Loe raamatut: «The Secret The Italian Claims»

CHAPTER ONE

FAMILY MEANT EVERYTHING to Hallie Hatfield.

Family meant home. It meant being safe and protected even when times were bad. Even when the money ran out at the end of the month. Even when the kitchen cupboards were bare. Family meant always having someone to watch your back, as you watched theirs.

As Hallie had grown up, in an old wooden house built by her great-grandfather, playing in the woods with her brother, learning songs from her mother, tinkering in the garage with her father, she’d known, even as a child, exactly how she wanted her life to be.

Someday she’d get married. She’d raise children, just as her own parents had, without much money but with lots of love. She and her future husband would grow old together, living close to her family, in a cottage with a view of the soft, green Appalachian hills where she’d been born. Their lives would be full of music and comfort. Because family meant everything.

Then, at nineteen, without warning, Hallie lost everything. Her family. Her home. All the meaning and security in her world.

Now, at twenty-four, the only family she had was the tiny newborn baby in her arms. Living in New York City, she had no job, no money and, as of today, nowhere to go.

But this as a solution?

No.

Hallie took a deep, furious breath. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But Hallie—”

“Tell my ex-boss about his baby?” Keeping her voice low, not to waken the newborn baby sleeping in her arms, Hallie glared at her friends. “After the way he treated me? Never!”

The other two women looked at each other. The three friends had been introduced months earlier at a single-moms support group, when a mutual acquaintance had realized that all three were pregnant with their first child, and, shockingly, none of them had yet told the fathers.

In Hallie’s case, it was for good reason.

Her whole life, she’d tried to see the best in people. To be sympathetic and kind and good.

But she hated Cristiano Moretti. After what he’d done, he didn’t deserve to know their three-month-old baby existed.

“But he’s the father,” Tess Foster said gently. A plump, kindly redhead who worked at her uncle’s bakery, she cuddled her own tiny baby. “Hallie, you need help. It only makes sense to ask him.”

“You’re an idiot if you don’t get child support,” said Lola Price, who was blonde and fiery, and extra-irritable lately—which was saying something—as, unlike the others, she was still heavily pregnant. “Are you an idiot?”

Hallie ground her teeth. That question had already been asked and answered in her own heart. Yes, she’d been an idiot, letting her boss, a billionaire hotel tycoon, seduce her so easily into giving up her long-held dreams of a forever family, a forever home, for one night of passion.

One night? Ha! Half a night, since Cristiano had tossed her out of his bed at midnight and then had her fired from her housekeeping job the very next morning!

Who did that?

A selfish bastard with no heart, that was who. A man who’d ruthlessly thrown her into poverty and homelessness—since she’d also lost her company-paid housing—just because he’d wanted to avoid feeling awkward if he ran into her in the hallway of his hotel.

Hallie looked down at the sweet sleeping baby in her arms. Jack had been over nine pounds at birth, and he’d only gotten chubbier. She loved him with all the ferocious love in her heart. She’d always dreamed of having children. Now Jack was her only dream. Keeping him happy. Keeping him safe.

“You don’t even have a place to stay tonight,” Tess pointed out. “Unless you’re going to call the police on your landlord.”

“And you can’t stay with me,” Lola said, putting her hands over her huge belly. She didn’t explain, but then Lola never explained anything.

“I wish you could stay with us, but my aunt and uncle would never allow it,” Tess said mournfully. “They’re already threatening to kick me out.” She sighed. “If only you hadn’t ripped up the check your boss stuck in the envelope with your severance pay.”

Hallie lifted her chin. “I have my pride.”

“But it was for a hundred thousand dollars,” Tess said.

“And is pride going to feed your baby?” Lola said tartly.

Hallie’s shoulders sagged. Lola wasn’t sweet and comforting like Tess, but she sure had a way of forcing people to see hard truths.

After her supervisor had fired her, Hallie had stumbled out of the hotel in shock, then opened the severance envelope to discover a check signed by Cristiano personally. As if he thought paying her for taking her virginity would make it all right to toss her out like trash the next morning. Furious and heartbroken, she’d torn it into a million pieces.

Now Hallie realized painfully how that money would have changed her whole life—and Jack’s. Because a year later, she had nothing.

