Italian Mavericks: Forbidden Nights With The Italian: The Forbidden Ferrara / Surrendering to the Italian's Command / The Unwanted Conti Bride

The knock on the door was the most reluctant sound he’d ever heard.

His eyes narrowed and he felt a rush of adrenaline, but it was only a young chef from the kitchen, bringing him more coffee.

‘Grazie—’

The rattle of the cup on the saucer and her nervous glance told him that his black mood was visible on his face although they’d probably all misinterpreted the cause. Everyone in the hotel from the top down was jumpy about his visit. Normally they’d have reason. They had no way of knowing that his current mood was caused by something different. That a reorganization of the hotel was the last thing on his mind right now.

She melted away but moments later there was another tap on the door and he knew instantly that this time it was her.

The door opened and Fia stood there, those fierce green eyes glittering like jewels in a face as pale as morning mist. One look at her white face told him that she hadn’t had any more rest than he had.

She looked washed out and stressed. And ready for a fight.

Across the room their eyes clashed.

They’d been lovers.

They’d shared the ultimate intimacy, but that wasn’t going to help them navigate the treacherous waters they now found themselves in because they’d shared nothing else. They had no relationship. Essentially they were strangers. All they’d had were a few chance encounters and one stolen night, one delicious taste of the forbidden. None of that was going to help them through this desperate situation. And it was desperate; even he could see that.

‘Where is my son?’ He snapped out the words and she leaned her back against the door and looked at him.

‘Asleep in his bed. In his home. And if he wakes, Gina is there, and my grandfather.’

The anger rushed at him like a ravenous beast ready to snap through the last threads of his fragile self-control. ‘And that is supposed to provide me with comfort?’

‘He loves Luca.’

‘I think we have a very different idea of what that word means.’

‘No.’ Her eyes were fierce. ‘No, we don’t.’

Santo’s mouth tightened. ‘And will he still “love” him when he discovers the identity of his father? I think we both know the answer to that.’ He rose from his chair and saw her hand shoot towards the door handle. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed in a warning. ‘If you leave this room then we will be having this conversation in public. Is that what you want?’

‘What I want is for you to calm down and be rational.’

‘Oh, I’m rational, tesoro. I have been thinking clearly from the moment I saw my child.’

The atmosphere thickened. The air grew overly warm.

‘What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? That I did the wrong thing?’ Her voice was smoky-soft and that voice drew his eyes to the smooth column of her throat and then to her mouth. It had been just one night but the memory of it had left deep scars in his senses. He knew how she’d taste because he remembered it vividly. He knew how she’d feel because he remembered that too. Not just the smooth texture of her skin, but the softness of her gorgeous hair. Now released from the clips that had restrained it during cooking, it fell down her back like a dark flame, reflecting the sunrise back at him. He remembered the day her father had cut it short in a blaze of Baracchi temper, hacking with kitchen scissors until she’d been left with a jagged crop. A horrified Santo had witnessed the incident and had tried to intervene but the sight of him had simply inflamed the situation.

She’d sat still, he remembered, saying nothing as hunks of long hair had landed in her lap. Afterwards she’d hidden in the boathouse, her fierce glare challenging him to say one word about it and of course he hadn’t because their relationship didn’t encompass verbal exchanges.

And it had been in the boathouse, on that one night that had ended so tragically, that their relationship had shifted from nothing to everything.

Santo hauled in a deep breath, resisting that savage, elemental instinct that had him wanting to flatten her to the wall and drag the answers from her. ‘When did you find out you were pregnant?’

‘Why does that matter?’

‘I’m the one asking the questions and right now you’ll answer any question I choose to ask you.’

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door. ‘Not for ages. Afterwards … I can’t really remember. It’s all a blur. First there was the hospital. Then the funeral. And my grandfather …’ Her sudden silence said more than words. Her breathing was fractured. ‘It was chaos. The last thing I was thinking about was me.’

Yes, it had been chaos. Pandemonium. A huge tangled mess of blame, guilt, regret and raw emotion. The frantic rush to save a life that was already lost. A moment of intimacy lost in a sea of negative publicity and cruel gossip. Remembering it sent the tension flowing through his muscles and he knew she was feeling the same. In fact he was fairly sure that the only thing holding her upright was willpower.

