Engaged For Her Enemy's Heir

‘But... I don’t understand.’

‘What is there to understand?’ Each word was bitten off with impatience. Innocent she might might have been, but surely she could figure out what was going on. ‘We had a one-night stand. It’s over.’ He paused. ‘If I’d known you were a virgin, I would have done things a bit differently. But as it was...’ He shrugged. ‘You seemed happy enough with how things happened.’

She blinked as if she’d been slapped, and then she lifted his chin, showing a sweet courage that made his emotions go into even more of a tailspin.

‘I was,’ she agreed with emphasis. ‘I may be innocent, but even I can tell when an exit strategy needs some work. And yours sucks.’

‘Thanks for the tip, but the sentiment remains the same.’ Rafael folded his arms, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Too many emotions had been accessed tonight, too many raw nerves twanging painfully. He couldn’t take any more. She had to go.

Allegra took a deep breath, lifting her chin, blinking back tears. ‘Will you give me a moment of privacy to dress?’ she asked with stiff dignity, and although he could have retorted that he’d already seen her naked, Rafael didn’t have it in him to be that cruel. Her fragile courage touched him in a way he didn’t like, and he gave a terse nod before stalking from the room.

He needed a drink, something far stronger than champagne. This didn’t feel at all like he’d expected it to, needed it to. He’d been looking for satisfaction, and instead he felt more restless than ever. Restless and remembering.

‘All you have is your honour, Rafael. That’s all that’s ever left. Your honour and your responsibilities as a man.’

But he had neither now.

The door to the bedroom opened just as Rafael poured himself a generous measure of whisky. He forced himself not to turn as he heard Allegra’s heels click across the marble floor of the living area. Remained with his back to her as she pressed the button for the lift and the doors pinged open.

‘Goodbye,’ she said, her voice soft and sad and proud all at once, and then she was gone.

Alone in his penthouse suite, Rafael raised the glass of whisky to his lips. He stared out at the unending night and then, instead of drinking, he threw the tumbler against the wall, where it shattered.

CHAPTER THREE

ALLEGRA SAT DOWN in the lawyer’s office, her stomach seething with bitter memory as well as nerves. It was the day after her father’s funeral, and also of the biggest mistake of her life. She’d left Rafael’s hotel suite with her chin held high but her self-esteem, her whole self in tatters, everything in her reeling from his treatment of her.

He’d been so tender, and she’d felt so treasured. Had it all been a lie? Again? It seemed she did have to learn that lesson twice. People weren’t what they seemed. They said and did what they liked to get what they wanted and then they walked away.

And she was the one left, alone and hurting.

Except, she’d told herself last night, staring gritty-eyed at the ceiling of her bedroom in the modest pensione, she didn’t have to be hurt by this. Before it had begun she’d told herself she wouldn’t be. What they’d done together might have seemed meaningful at the time, but he was still a stranger. A sexy, selfish, unfeeling stranger. It wasn’t as if she’d loved him. She hadn’t even known him.

She’d made a mistake, she told herself as she rose from bed that morning, body and heart aching with fatigue. A sad, sorry mistake, because she’d given a part of herself to someone who hadn’t deserved it. She’d searched for comfort and affection from someone who had neither wanted nor offered neither. She’d survive, though. She had before.

She’d lost her father when she’d felt most vulnerable, had watched him walk away from her without a backward glance. She’d seen her mother withdraw into bitterness and desperation, and she’d fended for herself since she was eighteen. Over the years she’d lost plenty of dreams, and this didn’t have to hurt nearly as much. She wouldn’t let it.

Signor Fratelli had been insistent that she attend the meeting, although Allegra didn’t know why. She doubted her father had left her or her mother anything; if he hadn’t given her anything in life, why would he in death? She wasn’t looking forward to the meeting, to sitting in a stuffy room with her father’s second wife and stepdaughter, the family he’d chosen. Still, it would be a few minutes of discomfort and tension, and then she could return to New York. Act as if none of this had ever happened.

‘Signorina Mancini.’ The lawyer greeted her with a tense smile as Allegra was ushered into the stately room with its wood-panelled walls and leather club chairs. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘It’s Signorina Wells, actually,’ Allegra said quietly. Her mother had reverted to her maiden name, as had Allegra, after the divorce. She glanced at Caterina Mancini, whose icy hauteur didn’t thaw in the least as her arctic-blue eyes narrowed. Her gaze flicked away from Allegra and she didn’t offer a greeting.

Next to her, her daughter Amalia, around the same age as Allegra, shifted uncomfortably, giving Allegra a quick, unhappy smile before looking away. Allegra felt too tired and on edge to return it. The other woman had her mother’s cool blonde looks without the icy demeanour. In different circumstances, another life, Allegra might have considered getting to know her. Now she could barely summon the emotional energy to sit next to the two women who had taken her and her mother’s places in her father’s life.

