The Italian Demands His Heirs

‘You are my family and I will always look after you,’ Stam intoned stubbornly.

‘Looking after me is not marrying me off...however briefly...to that Mancini rat! And how could you possibly persuade him to marry me anyway?’ she demanded suspiciously. ‘I suspect he would sooner go to his grave than agree to marry a woman he believes to have been a prostitute.’

In his old-fashioned way, Stam winced and sighed, ‘I have what you could call an irresistible proposition to lay before Mancini, which will persuade him.’

‘I don’t care if you’re offering him the moon as an inducement. Well, actually I do,’ Vivi admitted on a fresh gust of anger that made her almost violet eyes shimmer as bright as polar stars against her porcelain skin. ‘Having anything to do with him at all, never mind marrying him, would be humiliating!’

‘No,’ Stam had argued equally strongly. ‘This time around, all the power will be in your hands, Vivi. Don’t you want that experience? Don’t you want to see the man who insulted you forced to eat his own words?’

No, Vivi could live without revenge, she conceded as she emerged from the memory of that argument. As long as she never saw Raffaele di Mancini again in this lifetime, she would be happy. He was a reminder of too much that she wanted to forget and leave buried. She had become very fond of Arianna and, no doubt at Raffaele’s behest, Arianna had immediately dumped their friendship as well. And then there had been her seemingly growing relationship with Raffaele himself at the time. She closed off that train of thought angrily. Just a stupid kiss, just one stupid kiss, even a teenager would have known not to get unduly excited by something that trivial, she castigated herself.

But then Vivi knew that she tended to be more vulnerable with men than other more experienced and emotionally secure women. Vivi had not known security until she was fourteen and living with her final set of foster parents, the kindly John and Liz, who had reunited the three sisters within their home. Before John and Liz, there had been a series of unsuitable foster homes where Vivi had been bullied, verbally abused and, on several occasions, sexually threatened.

Winnie, Vivi and Zoe had lost their parents in a car accident. At the age of twenty-three, Vivi barely remembered them. Their father, however, had been Stam’s youngest son, who had been estranged from him for years. Stam had not even known his grandchildren existed until they had contacted him as adults, seeking his financial help when their foster parents were facing the repossession of their home where they were still caring for troubled children. He had welcomed them into his life with great enthusiasm but had set outrageous terms for giving them his help, demanding that they all marry men of his choice to raise their status.

Vivi had still to make up her mind about what she thought of her grandfather. Was he, simply, an incredible snob? Or crazy? Or, more worryingly, the kind of personality who had to get revenge on anyone who wronged a member of his family? Well, Winnie and Vivi had been wronged but their youngest sister, Zoe, had only been wronged by unfortunate foster care. Vivi knew she had to stand up to her grandfather for Zoe’s sake because Zoe was frail and emotionally vulnerable, subject to extreme shyness and panic attacks. Zoe would never manage to fight with the older man; indeed Zoe was so self-effacing that the very idea of her confronting anyone struck the bolder Vivi as ridiculous.

For that reason, Vivi knew that she had to stand strong. She tried not to be bitter about the past, for bitterness achieved nothing. At present she and Zoe were living in a small, luxurious town house owned by their grandfather and offered to them rent-free. But the house felt empty without Winnie’s toddler son, Teddy, running about and Vivi was too distrustful of her grandfather to spend the money she wasn’t currently forking out on rent. Instead she was saving that money, waiting anxiously for the day when he might tire of her defiance and throw them back out into the cold.

That meant that she still couldn’t afford to get her awful hair straightened again, she thought ruefully, picking up a corkscrew copper curl and dropping it again with antipathy. It was the hair from hell and she had been born with it and she was only content with her appearance when she could transform it into a smooth straight fall. Right now it was rioting across her shoulders, round her face and down her back like a rag doll’s wig, she thought irritably. Not that Jude, her current boyfriend, seemed to mind.

