For Love or Money Bundle (Harlequin Presents)

by Sarah Morgan

  “How could you live anywhere else?” she asked, arms still wrapped tightly around her middle. She felt like a little girl presented with the prettiest bride doll ever. She could only look. Couldn’t bear to touch. It couldn’t be real.

  He shrugged. “Monte Carlo’s close, convenient. It’s where the corporate offices for The Bartolo Driving School are and that’s where I spend most of my time these days.”

  “So that’s what you do now?”

  “I’m proud of the company. We’re an international racing school now with campuses and tracks in the United States, Brazil, and Italy of course. But we don’t just train for road racing, we’ve really moved into executive protection and antikidnapping courses where we work with corporations, executives, their families and staff teaching them to detect and deter potential vehicular confrontations and assault.”

  Sam looked at him, intrigued, thinking of the kidnapping attempt at Gabby years ago. “And these are classes?”

  “Four and seven day courses, and they’re popular. Our schools have wait lists for them right now. Think about it, nearly everyone would benefit from specialized training in maximum car control. While most people won’t ever need to know counterterrorist tactics, it’d never hurt to have more confidence behind the wheel.”

  Gabby suddenly turned around. “Can I try?” She asked, pushing long dark hair from her face since she’d lost her hairband somewhere since leaving the plane. “I’d like to drive fast.”

  “You mean drive safe,” Sam corrected.

  Gabby grinned so hard her nose wrinkled. “No, fast. I want to go fast. I want to drive race cars, too.”

  Cristiano smiled but Sam wasn’t amused. She shot Cristiano a sharp look. “This is your doing,” she reproached.

  “She’s a Bartolo,” he answered, scooping Gabby into his arms. “It’s in her blood.”

  Gabby wrapped an arm around his neck and took a deep breath. “I like it here. I like it very much.” She looked out over the blue and green vista before glancing at Sam. “I think you and Cristiano should get married and then we can all live here and be happy forever.”

  Sam heard the hint of wistfulness in Gabby’s voice and it tugged on Sam’s heart. Gabby had never had a real family, and more than anything, Sam wanted that normalcy for Gabby. But marrying Cristiano wouldn’t make them a normal family. Sam had learned the hard way that marriages of convenience were marriages of inconvenience. They didn’t work.

  “Let’s see about lunch,” Cristiano said, shifting Gabby in his arms. “I know the cook was planning something special.”

  Gabby leaned toward Cristiano, cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered in his ear.

  Sam had no idea what Gabby said but Cristiano began to laugh, a deep belly laugh that rumbled out of him. As he laughed, Gabby giggled, too and turning toward Sam, Cristiano shot her an apologetic smile. “Gabby just hopes it’s not Mrs. Bishop’s famous shepherd’s pie.”

  After lunch, one of the young women Cristiano employed took Gabby down to the heated outdoor pool for a swim. Sam expressed concern about letting Gabby go swimming with a virtual stranger and Cristiano explained that nineteen-year-old Marcelle worked at one of the local hotel pools as a lifeguard during the summer. “Marcelle teaches many of the local children to swim, and I’ve known her and her family for years. Gabby’s safe, I promise.”

  It wasn’t until Gabby had gone skipping out of the villa in her suit and terry-cloth cover-up with swim goggles in hand that Sam acknowledged her true fear—being alone with Cristiano.

  The kiss yesterday afternoon was never far from her mind.

  If it had been a bad kiss, or a sweet kiss, something she could easily dismiss she’d feel different about being alone with Cristiano, but the kiss hadn’t been bad, and it was far from sweet.

  Sam buttoned the bottom of her delicate green cardigan. “Is there something I can do to help Gabby settle in? Laundry? Prepare her room? Unpack?”

  “I have people who do laundry and clean. That’s not your job anymore.”

