A Cinderella To Secure His Heir

He held his flute to hers.

She chinked hers to it. In unison, they drank.

Valente placed the empty flutes on the tray of a passing waiter then held his hand out to her. ‘Time to dance.’

But still she hesitated.

She wanted to dance with him. She wanted it more than she should. And that was the cause of her hesitation.

What if he wanted more than just a dance?

And why did that thought make her skin tingle as if a thousand electric ants were zipping through her veins?

Through the years Beth had been asked to dance by countless numbers of men. Valente was the first man she had wanted to say yes to.

She reminded herself about all the event staff she’d seen through the years involve themselves with rich clients or the client’s staff or guests. When alcohol flowed freely, inhibitions loosened and hedonistic pleasure became the aim. She would not be like the poor events staff she’d observed through the years fall for the practised patter, kidding themselves that the attention was anything more than an eye for the chance of a willing body for a night’s pleasure, discarded and forgotten when the sun came up.

Beth had come to distrust rich, powerful men. In her experience, they were the worst for treating women as commodities.

Domenico had been the only rich man she’d met who hadn’t treated women like that. He’d loved Caroline and had treated her with the utmost respect.

But Domenico had forfeited his riches out of loathing for his rich, powerful family. He’d preferred to be poor and happy than rich and cruel like his brother, Alessio. His stories about what went on behind the closed doors of the rich and powerful had only hardened Beth’s distrust of the elite.

Valente was not a rich man. The power he exuded was a figment of her imagination.

The dance had finished, the guests pairing off again for the next one.

‘Enough stalling,’ he scolded. He took the matter out of her control by taking hold of her hand and marching her to the dance floor.

‘I really can’t dance,’ she warned, laughing, although unable to understand why she was laughing.

What harm would one dance do? It wasn’t as if she were agreeing to marry him!

He guided her to possibly the only empty space on the floor. ‘It is easy. I will teach you.’

‘You can dance?’

‘Si. Follow my lead and you will be fine.’ He bowed. ‘Now you must curtsey.’

Laughing again, she curtsied then allowed him to take her right hand in his left.

She took a quick peek at where the other women were placing their left hands and placed hers on Valente’s bicep. It was rock-hard.

The laughter died in her throat when he slipped his right hand around her waist and pulled her to him. Her nose was level with his neck. The scent of his cologne coiled through her and something else, something like warm treacle, pooled low in her abdomen and with it came a flash of the dream she’d had of him, of them...

Slowly she raised her head to meet his eyes. The amusement that had been in the emerald gaze just moments ago had died.

After a long, silent beat passed between them, the faintest of smiles curved his lips. Her own lips tingled and she felt a sudden yearn to press them to his, a yearn that dissolved when the first note of the music rang out and suddenly she was being spun around the room in the most heavenly of arms.

For such a tall, muscular man, Valente danced with an elegance that made her dazed mind think he’d done this many times. His assured grace and utter control allowed her to relax into the dance and, as he spun her around the great ballroom, weaving seamlessly between the other dancing couples, she imagined herself as a princess from days gone by waltzing in the arms of her very own Prince Charming.

When the dance ended, Alessio kept tight hold of her. ‘One more,’ he murmured into her ear.

The rays from her answering smile beamed straight into his loins.

Impulse had driven him to ask her to dance. He’d spent the evening observing her, the desire to have her in his arms growing with every passing minute.

The compulsory ballroom dancing lessons he’d endured at his English boarding school were finally paying off.

‘Where did you learn to dance?’ she asked when they were on their third waltz, one set at a slower tempo.

‘As a child.’ Soon there would be no more need for evasion.

Her head tilted as she studied him. ‘What is it you do for Giannis Basinas?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘None of the hotel staff have heard of you.’ There was no accusation in the beautiful chocolate eyes, just a soft curiosity.

He pulled her a little closer. Their bodies were almost touching. She didn’t pull back. ‘Let’s just say I have known Giannis for many years.’

‘Is that all you will tell me?’

‘For now.’

A spark flared in her eyes. Its brilliance flashed through him. ‘Intriguing.’

