His Merciless Marriage Bargain

by Jane Porter

  His arm fell away but his fingers remained low on her spine, creating insistent pressure as he marched her up the sweeping marble stairs to a formal salon on the second floor. The doors again magically closed behind them and only then did Giovanni’s hand leave her.

  She felt more than a little lost as she glanced around a room that could only be described as magnificent. More glittering chandeliers lined the ceiling, with matching sconces on the wall. Tall windows overlooked the canal while massive framed mirrors covered portions of the walls, the antique mirrors reflecting the gray light outside, highlighting the frescoed and plasterwork ceiling.

  Rachel was out of her element but she’d never let him know. It was bad enough that he thought she’d enjoyed his kiss.

  “Who has Michael?” she asked, standing stiffly in the center of the room. “Can you send for him?”

  “No.” Giovanni gestured for her to sit. “We have quite a lot to discuss before he joins us.”

  “We can talk once he’s back with me.”

  “You left him here. I’m not about to just hand him over as if he were a lost wallet or umbrella.”

  “You know why I did that.”

  “I know you’re an impulsive woman—”

  “You could not be more wrong. I am a very calm person—” She went quiet as she saw the lift on his eyebrow. “You’re making me upset. You’ve been impossible from the start.”

  “We’ve only just met, and it was not an auspicious first meeting, with you abandoning an infant on my doorstep, and then running from the scene.”

  Rachel clamped her jaw tight to keep from speaking too quickly, aware that every word could and would be used against her. She fought to control the pitch and tone of her voice. “I did not abandon him. I would not ever abandon him. I love him.”

  “Odd way of showing it, don’t you think?”

  “I was trying to get your attention.”

  “And now you have it.” He gestured again toward the silk upholstered chair and sofa. “May I help you with your coat?”

  “No, thank you. I won’t be staying long.”

  He gave her an odd look, his lips twisting as if amused. “Are you sure you won’t be more comfortable?”

  “I’ll be more comfortable when I have the baby.”

  “He’s in good hands at the moment, and we have a great deal to discuss before he joins us. So I do suggest you try to be comfortable, since the conversation probably won’t be.” Gio’s gaze rested intently on her face before dropping to study the rest of her. “It’s been an unusually eventful morning. I’m sending for a coffee. Would you like one?”

  She shook her head, and then changed her mind. “Yes, please.”

  He reached for his phone from a pocket and shot off a message. “Coffee should be here soon,” he said, sitting down in the pale blue silk armchair facing the upholstered sofa. He stretched his legs before him, looking at ease. “Are you quite certain you wish to stand for the rest of the day?”

  His tone was lazy, almost indulgent, and it provoked her more than if he’d spoken to her sternly. She felt her face flush and her body warm. “I certainly have no intention of being here more than a half hour at most.”

  “You think we can sort out Michael’s future in thirty minutes or less?”

  He sounded pleasant and reasonable, too reasonable, and it put her on guard, hands clenching at her sides, knuckles aching with the tightness of the grip. He was easier to fight when he was defensive and angry. Now she felt as if she were the difficult one.

  It wasn’t fair but clearly he didn’t play by any rules but his own.

  Drawing a quick breath, she sat down on the edge of the small wood framed sofa, the elegant and delicate shape popular hundreds of years ago, the silver silk fabric gleaming with bits of red and pale blue threads.

  She folded her hands in her lap, waiting for him to speak. It was a tactic that worked well with her wealthy clients. They preferred being in control, and they felt most in control when they could dictate the conversation. She’d let Gio direct the conversation. He’d think he was in charge that way and she could use the time to regroup and plan.

  But Giovanni was in no hurry to speak. He leaned back in his chair, legs extended, and watched her.

  There was no sound in the grand room. No ticking clock. No creaking of any sort. Just silence, and the silence was excruciating.

  Her pulse quickened as time stretched, lengthening, testing her patience. Her nerves felt wound to a breaking point. She exhaled hard. “If we don’t speak it will definitely take longer than a half hour to sort out Michael’s future,” she said shortly, irritated beyond reason with Giovanni. He was playing a game with her even now, and it made her impossibly angry.

  “I was giving you time to compose yourself,” he answered with a faint smile. “You were trembling so much earlier I thought you could use a bit of time for rest and reflection.”

  “It was cold and damp and windy outside. I was freezing, thus the shivers. It’s a natural reaction when chilled.”

  “Are you cold now?”

  “No, this room is heated. It’s quite nice in here.”

  One of his black brows lifted ever so slightly but he didn’t speak, and her stomach did a nervous flip-flop.

  He was toying with her deliberately. She was certain he wanted to make her uneasy. But why? Did he think she’d collapse into tears? She didn’t like the silence but it was preferable to being held and touched. She had an excellent head for business and had proven herself remarkably good at establishing and maintaining professional relationships, but personal relationships, those were problematic.

  She hadn’t dated enough when she was younger. Although it’d be tempting to blame the opposite sex for failing to notice her, it wasn’t entirely true. She lacked confidence and had failed to put herself out there. Dating seemed to require too much energy and effort, with too many ups and downs to make the dashed dreams and rejection worthwhile.