But then Jude didn’t really seem to mind much about anything. She had met him at her gym where he worked as a martial arts teacher. He was blond and laid-back, and he had a good body but she had yet to experience a desire to see that body naked. Possibly their casual relationship came down to being mates more than anything else, she reflected ruefully. If she hadn’t met Raffaele and been immediately attracted to him, she would’ve believed that she was really not that bothered about sex. Men usually came and went in Vivi’s life without her ever particularly caring. Only Raffaele had hurt her and that had come along with a whole lot of other damage so she tried not to dwell on his rejection.

It was thanks to Raffaele that she had been forced to work in a succession of menial jobs before finally surrendering to the very effective changing of her surname. Only then had she contrived to shed the scandal that had seen her hounded out of two good jobs. And all because she had taken a first job straight after graduating with her marketing degree as a receptionist in a business that had ultimately turned out to be functioning as a modelling and an undercover escort agency, with many of the models working as escorts on the side. And as if that hadn’t proved bad enough a pop-up brothel had been operating in the back of the building as well, and it had been the police raid of that facility that had exploded the agency’s cover and led to her being captured on camera running down the street to escape the whole explosive mess. That photo and her name had been splashed over a notorious tabloid newspaper and in that photo she had looked ridiculously glamorous, because Arianna had cleared out her wardrobe and had given her a pile of her discarded but still gorgeous outfits to wear.

Her phone buzzed and she lifted it, hoping it wasn’t Jude calling to cancel because she had been looking forward to the film they were supposed to be seeing. Instead a voice she had hoped never to hear again sounded in her ears. That voice was deep and rich and accented with a positive purr. Even Raffaele’s voice dripped sex appeal, she had once thought, but right at that moment, with the phone clamped too tightly to her ear, she couldn’t think rationally at all because that he should actually dare to contact her had not only never occurred to her but it also plunged her deep into shock.

‘Vivi?’ he queried. ‘It’s Raffaele. We need to talk.’

Vivi rang off without speaking and immediately blocked his number. He might be willing to dance to her grandfather’s tune for the right price but she was not. Or was she? She thought of John and Liz’s predicament and the great debt she and her siblings owed to the couple for their kindness and care at a time when the girls had been young and vulnerable. And then she felt sick with uncertainty while she wondered how Raffaele had got her phone number. We need to talk. Raffaele di Mancini, born into an Italian dukedom even if he didn’t use his title, just had to be kidding! Only if he had a sense of humour he had never revealed it to her.

He was good at staring though, she recalled abstractedly, suddenly thrown back to their first meeting over the meal that Arianna had insisted on inviting her to. And all Arianna’s intimidating brother had seemed to do was stare at her, eyes as dark as jet between thick black lashes. Eyes that were set in an extravagantly handsome face, eyes that could unexpectedly warm to a melted golden caramel hue and send her heartbeat inexplicably racing.

Yes, there had been very little normal getting-to-know-you conversation over that family dinner with poor Arianna being left to pick up the slack and usually sharp Vivi finding her tongue inexplicably glued to the roof of her mouth for the first time in her life. And what had she done? While Arianna had blithely chattered, Vivi had stared back, fascinated by Raffaele in the strangest way, little arrows of heat darting through her as she’d noticed new and seemingly important things about him. The commanding angle of his black brows; the masculine strength of his jaw line; the olive-toned planes and hollows of his fabulous bone structure; the classic arch of his nose and the wildly sensual curve of his sculpted lips. She had noted his perfect manners, his elegant hands and the fluid movement of them. She had sat there like a schoolgirl ogling him, forgetting to eat, forgetting everything, seduced by the new energising excitement filtering through her bloodstream like a charge of adrenalin.

And much good it had done her, she recollected with self-loathing, emerging back into the less exciting present...

* * *

Across London, Raffaele cast down his phone and moved without hesitation on to Plan B. Vivi wouldn’t speak to him. Well, he had to admit that that was a surprise but he had to find a way to make her deal with him. If civil and calm didn’t work as an approach, he would take a leaf out of her grandfather’s book and try heavy duty persuasion. And if that didn’t work out either, he would work right through the alphabet in plans until he found the magic combination to make Vivi do what he needed her to do for Arianna’s benefit.

