His Reluctant Bride: The Marchese's Love-Child / The Count's Blackmail Bargain / In the Millionaire's Possession

Her voice shook. ‘You don’t want to know what I think.’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed drily. ‘But you will not be forced to endure my company for too long. We shall leave for Italy and Comadora immediately after our wedding, and, once there, I will do my best to keep out of your way. In view of my work commitments, it should not be too difficult.’

Polly gave him a pleading look. ‘Can’t we do a deal over this? As it’s only for a short time, couldn’t Charlie and I stay at the flat?’

‘Unfortunately that is impossible.’ His hand closed over hers, his thumb stroking her soft palm, sending tiny tremors through her senses which she was unable to ignore or control. ‘You see, carissima, I need you near to me,’ he whispered huskily. ‘Especially at night. Just in case you decided to try and escape me after all.’

At that moment, the waiter arrived back with their drinks, and a colleague came hurrying with menus and a wine list.

Polly withdrew her hand from his clasp, not trusting herself to speak, longing for a sliver of ice long and sharp enough to pierce her tormentor to the heart.

She took refuge behind her menu while she regained her equilibrium.

Last night had been bad enough, she thought broodingly. She’d never envisaged having to move in with him, but she realised now that she’d been naïve. There were probably plenty of other options, but his will was paramount, and he was letting her know it.

Yet he’d been so different once; gentle, humorous, patient—and adoring, or so she’d believed.

Now, she thought, wretchedness gnawing at her, it seemed that treacherous, deceitful and arrogant were more accurate descriptions.

He’d simply played the part of the sincere lover, as a ploy to keep her in his bed, trusting and eager, all summer long.

Yet, while she knew this, how was it possible that his lightest touch still had the power to stir her to the depths of her being, reigniting needs and longing that should be dead?

It was madness, and she needed to become sane again, or her existence, even on the outskirts of his life, would become intolerable.

She’d never felt less hungry in her life, but she knew she should eat something, so decided on consommé and chicken in wine sauce to follow. Fuel, she thought, for the next battle.

‘So,’ Sandro said when they were alone again, ‘you will stay here with me, and no more arguments?’

She nodded abruptly, and he smiled at her. ‘I am charmed by your obedience,’ he told her, and raised his glass. ‘Shall we drink to marital harmony?’

‘No,’ Polly said grittily, ‘thank you. Not even in water.’

‘Che peccato,’ he said lightly. ‘What a shame. Then, instead, let us drink to your earrings.’ He put a hand out as if to touch one of the little cornflowers, and Polly shrank back.

He stared at her, his brows snapping together. When he spoke, his voice crackled with anger. ‘Tell me, Paola, do you intend to cringe each time I come near you?’

‘Isn’t that the whole point?’ she demanded huskily. ‘I don’t want you near me. You’ve promised to keep your distance, but can I believe you?’

‘And how can I make you see that some contact between us is inevitable, and that you must accept it?’ he asked coldly. ‘I am letting it be known among my family and friends that we are reunited lovers.’

She said thickly, ‘You can’t expect me to go along with that. Not after everything that’s happened …’

‘I do expect it,’ he said harshly. ‘In fact, I insist on it. There is bound to be talk—even scandal—when our marriage, and our child, become public knowledge. I wish to minimise that for Carlino’s sake. Make people believe that we were victims of fate who have been given a second chance together.’

She gave him a scornful look. ‘That is such hypocrisy.’

‘You would prefer to have the whole truth broadcast?’ His voice bit. ‘I can tell you my cousin Emilio would be delighted. He publishes a whole range of cheap gossip magazines, exposing secrets that the rich and famous would prefer to remain hidden.

‘Until yesterday, he considered himself my heir, and will not be pleased to find himself demoted,’ he added cuttingly. ‘If he finds out that ours is simply a marriage of convenience, then our sleeping arrangements will be headline news in every trashy publication he puts on the streets. Is that what you want?’

‘Oh, God.’ Polly put down her glass. ‘He couldn’t, surely.’

‘Think again,’ he said. ‘We have never liked each other, so he would do it and revel in it. So I prefer to safeguard my pride and my privacy, cara mia. And you would be well advised to co-operate too, unless you wish to feature as a discarded mistress—and the unwanted wife that Alessandro Valessi threw out of his bed. Is that what you choose?’

