A Ring To Take His Revenge

He had decided to give the task of researching Benjamin Bartlett to Emma on the flight back here from his mother’s house in Sorrento. He had been impressed with his calm, unflappable PA over the past eighteen months. Eighteen months in which he’d ruthlessly tamped down his initial and very much unwanted sensual interest in her from the moment she had stepped into the limousine on his way to the Asquith club in London.

Of course it helped that she dressed like the founding member of some religious organisation, and showed absolutely no interest in him whatsoever outside of their business interaction. He’d had PAs before who had raised their eyebrows and been uncomfortable handling some of his more indiscreet requests, such as fending off ex-lovers or acquiring suitable parting gifts. Despite what her conservative appearance suggested, Emma had handled each and every one without judgement or comment. The only thing she asked for was financial approval.

In short, Emma Guilham was very good at her job.

Which was exactly why he trusted her implicitly to handle the research on Bartlett. He couldn’t risk news of his interest in the man leaking out before he’d had a chance to arrange a meeting with him. But it wasn’t Bartlett himself that he was after. He could have taken or left his famous heritage brand, having no need to add it to his investment portfolio. No. It was the other potential investor that Antonio had in his sights. The investor that Antonio wanted to crush beneath his heel until no trace of him remained.

As he stood before the windows he didn’t see a millimetre of the lush green sanctuary in the middle of New York’s bustle. Antonio saw victory within his grasp.

Finally Antonio had the chance to bring Michael Steele to his knees. To cripple him completely, once and for all.

For so long he’d been nibbling away at the outskirts of Steele’s business dealings. And each time Antonio took one more bite from the man’s holdings he thought of his mother and sister. Of the shock and devastation Steele had wrought against his family with efficient ruthlessness. The subsequent pain that had nearly destroyed his mother, and the emotional scars that his young sister had turned against her own body until there had been almost nothing of her left.

Antonio had spent years clawing his way up the financial ladder...for this. The chance to destroy Michael Steele once and for all.

The buzz of the intercom cut through his thoughts and Emma’s voice announced that she had Danyl and Dimitri on the line for him.

‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Danyl.

Many would have been forgiven for thinking they heard anger in his voice, but Antonio knew better and identified concern.

‘Nothing’s wrong. In fact it’s the exact opposite.’

‘It must be...what?...six in the morning in New York?’ queried Dimitri. ‘Even you don’t usually start until a bit later.’

‘It’s seven.’

‘I feel sorry for your PA,’ remarked Danyl. ‘She just went into battle with my assistant to get me in on this call instead of calling the Terhren Secretary of State.’

‘Don’t feel sorry for her,’ Antonio responded. ‘Be impressed.’

‘I am,’ Danyl replied. ‘Anyone who can put my assistant off state business is worth their weight in gold.’

‘I have it. The way to take down Steele once and for all.’

Antonio didn’t need to explain who he was talking about, nor why it was so important. Dimitri and Danyl knew what this meant to him—had meant ever since the age of sixteen.

‘How?’ asked Dimitri.

‘I’ve been reliably informed that Benjamin Bartlett is looking for a healthy financial investment in his company. It would be Steele’s last chance for financial security. He has the capital to invest, but not enough to survive without it.’

‘And you plan to ensure that you win the investment,’ stated Dimitri. ‘Whatever you need—it’s yours.’

Antonio smiled. ‘That’s not necessary. I can counter any investment offer he makes to Bartlett.’

‘I’ve met Bartlett. I must say I’m surprised that he’s looking for investment. He’s always been financially stable.’

‘You know him?’ demanded Antonio. ‘How?’ he asked, his quick mind already working out how to use this to his advantage.

‘He’s a keen horseman. A regular feature on the international racing scene.’

Antonio frowned, scanning his usually perfect memory for any moment when he might have met the man amongst the numerous races they had attended as members of the Winners’ Circle syndicate.

‘He usually keeps to himself, though,’ Danyl continued. ‘Tends to stay away from the more lively areas that we enjoy. He’ll probably be in Argentina for the first leg of the Hanley Cup. Do you know why he’s looking for investment?’