Raffaele had a rare sleepless night, spent remembering his dismay at his stepmother’s sudden death from an overdose when he was only twenty and still a student. Her passing, mere months after his father’s demise, had impacted heavily on Raffaele’s life. Without any warning or preparation, he had found himself responsible for a twelve-year-old girl, a twelve-year-old girl he had barely bothered to even get to know...his half-sister. Yet he had grown to love Arianna and care for her in a way he had never deemed possible, for he knew his own flaws and accepted that he was essentially cold and analytical in nature.

Lying awake in the dark hours, however, he had discovered that he couldn’t suddenly switch off that deep need to protect his vulnerable sister from the drug inheritance that had damaged her through no fault of her own. Arianna harmed herself, never anybody else. So, he would do whatever it took to protect her from the fallout of that unfortunate friendship with Vivi two years earlier...and Vivi?

Well, devious, sexy little Vivi was simply going to have to bite the bullet and pay her dues on Arianna’s behalf...

CHAPTER TWO

‘THE RUMOUR IS that the business has been taken over,’ Vivi’s manager, Janice, declared nervously. ‘Hacketts Tech now belongs to a big consortium and you know what that means...don’t you?’

Unaccustomed to Janice being anxious, Vivi frowned. ‘No, I haven’t had that experience before.’

‘Well, I have...twice before,’ the older woman declared ruefully. ‘First, the new bosses tell you there’re going to be no big changes and then they start restructuring, bringing in their own staff and suddenly you’re out of a job!’

Vivi grimaced. ‘My goodness, I hope not. I like it here.’

She checked her emails and was surprised to find that she had an appointment at ten with someone from the top floor that she had never heard of. She ran the name against the staff list and couldn’t find it. Did that mean that Janice’s rumour was true and that the process was already starting? Telling herself not to jump to conclusions, she kept quiet about the email.

‘Miss Fox?’ The receptionist checked when Vivi arrived at the top floor, leaving her desk to show Vivi where to go.

‘Who is this person I’m to see?’ Vivi questioned helplessly.

‘The new owner of the business. I’m not supposed to mention his name. It’s all very hush-hush,’ the woman told her apologetically.

Registering that Janice’s rumour was true, Vivi raised her brows in silence while wondering why a junior member of the marketing team would qualify for an appointment with the new owner. Some particular query? Then why not call up Janice?

But as the door was knocked on deferentially and duly opened wide, all suddenly became clear as Raffaele di Mancini swung round from the view he had been contemplating from the window of the contemporary office.

‘Come in, Vivi,’ he instructed cool as ice.

Vivi was frozen with shock on the threshold, her slender body rigid with tension because Raffaele’s sudden appearance in her life in an environment where she could not tell him to go jump off a cliff was as disturbing as it was horrifying.

Evidently grasping that reality for himself, Raffaele crossed the room, tugged her over the threshold as if she were a small and hesitant child and closed the door behind her. ‘Now let’s talk like grown-ups,’ he advised, disconcerted by the changes in her.

The smooth swathe of copper hair he recalled had transformed into a gorgeous foaming mane of silky curls, rather like a woman in a pre-Raphaelite portrait, he found himself vaguely acknowledging. Add in the china pale complexion and the bright blue eyes above that full pink mouth and you had a woman whom he might despise, but whose attractions added up to a quite remarkable level of beauty. Of course, he had noticed that she was stunning before, that being a fact that no man would fail to note, he reasoned, impatient with the way in which his brain was suddenly shooting out random thoughts like a shotgun. There she stood in an undeniably plain straight black skirt and pale blue shirt that still highlighted the perfection of her tall, slender figure with its modest curves. She stood about five feet nine in height and Raffaele had liked that about her because he preferred taller women, being six feet four himself.

‘I’m not staying. I refuse to be manipulated like this!’ Vivi exclaimed, spinning round to head back to the door.

‘You walk out that door now, I start having redundancies listed,’ Raffaele informed her, reckoning that he was likely to learn a lot about Vivi Fox—formerly Mardas—and her character in the next few minutes.