  “Then what is my job?” she answered, feeling completely at a loss. Growing up she’d thought the Rookery was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. It had seemed like a castle with its thick paned windows, beamed ceilings, narrow stairwells and secret passageways. But Cristiano’s villa was a palace. Indeed, it’d been built in the late nineteenth century, not long after King Leopold II of Belgium’s Les Cedres, and Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild’s Villa Ile-de-France.

  “To come sit and talk with me. Relax a little.”

  She buttoned another two buttons. “I’m not sure sitting with you would be relaxing.”

  He looked at her and his lips curved, his expression knowing. He was confident, very confident, and that unnerved her even more. This was his world. And he was very much in charge in his world. “It’s a beautiful day. You should try to unwind a little. Go to the pool, or maybe try the whirlpool tub in your bathroom—”

  “Cristiano,” she said, cutting him short. “This isn’t my home. I don’t belong here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look around.” She gestured, the sweep of her hand indicating the Palladian windows, mosaic flooring and soaring marble columns. “This is palatial, and if this is where Gabby will live, then good. But I can’t live here. I…I’d feel lost. It’s far too grand. I’m not a grand person. I’m a nanny. A simple country girl. You saw where I was raised.”

  “It might take some getting used to, but I think you’d be comfortable here. And safe.”

  “But what will I do? I’ve always worked, and with Gabby in school five days a week, I’ll be at such loose ends. I’m not needed here—”

  “Gabby needs you.”

  His words drew tears to her eyes. He’d said earlier in the week that it was she who needed Gabby, and he was right. And he’d also said that Gabby should be raised by her family, her real family, and he was right about that, too. Sam was grateful as a child for Mrs. Bishop’s kindness, but what she really wanted, needed was her own family. Her own people. At least Gabby finally had her own. “She has you now, Cristiano. You are her family. Brother or father—it doesn’t matter. You are what she needs.”

  “So you’d deny her a whole family?” he asked softly, and yet there was a thread of anger in his voice and she heard it. “You’ll make her choose—a mother or a father? She can’t have both?”

  His anger stung her, and she hesitated, choosing her words more carefully. “She can have us both. We don’t have to live in the same house.”

  “Then it’s not a real family. It’s her bouncing back and forth from one place to another, always packing a bag, and unpacking a bag. Is that what you want for her?”

  It was close to the life Sam had known, at least the instability. “No.” Sam bit her lip, felt her throat thicken. “I don’t want her to have to juggle homes—lives. If I were her, I’d hate it.”

  “That was my life growing up. There was always something forgotten, something missing. The coat left at one apartment. The school papers lost at another. I hated it.” Cristiano hadn’t moved but she felt him so intensely, felt his energy and his focus. “My mother and father divorced when I was young. My mother lived in Cannes and my father in Monte Carlo and I was always traveling between.” He took a breath. “Can’t we do better for Gabriela?”

  “But we’re not married.”

  “Then maybe we should be.”

  “Cristiano.” She looked at him, knowing that something had changed in the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t know what had changed in him, but she saw it, felt it, from the moment they arrived at the airport to boarding his private jet in Manchester this morning.

  Cristiano exuded power. Control. Outwardly he didn’t look any different—same direct gaze, straight nose, sensual mouth—but he carried himself as though he were in charge.

  And at the airport in Manchester, he took charge, meeting privately with his pilots, speaking to someone in air traffic control, inspecting the
jet with his pilots before boarding.

  As Sam observed Cristiano during the preflight process, it struck her that he didn’t trust others. And he wasn’t about to leave important details to others, either.

  “I’ve done the marriage of convenience before, and it doesn’t work.” Sam said steadily. “In fact, I think it actually made Gabby’s life worse.”

  “Impossible. If you weren’t there, God knows where she’d be now. You’ve been her guardian angel from the beginning. If you hadn’t been there during the kidnapping attempt, something tragic could have happened. If you weren’t there to protect her from Johann, she’d be lost.” He hesitated. “Would you prefer me to get down on one knee?”

  Get down on one knee? My God, was he seriously propos-ing marriage? Sam’s stomach somersaulted in a wild free form flip. “You’re not asking me—”

  “Marry me.”

