Italian Mavericks: Carrying The Italian's Heir: Married for the Italian's Heir / The Last Heir of Monterrato / The Surprise Conti Child

CHAPTER ONE

FURIOUS AT THE way his life had begun to unravel over the last two weeks, Dante Mancini pushed back the effects of too much whisky at last night’s impromptu meeting. He tried not to think of the outrageous solution Benjamin Carter had proposed to counteract the damning article Celebrity Spy! had run.

The scandalous piece—naming himself, Ben Carter, Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas as the world’s most debauched bachelors—had done untold damage to their favourite charity, The Hope Foundation. Now those who ran it had demanded they clean up their acts or step aside as patrons. To make matters worse, a business deal he’d been working on was in danger of collapsing because of the damage to his reputation—he was a bachelor who played the field and now everyone knew it.

Could Ben’s idea work? Would taking such drastic action as marriage divert unwanted attention from the charity and secure his most lucrative business deal yet? Possibly. But was he prepared to take the gamble...?

Dante pushed open the door to his office building, not bothering to remove his sunglasses and definitely not ready to admit that the copious amount of whisky he’d drunk whilst being told he needed to find himself a wife was the reason for his fierce headache and foul mood.

He stabbed at the button to call the elevator and inhaled deeply as he waited, still fuming that Bettino D’Antonio was pulling out of the deal because he, Dante Mancini, and his company didn’t uphold family values.

As the doors to the elevator swished open he walked in, desperate for a moment of solitude before he entered the suite of offices which served as the headquarters for his self-built global business empire dealing in renewable energies. In a bid to bring back some control and chase away the threatening headache he inhaled deeply once again.

The doors closed and instantly his senses were on alert. His memory rushed back to an illicit night of hot sex in a London hotel with an unknown redhead who’d haunted his dreams and stalked his thoughts each day ever since.

She had been wild and passionate, and yet as he’d made her his he’d realised she was a virgin. A fluid curse left him as the elevator doors closed, trapping him inside with a memory which only added to his unaccustomed bad mood. It irritated the hell out of him that those gorgeous green eyes continued to haunt him and that, despite the alcohol still in his system from last night, his blood heated at the memory and a shot of lust hurtled round him.

‘Maledizione.’ He never thought of a woman once their affair was over, and the redhead encounter had been two months ago. Well and truly over.

He clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. Now was not the time to become embroiled in memories of one meaningless night. He had to remain in control—focus on the matter in hand. He couldn’t allow that piece of gossip in Celebrity Spy! to jeopardise one of the biggest deals he’d ever gone after, or to tarnish the work of the charity he helped to fund. But neither was he about to be dictated to by Benjamin Carter. He had absolutely no desire to settle down in that very elusive state of marital bliss just to salvage his reputation. There had to be another way and he’d find it—of that he was sure.

Not a moment too soon the elevator doors opened and he left the memory-evoking scent of perfume and marched into his office. His head thumped mercilessly from last night’s excess of whisky and his temper was frayed from the latest developments on the deal.

His secretary jumped up eagerly as he stormed in but he refused to indulge in his usual morning pleasantries. He didn’t have the stamina for niceties right now. All he wanted was total silence and coffee—strong and black.

‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ He snapped the instruction at her as he strode past her desk, desperate for the solitude of his office with its sought-after views over the old quarter of Rome.

‘Signor Mancini...’ she began, overriding his instruction, and he stopped and looked at her, about to open his office door, glad of the sunglasses he still wore.

The last thing he wanted his secretary to know was that he was suffering from an uncharacteristic over-indulgence of alcohol. After his meeting with Ben and the others he’d managed to catch an hour or two of sleep during the overnight flight back to Rome on his private jet, but that hadn’t helped dull the effects of the whisky. All he needed was to be left alone.

‘No calls. No meetings. Nothing.’ He threw the words at her and as she took a breath to protest turned from her and burst into his office. He slammed the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The world had gone mad. Everything he’d worked so hard to achieve seemed in danger of falling to pieces around him.

