The Italian's Bride

“I don’t know what you think you are doing.”

As her head disappeared into the folds of the dress she wondered why she should harbor the utterly wanton wish that his hands had followed the quite blatant track of his eyes.

“I am trying to hurry proceedings along,” he answered, forcing a lazy tone to disguise his sudden feeling of breathlessness. That had been his true intention, but it had been a mistake.

She had a truly beautiful body—lush, ripe and tempting. Looking at the bountiful curves that almost seemed to be pleading to be freed of the unnatural constraint of confining white cotton was not enough. He wanted to touch.

We’re delighted to announce that

is taking place in

Harlequin Presents

This month, in The Italian’s Wife

by Diana Hamilton

you are invited to the wedding of

Lucenzo Verdi and Portia Makepeace

Portia has fallen in love with Lucenzo Verdi, and has agreed to marry him—but knows he believes her to be a gold digger. Has she managed to convince her passionate Italian of her innocence or does his marriage proposal hide other plans?

More in our exciting miniseries

A MEDITERRANEAN MARRIAGE

coming soon!

The Italian’s Bride

Diana Hamilton

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’LL get it,’ Portia offered much too brightly as the strident ring of the doorbell broke the tense silence.

Visitors to the small semi on the outskirts of the industrial Midlands town of Chevington, where she had lived with her parents for the whole of her twenty-one years, were rare—and certainly not expected at nine o’clock on a damp April evening.

She was out of the neatly furnished sitting room before her father could get to his feet and tell her to stay where she was. The idea of leaving baby Sam with her mother did not even enter her head. Dealing with the caller, even if it turned out to be just someone asking for directions, would be a welcome distraction from her parents’ tight-lipped unspoken disapproval.

Enfolding her tiny baby more securely in his shawl, Portia tucked a wandering strand of pale blonde hair behind her ear and opened the front door just as an impatient finger jabbed again at the bell-push. Her always-ready smile was wiped away when she saw who it was.

One of the frighteningly powerful, disgustingly wealthy Verdi clan. It just had to be!

How many times had she told herself that they would never know what had happened, and that even if they did—through some cruel quirk of fate—not a single one of them would be interested in either her or her illegitimate child.

It looked as if she couldn’t have been more wrong, she thought sickly as her stomach nose-dived down to the soles of her feet and shot right back again.

Everything about this stranger betrayed his Italian heritage, from the proud tilt of that arrogantly held dark head, the black eyes that regarded her so narrowly from beneath slashing brows, the high-bridged aquiline nose, to the shockingly sensual mouth. The family connection was painfully obvious, she conceded as her stomach tied itself in knots again.

He wasn’t as playboy-pretty as Vito had been; the cynical lines that bracketed his mouth, the harsher cast of his features saw to that. And he was a good head taller and at least half a dozen years older than Vito had been.

Vito, the father of her baby, had been twenty-six years old when he’d died, six weeks and four days ago…

Vito had deceived both her and his wife, and probably dozens of other gullible females as well…

Jumbled thoughts raced around inside her head—the head that her parents had always disappointedly maintained to be empty of anything more solid than fluff—and the stranger intoned, ‘Portia Makepeace?’

She couldn’t speak. Her vocal cords, usually so active, had gone into shock. She’d been found and she hadn’t wanted to be. Who knew what the powerfully influential Verdi clan would do? Try to take Vito’s son from her because he was one of their own? It didn’t bear thinking about!

Too late she attempted what she should have done earlier—to shut the door in his face—but he shouldered his way into the cramped hall. His narrowed eyes tracked a disparaging path over her tumbled shoulder-length hair, the old blue dressing gown belted tightly around her far too generous curves, the ridiculous slippers that looked like frogs—a going-to-maternity-hospital gift from her friend Betty—and back up to lock with huge grey eyes that were annoyingly swimming with tears, before sliding down to stare intently at two-week-old Sam, held protectively in her arms.

