Loe raamatut: «A Ring For Vincenzo's Heir»

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES, Scarlett.” Her ex-boss’s greedy eyes slowly traveled from her pregnant belly to the full breasts straining the fabric of her black maternity dress. “Either you sign this paperwork to give your baby away when it’s born, and become my wife immediately, or...”

“Or what?” Scarlett Ravenwood tried to move away from the papers he was pushing toward her. But the man’s overmuscled bulk took up most of the backseat of the limousine.

“Or...I’ll have Dr. Marston declare you insane. And have you committed.” His fleshy lips curved into a pleasant smile. “For your own safety, of course. Because any sane woman would obviously wish to marry me. And then you’ll lose your baby anyway, won’t you?”

Scarlett stared at him, barely seeing the gleaming buildings of Manhattan passing behind him as they drove down Fifth Avenue. Blaise Falkner was handsome, rich. And a monster.

“You’re joking, right?” She gave an awkward laugh. “Come on, Blaise. What century do you think we’re living in?”

“The century a rich man can do whatever he wants. To whomever he wants.” Reaching out, he twisted a tendril of her long red hair around a thick finger. “Who’s going to stop me? You?”

Scarlett’s mouth went dry. For the last two years, she’d lived in his Upper East Side mansion as nursing assistant for his dying mother, and over that time Blaise had made increasingly forceful advances. Only his imperious mother, horrified at the thought of her precious heir lowering himself to the household help, had kept him at bay.

But now Mrs. Falkner was dead, and Blaise was rich beyond imagination. While Scarlett was nothing more than an orphan who’d come to New York desperate for a job. Ever since she’d arrived, she’d been isolated in the sickroom, obeying the sharp orders of nurses and doing the worst tasks caring for a fretful, mean-spirited invalid. She had no friends in New York. No one to take her side against him.

Except...

No, she told herself desperately. Not him.

She couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

But what if Blaise was right? What if she escaped him and went to the police, and they didn’t believe her? Could he and his pet psychiatrist find a way to carry through with his threat?

When he’d crassly propositioned her at the funeral that morning—literally over his mother’s grave!—she’d tried to laugh it off, telling him she was leaving New York. To her surprise, he’d courteously offered a ride to the bus station. Ignoring her intuition’s buzz of warning, she’d accepted.

She should have known he wouldn’t give up so easily. But she’d never imagined he’d go this far. Threatening her into marriage? Trying to force her to give her baby away?

She’d made a mistake thinking of Blaise as a selfish, petulant playboy who wanted her like a spoiled child demanded a toy he couldn’t have. He was actually insane.

“Well?” Blaise demanded. “What is your answer?”

“Why would you want to marry me?” Scarlett said weakly. With a deep breath, she tried to appeal to his vanity. “You’re good-looking, charming, rich. Any woman would be happy to marry you.” Any woman who didn’t know you, she added silently.

“But I want you.” He gripped her wrist tightly enough to make her flinch. “All this time, you’ve refused me. Then you get yourself knocked up by some other man and won’t tell me who.” He ground his teeth. “Once we’re wed, I’ll be the only man who can touch you. As soon as that brat is born and sent away, you’ll be mine. Forever.”

Scarlett tried to squelch her rising panic. As the limo moved down Fifth Avenue, she saw a famous cathedral at the end of the block. A desperate idea formed in her mind. Could she...?

Yes. She could and she would.

It hadn’t been her plan. She’d intended to buy a bus ticket south, use her small savings to start a new life somewhere sunny where flowers grew year-round and raise her baby alone. But as her own father often said when she was growing up, new challenges called for new plans.

Her new plan scared her, though. Because if Blaise Falkner was a frying pan, Vincenzo Borgia was the fire.

Vin Borgia. She pictured the dark eyes of her unborn baby’s father, so hot one moment, so cold the next. Pictured the ruthless edge of his jaw. The strength of his body. The force of his will.

A shiver went through her. What if he...

