Married for His One-Night Heir

by Jennifer Hayward

  “It wasn’t happening for us,” she said. “I was intimidated by him. He was cold. Unyielding. It seemed the harder I tried to conceive, the more difficult it got. Franco,” she said, eyes on his, “was jealous of you. He punished me by refusing to allow me to work. Said I should focus on a family instead. Took a mistress. Which was almost a relief,” she allowed. “He turned even colder, more distant, until our marriage fell apart.”

  A flash of red moved through his head. It was so far from the vision he’d had of her marriage to the powerful, arrogant Italian she’d married, he couldn’t even reconcile the two. Franco Lombardi had been a consummate womanizer who’d had his fill of any woman he’d desired. In his head, Gia had been walking into his arms and out of his, no matter how much she’d dreaded it. But in reality, he conceded, consumed by a wealth of emotion he had no idea how to handle, it had been anything but what he’d envisioned.

  “But you stayed,” he murmured, “because you had to.”

  Gia nodded. “I thought about leaving. I almost did twice. Delilah had made it clear she would help me. But every time I got as far as packing, I would think about my father and how angry he would be and I couldn’t do it.”

  The misery, helplessness of those darkest days, washed over her like a dark cloud. The fear that this would always be her life. “So I stayed,” she said. “Acted the part. I hosted Franco’s dinner parties, kept myself out of his business—did everything that I was supposed to do.”

  “Until he was shot outside of his casino,” said Santo. “Providing you with the opportunity to leave.”

  She nodded. “I called Delilah, she got passports for Leo and I under the name De Luca and she flew us out the night after Franco’s funeral.”

  She remembered the wind whipping through her windbreaker, Leo bundled in her arms. How scared she’d been that Delilah’s car wouldn’t be where it was supposed to be. But it had been and they’d flown through the night to the private airport they’d flown out of.

  “I was,” she said huskily, “frozen when I arrived at Delilah’s. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was terrified I’d never get away with it. But Delilah made sure we didn’t leave any tracks. And eventually, Leo and I settled in. When I was ready,” she mused, heart pulsing at the memory, “Delilah gave me a job. I came into myself. I started to believe my life could be different. That everything could be different. I was Gia De Luca, not Gia Castiglione. I had a clean slate. I could be everything I ever wanted to be.”

  “Until I took it away from you,” Santo said quietly. “That identity you’d created for yourself.”

  She nodded.

  He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. “I was angry, Gia. You had taken my son. I had missed three years of his life. I did what I thought I needed to do. And yes,” he conceded on a heavy exhale, “it’s true. I have this vision of what I want my marriage and life to be, but there’s a reason for it.”

  Gia eyed the stubborn lines of his face. “Because you never had it.”

  “Yes.” He took a sip of his wine. “My mother was never mother-of-the-year material. I think on some level, I always accepted that. She was more interested in sitting on her high-profile charities. Expanding her influence. Spending our father’s money. We had nannies when she managed to keep them. But she was there. She kept us clothed and fed. She enforced the rules, which we needed because my father was working all the time. She was a buffer between us and the drinking when that became a problem.”

  He rested his head against the back of the sofa, his eyes dark. “She walked out on New Year’s Day. A week later, the bank arrived to repossess the house. I spent the next week in shock, telling myself that my mother would come back. She always did.”

  Except this time, she hadn’t. Gia’s heart lurched. “Thank god you had your brothers.”

  He nodded. “But they were immersed in their own internal battles. I would go home from school every day to that empty, depressing apartment and watch my father drink himself into the ground. Until word spread in the neighborhood of what had happened and Mamma Esposito, my best friend Pietro’s mother, Carmela, insisted I come to their house after school.

  “It was like culture shock for me,” he reminisced, his mouth curving. “Kids and laughter everywhere. A basketball hoop in the front yard that attracted half the neighborhood. I didn’t talk at all at first. Too heart-sore to do anything more than go through the motions. Mamma Esposito would put a plate of cookies in front of me and say nothing at all. She was just there. And gradually,” he allowed, “I unfroze. I started to talk to her.” His gaze dropped to the ruby-red wine in his glass. “I think she saved me, to be honest. I’m not sure what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for her.”