‘Too ashamed to speak? That I can understand, although I admit it’s unexpected,’ he said grimly, his voice deep, only slightly accented. ‘But I don’t suppose you’re going to try to pretend you are not what you are—a husband-stealer—or that I am not uncle to your child. That wouldn’t suit your purposes, would it? You’ll be happy to know that I recognise you from the day of Vittorio’s funeral.’

Her head spinning giddily, Portia gulped. Happy? Of course she wasn’t! Having one of them track her down was the last thing she’d wanted.

But she might have known. Hadn’t her parents warned her that attending her dead lover’s funeral, running the gauntlet of his prestigious family, not to mention his grieving widow, would be a mistake of the most tasteless kind?

But she’d gone anyway; she’d felt as if she simply had to—intending only to slip in quietly, hide at the back of the congregation where she would be unnoticed. The softness of her heart had overridden the shock of her recent discovery: the knowledge that Vito had never loved her and had run the proverbial mile when she’d told him she was expecting their child. She’d needed to pay her last respects to the father of her unborn baby, to say one last goodbye, to pray for him.

Eight months pregnant, and huge with it, hiding hadn’t been easy, and remaining unnoticed had become out of the question when, overcome with mixed but strong emotions, she had fainted.

She had only vague memories of being helped outside. Someone had fetched a glass of water. A female and two males, talking in rapid Italian above her spinning head, dark suspicious eyes inspecting her closely, had made her want to sink right back into oblivion. But when she’d recovered enough to reluctantly mumble her home address, when pressed, one of the men had used his mobile to summon a taxi. Into which she’d been thankfully and discreetly bundled—something rather suspect to be removed from the scene as quickly as possible.

She had thought—devoutly hoped—that that was the end of it. But plainly it hadn’t been. Unconsciously running a feather-light finger over her sleeping baby’s velvet-soft cheek, she at last found her tongue and uttered staunchly, ‘I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing!’

She’d loved Vito, admired him when he’d told her he was working hard, saving to open his own restaurant, had believed him when he’d told her he loved her, too, and that they’d marry as soon as it was financially possible.

She hadn’t known he was already married, that everything he’d said to her was untrue. He had promised marriage and happy-ever-after because he must have thought it was the only way to get her to agree to spending that weekend with him.

So what right had this hard-faced man to look at her as if she were something utterly despicable? Her voice thickening, she demanded, ‘Why are you here?’

‘Good question,’ he responded drily, noting the way she deliberately drew attention to the newest member of the Verdi family. He pushed his fists into the pockets of the exquisitely tailored mohair coat he was wearing, his impressive shoulders stiffening. ‘Not by my own wish, you understand. To set the record straight, I was dead against the family having any contact whatsoever with you.’

His mouth thinned as he explained, ‘A crumpled letter from a Portia Makepeace was found on the floor of the wreck of Vittorio’s car. It gave this address.’ His face darkened with distaste. ‘It was hysterical. I thought it had been written by a schoolgirl, not a full-grown educated woman. Then I recalled the unknown pregnant female at the funeral, the attention she’d drawn to herself, the home address she had given. After that it didn’t require the services of an Einstein to arrive at the facts. The child is my half-brother’s.’

The thought of denying it didn’t enter her head, but his disparaging words had lit a rare spark of rage in her brain.

She hadn’t been hysterical when she’d written to Vito at the classy London restaurant where he’d worked as a pastry chef—remembering his instructions never to phone him there because it would get him in deep trouble with his boss—she’d simply been worried half out of her mind.

She hadn’t heard from him for weeks, not since she’d told him the last time he’d phoned her of her pregnancy. She’d been sure something dreadful had happened to him. It had been the only thing she’d been able to think of to explain his failure to keep in touch with her.

Now she knew why he’d washed his hands of her, knew that everything he’d ever said to her had been lies, and in her own essentially practical way she was learning to accept it. But this stranger’s unforgivable scathing comment about her lack of ability when it came to the written word touched a nerve that had been raw since her early childhood.