‘No,’ she said, staring down at the table. ‘I—I don’t want that.’

‘Then play your part, and stop behaving as if I were a leper,’ he told her. ‘Because it bores me.’ He paused. ‘It also makes me wonder,’ he added softly, ‘what you would do if, some night, I—tested your resolve. Capisce?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was a thread.

‘Bene.’ He gave her a swift, hard smile. ‘Now let us go, happily united, into lunch.’

CHAPTER SIX

SHE walked into the restaurant beside him, moving like an automaton. His hand was under her arm as if she was in custody, as they followed the head waiter to yet another corner table.

‘They have a new chef here,’ Sandro told her as he took his place beside her. His sleeve, she realised, was only a few inches from her bare arm. Altogether too close for comfort. ‘And the food is said to be very good,’ he added.

‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ she said. ‘Is this hotel part of the Comadora chain, by any chance?’

‘We acquired it six months ago.’

‘I see.’ She played nervously with the cutlery. ‘Will—will you tell me something?’

His gaze sharpened. ‘If I can,’ he said, after a pause.

‘When we first met—why didn’t you tell me who you really were? Why did you let me think you were simply a minor hotel employee?’

‘Because that is exactly what I was,’ he said. ‘I had been travelling round all the hotels in the group to learn the trade, working in every department, so I could see what shape they were in.

‘Traditionally my family has always been involved in agriculture and banking. The hotels were acquired in the nineteenth century by one of my ancestors who is said to have won them in a poker game.

‘When my father inherited them, he wanted to get rid of them. He had no interest in tourism. But I felt differently. I thought managing the chain—updating and improving it—would be more interesting than citrus fruit and olive oil, or sitting in some air-conditioned office in Rome.

‘So I was working incognito, and compiling a report that I hoped would convince my father to keep the hotels and invest in them.’

‘But I wasn’t involved with any hotels,’ Polly protested. ‘I worked for an independent tour company. You could have told me the truth.’

He said quietly, ‘Paola, as the Valessi heir, I brought a lot of baggage with me. We are a wealthy family, and there had been women in my life whose sole priority was my money. I had become—wary.’

He spread his hands. ‘You had no idea who I was, and yet you wanted me—for myself. For Sandro Domenico. I found that—irresistible. Can you understand that?’

‘I understand.’ There was a constriction in her throat. ‘But your money must have been useful when you needed to be rid of—someone.’

His mouth hardened. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In the end, it usually came down to—money.’ He paused. ‘Is that all you want to ask?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I have a hundred questions. But I’m not sure you’d be prepared to answer them all.’

‘No?’ He sent her a meditative look. ‘Try me.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Well—the scar on your cheek. I was wondering how that happened.’

‘I was in an accident,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘In the hills above Comadora. My car left the road on a bend and plunged into a ravine. I was thrown clear, but badly injured. My life was saved by a local man who found me, and administered some rough first aid before the ambulance got to me.’

It was a bald recital of the facts—something he’d clearly done many times before. He spoke as if it no longer had the power to affect him, but Polly could sense the tension in him.

She stared down at the immaculate white tablecloth. She said quietly, ‘You were—lucky.’

You could have died, she thought, the breath catching in her throat. You could have been killed so easily. And I—I might never have known just how much I had to mourn.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Fortunate, indeed.’ His eyes were hooded as he looked at her. ‘Do you require further details?’

Oh, God, Polly thought. I know what I have to ask—but I don’t want to hear the answer.

She took a deep breath. She said, ‘When did it happen? Was anyone else involved—in the crash?’

‘Three years ago. I had a passenger,’ he said levelly. ‘A girl called Bianca DiMario. She—did not get clear.’

Polly stared at him, aware of the sudden chill spreading through her veins. She said hoarsely, ‘That’s—terrible.’

She wanted to stop there—to ask nothing more. But that was impossible, of course.

I have to go on, she thought, steeling herself. I—I have to know.