‘So when did you find out?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose it must have been a couple of months. Longer—’ she rubbed her fingers over her forehead ‘—it was a very difficult time. I probably should have realised sooner but at the time I just thought that everything I was feeling was part of the shock. I felt sick the whole time but I thought that was grief. And when I did finally work it out it seemed like—’

‘—one more problem?’ His hands were clenched by his sides but her eyes flew to his, appalled.

‘No!’ She shook her head violently. ‘I was going to say that it seemed like a miracle.’ Her words dropped to a whisper. ‘The best thing in my life came from the worst night of my life.’

It wasn’t the response he’d expected and for a moment it threw him. ‘When you realised, you should have contacted me.’

‘For what purpose?’ There was despair in her tone. ‘So that you and my grandfather could rip each other to pieces? Do you think I wanted Luca exposed to that? I made the decision that was best for my baby.’

‘Our baby,’ Santo corrected her with lethal emphasis. ‘And from now on we’ll be making those decisions together.’ He saw the panic flicker across her face and knew that anxiety was responsible for those dark shadows under her eyes.

‘Luca is happy. I can understand how you’re feeling, but—’

‘You do not understand how I’m feeling.’ His voice was raw. Savage. He didn’t know himself and he certainly didn’t trust himself. ‘This is my son we’re talking about. Did you honestly believe I would want him to grow up a Baracchi?’ He braced himself to ask the question that had robbed him of sleep. ‘Has he ever hit him?’

‘No!’ Her denial was immediate and sincere. ‘I would never, ever allow anyone to touch Luca.’

‘And how do you defend him? You never defended yourself.’ Perhaps it was low of him, but he told himself that his son’s welfare was more important than her feelings. ‘You just endured it.’

‘I was eight years old!’ Hurt and reproach flickered in her eyes and suddenly he felt like an animal for ripping into her. That was what people had done all their lives, wasn’t it?

‘I apologise for that remark,’ he breathed and she shook her head.

‘You don’t need to. I don’t blame you for being protective of your child.’ She spoke quietly, as if she had long since resigned herself to the fact that no one had any concern for her. ‘And yes, I was brought up in a violent family but that violence came from my father, not my grandfather. I assure you that Luca has never been at risk. He has had a warm, loving childhood.’

‘Without a father in his life.’

She flinched as if he’d slapped her. ‘Yes.’

‘Naturally I am relieved that he has been safe, but that doesn’t change the fundamental issue here. Family is the most important thing to me. I am a Ferrara and we look after our own. There are no circumstances—none—that would induce me to walk away from my own child.’ His words struck another blow because of course her mother had done exactly that. She’d walked away when Fia was only eight years old.

Her face lost the last hint of colour and he wondered briefly how it must feel to watch a parent walk away, leaving you to cope with danger alone.

He knew the story, as did everyone else. Her mother had been an English tourist who had fallen for the charms of the smooth, good-looking Pietro Baracchi, only to discover after the wedding that he was an incurable womanizer with a dangerous temper. After one beating too many, she’d turned her back on Sicily and her two children and soon after that Fia’s father had been killed in a drunken boating accident.

She watched him steadily. ‘You are very quick to judge me, but did you bother to come back and find out if there were consequences to our night together?’

Her unexpected attack shook him. ‘I used contraception.’

‘And that worked out well, didn’t it?’ She tilted her head. ‘Did you, at any point, wonder how I was doing after that night? How I was coping after the accident that killed my brother? Did you bother to come and find me?’

‘I did not wish to inflame the situation.’ But her words had kindled a nagging guilt. He should have contacted her. The thought was uncomfortable, like walking with a sharp stone in your shoe.

‘So you’re admitting your concern that having contact with me would escalate our problems.’ Her voice was remarkably calm. ‘How much more inflammatory would it have been if I’d told you there was a child?’

‘The child changes everything.’

