A Marriage Fit For A Sinner

Thickset but tall enough to hide the excess weight he carried, her father cut a commanding figure despite his recent spell in hospital. His stint in the army three decades ago had lent him a ruthless edge, cleverly counteracted by his natural charm. The combination made him enigmatic enough to attract attention when he walked into a room.

But not even that charisma had saved him from economic devastation four years ago.

With that coming close on the heels of her mother’s illness, their social and economic circles had dwindled to nothing almost overnight, with her father desperately scrambling to hold things together.

End result—his association with Zaccheo Giordano.

Eva frowned, bewildered that her thoughts had circled back to the man she’d pushed to the dark recesses of her mind. A man she’d last seen being led away in handcuffs—

‘There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

Eva started, then berated herself for feeling guilty. Guilt belonged to those who’d committed crimes, who lied about their true motives.

Enough!

She smiled at Harry.

Her old university friend—a brilliant tech genius—had gone off the rails when he’d achieved fame and wealth straight out of university. Now a multimillionaire with enough money to bail out Penningtons, he represented her family’s last hope.

‘Well, you found me,’ she said.

He was a few inches taller than her five feet four; she didn’t have to look up too far to meet his twinkling soft brown eyes.

‘Indeed. Are you okay?’ he asked, his gaze reflecting concern.

‘I’m fine,’ she responded breezily.

He looked unconvinced. Harry was one of the few people who knew about her broken engagement to Zaccheo. He’d seen beneath her false smiles and assurances that she could handle a marriage of convenience and asked her point-blank if her past with Zaccheo Giordano would be a problem. Her swift no seemed to have satisfied him.

Now he looked unsure.

‘Harry, don’t fret. I can do this,’ she insisted, despite the hollowness in her stomach.

He studied her solemnly, then called over a waiter and exchanged his empty champagne glass for a full one. ‘If you say so, but I need advanced warning if this gets too weird for you, okay? My parents will have a fit if they read about me in the papers this side of Christmas.’

She nodded gratefully, then frowned. ‘I thought you were going to take it easy tonight?’ She indicated his glass.

‘Gosh, you already sound like a wife.’ He sniggered. ‘Leave off, sweetness, the parents have already given me an earful.’

Having met his parents a week ago, Eva could imagine the exchange.

‘Remember why you’re doing this. Do you want to derail the PR campaign to clean up your image before it’s even begun?’

While Harry couldn’t care less about his social standing, his parents were voracious in their hunger for prestige and a pedigree to hang their name on. Only the threat to Harry’s business dealings had finally forced him to address his reckless playboy image.

He took her arm and tilted his sand-coloured head affably towards hers. ‘I promise to be on my best behaviour. Now that the tedious toasts have been made and we’re officially engaged, it’s time for the best part of the evening. The fireworks!’

Eva set her champagne glass down and stepped out of the dining-room alcove that had been her sanctuary throughout her childhood. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be a surprise?’

Harry winked. ‘It is, but, since we’ve fooled everyone into thinking we’re madly in love, faking our surprise should be easy.’

She smiled. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’

Harry laid a hand across his heart. ‘Thank you, my fair Lady Pennington.’

The reminder of why this whole sham engagement was happening slid like a knife between her ribs. Numbing herself to the pain, she walked out onto the terrace that overlooked the manor’s multi-acre garden.

The gardens had once held large koi ponds, a giant summer house and an elaborate maze, but the prohibitive cost of the grounds’ upkeep had led to the landscape being levelled and replaced with rolling carpet grass.

A smattering of applause greeted their arrival and Eva’s gaze drifted over the guests to where Sophie, her father and Harry’s parents stood watching them.

She caught her father’s eye, and her stomach knotted.

While part of her was pleased that she’d found a solution to their family problems, she couldn’t help but feel that nothing she did would ever bring her closer to her sister or father.

Her father might have accepted her help with the bailout from Harry, but his displeasure at her chosen profession was yet another bone of contention between them. One she’d made clear she wouldn’t back down on.

Turning away, she fixed her smile in place and exclaimed appropriately when the first elaborate firework display burst into the sky.

‘So...my parents want us to live together,’ Harry whispered in her ear.

