by Jennie Lucas
“Of course,” she replied warmly, trying to make up for her husband’s rudeness. “We will never forget all your kindness.”
“Not kindness,” Giuseppe insisted, patting Scarlett’s shoulder. “Family.”
She swallowed, blinking fast. “You’ve all been so wonderful...”
“Ciao.” Vin grabbed Scarlett’s wrist and pulled her away. She waved back at them, and they waved in return, until Vin and Scarlett were out of the villa and in the fresh air outside. The bodyguards were packing their luggage into the SUV.
“That was rude,” Scarlett said to Vin as he helped her into the passenger side of the two-seater.
Vin’s face was chilly as he climbed in beside her, starting up the engine. “You asked me to stop here for ten minutes, and we stayed for five days. What did you want, cara—to live here permanently?”
Without looking back, Vin pressed on the gas, driving around the stone fountain with a squeal of tires.
Twisting her head, Scarlett saw a crowd had poured out of the villa’s front door to wave goodbye and cry out their good wishes. “Vin, wait!”
He ignored her, pressing down harder on the gas pedal until they were on the cypress-lined road, out of the villa’s view, and all she could see were the bodyguards following in the big SUV behind them.
“What is wrong with you?” Scarlett demanded as she faced forward in her seat, folding her arms over her belly. “Why are you acting like this?”
“I’m not acting like anything. We stayed for the wedding. I thanked them for their kindness. It’s time to go.”
“We were rude! After everything they did for us—”
“Send them a thank-you card,” he said harshly.
Gripping the wheel of the car, he made record time down the tree-lined road across the wide Tuscan fields, and they soon returned to the main road.
Scarlett was fuming. Arms folded tightly, she glared out her window, lips pressed tightly together. The interior of the car was silent for a long time, until they were back on the heavily trafficked autostrada headed south toward Rome.
“Stop pouting,” he said coldly.
“I’m not.” She continued to glare out the window at the passing Italian countryside. “I’m mad, which is something else entirely.”
“Stop being mad, then.” He paused. “I meant to tell you. I got you a wedding present.”
Her jaw tightened, but she still refused to look at him.
“It isn’t a gift that I could wrap,” he continued, obviously counting on her curiosity to overcome her fury. “It’s something I did for you.”
“Well?” Wiping her eyes, Scarlett turned her glare on him. “What is it?”
Dodging through the increasing traffic of the highway, he said, “Blaise Falkner.”
She frowned. “What about Blaise?”
Vin gave her a triumphant sideways glance. “I’ve ruined him.” His lips spread into a grin. “He’ll never be able to threaten you again. Or anyone.”
Scarlett stared at Vin, feeling hollow. “What do you mean, you ruined him?”
“He’s penniless, disgraced, destroyed. Abandoned by his friends. Even the Falkner mansion is getting repossessed in New York. So he’s also homeless.” Vin turned dark eyes on her. “I did it for you.”
“I never asked for that!”
His jaw was hard as he focused on the road. “I protect what is mine.”
Scarlett shivered, hearing an echo of memory.
What century do you think we’re living in?
The century a rich man can do whatever he wants. To whomever he wants.
As the red car sped down the highway, she felt her belly again tighten painfully. It had been doing that with increasing frequency. Stress would do that, she told herself. It was stress. Not the early signs of labor.
She breathed, “What did you do?”
“Falkner wasn’t as rich as people thought.” Vin changed lanes rapidly, rather than slow down with the traffic. He gave a smug, masculine smile. “His inheritance barely covered half his debt. He refused to work and was spending thousands of dollars every night for bottle service in clubs. And women. I merely made sure his lines of credit were not extended and allowed his true financial situation to become public.”
“You used your influence with the banks?”
“I’m a very good customer.”
“And dropped hints to some aggressive reporter?”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I believe in freedom of the press.”
“But how did you get his friends to abandon him?”
