Too Devious to Tame (The Giovanni Clan)

by O'Connor, Doris

  "I'll speak to them." Alex's deep voice joined Marco's as both his cousins stepped forward. Stella, too, stepped up and put her hand on Giorgio's arm.

  "We'll sort it. They can bloody well wait until she's recovered enough, and what is there to tell? A thug broke in to rob us, stumbled upon my nephew and his wife, and in his panic fired his gun. He's long since scarpered. The commissioner is a friend of mine. I'm sure he will be most pleased to hear how his constabulary harass innocent parties when they would be best placed to try to apprehend the culprit."

  Stella was clearly warming to her subject matter, and despite the situation Giorgio had to smile. His aunt on the warpath was a force to be reckoned with. All the Giovanni were, in fact, and he had never been so grateful for the love of his family. He could feel it reaching out to him from behind, enveloping him in their embrace like a soothing blanket. He'd done little to deserve it in the past, but he would damn well make sure he would do so in the future. He owed it to them and Jemima, if she still wanted him after he confessed his part in all this.

  Stella asked the question he could not bring himself to ask.

  "My niece had reason to believe she was pregnant." She paused at Elise's gasp and squeezed Giorgio's shoulder. Alex's face turned to stone, and Kitty pulled Elise into a hug. Marco shook his head and seemed to be issuing a silent prayer.

  The surgeon paused and looked thoughtful.

  "I see. Well, we had no reason to check for a pregnancy. I assume this would have been very early on?"

  "A matter of weeks." Giorgio grimaced at the squeaky quality of his voice. "We hadn't taken a test yet."

  "Jemima was going to see a doctor next week," Stella said. "So yes, it would have been very early."

  "In that case time will tell. There hasn't been a pelvic bleed, so signs are good at the moment. Of course physical trauma like Mrs. Giovanni has endured can jeopardize a pregnancy. There is little that can be done at this point. I will make a point of it in her notes, and we can test a blood sample to establish if Mrs. Giovanni is indeed pregnant. When she is up and about and as long as there has been no bleeding, an early ultrasound will tell us more. Until then we can just wait and see. I'm sorry I cannot be more positive right now."

  "Thank you, doctor, I quite understand." Stella thanked the man, and he made his excuses, leaving the family on their own. "She's a strong girl, and that baby is a Giovanni. It'll be okay, you just wait and see."

  Giorgio latched onto the lifeline his aunt's conviction offered and prayed she was right. If Jemima lost the baby… No he wouldn't allow himself to think like that. They'd made it this far—they would be okay—they had to be.

  ****

  Jemima drifted in and out of sleep for what felt like days. From the smells and noises surrounding her she knew she was once again in a hospital bed. There was a dull ache in her side every time she moved, so she tried not to, content in the knowledge that Giorgio was alive and well. She'd seen his beloved face when she'd come to after that shot had robbed her off the ability to breathe without assistance. The memories were fuzzy, but she recalled pulling off her oxygen mask and running her hands over him. He'd been covered in blood, and she'd been terrified that he'd been shot after all. He'd been so pale under his tan, and she'd kept apologizing over and over until she hadn't been able to breathe and oblivion had pulled her under again.

  She knew the man who'd shot them, had recognized him in that split second before he pulled the trigger. He was the charming French man she'd met. The one who had been so interested in her art, the one who'd encouraged her to seek out Giorgio, the one whose charm hid his true nature and had used her for his own ends. Their meeting in that piazza had not been an accident. Carefully engineered by Jean-Claude she'd been sent by him to seduce Giorgio Giovanni. He'd stolen from him, Jean-Claude had said, and he wanted his goods back.

  He'd painted such a black picture of Giorgio, she'd gone along with it. Not that she'd had any choice at all, having lost a fortune at the casino tables. If she didn't find the money to pay him back she'd have to work for him. Tears seeped out from under her closed eyelids, as she remembered everything. It seemed the gunshot had cured her of the last of her amnesia, and she hated what she saw. Giorgio would hate her, too, when he realized how devious she had been. The fact that she had not been able to go through with any of it, and had ended up whoring herself out, would hardly matter to him. She wasn't fit to kiss his boots, not fit to be his wife, not fit to be the mother of his child. The thought of the baby made her cry harder. Was she even still pregnant?