  The thought of him so lost, helpless, melted her heart. Melted all the ice around her, because all she could remember was Santo being the strong one. Santo and his dreams. His relentless refusal to accept anything less for himself. Everything that he had taught her.

  She curled her fingers around his. “I’m so glad you had her,” she murmured. “Carmela. She sounds wonderful.”

  “She was.” He swirled the wine around his glass in a contemplative gesture. “I had a lot of guilt. That my brothers and I had been too much of a handful. That, maybe, we had driven my mother away. Carmela said something to me that really resonated with me. That maybe, it wasn’t that my mother hadn’t cared so much as she hadn’t been built for the job. It was a concept I could understand.”

  Which was exactly what he wanted in a wife. Her stomach sank as she absorbed the insight into him. How it explained everything about him. About the vision he’d always had of the family he wanted. About the woman he’d wanted in his life. He wanted a Carmela.

  “I can’t be her, Santo,” she said quietly. “Carmela. I saw how unhappy my mother was. I saw what her life did to her. I know how it affected me. I need my career. My independence. To stand on my own two feet.”

  “I get that,” he murmured. “I do.”

  She watched the conflict in his eyes. How much it meant to him. And she knew, in that moment, it had the power to make or break them.

  “You are a wonderful mother,” he said huskily, curling his fingers tight around hers. “I watch Leo and I marvel at how confident he is. How utterly sure he is of his place in the world. You gave that to him, Gia. If you take this job with Nina, it will never contain itself to those hours. It will be madness. Leo will suffer. We will suffer.”

  She dug her teeth into her lip, lost in a sea of indecision. It was a big project, even with the team Nina would give her. There was no denying it. Nina was a perfectionist, just like Delilah. But in Nassau, it had been easy to pull out her laptop and work until midnight after Leo had gone to bed, because it had only been her to consider. Which would not be so easy now.

  It seemed an impossible decision. She knew how unhappy she’d been with Franco. She knew she couldn’t be in another marriage like that. But she didn’t want to kill her relationship with Santo, either. Not when she had been the one to break them the first time.

  “I can do it,” she said huskily. “I promise you, Santo. I can make this work. And the reason that Leo is such a confident little boy is that I have learned to become that myself. What kind of a role model would I be for Leo if I didn’t teach him to go after his dreams?”

  A fleeting series of emotions shifted across his face. She watched him battle his need to control. To make this what he wanted it to be. To command this world he had created. Then he finally relented. “Fine,” he murmured. “Take the job if you feel that’s what you need to do. I can see how much this means to you.” He set his wineglass on the table, then reached for hers. “Meanwhile,” he said, sinking his hands into her waist and settling her into his lap so that she straddled his thighs, “I think you should kiss me. I am in severe withdrawal. Withering away from the effects of your icy facade.”

&nb
sp; “Sex will not change my mind,” she told him, every cell in her body springing to life as he set his fingers to one side of her neck and his thumb to the other in a gesture of pure possession. “I need this, Santo.”

  “I know that. I just want you. Badly.”

  It was the badly that did it, because she had been empty without him. Everything had been empty without him. And she wasn’t sure how to fill the holes.

  She buried her fingers in his hair and kissed him. Soft, achingly good kisses that unfurled a wounded part inside of her. Sighing her pleasure, she traced her mouth over the hard edge of his jaw.

  His hands dealt with the buttons on her blouse, his mouth finding the soft skin beneath. Her skirt went the way of her blouse, hiked up to her waist by his sure hands. The fragile barrier of her panties ripped with a flick of his wrist. And then there was only his smooth, dominant possession that tore a gasp from her throat.