Signor Fratelli began making some introductory remarks; through a haze of tiredness Allegra tried to focus on what he was saying.

‘I am afraid, in recent weeks, there has been some change to Signor Mancini’s financial situation.’

Caterina’s gaze swung to pin the lawyer. ‘What kind of change?’ she demanded.

‘Another corporation now has controlling shares in Mancini Technologies.’

Caterina gasped, but the words meant little to Allegra. She still didn’t know why the lawyer had insisted she be there for such news.

‘What do you mean, controlling shares?’ Caterina asked, her voice high and shrill.

‘Signor Vitali of V Property has secured controlling shares,’ the lawyer explained. ‘Only recently, but he is now essentially the CEO of Signor Mancini’s company. And he will be here shortly to explain his intentions regarding its future.’

Allegra sat back and closed her eyes as Caterina’s ranting went on. What did she care that some stranger now owned her father’s company? None of this was relevant to her. She shouldn’t have come. Not to the lawyer’s, and not even to Italy.

‘Ah, here he is,’ Signor Fratelli said, and then the door to his office opened and Rafael appeared like a dark angel from her worst dreams.

Allegra stared at him in shock, too stunned to react other than to gape. He looked remote and professional and very intimidating in a navy blue suit, his eyes narrowed, his mouth a hard line. His cool gaze flicked to Allegra and then away again without revealing any emotion at all. Allegra shrank back into her chair, her mind spinning, her body already remembering the sweet feel of his hands... What was he doing here?

Signor Fratelli stood. ‘Welcome, Signor Vitali.’

Maybe because she was so tired and overwhelmed, it took Allegra a few stunned seconds to realise what it all meant. Rafael was Signor Vitali of V Property. He owned her father’s company. Had he known who she was last night? Was it some awful coincidence, or had she been part of his takeover? She pressed her hand to her mouth and took several deep, steadying breaths. The last thing she wanted to do was throw up all over Rafael Vitali’s highly polished shoes.

She was so busy trying to keep down her breakfast that she missed the flurry of conversation that swirled around her. Distantly she registered Caterina’s outraged exclamations, Rafael’s bored look. Signor Fratelli was looking increasingly unhappy.

Allegra straightened in her chair, her hands gripping the armrests as she struggled to keep up with what was being said.

‘You can’t do this,’ Caterina protested, her face pale with blotches of angry colour visible on each over-sculpted cheekbone.

‘I can and I have,’ Rafael returned in a drawl. ‘Mancini Technologies will be dissolved immediately.’

Allegra stayed silent as Rafael outlined his plan to strip her father’s company of its apparently meagre assets. Then Signor Fratelli chimed in with more devastating news—nearly all of her father’s assets, including the estate in Abruzzi, had been tied up with the company. The result, Allegra realised, was that her father had died virtually bankrupt.

‘You killed him,’ Caterina spat at Rafael. ‘Do you know that? He died of a heart attack. It must have been the shock. You killed him.’

Rafael’s expression did not change as he answered coldly, ‘Then I am not the only one with blood on my hands.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Caterina demanded, and Rafael didn’t answer.

Numb and still reeling from it all, Allegra turned to Signor Fratelli. ‘May I go?’ She didn’t think she could stand to be in the same room as Rafael much longer. He’d used her. More and more she was sure he’d known who she was, and had planned it. Had it amused him, to have the daughter of the man he’d ruined fall into his hands, melt like butter?

‘There is something for you, Signorina,’ the lawyer told her with a sad smile. ‘Signor Mancini had a specific bequest for you.’

‘He did?’ Surprise rippled through her along with a fragile, bruised happiness, even in the midst of her shock and grief. Signor Fratelli withdrew a velvet pouch from his desk drawer and handed it to Allegra.

Caterina craned her neck and Rafael and Amalia both looked on as Allegra clasped the pouch. She didn’t want to open it in front of them all, but it was clear everyone expected it. Caterina was bristling with outrage, seeming as if she wanted to snatch the precious bag from Allegra’s hands.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the pouch and withdrew a stunning necklace of pearls, with a heart-shaped diamond-encrusted sapphire at its centre. She knew the piece; it had belonged to her father’s mother, and her mother had loved to wear it. Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them back. The value of the piece was not in its jewels but in the sheer, overwhelming fact that her father had remembered her. She clenched the necklace in her fist, gulping down the emotion, before she managed to give Signor Fratelli a quick nod.

‘Grazie,’ she whispered, the Italian springing naturally to her lips.

