She heard his curse before she saw him as he put himself between her and the door, and she wondered if he’d guessed she couldn’t see him from her left side—or anything else, for that matter. Was he exploiting the weakness she took such great pains to conceal?
‘Let me pass,’ she demanded as anger and disappointment collided inside her, making her voice sharp and fierce.
‘You are not going anywhere. We have things to discuss, things to settle.’
‘Such as?’ She folded her arms beneath the knitted poncho she’d opted for early this morning as she’d left her small flat in London.
* * *
Dante looked at Piper and fought the urge to step back and let her go. He knew she was capable of walking away with something he’d never wanted—a child. But his business mind had worked overtime as she’d spat fury and fire at him. Piper carried his child—the one thing that might now be the answer to all the problems which had erupted since that damn article.
‘My child.’
He couldn’t and wouldn’t think any further about the plan that had formulated in his mind.
‘The one you tried hard to deny could even be yours until I mentioned the paternity test?’
The accusation in her voice cut deep, touching a part of him he hadn’t known existed.
‘You are carrying my child, my heir, and no matter how that has come about I will support you. Of that there is no question.’ Outwardly he was in control...inwardly his past mistakes rushed at him. But he couldn’t turn his back on his flesh and blood. He might have got it wrong in the past, but this was his child. ‘But naturally there will be conditions attached.’
‘I don’t want your grudging support, Dante. I want more than that from you for my child—or nothing at all.’
The indignation in her voice reverberated around the office and her green eyes looked so fierce he actually wanted to kiss her. To feel her lips against his once more and kiss away all that fury, replacing it with the passion he knew only too well existed within her.
‘I don’t care what you say you want. You wouldn’t have come all this way to tell me you are carrying my child if you didn’t want something, Piper.’ He liked the feel of her name on his tongue, but still suspicion niggled at him. ‘Perhaps I was right the first time. Is it money that will buy your silence?’
Her green eyes blazed with fury and anger emanated from her in palpable waves. ‘I want no such thing, and I can see I have made a very big mistake in thinking you would be even remotely interested in our baby.’
She turned and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open, but his reactions were quick and he pressed his palm against the door, slamming it shut before she’d even opened it wide enough to walk through.
‘You are not going anywhere until this is sorted, mia cara.’ He leant close to her left ear and whispered his warning, surprised when she jumped away, turning to glare once more at him. The threat in his voice had made her look vulnerable, and his proximity made her as nervous as a kitten, but still she pulled herself together and prepared to fight.
‘I am not your mia cara.’ She all but spat the words at him, like a wild cat which had been cornered. ‘And I want nothing from you. Forget you ever saw me.’
How could he forget her when ever since that night in London she’d been in his thoughts? An unnamed lover who’d given him her virginity and a night he would never forget.
Benjamin Carter’s suggestion floated once again on the periphery of his thoughts. Piper’s arrival at his office couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Her news—unwelcome at any other time—fitted perfectly into his rapidly forming plan. He needed a wife and she carried his child.
‘That will not happen—not when you are carrying my child.’ He held her arms gently, preventing any further attempts to flee. ‘Marriage is the only option.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘MARRIAGE?’ THE WORD spluttered from Piper and she blinked at Dante, acutely aware of his hands holding her and scorching her skin through the layers she wore, setting free memories she’d rather not deal with right at this moment.
‘If you didn’t come here for money then it must be for a ring on your finger.’
The callous tones of his accented voice were splintered with bitterness, shattering any faint and futile hopes that what they’d shared in London might have been the start of something. That his rash proposal was for real.
Who was she trying to fool? She had been nothing more than an amusing diversion from a dull dinner party. And wasn’t that precisely why she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, stealing a last lingering glance at him as he’d slept? She’d hoped to save her job and her reputation by leaving before the hotel had come to life, but even that attempt had been in vain.
‘Have you any idea how arrogant you sound?’
Where had the considerate and charming man she’d left that dinner party with gone? Was this the real Dante, or was he just shocked at the news she’d brought?
The idea of being pregnant after a one-night stand with a man she’d known she’d never see again had been a complete shock to her. So much so that she’d bought all four pregnancy tests in stock at the small pharmacy near her flat in an attempt to convince herself that she’d got it wrong, that their one night of non-committal but passionate sex hadn’t resulted in pregnancy. Each time she’d used a test she’d become more panic-stricken.
‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous it was for you to come here, tell me such news and expect me to stand aside while you leave?’ Anger laced his accented words. ‘You might have left me once, but it will not happen again, mia cara.’
‘But marriage?’ she protested, desperate to make him see how impossible such an idea was. All she’d wanted was for him to know, to be told to his face that he was going to be a father. It would have been what her father would have wanted her to do. ‘We don’t know anything about each other.’
‘I know where you like to be kissed and how very sexy you look when you are naked. I think that is a good enough start, no?’
