Unwrapping the Innocent's Secret/Bound by Their Nine-Month Scandal

by Caitlin Crews

  He had built her this cottage that was no cottage at all. He had set it outside the small village, up in the foothills, so they could gaze down upon the pretty valley together. The abbey, the church and all those beautiful fields that had been his only entertainment once.

  The villagers muttered about rich men and their houses in the hills, but Pascal didn’t care if they talked about him beneath their breath as long as they treated his wife as they should. And they did, because Cecilia was theirs no matter the rarefied air she breathed as Signora Furlani. And with every visit, they thawed toward her husband, too.

  Pascal would have sworn he didn’t care about such things. He wouldn’t have once. But Cecilia cared deeply about the good opinion of the people here—and therefore, Pascal did, too.

  There was no limit to the things he would do for her.

  “Come,” he said now, reaching out his hand. And his Cecilia could still smile at him the way she did now, making his world stop and shudder. “I have built us a fire.”

  She took his hand and let him draw her close, then lead her over toward the fire.

  “Dante told me he was not sleepy at all and would stay up all night, to spite me if necessary,” Cecilia confided with a laugh. “But he was out before I turned off the light.”

  Dante was eight now, filled with his father’s stubborn purpose. Pascal anticipated that he would always be the way he was now, prepared to butt heads at the slightest provocation—and also the quickest to apologize and the first to declare his affection. Even thinking of the boy made Pascal smile.

  “And Giulia?” Pascal asked, his smile widening as he thought of their headstrong and deeply beloved two-year-old daughter.

  “Dead to the world,” Cecilia said happily.

  Pascal pulled her into his arms, then down onto the rug before the fire. They stretched out together as the flames leaped and danced in the grate. And Cecilia sighed at the way they fit, the way she always did.

  Because years might have passed, but the spark between them never took more than the simplest touch to build up into the flames that could still burn them both to ash. And sometimes it took only a look.

  Pascal had learned how to work less, but Cecilia worked more. That first year, unable to remain idle, or any kind of ornament, she had started her own charity for orphans and foundlings all over the world.

  Sometimes that meant Pascal got to be the trophy on her arm, which he found he greatly enjoyed.

  More than that, he found it nothing but entertaining to watch her innate grace up against dedicated sharks like his board members. Or against the inevitable slings and arrows of the mercurial press, who loved them one day then hated them the next.

  Cecilia handled them all the same. With that quiet steel of hers that had brought him to his knees once. And always would.

  She had made him far better than he deserved to be. And he worked every day to make sure she never regretted her choices.

  Last night at midnight mass in the church down on the valet floor, Mother Superior had smiled at him the way she did these days. Fondly. She clasped his hands in her old, gnarled grip, and she’d called him child.

  Pascal would die before he admitted how much he liked that.

  “Fear is always a liar. Love is always the truth,” she’d said, that same ring of steel in her kind voice that she’d bequeathed to his wife. “I cannot tell you how it delights me to watch you live that.”

  “Every day,” he’d said, like a new vow. “And always.”

  Because every day he remembered all those things he’d thought he wanted when he’d stood on the edge of the field that he could see from his windows here on a clear day. When he’d looked at the little boy who didn’t know him, running heedless on the frozen grass, and wanted more than he’d ever been given himself.

  He remembered the notion he’d had that he was looking at something huge, and how desperately he’d hoped he could find a way to cram it all inside him. To make it work.

  God, how he’d wanted it to fit.

  Because he hadn’t understood then. The things he’d taken for tears were oceans, too massive to be crammed inside him or any one person. There was a vastness that couldn’t fit anywhere, and that was the point.

  Love grows and grows and grows, he thought as Cecilia lay beside him. It got better all the time. Especially when she tipped her face to his and kissed him.

  She smiled against his mouth as he ran his hands along her sides, then over her sweet belly where she’d carried his babies.

  And he knew she was keeping another secret. That she would tell him when she was sure, that it was early days yet. But he knew.

  He estimated it would be about another seven months before they welcomed another member of the family. But Pascal was happy to take his time unwrapping her secrets, one after the next, until they were like the mountains he could feel out there in the dark. Standing sentry against the passage of time.

  Love and hope, ageless and eternal.

  Just as they would be to each other. Come what may.

  “I love you,” Cecilia whispered as she moved against him.

  “I love you,” he replied.

  And it would grow and grow and grow, for the rest of their lives, and on into their children—bright as the light that turned back the night, gleaming on into always, just like Christmas.

  Bound by Their Nine-Month Scandal

  Dani Collins

  Her bombshell: “I’m pregnant.”

  His demand: “Marry me…”

  Painfully insecure and media-shy heiress Pia is duty-bound to marry well. So illegitimate Angelo is completely unsuitable husband material. Yet this irresistible Spanish tech tycoon seduces Pia with an evening of bliss…that leaves her pregnant!

  Pia can’t afford a scandal, but Angelo wants to publicly claim his heir. Now to control the headlines, Pia must wed the only man who has ever made her feel. With Angelo posing a danger to her well-guarded heart, can she step into the spotlight—with the wedding of the century?

