On Her Terms (Premiere Companions Book 2)

by Doris O'Connor

  “Nicoletta, cara, why?”

  There was no censure in her maid’s eyes this time, just quiet compassion and resignation to the facts, which should have made Nicole feel better, but didn’t.

  She shrugged and Lisetta fixed her with her best don’t give me that crap look.

  “It seemed a good idea at the time. I wanted to choose who, where and when—I just didn’t expect to … you know…”

  Lisetta sighed and threw her hands up in defeat.

  “You love this man, Nicoletta?” she asked.

  Pain ripped across Nicole’s bruised heart. Utterly unable to get her mouth to form the words past the huge lump of misery in her throat, she simply nodded.

  “Good then, he will marry you, capisce? I tell the Don.”

  Oh good God, this is getting worse by the minute.

  Before Nicole had even recovered from the shock of Lisetta’s conclusion to her problem, her maid had sailed from the room, and Nicole sank down on the edge of her bed. It was that or fall down. Her father’s bellow minutes later was loud enough to wake the dead, and she wasn’t at all surprised to see the door fly open with so much force the handle imprinted in the wall of her room. The vibrations rocked the little table closest to it, and the crystal vase in which her bridal bouquet rested teetered precariously and crashed to the floor. Her delicate bouquet of spring flowers ended up in a crushed mess on the soggy carpet, and in a fitting act of violence the Don crunched it into smithereens stepping on it in his fury.

  Lisetta gasped, crossed herself again, and Papa’s fury deflated as he looked at the mess. He looked old, suddenly, and far less forbidding, when he pinched the bridge of his nose, and then sat down next to her.

  Neither one of them said anything, and the sound of Lisetta closing the door to presumably give them some privacy was far too loud in the quiet room.

  Nicole stole a glance at her father’s closed off expression, and seeing the dejected fall of his shoulders made her blurt out an apology.

  “I’m sorry, Papa.”

  Her father flinched and took one of her tightly clenched hands in his.

  “Why do you defy me so?” he asked, and cupping her chin with his free hand studied her.

  “I told you, I don’t want to marry him. You wouldn’t listen. You left me no choice.”

  Don Cabrizi’s eyes narrowed, and her stomach churned at the flash of temper in his black eyes before he smiled.

  “You are too much like your mother, so willful and romantic. She always thought love would conquer all, but I have responsibilities, lives to protect. I never should have married her.”

  Nicole’s heart beat faster seeing this unexpected side of him. Papa never talked about the circumstances of Mama leaving him, so his opening up this much was a huge thing.

  “Then why did you, Papa?”

  His eyes softened and took on a faraway look. When he smiled he looked years younger, much more like the happy young man she’d glimpsed in the wedding pictures in his study.

  “I loved her. Try as I might I couldn’t get her out of my system, and by that time she had been exposed to my world. People would want to hurt her to get back at me. The only way to keep her safe was to marry her. No one would dare touch the Don’s wife.”

  He let that statement sit in the room, and the ice cold hand of dread snaked around her throat and squeezed, until breathing became difficult.

  “I thought she would adapt, eventually, but she never did. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t just walk away from it all.” He sighed and squeezed her hand, and Nicole had to ask. It was now or never.

  “Would you? Have walked away from it all for her?” Nicole held her breath, because her father went so still she couldn’t be sure he was even breathing. When he eventually exhaled it was one long, deep sigh.

  “I was trying to do so in my own way, still am, really all these years later.” He patted Nicole’s hand and offered her a tired smile. “These things take time, and your mother…” Another one of those wan smiles which made him look so much older. “She was young, and impatient. I thought I had gotten my point across, because she seemed better at dealing with everything. When she told me she was expecting you, she made me the happiest man alive, but there were shadows in her eyes even then. I knew I was losing her, but the more I pushed to keep her safe, the more she pulled away. When you were born,” he raised her hand and kissed the back of it. “I thought I had it all. She was happy again, or so I thought, but then she took you and ran away. The police came with a warrant and enough evidence to put me away for a long time. My uncle, he wanted to have her killed.” He smiled grimly at Nicole’s sharp intake of breath. She’d only met her father’s uncle once, shortly after her arrival, and he’d given her the creeps then. Confined to a wheelchair due to his advanced age, he’d still held an air of menace, as he ran his gaze all over her and had dismissed her with a wave of his hand. She could well imagine a younger version of him ordering the kill of his nephew’s wife for having betrayed the family.