‘What?’

He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I convinced them you hate my bachelor pad so we need to find a place that’s ours rather than mine.’

Relief poured through her. ‘Thank you.’

He brushed a hand down her cheek. ‘You’re welcome. But I deserve a reward for my sacrifice,’ he said with a smile. ‘How about dinner on Monday?’

‘As long as it’s not a paparazzi-stalked spectacle of a restaurant, you’re on.’

‘Great. It’s a date.’ He kissed her knuckles, much to the delight of the guests, who thought they were witnessing a true love match.

Eva allowed herself to relax. She might find what they were doing distasteful, but she was grateful that Harry’s visit to Siren three weeks ago had ended up with him bailing her out, and not a calculating stranger.

‘That dress is a knockout on you, by the way.’

She grimaced. ‘It wasn’t my first choice, but thank you.’

The next series of firework displays should’ve quieted the guests, yet murmurs around her grew.

‘Omigod, whoever it is must have a death wish!’ someone exclaimed.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. ‘I think we may have a last-minute guest.’

Eva looked around and saw puzzled gazes fixed at a point in the sky as the faint thwopping sound grew louder. Another set of fireworks went off, illuminating the looming object.

She frowned. ‘Is that...?’

‘A helicopter heading straight for the middle of the fireworks display? Yep. I guess the organisers decided to add another surprise to the party.’

‘I don’t think that’s part of the entertainment,’ Eva shouted to be heard over the descending aircraft.

Her heart slammed into her throat as a particularly elaborate firework erupted precariously close to the black-and-red chopper.

‘Hell, if this is a stunt, I take my hat off to the pilot. It takes iron balls to fly into danger like that.’ Harry chuckled.

The helicopter drew closer. Mesmerised, Eva watched it settle in the middle of the garden, her attention riveted to its single occupant.

The garden lights had been turned off to showcase the fireworks to maximum effect so she couldn’t see who their unexpected guest was. Nevertheless, an ominous shiver chased up her spine.

She heard urgent shouts for the pyrotechnician to halt the display, but another rocket fizzed past the rotating blades.

A hush fell over the crowd as the helicopter door opened. A figure stepped out, clad from head to toe in black. As another blaze of colour filled the sky his body was thrown into relief.

Eva tensed as if she’d been shot with a stun gun.

It couldn’t be...

He was behind bars, atoning for his ruthless greed. Eva squashed the sting of guilt that accompanied the thought.

Zaccheo Giordano and men of his ilk arrogantly believed they were above the law. They didn’t deserve her sympathy, or the disloyal thought that he alone had paid the price when, by association, her father should’ve borne some of the blame. Justice ensured they went to jail and stayed there for the duration of their term. They weren’t released early.

They certainly didn’t land in the middle of a firework display at a private party as if they owned the land they walked on.

The spectacle unfolding before her stated differently.

Lights flickered on. Eva tracked the figure striding imperiously across the grass and up the wide steps.

Reaching the terrace, he paused and buttoned his single-breasted tuxedo.

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.

‘Wait...you know this bloke?’ Harry asked, his tone for once serious.

Eva wanted to deny the man who now stood, easily head and shoulders above the nearest guests, his fierce, unwavering gaze pinned on her.

She didn’t know whether to attribute the crackling electricity to his appearance or the look in his eyes. Both were viscerally menacing to the point of brutality.

The Zaccheo Giordano she’d had the misfortune of briefly tangling with before his incarceration had kept his hair trimmed short and his face clean-shaven.

This man had a full beard and his hair flowed over his shoulders in an unruly sea of thick jet waves. Eva swallowed at the pronounced difference in him. The sleek, almost gaunt man she’d known was gone. In his place breathed a Neanderthal with broader shoulders, thicker arms and a denser chest moulded by his black silk shirt. Equally dark trousers hugged lean hips and sturdy thighs to fall in a precise inch above expensive handmade shoes. But nothing of his attire disguised the aura he emanated.

Uncivilised. Explosively masculine. Lethal.

Danger vibrated from him like striations on baking asphalt. It flowed over the guests, who jostled each other for a better look at the impromptu visitor.