‘You—you were close? You knew her well?’ She was a casual acquaintance? You were just giving her a lift? Please say that’s all it was—please …

‘I had known her for most of my life,’ he said quietly. ‘She came to live at the palazzo with her aunt, the contessa, at my father’s invitation. Bianca’s parents were both dead, and the contessa was a widow who had been left with little money.

‘My father had a strong sense of family, and he considered it a duty and an honour to care for them both.’ He paused. ‘Bianca was also intended to be the next Marchesa Valessi,’ he added, evenly. ‘The announcement of our engagement had been planned for the week after the accident.’

Polly was reduced to stricken silence as the pain returned, twisting inside her. She could see so clearly now why he’d had to get rid of her with such indecent haste—and offered such a high price to achieve that.

She’d become an embarrassment, she thought. Their affair an insult to his future wife.

She bent her head. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said huskily. ‘It must have been utterly ghastly—to lose the girl you were going to marry in such a way.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was the worst time of my life. Something I cannot let myself forget.’ His faint smile was grim. ‘So I keep the scar to remind me how I was robbed forever of my chance of happiness.’

How can I listen to this? she asked herself imploringly. How can I let him hurt me all over again? She wanted to throw herself at him, hitting him with her fists, and screaming that she mattered too.

She wanted to weep until she had no tears left.

With a supreme effort, she mastered herself.

‘The accident,’ she said. ‘Does anyone know what caused it?’ How could she speak normally—discuss this terrible thing when she was falling apart inside? When she had to face all over again that everything he’d ever said to her—promised her—had been a lie?

Sandro shrugged. ‘The inquiry found a burst tyre on my car, so I was—exonerated. But I still have to live with the memory.’

And I, Polly thought, shall have to live with your betrayal of me—and I don’t know if I can do that. I think you may be asking the impossible.

She met his gaze. ‘Bigamy,’ she said clearly. ‘Is that another Valessi family tradition? Because you seem to have been engaged to two women at one time.’

He sighed harshly. ‘I should never have let things go so far, and I know it.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Believe me, I have been well punished for my silence.’

‘Bianca.’ She forced herself to say the name. ‘Did she—know about me?’

A muscle moved beside his mouth. ‘Yes.’ One small, uncompromising word.

‘I see,’ she said. She was silent for a moment. ‘So—I was the only fool.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I meant to tell you everything. To explain, and ask you to forgive me. But then the crash came, and after that—everything changed.’ His smile was icy. ‘As you know.’

‘Yes,’ Polly said almost inaudibly. She paused. ‘It must have been awful for the contessa too—to lose her niece.’ She forced a smile. ‘No wonder she doesn’t like me.’

He sighed again. ‘Paola mia, Bianca has been dead for three years. Zia Antonia has to accept that.’

‘And she still lives at the palazzo—in spite of it all?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I could hardly ask her to leave. Besides, I am often away, and she currently manages the house and estate for me.’

‘So she’s bound to have constant reminders of Bianca.’ Polly hesitated. ‘And three years isn’t all that long—when you care deeply for someone.’ She took a breath. ‘After all, you must think about her too.’

She saw his face harden, his hand lift as if to touch his scarred cheek, then fall again.

‘Sì,’ he said harshly. ‘I think about her. And three years can seem an eternity.’

I asked for that, Polly thought wretchedly. A self-inflicted wound.

She said in a low voice, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.’

‘You had to know,’ he said. ‘And I wished to explain. But up to now, you have shown no curiosity about the past.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Who knows? I might have spent all these years in the Regina Coeli prison for robbery with violence.’ He put his hand briefly over hers. ‘So, is there nothing else you wish to ask me?’

For a moment, she thought she detected a note of pleading in his voice. But that was ridiculous. Sandro had never pleaded in his life.

And there were questions teeming in her brain, falling over themselves to escape. But she knew she could not bear to hear the answers. The news about Bianca had been as much as she could take today.

She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing I need to know. After all, it’s not as if ours will be a real marriage. It’s just an arrangement, for Charlie’s sake. So, it’s better if we can keep our lives separate—and private.’

He was silent for a moment, then he inclined his head almost wryly. ‘As you wish.’

The food when it came was delicious, but Polly might as well have been chewing sawdust. She had to force every mouthful past the tightness in her throat, helped down by the Orvieto Classico he’d chosen. Because she couldn’t allow Sandro to glimpse her inner agony.

