“I have work to do,” she said, sinking back into her chair.
“I’ll leave you to it then. Are we on for tonight?”
“What are we doing?” she asked, her eyes wandering to the pen still resting in her teacup.
“It’s a surprise.”
Vanessa watched him walk out of the room and her only thought was that she didn’t think she could take another surprise from Lazaro.
Lazaro touched the velvet box in his coat pocket and cursed the flash of adrenaline that raced through him. It was adrenaline; it certainly wasn’t nerves. He didn’t do nerves. He did decisive action. He didn’t question, he moved forward with confidence. Always.
That was how he’d worked his way up from the ground level of the massive corporation he’d eventually built up with his ideas on how to reinvent the place. It was how he’d built a career, a name for himself. How he’d netted billions in the bank.
He took advantage of every resource and did what had to be done. As he was doing now.
It was extremely fortuitous that one of the art museum’s head curators happened to be on a par with Vanessa’s father as far as social clout went. And even more fortuitous that she was a gossip.
It meant that she would tell anyone who was even half-interested that Lazaro Marino had paid to have the museum empty this evening so that he could ask the woman in his life a very important question.
In Vanessa’s circle, media exposure was seen as vulgar, common. Anyone could earn that kind of notoriety. The First Families and those like them saw class as something you were born with, not something you could acquire. And anyone who wasn’t born with it was somehow less.
The way to spread the word was through careless discretion, nothing half so common as an actual write-up in a newspaper.
He curled his fingers around the ring box and leaned against the terrace railing. Vanessa was due to arrive soon, another detail carefully coordinated with a trail that would be easy to follow.
He heard high heels on marble and looked up. Vanessa was walking toward him, the expression on her face mutinous. She had dressed for the occasion, though, as he’d requested. Red silk this time, hugging her curves. Her lips were painted to match her dress and her dark hair was pulled back into a neat bun. He wished she’d left it down. He enjoyed the feel of the silken strands sliding through his fingers.
He tightened his hold on the ring box. This was what it was about. The ring. Taking his place in the world. The truth was, he didn’t give a damn about what anyone in high society thought of him. But he wouldn’t be seen as beneath anyone, as some sort of trash from the barrio they could despise and lord their power over. He wouldn’t be beneath anyone. And Vanessa was the key.
“What is this?” she asked, looking around the terrace. It was lit by a string of paper lanterns that hung low overhead, just as it had been the night they’d met at the charity event.
“You didn’t guess?”
“I wouldn’t dare try to guess at the inner workings of your mind,” she said, walking to the railing and resting her forearms on the top of it, leaning over, keeping her eyes fixed on the garden.
He moved so that he was standing next to her and pulled the ring box out of his pocket and placed it on the top of the stone railing. “I thought this was an ideal place to make our arrangement official.”
She turned her head sharply, her eyes wide. Then she looked down at the ring box.
“Are you going to look at it?” he asked.
“I … so this is your proposal?” Her eyebrows winged halfway up her forehead, her expression one of pure incredulity.
“I think I proposed already,” he said stiffly.
“Well, but … no, because now there’s a ring.” She didn’t touch the ring box, she just looked at it.
“And most women at this point would be looking at the ring.”
“Why all this?” she asked, ignoring his statement. “The museum and the lights?”
“Because I had to speak to quite a few people to arrange this romantic gesture.”
She nodded slowly. “And they’ll tell other people.”
“Yes. Your social class is just small enough that word travels to everyone in it very quickly.”
She frowned. “Right.”
“I’m sorry, did you want something more public?”
She shrugged. “No.”
Anger surged in him, anger and something else that he couldn’t quite identify. “You’re disappointed?”
“I’m not disappointed. That implies I had an expectation about this moment and, truly, for all I knew, you were going to courier me a ring at my office. But I did have expectations of this moment as far as my life goes.”
“And this doesn’t meet your standards?” he asked, his stomach tightening.
“Not really.”
“You might want to look at the rock before you declare the effort subpar, querida,” he said, conscious of the fact that his accent had thickened with his building anger.
He popped the top on the box and pushed it closer to her. She looked down and her eyes widened. Not a big surprise. Five carats would have that effect on someone like her.
“I hope that’s fitting of a woman of your status.”
Vanessa looked down at the ring, glittering beneath the lantern light. The large, square diamond set into a band of white gold with an intricate, antique-style weave was nestled in cream silk, looking as if it had been made just for her.
There was so much about the moment that seemed made just for her. An empty art museum, a gorgeous man and a marriage proposal. If it had been a real marriage proposal—real in the sense that there was love behind it and not just mercenary business dealings—he would have gotten down on one knee. They would have walked through the museum and talked about their future. They would have felt like the only two people in the world.
If they had never parted, if she had stopped him from leaving that night, maybe it would be real.
