Rings of Gold: Gold Ring of Betrayal / The Marriage Surrender / The Unforgettable Husband

‘I have the legal right,’ he declared. ‘If not the moral one.’

‘And the princess in the tower had the cunning to let down her hair for her secret lover to climb,’ she hit back, reminding him of the old fairytale.

His eyes narrowed. She held her breath, aware that she was prodding a very temperamental animal here yet, strangely, unable to stop herself—finding it exhilarating almost.

Then, deflatingly, he dropped her wrist and relaxed. ‘You have changed,’ he observed. ‘You would not have dared speak to me like this three years ago.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed, subsiding angrily into the far corner of the seat. ‘I’ve changed. Grown up. Grown tough. What did you expect me to do, Nicolas?’ She flashed him a bitter look. ‘Remain the same gullible fool I was when I first met you? The one who thought you loved me above all others and would stand by me whatever was thrown at me?’

‘You were the one who took a lover to your bed,’ he reminded her. ‘Not I!’

‘And you were the one who threw me to the hungry wolves then dared to be disgusted with me when I cried to you for help!’

He threw her a contemptuous look, the disgust as clear in his eyes now as it had been three years ago. ‘I notice you don’t deny the charge of adultery,’ he jeered.

‘What’s the use,’ she asked, ‘when you refuse to believe me?’

‘Believe what?’ he derided. ‘Your lies?’

‘I never lied to you,’ she asserted.

‘Denying that swine’s presence in your room was no lie, was it?’

‘I never denied he was there,’ she insisted. ‘Only my acceptance of his presence.’

‘I fail to see the difference.’

‘And I refuse to discuss this with you now,’ she countered coldly. ‘Besides the fact that it comes three years too late, I find I no longer care what you think. My daughter is all that matters to me now, and she is all I want to think about.’

‘My father did not steal your child, Sara,’ he said grimly. ‘He recovered her. Or, at least, he coordinated the whole thing so his people could. She is at this moment sleeping safely under his protection. And soon, very soon,’ he warned gratingly, ‘I shall make you eat every filthy, lying word you’ve spoken about him. Understand?’

She understood. Another vendetta. Another reason to punish her for being foolish enough to mess with his close-knit clan.

Nicolas could believe what he liked about his father but just the simple knowledge that her daughter was in Sicily with Alfredo told her just who had arranged for her to be there.

What worried Sara now was his reason for doing so.

The Santino private jet landed at midday at Catania airport then taxied over to the far side of the runway. Away from the terminal. Away from the people.

That was the power of the Santino name. They were met by a Customs official. Nicolas dealt with him, tiredness pulling at the lean contours of his face now, even though he had slept away the whole flight.

And despite the hostility still thrumming between them Sara experienced a sharp pang of pity. Forty-eight hours ago he had been in New York. Since then he had crossed the Atlantic, dealt with a very stressful crisis then flown another few thousand miles to get here.

‘Let’s go,’ he instructed her, placing a hand at the base of her spine to urge her to precede him off the aircraft.

His touch sent a spray of tingling awareness skittering across the surface of her skin. She had discarded her jacket on entering the plane, and knew from past experience that the weather in Sicily would not require her to put it back on. But she wished she had now, wished she’d decided to roast in the jacket rather than suffer the sensation of his hand so close to her skin.

And it wasn’t revulsion she was experiencing, not any more. In the few fraught hours she had been back in his company, her senses had been reintroduced to their lord and master! And, good grief, they were clamouring with excitement!

It was a lowering truth. And one she didn’t live easily with. Could Nicolas have been right when he’d accused her of being starved of a man’s touch?

She hoped not. She hoped this was only a brief reaction to the stress she had been living under. Because it was a pride-levelling concept to find herself still so violently physically attracted to the man who had hurt her so badly.

It was a perfect Sicilian day, the air hot and dry, the sun burning down from a perfect porcelain-blue sky.

A car was waiting—a white limousine shimmering in the sunlight. Nicolas saw her into it then sat beside her. They took off almost immediately, making for a pair of high, wire-fencing gates which were drawn open by two uniformed members of staff as they approached.