He broke my heart once, she thought. I can’t allow him to do that again. Especially when I know that he could—all too easily. And she sighed quietly.

When the largely silent meal was finally over, Polly found her next ordeal was accompanying Sandro up to the penthouse to inspect her temporary home.

She’d hoped she would find some insoluble problem with the accommodation, but the bright, airy rooms with their masses of fresh flowers seemed just about perfect.

To her unspoken relief, the bedrooms were well apart, facing each other from opposite sides of the large and luxurious drawing room. And each had its own bathroom, so she could hardly complain about a lack of privacy.

‘Will you be comfortable here?’ he asked, watching her prowl around. ‘I hope it has everything you want.’

‘Everything,’ she said. ‘Except the freedom to make decisions, and live my own life.’

‘A trifle, surely.’ Sandro’s tone was solemn, but his eyes were glinting in sudden amusement. ‘When the cage you occupy is so beautifully gilded. Also unlocked.’ He produced a key from his pocket. ‘For your bedroom door,’ he said. ‘In case I walk in my sleep.’

Her heart missed a beat, but she spoke lightly. ‘You’d soon wake up when Charlie started yelling.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘When are we picking him up from your friends? Time’s moving on, and I still have to go back to the flat and pack our things.’

‘I have arranged for two of the girls from Administration here to do that for you,’ Sandro said calmly, meeting her fulminating gaze head-on. ‘I told them to bring the minimum. I will have the remainder suitably disposed of.’

‘My God,’ she said furiously. ‘You take a lot upon yourself. Is this part of your campaign to force me to buy new clothes?’

He smiled at her. ‘No, I am relying on Teresa to do that,’ he said. ‘She cannot wait to take you shopping.’

‘I can buy my own damned things,’ Polly threw at him. ‘And I don’t need a minder.’

‘I hope she will be much more than that,’ he told her with a trace of chill. ‘Her husband is one of my greatest friends, and I was best man at their wedding. They have been—good to me in return.’

He paused. ‘You are going to a new life, Paola, with its own demands. As my wife, you will be expected to patronise Italian designers. How many do you know? What formal clothes will you need? How many dinner dresses—how many ballgowns?

‘This is a world Teresa knows, and you can trust her advice.’ He paused. ‘She can also help you in another way. Before she married Ernesto, she worked as a linguist. So you may practice speaking Italian to her. Start to regain your former fluency.’

Her face warmed suddenly as she recalled precisely how that proficiency had been acquired during those long, hot afternoons a lifetime ago. The things he had whispered to her as she lay in his arms—and taught her to say to him in return.

She was suddenly aware that he was watching her, observing the play of embarrassed colour on her skin, before he added softly and cynically, ‘But with a rather different vocabulary, carissima.’

She said with deliberate coldness, ‘Do you have any other orders for me?’

He was unfazed. ‘If I think of any, I will let you know.’

‘How nice it must be,’ she said, ‘to always get your own way. Think about it.’ She ticked off on her fingers. ‘You need an heir—you have one ready-made. You require somewhere convenient to keep us—and you own a hotel with a vacant suite. You don’t wish to be married—and you find a wife who doesn’t want to be anywhere near you either. You’re ahead on all points.’

‘Am I, bella mia?’ His tone was cordial. ‘How interesting that you should think so. But perhaps you should refrain from mentioning my good fortune to Teresa and Ernesto. They might not agree with you.’

He paused. ‘One more thing before we go to meet them.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and extracted a small velvet box.

As he opened it, Polly drew an unsteady breath at the coruscating fire from the enormous diamond it contained.

‘Give me you hand.’ It was a command, not a request, but she still hesitated.

‘Surely—this isn’t necessary …’

‘On the contrary, it is essential,’ Sandro contradicted her. ‘So—per favore …’

Mutely, reluctantly, she allowed him to slide the ring onto her finger. A moment, she thought in anguish, that she’d imagined so many times during the summer of their love. But not like this. Never like this.

Her voice shook slightly. ‘It’s—beautiful.’