Grey eyes glinting, she bit out sarcastically, ‘I’m sorry I’m not a reincarnation of William Shakespeare.’ She clamped her teeth together to stop them chattering. She was shaking all over. Whether from rage or the chilliness of the narrow hallway she didn’t know, but she strongly suspected the former. ‘I’d like you to leave,’ she ordered tightly.

She should have saved her breath, she thought irately. The patronising brute simply stood his ground, one ebony brow lifting derisively, a smile that held not even a flicker of warmth lifting one corner of that long, sensual mouth. ‘Pushing your luck, aren’t you? I might just take you at your word and report my mission as a failure.’ The ersatz smile disappeared at the speed of light, and his features were hard-edged as he added softly, ‘I’m quite sure that is not what you have in mind.’

He’d bet his last million lire it wasn’t! Despite the impression given by that deranged-sounding letter—bleating on about wedding plans and the baby they were expecting—this woman was no dumb klutz.

She would have continued to bombard the holding address—the astronomically expensive restaurant Vittorio had habitually frequented—with those whining, schoolgirlish letters no doubt changing in tone after the birth to demands for high levels of maintenance—or else!

But Vittorio had been tragically killed behind the wheel of one of the fast cars he’d been addicted to. So her modus operandi had changed.

Watching her intently, he expelled a sigh between his gritted teeth. He might have been inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt had she not muscled in on the private family funeral with that fainting fit which, with hindsight, he decided had to have been manufactured to make double sure of being noticed.

As if that large lumpen thing, covered in a shabby brown coat and making snuffling noises into a huge handkerchief, could have been overlooked by any one of the elegantly black-attired members of the family!

It had been the action of a woman who was out to make trouble. He sighed, not liking what he was having to do. But his father, once the contents of that letter had been made known, had been adamant.

He dragged air deep into his lungs. It stuck in his craw, but he was going to have to extend the invitation.

‘Portia—what are you doing? Who is it?’ At that moment Godfrey Makepeace emerged from the sitting room, his voice tight with the strain he’d been under since learning of his daughter’s pregnancy and the simultaneous disappearance of the man responsible—the man he’d taken an instant dislike to on the one and only occasion they’d met.

‘It’s OK, Dad.’ She turned to him, her heart contracting guiltily. He looked so careworn, with his fawn cardigan buttoned so neatly across his narrow chest, his bald head gleaming in the overhead light. Once again she’d failed him—and her mother—this time monumentally.

Portia felt really dreadful about it. They’d both impressed on her all the logical reasons why she should have had an abortion, and when logic had failed they’d resorted to pleading. But she had adamantly refused to destroy the new little life growing inside her. It wasn’t the poor mite’s fault that his father had been a lying deceiver.

‘This gentleman,’ she stressed coldly, ‘is just leaving.’

But the ‘gentleman’ had ideas of his own. Portia pulled an angry face as he stepped forward with all the spine-tingling predatory grace of a great jungle cat, his hand outstretched.

‘Mr Makepeace—Lucenzo Verdi. Vittorio was my half-brother. I apologise for intruding at this hour, but I’ve only just returned from Florence with an urgent communication from my father, Eduardo Verdi, the head of our family.’ He paused for a moment to let the information sink in and Portia could have slapped him.

Because of the press coverage following Vito’s fatal accident everyone knew of the awe-inspiring international success of the Verdi Mercantile Bank and the position Vito had held in its London headquarters. Trust this creep to rub their humble noses in his family’s power and wealth!

One of Sam’s hands escaped from the shawl and his tiny body stiffened in her loving arms. Portia barely registered her father’s guarded ‘And?’ as she gazed, entranced, at the shock of dark soft hair, the unfocused milky blue eyes that she was sure would one day turn to grey, just like her own.