Don’t think about it, she told herself firmly. One impossible thing at a time. Another maxim she’d learned from her father.

As the chauffeur slowed down at a red light, she knew it was now or never. She took a deep breath, then opened her eyes with a brittle smile.

“Blaise.” Scarlett leaned forward as she tightened her hidden right hand into a fist. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do...?”

“What?” he breathed, licking his lips as he looked down at her breasts.

“This!” She gave him a hard uppercut to the jaw. His teeth snapped together as his head knocked backward, shocking him into releasing her.

Without waiting for the limo to completely stop, she yanked on her door handle and stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Kicking off her two-inch heels, she put her hand protectively over her belly and ran with all her might, feet bare against the concrete, toward the enormous cathedral.

It was a perfect day for a wedding. The first of October, and every tree in the city was decorated in yellow, orange and red. St. Swithun’s Cathedral was the most famous in New York, the place where the wealthy and powerful held their christenings, weddings and funerals. Two hundred years old, it was a towering midtown edifice of gray marble, big as a city block, with soaring spires reaching boldly into the bright blue sky.

Panting as she ran, Scarlett glanced down at the peeling gold-tone watch that had once belonged to her mother. She prayed she wasn’t too late.

A vintage white Rolls-Royce Corniche was parked at the curb, bedecked with ribbons and flowers. Next to it, a uniformed driver waited. Bodyguards with dark sunglasses, scowls and earpieces stood guard on the cathedral steps and around the perimeter.

The wedding had started, then. Scarlett had been trying not to think about it for the last four months, since she’d seen the announcement in the New York Times. But the details had been blazed in her memory, and now she was glad, because only Vin Borgia could help her.

A bodyguard blocked her with a glare. “Miss, stand back...”

Clutching her belly theatrically, Scarlett stumbled forward on the sidewalk. “Help! There’s a man chasing me! He’s trying to kidnap my baby!”

The bodyguard’s eyes widened behind his sunglasses. “What?”

She ran past him, calling back, “Call the police!”

“Hey! You can’t just—”

Scarlett ran up the cathedral’s steps, gasping for air.

“Stop right there!” A second bodyguard came toward her with a thunderous expression. Then he turned when he heard the shout of his colleague as two of Blaise’s bodyguards started throwing punches at him on the sidewalk below. “What the...”

Taking advantage of his distraction, she pushed open the cathedral doors and went inside.

For a moment, she blinked in the shadows.

Then her eyes adjusted, and she saw a wedding straight out of a fairy tale. Two thousand guests sat in the pews, and at the altar, beneath a profusion of white roses and lilies and orchids, was the most beautiful bride, standing next to the most devastatingly handsome man in the world.

Just seeing Vin now, for the first time since that magical night they’d created a baby, Scarlett caught her breath.

“If anyone here today has reason,” the officiant intoned at the front, “why these two may not lawfully be joined...”

She heard a metallic wrenching sound behind her, then Blaise’s harsh triumphant gasp as he burst through the cathedral doors.

“...speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

Desperate, Scarlett stumbled to the center of the aisle. Holding up her hand, she cried, “Please! Stop!”

There was a collective gasp as two thousand people turned to stare at her. Including the bride and groom.

Scarlett put her hands to her head, feeling dizzy. It was hard to speak when she could barely catch her breath. She focused on the only person who mattered.

“Please, Vin, you have to help me—” Her voice choked off, then strengthened as she thought of the unborn child depending on her. “My boss is trying to steal our baby!”

* * *

Unlike many grooms the night before they wed, Vincenzo Borgia, Vin to his friends, had slept very well last night.

He knew what he was doing today. He was marrying the perfect woman. His courtship of Anne Dumaine had been easy, and so had their engagement. No discord. No messy emotion. No sex, even, at least not yet.