At the same time its dazzling brilliance seemed almost alien on her workaday hand, she thought, making her feel like some latter-day Cinderella.

But Sandro was no Prince Charming, she reminded herself soberly. And his diamond was altogether too magnificent a symbol of the cold, sterile bargain they had made with each other.

As if Sandro had read her thoughts, he said quietly, ‘You will soon accustom yourself to wearing it.’

She bent her head. ‘Along with everything else, it seems.’

‘There will be compensations,’ he told her. ‘Tomorrow I shall open a bank account for you.’

She shook her head almost violently. ‘I don’t want that.’

‘Dio mio.’ His voice was weary. ‘Paola, do you have to fight me each step of the way? Do you wish our child to be brought up in a battlefield?’

She looked away. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Then please try and accept the arrangements that must be made.’

‘I can—try,’ she said unsteadily. ‘But it’s not easy when your whole world has suddenly been—turned upside down.’

‘You think you are alone in that?’ There was a note of harsh derision in his voice. ‘I too am obliged to make—adjustments.’

‘But you don’t have to.’ She faced him with new determination, hands clenched at her sides. ‘I—I understand that you need to see Charlie, to spend time with him, and I swear I’ll co-operate in any way over this. But why tie yourself to an unwanted marriage when you could meet someone to love—someone who knows how to be a marchesa?’ She paused. ‘Someone the contessa might even approve of.’

‘You think that is an essential quality in my bride?’ His mouth twisted.

‘I think that, otherwise, there’ll be problems,’ Polly said flatly. ‘You must see that. After all, she runs your home—and she’ll see me as an interloper. A poor substitute for the girl she loved.’

‘Then she too will have to adjust.’ His voice hardened. ‘Believe this, Paola. My son will grow up in my home with the knowledge that his mother is my wife. Nothing else will do—either for him, or for the world at large.’

He walked to the door, and held it open. ‘Now begin to play your part. My friends expect to meet a girl happily reunited with her lover—so pretend,’ he added flatly. ‘Avanti.’

The serial killer was on the move, and the heroine was alone in her apartment, with a thunderstorm growling overhead. Any minute now she was going to run herself a bath or take a shower, Polly thought wearily, because that was what always happened.

I need, she thought, blanking out the television screen with one terse click of the remote control, to be distracted, not irritated.

She also wanted to relax—but her inner tensions were not so easily dispelled.

Besides, she could do without artificial horrors. Her mind was full enough already of disturbing sounds and images—bleached rock in the blazing sun, the squeal of tyres, the screech of brakes and wrenched metal. A girl screaming in fright, and then an even more terrifying silence, with Sandro lying unconscious and bleeding under a pitiless sky.

Perhaps this was why she was still up and restless, when common sense suggested she should be in bed, with Charlie fast asleep in his cot near by. She’d wondered if he would react badly to his new surroundings, but he’d settled with little more than a token protest.

Perhaps I should be more like him, Polly thought with a grimace. Learn to deal with six impossible things before breakfast.

However, liking Teresa and Ernesto had not proved impossible at all. She was tall, and slim as a wand, with long dark hair and laughing eyes. And although she was the epitome of chic, that did not stop her indulging in a rough-and-tumble on the floor with Charlie and the twins.

Ernesto was quieter, with a plain, kind face, observing his wife and children with doting fondness through his silver-rimmed glasses.

In other circumstances, Polly would have loved to have them as friends. As it was, she felt a total fraud. And sitting next to Sandro on one of the deeply cushioned sofas in their drawing room, with his arm draped casually round her shoulders, had proved unnervingly difficult.

Blissfully married herself, Teresa, left alone with Polly, had made it clear that she thought Sandro was glamorous and sexy beyond belief, in spite of his scarred face, and that she was assisting at the romance of the century.

And even if I told her that marrying Sandro was simply a rubber stamp on a legal arrangement I want no part of, Polly thought sadly, she wouldn’t believe me.

‘Ah, but shopping will be such fun, cara,’ Teresa had told her buoyantly. ‘Particularly as Alessandro has put no limit on our spending,’ she added with glee.

And although she must have been brimming with curiosity about Sandro and Polly’s former relationship, she nobly refrained from asking questions that her guest might find difficult to answer.