‘Eva?’ Harry’s puzzled query echoed through her dazed consciousness.

Zaccheo released her from his deadly stare. His eyes flicked to the arm tucked into Harry’s before he turned away. The breath exploded from her lungs. Sensing Harry about to ask another question, she nodded.

‘Yes. That’s Zaccheo.’

Her eyes followed Zaccheo as he turned towards her family.

Oscar’s look of anger was laced with a heavy dose of apprehension. Sophie looked plain stunned.

Eva watched the man she’d hoped to never see again cup his hands behind his back and stroll towards her father. Anyone would’ve been foolish to think that stance indicated supplication. If anything, its severe mockery made Eva want to do the unthinkable and burst out laughing.

She would’ve, had she not been mired in deep dread at what Zaccheo’s presence meant.

‘Your ex?’ Harry pressed.

She nodded numbly.

‘Then we should say hello.’

Harry tugged on her arm and she realised too late what he meant.

‘No. Wait!’ she whispered fiercely.

But he was either too drunk or genuinely oblivious to the vortex of danger he was headed for to pay attention. The tension surrounding the group swallowed Eva as they approached. Heart pounding, she watched her father’s and Zaccheo’s gazes lock.

‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing here, Giordano, but I suggest you get back in that monstrosity and leave before I have you arrested for trespass.’

A shock wave went through the crowd.

Zaccheo didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘By all means do that if you wish, but you know exactly why I’m here, Pennington. We can play coy if you prefer. You’ll be made painfully aware when I tire of it.’ The words were barely above a murmur, but their venom raised the hairs on Eva’s arms, triggering a gasp when she saw Sophie’s face.

Her usually unflappable sister was severely agitated, her face distressingly pale.

‘Ciao, Eva,’ Zaccheo drawled without turning around. That deep, resonant voice, reminiscent of a tenor in a soulful opera, washed over her, its powerfully mesmerising quality reminding her how she’d once longed to hear him speak just for the hell of it. ‘It’s good of you to join us.’

‘This is my engagement party. It’s my duty to interact with my guests, even unwelcome ones who will be asked to leave immediately.’

‘Don’t worry, cara, I won’t be staying long.’

The relief that surged up her spine disappeared when his gaze finally swung her way, then dropped to her left hand. With almost cavalier laziness, he caught her wrist and raised it to the light. He examined the ring for exactly three seconds. ‘How predictable.’

He released her with the same carelessness he’d captured her.

Eva clenched her fist to stop the sizzling electricity firing up her arm at the brief contact.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Harry demanded.

Zaccheo levelled steely grey eyes on him, then his parents. ‘This is a private discussion. Leave us.’

Peter Fairfield’s laugh held incredulity, the last inch of champagne in his glass sloshing wildly as he raised his arm. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there, mate. You’re the one who needs to take a walk.’

Eva caught Harry’s pained look at his father’s response, but could do nothing but watch, heart in her throat, as Zaccheo faced Peter Fairfield.

Again she was struck by how much his body had changed; how the sleek, layered muscle lent a deeper sense of danger. Whereas before it’d been like walking close to the edge of a cliff, looking into his eyes now was like staring into a deep, bottomless abyss.

‘Would you care to repeat that, il mio amico?’ The almost conversational tone belied the savage tension beneath the words.

‘Oscar, who is this?’ Peter Fairfield demanded of her father, who seemed to have lost the ability to speak after Zaccheo’s succinct taunt.

Eva inserted herself between the two men before the situation got out of hand. Behind her, heat from Zaccheo’s body burned every exposed inch of skin. Ignoring the sensation, she cleared her throat.

‘Mr and Mrs Fairfield, Harry, we’ll only be a few minutes. We’re just catching up with Mr Giordano.’ She glanced at her father. A vein throbbed in his temple and he’d gone a worrying shade of puce. Fear climbed into her heart. ‘Father?’

He roused himself and glanced around. A charming smile slid into place, but it was off by a light year. The trickle of ice that had drifted down her spine at Zaccheo’s unexpected arrival turned into a steady drip.

‘We’ll take this in my study. Don’t hesitate to let the staff know if you need anything.’ He strode away, followed by a disturbingly quiet Sophie.

