by Penny Jordan
‘Tamara, listen to me,’ he said at last, cupping her face and forcing her bewildered pain-filled eyes to meet his. ‘I’m not doing this to hurt you, whatever you think now. Hurt you—God,’ he swore fluently, ‘don’t you think it’s tearing the guts out of me, being like this with you, knowing …’ He caught himself up and said quietly, ‘You already know why I was on St Stephen’s. I was trying to come to terms with what had happened in Africa, and the last thing I wanted was my peace of mind shattered by a sexy creature in a minute bikini, whose body drove mine wild, and whose eyes promised innocence combined with the lure of Eve, so I told myself that it was all a deliberate ploy to lead me on, and I kept on telling myself that, all the time ignoring every scrap of evidence to the contrary.
‘When we were imprisoned together I told myself it wouldn’t make any difference, and that what I felt for you was the result of mere propinquity, but propinquity, no matter how effective, never drove any man to want to kill another simply for looking at a woman. Do you remember when we escaped from the caves?’
‘Yes.’ Tamara shuddered. ‘That man …’
‘I knew that was our only chance of escape, but you’ll never know what it cost me to force you to do it. I think I knew then, not only how innocent you were, but that I was falling in love with you, but I wouldn’t admit it, instead I punished you for daring to breach my defences, albeit completely unwittingly.
‘Even when I took your virginity.’ He saw the colour flood up under her skin, and smiled, wryly. ‘Not a pleasant memory for either of us, I suspect. One half of me loathed myself for what I’d done, while the other struggled to excuse my behaviour by insisting that you were a shrewd tactician, using your virginity as a bargaining counter.
‘I thought I was getting over you when I left you behind in the Caribbean—a cowardly action if ever there was one. Having carried you through that forest in my arms, having lain at your side, bathing your fever-soaked body, I knew I was dangerously close to succumbing completely and begging you to marry me—and then you appeared at the Mellors’. The shock almost drove me out of my mind, especially when I discovered that you were engaged to their son.’
‘I broke off our engagement the moment Malcolm returned home,’ Tamara told him softly, ‘but he persuaded me to pretend we were still engaged just for that weekend. He didn’t want to ruin his parents’ plans for the weekend.’
‘Instead of which he almost discovered me on the point of making love to you,’ Zach concluded grimly, his eyes fixed firmly on her soft lips as he added huskily, ‘It’s a pity he didn’t, because if I’d made love to you then I’d never have been able to let you go and we’d have avoided all these weeks of misery and anguish. It was after that weekend that I faced the truth—that I loved you and that you were the innocent you seemed; an innocence I myself had destroyed. I thought you were engaged to Mellors, but I told myself engagements could be broken; I even contemplated telling him the truth, and wiping the smug smile of satisfaction off his face when I told him that I’d possessed you, felt your body quicken with desire—and then came that damned lunch, and I discovered you were pregnant,’ Zach said flatly. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do the most—kill you, kill Mellors, or kill myself.’
‘I was terrified you would discover the truth; that you would think I was using the baby to force you into a relationship you didn’t want, so I let you think it was Malcolm’s,’ Tamara confessed.
‘Even thinking that you were carrying his child didn’t alter the way I felt about you. I forced you to come and work for me, but having you so close and yet so distant nearly drove me out of my mind. I wanted to punish you; to have you beg me to make love to you; to have you admit that you cared nothing for Mellors. That afternoon when I came back and found you asleep from exhaustion …’
‘I wanted you to make love to me then,’ Tamara admitted softly, ‘but I was terrified of betraying how I felt about you, and then there was Julie …’
‘An old friend,’ Zach shrugged her aside as unimportant. ‘I admit that I did put her up to it, in the hope that she might make you jealous.’
‘Well, you certainly succeeded,’ Tamara told him wryly.
‘I could have throttled Mellors when he damn near let that horse savage you. I wanted to ask him if he cared the slightest about you or your child.’
‘I was terrified you would say something to him,’ Tamara admitted, ‘I was so thankful to see Nigel.’
‘Yes, so I noticed.’
‘It wasn’t very fair of you to go to the Board over his head,’ Tamara reproached him.
‘I was a man in love, and as such fairness never entered into it. When I received Dot’s letter, I could hardly believe my eyes. What did I think of you breaking your engagement? she asked me.’
‘I heard you asking Nigel about it,’ Tamara admitted. ‘I was terrified that once you knew the truth about my engagement you’d put one and one together, and …’
‘Come up with three?’ Zach suggested softly, his eyes smiling as he glanced at the soft swell of her stomach.