‘It changes nothing. It just makes everything harder.’ She pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. With a face free of make-up and her hair loose, she looked impossibly young. More like a teenager than a successful businesswoman. ‘It’s a waste of time dwelling on what is already done so let’s talk about the future. Of course you want to see him. I understand that. We can arrange something.’

Distracted by the length of her legs in those jeans, Santo frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’m saying that you can see Luca. We’ll work something out, providing you agree to certain rules.’

She was giving him rules? Stunned, he could barely respond. ‘What rules?’

‘I will not at any time tolerate you speaking ill of my grandfather in front of Luca. Nor will you denigrate anyone else in my family, and that includes me. No matter how angry you are with me, you will not show it in front of Luca. As far as he is concerned, we are united. We might not be together, but I want him to believe we are on friendly terms. Providing you agree to that then I’ll let you have full access.’

Genuinely shocked at the depth of her misunderstanding, Santo felt exasperation surge through him. ‘Access? You think I am talking about visiting rights? You think this is about making polite arrangements to take my child on the occasional outing?’

‘Don’t you want that?’

‘Sí, I want access. Full access.’ His tone was a perfect reflection of his mood. Grim. ‘The sort of access that comes from being a full-time father. Access to tuck him in at night and get him up in the morning. Access to spend all the time I want to spend with him. Access to teach him what family is truly about. And that is what is going to happen. I have had lawyers working through the night drawing up the necessary paperwork to acknowledge him as my son. My son.’

There was a hideous silence.

For a moment she said nothing and then she exploded across the room like a wild thing and pounded his chest with her fists.

‘You will not take him from me! I won’t let you.’ She was so furious and he was so shocked by the unexpected explosion of emotion it took him a few seconds to grasp those slender wrists, a few more seconds to free himself from a lock of that vivid hair that had wrapped itself around him.

‘And yet you took him from me—’ He enunciated every syllable, threw those words right into her shocked face and saw the exact moment reality sank home.

‘I’m his mother—’ her voice was hoarse ‘—I will not let you take him. I will find a way of stopping you. He needs me.’

Santo paused long enough to make her suffer a fraction of what he had suffered since he’d discovered the truth. Then he released her hands and stepped away from her. ‘If you’re trying to impress me with your maternal dedication then don’t waste your time. Even if everything else you say is true, the fact is that you have employed a nanny.’

She stepped back from him, confusion on her face. ‘What does Gina have to do with this?’

‘You don’t look after him yourself.’

‘I do look after him—’ her eyes were stricken ‘—and there are reasons I choose to have a nanny. I can—’

‘You don’t have to explain. Caring for a child full-time is a demanding experience. A young child is very restricting, as your mother discovered. She chose to walk away from it. I’m willing to give you the opportunity to do the same.’

Her eyes were huge. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

‘I’m saying that I will take full responsibility for him.’

‘You’re … threatening to take my son from me?’

‘Offering,’ Santo interjected smoothly, watching her face closely. ‘Offering, not threatening. And if you want to see him then of course that can be arranged.’

Her breathing was shallow. ‘You think I want to give him away?’

‘You can have your life back. And given that I’m prepared to sweeten the deal with a significant financial incentive, it could be a very comfortable life. It’s a generous offer. Take it. You’d never have to work again.’

She lifted her hands to her cheeks and gave a choked laugh. ‘You really don’t know anything about me, do you? I love my son, and if you truly believe for a moment that I’d give him to you on any terms then you have no idea who you’re dealing with.’ Her hands dropped to her sides. Clenched into fists. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my child.’

Unmoved by the anger in her eyes, Santo nodded. ‘Your mother would have taken the money and run. It’s to your credit that you didn’t do the same.’

‘So this was some sort of test?’ She gave a moan of disgust. ‘You’re sick, do you know that?’

‘Our child’s future is at stake. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect him. If protecting him means offending you, I’ll do that too.’ He threw her own words back at her and she wrapped her arms around herself.

‘I am not my mother. I will never leave Luca.’

‘In that case we will find another solution.’ And there was only one that he could see. He consoled himself with the fact that at least she was making an effort to fight for her child.