  “You stopped him?” she asked.

  Another deep sigh was her answer.

  “Si, I could no more hurt your mother than I could hurt you. Besides, had I not been so selfish, she would not have been in this position.”

  Nicole mulled this over for a while before she responded.

  “It sounds to me as though perhaps Mama was the truly selfish one.” Her father jerked in surprise, and she shrugged. “She didn’t give you much of a chance, did she? And if you truly were the love of her life, like she always told me, then, surely she shouldn’t have shopped you to the police. That’s just mean, and you what? Just let her go?”

  Papa pulled his hand away and stood up.

  “I watched over you both. I saw you grow up through a photographer’s lens, but when Anna died … I couldn’t let you live in that hovel. You needed protecting, and the only way to do that was to bring you here. Even so, I’m an old man. You needed someone strong as your husband. Someone who would eventually take over from me in the absence of any son of mine.”

  Nicole gasped and hugged herself.

  “Jamison?”

  “Si, he would have been good for you. Now…” He ran a weary hand over his face. “Now, well, he will not want soiled goods.”

  Nicole bristled at that, but the look of disappointment Papa gave her before he turned his back on her and left made her want to cry.

  How in all that was holy had she managed to get this all so wrong?

  ****

  Jamie pulled up outside the Don’s mansion pissed beyond reason that Nicoletta would appear to be going through with this wedding. The big marquee in the Don’s garden mocked him, as did the number of guests already milling about.

  Two of his own team of security nodded toward him when he got out of his sports car, and Jamie reached into the back to pull out the formal suit he’d have to wear for this farce of a wedding.

  He’d thought he’d been pissed when he found her note in the morning, but that had paled into nothingness compared to the roiling emotions which churned in his gut. That little madam would so regret her actions when he got his hands on her.

  Taking a deep breath to cool his temper, he approached the wide open doors leading into the spacious foyer which made up the Don’s house, and the fine hair on his back rose. Something was very wrong with the atmosphere in this place. He’d have expected the busy hubbub of a house readying itself for the big day, but a depressing silence filled the big place.

  Luigi Armantero, one of the Don’s best men, supposedly—Jamie reserved judgment on that—after all Nicoletta had slipped away from his and his brother Stefano all too easily that night—stepped up to him and gestured for him to follow.

  “Don Cabrizi is in his study. He wants to see you.”

  The man looked far from happy. Then again, so he should. Jamie had no intention of letting such tardiness go. When Luigi pushed open the heavy door guarding the Don’s inner sanctum, that itch of foreboding Jamie
had had on entering the mansion magnified tenfold. Don Cabrizi sat at his desk, cradling a brandy glass in his large hands, which he raised in silent salute to Jamie.

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “A bit early for that, don’t you think?”

  The older man gave a short humorless laugh, and downed his large shot of the amber liquid in one go, before he slammed it back on the desk.

  “I hate women. They’re nothing but fucking trouble.”

  Jamie hid his smile at that outburst.

  “Maybe, but they do have their uses.”

  A snort was his answer this time, and he watched with growing alarm as the Don filled another glass to the brim. At this rate he would be stone drunk at his only daughter’s wedding.

  “Go easy on that. You don’t want to stumble up the aisle when you give her away.”

  Another one of those grim laughs which made Jamie wonder what the fuck was going on.

  “Okay, what has she done this time?” he asked.

  “The wedding’s off.”

  The Don’s curt response sat in the room, and Jamie struggled to keep his expression neutral, as the other man downed another glass and eventually looked up at him.