He muttered a curse and strode across his large office, pressed the button on his coffee machine, then stood at the windows looking out over the city that had at first been a hard and demanding mistress but was now one of only two places in the world where he felt completely at ease.

As the welcome aroma of coffee filled his office he heard movement behind him and tensed. He turned slowly to see just who it was in his office, aware now that his secretary’s unusual insistence on speaking to him must have been to warn him that he had someone waiting for him.

What he didn’t expect to see was the flame-haired siren who’d haunted him since that night two months ago, when she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, long before he’d woken. Not something he was accustomed to.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I waited in here for you...’ The redhead’s soft voice wavered with uncertainty and, dressed in jeans and a navy knitted poncho, she certainly didn’t resemble the glamorous self-assured beauty he’d bedded that night. But then she hadn’t been all she’d pretended to be that night, had she? She hadn’t been an experienced seductress. She’d been a virgin. A fact she’d kept from him until it had been too late.

He pulled off his sunglasses and looked at her. How had she found him? How did she know who he was? Those few hours in his hotel room had been so passionate, so filled with lustful need that they hadn’t even exchanged names, let alone phone numbers.

Icy-cold fingers of dread clutched at him. Was she here to use that story in Celebrity Spy! for some kind of blackmail? Did she want to sell a kiss-and-tell story? Was that why she’d come to Rome unannounced? To demand money from him for her silence?

‘As a matter of fact I do.’ The angry bitterness in his voice barely concealed his disappointment at this realisation. He’d placed her on some kind of pedestal since that night, his thoughts constantly returning to her like a lovesick teenager. She’d got to him in a way no other woman had come close to doing. Even now his blood heated at the knowledge that she was so close, just as it had when he’d smelt the lingering trace of what he now knew to be her perfume in the elevator moments ago.

She stood up and he let his gaze travel quickly down her jean-clad legs, remembering how they’d felt as she’d wrapped them around him. Savagely he dragged his mind back to the present. Dwelling on one night of sex was not in his nature.

‘What do you want?’ He fired the question at her.

‘I just have one thing I need to say and then I will go.’

Her voice still held uncertainty and her face looked pale. Was that just because she wore hardly any make-up?

She looked totally different from the seductress who’d tempted him from the party that night, and she stood before him now looking every bit the innocent and inexperienced virgin she had been when he’d taken her to his hotel room. But she wasn’t a virgin any longer. He had been her first lover and he wanted to know why she had kept that from him. The question wouldn’t come. As she looked at him he sensed something much bigger, much more threatening.

‘How much?’ he demanded, narrowing his eyes as he tried to gauge her reaction, angry that he’d put himself in this position, that he hadn’t exercised his usual caution where women were concerned.

Her delicate brows flew together. ‘How much what?’

He stepped closer and the scent of her perfume teased at his memory again. He closed his mind to the images which threatened to engulf him. The woman who stood before him now was very different from the woman who’d teased him until he’d all but lost his mind as well as his control.

He sighed and walked towards his desk, tossing his sunglasses down before leaning on its solid wood, fixing her with a hard glare. ‘How much do you want? For your silence?’

‘I’m not about to tell the world,’ she snapped back at him, her voice full of injustice.

He only just managed to stifle a smile. The fiery redhead had briefly surfaced from behind the façade of unassuming inexperience she had adopted.

‘Then why are you here, cara? And, more to the point, how did you find me?’ Already he was bored with this conversation. His head thumped cruelly and he wanted nothing more than to sit down in silence. He had a deal to salvage and he didn’t need Little Miss Shy adding to the mix of hurdles he had to power over.

‘There was an article...’ she said softly as he walked back towards the windows.

He turned to face her and noticed how she followed his every move, turning herself slightly to maintain eye contact with him. It made him suspicious.

‘I’m more than aware that there was an article,’ he growled back at her, the tension in his head reaching almost breaking point. This tedious conversation should have ended when she’d named her price—right before he threw her out. So why hadn’t she? More to the point, why hadn’t he thrown her out?

‘That is how I got your name.’ He raised his brows as she blushed before continuing. ‘We didn’t exactly have time to exchange details.’