“Ah, that was the easiest part. Half of them only endured his company because he always footed the bill. He owed the other half money. Once he was broke—no more friends.”
Scarlett might have felt bad for Blaise Falkner, if she didn’t still remember the terror she’d felt when he’d threatened to take her baby away and force her into marriage.
But still...
“Revenge is wrong,” she said in a low voice.
“You’re angry?” Now Vin was the one to look shocked. His expression turned hard. “He deserved it. He deserved worse.”
Vin’s expression scared her. He didn’t look like the good-hearted man she’d come to know in Tuscany. He looked like the ruthless billionaire she’d fled in New York.
She felt tension building in her body. She put her hands on her baby bump and felt the muscles of her belly harden. Like a contraction. She took a quick breath. “You could have...just left him alone.”
“I have the right to protect my family.”
“We aren’t in danger! We’re thousands of miles away!” She took another deep breath, trying to will her body to calm down, to relax. If she could, then maybe these contractions would stop. “It was revenge, pure and simple.”
“What do you want, Scarlett?” His black eyes flashed. “Should I have bought the man a pony, tucked him in with milk and cookies, thanked him for the way he threatened my wife and child? Is that what you think?”
“I think—” Her breathing was becoming increasingly difficult. She was beginning to feel shooting pains radiating from her lower spine with increasing frequency. Then—
She sucked in her breath as she felt a sudden rush, a sticky mess. She looked down at her cream satin wedding dress in dismay. At the expensive black leather seat below it.
She whispered, “I think I’m in labor.”
“You—” His hard voice abruptly changed in tone. “What?”
“My water just broke.”
Scarlett felt scared. Really scared. She looked at her husband. Vin stared at her, his dark eyes shocked.
Then his jaw tightened. “Don’t worry, Scarlett.” He grimly changed the gears of the Ferrari. “I’ll get you to the hospital.”
He stomped on the gas, and they thrust forward on the highway as if shot by a cannon. If she’d thought the car was going a little too fast before, now it went on wings, flying past the other cars like a bullet.
She braced herself, gripping her seat belt with one hand and her tightening belly with the other. Yet strangely, in this moment, her fear was gone.
Scarlett looked at her husband’s silhouette. Through the opposite window, she saw the darkening shadows of the Italian countryside flying past in smears of purple and red. And though she had been so terrified a moment before, she suddenly knew Vin, so capable and strong, would never let anything bad happen to her or their baby. He would protect them from any harm. Even death itself...
She glanced behind them. “We lost the bodyguards.”
“They’ll catch up.”
Scarlett held her belly as she gasped out with the pain of a bigger contraction. She felt Vin automatically tense beside her. Then she made the mistake of looking behind them again. “Oh, no—”
Vin glanced in the rearview mirror and saw flashing police lights. Scarlett saw him hesitate. She knew he was tempted to keep driving, even if every single policeman in Italy chased them.
But with a ro
ugh curse, he pulled abruptly off the autostrada.
The police car parked behind them. As Vin rolled down his window, the young policeman came forward, speaking in good-natured Italian. Vin interrupted, pointing at Scarlett in a desperate gesture. The man’s eyes widened when he saw her sticky wedding dress, as she gripped her belly and nearly sobbed with the pain.
Five minutes later, a police car was clearing their path with siren and flashing lights as their car roared south to the nearest hospital.
* * *
Standing in the bright morning light of their private room in the new, modern hospital, Vin cradled his newborn son in his arms, staring down at him in wonder.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he whispered to the baby, who was gently swaddled in a soft blue baby blanket. “You’ll always know I’m watching out for you.”
Vin looked up tenderly at his wife, who was also sleeping. Labor hadn’t been easy. She’d been too far along in her contractions to get any kind of epidural.
So her only option had been to just get through it, to breathe through each wave of agony that brought her closer to their baby being born. With each contraction, Scarlett had held Vin’s hand tight enough to bruise, looking up at him pleadingly from the bed. He’d tried to stay strong for her, to hide his own anguish at seeing her pain. All he could do was hold her hand and uselessly repeat, “Breathe!”