  “You are.” Her voice cracked.

  “I will make sure you lack for nothing. I promise to take care of you the way you’ve taken care of Gabby, generously, patiently—”

  The room had begun to spin. “I think I need to sit down.”

  He steered her to the right, to a comfortable sitting room overlooking the gardens. The room had been decorated in aqua tones, the furniture, silk drapes, and even the handwoven rug all pale blue and pale green, accented with touches of white like the seashells clustered on the mantel and the white long stemmed tulips spilling from vases on round tables.

  Numbly, Sam sank onto one of the down-filled sofas. “I can’t do this, Cristiano. I love Gabby, God knows I do, but I can’t marry again, can’t put myself through that again.”

  He reached inside his coat and withdrew an envelope. “What was the worst part of marriage?”

  She stared, fascinated as he withdrew a sheet of folded paper. “Being trapped. Lacking financial independence.”

  Nodding, he unfolded the sheet of paper and held it out to her. “What if I’m willing to work with you on that?”

  Puzzled, Sam took the paper. “How?” And then she looked down. Her eyes widened as she read. Her hand began to shake as she continued to the end of the document. “This is a…this is…”

  “A prenuptial agreement. Just by marrying me you inherit a million pounds. If the marriage lasts a year, it’s ten million—”

  “No!” She dropped the paper on the couch, repulsed. “That’s disgusting, no.”

  “Ten years and it’s twenty million. If we had a child at any point, it’s fifteen million—regardless of how long the marriage lasts—and the villa would of course be yours.”

  “Stop.” Sam lurched to her feet, walked far from the couch, circling behind it. “Never mention it again.” Her voice vibrated with fury. “I would never marry for money, never. I won’t be bought.”

  “But you’d marry Johann and be poor?”

  “It was to protect Gabby!”

  “Protect her now and be secure.”

  “It’s different—”

  “What’s different? The fact that I could actually provide for you? That I could afford to give you a good home and life? That I like you? That I’d enjoy your company? That I actually want you? Desire you? Need you in my bed?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “STOP.” She covered her ears, closed her eyes because he’d found the right arguments now, had found the very weapons to use against her.

  She did love Gabriela and she’d discovered in Chester she enjoyed Cristiano’s company. She’d probably enjoy life with Cristiano and Gabby very much.

  Too much, especially considering Cristiano’s wealth.

  He had too much. He was too rich. Too famous. Too successful. Too powerful.

  Sam wanted a simple life, needed a simple life, not this jetsetter’s life in the south of France.

  Sam lowered her hands, glanced at the prenuptial agreement still lying on the silver-blue linen couch. And standing where she was, with the sunlight slanting through the tall windows the couch was the same shade as the English sky in early April when it’s no longer winter but not spring proper and the mornings are still crisp and cold but warm through the day.

  That blue, that wispy sky-blue, was what her bridesmaids wore when she married Charles, too. She’d always loved blue. It was nature’s favorite color.

  “Charles was a priest,” she said, her gaze fixed on the prenup. “He’d just finished his training when we married. He never thought of himself. He always put others first.”

  “Is that why you can’t put yourself first? You don’t think you deserve happiness?”

  “That’s not so—”

  “You married Johann van Bergen.”

  “For Gabby, yes—”

  “But think about it, Sam. You put everyone else’s needs before your own. When do you finally get to be happy? When will it be your turn?”

  She swallowed around the horrendous lump filling her throat. She hated his assessment, but there was also accuracy in his assessment. “You might not believe it, but I am happy. Happier, at least. This last week I’ve felt so much happier, and freer—”

  “This last week?” He coughed, a hoarse grating sound. “Let’s recap, shall we? This last week your husband deserted you, left you in financial ruins, forcing you to flee to England where you were trapped in a snowstorm, only to discover Gabby’s not Johann’s child and you’re not even Johann’s wife.” His black brows pulled. He looked outraged. “This is your idea of better? Santo Cielo. Your life was worse than I thought.”

