The Salvatore Marriage Deal

Her mind was spinning as her gaze plummeted dizzyingly down into the street far below. They were so high up that nothing looked real—tiny stick-figures, toy cars and model trees were hazy images that were almost out of sight. It was like she was in some kind of awful nightmare.

Then suddenly her vision blurred and she felt herself start to fall into blackness.

‘Lily!’

Vito’s voice cut through the haze, dragging her back to the harsh reality of her situation. Hands like steel gripped her arms to prevent her from falling, then virtually lifted her away to the huge leather chair by the desk.

‘Lily.’ Vito dropped down onto one knee in front of her. For a moment she almost made the mistake of thinking he was concerned about her—then as her eyes came into focus she saw that his expression was just as cold as before. He had simply adopted the best position to get a good look at her. And probably to make sure she was looking at him, paying proper attention to what he had to say.

‘You’re extremely pale,’ he said. ‘Have you eaten today?’

‘Of course I’m pale.’ Lily spoke through gritted teeth. Her stomach was churning horribly, and she really thought there was a danger that she might be sick. ‘I’ve had a lot of nasty shocks this morning.’

‘Have you eaten?’ he insisted. ‘What would make you feel better?’

‘Getting away from you.’ She stood up so quickly that Vito rocked back on his heels, but the rapid movement was a mistake. A wave of nausea rolled through her again, and she clung to the desk for support, feeling her head start to spin.

‘Sit down,’ Vito barked. ‘I’m not letting you leave so that you can faint in the street—if you even get that far.’

One hand was on her shoulder, pressing her back into the chair, and the other snatched up the phone on his desk. Lily only half listened as he reeled off a list of instructions—but she understood that he was ordering food and drink.

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. As much as she thought she hated Vito right then, she couldn’t bear to disgrace herself by being sick in front of him. She already felt vulnerable enough, and that would just be the final humiliation on what was already turning out to be the worst day of her life so far.

Only a few minutes seemed to pass before she heard the elevator doors open, followed by Vito’s quiet footfall on the thick grey carpet as he returned across the room. She opened her eyes to see him setting a tray down on the desk.

‘Drink this,’ he instructed, holding out a large glass of iced water.

She took the water silently, unable to speak for a moment, as the memory of him preparing iced water for her on her last day in Venice flashed through her mind. He might not be the tender, concerned lover she had believed him to be—but he still knew what she liked.

In fact, apparently he knew more about her than she had realised, as she thought about the heartless way he had thrown her troubled childhood in her face.

‘You snooped into my background.’ She looked at him accusingly, expecting to see at least a hint of embarrassment pass across his shuttered features. But there was nothing. He appeared as unmoved as ever.

‘Of course I did. You were living with me—a thorough background-check was mandatory.’ His voice was matter-of-fact. ‘You had potential access to all kinds of sensitive material.’

Lily looked at him in disgust. It would never have occurred to her to pry into his life like that. She knew he’d been married before; that was common knowledge. But she’d never poked around, trying to discover why his marriage had ended.

‘Perhaps I should have run a background-check on you.’ Lily took a sip of icy-cold water. It was making her stomach feel a little better—but the rest of her was still a mess of unpleasant emotions. ‘I might have found out in time what kind of man I was getting involved with.’

She pushed a coil of blonde hair out of her eyes and looked away from him distractedly. She couldn’t believe how things were turning out, and her mind was a horrible whirl of conflicting thoughts.

She should never have come to L&G Enterprises that morning. She’d known Vito held controlling shares in the company. But he also had many other business interests in London. She’d thought, if he was even in the city, what were the chances that he’d be right there in the building? That he’d walk into her presentation?

Maybe a tiny part of her deep down inside had longed to see him again, despite the unforgivable way he had treated her, but she could never have guessed that things would end up like this. That Vito, the man she’d once foolishly believed she was falling in love with, would rub her nose in the humiliating misery of her childhood. And then propose to her.

‘Being someone’s dirty little secret is not a pleasant position to be in.’ Vito’s voice was cold and unfeeling as he broke the silence. ‘Don’t make your child suffer the same fate. You don’t need to make the same choices as your mother.’