  "Non piangere, va bene, il mio amore." Giorgio's deep voice, calling her his love and telling her it would be all okay, just made her cry harder. None of this was okay. She shook her head and tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her. Held in his strong arms with her head cradled against his chest, she simply allowed the tears to fall. Soothed by his presence and his low murmurs in her ear, she eventually stopped crying.

  "I'm so sorry, Giorgio. You must hate me."

  "Why on earth would I hate you, cara? If it wasn't for you I would be dead. You should hate me. That shot was aimed at me." His voice shook with barely suppressed emotion, and when she looked up she was shocked to see the wetness of tears on his face. He looked awful, as though he hadn't slept in days. There were huge shadows under his eyes; several days' worth of stubble covered his face, and his clothes were rumpled beyond repair.

  "Have you been here all this time?" She had to ask, too astonished by this disheveled version of her usually so well groomed husband to take in what he was trying to tell her.

  "Where else would I be, but here? With the woman I love."

  She gasped and shook her head, and he looked so miserable at her reaction that her heart splintered into a thousand little pieces.

  "Don't say that, please. I don't deserve your love. I almost got you killed. This is all my fault. I am so sorry. It would have been better for everyone had I died in that accident in Italy."

  His furious growl in response trembled through her. He let her go and paced the confines of her private hospital room like a man possessed.

  "Don't ever say that, Jemima. Never. I need you like the very air I breathe. None of this is your fault. The man that shot you was aiming for me. He's an old business associate that I didn't have the guts to eliminate when the Don offered me the chance. I need to apologize to you, not the other way around."

  No, he had this all wrong. What was he saying? It was her fault, all of this was. When she went to tell him so, he put his hand over her mouth and shook his head.

  "Prego, cara, let me say this. You'll hate me after this, but I need to tell you the whole sorry truth. You were a pawn in a game far bigger than both of us. I never should have married you back then. I made you a target that day, and I am so, so, sorry for that."

  He stopped and ran his hand through his hair, looking so utterly miserable that Jemima couldn't help herself. She pulled him down, so he sat next to her on the bed, and linked her fingers with his. She dropped a kiss on the back of his hand and a shudder went through his big frame. He cupped the back of her head and rested his forehead against hers. His sigh raised the ends of her fringe.

  "I could never be sorry for meeting you. I am just sorry for being the cause of all you've been through." She would have pulled away, but he had an iron hold on her, and when he finally lifted his head the expression in his eyes sent a cold shiver down her spine. He looked menacing, and remote, and a complete stranger. Another memory stirred the rumors she'd heard in Italy before she'd met him. His association with the Don, his links to the criminal underbelly, the way he'd financed his failing vineyard. Jean-Claude had said he'd stolen from him, and for just one second the cold anger coming from the man in front of her made her wonder whether the other man had not been right after all.

  But then she remembered his joy at the news that she might be carrying his baby, his tenderness, and his protection. Oh God, the baby. She put a hand over her flat belly, and Giorgio's
forbidding expression softened until he was once again the man she loved.

  "You are pregnant. They did a blood test to confirm it. We were waiting until you were up and about for an ultrasound, but it all looks good." He put his hand over hers and kissed her renewed tears away. She melted against him, happiness suffusing her at this moment at the thought of their baby growing inside her, before she remembered who she was. He wouldn't want her once he knew. She had to tell him the truth.

  "I have something to tell you, too. I know the man who shot us, too. He sent me to meet you that day in the piazza." His eyes widened in shock, and he shook his denial.

  "You're confused, cara. That's not surprising after everything you've been through. Of course you know him. He ran the prostitution ring you ended up in. No doubt you saw him then. And he's the one who drugged you so that Beauchamp could take those pictures and blackmail me into giving him the recipes. He'd reckoned I wouldn't want pictures of my wife circulating the internet. Too bad you ran away before he could make good on his threat, and as no one in the family knew that we'd married, that particular threat was never going to work."