Her baby was ready for his next feed and that, for the moment, was her overriding priority. Let whatsisname—Lucenzo—make his ‘communication’ and sling his hook. Her father would relay the details and she would ignore them.

And if there was a threat—implied or openly stated—that the family would fight for custody of her son, then she and Sam would simply disappear.

On that heartening but slightly scary determination she inched past the overbearing presence of the Italian, and the much smaller frame of her father, and headed for the kitchen to warm up the bottle of formula she’d stored in the fridge.

Forty-five minutes later she reluctantly laid a sleepy, contented Sam in the crib at the side of her single bed and went downstairs, her ridiculous slippers sliding on the shiny linoleum that covered the narrow treads.

The Italian would have left by now. Such humble surroundings wouldn’t be to his exalted taste. She would ask her parents what his famous communication had been about. Not that she was interested, but to ignore the Visitation from On High would rub her parents up the wrong way. And that, she admitted on a draining sigh, was something she’d been doing for most of her life.

Hooking her long, unkempt hair behind her ears, she took a deep, fortifying breath and walked into the sitting room. Her face drained of colour when she noted the impressively lean and moody frame reclining in the place of honour—her father’s armchair at the side of the electric fire—his elegantly long legs and obviously disgustingly expensive shoes stretched out on the hearthrug.

The way the arrogantly held dark head turned to her, those black eyes glittering beneath slightly lowered lids studying her as if she were a hitherto undiscovered and not very pleasant form of insect life, made her heart contract violently beneath her breastbone and then perform a series of lazy somersaults.

‘Portia—’ Her mother’s voice, far softer, lighter than usual, gave her the impetus to drag her part-fascinated, part-horrified gaze from that wickedly handsome, chillingly intimidating face. She gulped in a lungful of air and felt something prickly dance up and down her spine.

Joyce Makepeace was patting the empty space beside her on the sofa in invitation. Portia’s soft mouth fell open. Her mother’s cheeks were a becoming pink, her hazel eyes bright, her mouth smiling. The stern retired schoolmistress was actually looking fluttery!

Obeying the summons because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, Portia blundered forwards, tripping over her cumbersome slippers, feeling hot and bothered, ridiculous. She wished she’d never set eyes on the things. She was only wearing them because Betty had bought them for her. That had been really sweet of her, and her conscience would have pricked unbearably if she’d put them in the bin as her father had suggested.

Making it to the sofa without further mishap, she glanced nervously at her mother, expecting the usual frown of pained displeasure for her clumsiness. Instead she received an amazing smile, a fond pat of her hand—just as if she’d done something her parents could be proud of for once, instead of falling over her feet, making a spectacle of herself.

‘Signor Verdi—Lucenzo—’ Joyce Makepeace dimpled ‘—has something to say to you, Portia.’

A fleeting smile for Joyce curled his satanically beautiful mouth as he got lithely to his feet. His piercingly dark eyes fastened on Portia’s nervous face as he reached for the elegantly tailored charcoal overcoat he’d discarded and draped the soft folds over his arm.

If it weren’t for the facts he wouldn’t believe it. The charming, feckless, utterly faithless Vito had had many affairs—a gene he had inherited from the English girl his father had married five years after his first wife, Lucenzo’s mother, had died. A year later Christine had given birth to Vittorio and, her duty done, as she’d seen it, she’d embarked on a string of unsavoury affairs.

Lucenzo tightened his mouth with grim distaste. His half-brother had favoured svelte, stylish, long-legged blondes. So what had he been doing with this over-weight, clumsy creature? A blonde, admittedly, but there any point of reference ceased. Her hair was a mess and no self-respecting female would stick her feet into bright green things that looked like giant bloated frogs!

She must have caught Vittorio in an off-moment, possibly when he’d been drunk, and thrown herself at him…

‘You must excuse me. I’m already late for an appointment.’ Lucenzo made a point of glancing at the thin gold watch on his flat wrist. He’d had as much as he could take. Despite his warnings to his father, Portia Makepeace was about to receive all her avaricious, scheming little heart had dreamed of. The knowledge made him want to punch holes in the wall.