‘You’re the one making it dirty!’ Lily responded hotly, her gaze flashing back to his impossibly inexpressive face. ‘And leave my mother out of it—she’s happy living in the countryside, working with the hospice patients.’

‘But you’re not happy,’ Vito said blandly. ‘And your childhood was far from happy.’

‘You don’t know anything about my childhood,’ Lily threw back at him.

‘I know that your father refused to acknowledge you,’ he said. ‘That he paid your mother off to keep her quiet. That you’ve never met him or your two half-sisters, and that it seems unlikely that you ever will. Unless you’re prepared to let your mother lose her home and income, just to satisfy your curiosity about the man who didn’t want you.’

‘Why would I want to meet my father?’ Lily responded automatically, despite the way she was reeling under the onslaught of Vito’s words. ‘He’s nothing to me.’

‘You mean you’re nothing to him.’

Vito turned away to select a Danish pastry from the tray on his desk. Lily gripped her glass of iced water dangerously tightly and stared at him angrily.

‘You are utterly vile,’ she said, looking at the plate in his hand, because suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze.

How could he eat at a time like this? Did dishing out heartless comments over something so important to her really mean so little to him that he thought he’d combine it with a light snack?

She’d spent a lifetime trying not to think about the way her father had discarded her. And she didn’t want to think about it now. She could have searched for him, tried to make him acknowledge her. But she’d always known no good would have come of that. And, in any case, she would never, ever have done anything to cause her mother distress.

‘Here, eat this.’ Vito removed the glass of water from her grip and handed her the pastry on a highly glazed black plate. So it hadn’t been for him after all.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Lily said mutinously, trying to pass the plate back.

‘Nevertheless, you must eat,’ Vito said. ‘You’ll feel better if you boost your blood-sugar level. You really are exceptionally pale, even for you.’

‘Even for me?’ Lily snapped. ‘Don’t act like you know me. You may know my secret—a way you can coerce me into doing what you want. But that’s not really knowing someone.’

‘It’s not coercion,’ Vito said. ‘I’m merely helping you to recognise the full implications of trying to go it alone with an illegitimate child. In fact, it’s more of a reminder, really—after all, you know from first-hand experience what it can be like.’

‘It wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound,’ Lily protested. But in her heart she knew it had been pretty tough—constantly dealing with her mother’s depression and her own sense of abandonment and disappointment. She hated the thought of her baby growing up without a father, feeling unwanted and worthless.

‘Don’t you want to protect your child?’ Vito asked. ‘Marry me, and he or she will be free of the misery that blighted your childhood.’

‘My childhood wasn’t miserable,’ Lily insisted. She could hear the doubt in her own voice, but suddenly it felt disloyal to her mum even to let herself think it.

‘As my heir, your baby will have every opportunity,’ Vito continued. ‘And you won’t experience the difficulties that your mother faced on her own.’

‘I don’t know,’ Lily said. Vito’s proposal was totally unexpected and overwhelming. She didn’t know what to think any more. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Two months ago she would have been unimaginably happy to have Vito propose to her. Now things were different. It was clear he didn’t love her. He didn’t even trust her. But he was offering her a chance for her child—and wasn’t that the most important thing to consider now?

How could she deny her child the life Vito could give it?

‘You do know what to say,’ Vito said. ‘You must agree to marry me. And, in the circumstances, we must arrange the wedding for as soon as possible. We’ll fly back to Venice this afternoon.’

He looked at her, sitting so stiffly on the high-backed leather chair, and he thought that she had been right when she’d said he didn’t know her. He didn’t. The sweet, innocent girl he’d thought she was would never have taken a lover and then tried to pass off another man’s child as his.

She didn’t even look the same as the eager yet tentative lover he had shared his home with for nearly half a year. Her defensive body-language was completely new to him, and the amount of weight she’d lost made her appear all bony angles beneath her ill-fitting linen suit.

The dark smudges of exhaustion beneath her hazel eyes emphasised their size, making them look extremely large in her painfully thin face. And she was wearing her hair in a strange style that all through their five months together he had never before seen.

But, even though her appearance had changed, the powerful attraction he felt for her had not diminished one jot.