‘The why doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything to make sure that I win the investment and not Steele.’

Silence greeted his pronouncement. For a moment Antonio worried that the connection had been lost.

‘Antonio, be careful. Desperation makes a man dangerous. I know this better than anyone,’ Dimitri warned.

‘I can handle the man.’ Antonio practically growled down the phone.

‘I wasn’t talking about him.’

A knock on the door preceded Emma’s appearance with the espresso he very much needed at that moment. Telling Dimitri and Danyl to hang on, he put the call on hold and waited for Emma to put the coffee on his desk and leave.

He was also buying time. Dimitri’s warning hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. But Antonio had spent years waiting for this day. He knew his mother would be saddened by his continued pursuit of revenge. She had pleaded with him over the years to move on. To put the hurt behind him—behind them all. But he couldn’t.

As Emma retreated to her desk behind the door to his own office, he surprised himself by wondering if she would understand. There had been times when his usually conservative, cool-eyed assistant had shown a deeply hidden spark of defiance, something like the fight he felt at that moment. But as the door clicked closed he put that thought aside and resumed his call.

‘That might not be the only problem that you face, Antonio,’ said Danyl.

‘Whatever it is, I can handle it.’

‘I’m not so sure. Bartlett is notoriously moralistic. And your recent and very public exploits with a certain Swedish model might be a rather large putting off for him.’

An image of the blonde who had graced his bed for a number of months rushed into Antonio’s mind. For the most part their encounter had run along the usual lines. Brief but sensually satisfying trysts whenever their diaries brought them together. Until she had started to ask for more. To ask for things he had told her wouldn’t be part of their relationship. And when he had ended things she had quickly transitioned from a cool, poised and sophisticated companion into a raging, deeply resentful and incredibly publicly wounded lover.

‘I can hardly be blamed for the fact she went to the press. I made her no promises—no lies were told. She knew the score and should have handled the end of our...interaction...with more finesse.’

‘Whether or not she should have, she didn’t. And Bartlett won’t like it one bit. He has a strict morality clause for all his board members. And the last to break it two years ago is still looking for work, from what I hear.’

‘What exactly are you saying, Danyl?’

‘Well, you might need to take yourself off the market, so to speak.’

What? Shocked, Antonio didn’t realise that the word had failed to escape his tightly clenched jaw.

‘You’ve either shocked him into silence or you need to explain more clearly what you mean, Danyl,’ Dimitri said, laughing.

‘Marriage,’ replied Danyl.

‘Just because you’re looking for a wife, it doesn’t mean I have to.’

Everything within Antonio roared an absolute no at the idea. All the women he had encounters with knew the deal—even the Swedish model, though she’d seemed to forget it.

Short term, high hits of sensual pleasure were important to him. He was a virile male, after all, and not one to deny himself sexual satisfaction. But nothing more. He neither wanted nor needed the distraction of anything more permanent.

He washed away his distaste at the very idea of marriage with a hot, strong shot of espresso. He scanned his mind for any examples of a healthy, successful partnership and could not find one. Neither Dimitri nor Danyl had any particular fondness for the institution of marriage themselves, though for Danyl—being the future ruler of Terhren—it had become a considerably more pressing matter.

Their bachelor status was something that the press had latched on to more than once when covering the successes of their Winners’ Circle racing syndicate. And it was certainly something that drew a wealth of beautiful women to their door. Was Antonio ready to consider closing that very door on the one thing aside from his business that he took very seriously?

‘How bad is he really?’ he asked his friends.

‘That board member I mentioned...? He hadn’t even had an affair. It was the rumour that Bartlett objected to.’

‘Perhaps you don’t have to...how do the Americans say it?...eat the whole hog—?’

‘Go, Dimitri. It’s go the whole hog,’ interrupted Danyl.

‘Please—we’re talking about a wife, here. Can we leave out references to eating and hogs?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be a wife.’