  For my wonderful readers.

  You make this possible. Thank you!

  CHAPTER ONE

  PIA MONTERO FEARED her sister-in-law’s masquerade ball would be interminable, and it was, but not for the reason she had anticipated.

  The October evening was cool, but dry. Guests had embraced the chance to cast off tuxedos and backless couture for something more exciting. Women twirled in overblown gowns with bell skirts, elaborate wigs and feathered headdresses. Men stalked in colorful brocade jackets with epaulettes and lace cuffs and short pants with stockings. Some even wore the traje de luces of a bullfighter with horned masks.

  The masks were works of art. A few had cat ears and bird beaks, some covered an entire face, others were part of a jester hat with bells dangling from the cockscomb. Some were made from handblown Venetian glass, others were made of lace or satin and adorned with feathers and flowers, beads and sequins.

  There were prizes for best costumes, but Pia had chosen to forfeit. She wore an understated gown in indigo topped with a purple velvet jacket. Her mask was a conservative cat’s eye in molded silk painted with musical notes and roses, ideal for blending in.

  She wished now that she’d chosen a full face mask as she watched a gold-lipped cherry blossom porcelain canvas swirl by. It would have allowed her to hide her thoughts behind a physical mask, rather than having to maintain the aloof expression she had practiced in the mirror at boarding school, back when she’d been hiding hurt feelings over everything, most especially being noticed.

  Even when girls had stuck up for her back then, saying, “She’s shy. Leave her alone,” Pia had blushed and burned behind her breastbone, wishing herself into a hole in the ground because someone had looked at her.

  Misery did not love company, as it turned out. She’d been lonely her entire childhood, too awkward to make
friends and ridiculously smart, which had made her an academic rival, bookish and superior on top of all the rest.

  Her saving grace was her bloodline. She came from Spain’s aristocracy. Her parents were the Duque and Duquessa of Castellon, her father an innovator in industrial metals who had become a well-respected, elected member of parliament once his sons were old enough to take the reins on what was now a multinational corporation.

  Pia was also reasonably attractive—not that she played it up. She eschewed makeup and designer wear, seeing little point in trying to attract a boyfriend when her mother would ultimately assign her a husband.

  Which La Reina Montero was trying to do right now, turning a perfectly tolerable evening into something Pia struggled to bear.

  “I’d prefer to wait until January, after I’ve defended my dissertation,” Pia said, and braced herself, but it still stung when she received the expected tsk of tested tolerance.

  Pia’s brothers were chemical engineers, both unmarried until they were thirty, but Pia’s accelerated study pace and soon-to-be-achieved doctorate only “wasted her best years,” according to her mother.

  “These things take time,” her mother insisted. “Signal your interest. Was that the Estrada heir?”

  Please no. Sebastián was decent enough, but he talked nonstop.

  “His outgoing nature would balance your introversion. You’ll have to work on that so you can host galas like this.”

  Say it louder, Mother.

  “Perhaps if we go into the marquee, we can match names to the silent auction bids.” La Reina tilted away her mask, which was mounted on a stick like a lorgnette. “I shouldn’t have agreed to anything so childish as a masked ball. Very inconvenient.”

  “Most people seem to be enjoying themselves,” Pia said mildly, noting laughter and noises of surprise as they approached the bustling tent where guests mingled while perusing the fund-raising items.

  Ever the observer of animal behavior, especially human, Pia considered why a disguise would instill such high spirits. Was it the nostalgia of youthful play? She wouldn’t know. Her childhood had been so rigid as to be a form of conditioned adulthood.

  “Poppy is doing well.” La Reina acknowledged her new daughter-in-law with reluctant approval as she glanced over the bids for rare vintage wines, antique jewelry, spa packages and VIP tickets to shows on Broadway and London’s West End.

  Did the masks reduce caution and provoke a willingness to take risks, Pia wondered? Similar to the way social media provided a removal from face-to-face interactions, thereby emboldening people to behave more freely?

  Pia certainly felt at liberty to stare more openly. From behind the screen of her mask, she watched a couple debate a bid for a certain item. The woman protested it was too extravagant while the man insisted he loved her and wanted her to have it.

  Pia was fascinated by interactions like that. They reminded her of the tenderness and indulgence that existed between her older brothers and their wives. They had both started their marriages in scandal, but had turned them into something meaningful, making her yearn for something like it for herself—as she repaired the family name by way of a low-drama, civilized marriage that was more a contracted merger with a dynasty of equal rank and prestige.

  She bit back a sigh. Taking up the mantle of duty wasn’t a sacrifice, she assured herself. It was a sensible course of action that benefited everyone, including herself. Her few attempts at dating had been failures, something the perfectionist in her loathed. Love and passion were foreign concepts. She wouldn’t recognize either if she tripped over them.

  She turned from spying on the couple and ran straight into a man setting down a pencil.

  Physically the impact was light. With wistfulness blanketing her, however, the collision felt monumental. Life altering.

  His opera cloak opened like dark wings that threatened to engulf her as his hands came up to grasp her upper arms and steady her.