Neither Sara nor Nicolas spoke. Both were tense. Sara was readying herself for the moment when she would see her daughter again, impatient but oddly nervous with it. And there was Nicolas. She frowned as she stared out at the bright, shimmering coastline they were following. She didn’t know how he was going to react to his first meeting with the child he saw as the living evidence of his wife’s betrayal.

She saw the house the moment they rounded a bend in the twisting road. It stood on its own halfway up an acutely sloped bay. And her heart gave an odd pull of recognition as her gaze drifted over beautiful, white-painted, flower-strewn walls built on several terraced levels to hug the lush hillside all the way down to the tiny, silver-skirted beach.

Then suddenly it was gone as the car cut inland, not far but enough to take them through a tunnel of leaf-weighted trees towards the rear of the house. It was the only access unless you came by sea. A beautiful place, very private, idyllic. A high, whitewashed stone wall stood impenetrable behind the gnarled trunks of old fig trees, two royal-blue-painted solid wood doors cutting a splash of colour into it where it rose to curve over them in an arch twisted with bougainvillea heavy with paper-like vivid pink blooms.

The car stopped, gave a single blast of its horn. A small square porthole cut into the blue opened then closed again. The blue-painted doors swung open on well-oiled hinges. The car began moving slowly through them into a huge cobbled courtyard alive with colour, with the dappling shelter of several olive trees, with the delicate sprinkle of water from the simple fountain gushing water into a circular pond.

Sara heaved in a tense breath then held onto it. She sensed Nicolas’s swift glance in her direction but ignored it. This beautiful place was the scene of all her nightmares, and she needed to concentrate if she was to hold on to her composure.

Lia, she told herself grimly. Just think of Lia.

The car stopped. The driver got out, stepping up to open her door. Her senses were assailed by the sweet scent of flowers and the crisp tang of fruit, the quietness, the sheer peace that enveloped her just another deception she had to do battle with.

The house from the back appeared quite humble when compared with its dramatic front—a mere single storey of long white wall with blue-painted shutters thrown back from small windows and a terracotta-tiled roof.

Twin blue doors stood open to offer a welcome. Sara gritted her teeth, tried to make her suddenly shaky legs move. A cicada sawed lazily, hidden somewhere in a tree.

No other sound. Nothing. Her hand reached out, unconsciously searching for and locating another, warmer, stronger hand. It closed around her trembling fingers, but she was not really aware of it as she forced herself to move forwards through the doors into a cool square hallway where she paused for a moment while her eyes adjusted themselves to the dimmer light inside.

It was all so familiar. The beautiful paintings adorning the walls, the tasteful mix of dark, well-polished furniture, delicate ornaments, and vases of flowers.

And the stony-faced housekeeper standing a couple of yards inside the hall.

But no baby to greet her. She glanced at Nicolas, eyes questioning, anxious. He stepped forward and spoke in low tones to the housekeeper then turned to come and take hold of Sara’s arm.

‘Where—?’ she jerked out tensely.

‘This way,’ he said, his face stiff. He began leading her across the entrance hall and through an archway that she knew led to one of several stone staircases.

The house was built on several levels. Here on the top floor were the more functional services like kitchens and garages and servant accommodation. Then came the formal reception rooms where the Santino family entertained. Next was the floor given over entirely to the Santino empire, with office suites with all the relevant state-of-the-art equipment to go with them. The next tier housed the family’s private bedroom suites, followed by the guest suites and finally the less formal pool and recreational tier where you would find the only televisions in the whole place, and the garden terrace, which stepped downwards to the tiny pebbly beach below.

There were some two hundred steps in all from top terrace to beach. Sara had counted them once during one of her lonely periods while Nicolas had been away and his father had driven her outside to seek refuge from his constant hostility. But those two hundred steps were outside. Inside, each level had its own stairway worked in a dogleg which took you from tier to tier.

And as Nicolas led the way down her legs began to wobble, memories she would have much preferred to keep at bay beginning to crowd her mind.

Memories of a beautiful suite of rooms with a huge, white-silk-draped canopied bed and a man lying naked and glossy brown against the pure white sheets. A man who loved to just lie there like that and watch her as she moved about the room, loved to watch her brush her hair and cream her skin and …

‘Sara.’