But she hadn’t known she would end up pregnant. She ran an unsteady hand over her forehead. So much for pride. She would have given anything to have that check back now.

“Come on.” Lola stood up abruptly in the middle of the community-hall basement, surrounded by the folding chairs and a crowd of other single moms standing by a punch bowl and cookies that Tess complained constantly were stale. “We’re going.”

“Where?”

“To see your baby’s father. Right now. It’s your only option.”

Hallie feared her friend was right. But thinking of facing Cristiano, her courage failed her. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I was just a notch on the bedpost. He was cruel—”

“Cruel?” Lola’s eyes became fiercely protective. “You never said that. What did he do? Hit you? Threaten you?”

“Of course not,” Hallie replied, taken aback.

“Then what?”

A lump rose in Hallie’s throat. “He ignored me.”

The blonde’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “He’s a jerk. But you’re sure he’s the father?”

“Yes, but I wish he wasn’t!”

Lola’s eyes were merciless. “Then make him pay. Child support, if nothing else.”

Hallie thought of how desperately she needed money. The lump in her throat became a razor blade. “I can’t.”

“You don’t have any choice. You have no family to help you. Are you seriously going to check into a homeless shelter while your ex lives at a luxury hotel, swilling champagne?”

Hallie sucked in her breath at her friend’s frank words.

“And, you never know, he might be happy about the baby when you tell him,” argued Tess, who was very tenderhearted. “There might be some perfectly good explanation why he kicked you out that night, then had you fired, then never returned your messages...”

Her voice trailed off. Even Tess couldn’t quite overcome how ludicrous it sounded.

If only. Hallie gave her a wistful smile, then the smile slid away.

Tell Cristiano she’d had his baby?

Go back to the luxury hotel where she’d once worked as a housekeeper, to beg for the help of a selfish, ruthless tycoon, and this time give him the opportunity to reject both her and the baby in person? No way.

But looking down at her peacefully slumbering baby, his sweet little mouth pursing in his sleep, she knew Lola was right. Hallie had tried her best to survive on pride. But, after this latest disaster with her landlord today, she had nowhere else to go.

“All right,” Hallie said in a small voice.

“You’ll do it?” Lola’s voice was tinged with relief. For all of the blonde’s hard edges, Lola’s protectiveness of her friends made Hallie suspect that on the inside she was every bit as kind as Tess but, for some reason, tried desperately to hide it.

“You’re right,” Hallie said glumly. “I have no choice.”

The three of them, plus the two babies and Jack’s folding stroller, all piled into a ride-share taxi. But by the time it dropped them off in front of the towering luxury hotel in Midtown, Hallie was already regretting her choice. Just half a night in Cristiano’s arms had nearly destroyed her. How could she face him again?

Tess, with her own baby in a comfy sling against her chest, tilted her head back to look at the skyscraper that was the Campania Hotel. “He manages all this?”

“He owns it.”

Both women turned to her sharply in the warm July night.

Lola wasn’t easily impressed, but her eyes were wide as saucers. “Your ex is Cristiano Moretti?”

Hallie felt a little sick as she nodded.

“I thought it was the hotel manager,” Tess said in awe.

“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Lola said fiercely. “Demand what is yours by right. For Jack.”

Pushing the stroller, Hallie walked slowly past the neon sign of the Blue Hour glowing in the darkness. The hotel’s jazz club had live music, and she’d once dreamed of performing there. Now, as she walked past the club, her failed singing career was the last thing on her mind.

What if Cristiano refused to see her? Or—worse—what if, when he found out about the baby, he demanded parental rights over Jack?

If only she could talk him into just blindly giving her that same big check she’d ripped up the year before!

She stopped, glancing back nervously when she saw her friends following her. “You’re coming with me?”

“So you don’t back out,” Lola said.

“So you don’t feel alone,” Tess said.

With a deep breath, Hallie squared her shoulders and went through the enormous revolving door into the lobby.

The Campania’s lobby was thirty feet high, gleaming with white marble floors and midcentury-modern furniture scattered around multiple fireplaces. One side held the long oak check-in desk, and at the very center of the lobby there was an elegant bar.

After going inside, Hallie stopped as well-dressed, wealthy guests passed them by on the busy summer evening.

“What’s the problem?” Lola said.