‘There is a letter as well,’ Signor Fratelli said.

‘A letter?’ Allegra took the envelope from the lawyer with burgeoning hope. Perhaps now she would finally understand her father’s actions. His abandonment. ‘Thank you.’ The letter she refused to open here. She rose from her seat, making for the door.

As she brushed past Rafael she inhaled the saffron scent of his cologne and her stomach cramped as memories assailed her.

His hands touching her so tenderly. His body moving inside hers in what had been an act more intimate than anything Allegra had ever experienced or imagined. She’d understood all along that it had been a one-night stand; she’d known that they weren’t building a relationship. And yet the reality had been both harsher and more intense than she’d ever expected—both the import of what she’d shared with Rafael and the cruelty of him kicking her out the door.

Now, on shaking legs, with her head held high, she walked past him and out the door. She’d just started down the steps when the door opened behind her and Rafael called her name.

Allegra hesitated for no more than a second before she kept walking.

‘Allegra.’ He strode easily to catch her, touching her lightly on the arm. Even the brush of his fingers on her wrist had her whole body tensing and yearning. Remembering. She shook him off.

‘We have nothing to say to each other.’

‘Actually, we do.’ His voice was low and authoritative, commanding her to stop. She paused, half turning towards him, wanting to ignore how devastatingly attractive he looked even now.

‘What,’ she demanded in a shaking voice, ‘could you possibly have to say to me now? You got your revenge.’

‘Revenge?’ His mouth firmed into a hard line. ‘You mean justice.’

‘Did you know I was his daughter last night?’ Allegra demanded shakily. ‘Did it...did it amuse you, having me fall all over you when you knew you were ruining him?’

‘I didn’t know you were Mancini’s daughter, and if I had, I wouldn’t have touched you. I want nothing to do with any Mancini, ever.’ He spoke with a cold flatness that made Allegra recoil.

‘Why? What had my father ever done to you?’

‘That is irrelevant now.’

‘Fine.’ She wouldn’t let herself care. She intended to forget Rafael Vitali ever existed from this moment on. ‘Then we have nothing to say to each other.’

‘On the contrary.’ Once more Rafael stayed her with his hand. ‘We didn’t use birth control.’

Five simple words that had her stilling in frozen shock, dawning horror. She licked her lips, her mind spinning. She was so innocent, had felt so overwhelmed, that the fact they hadn’t used birth control hadn’t even crossed her mind. She was ashamed by her own obvious naiveté.

‘If you are pregnant,’ Rafael continued in a low, steady voice, ‘then you will have to tell me.’ His tone brooked no argument, no protest.

‘Why?’ Allegra demanded. ‘You wanted to have nothing to do with me last night. Why would you want to deal with my child?’

‘Our child,’ Rafael corrected her swiftly. He handed her a business card, which Allegra took with numb fingers. ‘Naturally I hope this will come to nothing. But if it does not, I am a man of honour.’ Cold steel entered his voice, making Allegra flinch. ‘I take care of what is mine.’

Come to nothing.

An appropriate term for the evening they’d shared, and any possibility emerging from it. Allegra longed to rip his business card into shreds, but the gesture seemed childish. She crumpled it in her fist instead.

‘Suffice it to say,’ she bit out, ‘I have no desire ever to speak to you again, about anything.’

‘I’m serious, Allegra.’

‘So am I,’ she choked, and then hurried down the stairs.

Back at the pensione, still trembling from her encounter with Rafael, Allegra finally opened the letter from her father.

Dear Allegra,

Forgive an old man the mistakes he made out of sorrow and fear. I cared more for my reputation than for your love, and for that I will always be sorry.

Your mother loved this necklace, but it belongs to you. Please keep it for yourself, and do not show it to her.

I don’t expect you to understand, much less forgive me.

Your Papa.

Tears streaked silently down her face as she read the letter again and again, trying to make sense of it. He’d loved his reputation more than her? What did that even mean? The letter hadn’t answered anything, only stirred up more questions.

And yet...he was sorry. He had loved her. But if that was the case, why had he been able to let her go?

* * *

Rafael sat in the lawyer’s office, the acid of regret churning in his stomach. In his mind he could see Allegra’s huge, silvery, tear-filled eyes, and another pang of guilt assailed him. He’d handled last night badly. He knew that, yet he also knew he couldn’t have changed his reaction. Alberto Mancini had killed his father. What he’d done in exchange to Allegra—treating her harshly after a single night together—was negligible in comparison.

As for a possible pregnancy...he would provide for any child of his, absolutely. There was no question about that at all. But he hoped to heaven and back that Allegra was not carrying his baby. And he wished he’d been able to temper his actions last night, at least a little. Or, even better, that the whole night had never happened.