* * *

Emma had finished filing the quarterly reports, reassured countless staff members that, no, she didn’t think Antonio’s sudden appearance meant staffing cuts, and given consolatory smiles to a number of overly disappointed female employees who had failed to catch sight of Antonio before he’d locked himself in his office for most of the day. She had collated all the information she could on Benjamin Bartlett from initial online searches and saved it to Antonio’s private drive, and finally settled down to eat the lunch she had missed three hours ago.

So, of course, as her mouth was full of avocado and bacon bagel, that was the precise moment Antonio Arcuri chose to appear before her desk. With a demand that took every ounce of her control not to choke on.

‘Emma. I need you to find me a fiancée.’

Emma’s usually focused and quick mind halted in its tracks. Of all the things she’d ever been asked by her notoriously difficult boss, this had to hit the top of the list.

‘Do you have a particular person in mind? Or will anyone do?’

She had finally managed to swallow her mouthful around the shock that threatened to lock her throat in a seized position. And she was hopeful that her voice betrayed none of the sarcasm she felt so deeply, and instead projected only the smooth efficiency she knew Antonio prized so highly.

Emma loved being a personal assistant. She knew there were people who looked down on what they considered a lowly position. But, to Emma, the satisfaction of ensuring that her boss’s day—his life—ran without stumbling blocks was important to her. She liked feeling indispensable. She liked knowing that she was part of something much bigger than she could ever achieve on her own.

And she liked fixing things.

If she was honest, it was because she knew how awful it was not to be able to fix something for herself. How scary and frustrating it could be. Whether it had been her breast cancer or the subsequent breakdown of her parents’ marriage, she had been devastated by the sheer helplessness that she had felt at the time. And, whilst Emma might not have been able to fix the damage to her parents’ marriage in the past, she could certainly help find Antonio a fiancée in the present.

Antonio pinned her with a gaze that would have removed a certain amount of testosterone from many of his male employees and likely increased the pheromones in the female ones.

‘Was that sarcasm?’

‘No,’ Emma assured him, hoping the painful blush staining her cheeks wouldn’t give her away. ‘I simply wondered if you had your sights set on someone specific.’

‘No,’ he replied, frowning.

‘So...’ She battled on through the oddness of the situation. ‘Do you have any parameters for this search? Wealth, previous marital status, level of attractiveness...?’ She was desperately thinking of a polite way to say bra size when she registered with some surprise Antonio’s confusion. He clearly hadn’t thought this through.

‘Reputation. She must be scandal-free.’

Emma fought to contain the rather un-ladylike snort that tickled her nose. It sounded as if he were looking to buy a prize heifer with an up-to-date vaccination history. Which made her wonder, horrified for a moment, whether the poor woman in question might in fact be required to present a full medical history.

‘And I need her within two days.’

‘Antonio, I’m not Amazon Prime. I can’t just produce a...a fiancée,’ she whispered harshly, fearing that she might be overheard, or even accused of some kind of highly salacious ‘procurement’ for her boss. ‘Perhaps if you could explain the...the context, it might be slightly easier for me to...to understand what’s needed.’

She knew she was stumbling over her words but, given his current mood, she clearly had to choose them wisely.

‘I am about to set up a meeting with Benjamin Bartlett, who is touting for investment in his company. A company in which I must be the sole investor. And, being a notoriously moral man, Bartlett might be reluctant to involve himself with Arcuri Enterprises given...’ He trailed off, circling his hands in a typically Italian gesture.

‘Given your recent experience with Inga the Swedish—?’

‘I know what she was, Ms Guilham,’ Antonio cut in.

‘Quite. So you need a beard?’

Antonio’s hand went to the smooth planes of his chiselled jaw. ‘A beard?’

‘Not that kind of beard,’ she said, suppressing the smile that toyed at the edges of her mouth. ‘You need a fake fiancée to mask your previous indiscretions so that Bartlett will find you more palatable and therefore be more likely to welcome your investment.’

‘In a nutshell, yes.’

‘And am I to presume that all of this—’ she said mirrored his Italian gesture ‘—needs to be kept under wraps? No one is to know about this, as well as the research into Bartlett?’