She’d stopped. She hadn’t realised she’d stopped until the sound of her name brought her jolting to the present. Her lashes fell then lifted again to reveal the glaze of pained reminiscence as she found the same man watching her.

The same man but not the same, she noted bleakly. The one who’d liked to watch her move about their bedroom had worn a look of lazy pleasure on his face. This one looked hard and cold and …

‘This way,’ he prompted.

He was standing by the stairway to the next level. She frowned in puzzlement. ‘But …’ Her hand wafted out in the vague direction of the bedrooms, her logic expecting Lia to be in one of those. Then it hit her, and if she had been up to it she would have smiled at her own stupidity. The next level contained the guest suites. Of course Lia would be there. She was not family. Just as Sara herself was no longer family—not in the true sense of the word anyway.

She followed him, her head lowered so he would not read the irony she knew must be written in her eyes. In silence they made their way down to the next level, and here, as she had expected, Nicolas led the way to a suite of rooms, then paused by the door as if taking a moment to brace himself for what was to come.

So did Sara.

The door swung open, she stepped up beside him—then went perfectly still, heart, lungs, everything inside her crashing to a shuddering halt at the sight that met her eyes.

Across the room and to one side of the open plate-glass window which led outside was a man. His dark hair was peppered with more silver than she remembered, his once big frame radically diminished by the wheelchair he was sitting in.

But it was not just the man who held all her stunned attention. It was what he held in his arms.

Lying against his chest was a baby wearing nothing more than a disposable nappy and a white cotton vest. Her golden head was cushioned on his shoulder, her little arms clinging tightly to his neck.

Her eyes blurred out of focus then back again, the sight of her child—her child!—clinging to her worst enemy seeming to rock the very ground she stood upon.

Then the greying head was turning, the bright, hunter’s gold eyes searching out and homing directly in on Sara’s eyes. And the expression glowing in them froze the blood inside her veins.

It was possession, fierce and parental. And at last Sara began to understand what this had all been about.

The child. Her child!

In his illness, Alfredo Santino had seen his own mortality. He had seen himself dying without ever holding his own grandchild. It no longer mattered that the child was also Sara’s child. He wanted. And what Alfredo Santino wanted he got, even if it meant stealing to get it. Even if it meant having the woman he hated most coming back into his life. He wanted Lia. And there was no longer a single doubt in Sara’s mind that it had been Alfredo who had orchestrated her child’s abduction.

‘No!’ Sheer instinct brought the thick denial bursting from her locked throat. And, almost stumbling in her haste, she went towards him, saw, with a horror that tightened like a steel clasp around her chest, his hands move on her baby in a convulsive act of ownership.

‘She would accept comfort from no one else but me!’ he exclaimed in glowing triumph as Sara reached him. ‘See how she clings. See!’

‘No,’ Sara breathed again, denying it, denying his right to feel this way about her baby—as he had denied the little girl her right to know the love of her own father!

As if the baby sensed the closeness of her mother, she gave a shaky sigh against Alfredo’s shoulder, bringing Sara’s attention swerving back her way. And suddenly Alfredo was forgotten. Nicolas, still standing tense and silent in the doorway, was forgotten, everything was wiped clean out of her mind as she watched the head of golden curls lift and slowly turn. A deep frown shadowing her luminous eyes, her Cupid’s-bow mouth cross and pouting, she looked up at her mother, released another unsteady sigh then simply stretched out an arm towards Sara.

Sara bent, lifted the baby from Alfredo, folded her to her, one set of fingers spreading across the little back, the others cupping the golden head. The baby curved herself, foetus-like, into her mother, head nuzzling into her throat, arms tucking in between Sara’s breasts.

Then neither moved. Neither spoke. Neither wept. Sara simply stood there with her eyes closed and her face a complete and utter blank, the emotion she was experiencing so deep that none of it was left to show on her whitened face.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS like witnessing the most spiritual communion life could offer. And no one privy to it could not be moved by the vision. Not Alfredo, who lowered his silvered head and shook it with a sharp, jerky motion that was almost pained. Not the thin, dark-haired woman standing quietly to one side of the room, whose eyes filled with aching tears. Not even Nicolas, still standing tensely in the open doorway, who had to close his eyes to block out the heart-wrenching vision.