  “She won’t get married. Besides, who’d want her now…”

  Don Cabrizi launched into Italian, giving Jamie a precious few minutes to digest this information. What he really wanted to do was fist pump the air, and race up there and kiss his girl senseless, but that was hardly appropriate behavior. So he forced himself to ignore the sudden flare of hope that seemed determined to take up residence in his chest anyway. So she called off the wedding. That didn’t mean she had done it for him.

  Best not to read too much into this, until he had all the facts.

  “Did she say why?” Jamie asked when the Don stopped his ranting to himself.

  “Oh yes, she’s fallen in love, or so Lisetta tells me. How the fuck? I had her watched so closely. Who the fuck dared to…” The glass went flying through the air and crashed against the wall, just under the portrait of her mother. “She’s too much like Anna.”

  Jamie followed the Don’s gaze. Nicoletta was the younger version of the woman smiling down on him, and not for the first time he wished he’d met her mother, while she was still alive. Had met Nicoletta in different circumstances for that matter. He’d been a fool to let the Don engineer all that.

  “You say that as though it’s a fault.” Jamie smiled at the exasperated older man.

  “Isn’t it? You know what her mother did, and Nicoletta, she—”

  “Had plenty of occasions to run to the police. She hasn’t, and I don’t believe for one second that she will. Besides, you’re mostly legit now, anyway.”

  The Don raised his glass in a silent salute, before staring into it as though it held the answers. This wasn’t getting them anywhere, so Jamie changed the subject. “Where is she? Let me talk to her.”

  “You can’t be serious. You heard what I said, right? She’s not intact, dammit. My only daughter and she’s thrown herself on some young fool, like a harlot.”

  The offhand way the man talked her down didn’t sit well with Jamie, and the Don’s eyes widened when he took a step toward the desk.

  “Careful there. I won’t let you talk about her like that. Besides, this is the twenty-first century, and a bride’s virginal status is hardly required.”

  Jamie took some grim satisfaction from the way Nicoletta’s father spluttered and reddened.

  “But I thought—”

  “Then you thought wrong. Now, excuse me, while I go and fix this mess you’ve created. I’m assuming she’s in her room, or has she managed to escape those apes you think so much of again?”

  Don Cabrizi shot to his feet and glared at him.

  “I trust Luigi and Stefano with my life. They’ve never let me down yet.”

  Jamie didn’t bother to reply. He simply crossed his arms, and stared him down. Some of her father’s certainty deflated the longer this went on, until he sat back down with a sigh.

  “How do you know all this?” Cabrizi asked.

  Jamie shrugged.

  “I may have been out of the country, but do you honestly think I wouldn’t keep an eye on her and you, for that matter? I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t.”

  The man in front of him sighed.

  “No, of course not, but if you knew, why in God’s name didn’t you intervene, son?”

  “I had my reasons,” Jamie said.

  ****

  Nicole sat on the window seat and watched the guests arrive with a frown. Surely, Papa had told people the wedding was off. The helicopter circling overhead gave her renewed palpitations. While the press hadn’t been invited, you could bet your bottom dollar that they would have a field day with this. After all, there was no hiding from the long lens shots of the paparazzi, and Papa’s influence only extended so far.

  A gilded cage, that’s what she was in, and as Papa hadn’t thrown her out on her ear, one she had no chance of escaping anytime soon. Besides, she didn’t want to imagine what would happen to her out there.

  Even Mama had not found true freedom, had she? She’d betrayed the man she’d loved in exchange for her freedom, only she hadn’t been free. A life spent in hiding wasn’t really a life. There was so much Mama hadn’t told her. Nicole should be cross at the deception, but she couldn’t find the anger she needed. Not today. Not when her heart was breaking into a thousand little pieces, and she hadn’t really achieved anything at all.

  She touched the mark on her neck and smiled through her tears. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She might only have her memories of one perfect night, but what a night it had been.

  Nicole had been so absorbed in her thoughts, that the sound of the door to her bedroom being opened startled her.

  “Now, what makes you smile like that, bellissima, I wonder?”

  Jamie’s deep voice held a hint of amusement, and her heart leapt in joy, only for that to turn into sheer terror, when she saw the man himself step into her room and shut the door. Oh, he looked good enough to eat, but why on earth was he here and dressed in top hat and tails? That made no sense at all.