White as snow at that unveiled threat, Vivi spun back. ‘You can’t do that... I mean, just because I don’t want to speak to you? That would be outrageous!’ she protested in disbelief.

‘As the new owner of Hacketts Tech, I can be as outrageous as I like. Any regrets that you didn’t simply agree to talk to me last night on the phone?’ Raffaele elevated an ebony brow, all sardonic and cool, and it made her want to punch him in the gut. ‘You see, I don’t play games when I’m challenged, I play hardball.’

Vivi was chilled by that warning but she refused to let him see that. ‘Like I don’t already know that?’ she quipped, a fine auburn brow lifting.

‘Evidently, you didn’t,’ Raffaele pointed out while spinning out a chair for her to occupy. ‘Now, please take a seat.’

‘I prefer to stand, since I’m not planning on staying long,’ Vivi asserted, staying where she was, determined to show no weakness.

‘Are you normally this contrary?’ Raffaele breathed in exasperation, fighting a ridiculous urge to lift her off her feet and simply plonk her down in the designated spot. ‘Or is it that you’re childish?’

Refusing to look directly at him, Vivi shrugged her unconcern although a faint hint of colour warmed her translucent cheeks. ‘You can make your own mind up about that, I’m sure.’

‘Why do you think I want to speak to you?’

‘Because, apparently, my grandfather has made what he terms an “irresistible proposition” to you in return for which he expects you to marry me...in name only,’ Vivi recited with precision.

For a split second, Raffaele toyed with the idea of telling her the truth: that he was being blackmailed. But then what would that mean to her? Why would she care what happened to Arianna, who had not seen her or spoken to her in two years? And even more cogently, did he really want to tell a woman he couldn’t trust just how vulnerable his kid sister was? What if she, in a spirit of retaliation, went to the press to expose Arianna’s secrets? What if she was just like her rancorous grandfather?

Vivi studied Raffaele closely from beneath her lashes, absolutely hating the fact that her heart was racing so fast it felt as though it were bouncing inside her chest. He unnerved her, he always had, she told herself soothingly. Who could help being intimidated by such a very large and powerful man? But for all that, he was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life and even that simple acknowledgement of what was right before her cut through her defences, ensuring that her every muscle went rigid with stress. What was it about him that smashed the composure she had no trouble maintaining with other men?

His cropped hair reflected the light above as dark as the black-as-sloes eyes welded to her in silence. He had perfect symmetrical bone structure, as perfect as a Michelangelo carving in marble. The bronzed tone of his skin, the high cheekbones, the straight nose and the faintly shadowed strong jaw enhancing that wide sensual mouth all played into the same striking effect he had had on her the first time she met him. But she had grown up since then, learned a lot since then, she reminded herself with angry urgency, studiously dragging her gaze from him again and choosing to settle down into the chair she had refused only minutes earlier because sitting made it easier not to look at him.

‘That “irresistible proposition”,’ Vivi repeated drily. ‘You’re rich. You really don’t need to be richer unless you’ve suffered a reverse in circumstances since we last met?’

Incredulous at the tilt of her chin in question, Raffaele gritted his perfect white teeth together because she was making him angry and he didn’t ‘do’ angry with anyone. Angry was out of control, angry was everything that Raffaele always guarded against and restrained and suppressed. ‘No, my circumstances are unchanged,’ he murmured flatly, struggling to combat the temper she brought out in him with her unstudied insolence.

Nobody spoke to Raffaele with scorn, nobody ever had before and nobody else would have dared. His lean brown hands coiled into controlled fists. He could suck it up for Arianna, he told himself urgently, he was too proud, it would probably do his character a world of good...but if he ever got the chance for payback he knew he would be grabbing at it with two very greedy hands because Vivi’s disrespectful attitude infuriated him.

‘You would really be prepared to marry me just to make a profit?’ Vivi pressed, finding that so hard to believe.