But today, their lives would be joined, as would their families—and more to the point, their companies. When Vin’s SkyWorld Airways merged with her father’s Air Transatlantique, Vin would gain thirty new transatlantic routes at a stroke, including the lucrative routes of New York–London and Boston–Paris. Vin’s company would nearly double in size, at very advantageous terms. Why would Jacques Dumaine be anything but generous to his future son-in-law?

After today, there would be no more surprises in Vin’s life. No more uncertainty or questions about the future. He liked that thought.

Yes, Vin had slept well last night, and tonight, after he finally made love to his very traditional bride, who’d insisted on remaining a virgin until they married, he expected to sleep even better. And for every other night for the rest of his well-ordered, enjoyably controllable life.

If he wasn’t overwhelmingly attracted to his bride, what of it? Passion died soon after marriage, he’d been told, so perhaps it was a good thing. You couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

And if he and Anne seemed to have little in common other than the wedding and the merger, well, what difference did that make? Men and women had different interests. They weren’t supposed to be the same. He would cover her weaknesses. She would cover his.

Because whatever his enemies and former lovers might accuse, Vin knew he had a few. A lack of patience. A lack of empathy. In the business world, those were strengths, but once he had children, he knew greater sources of patience and empathy would be required.

He was ready to settle down. He wanted a family. Other than building his empire it was his primary reason for getting married, but not his only. After his last sexual encounter, an explosive night with a gorgeous redhead who’d given him the most amazing sex of his life, then disappeared, he decided he was fed up with unpredictable love affairs.

So, a few months later, he’d sensibly proposed to Anne Dumaine.

Born in Montreal, Anne was beautiful, with an impeccable pedigree, certain to be a good mother and corporate wife. She spoke several languages, including French and Italian, and held a degree in international business. Best of all she came with an irresistible dowry—Air Transatlantique.

Vin smiled at Anne now, standing across from him as they waited to speak their vows. She looked like Princess Grace, he thought, blonde and grave, with a modest white gown and a long lace veil that had been handmade by Belgian nuns. Flawless. A picture-perfect bride.

“If anyone here today has reason,” the archbishop presiding over their marriage said solemnly, “why these two may not lawfully be joined...”

There was a scuffle, a loud bang. Footsteps. From the corner of his eye he saw heads in the audience turn. He refused to look—that would be undisciplined—but his smile grew a little strained.

“...speak now,” the minister finished, “or forever hold your peace.”

“Please! Stop!”

A woman’s voice. Vin’s jaw tightened. Who would dare interrupt their wedding? One of his despondent ex-lovers? How had she gotten past the bodyguards? Furious, he turned.

Vin froze when he saw green eyes fringed with black lashes in a lovely heart-shaped face, and vivid red hair cascading down her shoulders, bright as heart’s blood. She stood in the gray stone cathedral, his dream come to life.

Scarlett. The woman who had haunted his dreams for the last eight months. The flame-haired virgin who’d shared a single night with him he could not forget, then fled the next morning before he could get her number—or even her last name! No woman had ever treated him so badly. She’d inflamed his blood, then disappeared like Cinderella, without so much as a damned glass slipper.

She was dressed completely in black. And barefoot? Her breasts overflowed the neckline of her dress. His gaze returned sharply to her belly. She couldn’t be...

“Please, Vin, you have to help me,” she choked out, her voice echoing against the cool gray stone. “My boss is trying to steal our baby!”

For a moment, Vin stared at her in shock, unable to comprehend her words.

Our baby?

Our?

There was a collective gasp as two thousand people turned to stare at him, waiting for his reaction.

Vin’s body flashed hot, then cold as he felt all control—over the wedding, over his privacy, over his life—ripped from his grasp. Nearby, he saw the glower of Anne’s red-faced father, saw her mother’s shocked eyes. Fortunately he had no family of his own to disappoint.

He turned to his bride, expecting to see tears or at least agonized hurt, expecting to have to explain that he hadn’t cheated on her, of course not, that this had all happened months before they’d met. But Anne’s beautiful face was carefully blank.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I need a moment.”