  Not that any of that mattered when he looked at her like that, as though he couldn’t decide whether to paddle her ass or to strip her naked and fuck her silly. Her body responded to the silent authority in his gaze as though she was a puppet on a string, and when he smiled, crooked his finger at her and twirled it in an unspoken demand, she slid off the seat, stood up, and spreading the wide skirts of her dress dutifully spun in a circle.

  The flash of heated emotion when she came to face him again took her breath away.

  “They say it’s bad luck to see the bride before your wedding, but I don’t agree. You look utterly stunning, bellissima, but what is all this nonsense of you not getting married today? I didn’t get dressed up like this for my amusement, girl.”

  “Wha-at?” Nicole knew she was making goldfish impressions, but what on earth was he going on about? She wasn’t marrying him, because…

  Her heart cottoned on a long time before her brain did, and when it finally did, she only managed a squeak in response.

  “You’re Jamison?”

  “The one and only.” Jamie stepped closer and yanked her up against his large frame while he spoke, which was just as well, because her legs had turned to jelly at that announcement, and she would have crashed to the floor in an undignified heap.

  “There, I’ve got you. This has come as a shock I can tell, but you’ve only got yourself to blame. Had you not run out on me like a frightened little girl that morning, I’d have explained all this then.”

  He tightened his hold on her when she buried her head in his neck and inhaled. Oh, he smelled so good. Solid and safe, and above all hers.

  “I’m sorry, Sir.”

  His big chest rumbled in a groan, and in the next instant, Jamie had her pinned against the wall. Held up by his strength, her feet dangling
off the floor, she shrieked in surprise when he licked his bite on her neck.

  “I told you, you’re mine, and I don’t share what’s mine, you foolish girl. Lucky for you, the owner of Premiere Companions is my sister, and when your requirements landed on her desk, she was quick to inform me what my fiancée was up to.” He smiled at her gasp. She could feel his lips quirk against her skin, as he kissed a path up her jaw, until his mouth hovered over hers. “I must admit the urge to simply find you and pummel your behind for daring to do something that foolish rode me hard, but then I decided your way was better.” He nibbled along her bottom lip as he spoke but withdrew when she tried to kiss him.

  He laughed at her frustrated grunt, and slowly slid her back on her feet, while he brought a hand round to her throat in a possessive move she fast beginning to crave.

  “Sir?” she whispered, and his eyes flashed in approval.

  “Yes, I am your Sir, and don’t you forget it, bellissima. I have a collar all picked out to put around this slender neck of yours once we’re married, and a paddle with your name on it for our wedding night.”

  He smirked at the needy whimper she couldn’t help but utter in return to that promise … threat, she wasn’t sure what it was right now, only that she desperately wanted him to do that.

  “You’ll let me do that, won’t you, girl?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir, but I still don’t understand why you wanted me in the first place.”

  Annoyance crossed his features briefly, and then he kissed her. Stole her breath, in fact, with the intensity behind that kiss. It was more than a mere melding of lips and tongues, this felt like a promise, a merging of their hearts and souls. Nicole kissed him back with all the unsaid emotions which bubbled to the surface, and by the time he finally released her, they were both breathing heavily.

  “I so fucking want you right now, but I think we tempted the fates enough. Tonight, though.” He grasped her ass cheek through the folds of her wedding gown, and yanked her up and closer until he could grind his solid erection into her groin. “You won’t be able to walk for days, girl.”

  He released her abruptly, and stepping away, adjusted himself with a rueful grin in her direction. Everything south clenched in need seeing him do that, and Nicole knew she would need to change her underwear before the ceremony. It was both humbling and crazy to see the effect this man had on her hadn’t dimmed with the knowledge of who he really was. If anything it seemed to have increased it. It wasn’t wrong to lust after one’s fiancé after all, and what they had done was also validated. Perhaps she ought to be angry at him for deceiving her, but she hadn’t been truthful either, had she? And Nicole was no hypocrite. Besides, she was too damn happy right now to let anything spoil this moment.