by Tessa Radley
He didn’t need an innocent. He wanted a woman who knew the score; a woman he could walk away from when it was done.
A woman like Danielle Sinclair, who despite her coolness, was a thoroughly modern female. Her silky dress clung lovingly to her slim, supple body. Her long hair hung loose, with little wispy bits hanging onto her face looking sexily rumpled. A far cry from the efficient, ice-princess image she brandished the rest of the time.
His bride.
No! Rico’s hands fisted at his sides. She would never be his bride. His bride was dead. Buried. Abruptly he turned away, shoving white-knuckled fists in his pockets.
“You must be pleased with yourself. It all went smoothly.”
He swung around at the barely veiled animosity in Robert Sinclair’s voice. Sinclair was gazing at his daughter, a peculiar expression on his face. “She looks beautiful—so like her mother.”
Rico wished Sinclair would shut up. He didn’t need him repeating what he’d noticed all by himself: that Danielle glowed. Nor did he need any reminder of Rose Sinclair. What could he say to the man? I’m sorry Rose Sinclair died because some damned worthless drunk ploughed into her car? Sorry for the hell Danielle endured being trapped with her mother’s dead body? And what about the most painful apology of all: Sorry that Rose changed seats with me. It should’ve been me who died that day, not the mother of two teenage daughters.
Blindly he watched Danielle glide up to yet another couple. The man moved away, leaving her talking to a redhead. Kimberly, Rico realised, with sudden intensity. He’d shadowed Danielle’s every movement for a week and this was the first time the two sisters had been together since Kimberly’s return on Friday.
“D’Alessio—”
“Better call me Rico, hmm? Seeing that we’re family now.” Rico shot Sinclair a mocking glance, then decided it wouldn’t do to get into a fistfight with his supposed father-in-law before the reception had even ended and added placatingly, “I remember her as a teenager. She was always a considerate girl.”
“As I said, she’s like her mother.” Sinclair’s voice was gruff. “Watch her like a hawk, I don’t want—” he stopped “—anything to happen to her.”
Sinclair had to be remembering his wife’s death. He didn’t need to empathise with the bastard, to see his human side. Catching sight of his bride, Rico made his way across the room, his path unwavering. Far easier to view Sinclair as a cold, tyrannical tycoon than as a man who’d lost the woman he loved.
Anything but that.
Danielle watched Rico determinedly forging his way towards her, wearing that distant expression she hated. David detained him, and she sighed in relief.
“Are you sure that this wedding plan will work?” Kim’s eyes held concern…and curiosity.
Suddenly Danielle wished she’d kept Kim in the dark about the reason for her impulsive “marriage”. “Ken, Daddy and Rico are convinced. You try arguing with those three.”
“An unholy trinity, for sure.” Kim’s laughter grated on Danielle’s already frazzled nerves. “But this is more my kind of stunt than yours—marrying Daddy’s newest board member to thwart some weirdo. You should’ve had my wedding to Bradley.”
It would’ve been her wedding if her mother had lived, Danielle thought. A marriage between Bradley, Rose Sinclair’s best friend’s eldest son, and Danielle, had been her mother’s fondest wish. But it hadn’t been fated. Bradley had married Kim—as her sister had wanted. Her sister was happy. At last.
But she couldn’t resist saying, “Tired of Bradley already?” while she watched Rico say something to David, clap him on the back and continue toward her.
“Gosh, no! That was a joke.” Kim looked horrified that Danielle might have taken her seriously.
For once Danielle had had enough of her sister’s peculiar sense of humour. Turning to Kim, she said, “Well, don’t offer him around if you mean to keep him.”
“Dani—” Danielle winced at the old childhood name “—you didn’t really want Bradley did you? That was all Mum’s idea, wasn’t it?” Insecurity clung to Kim’s pretty features, and Danielle cursed herself for unsettling her sister.
“I was too young to know any better when our mothers paired us up. I was what…sixteen?…when they pronounced us a perfect match—and Bradley was only two years older. What did we know about life, love or relationships?”