Now Vin looked at Scarlett in wonder. She’d been so strong. He’d never seen that kind of courage. As she slept, he saw the smudged hollows beneath her eyes, dark eyelashes resting against her pale cheeks, subdued red hair spilling on the pillow around her.
He looked back down at their baby’s tiny hand wrapped around his finger, and another wave of gratitude and love washed over him.
“Happy birthday,” he said to his son, smiling as he touched his small cheek with his fingertips. “I’m your papà.”
The baby kept sleeping.
Outside the hospital room window, Vin saw a beautiful October morning, a bright blue sky. He blinked, then yawned, stretching his shoulders as much as he could without disturbing the baby. What a night it had been.
Sitting down in a chair beside the hospital bed where his wife slept, Vin held the baby for an hour, watching over them. He brushed back his baby’s dark, downy hair, marveling at the tiny size of his head, his fragility. Vin could never let anything happen to his wife. Or his child.
His son would have a different childhood than he’d had. Vin’s own earliest memory in life was of crying himself to sleep after his nanny locked him in his bedroom when he started crying loudly for his mother. His mother hired servants based on their cheapness, not their reliability or kindness, and he was often left to their care for weeks while she enjoyed time with her latest boyfriend in St. Barts or Bora Bora.
Except on those rare nights Vin’s grandfather came to stay, no one ever comforted him when he heard a scary noise in the darkness or was frightened there was a monster under his bed. Vin had learned that the only way to survive was to be meaner than any monster. The only way to survive was to pretend not to be afraid.
But now, holding his son, Vin felt real fear. Because he knew that if this tiny baby was ever hurt, it would destroy him. It made him wonder how his own mother could have cared so much more for her momentary pleasures than her own son.
Vin took a deep breath. He’d be nothing like her. His son would always be his priority. From now on, that was his only duty. His only obligation. To keep his wife and child safe. He’d have to build an even bigger fortune, to protect them from worry or care. Vin’s heart squeezed. He had a family to protect now. And he would. With his dying breath.
“Vin.”
He looked up to see Scarlett’s tired eyes smiling up at him. She held out her hand, and he immediately took it.
“Look at our son,” he said softly. “The most beautiful baby in the world.”
“You’re not biased,” she teased.
He shook his head solemnly. “It’s not opinion. It’s fact—” he smoothed back the soft edge of the baby blanket “—as anyone with eyes could see. He’ll be a fighter, too.”
“Just like his father.”
It didn’t sound like criticism, but praise; and hearing that from her made him catch his breath. The golden light of morning flooded the bed and the white tile floor, casting it in a haze as their eyes locked for a long moment. Then, leaning forward, he gently kissed her.
When he pulled away, her green eyes were luminous. Then they turned anxious. “But, Vin, what about your meeting? The deal with Mediterranean Airlines?”
Vin’s jaw dropped. He’d forgotten. He’d totally forgotten about the meeting that was so important it had been circled in red on the calendar of his mind. He looked at the clock on the wall. He’d been so determined to get to Rome, and here he was, in a hospital just north of the city. The time was nine fifteen. The meeting had started at nine.
“Maybe you can still make it,” Scarlett said. “Give me the baby. We can have Larson or Beppe meet you outside. You still—”
“No.” His voice was quiet, but firm.
“Are you sure?” He could see the desperate hope in her eyes that he would stay, even as she said, “I know what this deal means to you. You should go.”
He wondered what it cost her to say that. Being abandoned in an Italian hospital outside Rome, exhausted and still recovering from her physical ordeal, with an hours-old baby, couldn’t be what she wanted. But she encouraged him because she wanted him to have what he desired most.
But for the first time, something compelled Vin more than his business, or money, or even power.