  Instead she focused on work, pouring herself into the job, earning promotions and bonuses as well as praise from senior management. While other young women her age were busy falling in love and needing time off for romantic weekends and holidays, she closed deals and made AeroDynamics money and found tremendous satisfaction in being the one everyone could count on for being there and doing what needed to be done.

  Which was all very good and well at the corporate office, but sitting here in this enormous room, facing a tall, handsome, charismatic Italian, she was secretly terrified. She could sell a man a thirty-million-dollar airplane, but she fell apart when kissed, especially if the kiss was dark and sexual, destroying all rational thought.

  “The silence is soothing, is it not?” she asked, struggling to sound as relaxed as he appeared.

  He seemed to check a smile, grooves bracketing his firm mouth. “Indeed.”

  “I hope we can drink our coffee in silence. Silence makes everything better,” she added, frustration growing. “Especially when it’s in such an impressive room.” She glanced around the salon, the proportions alone overwhelming, never mind the grand paintings and light fixtures. “I suppose you hoped to intimidate me by bringing me here to your grand salon.”

  “This is not by any means my most impressive room. It’s actually one of the smaller salons on this floor, considered by most to be intimate and welcoming.” His lashes dropped, concealing the intense blue of his eyes. “It’s my mother’s favorite. If she were here, she’d serve you coffee here.”

  Embarrassed, Rachel bit her lip and glanced away, more self-conscious and resentful than ever. Two weeks ago, when her private investigator gave her Giovanni’s address and she realized she’d have to come to Venice to get him to meet with her, she’d pictured meeting him somewhere neutral and public, perhaps at her hotel in one of the cheerful pleasant rooms downstairs, or maybe a quiet restaurant tucked away off the more public thoroughfares.

  She’d imagined he’d be proud and arrogant, possibly grim and unsmilin
g. It hadn’t once crossed her mind that he’d kiss her, and then walk her into his home and shut the door and create this awful air of privacy. Intimacy. She swallowed hard and struggled to think of something to say. “Does your mother live here?”

  “Part of the year. During the winter she likes to go to her sister’s in Sorrento.” He rose from his chair and walked toward the wall of tall windows, pausing before one window, his gaze fixed intently on a distant point.

  She wondered if he was looking for the photographers, or if there was something else happening on the lagoon. She used the opportunity to study him. He was easily six-two, maybe taller, and his shoulders were broad, his spine long, tapering to a lean waist and powerful legs. Even from the back he crackled with authority and power. He was not the recluse she’d imagined.

  Still staring out, Gio added, “I confess, I’m surprised you never reached out to her. I would have thought that in your desperation you would have approached her. Who to better love and accept a bambino than the grandmother?”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “I did reach out.”

  He turned to look at her. “And?”

  “She wasn’t interested.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “No. She never responded.”

  “She probably didn’t get your messages then.”

  “I didn’t just call. I wrote letters, too.”

  “All sent to the Marcello corporate office in Rome?”

  Rachel nodded.

  His shoulders shifted. “Then that is why she didn’t receive them. Anything to my mother would go to my assistant, and my assistant wouldn’t forward.”

  “Why not? It was important correspondence.”

  “My assistant was under strict instructions to not disturb my mother with anything troubling, or upsetting. My mother hasn’t been well for a while.”

  “I would imagine that she’d be delighted to discover that Antonio had left a piece of him behind.”

  “I can’t—and won’t—get her hopes up, not if she is being used, or manipulated.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to her.”

  “No? You wouldn’t have asked her for money if she’d responded? You wouldn’t have demanded support?” He saw her expression and smiled grimly. “You would have, and you know it. I do, too, which is why I had to protect her, and shield her from stress.”

  “I would think that having a beautiful grandson—Antonio’s son—in her arms would help her heal.”

  “If the child in question really was Antonio’s...maybe.”

  “Michael is Antonio’s.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “I have proof.”

  “DNA tests?” he mocked, walking again, now prowling the perimeter of the room. “I’ll do my own, thank you.”

  “Good. Do them. I’ve been waiting for you to do your own!”

  He paused, arms crossing over his chest. “And if he is Antonio’s, what then?”

  “You accept him,” she said.

  His dark head tipped as he considered her. “Accept him. What does that even mean?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it without making a sound. Her heart did an uneven thump and suddenly it hurt to breathe. Michael needed support—not just financial, but emotional. She wanted to be sure Michael wasn’t forgotten, not by her family, or Antonio’s.

  It was bad enough that Michael had been left an orphan within months of his birth, but the way Juliet died... It was wrong, and it continued to eat at Rachel because she hadn’t understood how badly Juliet was doing. She’d been oblivious to the depth of Juliet’s despair. Rachel could now write an entire pamphlet on postpartum depression, but back in November and December she hadn’t understood it, and she hadn’t been properly sympathetic. Instead of getting Juliet medical help, she’d given her sister tough love, and it was absolutely the wrong thing to do.

  It had only made everything so much worse. It was without exaggeration, the beginning of the end. And it was all Rachel’s fault.

  Rachel had failed Juliet when her sister needed her most.