He smiled a slow, seductive smile and her heart almost stopped beating as she remembered how he had kissed her, how she’d all but begged for more, not wanting him to stop, wanting only to lose herself in the oblivion of the passion he’d showed her.
‘Exactly the kind of answer I’d expect from a man like you.’ Her temper fired and she drew in a deep breath, challenging the charm he seemed so incredibly capable of even in such a situation.
His eyes darkened and his brows furrowed together. ‘A man like me?’ His accented words were filled with suspicion.
‘There must be some truth in that article in Celebrity Spy!’ She faltered as his eyes narrowed and she knew she’d touched a raw nerve. But hadn’t he charmed her, seduced her, all without them even exchanging names?
‘Do you normally believe everything inside such magazines?’
He moved fractionally closer and she resisted the urge to step back, to keep him from invading her space with the power of his masculinity.
‘No, of course not.’ She snapped the words out quickly, and judging from the smile which lingered on his lips he knew he too had hit the target.
‘I would also suggest you change your reading material to something more...how shall I say it?...salubrious.’
Thankfully he stepped away, and she let out a breath she had no idea she’d been holding, but the urge to justify herself was too great. ‘I don’t normally read it. I was flicking through it whilst waiting at an employment agency.’
‘Employment agency?’ He turned his attention back to her instantly, those incredibly sexy eyes full of mistrust.
She bit down hard, inwardly cursing her wayward tongue. The last thing she wanted him to know was that she was no longer employed because of their night together, but she’d walked into a trap of her own making.
‘I no longer have a permanent contract. The dinner party in London was a one-off.’
‘So,’ he said, and t
here was a hint of triumph in that one word. ‘You are without a job and pregnant?’
She looked at him warily and corrected him quickly. ‘Between jobs.’
‘And will you easily find another job as your pregnancy progresses? I think not, cara.’
The undeniable self-assurance in his voice irritated her more than she cared to admit—because he was right. Hadn’t that been her worry as she’d tossed and turned every night since discovering she was pregnant? Maybe if she was still living in Sydney, where she’d grown up, she’d be able to find a job. But she wasn’t in Sydney. She’d come to her mother’s city of birth, London, and she knew nobody. And, as much as she wanted to return to Australia, she needed to stay with her mother.
‘That is for me to worry about.’ And worrying was just what she would still be doing when she left here. She’d had such a strong bond with her dad that she couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into the world and it not knowing its father. It was her experience of a father-daughter relationship which had convinced her that seeing Dante was the right thing.
She hadn’t told her mother about the baby yet, afraid to disappoint her, afraid she’d use her father’s memory to make her feel guilty. Would he have been disappointed? No, she silently answered herself, but he would have wanted her to do the right thing.
The need to clear her conscience, to tell Dante personally, had fuelled hopes that he would at least acknowledge the child and hopefully want to be part of its life. But marriage? That was something she hadn’t considered. And even if she had that article in Celebrity Spy! would have smothered that dream completely. Dante Mancini was a charmer—a playboy with a ruthless disregard for any kind of commitment.
‘You will not have to worry about work now you are to be my wife. I will provide you with everything you and my child can possibly want—and more.’
He stood with his back to the amazing view of Rome, with the winter sunshine sliding in around him, making reading his expression difficult. But she had no doubt how fierce the darkness of his eyes was.
‘I do not want to marry you.’ She injected attitude into each word, desperate to push home her point.
‘It’s not negotiable, cara. I am in need of a wife and you are carrying my child—which makes you the perfect choice.’
He walked towards her, away from the sunshine which had temporarily concealed his expression, and the determination she saw on his handsome face made her heart sink. She had very little energy left to fight with.
‘In need of a wife?’ She stumbled over the word ‘wife’, hardly able to believe he wanted her to become his wife. How could a self-professed playboy—a man who had the wealth, power and looks to have any woman he wanted—want to marry her?
‘I am in negotiations for a business deal which I can only pull off if I am seen to be a man with family values. I need a wife—a woman I can be seen publicly with, and one who can be discreet. Because that untimely piece in Celebrity Spy! has made those negotiations somewhat difficult. What better way to prove I am a man of family honour than to stand by the woman who is carrying my child?’
‘You make it all sound like a business deal.’
‘That, cara, is precisely what it will be. You came for money and support and you will now get both—providing we are seen out in public as the perfect couple. The world must believe we are madly in love. In return you will have the honour of being the woman who tamed Dante Mancini.’
* * *
Dante looked at her, saw her face pale and watched her eyes close, provoking images of her beneath him as passion had driven her wild and he’d unwittingly claimed her as his. Now she would pay the price of acting the part of a seductress when she’d been nothing more than an innocent virgin. She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
When her eyes opened, seconds later, the spark of annoyance was back within their sea-green depths. With her shy blushes and understated clothes she certainly didn’t look or act like the kind of woman he would date, let alone fall for, but she had on that night in London. He might have scoffed at Benjamin Carter’s suggestion last night of using the discreet agency run by the American matchmaker Elizabeth Young to find him a suitable wife, but now he would definitely call upon the agency’s services. He needed to transform the Australian redhead who carried his child back into the woman he’d met in London.
