oh, yes you can!’ Her mind wildly seized on reinforcements. ‘If you don’t I’ll go to the forum management, tell them you’re harassing me.’
He shook his head. ‘They won’t act against me, Isabella.’
‘Yes, they will. They’re very tight with security.’
He frowned at her. ‘I thought you knew the Rossini family owns all the Venetian Forums. That you chose to buy one of our apartments here in Sydney because of the family connection.’
Her mind completely boggled. Had Bella known this? She had never mentioned it. And what did he mean…all the Venetian Forums? Was there a worldwide network of them? If so, the Rossini family had to be mega-wealthy and no one was going to take her side against this man. She was trapped on his territory.
‘I’ve already spoken to the management here about you,’ he went on. ‘If you need them to identify me, assure yourself that I am who I say I am, I’m happy to accompany you to the admin office…’
‘No! I’m not accompanying you anywhere!’ she almost shouted at him in panic.
Her raised voice attracted the attention of passers-by, including Luigi, the photographer, who dropped his hustling for clients to stroll over and ask, ‘Having trouble here, Bella?’
She couldn’t rope him in to help her, not against the man who had the management in his pocket. Luigi depended on his job here. The two men were eyeing each other over—both macho Italian males—and the bristling tension told her neither one of them was about to back down.
‘It’s okay, Luigi. Just a family fight,’ she said quickly. He would understand that. Her experience of working in the forum had taught her that all Italian families got noisy over a dispute and were best left to themselves to sort out the problem.
‘Well, tone it down,’ he advised. ‘You’ll be scaring customers away.’
‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
He shrugged and moved off, tossing an airy wave at Dante. ‘Make him take you to lunch. He looks as though he can afford it. A bit of vino…’
‘Excellent idea!’ her nemesis agreed. ‘I’ll help you pack up, Isabella.’
He turned and collected the folding chair he’d been sitting on before Jenny could say a word. She felt totally undermined by his arrogant confidence, helpless to fight the situation, yet desperate to escape it. He wasn’t family to her, and what had seemed a harmless deception—a temporary lifeline that would help her and not hurt anyone—was turning into a murky mess that she didn’t know how to negotiate.
‘Why turn up now? Why?’ she demanded of him as he carried the chair over to where she stood beside the easel.
‘Circumstances change.’ He flashed that smile again. At close quarters it probably made every woman go weak at the knees and Jenny was no exception. Dante Rossini had megawatt sex appeal. ‘Let me explain over lunch,’ he added, his dark-chocolate eyes warm enough to melt resistance, his voice a persuasive purr.
Her spine tingled. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her mind screamed danger. No way could she give in to the charm of the man. If she didn’t somehow extricate herself from this situation, it would lead to terrible trouble.
‘You’re too late,’ she blurted out. It was the truth. Bella was dead. But she couldn’t reveal that. ‘I don’t need you in my life. I don’t want you,’ she threw at him, wildly hoping he would accept that his mission was futile.
‘Then why set yourself up in the Venetian Forum?’ he shot at her, his eyes hardening with disbelief at her hysterical claims.
Bella had set her up. Confusion roared through Jenny. Had there been some artful plan behind her friend’s kindness in inviting her to share the apartment, getting her employed here by using the Rossini name? Had Bella imagined it might catch the attention of the forum management enough to mention it to the Rossini family?
Was I bait?
Her first meeting with Bella…the offer that had seemed too good to be true…wanting to believe luck had smiled on her for once. Jenny shook her head. It was all irrelevant now. She shouldn’t have stayed on, using Bella’s name, getting herself in this awful tangle.
‘Think what you like,’ she snapped at the cousin who’d come too late. ‘I’m out of here.’
She instantly busied herself, packing up the easel, her inner agitation making her hurry so much she fumbled and dropped the box of charcoal sticks. He swooped and picked it up, holding it out to her, making it impossible to completely ignore him. He was still holding her fold-up chair, as well.