“Can’t you just go to his room?” Tess said.

“No,” Hallie said. “There’s security. You need a fingerprint on the elevator.”

“Call him, then.”

“I don’t have his direct number. We never really talked before...” She hesitated.

Lola scowled. “You were just the hired help, huh?”

Hallie looked down, her cheeks hot. Even when she’d worked for him, there were about fifty levels of supervisors between a maid and the billionaire owner of an international hotel conglomerate. She said weakly, “I can try to leave a message with his secretary, or—”

Her voice cut off with a gasp.

Cristiano had just come out of the elevator on the second floor, open above the lobby.

The reaction was immediate, as if he were a movie star on the red carpet. Heads turned, people whispered and gasped. His entourage followed in his wake as he made his way down the stairs to the ground floor—a gorgeous, pouting model at his side, with two assistants and a bodyguard trailing behind.

But, for Hallie, everything else became a blur. Even her friends were forgotten.

All she could see was...him.

Cristiano Moretti was broad shouldered, dark and powerful, outwardly civilized in a perfectly cut tuxedo, but with a five-o’clock shadow on his hard jaw and glittering black eyes that hinted at a ruthless, brutal soul. Looking at him, Hallie shivered, caught between longing and fear, overwhelmed by memory of the night he’d seduced her. The night her whole world had changed.

As a trusted maid at the Campania Hotel New York, she’d occasionally been assigned the enviable task of cleaning and tidying the Italian tycoon’s exclusive penthouse, used only when he was in town. Dusting pictures of Cristiano’s gorgeous face as he stood beside famous politicians and celebrities, Hallie had developed a serious crush. She’d actually imagined that Cristiano wasn’t just insanely handsome, he was also honorable and good.

Wrong.

She blinked now, looking at him. The way he smiled. So casual. As if he had not a care in the world. He was so arrogantly handsome, king of the world in his tuxedo, apparently off for a night on the town with a beautiful model. While she’d spent the last year struggling, looking for a new job when she was pregnant and trying to find a cheap place to stay in New York City.

For the last year, he’d been enjoying himself—swilling champagne, as Lola had said. He really had forgotten Hallie even existed.

As Cristiano turned to speak to the woman pouting beside him in a gold lamé minidress, Hallie breathlessly handed the stroller’s handle to Lola.

“Keep an eye on Jack.”

The blonde frowned. “The man will want to meet his own son.”

Hallie set her jaw. “I will tell Cristiano in my own way.”

“You’re being irrational,” Lola began, but Tess put her hand gently on Lola’s arm.

“Let Hallie do it.”

Hallie flashed the redhead a grateful look.

“Fine,” Lola said, drawing back stiffly.

Swallowing hard, Hallie went toward Cristiano, planting herself in the middle of his path through the lobby. Her heart was pounding wildly.

It was funny, really. If she’d known when getting ready for the single-moms group that afternoon that she’d end up facing her old lover, she might have put on lipstick and worn something nicer than an old faded sundress that fit her post-pregnancy body. He’d probably take one look at her and wonder how she’d ever ended up in his bed in the first place. Well, there was no help for it now. And it wasn’t like she would ever, ever, ever want to sleep with him again. Ever.

Putting her hands on her hips, she tried to hide her nervousness as she waited.

His bodyguard tried to smooth his way, holding out his arm. “Excuse us, miss.”

Then, from behind him, Cristiano’s eyes caught hers.

For a split second, he went completely still. Then his jaw tightened. “It’s all right, Luther.” He came forward. “What are you doing here, Hallie?”

He remembered her name. She was almost surprised. She hated the shiver that went through her at having him so close, towering over her in his tuxedo, nearly touching her. His dark gaze seared through her. She found herself wanting to blurt out everything, to tell him not just that she’d had his baby but that he’d broken her heart.

She forced herself to say, “I need to talk to you. In private.”

His expression became distant. “That’s not a good idea.”

“I have something important to tell you.”

“Tell me now.”

“In the middle of the lobby?” Hallie’s cheeks went hot. She could feel people watching them. Even the model, standing nearby in her high heels, was looking down at Hallie with scorn. They were all probably wondering why such a frumpy girl would dare talk to Cristiano Moretti. For a moment, Hallie’s nerve faltered. She wanted to run away, to forget the whole thing.

