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wellknown for restoring period properties. ‘They’re here to see the house and get some plans down on paper. It would make more sense if they were allowed to explore at their own pace,’ he said.
    Caroline was appalled that he was already making plans to alter her parents’ home. ‘Of course,’ she acceded. as if the matter was of no concern to her—because she knew that she had no grounds for interfering.
    ‘Where are your parents?’ Valente asked with a frown as his companions took off in different directions to do his bidding. He had expected to renew his acquaintance with the older couple who had in the past slighted him with their distaste, quite unaware that as an illegitimate Barbieri he had been abused by true professionals in that field and had developed a tough skin after enduring much more painful rejections and dismissals. He ran his unimpressed gaze over the faded jeans and the ruffled purple shirt that Caroline now sported. The outfit at least fitted her delicate figure and made her look much younger than her years. The shirt also lent a reflected purple depth to her silvery eyes, while less innocently outlining the rounded, tip-tilted firmness of her small bosom. His even white teeth clenched and his body reacted accordingly to those delectable breasts, even before he noted the tight fit of the denim over the curve of her hips.
    Registering that all-over distinctively masculine appraisal, Caroline reddened and felt warm all over, as if her temperature had gone haywire. Valente had always had that effect on her. Unlike many very good-looking men, Valente had never gone through a New Man or metrosexual phase. He was an aggressive alpha malewho emanated high-voltage sexuality and potent virility. Women of all ages were always aware when Valente was around. ‘My parents are out…my father has a hospital appointment.’
    ‘Their absence should only make life simpler,’ Valente remarked. ‘Let’s get on with this. I have a tight schedule.’
    He revealed no interest, indeed his frown merely deepened, as she showed him through to the handsome main reception rooms where her mother had spared no expense in either colour scheme or embellishment. ‘Look, you can’t possibly want to live here,’ she told him sharply. ‘I can’t believe that you would have sufficient use for this house, or that it could ever be made over in your style.’
    ‘If you were waiting here to welcome me when I arrived for a visit, I could learn to like it. In any case—’ a sleek black brow quirked with sardonic cool ‘—what could you possibly know about how I live now?’
    ‘The designer clothes and the limousines speak for you. This house was never in that class even when it was new!’
    ‘Sniping at me won’t drive me away, and nor will it win you favours,’ Valente breathed lazily. ‘This property belongs to me and I will do as I like with it.’
    ‘But my parents—’
    ‘I don’t want to hear another word! I have a hearty contempt for sob stories,’ Valente incised with chilling bite. He shifted a lean brown hand in dismissal when she attempted to show him the kitchen quarters, and headed for the main staircase instead. ‘Neither of your parents has ever worked a day in their lives, or even had the good sense to cut back on their lifestyle when theirbusiness began going down. I refuse to see them as victims of anything but their own self-indulgence.’
    Silenced by that harsh condemnation, Caroline swallowed back the protest that her parents deserved a little more sympathy because as their income had dwindled so their household budget had had to be slashed. All extras had been shaved away, the housekeeper and the gardener laid off. Valente was not the man to give her family sympathy, for there was too big a difference between their backgrounds. Caroline had never wanted for anything while Valente had grown up in poverty with a mother whose ill-health had killed her by the time he was eighteen. His tougher