‘Do you think I haven’t searched for one?’ Her raw tone exposed layers of despair. ‘There is no solution. I don’t want him shuttled between us. I don’t want him absorbing all the bad feeling that runs between our families. He’s been brought up in an atmosphere of happiness and calm.’

‘Knowing your grandfather, I find that impossible to believe.’

‘My grandfather has stuck to my rules.’

Santo frowned. ‘More rules?’

‘Yes. From the moment Luca was born, I insisted that any mention of the name Ferrara in our house had to be positive. I didn’t want my son growing up in the same poisonous atmosphere I experienced.’

Genuinely surprised, Santo lifted his eyebrows. ‘And how did you achieve this miracle of good behaviour?’

‘I threatened to take his grandson away unless he agreed to my terms.’

If he’d been surprised before, he was shocked now. So she was stronger than she looked, then. ‘Ingenious.’

‘You will abide by the same rule. You will not speak badly about my family in front of Luca. If you can’t say anything nice, then you don’t mention us. When he spends time with you I want to be confident that you are not denigrating my family and I will know because right now Luca is like a recording device. He repeats everything he hears.’

Fascinated that so much passion could be trapped in such a small package and reluctantly impressed at her steadfast refusal to involve herself in the Baracchi/Ferrara hostilities, Santo took his time to respond.

‘Firstly,’ he said softly, ‘the bad feeling was all on your side. We made several overtures, all of which were rejected. Secondly, you will know what I am saying to Luca because you will be there to hear it in person. Thirdly, our families will be merged, so all this ceases to be relevant.’

‘Merged?’ Nervous, she pushed her hair back from her face. ‘You mean because Luca belongs to both of us?’

‘I mean because I intend to marry you.’

Silence spread across the room.

For a moment he wondered if she’d actually heard him.

Then she made a strange sound in her throat and took a step backwards.

‘Marry you?’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘You have to be joking.’

‘Relish the moment, tesoro. Up until now, women have waited in vain for a proposal of marriage from me.’

She looked as if she’d suffered a major shock. ‘You’re proposing.’

‘In a practical sense, yes. In a romantic sense, no,’ he drawled, ‘so if you’re expecting me to get down on one knee you can forget it.’

This, he thought, would be a real test of her devotion to their son.

She lifted her hand to her throat and looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Apart from the fact that we haven’t laid eyes on each other for three years and barely know each other, there is no way our families would accept this.’

‘I presume you are talking about your side of the family, because my side will support me in whatever decision I make. That’s what families do. The reaction of yours is of no interest to me.’ He gave an indifferent shrug. ‘And as for the fact that we barely know each other, that will be rectified quickly enough. You will get to know me fast enough because I don’t intend to let you out of my sight.’

She sleepwalked to the window. ‘I saw a picture of you just last week strolling along a red carpet with a woman on your arm—you have a million women chasing after you.’

‘Then it’s fortunate for you that I was waiting for that one special person and hadn’t yet made that commitment.’ His expectations mocked him. His brother and his sister both had strong, happy marriages. He’d had no reason to believe that his wouldn’t be the same. His hopes for the future were undergoing a transformation so rapid that it left him reeling.

‘I can’t accept your proposal.’ Her voice had lost some of its strength. ‘I don’t need to. I run a successful business and—’

‘This isn’t about you, it’s about Luca. Or does your streak of selflessness only emerge when it suits you? If you truly have Luca’s best interests at heart then you will do what is right for him.’ He came right back at her, offering no soft words of reassurance and she shook her head frantically.

‘It would be wrong for Luca, too.’

‘What’s “wrong” is my child growing up in a family that doesn’t know the meaning of the word,’ he said coldly. ‘He is a Ferrara and he is entitled to all the love and security that comes with being a Ferrara. And I am going to use every means at my disposal to make sure he is given that right.’

‘You’re doing this to punish me.’ Her eyes were horrified. She knew how much power he wielded. She knew exactly what he could achieve if he set his mind to it. He saw her mind going to all sorts of places and he let it happen because it suited his purpose to scare her.