It was the same as the first time he’d laid eyes on her; she’d been standing up in front of another group of executives in another of his companies, pitching an earlier version of the computer software she’d been selling today. He’d walked into that meeting too—with no thought in his head other than the fact that he must find out who she was.

It had suddenly been imperative that he invited her to dinner, got to know her…took her to bed.

And the urgent desire that had stormed his body back then was still surging through his veins like molten lava.

He wanted to haul her to her feet and kiss her until the rigid tension in her body melted away. He knew it would—he’d felt the way she’d responded to him earlier. Despite her protests he knew she still wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He wanted to run his hands all over her body, until she was soft and pliant against him. He wanted to release the clip at the nape of her neck and let her hair fly out in crazy curls. It had been only at the end of their most passionate love-making sessions that he’d seen her hair in its natural, untamed state. She’d always spent ages straightening it and smoothing it down into sleek, sophisticated styles. He liked it when it was wild. It made him think of rampant sex.

‘Even if I agree, I can’t be ready to travel this afternoon.’ Lily’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. ‘There are things I must do, people I have to tell.’

‘Of course you can be ready. Leave all the technical details to me. Once we arrive in Venice, you may call anyone you need, to inform them of your change of address.’

Vito suppressed a grim smile of satisfaction at her imminent agreement. He hadn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility that she might refuse his offer of marriage.

The fact that she had been unfaithful to him, and subsequently denied it, had proved him very wrong in his original assessment of her personality. However, he did know what her childhood had been like. And he was confident that his frank reminders of how their uncertain situation had impacted on Lily and her mother would be enough to bring her round to accepting his proposal.

He knew he’d hurt her feelings when he’d thrown her out, but he was sure her maternal instinct to protect her child’s future would win out in the end.

‘No, I need to—’ Lily began.

‘Presumably the equipment you brought with you for your presentation belongs to the company you were working for.’ Vito picked up the phone to make a call. ‘I’ll have it returned by courier.’

He had her in his grasp. All that was left to do was to make the arrangements as quickly as possible. Then he would tell his grandfather the news the old man had been hoping to hear for years: the Salvatore family name was to continue.

His grandfather would end his days happy, believing there was a new Salvatore heir. Then afterwards, when Lily was no longer of any use to him, Vito would exact revenge on her by ridding himself of her. And the baby.

A swift divorce, and his life would soon be back to normal. Lily, and the proof of her infidelity, would no longer have any part of it.

‘But I can’t just disappear off to Italy,’ Lily said. ‘People will worry about me.’

‘A short announcement that we are reunited and about to be married should deal with that,’ Vito replied.

‘They’ll never believe it,’ Lily said, wondering how her independent friend, Anna, would react to her decision to marry Vito purely to ensure security and stability for her child. How would she explain that she couldn’t bear the thought of her baby enduring a childhood as tough as hers? ‘Everyone knows how badly you treated me—they won’t be fooled by any story I tell them.’

Or at least Anna wouldn’t, she thought. Somehow she’d never really got round to telling her mother any details about how she came to be back in London.

‘No.’ The word cut through the air like steel. ‘No one must ever know this is anything other than a normal marriage.’

‘But…’ Lily faltered as he took her hands and pulled her abruptly to her feet. She was standing directly in front of him, and she could feel the intensity radiating off him. Her heart jolted nervously in her chest. He was utterly serious.

‘No one will ever know.’ Vito’s voice throbbed and his eyes blazed. ‘You will make them all believe that it is a normal marriage, that the child you are carrying is mine. If you fail to do this, I will cast you and the baby out.’

Lily stared at him numbly.

She just couldn’t let her baby go through what she had experienced growing up. Vito’s words ‘dirty little secret’ rang in her mind. He had been agonisingly accurate in his assessment of what her childhood had been like.

Living with a mother who was depressed and frequently plagued by worries and self-doubts had been tough. Having very little money, no father figure at home, and, on top of everything else, dealing with spiteful taunts from other children had been a constant grind.

But realising that her own father didn’t want to meet her—probably wished she’d never even been born—had quite simply been heartbreaking. She couldn’t let her child grow up never knowing its father—and she knew for sure that this baby was Vito’s.

She had to agree. For the sake of her unborn baby she had to agree to marry Vito.

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