  "Beauchamp did what?" Her voice sounded odd to her, as though it came from far away, and the room spun. Giorgio went to steady her, but she pushed him away. "You knew, yet you never said?"

  That couldn't be right; it just couldn't. Her head thumped, and the blood rushed in her ears, and that annoying beeping sound went into overdrive. Giorgio swore, and the room filled with people. Dimly aware of being prodded and poked and having her oxygen tracks reset, she tried to make sense of what Giorgio was telling her. He couldn't have known. Eventually that beeping sound went back to normal, and she was once again alone with her husband.

  "Don't allow her to get this upset again, or we will have to ask you to leave. Mrs. Giovanni needs rest. Whatever you're trying to sort out, it can wait until she is stronger." The middle-aged, burly nurse tore a strip of Giorgio and smiled in her direction.

  Jemima did her best to shape her lips into the semblance of an answering smile. She must have succeeded, because the nurse nodded and left the room.

  Giorgio looked even more awful than before. He didn't meet her eyes, when he said, "Perhaps we should discuss this tomorrow. You're exhausted, and you need to rest."

  From somewhere Jemima found her voice.

  "No, don't you dare, Giorgio. We will discuss this now. What do you mean he drugged me, and why do you know this? All this time I thought I ruined everything, and now you tell me it wasn't my fault?" Her voice got louder and louder, as she spoke, and she twisted her hands in the plain white bed covers.

  "Jemima, calm down, prego, cara mia."

  "Don't you cara mia me, and do. Not. Tell. Me. To. Calm. Down! I wasn't shot in the head. I am not stupid, and I want an explanation, now."

  To her surprise Giorgio laughed. He laughed for fuck's sake. What was so fucking funny? She hadn't realized she had said that out loud, until Giorgio sobered. He approached her bed, hands up in surrender, and some of her anger fled at the agonized expression in the expressive silver orbs of his eyes. Like clouds heralding rain on a sunny day, his eyes mirrored his emotions, as they changed from silver to blue and back again.

  "Forgive me. Maybe I should start at the beginning."

  "Maybe you should." Jemima crossed her arms and winced at the ache in her side, but she batted Giorgio's helping hand away. If he touched her now she would lose it completely, and she knew she needed to hear this explanation. The icy finger of dread slowly climbing up her spine leaving gooseflesh in its wake also knew she was not going to like this explanation.

  Giorgio took a deep breath.

  "You know my father was killed in a car accident?" He glanced at her briefly, and she nodded. She did know this. Giada had told her some of this back in Italy.

  "As his heir I took over the running the vineyard. We'd been estranged for some time, and I had no idea how bad a state the vineyard was in. It came with Jean-Claude as a silent business partner. Only he wasn't so silent. He wanted me out of the picture, so he could use the vineyard for his own nefarious ends. I could not allow that. My great-great-great-grandfather planted the first vine on that soil, and a Giovanni has been at the helm ever since. I was not going to sit idly by and have him and Beauchamp take it away from us. We had a disagreement. When Don Luigi found out about it, he did some digging. Turns out my father's accident wasn't an accident at all." Jemima gasped, and Giorgio smiled grimly. "While my father's demise like that did not come as a huge surprise—I certainly didn't mourn him unduly—Jean-Claude could not be allowed to take over. We turned up enough dirt on him to force him to lie low for a while. The Don gave me the money to buy him out. He wanted to just kill him off, but I couldn't bring myself to take him up on the offer. If I had, all this would never have happened."

  Giorgio ran his hand through his hair again in a way that spoke volumes of his inner turmoil, belying the deadly calm cadence of his voice. Jemima had no doubt that he would have no qualms pulling the trigger himself now, were he to get the opportunity, but back then he had been a different man. The years since had made him harder, and a part of her ached for him. They had both changed so much, and not necessarily for the better.

  "You're not a killer, Giorgio. No one will blame you for not being able to have him killed."

  Their eyes connected, and Giorgio sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "If I had been, you wouldn't have suffered in the way that you did."

  "We also would never have met, and we wouldn't have our baby." Her voice wobbled again at the thought of the little life they had created, and they both reached for her tummy together. Their fingers met, and a tingle of awareness shot up Jemima's arm at the innocent contact. "Please continue, what happened after we met."