‘Luca deserves to be raised in a strong, solid family, not that I expect you to understand that.’ Another low blow and to her credit she didn’t flinch from it.

‘I do understand that. I understand that an ideal family is a unit of people who love and support you unconditionally. I admit I didn’t have that, so I created it. I wanted Luca to be surrounded by people who would love him and support him and in reality I did need help because I wanted to be able to support us financially and not rely on my grandfather.’

‘That is the most convoluted justification for a nanny I’ve ever heard.’

‘You are very disparaging about nannies, but that is because you have aunts and cousins who all help each other with childcare. I don’t have that and so I found a warm, loving girl I trust. She’s been with us since Luca was born, and so has Ben because I wanted him to have a good male role model—’ She bit her lower lip. ‘I’m aware that my grandfather isn’t soft or tactile. He never hugs and I wanted Luca to be hugged. I wanted him surrounded by people who felt like I did. People who would give him affection. I didn’t have a family like yours, but I tried to create one for him.’

She’d created a family?

Santo thought about what he’d seen. About the amount of affection he’d witnessed in that short time with his son. ‘If that is true, then that is definitely a point in your favour, but it is no longer necessary. Luca doesn’t need a stand-in family. He can have the real thing.’

‘You’re not thinking straight.’ Her voice was remarkably strong. ‘My father married my mother because he made her pregnant. I was first-hand witness to the fact that approach doesn’t work. And now you are suggesting we do the same thing?’

‘Not the same thing.’ He heard the chill in his own voice. ‘Our marriage will be nothing like your parents’, I can assure you of that. They led separate lives and their children—you—were the casualties of their selfish, hubristic existence, not to mention the vicious Baracchi temper. Our marriage will not be like that.’

She rubbed her fingers over her brow and gave him a desperate look. ‘You are angry and I don’t blame you for that, but please, please think of Luca.’

‘I have thought of nothing but Luca since I walked into your kitchen last night.’

‘How can he possibly benefit from you and I being together? You are being hasty—’

‘Hasty?’ Just thinking about how much of his son’s life he’d missed made him want to punch his fist through something. ‘As far as I’m concerned we are long past “hasty”. Luca has an aunt and an uncle. Cousins to play with. He has a whole family he knows nothing about.’ Seeing the wistfulness in her eyes, he drove his point home. ‘As a Ferrara he will never feel lonely or unloved. He will never have to hide in an abandoned boathouse because his family is in crisis.’

‘You bastard—’ She whispered the words, her eyes two deep pools of pain, but Santo was impervious to any emotion but anger.

‘You hid my child from me. You robbed him of the right to a warm, loving family and you robbed me of something that can never be returned. Do I intend to dictate terms from now on? Yes, I do. And if that makes me a bastard I’ll happily live with that title. Think about it.’ He strode towards the door. ‘And while you’re thinking, I have work to do.’

‘You’re going to work?’

‘Of course. I have a company to run.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I … I need some time to decide what is best for Luca.’

Holding on to his temper, Santo yanked open the door. ‘Having a father and joining the Ferrara family is what is best for Luca and even twisted Baracchi thinking will struggle to distort that fact. You have until tonight to see sense. And I suggest you tell your grandfather the truth, or I’ll do it for you.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE was nothing quite so cruel as the distortion of a dream.

How many times had she stared across the bay and envied the family life of the close-knit Ferraras? How many times had she wished she were part of that? It was no coincidence that in times of trauma she’d chosen to hide in their boathouse, as if simply by being there she might soak up some residual warmth.

She’d crawled through the open window, grazing her leg on the rough wood of the window frame, covering herself in dust as she’d landed. Fia hadn’t cared about any of that.

With the sea lapping at the door that conveniently faced away from the bay, she had no fear that someone would find her. Who would look for her here, in the enemy camp? So sure had she been of the seclusion of her hiding place that when she’d seen Santo standing on the rocks, watching her, she’d known a moment of pure terror. Too afraid even to breathe, she’d waited for him to blow her cover. Her family hated his. Even a mention of the Ferrara name was enough to sour the atmosphere in her house for days. The only thing the Baracchi family knew how to nurture was a grudge.