Exchanging details had been the last thing on his mind. All he’d wanted was her naked and beneath him. He’d been rash and uncontrolled. Hell, he’d even taken her word that she was on the pill. Something he’d never succumbed to, no matter how deliciously tempting the woman.

‘True, but we had much more fun that way, did we not, cara?’ He smiled at her, allowing himself to remember her eagerness, her insistence which had so turned him on, testing his control beyond its usual limits.

‘Piper.’ Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, the green depths of them sparking wildly.

‘Piper?’ he repeated, his mind still not able to function as it should. Hell, he hadn’t even had an espresso yet to banish the remnants of whisky, even though the welcome aroma now filled the office.

‘My name is Piper. Piper Riley.’

He nodded. ‘And now that we are both in possession of each other’s names, perhaps you’d tell me exactly why you are here.’ Once again he moved across his office and glanced at the woman who’d been just the redhead in his mind until today. As before, she moved to face him. Now she had a name would she continue to linger in his mind so temptingly? He hoped not.

‘I needed to see you because...’ She faltered and he folded his arms across his chest, becoming increasingly irritated by the conversation.

‘Dio mio. Just say what you have to say and leave. I don’t have time for games.’

‘Very well.’ She stood taller, lifted her chin a fraction and looked directly at him. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Dante had thought the previous twenty-four hours had been filled with nothing but trouble, swallowing up his usual cavalier attitude. He had never expected—or wanted—those words to be said to him. He couldn’t be a father—not when he’d already proved his inability to look after anyone.

‘How?’

The word shot from him before he had time to think, time to compose himself, but she stood resolutely before him. Even the heated redness which rushed over her pale face for a second time didn’t alter the fact that she had suddenly become bolder and more confident—much more like the woman he’d made love to that night.

* * *

Piper held her ground, remaining rigidly still, focusing her full attention on the man whose baby she was carrying. A man whose reputation had been plastered all over the tabloids in recent weeks, one of the world’s most eligible and debauched bachelors. He was far from ideal father material, but she couldn’t deny him the knowledge that he was going to be a father—much less deny her child the right to a father.

She watched him as he prowled around his office, oblivious to the fact that the coffee he evidently needed was ready. He looked as immaculately stylish as he had the night of the party. The only difference was the hint of stubbly shadow at his jaw and the lines of tension on his face, which stirred her sympathy. But she couldn’t let sentiment get in the way. Not now she knew exactly who she was dealing with.

‘I think we both know how.’

She couldn’t believe the seductive purr which wrapped around those words as she looked at him, wondering just what kind of effect this man still had on her. Her heart raced wildly and her stomach somersaulted. She wasn’t at all convinced it was just her nerves at the situation. It was the darkly passionate man she’d lost her virginity to—Dante Mancini. A playboy and exceedingly proud of it, if the article she’d stumbled across in Celebrity Spy! was to be believed.

‘What I mean is how, when you allowed me to believe that the protection I wanted to use wasn’t necessary?’ His words were slow and his accent heavy, as if he couldn’t take in what she’d told him—or the implications.

Yes, that was the question she’d asked herself as she’d done the first pregnancy test—and the second. It had changed to the question of how she could have been so stupid as she’d done a third, and by the time she’d torn the packaging from the fourth and final test it had changed to words she never usually used, followed by panic at what she was going to do.

Being a single mother was not what she wanted. She’d grown up with a doting father and had always wanted that for her children. And now she was pregnant with this man’s baby.

‘In case you weren’t aware, I had never been in such a situation with a man before. I assumed when you mentioned protection that it had been dealt with.’ She hurled the words at him, furious at herself but even angrier that he’d balked at taking such responsibility.

He walked towards her, suspicion in his dark eyes, and she fought hard against the memory of them being full of desire for her, full of need for her and overflowing with passion. It had been a moment out of time that she’d wanted to remember for ever. Now, thanks to the legacy of that night, she had no choice.

‘And how do I know you didn’t go straight from my bed to that of another man? How do I know the baby you claim to carry is mine?’