The seconds ticked by. No one moved. Not Sara. Not the baby. Not father or son or strange woman or even the air in the room, it seemed, in those few fraught moments.

Then the small head lifted, still frowning, still cross as she fixed her mother with a condemning look. ‘Not like airplanes,’ she said.

Sara’s legs went from beneath her. No warning. It was as if the sound of the child’s voice acted like a spring on all the control she had been exerting on herself and she simply-uncoiled, release flowing through her as if liquid were replacing bone.

Alfredo saw it happen but even as he let out a warning gasp, one gnarled hand lifting instinctively towards mother and child, Nicolas was there, bursting out of his statue-like posture to dart behind her so that her slender body melted against his own instead of falling to the floor, his arms snaking around both mother and child in support while the tension in his face reached crisis proportions.

The baby lifted her frowning eyes from her mother’s pale face and for the first time in her life fixed them on the rigid contours of her father’s.

Luminous blue met with harshly frowning gold. And while Sara fought a battle with her shattered control another communication took place—one which brought a muffled choke from Alfredo and set his son’s teeth gritting behind his tightly clamped lips.

For this child was undoubtedly Sara. Sara’s soft golden hair. Sara’s soft mouth. Sara’s pale, delicate skin. Sara’s huge, beautiful blue eyes.

No hint of Sicilian. Not even a hint of the dark-haired Englishman Sara had betrayed him with. The child looked like an angel when she should have been wearing the stamp of the devil.

His instinct was to snap right away from both of them. But although Sara was still holding the child it was his arms that were taking the child’s weight, his body that was keeping the mother upright.

‘Take the child—quickly!’ he raked out in an effort to release some of the violent emotion rushing through him right now.

But his feelings must have shown in his face, because the child’s mouth quivered, her eyes growing even bigger as they filled with frightened tears.

Then, ‘More bad man!’ she cried, reacting to both his hard expression and the rough words which must have reminded her of her kidnap. ‘Stay with Mama!’ Her arms clutched tightly at Sara’s neck. ‘No more bad man, Mama,’ she sobbed. ‘Grandpa said!’

Grandpa?

Sara’s eyes flicked open. Nicolas tensed up behind her. ‘What the hell …?’ he muttered.

‘She needed reassurance,’ Alfredo defended himself. ‘I gave it in the only way I could think of!’

Liar! Sara’s eyes accused him, and on a burst of anger that flooded the strength right back into her limbs she pushed herself free of Nicolas’s supporting arms, trembling for an entirely different reason now as her hand spread protectively over her baby’s head and she flashed both Santino men a condemning look.

‘You vile people,’ she whispered tightly, then turned and walked away—out through the open window and onto the terrace where the clean fresh air did not hold the taint of Santino.

‘Sara!’ Nicolas’s voice, harsh with command, brought her to a shuddering halt halfway across the terrace towards the steps. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going?’ he muttered, catching hold of her arm.

‘Let go of me,’ she whispered, seething with a bitter enmity she was finding it difficult to keep under wraps.

‘Don’t be foolish!’ he snapped.

‘But you saw him, Nicolas!’ she choked, turning wretched eyes on him. ‘He did it! He set all of this up for some selfish reason of his own! And—’

‘Be silent!’ he barked. ‘I have warned you before not to repeat accusations like that!’ He wasn’t seeing, she realised in despair—he would never see his father for what he really was.

His hard tone brought Lia’s head out of her mother’s throat, huge blue eyes homing in on his angry face, and the Cupid’s-bow mouth wobbled a second time, the first cry leaving her on a frightened wail. ‘Bad man again!’

‘Nicolas!’ A reprimand for his impatience came from an unexpected source. ‘You are frightening the bambina!’ Alfredo’s voice, coming from the open doorway, carried above Lia’s growing wails while Sara stood quivering with fury at the very idea that her child—any child—should have experience of what was bad in a human being!