He laughed but it was from discomfort rather than humour. Alessio knew this was the moment he should whisk her away somewhere private and tell her the truth, somewhere where they wouldn’t be overheard.

Forget waiting until the morning. He had waited long enough. Beth had passed every test he’d given her.

But he wanted to hold her in his arms for a few more dances first and savour the heady, erotic feeling flowing through his loins a little longer before the dilated softness flowing from her gaze turned into loathing.

The loathing wouldn’t last long, he was sure. Beth was too practical to be dictated to by emotions.

The dance ended without any further conversation, and the master of ceremonies took to the stage to announce that there would be a short break from the dancing for the fireworks display being held in the grounds.

‘Shall we?’ He held his arm out to her.

She smiled, nodded and tucked her hand through it.

They followed the crowd through the ground floor of the palace to the famed gardens. Alessio had only taken a few breaths of the warm night air when there was a tap on his shoulder.

He turned and inwardly cringed to find Richard, an old university friend, standing there.

‘Alessio Palvetti as I live and breathe!’ Richard roared, obviously steaming drunk. ‘How wonderful to see you! My God, man, how many years has it been?’

Not enough.

He felt Beth go rigid beside him.

‘Hello, Richard,’ he answered tightly.

‘I thought it was you,’ Richard shouted. ‘I said to my wife, look, there’s Alessio Palvetti. I must introduce you to her. She never believes me when I tell her we were at Oxford together.’

Richard’s words washed over him.

He met Beth’s frozen gaze. Her eyes were stark and wide. Slowly she extricated her hand from his arm and stepped back to wrap her arms tightly around her chest.

Alessio held her stare.

The first firework exploded in the sky.

Beth blinked then, turning as fast as the shooting rocket hurtling above them, fled.

* * *

Beth pushed her way through the crowd still spilling out into the gardens, the curses thrown at her as champagne was spilt in her wake nothing but a distant sound, the industrial fireworks showering the sky with luminescence melding with the drum beats exploding in her head.

Her lungs had cramped, fear fisting tightly in her stomach.

Back under the palace roof, she ran as fast as her heeled feet would carry her until she entered an unfamiliar room and spun around in panic.

She’d lost her bearings.

She covered her mouth with a shaking hand and forced herself to think. She had pored over the map of the palace for so many hours she knew it intimately but her brain had turned into stunned goo.

Think!

Instinct had her race to the door to the right of the room but it only led to another unfamiliar room.

Her instincts clearly weren’t worth anything. If they had been, she would have had an inkling that Valente wasn’t...was...

Oh, dear God, it had all been a lie.

Get to Dom.

She turned back and ran to the door to the left.

The palace’s proportions that she had found so awe-inspiring on her arrival had become a frightening warren. The richly decorated walls had gained faces, the masks on the few guests who’d stayed inside rather than watch the fireworks coming to life to laugh at her.

That feeling, that the whole palace was laughing cruelly at her naivety, was compounded when she finally found the stairs and tripped on the third step. One of her shoes fell off. She stumbled on, pausing only to remove her remaining shoe, climbing the stairs as fast as she could but somehow feeling as if time itself had slowed and that she was ascending a mountain that was fighting back, a lucid, waking nightmare.

The nightmare showed no sign of letting up when she finally reached the door to her suite. She’d left her bag in the staff room. Her door key was in it.

The door was locked.

She banged on it and kept on banging until it was opened by the nanny.

‘Where’s Dom?’ she gasped, uncaring of Miranda’s blatant disapproval at this loud disruption.

Was she even a real nanny or a stooge set up by Valente... Alessio?

‘Asleep.’

‘He’s here?’

‘Yes. He’s in his cot.’

But the nanny’s word was not enough. Beth needed to see him with her own two eyes.

Dragging her jelly legs to the bedroom Dom had been appointed to share with the nanny, she pushed the door open.

The only illumination in the room came from the opened door. The cot was at the far wall. Beth crept over to it, her heart thundering, terrified that she would find it empty...

Dom lay in it on his back, tiny hands in fists either side of his head, sleeping peacefully, as snug as a bug in a rug.

The relief that surged through Beth to find him there safe and sound was so great that she doubled over and gulped air into her burning lungs.