Her heart squeezed in her chest and she squelched the thought. It didn’t matter. This was reality. And in reality, he’d shoved the ring in her direction and barely looked at her. He hadn’t even asked the question, and it all just hung between them, awkward and unspoken. Painful. Because this was like some nightmare version of a fantasy she might have created for herself.
“It’s lovely.” She reached out and touched it, hesitant to pick it up, to put it on, because the ring made it all seem real. And final.
And because part of her wanted so badly to wear Lazaro’s ring, so very badly. And that was embarrassing, humiliating. She didn’t really want the Lazaro that had come back into her life with all the finesse of a jackhammer. She wanted the man she used to imagine he was. The man he never had been.
“Don’t you like it, querida?” he asked.
“I love it. It’s beautiful. Perfect.”
“You seem giddy,” he said, his expression flat.
“I love it,” she said, teeth gritted.
“Put it on.”
Anger surged through her, pummeling her tender heart. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”
She held her hand out, determined not to be the one to fasten her own diamond handcuffs. He took her hand in his, the heat of his skin on hers sending prickles of electricity through her body, making it nearly impossible for her to cling to the anger that was anchoring her to the balcony, reminding her that this was nothing more than a farce.
He took the ring out of the box and it caught the light. Such a beautiful sign of eternal bondage. She closed her eyes while he pushed it onto her fourth finger. It fit perfectly, and it was more disturbing than anything that it fit. That it somehow seemed right.
She pulled her hand back and brushed her palm down over her skirt, trying to ease the fiery, tingling sensation that was spreading from her fingertips to her wrist.
“How big is it?” Her own voice, the mercenary tone, cooled her off quickly. Reminded her that this was a transaction. Nothing more. Because she had
to do something to stop her heart from pounding faster. To keep herself from thinking of all the what-ifs.
“Does it matter?” he asked, his voice as cold as the sick weight in her stomach.
“I’ve heard size matters.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Big enough to satisfy you.”
She swallowed hard, the need to get the upper hand fueling her, choosing her words for her. “I’m not sure about that.”
“The purebred could do better?”
She looked at the ring again. It was beautiful. Perfect. “Possibly.” The lie stuck in her throat.
He jerked back, as though she’d struck him. He looked, just for a moment, like the boy he’d been the night she’d rejected him. Then any vulnerability was gone, replaced with an expression that was as hard as granite.
“I think,” he said, “it’s time we went and had a talk with your father.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I’VE already heard your news, Vanessa. I’ve been down at the club this morning.”
Vanessa fought the urge to hang her head and stare at the toes of her ruby-red shoes. Something happened to her when her father used that tone, that flat, disappointed tone that let her know she’d somehow made a mess of things. She felt like a child again. Small and desperately inadequate, trying to live up to an ideal that had been placed just out of her reach, an ideal she was falling so short of it was nearly laughable.
Michael Pickett wasn’t a large man; he wasn’t young anymore. His voice was thin now, wispy. He couldn’t yell. He didn’t need to. What he could do with a small hint of disapproval in his voice couldn’t be underestimated.
Vanessa swallowed. “Well, it was … unexpected.” She looked down at the rug, a floral-print rug, the same one that had been in place in her father’s office since she could remember. Everything was the same at the Pickett estate. Nothing ever changed. The house was like a relic, surrounded by the modern world but not really a part of it. Like the owner of the estate himself.
“And what of your obligations to Craig Freeman? Do they mean nothing?”
“I want to marry Lazaro,” she said. “I don’t want to marry Craig.” That, in the very strictest sense, was the truth. In spite of the fact that things had been stilted between the two of them since the previous night’s engagement, he was still the better option.
“Since when is life about what you want?” he said, his voice soft, and deadlier for it.
“I …”
“Don’t be stupid, Vanessa. This man is beneath you.”
She could sense the moment Lazaro’s control slipped its leash. The moment he was no longer playing his part.
“You had better damn well watch what you say to my fiancée,” Lazaro said, his voice hard, dangerous, each word rougher, less civilized, as though a veneer was slowly being stripped away, revealing the true man. Dangerous. Feral. As far from the polished, old-money setting as it was possible to be.
Lazaro had been silent for most of the meeting, letting Vanessa do the talking. But the silence was broken now. “Vanessa was handed a crippled corporation, and with the remains that you gave to her she’s fashioning something that can survive the new market, the modern sensibility, something no one else on your staff, including you, had the creativity to do.”
She waited for him to say exactly why they were getting married. That he was the one saving the company from a slow corporate death. But he didn’t.
Her father curled his hands into fists. “I’m not taking orders from a man whose mother used to scrub my floors.”
She felt Lazaro stiffen next to her. “But maybe you will take orders from the man who is now the principal shareholder of Pickett Industries. Interesting thing about going public, Mr. Pickett … the public can buy pieces of your company. And I’ve bought quite a few pieces for myself.”
“Having money does not make you an equal with my family,” her father said. “Money doesn’t buy class.”
“But money does buy stock.”
