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his ebony-lashed eyes flaring hot gold in a lengthy appraisal. In the same moment Caroline had been lost to all reason, ensnared by his stunning gaze. It hadn’t mattered who or what he was. He had taken her prisoner with a single glance, and she would have followed him to the ends of the earth on the strength of it.
    ‘And you are…?’ Valente had murmured, poised by her desk.
    ‘Caroline—’
    ‘The boss’s daughter…our poor little rich girl!’ one of the other drivers had spelt out in warning, causing the warm blood of embarrassment to rise beneath her fair skin.
    ‘I’ll see you later, Caroline,’ Valente had breathed silkily. Just the timbre of his rich dark drawl had made her skin come up in goosebumps.
    The afternoon had dragged while she’d pictured that lean dark face over and over again, recalling his high masculine cheekbones, narrow-bladed nose and wide, sensual mouth, wondering dizzily what it was about that precise arrangement of features that had made italmost impossible for her to look away from him again. Even though she’d been twenty-one years old, she’d fallen for Valente Lorenzatto with the speed and wholehearted enthusiasm of a schoolgirl.
    In those days she had been no more experienced than an innocent schoolgirl, either. The safe cocoon of her cushioned upbringing had made her something of a misfit at art college. The aggressive sexual demands of the boys she’d met then had put her off anything more than the most casual dating. When she’d needed a partner for more formal occasions she’d invited Matthew Bailey—the boy next door and her closest friend. An introvert and shy, and cautious with strangers, she had already been carrying a load of guilt for disappointing her parents. In going for a college education Caroline had defied the wishes of the parents she loved for the first time… Valente had been the second and a by far more serious demonstration of her growing need for the freedom to act as an individual in her own right…
    Refusing to agonise over the situation with Valente now, Caroline told herself that he just could not be serious, and to keep herself busy did the weekly shopping before returning home. There she found a note from her mother on the kitchen board, reminding her that her father had a hospital appointment that afternoon. Her parents had already left. Groaning, because she had forgotten about the arrangement, Caroline stowed away the groceries. By that stage her ability to shut out her recollection of Valente’s threat to close down Hales Transport was wearing dangerously thin.
    Over two hundred people would lose their jobs, not to mention the knock-on effect on other neighbourhoodbusinesses. Another local firm had gone bust several years earlier and the whole community had suffered a great deal. She knew that the stress of unemployment and the loss of a steady income could break up marriages and shatter families. To allow that to happen to others when she had been offered an alternative—no matter how outrageous—was a huge responsibility that rested on her shoulders alone.
    And who more justly deserved that responsibility? Caroline asked herself angrily. Matt had made little effort to reduce his spending when Hales had lost contracts to Bomark Logistics. Instead, he’d bought a very expensive new company car and run up huge bills entertaining prospective clients, whom she suspected had never really existed. She had been no friend to the family business while she’d loyally kept her mouth shut about her husband’s failings. Guilt cut her deep. Matthew’s behaviour had been a deep source of shame to her, yet she had shrunk from distressing her parents or his with the news that Matthew was not to be trusted with the future of an ailing business. There again, nobody would have wanted to hear, and nor would any of them have listened to her or valued her opinion, she reflected heavily. Sexism had run through both sides of the family like a contagious