“Take all the time you want.”

Vin went slowly down the aisle toward Scarlett. The people watching from the pews seemed to fall away, their faces smearing into mere smudges of color.

His heart was pounding as he stopped in front of the woman he’d almost convinced himself didn’t exist. Looking at her belly, he said in a low voice, “You’re pregnant?”

She met his eyes. “Yes.”

“The baby’s mine?”

Her chin lifted. “You think I would lie?”

Vin remembered her soft gasp of pain when he’d first taken her, holding her virgin body so hot and hard and tight against his own in the darkness of his bedroom. Remembered how he’d kissed her tears away until her pain melted away to something very different...

“You couldn’t have told me before now?” he bit out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t...” Then she glanced behind her, and her expression changed to fear.

Three men were striding up the aisle, the leader’s face a mask of cold fury.

“There you are, you little...” He roughly grabbed Scarlett’s wrist. “This is a private matter,” he snarled at Vin, barely looking at him. “Return to your ceremony.”

Vin almost did. It would have been easy to let them go. He felt the pressure of his waiting bride, of the pending merger, of her family, of the cathedral and the archbishop and the many guests, some of whom had flown around the world to be here. He could have told himself that Scarlett was lying and turned his back on her. He could have walked back to calmly speak the vows that would bind his life to Anne.

But something stopped him.

Maybe it was the man’s iron-like grip on Scarlett’s slender wrist. Or the way he and his two goons were dragging her back down the aisle, in spite of her helpless struggles. Maybe it was the panicked, stricken expression on her lovely face as all those wealthy, powerful guests silently watched, doing nothing to intervene.

Or maybe it was the ghost of his own memory, long repressed, of how it had once felt to be powerless and unloved, dragged from his only home against his will.

Whatever it was, Vin found himself doing something he hadn’t done in a long, long time.

Getting involved.

“Stop right there,” he ordered.

The other man’s face snapped toward him. “Stay out of this.”

Vin stalked toward him. “The lady doesn’t want to leave with you.”

“She’s distraught. Not to mention crazy.” The man, sleek and overfed as a Persian cat, yanked on her wrist. “I’m taking her to my psychiatrist. She’s going to be locked away for a long, long time.”

“No!” Scarlett whimpered. She looked up at Vin, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m not crazy. He used to be my boss. He’s trying to force me to marry him and give our baby away.”

Give our baby away.

The four words cut through Vin’s heart like a knife. His whole body became still.

And he knew there was no way he was going to let this man take her.

His voice was ice-cold. “Let her go.”

“You think you can make me?”

“Do you know my name?” Vin said quietly.

The man looked at him contemptuously. “I have no...” His voice trailed off, then he sucked in his breath. “Borgia.” He exhaled the two syllables through his teeth. Vin saw the fear in the man’s eyes. It was a reaction he’d grown accustomed to. “I...I didn’t realize...”

Vin glanced at his own bodyguards, who’d entered the cathedral and surrounded the other men with surgical precision, ready to strike. He gave his chief of security a slight shake of his head, telling them to keep their distance. Then he looked at the man holding Scarlett. “Get. Out. Now.”

He obeyed, abruptly releasing her. He turned and fled, his two bodyguards swiftly following him out of the cathedral.

Noise suddenly rose on all sides. Scarlett fell with a sob into Vin’s arms, against the front of his tuxedo.

And a young man leaped up from a middle pew.

“Anne, I told you! Don’t marry him! Who cares if you’re disinherited?” Looking around the nave, the stranger proclaimed fiercely and loudly, “I’ve been sleeping with the bride for the last six months!”

Total chaos broke out then. The father of the bride started yelling, the mother of the bride wept noisily and, faced with such turmoil, the bride quietly and carefully fainted into a puffy heap of white tulle.

But Vin barely noticed. His world had shrunk to two things. Scarlett’s tears as she wept in relief against his chest. And the tremble of her pregnant body, cradled beneath the protection of his arms.