‘My father is right,’ Nicolas conceded tautly. ‘We are upsetting the child.’ His hand tightened on Sara’s arm. ‘Come back inside,’ he urged, taking care not to let his eyes clash with the wide, wary ones of the little girl. ‘We are all overwrought. Come back inside …’

His hand urged her forward; reluctantly she went, aware that at this moment she really had no choice. They were right—both men were right and their manner was upsetting Lia. The poor baby had been through enough; she did not need her mother’s hostile attitude confusing her further. But as she reached Alfredo, sitting tensely in his chair in the open doorway, she paused, her hard gaze telling him that she knew what he had done, no matter that his son refused to see it.

The hunter’s gold eyes flickered then shifted from her to the baby where they softened into a gentle smile, a long-fingered hand reaching out to catch and squeeze a plump baby hand. The little girl responded immediately to the smile, offering one of her own.

‘Grandpa,’ she said, and once again rocked the precarious control Sara was clinging to.

It was said so affectionately.

It affected Nicolas too, his fingers tightening on Sara’s arm as he urged her forward. ‘You’re a fool, Nicolas,’ she said thickly. ‘You always have been where he is concerned.’

He ignored that, jaw clenching in grim dismissal of the remark. ‘Sit down,’ he commanded, almost pushing her into a nearby chair, then he clicked his fingers to bring an anxious-looking woman hurrying across the room. ‘This is Fabia,’ he said.

Keeping her eyes away from a stiff-faced Nicolas, Sara glanced at the woman, who smiled nervously and nodded her dark head in acknowledgement. She was not much older than Sara herself, but with the luxuriant black hair of a Sicilian and beautiful brown eyes.

‘Fabia is here to attend to your needs,’ he continued in that same cool voice. ‘And she will begin by collecting your luggage …’ With a nod at the other woman he sent her scurrying on her way. Then his attention was back on Sara. ‘I suggest you take the next few minutes to compose yourself and reassure the child.’ Lia had taken refuge by burying her face in her mother’s throat again. ‘Father …?’ Without giving Sara a chance to reply, he turned with that same cool, authoritative voice to Alfredo who was still sitting in the open window. ‘We need to talk.’

With that he walked off, with a surprisingly obedient Alfredo in tow, propelling himself by the use of the electronic controls of his wheelchair.

Silence prevailed. Lia lifted her face from its warm hiding place. ‘Bad man gone?’ she asked warily.

Sara leaned into the soft-cushioned back of the chair and gently cradled the baby to her. ‘He isn’t a bad man, Lia,’ she murmured quietly. ‘Just a …’ Confused one, was what she’d been about to say—which puzzled her because Nicolas had never been confused about anything in his whole life!

Life was black and white to him; confusion came in those little grey areas in between, which he did not acknowledge. Which was why their marriage had been such a difficult one, because Alfredo, knowing his son, had carefully clouded everything to do with Sara grey, causing confusion and misunderstanding all the way.

Just as he was doing again now, she realised with a small frown, and wished—wished she knew what the old man was up to this time, because every warning instinct she possessed told her he was definitely up to something dire.

What did he want? Her baby all to himself?

But he could not have Lia without making Nicolas believe himself to be the child’s father. And making his son believe that would also make Nicolas question his belief in Sara’s adultery. And once Nicolas did start questioning the truth would surely come out. Dared Alfredo risk it? Risk his son discovering just how ruthless his own father had been in his quest to rid him of his wife?

Or had he got some other, even more devious plan up his sleeve, one where he convinced Nicolas that Lia was indeed his child but by mere fluke rather than fidelity? Which would then lead to Nicolas claiming the child and dismissing the wife!

She began to tremble—tremble inside with a fear that came from experience in dealing with Alfredo.

Black and white. Nicolas dealt in black and white. The grey area in Alfredo’s favour was that Sara would never be able to prove she did not take another man to her bed!

‘Signora?’ The enquiry brought her eyes flickering into focus. Fabia was standing by her chair, her smile warm. ‘The bambina,’ she prompted softly. ‘She sleeps peacefully at last with her mama’s arms around her.’

Asleep. Sara glanced down in surprise to find that Lia was indeed fast asleep, her body heavy and her limbs slack, her steady breathing a sign that, just as Fabia had pointed out, the child felt safe at last.