  Her forehead resting against his, the last fragments of sunlight shifting across their bodies, she made it last as long as she could. Slow and undulating, they moved together, each lazy circle pushing her further toward the point of no return. Toward giving him her heart again. Until his overwhelming, unrelenting possession sent her over the edge, the tremors spreading outward from her center, rippling through her body like living fire, and they came together in a brilliant explosion of pleasure.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THEY DINED WITH the legendary Spanish retailing giant Gervasio Delgado at Charles, the most celebrated French restaurant in New York, located on Park Avenue. Steeped in French culinary history, and run by famed chef Charles Fortier, it was renowned for its refined European cuisine, world-class wine cellar and gracious hospitality.

  It was also, Gia conceded, one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city. From its soaring coffered ceiling to its elegant neoclassical architecture illuminated by custom Bernardaud chandeliers, its classic white color palette was a perfect blank canvas for the colorful artwork that adorned the walls. The vivid, vibrant works were those of a famous classical Spanish painter, a favorite of Charles, as well of Gervasio, as it turned out.

  Santo, dressed in a navy suit and an ice-blue shirt, with a darker, contrasting navy tie, was as focused as she’d ever seen him. Which she completely understood. If Delgado elected to feature an Elevate shoe in the front window of his massively popular retail chain, Divertido, it would become an overnight fashion trend.

  Gervasio, still intensely charismatic in his early sixties, had left school at fifteen, according to Santo, to work as a tailor’s assistant, exactly as Nico had done to support his family. He clearly liked the Supersonic story...its Cinderella rise to stardom. But mostly, Gia thought, he loved the big-name athletes the company commanded and their potential to add glitter to his brand.

  He was also intrigued by the concept of Elevate. Tonight was all about convincing him that Supersonic was the clear strategic choice to place in his front window.

  Santo set about making the Supersonic case. It was jaw-dropping to watch him in action—something she’d never had the opportunity to do. His charisma and enthusiasm were infectious as he coaxed the notoriously introverted Gervasio out of his shell in that way he had that drew people to him like a moth to a flame.

  Watching the man he had become—one who ruled the world around him so effortlessly—she felt helplessly aware that he had been the only one she’d ever had eyes for and always would be.

  It was clear by the time they had polished off cocktails and the first bottle of crisp, delicious Pouilly-Fuissé, that it was going well, the conversation passionate and animated. While Santo focused his attention on Gervasio, Gia devoted hers to his elegant, beautiful wife, Alicia. With that flawless, classical, impeccable style that Gia found European women carried so effortlessly, Alicia had a passionate interest in interior design, because it influenced the fashion trends she created for Divertido. She was also remodeling her house in Marbella, which made for a wealth of conversation.

  She and Alicia were talking color trends when a flutter at the front entrance caught Gervasio’s attention. He blinked. Gave the front door a long look. “Is that Stefano Castiglione who just walked in?”

  Gia froze in her chair. Her back was to the door, but everything slipped at the shocked look on Santo’s face. It could not be. Not here. Not tonight.

  She turned around. Followed Gervasio’s gaze. Caught sight of her father’s silvery dark hair and tall, elegant posture as he spoke with Charles, who’d materialized from the kitchen to greet him and the elegant blonde he had on his arm. His latest mistress, she assumed numbly.

  Her fingers clutched tight to the sides of her chair. She heard Santo murmur some sort of affirmation to Gervasio before her father trailed a glittering path through the crowd with his grey gaze, the customary combination of awe and respect he commanded rippling through the packed restaurant. And perhaps, she conceded, a fission of ice sliding up her spine, a tiny bit of apprehension.

  She understood it. He was her father. She had loved him as much as she had hated him. Feared him. And therein lay the conflict that had ruled her existence. To adore someone—to revere them as larger than life—but to also know what they were capable of.

  While the other girls in school had spoken about their fathers’ affairs in the bathrooms, or the fast and loose lifestyle they’d acquired while working on Wall Street, she’d been wondering who her father had eliminated the night before.