Yet even as the thought flitted through his mind he knew he was a liar. Last night had been incredible, explosive, the most intense sexual encounter of his life. He hadn’t used birth control because he’d been so overcome with desire, with basic, blatant need. He’d wanted her last night and seeing her this morning, looking so pale and proud, he’d wanted her all over again, to his own shame.

‘Signor Vitali? Is there anything left to say?’

Rafael blinked the lawyer back into focus, along with Mancini’s widow and stepdaughter. He’d thought he’d enjoy seeing Caterina Mancini brought low but, despite the obvious fact that she was a gold-digger, he felt sorry for her. She’d had nothing to do with his father’s downfall, and right now his eye-for-an-eye justice tasted bitter.

And if she was right, and Mancini had died of a heart attack, of shock at having his business bought out from under him...

Then he’d killed Mancini just as Mancini had killed his father.

Uncertainty and guilt cramped his stomach. He didn’t like either emotion, would not entertain them for a moment. If his actions had brought about Mancini’s death, then so be it. Justice had finally, fully been served. He had to believe that.

* * *

Allegra travelled back to New York in a daze, sleeping nearly the entire flight, wanting only escape from the grief and memory and pain.

The world felt as if it had righted itself a little bit when she was back in her studio apartment in the East Village, enjoying the quiet, peaceful solitude of her own space, the sound of muted traffic barely audible from the sixth floor. She’d said hello to Anton, her boss and landlord, and then retreated upstairs. All she needed now was some music to help to soothe and restore her.

Allegra automatically reached for her favourite Shostakovich before her hand stilled, her stomach souring. Had Rafael ruined her favourite music for her for ever? Maybe. She chose some Elgar instead, and then curled up on her sofa, hugging a pillow to her chest, trying not to give in to tears.

A few minutes later her mobile rang, and Allegra’s heart sank a little to see it was her mother.

‘Well?’ Jennifer demanded before Allegra had said so much as hello. ‘Did you get anything? Did I?’

‘It was a lovely funeral service,’ Allegra said quietly, and Jennifer merely snorted. Her mother held no love, or even any sentiment, for Alberto Mancini. ‘We didn’t get anything,’ she said after a tiny pause. Although she didn’t understand it, she would heed her father’s advice not to tell her mother about the sapphire necklace. ‘He didn’t even have much to give.’ She explained about Rafael Vitali and his takeover of Mancini Technologies, striving to keep her voice toneless, betraying none of the emotion still coursing through her at the memory of that one earth-shattering night. She’d forget it. She’d start forgetting it right then. She had to.

‘Vitali?’ Jennifer said sharply. ‘He bought the company?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not that it has anything to do with us.’

‘No,’ Allegra agreed dourly. ‘Although Caterina Mancini accused him of practically killing...’ Even now she could not say Papa. He might have signed the letter as her papa, but he hadn’t acted or felt like one since she’d been a child. ‘Him. Because the heart attack might have been brought on by shock.’ The thought that Rafael might have actually killed her father was like a stone inside her.

And she’d given herself to this man.

Jennifer was silent for a moment. ‘It’s over,’ she said at last, and that knowledge rested in Allegra’s stomach like lead. Yes, it was over. It was all over.

* * *

Over the next month Allegra did her best to move on with her life. She worked at the café, she chatted with customers, she walked in the park and tried to enjoy the small pleasures of her life, but after that one earth-shattering night with Rafael, everything felt dull and colourless.

It was foolish to miss him when he’d treated her so brutally, and yet Allegra felt like Sleeping Beauty who had been woken up. She couldn’t go back to sleep again. Retreat was not an option, and yet it was the only one she’d ever known.

So she tried to forget about that evening entirely, but a month after she returned from Italy she threw up her breakfast. She passed it off as having had a dodgy takeaway the night before, but when she threw up the next morning, realisation crept in, cold and unwelcome. The third morning she bought a pregnancy test.

She stared down at the two pink lines in shock, realisation coursing through her in an icy wave. It seemed too unfair that on top of having the misfortune to have slept with Rafael Vitali and then been brutally rejected by him, she now was carrying his baby. One night—and now this?

Her baby. Her child, living inside her, like a flower, waiting to unfurl. The maternal instinct was so strong it took her breath away. She hadn’t expected it, had never even thought about having children, not seriously. After all, she was perennially single, with no one in the picture or even on the horizon.

And yet...a baby. Someone to love, someone to make a family with, a proper family. She would never abandon her baby the way her father had abandoned her. She’d never take out her frustration and bitterness on her child the way her mother had on her. She’d be the best mother she knew how to be, already loving this scrap of humanity with a fierceness that surprised and humbled her.

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