He couldn’t leave his wife and their newborn son. Not now. Not after everything he’d just seen Scarlett endure. Not when his baby was still so tiny and fragile and new.
His place wasn’t in a boardroom in Rome. His place was right here, keeping watch over the ones who depended on him far more than any employees or stockholders. The ones who really mattered. His family.
And if part of him was incredulous he was making this choice, even mocking him for it, he pushed that aside. “I’m staying.” He looked back at the baby. “What shall we call him?”
She looked at him with barely concealed relief, then smiled. “A name that has meaning in your family. If not Giuseppe, what about Vincenzo?”
“After me?” Vin shuddered, then shook his head. “Our baby deserves better. He must have a name of his own.” He thought for a moment, then said haltingly, “My nonno—my mother’s father—was very kind to me. He died when I was eight, but I never forgot him. He made Christmas special.” His lips quirked at the edges. “He said it was his job, because of his name. Nicolò.”
She considered. “Nicolas?”
Vin looked at his baby son’s face and nodded. “Nico,” he said softly. “I like it.”
For long moments, they held hands without speaking, Scarlett propped against pillows in the hospital bed and Vin cradling their baby in the chair beside her. He thought he’d maybe never been happier, or so at peace.
But it ended too soon as Ernest, his executive assistant, burst into the hospital room. “Sir, did you turn off your phone? I have been calling.”
“Obviously,” Vin said tightly, “I did not wish to be disturbed. Whatever the problem, you can handle it.”
“The deal just fell apart and the other CEO stormed out when you didn’t appear this morning. Everything is a shambles in the Rome office...”
As he spoke, a nurse bustled in and wanted to check over Scarlett and the baby. Nico himself began to complain that he was hungry and wanted his mother.
As Scarlett eagerly took her baby into her arms, the chaos increased as Vin heard an argument in the hallway. Ernest went to check it out, closing the room’s door behind him. But the arguments only got louder through the door.
“Handle your guests, please,” the nurse told Vin crisply in Italian. “This is a hospital, not a nightclub.”
Vin ground his teeth, then turn
ed to his wife with a bright smile. Kissing her forehead, he excused himself and went out into the hall.
One of his bodyguards was physically blocking a slender man in glasses who was yelling and trying to push into the private room. Ernest was trying to mollify him in a low voice.
“What is going on?” Vin demanded.
“Ah. Signor Borgia.” The slight man immediately relaxed and turned to him politely. “Salvatore Calabrese sent me. He wished to convey his displeasure at your disrespect today.”
“No disrespect to Signor Calabrese was meant. As you can see, I was unable to personally meet him this morning to close the deal with Mediterranean Airlines because I was called away on urgent family business.”
“Signor Calabrese found your lack of commitment to the business deal very disappointing. He wished me to inform you that he is father to four children and was not present at a single one of their births.”
Vin wondered that any man would brag about something like that, but he said merely, “I would be pleased to reschedule—”
“That is sadly now impossible.” The man pushed up his wire-rimmed glasses. “Signor Calabrese will be exploring options with your Japanese and German competitors, many of whom have larger, more established airlines than yours. He hopes you enjoy family time,” the man continued politely, “as you’ll soon have much more of it. Without the expansion your airline needs, you’ll soon be ripe for takeover yourself.” The man gave a little bow. “Good day.”
As he departed, Vin stared after him in shock.
The Japanese and German airlines who also hoped to take over Mediterranean Airlines were indeed formidable and powerful. It hadn’t been easy to convince Salvatore Calabrese that SkyWorld Airways was the right choice. Vin had been forced to personally meet with him in New York and London.
“All right. I’ll take a gamble with you, kid,” Salvatore Calabrese had told him finally. “You remind me of myself when I was young. A shark who’ll win at any cost.” He’d given Vin a hard smile. “Just meet me in Rome to sign the papers. I need that mark of respect. Plus, I need to know I’m selling my baby to a man who’ll always put his company first.”