The next year her mother had been killed and her life had changed forever. She’d withdrawn and struggled to come to terms with the trauma of the car accident and the loss of her mother. Almost twenty, Bradley had wanted to party, have fun, not provide emotional support for a fragile girl whose world had collapsed.
At seventeen she’d careened from Bradley’s boy-next-door friendship to a year of wild infatuation. Her eyes rested on the object of that illicit infatuation as Carly Campbell waylaid him.
“So you don’t mind that I…dated…Bradley, that we’re married?”
Kim had chased Bradley with the tenacity of a seasoned hunter after the trophy of a lifetime. The man hadn’t stood a chance. “Not at all. We never loved each other.”
“Never?” Kim sounded strange.
Danielle shook her head. “Never,” she repeated. Rico had shaken off Carly Campbell and was heading toward them.
Kim gave a theatrical shudder. “Rico D’Alessio scares me to death.”
Given the opening she wanted, Danielle asked softly, “Why did you do it, Kim?”
Her sister’s skin paled to a waxy shade whiter than the petals of the flowers on the tables. “I had to. It was making me unhappy so I told Bradley—and he said I had to confess to the authorities. He said he’d come with me. Bradley refused to marry me until I’d cleared Rico’s name.”
Horror swept over Danielle. If it hadn’t been for Bradley…Rico would’ve remained under a cloud. Bradley had made Kim face the consequences of her actions. But he’d stood by her. Momentarily Danielle felt envious. He must love her sister, flaws and all.
“Why did you accuse Rico in the first place?” Suddenly she wanted to shake Kim.
Kim’s eyes brimmed with transparent tears. “Oh, Danielle. Don’t you remember what it was like? No, I don’t suppose you do. You were so calm after Mom died. And I was confused!” Kim’s voice started to wobble.
“Hush.” Danielle bit back her irritated response and put a gentle hand on her sister’s arm. “Don’t work yourself up.” Had no one noticed her pain, her anguish?
“Sorry.” Kim gave a tremulous smile. “You said you knew nothing about life when you were sixteen. Well, nor did I. I was fifteen—”
“—almost sixteen.”
“My mind was a muddle.” But she didn’t meet Danielle’s eyes.
Danielle frowned, wanting to dig deeper. But she didn’t need a scene, or reports of an altercation between her and Kim. Her questions would have to wait.
Rico had almost reached them. He looked determined, his jaw hard. Danielle didn’t want him confronting Kim. Her sister must’ve had the same thought, because she muttered something incomprehensible, brushed a quick kiss across Danielle’s cheek and disappeared into the throng.
As Rico closed the door of the bridal suite behind him, Danielle started.
Rico pushed himself away from the door, his gaze narrowing to dark slits, and took a step into the sitting area. She stared at him wide-eyed, desperately casting around for something light and humorous to say to dissolve the rapidly escalating tension as he advanced into the room.
The ornate suite was decorated in shades of cream and gold. Long-stemmed lilies stood in two tall vases on a low table in front of the couch where she waited. But the details meant nothing to Danielle as she focused breathlessly on Rico.
He stopped inches from her, shrugged off his jacket and hurled it onto the adjacent chair with barely leashed force.
“You were right to fear me, to think I want more.” He flung the words into the silence of the room, shattering the uneasy truce they’d established.
&nb
sp; Panic fluttered through her. This was Rico, she told herself. He wouldn’t harm her. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve hurt her anytime in the past two weeks.
She tipped her head back. “So what do you want?” she challenged.
He ripped his bow tie loose and threw it after the jacket. She slid her tongue over suddenly dry lips and lifted her bare feet to tuck them beneath her. The soft satin of her bridal gown caressed her legs, increasing her awareness of tingling skin. Mesmerised, Danielle watched his hand return to his throat and undo the top button. Hastily she flicked her gaze upward, away from the triangle of exposed tanned flesh, and met his knowing gaze.