  "I thought myself safe. Jean-Claude was out of the way, and the vineyard was going from strength to strength. Then I met that sassy blonde in the piazza, and I fell head over heels." He smiled at her, and this time Jemima's answering smile felt genuine.

  "She fell for you, too, you know. I meant what I said. Jean-Claude had engineered our meeting. I owed him a lot of money, and he said you'd stolen from him."

  Giorgio's harsh laughter echoed around the room, and Jemima flinched.

  "Let me guess, he wanted the recipes?" At her tentative nod he swore. A long furious string of Italian swear words. Some of them she had never heard before.

  "I couldn't go through with it, Giorgio. I knew he would get to me somehow, but I just pushed it to the back of my mind. I was so happy, and I thought we could make it work, but then you insisted we got married, and it all got so serious, so fast, and … and I guess I panicked."

  She grabbed hold of his arm in her agitation, and Giorgio shifted until she was back in his arms.

  "I guessed as much. Now, knowing your history, I realize that I scared you off. I was furious when you flirted with Beauchamp. He was the fucking competition, and I knew he was still in league with Jean-Claude, or I at least knew he was up to no good. I should have trusted my instincts, but instead I acted like an immature school boy, and stormed out of there in a jealous fit." He dropped a kiss in her hair, and his voice deepened to an almost growl that send her heart aflutter. "I left you in the lion's den. I am so sorry, cara mia. And then the next day, and the next, when you kept avoiding me…"

  "I was too ashamed of what I'd done. When I woke up in his bed that morning I had no recollection of how I got there. I just knew I had to get away, and I was terrified you would find out, and then … then he phoned me. He said there were pictures and he would go to the press. You would be the laughing stock of Tuscany, and I knew you would never forgive me. He offered me a trade. Your recipes for the pictures."

  She choked back a sob, and Giorgio's arms around her tightened. She leaned into his comforting warmth and found the strength to continue.

  "I couldn't do it. When you found me I was putting them back. But you wouldn't believe me, and you were so angry."

  Sh
e felt him nod, and he murmured something into her hair.

  "Like I said I was a jealous fool. Beauchamp had couriered the pictures to me that morning. Guess he was fed up waiting for you to deliver. I told him to stuff it. There was no fucking way he would ever get my family's recipes, and then I found you with your hands in my safe. Jesus, Jemima, I almost hit you I was so angry. All I could see was your betrayal, and then the next morning when you'd left, I was too fucking proud to go after you. I just saw it as proof of your guilt."

  His voice broke, and he buried his face in her hair. His grip on her grew painful, but Jemima welcomed the pain. It was a welcome reminder that she was alive, that he cared, that maybe, just maybe this would all work out okay after all.

  "I'm sorry, cara mia, I should have believed you. I know you had no choice in what happened that night. He drugged you. And no, I didn't know that at the time. Don Luigi sent me a message. After you were shot, Alfonso took the scum back to Italy. Once the Don's men got hold of him, he sang like a fucking canary."

  Jemima couldn't hide her shudder of disgust, and she sank deeper into Giorgio's comforting presence.

  "Why did he shoot us? I mean why now? It doesn't make sense."

  "Beauchamp, in a word. I told you, I feared he was up to no good. He was up to his ears in debt, and I was in the way. He knew that with my connections with the Don, I would figure it out sooner or later. Jean-Claude was his business partner, and I guess he took the opportunity to settle a personal score. It's a fucking mess, and the Don is cleaning up big time. You may not want to watch the news for a few weeks, and we're staying out of Italy until it's all settled."

  A heavy silence fell between them as Jemima absorbed this news. It seemed they had come full circle.

  "Is it really over this time, Giorgio? Are we free?"

  "Si, cara mia. It really is. There are no more skeletons in my cupboard. What you see is what you get, and I'm fully aware that you may never want to see me again, now you know the truth. I should have told you all this ten years ago." His voice held a wealth of pain, and Jemima's heart clenched, as the last of her own doubts disappeared. They had been given a second chance, and she would grab it with both hands, if he still wanted her.