He eyed her coldly. ‘Your parents will relay my father’s wishes.’ He gave her a bleak, informal nod of the head. It was more than he’d thought he could manage. ‘I will see you in six weeks’ time. One of my secretaries will contact you regarding the exact time and date.’

‘One’ of his secretaries? How many did the man have? And just what did he mean about seeing her again in six weeks’ time? That was all Portia could think about as her father, looking really sprightly for a change, showed the Italian out.

And her mother said knowingly, ‘If you ever want to know the meaning of the word “exotic” just think about Lucenzo Verdi! And such a gentleman, too. Quite unlike that half-brother of his. I knew he was a rogue the moment I set eyes on him.’

‘You only met him once,’ Portia reminded her glumly.

She’d practically had to drag Vito here. But they’d been talking about getting engaged and she’d insisted he must meet her parents. And he’d been begging her to spend a weekend with him.

‘Somewhere quiet and off the beaten track,’ he’d said. ‘It needn’t be expensive, and if you’re adamant about not wasting money on an engagement ring a weekend together would be a wonderful way of marking the occasion, making it special—you know how much I love and want you, carissima—or do you like torturing me?’

‘Once was quite enough. Anyone with a grain of intelligence would have seen through him,’ Joyce remarked drily, and Portia felt the too-ready tears sting the backs of her eyes.

Did everyone else on the planet have more nous than she did? Were her parents right when they accused her of being everyone’s best friend, of being too naive to see harm in any living soul, reckless enough to fill the outstretched palms of every beggar she came across?

Not really, she defended herself. She’d seen harm in Lucenzo Verdi the moment she’d opened the door to him, hadn’t she? And if her mother had heard the things he’d said to her then ‘gentleman’ was the last thing she would have called him!

Clutching at straws, she asked hopefully, ‘Did you explain I didn’t know Vito was married? That I had no idea his family was rolling in money?’

She hadn’t been given the chance to explain all that herself, and even if she had been she had the gut feeling he wouldn’t have believed her. But coming from her parents, who were so obviously completely respectable…

‘It wasn’t necessary. Once we’d established that his brother was the man you’d been seeing—the man who’d got you pregnant—there seemed no point in speaking ill of the dead. A loss like that must be difficult to bear. It hardly seemed appropriate to rub Lucenzo’s nose in his brother’s shortcomings.’

And no point in defending their daughter’s integrity, Portia thought miserably, twisting the fabric of her shabby dressing gown between her fingers. She remembered seeing Vito’s face on the front page of their daily paper. It had been a shock she hadn’t really come to terms with yet. It still made her feel physically sick when she thought about the accompanying text.

Vittorio Verdi, younger son of Eduardo Verdi, international banker, was tragically killed when his Ferrari left the road. His passenger, model Kristi Hall, survived the accident and is said to be in a stable condition. Vittorio leaves a grieving widow…

Trying to swallow the huge lump in her throat, Portia scrambled to her feet, muttering thickly, ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘Don’t you want to hear what your child’s grandfather is proposing?’

Her mother sounded appalled. Portia blinked at her and sniffed miserably. ‘Dad?’

‘Try not to be so stupid! His Italian grandfather, of course!’

‘Oh.’ She’d had that particular epithet flung at her too often to even notice it now, and wrinkled her brow as she wondered how to explain her deep desire to bury her head in the sand and not know. She would rather save the nitty-gritty until the morning, when she would be better able to cope with husband-stealing recriminations or, far worse, threats to take her to court to gain custody of her precious baby son. What chance would she stand against the wealth and clout of the powerful Verdi clan?

Aware that her mother was bristling with impatience at her inability to come up with any response more intelligent than ‘oh’, Portia was deeply thankful to be saved from having to do anything more than just stand there when her father entered the room.