Zaccheo’s gaze swung to Harry, who defiantly withstood the laser gaze for a few seconds before he glanced at her.

‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked, that touching concern again in his eyes.

Her instinct screamed a terrible foreboding, but she nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay. Hurry back, sweetness.’ Before she could move, he dropped a kiss on her mouth.

A barely audible lethal growl charged through the air.

Eva flinched.

She wanted to face Zaccheo. Demand that he crawl back behind the bars that should’ve been holding him. But that glimpse of fear in her father’s eyes stopped her. She tugged the wrap closer around her.

Something wasn’t right here. She was willing to bet the dilapidated ancestral pile beneath her feet that something was seriously, dangerously wrong—

‘Move, Eva.’

The cool command spoken against her ear sent shivers coursing through her.

She moved, only because the quicker she got to the bottom of why he was here, the quicker he would leave. But with each step his dark gaze probed her back, making the walk to her father’s study on the other side of the manor the longest in her life.

Zaccheo shut the door behind him. Her father turned from where he’d been gazing into the unlit fireplace. Again Eva spotted apprehension in his eyes before he masked it.

‘Whatever grievance you think you have the right to air, I suggest you rethink it, son. Even if this were the right time or place—’

‘I am not your son, Pennington.’ Zaccheo’s response held lethal bite, the first sign of his fury breaking through. ‘As for why I’m here, I have five thousand three hundred and twenty-two pieces of documentation that proves you colluded with various other individuals to pin a crime on me that I didn’t commit.’

‘What?’ Eva gasped, then the absurdity of the statement made her shake her head. ‘We don’t believe you.’

Zaccheo’s eyes remained on her father. ‘You may not, but your father does.’

Oscar Pennington laughed, but the sound lacked its usual boom and zest. When sweat broke out over his forehead, fear gripped Eva’s insides.

She steeled her spine. ‘Our lawyers will rip whatever evidence you think you have to shreds, I’m sure. If you’re here to seek some sort of closure, you picked the wrong time to do it. Perhaps we can arrange to meet you at some other time?’

Zaccheo didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Hands once again tucked behind his back, he simply watched her father, his body a coiled predator waiting to strike a fatal blow.

Silence stretched, throbbed with unbearable menace. Eva looked from her father to Sophie and back again, her dread escalating. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

Her father gripped the mantel until his knuckles shone white. ‘You chose the wrong enemy. You’re sorely mistaken if you think I’ll let you blackmail me in my own home.’

Sophie stepped forward. ‘Father, don’t—’

‘Good, you haven’t lost your hubris.’ Zaccheo’s voice slashed across her sister’s. ‘I was counting on that. Here’s what I’m going to do. In ten minutes I’m going to leave here with Eva, right in front of all your guests. You won’t lift a finger to stop me. You’ll tell them exactly who I am. Then you’ll make a formal announcement that I’m the man your daughter will marry two weeks from today and that I have your blessing. I don’t want to trust something so important to phone cameras and social media, although your guests will probably do a pretty good job. I noticed a few members of the press out there, so that part of your task should be easy. If the articles are written to my satisfaction, I’ll be in touch on Monday to lay out how you can begin to make reparations to me. However, if by the time Eva and I wake up tomorrow morning the news of our engagement isn’t in the press, then all bets are off.’

Oscar Pennington’s breathing altered alarmingly. His mouth opened but no words emerged. In the arctic silence that greeted Zaccheo’s deadly words, Eva gaped at him.

‘You’re clearly not in touch with all of your faculties if you think those ridiculous demands are going to be met.’ When silence greeted her response, she turned sharply to her father. ‘Father? Why aren’t you saying something?’ she demanded, although the trepidation beating in her chest spelled its own doom.

‘Because he can’t, Eva. Because he’s about to do exactly as I say.’

She rounded on him, and was once again rocked to the core by Zaccheo’s visually powerful, utterly captivating transformation. So much so, she couldn’t speak for several seconds. ‘You’re out of your mind!’ she finally blurted.

Zaccheo’s gaze didn’t stray from its laser focus on her father. ‘Believe me, cara mia, I haven’t been saner than I am in this moment.’