She gasped in shock at his fiercely cold words. She’d played out many scenarios in her head over recent weeks, but none had been as brutally attacking as this. In a spur-of-the-moment decision she’d booked a ticket to Rome, because all she’d wanted to do was tell him, face to face, that he was going to be a father. She’d never anticipated anything more. The close bond she’d had with her father had made it impossible for her to do anything else but tell Dante Mancini personally. She’d foolishly believed that he’d want to know that those wonderfully passionate few hours together had created a new life. His child.

How wrong she’d been.

Defeat washed over her, followed by tiredness. She hadn’t even booked a hotel. Once she’d made up her mind all she’d wanted was to get to Rome as soon as possible and to do what she considered the right thing before her confidence deserted her.

‘There are tests that can determine such things.’ She ploughed her fingers into her hair, pulling it off her face, holding it before letting it fall back. She was too tired to deal with this now. She’d felt sick for the duration of the flight, going over and over how to tell him. Trying to second-guess his reaction.

‘Then there will be a test carried out as soon as it is safe to do so.’

The harsh words focused her mind acutely.

‘I have no intention of taking your word for such a claim.’

‘In that case you may be interested to know it can be done in a few weeks’ time.’ She couldn’t help the rush of triumph as he glared at her. Had he expected her to flounder, to back away and leave without fighting her corner—her child’s corner? As the battle of what to do had waged in her mind she’d done her research on the internet, and she knew that, within two weeks if he demanded it, she could confirm that he was the father.

He moved towards her—so close that she could see the flecks of black in the caramel-brown of his eyes, almost obliterating their colour. She could also detect the faint hint of alcohol and wondered if he had left another woman’s bed that morning, after a night of sex and champagne like the one they’d shared. The thought sickened her and nausea rushed over her again. Her knees threatened to buckle as the reality of her shattered and foolish dreams sank in.

‘You sound very convinced that the child is mine.’

He sounded indifferent to her distress, his accent intensified, and being so close to him brought back memories of their night together, increasing the almost overwhelming nausea. She gathered herself quickly. She couldn’t break down now. Not here. Not in front of him.

‘You are the only man I have ever slept with. That night we spent together was totally out of character for me.’ She pushed down her reasons for acting on the undeniable attraction which had sparked so outrageously to life between them. She’d tried to continue working, but with his hot gaze all but stripping her naked right there in the middle of the party it had been almost impossible.

‘So why did you do it?’

He walked slowly round her and she turned, needing to keep him firmly in her line of vision, and inwardly she cursed the lack of sight in her left eye that she’d been born with. She wanted to tell him to stand still, but she hated people knowing, and thanks to the operation she’d had as a child and the contact lenses she wore there wasn’t any need to explain endlessly any more.

She took a deep breath. Honesty was the best way, and if he wanted to know why she’d gone hand in hand with him to his hotel room she would tell him. ‘It was the first anniversary of my father’s death, and I guess I wasn’t my normal self.’

His penetrating gaze slid down her body and she swallowed down the nerves that were threatening to get the better of her. ‘And is this your normal self?’

‘Yes,’ she snapped, hurt by his scathing tone.

She knew she looked nothing like the woman he’d taken to his hotel room. Not only that, she knew she was far from the self-assured woman who’d carried out her job dressed up to the nines in borrowed clothes and fresh out of the beauty salon. That woman had been so far removed from who she really was it was almost laughable—except Dante Mancini didn’t look the least bit amused.

‘Va bene. That can easily be sorted.’ He reached towards her and pushed her hair back from her face so gently it might almost have been an intimate and loving gesture—almost.

Shocked by the heat of his fingers as they grazed her face, she stepped back. ‘What do you mean, that can easily be sorted?’

‘The woman I met in London exists. She was very real as she smiled at me, enticing me with her beautiful green eyes. She was also very real as I undressed her, kissed her and made love to her.’

She bit down on the urge to tell him that woman had never really existed. That night she’d been someone else, driven by the need for physical contact and the spark of sexual attraction which had exploded as they’d first made eye contact. Since that night she’d lost her job because of her dalliance with a client and discovered that she was pregnant. The woman he remembered would never be able to exist again. Already she’d changed.