He nodded his dark-haired head once. ‘There is another party interested in investing with Bartlett. My interest cannot get out to that person—or any other for that matter.’

The darkness of the warning in his voice was something that Emma hadn’t yet encountered in her boss. And that in itself was enough to inform her that this wasn’t to be taken lightly.

Her quick mind filed the top-line notes of his request. ‘Okay. I’m going to need to clear your schedule tomorrow evening.’

This was why Emma was good, Antonio thought to himself. Apart from the slight slip-up of her earlier sarcasm, which he would happily put down to surprise, when she took on a task she was efficient, direct and held none of the self-doubt he had seen in staff twice her age.

He knew her announcement of his change of plan for tomorrow would be wholly and one hundred per cent in line with her new-found task. A task that she hadn’t balked at, and had only posed pertinent questions on. Mostly.

‘Done.’

‘I’ll have your blue tuxedo sent to the dry cleaners and prepared for the gala.’

‘What gala?’ Antonio queried.

‘The Arcuri Foundation’s yearly charity gala. You are usually in Italy during these two weeks, which is why you are never sent an invitation.’

‘We have a charity gala?’

For the first time in eighteen months Antonio was surprised to see something like anger in Emma Guilham’s eyes.

‘Yes, we do.’ She paused, once again masking her obvious feelings on the matter with her legendarily cool gaze. ‘And it will be the perfect place for you to find a fiancée.’

CHAPTER TWO

ANTONIO HAD SPENT the last twenty-four hours going over the research files Emma had put together on Bartlett—and the other research she had provided.

If he found anything distasteful about looking at the pictures and brief biographies Emma had collated of several of the single female attendees of that evening’s event, he ruthlessly forced it aside. He had but one goal. And tonight would be the first step in achieving it.

Emma buzzed on the intercom, interrupting his thoughts to announce that the car was there to take them to The Langsford Hotel. Although it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the office, and he’d been inclined to make that walk, Emma had swiftly denounced the idea, saying that it wouldn’t ‘do’ to have the CEO of Arcuri Enterprises walking up to the red carpet in front of the world’s press. After all, she had said, she was apparently now in the business of safeguarding his reputation.

He’d repressed a smile. He was beginning to enjoy these brief glimpses of a dry English humour that she had hidden from him until now. Pulling at the sleeves of the tuxedo’s jacket to fit them to the lines of his arms and torso, he opened the door to his office—and stopped.

Emma was perched on the end of her desk, leaning over towards the phone and looking quite unlike any way he’d seen look before.

She was still adorned in her usual monotone colours of black and white, and the wide panels of her loose dress covered all but the faintest glimpses of her figure. But her dark hair was piled up on her head in thick twirls, revealing strands of gold and deep reds that he had not seen before. It framed her heart-shaped face perfectly, and a light dusting of make-up served to accentuate the hazel and green of her eyes. A nude gloss lent a sheen to her lips that sent a punch to his gut more powerful than any brighter, richer colour could have achieved.

She looked natural and fresh—and so very different from the women he usually spent his time with.

‘Yes, don’t worry. The waiters know what to do. But because Ms Cherie was a last-minute addition to the invitation list we couldn’t have known her dietary requirements before. The kitchen staff always make three extra portions of each main, so just reassure her that a vegan option will be made available to her.’

Antonio watched as Emma hung up the phone, catching the unusual sight of a long, shapely, creamy calf.

‘Vegan?’

Emma turned, clearly surprised to find him standing there.

‘Enough of a crime to scratch her off the fiancée list?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ Antonio said, forcing his libido under control.

During the day—in her usual office attire—she wasn’t so much of a problem. But even though Emma was covered from head to toe, that glimpse of smooth marble-like skin was enough to snare his attention. And he suddenly understood why Victorian England had deemed ankles the most threatening thing to society since smallpox.

Shaking his head to rid his mind of inappropriate thoughts about his PA, he led the way to the elevator that would take them down to the limousine waiting for them in the underground car park.