Then she saw her friends watching from the other side of the lobby. Saw her sleeping baby cuddled in the stroller. That gave her courage. “It’s important.”

“Not interested.” But as he turned to go, she stepped in front of him.

“Either you speak with me privately right now,” she said, determined, “or I’ll make a scene in this lobby you can’t possibly imagine.”

Cristiano stared at her for a long moment, as if assessing her. Then he held up his hand, halting the bodyguard’s intervention.

“Go ahead to the gala, Natalia,” he told his date. “My driver will take you. I’ll see you later.”

The woman’s pout intensified. She glared at Hallie, then said, “All right, darling,” and sashayed out of the lobby hips first, as if she were on a catwalk at New York Fashion Week. She was so obviously a model that even the sophisticated patrons of this luxurious hotel turned to watch her go. So did Hallie, a little wistfully. What would it be like to get that much attention wherever you went? She would be able to get an audition at the Blue Hour, for one.

“Follow me,” Cristiano said, turning on his heel without waiting to see if Hallie followed.

She glanced nervously back at her baby and friends. Then, biting her lip, she went up the sweeping staircase, following the man she hated most on earth, to face him alone in his lair.

* * *

Cristiano Moretti’s jaw was tight as he went to the wet bar in his private office on the second floor.

Lifting the lid off the crystal decanter, he glanced back at Hallie as she followed him hesitantly into the high-ceilinged room with its dark oak panels. “Scotch?”

Hallie shook her head, her beautiful brown eyes wide.

Turning back to the bar, he poured himself a short glass over ice. He could almost feel her vibrating with anxiety behind him. He put the lid back on the decanter, then drank the Scotch in one long, slow gulp. He realized he was playing for time.

But then, Hallie Hatfield had been Cristiano’s biggest mistake. And at thirty-five years old, with his scandalous past, that was saying something.

He turned to face her. “Va bene,” he said shortly. “We are alone. What do you want?”

Hallie swallowed, blushed, hesitated. He could see her trying to formulate her words, but she didn’t have to say anything. Cristiano already knew why she was here.

She’d come to demand money.

Silently he cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid?

He’d known this would happen. He was just surprised it had taken a year.

Hallie must have spoken with a lawyer who would have pointed out her excellent case for suing him for wrongful termination. His emotions had gotten the better of him the day he’d had her fired, because he’d never done anything so foolish, before or since.

Looking at her, he could almost understand why. Hallie had big, soulful eyes a man could drown in. And her curves! In a loose cotton sundress, her body was even more lush than he remembered. Her dark hair fell in waves over her full breasts, almost down to her tiny waist.

Cristiano could still remember how it had felt to have her in his arms, the sensation of her soft body sliding beneath his as their naked limbs tangled in the very bedsheets she’d made just an hour before.

He’d seduced her. There could be no doubt of that. Coming back to New York a day early, he’d heard her sweet, husky voice singing from the bedroom of his penthouse. Her wistful, heartbreaking melody had filled him with longing for things lost. Things he’d never had. Things he’d never dared even dream of.

Then he’d seen her, waving fresh sheets in the air with her arms spread wide. An incredibly beautiful, sensual brunette with an hourglass figure, leaning over to make his bed. Even that black housekeeping uniform had looked indescribably erotic on her.

A shocked sound had come from the back of his throat. She’d turned and looked at him. A tumble of emotions had cascaded across her beautiful face. Surprise, fear, delight. For a moment their eyes had locked, and he’d forgotten his own name.

Then he’d forced himself to give a casual smile. “You’re not my usual housekeeper.”

“Camille had to go home early today to be with her grandson, but she warned me not to let you catch me,” she stammered. “I’m supposed to be invisible.”

Coming forward, his eyes devouring every inch of her, he’d murmured, “You’re anything but invisible. What were you singing?”

“Just an Appalachian folk song.”

“It’s beautiful.” Coming close enough to touch her, he’d whispered, “So are you.”

Her cheeks had gone rosy, her lips parting in unconscious invitation as she stood beside his enormous bed.

He’d reached for her.

Cristiano knew who was at fault. He’d wanted her. So he’d taken her. Without thinking of the consequences. If he had, he would have stopped himself. It was one of his rules: never sleep with employees.