‘That may be so, but I have no intention of being that woman again. All I came here to achieve was making you aware of the fact that you are to be a father.’ Inwardly she cursed her impulsiveness at coming to Rome. What had she been thinking? That love and happiness would follow?

‘And now that I am aware we will do things my way.’

He strode back to the windows and stood looking out over Rome as the early winter sunshine danced on the rooftops of a city she’d always longed to visit.

‘We will do no such thing.’ Again she questioned her motives for being here. ‘I want nothing. You can go back to your wild lover-boy existence. Goodbye, Dante.’

She took a deep breath as he squared his shoulders against her verbal attack, then walked briskly to the door of his office. All she wanted was to escape. To run away and hide so she could nurse her wounds and rebuild her damaged dreams of a happy-ever-after. How stupid she’d been to harbour any hope that he would stand by her, take on the role of father. What she’d read in Celebrity Spy! should have been enough to extinguish those hopes long before she’d boarded the plane.

She heard his curse before she saw him as he put himself between her and the door, and she wondered if he’d guessed she couldn’t see him from her left side—or anything else, for that matter. Was he exploiting the weakness she took such great pains to conceal?

‘Let me pass,’ she demanded as anger and disappointment collided inside her, making her voice sharp and fierce.

‘You are not going anywhere. We have things to discuss, things to settle.’

‘Such as?’ She folded her arms beneath the knitted poncho she’d opted for early this morning as she’d left her small flat in London.

* * *

Dante looked at Piper and fought the urge to step back and let her go. He knew she was capable of walking away with something he’d never wanted—a child. But his business mind had worked overtime as she’d spat fury and fire at him. Piper carried his child—the one thing that might now be the answer to all the problems which had erupted since that damn article.

‘My child.’

He couldn’t and wouldn’t think any further about the plan that had formulated in his mind.

‘The one you tried hard to deny could even be yours until I mentioned the paternity test?’

The accusation in her voice cut deep, touching a part of him he hadn’t known existed.

‘You are carrying my child, my heir, and no matter how that has come about I will support you. Of that there is no question.’ Outwardly he was in control...inwardly his past mistakes rushed at him. But he couldn’t turn his back on his flesh and blood. He might have got it wrong in the past, but this was his child. ‘But naturally there will be conditions attached.’

‘I don’t want your grudging support, Dante. I want more than that from you for my child—or nothing at all.’

The indignation in her voice reverberated around the office and her green eyes looked so fierce he actually wanted to kiss her. To feel her lips against his once more and kiss away all that fury, replacing it with the passion he knew only too well existed within her.

‘I don’t care what you say you want. You wouldn’t have come all this way to tell me you are carrying my child if you didn’t want something, Piper.’ He liked the feel of her name on his tongue, but still suspicion niggled at him. ‘Perhaps I was right the first time. Is it money that will buy your silence?’

Her green eyes blazed with fury and anger emanated from her in palpable waves. ‘I want no such thing, and I can see I have made a very big mistake in thinking you would be even remotely interested in our baby.’

She turned and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open, but his reactions were quick and he pressed his palm against the door, slamming it shut before she’d even opened it wide enough to walk through.

‘You are not going anywhere until this is sorted, mia cara.’ He leant close to her left ear and whispered his warning, surprised when she jumped away, turning to glare once more at him. The threat in his voice had made her look vulnerable, and his proximity made her as nervous as a kitten, but still she pulled herself together and prepared to fight.

‘I am not your mia cara.’ She all but spat the words at him, like a wild cat which had been cornered. ‘And I want nothing from you. Forget you ever saw me.’

How could he forget her when ever since that night in London she’d been in his thoughts? An unnamed lover who’d given him her virginity and a night he would never forget.

Benjamin Carter’s suggestion floated once again on the periphery of his thoughts. Piper’s arrival at his office couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Her news—unwelcome at any other time—fitted perfectly into his rapidly forming plan. He needed a wife and she carried his child.

‘That will not happen—not when you are carrying my child.’ He held her arms gently, preventing any further attempts to flee. ‘Marriage is the only option.’