  CHAPTER THREE

  GIOVANNI WATCHED RACHEL’S eyes fill with tears and her lips part, then seal shut, her teeth biting down into the soft lower lip as though she was fighting to stay in control.

  He didn’t buy the act, as it was an act.

  Adelisa had been the same. Beautiful, bright and spirited, she’d captured his heart from the start. He’d proposed before the end of the first year, and delighted in buying her the pretty—but expensive—trinkets her heart desired.

  Her heart desired many.

  Diamonds and rubies, emeralds and sapphires—jewels she ended up liquidating almost as quickly as he gave them to her. Not that he knew what happened to them until much later.

  His family warned him that Adelisa was using him. His mother came to him privately on three different occasions, sharing her fears, and then reporting on rumors that Adelisa had been seen with other men, but he didn’t believe it. He was sure Adelisa loved him. She wore his engagement ring. She was eagerly planning their wedding. Why would she betray him?

  Six months later he heard about a pair of stunning diamond earrings for sale, a pair rumored to come from the Marcello family. He tracked down the earrings and the jeweler, and they were a pair of a set he’d given Adelisa the night of their engagement party. They were worth millions of dollars, but more than that, they were family heirlooms and something he gave with his heart.

  He was stunned, and worse, humiliated. His mother had been right. He’d been duped. And everyone seemed to have known the truth but him.

  It’d been ten years since that humiliation, but Gio still avoided love and emotional entanglements. Far better to enjoy a purely physical relationship than be played for a fool. And now his narrowed gaze swept over Rachel, from the classic oval shape of her pretty face to the glossy length of her ponytail with the windswept tendrils. She was neither tall nor petite, but average height and an average build, although in her dark coat, which hit just above her black knee-high leather boots, she looked polished and pretty.

  He didn’t want her to be pretty, though. He didn’t want to find anything about her attractive or desirable, and yet he was aware of her, just as he was aware that beneath her winter coat, there were curves, generous curves, because he’d felt them when he’d drawn her against him, her body pressed to his. “So what is your plan?” he asked tautly. “Have you sorted out how you intend to get us to accept the child? Because a family is not just DNA. A family is nurture, and relationships, and those develop over years. You can’t simply force one to accept an outsider—”

  “Michael is not an outsider. He’s Antonio’s son.” She’d gone pale, her expression strained. “And my sister’s son,” she added after a half beat, “and I know you have no love for my sister, but she cared for your brother, deeply—”

  “We’re in private now. You can drop the script. There’s no need for theatrics.”

  “You don’t even know the facts.”

  “I know enough.”

  “Well, I thought I did, too, but I was wrong, and Juliet’s no longer here because I got it wrong. Michael has no one but us and you can think what you want of Juliet, and me, but I insist you give him a chance—” She broke off as the door opened and a young, slim, dark-haired woman entered carrying a huge, ornate silver tray filled with silver pots and smaller sterling silver dishes along with a pair of china cups and saucers.

  Rachel was grateful for the interruption. She needed a moment to compose herself. She still felt so rattled by his kisses. There had been nothing light or friendly in the way he took her mouth, claiming her as if she belonged to him, shaping her to his frame. She did not belong to him, and to have his tongue stroke the inside of her mouth, creating the dark seductive rhythm that made her body ache—

  The sound of Giovanni speaking to the maid broke her train of thought. Heart thudding, Rachel knotted her hands in her lap, realizing she hadn�
�t just gotten Giovanni’s attention, she’d given him control. She’d wanted his assistance, but clearly help would be on his terms, not hers.

  The young maid placed the silver tray on a table next to the couch, not far from where Rachel was sitting, before leaving.

  Giovanni crossed to take one espresso and handed her the other.

  Rachel took the small cup and saucer. “When will you permit Michael to join us?”

  “As soon as he’s finished his bottle.”

  “He’s awake then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s okay?”

  “Apparently my staff is already besotted with him. Anna said the girls are fighting over who is to hold him next.”

  “Allow me to resolve the argument. Send for him, and I’ll hold him.”

  “You haven’t had your coffee yet.”

  “I can multitask.”

  “And deprive my staff of the opportunity to kiss and cuddle a baby?”

  “But by keeping him from me, you deprive me.”

  “Is it such a deprivation?” Gio’s voice was pitched low. “I would think it’s a relief. Your letters made it sound as if you were at your wit’s end—exhausted, and overwhelmed, close to breaking.”

  She flushed. “You read my letters.”

  “As did my attorneys.”

  Heat rushed down her neck, flooding her limbs. “So you were stonewalling me.”

  “I had my own investigation to do.”

  “You took your time.”

  “I don’t respond well to threats.”

  “I never threatened you!”

  “Your letters demanded I act before I was prepared to—”

  “This isn’t about you! It’s about a child who has lost both his parents. It’s selfish to deny him a chance at a better life.”

  “We’ve returned to the material demands, haven’t we?”

  “Material is only part of it. There is the cultural aspect, as well. The baby might have been born in Seattle but he is only half-American, and he needs to know you, his father’s family. He needs to be part of you.”

  “Why aren’t you enough?”

  “I’m not Italian, or Venetian.”