  Her father laughed at something the blonde had said, the rich, resonant sound making her breath catch in her chest. The hair stood up on the back of her neck as he flicked a glance her way, as if sensing her study. She saw his eyes widen, the proud set of his head as he cocked it to one side and took her in. And then there was only the buzzing in her ears as he acknowledged the table Charles had provided, then turned and made his way through the diners to where she sat, his beautiful companion at his side.

  “Giovanna.” His smooth, even tone betrayed not a hint of emotion as he came to a halt in front of them. It was all in his dark, deep-set eyes—fury mixed with a smattering of something she couldn’t identify. “Forgive me,” he murmured. “I had no idea you would be here tonight. Your mother only just mentioned you were back in New York.”

  Gia inhaled a deep, steadying breath as she stood to greet him, dimly aware that Santo had done the same. Her fingers reached back to clutch the edge of the chair tight. “I’ve only been back in New York a little while,” she murmured. “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind.”

  “I see.” Those two words held a wealth of meaning. Her stomach plunged another inch as her father turned to Santo and extended a hand. “Santo. I had been hoping I would run into you. We have some business on the table.”

  Santo shook her father’s hand. “Mi dispiace,” he murmured. “I have been swamped. Unfortunately,” he said, “we have signed an exclusive deal with Delilah Rothchild for our hotel-related retail efforts for the next couple of years. It will be our focus for the time being.”

  Her father’s gaze glimmered. “So it is,” he drawled, inclining his head. “The offer is there if you reconsider.” He drew his beautiful blonde companion forward. She was thirty if she was a day, barely older than Gia herself. Her father’s tastes clearly hadn’t changed. “Julianne, this is my daughter, Giovanna Castiglione.”

  “Di Fiore,” Santo corrected smoothly.

  Her father’s expression turned glacial. “Of course. Scusi. My mistake. An old habit. Julianne,” he continued, “runs the Derringer Art Gallery on the Upper East Side. I am considering purchasing one of her pieces.”

  As if. Gia’s chest burned as Santo made the introductions to the Delgados, who were watching it all with a bemused countenance. Gervasio, whom her father was clearly interested in meeting, looked distinctly standoffish through it all.

  Tension climbed the back of her throat. She thought she might actually throw up, h
er stomach was churning so violently. Particularly when a long, painful silence then ensued. Her father finally broke the détente, setting his gaze on Gia. “Julianne was just mentioning she needed to visit the powder room. Perhaps we could speak privately outside for a few moments given we haven’t seen each other in some time?”

  Santo tensed beside her, ready to object. Gia put a hand on his arm. Sucked in a breath. She needed to defuse this situation. Now. She also needed to get this confrontation with her father over with before she jumped out of her skin. She’d imagined it in her head so many times, it was beginning to make her a little crazy.

  If she was going to own this new version of herself, this strength she’d so painstakingly achieved, now was the time to do it. She could not let Santo fight this battle for her, no matter how much she wanted him to. She needed to do it by herself.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” she murmured. She flicked a glance at the table. “My apologies. If you’ll excuse me for a few moments.”

  Santo narrowed his gaze, as if considering trampling all over that idea. But after a long moment he nodded and bent his head to her ear. “Five minutes,” he murmured.

  Gia led the way outside into the lamp-lit courtyard at the back of the restaurant. It was deserted except for a patron smoking a cigar at the far end of the quadrangle. A sparkling fountain threw up a spray of gold into the lamplight, a series of beautifully cut marble figures running through it. It was a beautiful night, the air fragrant and warm as it wafted over her skin. But it was her father who claimed all of her attention as he leaned his tall, powerful frame against one of the stone columns supporting the restaurant’s facade.

  His anger had always manifested itself in one of two ways. Like a violent storm, which had often swept through their brick Georgian home like a thunderclap, flattening everything in its wake, only to die out just as quickly. Or the slow, silent type that was building in his eyes now as he took her in. “I’m not even sure where to begin,” he murmured. “The fact that you walked away without a word, or that you showed up here married to Santo Di Fiore without even the courtesy of a warning.”