But the relief was only temporary. Danger remained close. Remembering the fury on Alessio’s face when that man had called him by his real name, she figured his plans to snatch Dom from her had been interrupted.

Alessio’s minions might be on their way right now to get him.

She had to take Dom now, and leave this palace before...

A large shadow filled the open doorway.

‘No!’ The word shot from her mouth as a howl and she straightened clumsily to spread her arms wide across the cot. If he wanted to get to Dom, he would have to get through her first.

Dom stirred, a tiny mewing sound coming from his cot.

Beth held her breath. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Alessio, who remained at the threshold of the room.

‘I’m sorry you had to discover the truth like that.’ His words echoed off the walls.

Nausea roiled violently in her stomach. ‘Sorry that it prevented you taking Dom, Alessio?’

She tried to keep a lid on the fresh panic gripping her as she took in the lean yet muscular proportions of the man with a new ominous perspective. If it came to a fight, she would never win.

But she would try. She would fight. She would do whatever it took to keep Dom out of the clutches of the man from whom she had sworn to protect him. She would protect her ward with her life.

He shook his head slowly. ‘If I wanted to take him, I would have done so already.’

‘Stay back!’ He’d stepped into the room. The shoe she’d lost on the stairs was in his hand. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

She tensed her body, readying herself for the first physical fight of her life.

He took another step forward and placed the shoe on the dressing table.

Dom let out a loud cry.

Not wanting to take her eyes away from the slowly nearing Italian, she twisted an arm into the cot and groped carefully until she found Dom’s belly and gently stroked it. He cried out again. It was a cry of pain.

Valente... Alessio...stopped walking.

He expelled a deep breath then stepped back to the door. At the threshold he called out, ‘Miranda.’

The nanny appeared.

‘I’m going to take Miss Hardingstone to my suite. Domenico needs attending to.’

‘No!’ But Dom’s cries of pain were increasing and Beth could no longer bear the agony in her heart to hear them. She turned quickly and scooped him into her arms. Immediately his cries lessened.

Holding him securely and rocking him gently, she turned to her adversary and fought unsuccessfully to hold her own tears back. ‘Please, I am begging you, don’t do this. Don’t take him from me.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘BETH...’ ALESSIO’S FACE contorted briefly before he took five long strides to her.

She shrank back, her bottom wedged against the cot.

He gazed down at her but made no attempt to remove the fractious baby from her arms. His voice was surprisingly gentle as he said, ‘Listen to me, no one is taking Domenico from you, but we need to talk and it will be better if we can do that with privacy. My suite adjoins yours. Let Miranda take care of him and, when we’re done talking, you can come back to him.’

Alessio watched Beth’s face scrunch and her chest rise and fall rapidly, all the while rocking the baby in her arms.

He could curse.

He’d been prepared for screams, shouts and curses. He had not expected or been prepared for such anguish.

‘Give Domenico to Miranda. You have my word that you can return to him when we’re done talking.’

She turned her pleading gaze to Miranda, who came to her side and carefully lifted Domenico from her arms.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ the nanny murmured.

Beth nodded bravely before placing a tender kiss on the baby’s forehead. ‘Have you given him any of his infant painkiller?’

‘He can have some more in half an hour. Don’t worry. I’ll look after him, I promise.’

She stepped away from them and rubbed her hands on her arms.

Knowing Beth would follow, Alessio walked to the door that adjoined their suites and unlocked it. Once in his own suite, he headed straight to the bar in the main lounge area and poured them both a hefty measure of single malt.

He held one out to her. ‘Take it. You’ve had a shock. It will help.’

Chocolate eyes, red and puffy from crying, held his briefly before she took the glass from him and carried it to one of the sofas. Only when she had sat down did she take a large drink from it.

He watched her carefully as she fixed her gaze to the ceiling and held tightly to her glass.

Lowering himself onto an armchair, he said, ‘I am sorry you had to find out the way you did. I was going to come clean in the morning.’

She turned her head and cast eyes swimming with anguish on him. ‘You’re really Alessio Palvetti?’

‘Yes.’