“What do you think I want?” he asked throatily.
Her heart leaped. She forced herself to breathe slowly, to control her reaction to him. “Not that! You could’ve had that years ago!”
“You were little more than a child…then. But things have changed. I’m no longer a married man, for one.”
The tight mouth, glittering eyes and set jaw didn’t belong to a man about to succumb to passion. “No, that’s not what you want. It’s…something else,” she said slowly.
“I want what I lost.”
His words lay between them like a wall.
Danielle frowned. “But you’ve got a position on the Sinco board. And your shares have been reissued. I processed the paperwork, remember?” she said, referring to all the forms she’d filled in while he sat in her office.
“It’s not enough.”
“Daddy will talk to Bradley soon.” She paused as he shook his head. “So what more do you want?” The words emerged breathlessly under his dark stare.
His voice barely above a whisper, he murmured, “I want a real marriage. Monday morning we go to a registry office and validate today’s ceremony.”
Rico wanted to marry her. For real. Danielle’s chest tightened, and blood pounded in her head until each thud-thud throbbed. But why? She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion. What was he after? It certainly wasn’t as if her body held any appeal. “Why?”
“Because I want a son, an heir.”
Sick disappointment churned in her stomach. He didn’t need a sham marriage to regain his reputation. “You mislead me. Deliberately. Do you know how much that really pains me—what you did was tantamount to lying!”
“Pain?” He spoke so softly she strained to hear him. “I know about real pain. The kind that rips into you like a knife, and hacks your heart out until there is nothing left but a numb, black hole. No life. No feeling. Nothing.” He stared past her, his eyes unfocused. “After Kim’s trumped up statement I had no choice, I had to leave the country. Your father made sure of that.”
“How—” Danielle broke off too scared to ask. What had her father done?
“Your father convinced my wife that I would go to prison if I was charged—whether I’d done anything to Kim or not—unless I turned over my shares and left the country. Lucia was frantic with worry. I had no choice. We left.” He shut his eyes and the cords in his neck stood out. “A month later Lucia lost our baby. Less than a week afterwards she killed herself.”
Danielle shuddered at the rawness in his voice. She tried to block out the agony etched on his face. “You can’t hold that against my father—”
“Oh, yes, I can.” His eyes flicked open, boring into her, bleak and merciless. “He convinced Lucia that I would go to prison. Even more than she hated the idea of being married to an adulterous bastard who preyed on impressionable young girls, Lucia couldn’t bear the idea of her child’s father being a convict. It killed her.”
Oh, God. Danielle pressed a balled fist against her mouth, the knuckles ridging her lips.
“Lucia begged me to leave New Zealand, to flee like a coward—even though I wanted to stand trial, show the world that I’d been set up. Your father stripped me of everything that I had. My dignity. My reputation. My wife and my child.”
The silence stretched, but she could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t sound awfully banal and patronising. At last she said, “I can’t give you a real marriage.”
“Because you’re a Sinclair?” His hand went to his chest, and the second shirt button popped open. “A princess? And I’m a paesano?”
Riveted, she stared at the hand that was now undoing button number three. “Paesano?” She frowned at the unfamiliar word.
“It means peasant, Princess.” He yanked the shirt over his head.
Her breath caught at the sight of the solid strength of his arms and shoulders, of his bronzed chest, with the beautifully defined muscle. “No! I don’t want to marry anyone, because—”
He interrupted with an ugly laugh. “You’re off the hook, Princess. I only want a temporary wife.” He threw the shirt away from him with unnecessary force.
Temporary wife. She averted her eyes from his bare chest and looked him straight in the eye, hoping he wouldn’t notice her flaming cheeks. “So why do you want a temporary wife at all?”
He was so close that she could see the dark line shadowing his jaw, smell the scent of his skin mixed with aftershave—the unique scent that was Rico. She held her breath, determined to shut out the impact he had on her senses.
She froze as he placed his hands on the couch back, trapping her between his arms, and lowered his face to hers. “You’re going to give me a son, in exchange for the child I lost.”