‘Zach, you don’t have to feel responsible …’ she began uncertainly. ‘You …’
‘Why the hell not?’ Zach demanded. ‘I am responsible, I want to be responsible.’ His voice shook suddenly. ‘Tamara, haven’t you the faintest idea of how it makes me feel to know that that’s my child growing inside you; to know that no other man has ever touched you or known you as I have? It’s primitive and old-fashioned, and if you’d asked me six months ago I’d have said I didn’t give a damn about virginity and certainly never expected it in my wife—and I still think it’s morally wrong for any man to expect a standard of behaviour from a woman that he hasn’t held to himself, but as I said, taking you, knowing that I was the first, teaching you to respond to me, touched something elemental deep inside me, inside most men, I suppose; something that goes way beyond civilisation and logic. I love you,’ he whispered huskily, ‘and I can’t think of anything my life has held that means more to me than loving you. That first time,’ he said abruptly, changing the subject. ‘If I hurt you …’
‘Fleetingly,’ Tamara told him. ‘And I wanted you so badly it didn’t matter.’
‘And the baby?’ Zach pressed, anxiety lying at the back of his eyes.
‘Can’t you guess? He’s the most important thing in my life,’ Tamara teased, adding quickly, ‘After his father, of course.’
Her muscles contracted as Zach bent his head to kiss her rounded belly; all that was feminine and instinctive within her rising up to meet the sensual promise of his touch.
‘Mine,’ Zach murmured slowly, and Tamara knew he wasn’t merely referring to the life she held cradled within her. ‘You realise, of course, that his arrival is likely to arouse a certain amount of speculation and gossip?’
Tamara shrugged. ‘Lots of couples don’t marry these days …’
‘But we aren’t going to be among them,’ Zach told her flintily. ‘What I meant was that his arrival so speedily after our marriage will be talked about. We won’t even be able to pretend he’s premature.’
‘I don’t care,’ Tamara told him, amazed to realise that it was perfectly true. ‘I’m not ashamed of what happened between us; it was the most beautiful thing in my life, and I treasured it because I knew I would never experience it again.’
‘Then you knew wrong, didn’t you?’ Zach told her throatily, drawing her down against him and letting her feel the aroused heat of his desire. ‘As I’m going to prove to you just as soon as you promise me that you’ll marry me as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘And if I don’t?’ Tamara teased,
She felt him draw slightly away, his eyes darkening. ‘If you don’t then it will be a solitary memory,’ he told her flatly. ‘I want you as my wife, Tamara, as the mother of my children—not someone to share the odd night of pleasure with. I want all or nothing, so which is it to be?’
Her open arms and shining eyes gave him his answer, and as his arms
tightened around her Tamara gave herself up to the fierce pleasure of his possession, knowing for the first time that it was born of love.
* * * * *
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PENNY JORDAN,
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CHAPTER ONE
“THE THING IS, Mr. Valenti, I’m pregnant.”
Renzo Valenti, heir to the Valenti family real estate fortune, known womanizer and chronic overindulger, stared down at the stranger standing in his entryway.
He had never seen the woman before in his life. Of that he was nearly one hundred percent certain.
He did not associate with women like this. Women who looked like they had spent a hot, sweaty afternoon traipsing through the streets of Rome, rather than a hot, sweaty afternoon tangled in silk sheets.
She was red-cheeked and disheveled, her face void of makeup, long dark hair half falling out of a bun that looked like an afterthought.
She was dressed the same as many American college students who flooded the city in the summer. She was wearing a form-fitting black tank top and a long, ankle-length skirt that nearly covered her dusty feet and flat, unremarkable sandals that appeared to be falling apart.
Had she been walking by him outside, he would never have paid her any notice. Except she was in his home. And she had just said words to him no woman had said to him since he was sixteen years old.
But they meant nothing, as she meant nothing.
“Congratulations. Or condolences,” he said. “Depending.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No,” he said, his voice cutting through the relative silence of the grand antechamber. “I don’t. You practically burst into my home telling my housekeeper you had to see me, and now here you are, having pushed your way in.”
“I didn’t push my way in. Luciana was more than happy to let me in.”
He would never fire his housekeeper. And the unfortunate thing was, the older woman knew it. So when she had let a hysterical girl into his home, he had a feeling she considered it punishment for his notorious behavior with the opposite sex.
Which was not fair. This little creature—who looked as though she would be most at home sitting on a sidewalk in the vicinity of Haight-Ashbury, playing an acoustic guitar for coins—might well be some man’s unholy punishment. But she wasn’t his.
“Regardless, you’re not drawing this out and making a show, and I have no patience for either.”
“It’s your baby.”
He laughed. There was absolutely no other response for such an outrageous statement. And there was no other way to remove the strange weight, the strange tension that gripped him when she spoke the words.
He knew why it affected him. But it should not.
He could imagine no circumstance under which he would touch such a ridiculous little hippie. And even so, he had just spent the past six months devoted to the world’s most obscene farce of a marriage.
And though Ashley had been devoted to the pleasure of both herself—and other men—during their union, he had been faithful.