  Their masks had caused this, her confused mind quickly deduced. They interfered with peripheral vision. She wasn’t clumsy or blind and doubted he was, either. He was too vital and controlled.

  She recognized those traits in him instinctively, even though she wasn’t usually sensitive to such things. Or sensual either, but she found herself taking in nonvisual elements even more swiftly than the sight of him. The heat of his body radiated around her. The strength in his hands was both gentle and firm. The scent of fresh air and orange blossoms clung to his clothing as though he’d arrived from a long walk through the grove, not from the stale air of a car.

  Who was he?

  His black tricorn hat had simple white trim. She glanced down to his black-on-black brocade vest over a black shirt, his snug black pants tucked into tall black boots.

  A pirate, she thought, and looked back to his porcelain mask, white, blank and angular. It cast a shadow onto his stubbled jaw, his beard as black as the short hair beneath his hat.

  She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, but as he looked straight into hers, her pulse shot up with the race of a prey animal. She held that inscrutable stare, arms in his talon-like grip, skin too tight to contain the soar of emotion that rose in her.

  Most people skipped past her in favor of more interesting folk, which she preferred. Sustained eye contact was never comfortable, but her mask gave her the confidence to stare back. To stare and stare while her whole body tingled in the most startling and intriguing way.

  Sexual attraction? He possessed the attributes that typically drew female interest—height and broad shoulders, a firm physique and a strong jaw. She was stunned to learn she was human enough to react to those signals. In fact, as the seconds ticked by, the fluttering within her grew unbearable.

  “Excuse me.” Someone spoke behind her, jolting her from her spell.

  A woman wanted to place a bid on Poppy’s framed, black-and-white photo.

  The black satin lining of the man’s cloak disappeared as he dropped his hands from her arms. The noise around them rushed back, breaking her ears.

  Pia moved out of the way. When she looked back, the man was leaving the tent.

  Still trying to catch her breath, she moved to the bidding sheet where he’d left his pencil. She knew all the names on the list and none of those men had ever provoked a reaction like that in her.

  At the bottom, in a bold scratch, was a promise to quadruple the final bid. It was signed Anonymous.

  “How does this work?” Pia pointed to it as her mother finished speaking to someone and caught up to her. Pia’s hand was trembling and she quickly tucked it into the folds of her skirt.

  “It happens occasionally,” her mother dismissed. “When a man wants to purchase something to surprise his wife.”

  Or didn’t want his wife to know at all, Pia surmised. She wasn’t a cynic by nature, but nor was she naive about the unsavory side of arranged marriages.

  “He’ll leave his details with the auctioneer,” her mother continued. “It’s a risky move that becomes expensive. Other guests will drive up the bid to punish him for securing the item for himself.”

  “The price one pays, I suppose.” Pia’s witticism was lost on La Reina.

  “This is one of the paintings from the attic,” La Reina said. “A modest artist. Deceased, which always helps with value, but not the sort of investment I would expect to inspire such a tactic.”

  Pia studied the portrait. The young woman’s expression was somber. Light fell on the side of her round features, highlighting her youth and vulnerability.

  “Do you know who she is?” Pia picked up the card.

  “Hanging pictures of family is sentimental.” Her mother plucked the card from her hand and set it back on its small easel. “Displaying strangers in your home is gauche.”

  “The final bid is sewn up,” Pia pointed out. “I was merely curious.”

&
nbsp; “We have other priorities.”

  A husband. Right. Pia bit back a whimper.

  Angelo Navarro nursed a drink as he clocked the rounds of the security detail, picking his moment for the second half of his mission.

  He could have sent an agent to bid on the portrait, but along with not trusting anyone else with the task—loose lips and all that—the opportunity to slip onto the estate undetected had been far too tempting.

  He hadn’t expected such a bombardment of emotions as a result of visiting his birthplace, though. Anger and contempt gripped him; fury and injustice and a thirst for vengeance that burned arid and unquenchable in the pit of his belly.

  These people prancing like circus clowns, making grand gestures with extravagant bids to benefit victims of violence, were the same ones who had ignored a young woman’s agonizing situation. They hadn’t interfered when her child had been taken from her and had continued to revere her persecutors.

  Angelo felt no compunction whatsoever at infiltrating this private fund-raiser with the intention of retrieving what his mother had stolen. Or been given. He’d never been clear on how she had obtained the jewelry or exactly which pieces had gone missing. That part didn’t matter. He would happily have gone to his grave with the knowledge that she’d fought back in her own way.

  However, when this chance to add a fresh blow had arisen, he hadn’t been able to resist it.

  Did it make him as soulless as his father that he was willing to commit a criminal act to continue her retaliation? So he could show his half brothers how it felt to be toyed with and abandoned to poverty?

  Perhaps.

  The thought didn’t stop him. He casually made his way to the corner of the house, waited for the guard’s attention to turn and slipped into the dark beyond.

  He came up against a Family Only sign on the first step of the spiral staircase and smirked with irony as he slipped past it to climb to the rooftop patio.