In the confines of the metal box, with Emma beside him, Antonio realised that it was going to be a long night.

* * *

Emma couldn’t wait for this night to be over. They hadn’t even arrived at the gala and she was already exhausted. It had taken every waking minute she’d had, not only to put together her research on Bartlett and compile the dossiers on Antonio’s prospective fiancées—not that most of them knew they were prospective fiancées—but also to ensure that the foundation’s gala wasn’t single-handedly ruined by the very man in charge of organising it in the first place.

Marcus Greenfeld was a fusty old man, with fusty old ideas about how to run a charity. And it made her mad. She’d caught sight of his opening speech on the photocopier on the twenty-third floor and realised that something had to be done.

She’d hastily rewritten the thing, told a bold-faced lie to Greenfeld’s assistant that Antonio had wanted to take a look at it, and sent it off to the teleprompter before Greenfeld had even been able to think of questioning it. Or question the three extra invitations she’d had issued to fiancée options four, five and six.

Antonio might have told her what he needed in a fiancée but, honestly, the man’s taste in women was so varied she couldn’t tell which way he would go. Though option two—the vegan Ella Cherie—was looking increasingly less likely.

As the limo pulled up to The Langsford she remembered she had yet to tell Antonio about the other last-minute invitation.

‘Dimitri will be here tonight,’ she said as they slowed to a stop. ‘Danyl was...unable to attend.’

‘Well, he is running a country.’

Emma wasn’t so sure. She’d heard angry words in the background when she was on the phone to his assistant. There had been something behind the bitterly shouted phrase, ‘I wouldn’t go back to that hotel if you paid me!’ that had made Emma concerned that her suggested location for the gala might be a mistake.

But there was nothing online other than praise for this exquisite, world-renowned hotel. A hotel she’d heard of even back in London, when she’d scoured the press reports of its grand opening. She might never be able to afford to stay in the amazing hotel herself, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t experience it vicariously through work.

‘Why?’ Antonio asked, and Emma wondered briefly if she’d missed something.

‘Why, what?’

‘Why did you invite them?’

‘I thought that you might need some independent advice on your choice.’

Antonio looked at her, but she was unable to divine his thoughts.

‘Wingmen—I thought you might need wingmen,’ she clarified.

‘Emma,’ he said, with censure heavy on his tongue. ‘I have never needed a wingman.’

And the answering shivers that rippled through her body told her just how right he was.

* * *

As she did at most events Antonio attended for work, Emma stayed discreetly behind him during the initial introductions, her quietly whispered words prompting him with the names of the gala’s guests and their partners. There had been times in the past when the additional information she provided had saved him from embarrassment—especially once when Antonio had nearly mistaken a man’s mistress for his wife.

He was surprised to see so many recognisable faces. He could honestly say that he had never given this gala a first thought, let alone a second. If it didn’t contribute to bringing Michael Steele down, it didn’t matter to him. Marcus Greenfeld—the man Antonio had inherited along with the foundation he had secured for Arcuri Enterprises all those years ago—had never demanded anything of him and he liked it that way. Antonio had never taken to the man.

‘Natasha.’

Emma’s voice cut through his thoughts. He turned to find her welcoming the statuesque and considerably beautiful black woman making her way towards him.

‘How lovely to see you again,’ Emma said, kissing the woman on both cheeks.

The answering smile spoke of a friendship between the two and he instantly recognised the woman as fiancée option number one.

‘Natasha—allow me to introduce you to Antonio Arcuri. Antonio—Natasha Eddings,’ she said, gently proffering the woman to him like a gift, before swiftly disappearing to leave him alone with her.

Within minutes Antonio didn’t have to bring to mind Emma’s handwritten scrawl on her brief bio—This is my favourite—to see why Natasha was Emma’s choice. Natasha was articulate and intelligent, beautiful and, in short, practically perfect. But while she might meet his requirements, he had the odd impression that he did not meet hers.

‘It would seem that my usual and widely reported charm might be falling a little flat this evening,’ he remarked, testing his theory.