  It felt like he was trapping her with words and she shook her head frustrated.

  “What has made you feel better? What has made you happier?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Something must have changed. Something must have improved.”

  She started to shake her head and then she stopped, looked at Cristiano who was glaring at her in the worst scowl yet, and she knew.

  It’s you, she thought. You’ve made it better.

  “What made it better?” he repeated, his gaze resting on her, his expression increasingly brooding.

  “It’s not important.”

  “It is to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” he flared. “You’ve taken care of my sister. Maybe I want to take care of you.”

  “Well, you can’t. I’m very good at taking care of myself—”

  “I disagree. While you were assuming responsibility for a child that wasn’t even yours, you were taken to the cleaners, financially and emotionally.” His mouth compressed. “If you left here today. What would you do? Get another job? Find another nanny position?”

  Sam blanched, swallowed, forced herself to nod. Because it’s exactly what she’d do. It’s what she’d have to do. She didn’t have a choice. “Yes.”

  “And that’s okay with you?”

  “Maybe things would be tight financially, and maybe I’d be leaving my heart behind with Gabby, but I’d do what I have to do. I always have.”

  “Walk away from happiness?”

  “No. Walk away from unhappiness. Because I am happier today than I was a week ago. It’s a relief to have Johann gone. The villa we lived in was a rattrap. The pipes constantly leaked and there was mildew in the walls and there was never any money to fix things.”

  She balled her hands into fists, growing more livid by the second remembering. “Johann didn’t want me. He married me to get Gabby, but marrying me meant he could also stop paying me. I’m thrilled we’re not legally married. It was a horrible deal. I love Gabby but she has a real family now. I missed having an income, missed being financially independent, and now that I’m free, I’m not about to get into that situation again.”

  Cristiano clapped. “Bravo. Well done. I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

  She glared at him. “Do what?”

  “Stand up for yourself.” The corners of his mouth tilted, creases fanned from his eyes. “And, Sam, you’re right. Your home wasn’t with Johann. Your home was with Gabby. You
r home is still with Gabby. That hasn’t changed. It will never change. She needs a mother, Sam, and you are that mother. You must know that in your heart.”

  He’d said all the right words, he’d said exactly what she felt. Sam loved Gabby as if she were her very own child.

  “The prenuptial is intended to protect you, Sam. That’s all. I don’t want to buy you, or own you—”

  “Then tear it up.”

  “Sam.”

  “Tear it up,” she insisted.

  He took the paper, shredded it and Sam exhaled. “I will marry you,” she said quietly, “on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  She took a slow deep breath for courage. “That it be a real marriage. Not another marriage of convenience. I can’t be a wife in name only anymore. I want to be a real wife. I want to be a real mom. I want to feel like I matter and I’m not just a contract or a piece of paper.” And despite all her best efforts, her voice quavered. “The best part of marrying Charles was knowing I’d have a home, a place where I belonged. But then he died, it was all snatched away, it never happened.”

  Cristiano’s hard jaw gentled. “I don’t know your history with Charles, but I do know this. You belong here, Sam. We need you here—Gabby and me.”

  And that’s when Sam gave up fighting, because she needed them even more.

  They went back to Monte Carlo after dinner so Gabby could return to school. Cristiano notified Ludwin’s School for Girls that Gabriela wouldn’t be enrolling after all. Cristiano attended to business, leaving Sam to manage the wedding details. She could have any kind of wedding she wanted, he said, his only request was that it be soon.

  Sam wanted a very small wedding and they settled on a private ceremony at the villa. There’d be no guests, just the three of them and the officiate, of course.

  Planning the wedding was easy after that. Sam and Gabriela went shopping together in Monte Carlo, and Sam let Gabby select the dresses they’d wear for the afternoon ceremony. Gabriela was delighted to pick out a wedding dress for Sam and had Sam try on virtually everything in the store before finding a favorite.