Her head dropped forward. The silky hair that had been wound so elegantly was in disarray, brunette locks spilling out in all directions. ‘This ball... How...? How did you do it?’

‘Giannis and I have been friends since our school days. I asked him to host the ball in his palace and employ your company to run it. He owed me a favour and agreed.’

She rubbed the back of her neck and muttered, ‘Must have been some favour.’

Beth thought of the astronomical sum of money that had been spent on the ball, not a cent of which had been recouped from the tickets. All the money raised through the four hundred guests who had each paid forty thousand euros to attend was going to charity. ‘All this...just so you could get Dom?’

And, now he had Dom in his clutches, she had little doubt he’d taken the necessary precautions needed to stop Dom and her leaving the palace without him. He’d even put them into adjoining suites!

The lengths he’d gone to get them here proved him a master tactician who always thought a dozen moves ahead.

The rich were in a league of their own when it came to getting what they wanted. When money was no object, then any scruples or morality be damned. Alessio had been born without either.

‘Do not misunderstand me. Getting custody of Domenico is my primary motivation. He is a Palvetti and he deserves to take his place with us, his family. In my care he can have everything but, if custody were all I wanted, he would already be with me.’

She took another sip of her drink. Normally she hated whisky in any of its forms but right then the burn it made in her throat was welcome. It was the fire she needed to cut through her despair. ‘Then what do you want? I think of all the work we’ve done, all the hours spent, all the money spent—’

‘I wanted to get to know you.’

She finally allowed herself to look at him. ‘Why?’

The emerald eyes that had turned her veins to treacle lasered into hers. He leaned forward and spoke quietly. ‘I wanted to learn about you through more than the reports and photographs my investigators provided me with.’

‘You had me investigated?’

‘I thought it prudent to look into the character of the person caring for my nephew.’

Her head span so violently she felt dizzy with the motion.

He’d been spying on her.

She should have known Alessio’s silence since she’d refused his offer of money in exchange for Dom had been ominous. She’d lulled herself into a false sense of security and underestimated him, and underestimated the lengths he would be prepared to go to.

Everything Domenico had said about his brother was true, and more.

Through the ringing in her ears, he continued. ‘Do not worry. Any childhood indiscretions are your own concern. I only wanted to know about the last five years of your life, and what I learned about you intrigued me. It was clear to me from the investigator’s reports and your refusal of my financial offer that you had an affection for my nephew.’

‘Affection does not cover a fraction of the love I feel for him,’ she told him fiercely.

‘I am beginning to understand that for myself.’

‘Good, because I will never let him go without a fight.’

‘I understand that too but you must know that, if it came to a fight, you would never win. I could have gone through the British courts and made my case for custody—I think we are both aware that my wealth and power would have outmatched your efforts—but Domenico is familiar with you and it is better for him if you remain in his life than be cut off.’

She held his gaze and lifted her chin. ‘I’m all he knows.’

He raised a nonchalant shoulder. ‘But he is very young. If it comes to it, he will adapt without you quickly. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not want that outcome.’

‘What outcome do you want?’

‘Marriage.’

Drum beats joined the chorus of sound in her head. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

He rose from his seat and headed back to the bar. ‘Once I have Domenico in Milan, it will be a simple matter for me to take legal guardianship of him.’ He poured himself another large measure and swirled it in his glass. ‘I recognise your genuine affection for each other and have no wish to separate you. In all our best interests, I am prepared to marry you.’

Dumbfounded, Beth shook her head, desperately trying to rid herself of all the noise in her ears so she could think properly. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you paid me.’

He took a large swallow of his drink and stared at her with that same expressionless look. ‘Then I take Domenico home and find another woman to marry and be a mother for him.’

She pinched her nose and breathed deeply. She would rather die than allow another woman to raise the little boy she loved so much.

But this was no bluff. She did not doubt that for a second.

‘I would prefer not to take that option.’ His words swam through the noise in her head she still couldn’t drown out. ‘But bringing Domenico home means the time is right for me to take a wife. He will thrive better if he has a permanent female influence in his life. A marriage between us is the ideal outcome for all of us and has the potential to be successful.’

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