CHAPTER THREE

ZACCHEO WATCHED EVA’S head swivel to her father, confusion warring with anger.

‘Go on, Oscar. She’s waiting for you to tell me to go to hell. Why don’t you?’

Pennington staggered towards his desk, his face ashen and his breathing growing increasingly laboured.

‘Father!’ Eva rushed to his side—ignoring the poisonous look her sister sent her—as he collapsed into his leather armchair.

Zaccheo wanted to rip her away, let her watch her father suffer as his sins came home to roost. Instead he allowed the drama to play out. The outcome would be inevitable and would only go one way.

His way.

He wanted to look into Pennington’s eyes and see the defeat and helplessness the other man had expected to see in his eyes the day Zaccheo had been sentenced.

Both sisters now fussed over their father and a swell of satisfaction rose at the fear in their eyes. Eva glanced his way and he experienced a different punch altogether. One he’d thought himself immune to, but had realised otherwise the moment he’d stepped off his helicopter and singled her out in the crowd.

That unsettling feeling, as if he were suffering from vertigo despite standing on terra firma, had intrigued and annoyed him in equal measures from the very first time he’d seen her, her voice silkily hypnotic as she crooned into a mic on a golden-lit stage, her fingers caressing the black microphone stand as if she were touching a lover.

Even knowing exactly who she was, what she represented, he hadn’t been able to walk away. In the weeks after their first meeting, he’d fooled himself into believing she was different, that she wasn’t tainted with the same greed to further her pedigree by whatever means necessary; that she wasn’t willing to do whatever it took to secure her family’s standing, even while secretly scorning his upbringing.

Her very public denouncement of any association between them on the day of his sentencing had been the final blow. Not that Zaccheo hadn’t had the scales viciously ripped from his eyes by then.

No, by that fateful day fourteen months ago, he’d known just how thoroughly he’d been suckered.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she muttered fiercely, her moss-green eyes firing lasers at him.

Zaccheo forced himself not to smile. The time for gloating would come later. ‘Exacting the wages of sin, dolcezza. What else?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t think my father is in a position to have a discussion with you right now, Mr Giordano.’

Her prim and proper tones bit savagely into Zaccheo, wiping away any trace of twisted mirth. That tone said he ought to know his place, that he ought to stand there like a good little servant and wait to be addressed instead of upsetting the lord of the manor with his petty concerns.

Rage bubbled beneath his skin, threatening to erupt. Blunt nails bit into his wrist, but the pain wasn’t enough to calm his fury. He clenched his jaw for a long moment before he trusted himself to speak.

‘I gave you ten minutes, Pennington. You now have five. I suggest you practise whatever sly words you’ll be using to address your guests.’ Zaccheo shrugged. ‘Or not. Either way, things will go my way.’

Eva rushed at him, her striking face and flawless skin flushed with a burst of angry colour as she stopped a few feet away.

Out on the terrace, he’d compelled himself not to stare too long at her in case he betrayed his feelings. In case his gaze devoured her as he’d wanted to do since her presence snaked like a live wire inside him.

Now, he took in that wild gypsy-like caramel-blonde hair so out of place in this polished stratosphere her family chose to inhabit. The striking contrast between her bright hair, black eyebrows and dark-rimmed eyes had always fascinated him. But no more than her cupid-bow lips, soft, dark red and sinfully sensual. Or the rest of her body.

‘You assume I have no say in whatever despicable spectacle you’re planning. That I intend to meekly stand by while you humiliate my family? Well, think again!’

‘Eva...’ her father started.

‘No! I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but I intend to play no part in it.’

‘You’ll play your part, and you’ll play it well,’ Zaccheo interjected, finally driving his gaze up from the mouth he wanted to feast on more than he wanted his next breath. That’ll come soon enough, he promised himself.

‘Or what? You’ll carry through with your empty threats?’

His fury eased a touch and twisted amusement slid back into place. It never ceased to amaze him how the titled rich felt they were above the tenets that governed ordinary human beings. His own stepfather had been the same. He’d believed, foolishly, that his pedigree and connections would insulate him from his reckless business practices, that the Old Boys’ Club would provide a safety net despite his poor judgement.