His dark eyes glittered as though someone had shot them through with diamonds and she blinked, dragging her attention back from him again, disturbed again by his effect on her concentration. ‘Why not?’ he asked drily.

Vivi clasped her hands together on her lap, in no way as cool as she wanted to be in his presence. He had disconcerted her because she would have sworn he was the last man alive to be seduced merely by money. But then what did she really know about Raffaele di Mancini? Hadn’t she foolishly believed that she was getting to know him and then been soundly disabused of that belief when he’d turned round and humiliated her, absolutely humiliated her, by giving way to the unforgivable conviction that she was a woman willing to sell her body for money? She really knew nothing about Raffaele. He was extremely rich but clearly desired to be even richer and, if that were the case, it meant that only she was preventing him from reaching that goal. And that dismayed her because it meant that both her grandfather and Raffaele were ranged against her as opponents, which was very much the same as sticking her between a rock and a hard place.

‘I don’t want to marry you,’ Vivi murmured in a very quiet voice as she stared at the wall to the left of him. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’

Frustration lanced through Raffaele at finding her as difficult as her grandfather had forecast. He had been so sure in his own head that she would snatch at the opportunity to become his wife, seduced by his social standing and a need for revenge. Instead she was sitting there in front of him like a stiff little marionette doll placed in a chair and refusing to react.

Raffaele took a new tack. ‘There’s nothing inherently shameful about having been an escort,’ he breathed tautly. ‘It’s how far you go in that role. If it was merely companionship you offered, there’s nothing wrong with it.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Vivi flashed back at him, animation brightening her formerly still and shuttered face, bright blue eyes taking on a violet hue as she glanced back at him less warily than before. ‘You know that you don’t really believe that, Raffaele. You believed that I was flogging my body for money to anyone who offered sufficient inducement and you acted accordingly and treated me like dirt!’ she condemned.

‘I did not treat you like dirt,’ Raffaele intoned grittily.

‘You blamed me for the risky decisions your sister made. I didn’t ask her to take off her clothes for that modelling portfolio she was so set on having done!’ she argued angrily, wishing that recollection still didn’t hurt enough to make her angry. ‘She did that all on her own. And when she was approached to do escort work because nobody at the agency knew that she was independently wealthy....how was that anything to do with me? I was only the receptionist on the front desk, a humble employee. I didn’t know what was going on at that place. I wasn’t one of the models doing escort work on the side!’

‘So you say,’ Raffaele responded between gritted teeth because he didn’t believe a word of what she was telling him. A receptionist? Did she think he was stupid? A receptionist with that beauty and that figure? Of course she had been one of the models and the receptionist job had merely been a safe cover story for his benefit, and Arianna’s. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that the average humble receptionist couldn’t afford the red-soled shoes she had been captured in print wearing the day the brothel had been raided, but in the circumstances it would be stupid to wind her up more. The newspaper concerned had made much of the very expensive designer apparel she had been wearing, implying that she was a very exclusive prostitute.

Vivi compressed her lips, totally aware that he didn’t believe her. He was such a snob, she thought sourly, so ready to credit nasty stuff about her simply because she had been downright poor in comparison to his sister and himself. What other reason could he have for being so suspicious? It wasn’t as if she had acted all alluring with him, was it? Vivi didn’t know how, didn’t have sufficient experience or the desire to act alluring with any man. She wasn’t even very good at flirting because generally the men she met were bolder and cruder than flirting required.

‘I’m not going to apologise for the fact that I dislike you,’ Vivi fired at him.

‘I don’t need you to like me to marry me in the kind of paper marriage your grandfather requires,’ Raffaele shot back in exasperation.

‘Well, there would be nothing in it for me,’ Vivi fielded, struggling not to think about her duty in John and Liz’s situation of unsettled debts. For yes, there would be something in it for her, she reflected guiltily. In fact, there would be more than one advantage to marrying him. It would help John and Liz, it would please her grandfather and leave her blessedly free to get on with the rest of her life as she saw fit with nobody to please but herself. It would release all her worries but...it would also put poor Zoe in the hot seat in her place and how could she allow that?