“Vanessa.” Her father leveled his cold gray eyes on her. “Did you know about this?”
“Yes.” Vanessa cleared her throat and tilted her chin up, fighting the urge to look back down at the carpet. She wasn’t going to look down anymore. “He’s my fiancé. So it will still be all in the family, won’t it?”
She felt a thrill of excitement race through her, a surge of adrenaline that chased away any intimidation or fear.
“You do not have my blessing on this.” Michael Pickett stood from behind the desk, and suddenly Vanessa saw her father clearly for the first time. How he controlled her. How hard he tried to exert his will over her.
“I didn’t come here to get your blessing.” She bit out the words. “Just to tell you what was going to happen. What do you want?” she asked him. “Do you want the company to succeed? Because, trust me, right now we need Lazaro for that. Accept him, welcome him, and we stand a chance at some success.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m telling you how it is. This is reality.” Her heart was pounding hard, blood roaring through her ears. She felt dizzy.
“We’ll be in touch,” Lazaro said, wrapping his arm around her waist and leading her from the room. He closed the heavy oak door behind them, the sound echoing in the expansive corridor of the old house.
“Thank you,” Vanessa said quietly when they were back on the paved circular drive in front of her childhood home.
“For?”
“For saying that stuff. For making it sound like some of the good ideas were mine.” She expelled the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “I don’t think any of them were.”
Lazaro opened the passenger door of his dark blue sports car and she sank inside, letting the soft leather seats absorb some of her tension.
He rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat, putting the key into the ignition and turning the engine on.
When they were on the maple-lined highway, headed back into Boston, Lazaro flicked her a glance. “Why exactly do you work so hard to please him?”
“I …” She looked out the window and focused on the trees, watching them blur into a steady stream of color. “He’s all I have. My mother died when I was four. And my brother died when I was thirteen. Thomas was going to take over the company. He was brilliant. He would have done an amazing job. But without him … there was only me.” She turned to face him. “It’s up to me, Lazaro. I can’t be the one that fails.”
“Do you love what you do?”
“Do you?”
He laughed. “I love the money that it brings in. And yes, I like solving problems. Fixing things. Making them run better.”
“I don’t love what I do. I have to take antacids when I get up in the morning,” she said. She’d never said that out loud to anyone. She’d never even fully admitted to herself that she was unhappy, that she didn’t like what she was doing. She was the CEO of a much-lauded company and saying she would rather do almost anything else seemed ridiculous. But it was true.
It was also too late. Her course had been set since she was thirteen. She knew there were plenty of people who would have walked away. People who would have pursued the life they wanted. But there was such a weight on her, a burden of responsibility. She couldn’t turn her back on it.
If not for her father, then for Thomas’s memory.
“And before you ask why I do it,” she said, “I’ll just tell you. Because how could I be the one to put an end to a legacy? How could I let it be my fault? Because Pickett Industries has to keep going, for my eventual children as much as for my father and for the memory of my brother. I do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
She took her phone out of her pocket and fiddled with the touch screen, moving icons around with her thumb. “My father will accept the marriage because he has no other choice. But the bluster was kind of a necessity for him. It’s how he is.”
“I know,” Lazaro said, his voice hard, his grip tight on t
he wheel.
Vanessa looked down at the ring on her finger and turned the phone camera on, snapping a picture of the diamond glittering in the late-afternoon sunlight.
“What would you do if you could do something else?” Lazaro asked.
She smiled. “I would take pictures.”
“Of what?”
She leaned her head back against the seat and let the soft leather ease away some of her tension. “Everything.”
“You might find the time to do that someday. Maybe not of everything, but … of some things.”
She forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile. “Maybe. Maybe when all of this gets sorted out, and things settle down in the company I’ll have time.”
“You will.”
“No one else knows that,” she said, realizing it as she spoke the words.
“That can only be a good thing. Shouldn’t a husband know things about his wife no one else knows?”
Heat made her skin prickle. “I suppose so.” That made her think of sexy things. Erotic things. Things that made her lips tingle with the memory of his kiss. “But it isn’t like we’re going to have a real marriage.”
“What will be unreal about it?” he asked.
Only the very core of the union. But of course, he didn’t seem overly concerned with that detail. “Well, we don’t love each other.”
“No.” Something about the way he said it, so matter of fact, so logical, made her chest ache. Maybe because there had been a time when she’d loved him, so much, with everything she had. It seemed like yesterday and another lifetime all at once.
She put her sunglasses on, all the better to avoid his eyes. “So that’s the part that makes it seem … not real.”
“You didn’t love that purebred you were supposed to marry.”
His choice of words made her snort. “No. I barely knew him. But I didn’t really … I tried not to think about it.”
“This is no different.”
It was different. It was different because, with Lazaro, she wanted things. Things no other man had ever made her want. At sixteen, loving him had made her feel that the whole world was open to her. As if she could do anything. Be anyone. Not just Vanessa Pickett of the Picketts of Boston.
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