Oh, God!
The pain was as sharp as hot ice splintering inside her chest. It ripped her apart and she stifled an exclamation. Ducking under his arm, she skittered away to the opposite corner of the couch. He let her go. Running an unsteady hand through her fine hair, she said with more conviction than she felt, “I can’t do this, Rico. I can’t marry you.”
“Oh, yes, you can. And you’ll give me a child. Mine. I want him to be born legitimate, to carry the D’Alessio name.”
Five
M ine.
His child! “That’s why you suggested today’s charade?” Danielle challenged him, outraged and shocked by the lengths he’d gone to. “So that you could get revenge?”
His eyes flickered.
Bingo! “You wanted to trap me into giving you a child.” Danielle flung the words at him, rising to her feet and almost bursting into wild laughter. But she had a nasty suspicion that once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop hysteria from taking over. “It had nothing to do with protecting me, saving me from some monster. Or even regaining your lost reputation. Gosh, but you did a grand sales job. I believed you!” That hurt. She’d secretly hoped his help meant that he had a soft spot for her. Stupid!
Another thought struck. “Does this man even exist? Or is he a figment of your imagination, a phantom that you’ve got us all chasing?” she demanded. “Strange, I’d never thought of you as cruel.”
He caught her wrist, his eyes empty, and put her back down onto the couch. “Stalking is not my style. He’s no phantom. Never underestimate him.”
Never underestimate Rico. Intimidating, dangerous, yet he didn’t scare her. She didn’t even bother to fight free of his grasp. “And the wedding? Was that part of the original plan?”
He shrugged, and a wave of silky hair fell forward onto his brow. “Okay. I admit it, the wedding was convenient. A means to an end.”
She resisted the urge to push the errant lock back with her free hand. Strange that his hair looked so soft, when the man himself was so hard. Ruthlessly suppressing the effect that a single lock and all that bare skin had on her, Danielle focused on a growing realisation. This wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment idea. He’d thought it all out, then jumped at the opportunity when it came his way. “How long have you been planning this?” she asked suddenly.
His mouth twisted. “Since the call came from my lawyer that Kim had recanted. But my original plan had to be abandoned.”
So he had planned it! She recoiled, and his fingers tightened around her wrist. She shouldn’t be surprised. Being hell-bent on revenge would’ve made up for some of the humili
ation he’d suffered.
“Oh?” she invited.
“Kim decided to get married, and bigamy is a little too…difficult.”
He’d planned to go after Kim! Danielle shut her eyes at the thought of Rico married to Kim…he would’ve knocked the life out of her flighty, neurotic sister. At least Kim was safe in Bradley’s care. As for herself…
When she opened her eyes, she’d made her decision. “There’s no way I can do what you want,” she said flatly, flexing her hands in his grasp, trying not to let his touch warm her. It was the absolute truth, for more reasons than he knew.
She’d finally escaped her father’s control, she wasn’t submitting to another man’s demands. Especially a man who required only a convenient womb.
“If that’s your final answer, I’ll have to go to plan B.”
He let go of her hand. She rubbed the sensitised skin at her wrist and felt a chilling sense of loss at the broken connection. “Plan B?”
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t have a fallback plan did you, Princess?” His tone was gentle, but his eyes scorched across the small space that separated them.
With mounting unease, she asked. “What is plan B?”
He placed a knee on the edge of the couch, and the move brought him closer to her. “Why, marry Kimberly, of course.”
“But she’s already married. And you’re married to me.”
“A pretend marriage or have you forgotten?” The look he gave her was pointed.
It hurt to have him to remind her.
Slowly with the infinite patience she’d always used to convince Kim that some madcap plan would not work, she said, “You can’t marry Kim. You’ve already abandoned that plan.”
“Maybe not. Marrying you would certainly be easier…in the eyes of most of the world we’re married already.” He smiled, a cold smile that bared his teeth but failed to melt the ice in his eyes.