A woman with a small baby bump, barely showing beneath that skin-tight top, claiming to be carrying his child could be absolutely nothing but ridiculous to him.
He’d had nothing at all but six months of fights, dodging vases flung in a rage by his crazy wife—who seemed to do her best to demolish the stereotype that Canadians were a nice and polite people—and then days on end of ridiculous cooing like he was some kind of pet she was trying to tame again after a sound beating.
Little realizing that he was not a man to be tamed, and never had been. He had married Ashley to make a point to his parents, and for no other reason. As of yesterday, he was divorced and free again.
Free to take this little backpacker in any way he wanted to, if he so chose.
Though, she would find the only place he wanted to take her was out the front door, and back onto the streets she had come from.
“That, you will find, is impossible, cara mia.” Her eyes went round, liquid, shock and pain visible. What had she imagined would happen? That he would fall for this ruse? That she would find her salvation in him? “I can see how you would build some strange fantasy around the idea I might be your best bet for help,” he said, attempting to keep his tone calm. “I have a reputation with women. But I have also been married for the past six months. So whatever man is responsible for knocking you up in a bar crawling with tourists and never calling again? He is not me, nor will you ever con me into believing it is. I am divorced now, but in the time I was married I was faithful to my wife.”
“Ashley,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Ashley Bettencourt.”
He was stunned, but only momentarily, by her usage of his wife’s name. It was common knowledge, so of course if she knew about him, she would know about Ashley. But if she knew he was married, why not choose an easier target?
“Yes. Very good,” he said. “You’re up on your tabloid reading, I see.”
“No, I know Ashley. She’s actually the person I met in a bar crawling with tourists. She’s the one who knocked me up.”
Renzo felt like he’d been punched in the chest. “Excuse me? None of what you’re saying makes sense.”
The little woman growled, lifting her hands and gripping her head for a moment before throwing them back down at her sides, curling her fingers into fists. “I am…I am trying. But I thought you would know who I was!”
“Why would I know who you are?” he asked, feeling at a loss.
“I just… Oh, I should never have listened to her. But I was… I am just as stupid as my dad thinks I am!” She was practically wailing now, and he had to admit, this farce was inventive even if it was damned disruptive to his day.
“Right at this moment I’m on your father’s side, cara, and I will remain so until you have offered me an explanation that falls somewhere short of being as stupid as my ex-wife getting you pregnant.”
“Ashley hired me. I was working at a bar down by the Colosseum, and she and I started talking. She was telling me about the issues in your marriage and the trouble you were having conceiving…”
The words made his gut twist. He and Ashley had never attempted to conceive. By the time they’d gotten to a place where they might discuss giving him an heir to his empire, he’d already decided that no amount of shock value made her worth it as a wife.
“I thought it was weird, her talking to me like that. But she came back the next night, and the next. We talked about how I ended up in Italy and how I had no money…” She blinked. “And then she asked me if I would consider being her surrogate.”
Pressure built in Renzo’s chest until it exploded. English deserted him entirely, a string of vulgar Italian flowing from his lips like a foul river. “I don’t believe it. This is some trick that bitch has put you up to.”
“It’s not. I promise you it isn’t. I had no idea that you didn’t know. No idea at all. It was all very… What she said… It made sense. And…and she said it would be easy. Just a quick trip to Santa Firenze, where the procedure is legal, and then I just have to…be the oven. I was supposed to get paid to make the bread, so to speak, and then…well, give it to the person I…baked it for. Someone who wanted the baby desperately enough to ask for help from a stranger.”
Panic tore through Renzo like a wild beast, savaging his chest, his throat. Making it impossible to breathe. What she was saying was impossible. It had to be. Mostly.
But she wouldn’t have done this. She couldn’t have. Still, he pressed.
“It made sense to you that a woman pursued surrogacy, and claimed to have a husband whom you never saw?”
“She said that it would be impossible for you to come to the clinic. She could only do it because she wore large sunglasses and a hat. She said that you were far too recognizable. She said you were very tall.” She swept her hand up and down. “You are. Obviously. You don’t blend. Not even sunglasses would disguise… You know what I mean.”
“I know nothing. It has become apparent to me over the past few minutes that I know less than I thought. That snake talked you into this. How much did she pay you?”
“Well, she hasn’t given me everything yet.”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “Is that so? I hope that final price is a high one.”
“Well, the problem is that Ashley said she doesn’t want the baby anymore. Because of the problems that you’re having.”
“Problems?” The question was incredulous. “Does she mean our divorce?”
“I… I guess.”
“So, you did some cursory research on us, and then no more?”
“I don’t have internet at the hostel,” she said flatly.
“You live in a hostel?”
“Yes,” she said, her cheeks turning a darker shade of pink. “I was just passing through. And I ran out of money. Took a job at a bar, and I’ve been here longer than I anticipated. Then I met Ashley about three months ago.”