‘Honour? You overrate yourself, signor. If it is to be a business deal and not a true marriage I will accept—with one condition.’
‘You do not make the conditions.’ This was not something he was used to. Women dictating to him. It was unheard of. He was always in control, always laying down the rules.
‘I will make all the conditions I want.’
Her flippant tone almost pushed him too far, reminding him just how much his head throbbed with alcohol-induced pain.
‘It is obvious that your need of a wife is far greater than my need to tell you that you are going to be a father.’
‘Molto bene. Name your terms.’ Angrily he crossed the room and sat behind his desk, leaning his arms on its clutter-free surface and fixing her with a warning glare.
‘The marriage will be in name only and it will be ended after an agreed time. Once you have duped the world into thinking you are a reformed character and have secured your business deal, I assume.’
She stood in the centre of his office, her long legs snagging his attention, making him think things he had no right to be thinking—especially as he was negotiating a deal with her. A deal that would save his reputation and enrich his business—and claim her as his.
‘Va bene.’ He nodded his agreement. So far she spoke sense. He didn’t want to be married and had never contemplated it. All he needed right now was to change the way the gossips thought of him, prove he could be a family man if he chose to be and ultimately finalise the deal that would put his company at the top of the renewable energies industry. He also needed to calm the fears of their charity and fix any other negative impact of that damning article.
‘And you will play an active part in the child’s life.’
Her words fell into the suddenly large gap which separated them, highlighting how very different they were.
His brows rose. How could he play an active part in the child’s life when he’d been solely responsible for his younger brother’s untimely death? He wasn’t fit to be a brother, let alone a father. He couldn’t commit to giving his son or daughter anything other than material things. His emotions had frozen and shut down the day his father had walked out on them. Alessio’s death was proof of that.
She must have sensed his reluctance because she stepped closer. ‘I want nothing more than that. If you cannot agree then we do not have a deal and I will leave right now.’
He took a deep breath, forcing back the guilt and regret from the past. He had to think of this as just another deal. One like the many he made each year. He couldn’t open the wounds of his past. But as he looked at Piper he suspected it was already too late. She was the key that had turned in the door he’d long ago slammed shut.
He’d never longed for a woman once his desire had been quenched, but Piper had changed that and it was a change he wasn’t happy about. Reluctantly he admitted he would have to accept her terms. If he didn’t marry her and took another wife she’d have an even bigger story to sell and more damage to do. Worse than that, he would be guilty of turning his back on his child, and he’d pay any price not to do that.
‘We have a deal. I will have it drawn up into a contract by tomorrow.’
For a moment she looked lost, as if she’d expected a big battle. Little did she know that was just what it was for him—but it was his battle and he would fight it alone. He didn’t need anyone—least of all a woman who threatened everything he’d turned his back on after the revelations exposed by Alessio’s death.
‘Then, as we have concluded our business, I will go to my hotel.’ She picked up a bag from beside the chair she’d been sitting in when he arrived. If
that was all her luggage she really hadn’t intended on staying in Rome long. Long enough to turn my world on its head. If she thought she could just walk away now, she’d got it all wrong.
He sprang from the seat. ‘You are not going anywhere except to my apartment—with me.’
‘That is totally unnecessary,’ she said, and pulled the somewhat battered bag, which bore no resemblance to the designer bags his women usually had, onto her shoulder. She moved towards the door and once again he found himself needing to stop this woman from leaving.
‘We are lovers, are we not?’ He lowered his voice, smiling to see the blush which crept over her face at the way he spoke. ‘And if we are to be believed as such you will not stay in a budget hotel.’
‘How do you know it’s a budget hotel?’
Indignation flared to life in her voice and her eyes and he knew he’d scored a point in this particular battle.
‘I merely assumed.’ He shrugged and looked at her, liking the way her lips pressed together tightly as she fought to hold back her retort. A fight she soon lost.
‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped at him, then lowered her gaze briefly before meeting his once more.
‘This is a business deal—one which will legitimise my child. A child that will be the heir to all I own. You will have every luxury, Piper, and my word that nothing else will happen between us.’
* * *
Piper gulped back the disappointment. Nothing else would happen between them. She should be pleased. It was exactly what she’d asked for, what she’d wanted, but a part of her ached with the pain of it. She wasn’t his type. The article in Celebrity Spy! had left her in no doubt of that. But the passion which had ravaged them that night in London must have meant something.
‘That is all I want,’ she lied, desperate that he wouldn’t detect even a hint of her dismay. She had to remain strong and firm. He couldn’t know she’d often thought of those few hours which had changed her life even before she’d known she was pregnant.
Married for the Italian's Heir Page 3