But that wasn’t the worst rule he’d broken. Hallie wasn’t just an employee. She’d also been a virgin. Virgins were off-limits. He didn’t toy with women who might mistake sex for love and become a problem later.

He’d known she was a virgin from the first time he’d kissed her, when he’d felt the tremble of her sweet lips. He’d felt her hesitation, her shyness, her inexperience. And he’d known. Somehow, this incredible woman was untouched.

It hadn’t made him stop. He was a man who put few limits on his own behavior. But he had a code of honor. In Hallie Hatfield’s case, he’d recklessly blown through his own rules like dynamite through a brick wall.

So it was no wonder he’d broken a third rule, afterward, and fired her for sleeping with him.

That wasn’t the reason he’d given her supervisor, the head housekeeper, of course. But it had been obvious to Hallie. And clearly her lawyer, too.

But now, as Hallie stood across from him in his private office, biting her full, delectable lower lip, it was hard for him to think about lawyers when all he wanted to do was pull her back into his arms.

For a year, he’d done his best to forget her. He’d told himself he had. Now he knew that was a lie.

“Why are you here?” Cristiano demanded in a low voice.

“I came to...came to tell you...”

Her husky voice trembled, stopped. She looked at him.

Turning away, Cristiano set down the crystal lowball glass heavily on the dark wood bar. He clenched his hands at his sides to keep himself from the temptation of pulling her into his arms and kissing her to see if her lips were still as delicious as he remembered. He was drawn by the sweet sin of her mouth. Of her body. Of her deep brown eyes, luring him into their depths.

Possessing her once had not been enough. After he’d had her that night, he’d just wanted more. It didn’t help that, naked and soft in his arms, she’d looked up at him in bed as if she were half in love with him already. She’d lured him like a siren to give him more than just his body. More than just his money.

But sex and money were all he could give any woman.

So he’d sent her away, tossing her from the warmth of his bed when his body was still aching for more. After she’d gone, he’d still longed for her, like a sweet, forbidden poison. First thing the next morning, he’d contacted her supervisor and arranged to have her fired. For her own good. And his.

But he had never stopped wanting her. And now, as he stepped toward her, his breathing was hard. And not just his breathing.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I need to tell you something. Important.”

“So you said.” Cristiano’s voice was low as he looked down at her. He came closer, almost close enough to touch her. His mind was scrambling for rationalizations as to why he should.

Perhaps if he slept with her just one more time...

Got her out of his system...

Stop, he told himself furiously.

Hesitating, Hallie licked her full, pink lips. He nearly groaned. Was she purposely taunting him?

“This...isn’t easy to say,” she whispered.

Gritting his teeth, he glared at her. “Let me say it for you, then. I already know why you’re here.”

Her caramel-brown eyes went wide.

“You know?”

He set his jaw. “You never cashed the check.”

Hallie blinked, furrowing her forehead. “The check?”

“The morning after.”

Her cheeks colored and she looked away.

“No,” she said in a low voice. “I ripped it into a million pieces and threw it in the trash.”

“Because you knew, even then, you could demand far more.”

Hallie looked at him sharply.

“I can?” she whispered. “You’d give me money, just for asking? Why?”

“You want me to admit it aloud?” He pulled her roughly against him. She gasped as his hands suddenly moved over her waist, her hips.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for a microphone.” But even through the thin cotton of her sundress, touching her waist and hips without crushing her lips with his own felt like torture.

“Let me go,” she breathed, not moving.

He released her. Stepping back, he leaned against the marble fireplace, folding his arms and keeping his voice very cold. “Who is your lawyer?”

“My lawyer?”

“Don’t try to pretend you don’t have one. You knew I’d want to keep this quiet. I’m not proud of it.”

Her eyes widened. “Of—of what?”

“It would hardly improve the public image of my company if the CEO is sued for sexual harassment.”

“Oh.” Biting her lip, she looked away, staring for a long moment at the wall of leather-bound books he never read, and the leather reading chair he never sat in, both brought in by an interior designer to make his office look like a nineteenth-century gentleman’s study. And all Cristiano could think right now was that he wanted to bend her back against the enormous dark wood desk, kiss her senseless, pull off her clothes and...