Di Sione's Innocent Conquest (The Billionaire's Legacy)

by Carol Marinelli

  The bastard was in LA.

  Oh, this had nothing to do with making things right.

  This was just about catching up on so many unattended wrongs.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ABBY WOKE AFTER MIDDAY.

  Like a sad Miss Havisham she was still wearing her silver gown and her face was all swollen from crying till dawn.

  Matteo hadn’t come dashing to her door to explain, when she had hoped he might, but Abby understood why.

  And he hadn’t answered his phone when she’d tried several times to ring, and she understood why too.

  She had put him in the same league as her father and, worse than that, Hunter, and that was the very last place he deserved to be. To a man like Matteo, who had been put in the same league as his father his entire life, it had been a very low blow she had served.

  Abby simply didn’t know how to put this right.

  Yes, he had lied to her, but now, every time she got cross, every time a rush of anger rose, she remembered his kindness, his sexiness and how he had helped her to find herself.

  She had everything she thought she ever wanted.

  The Henley Cup.

  A winning team.

  Revenge.

  Her sexuality back.

  But not him.

  No wonder he didn’t want a relationship, Abby thought, only she tried one more time to reach him on his phone.

  It was the Monopoly of love because she got sent straight to voicemail.

  ‘Matteo, it’s Abby. Last night...’ She’d taken the low road. ‘Last night,’ Abby attempted again, ‘I said some things that you didn’t deserve to hear. I’m sorry for that and...’ What else? Abby thought. The truth. ‘I don’t know what else to say. You’re right, I can’t believe that I didn’t hear you out. I want to though.’

  She rung off and sat there, then pounced on her phone when a text came through but sagged when she saw it was just Bella.

  Have you heard the news? :-)

  Abby frowned.

  What news?

  Turn it on.

  Abby did and saw the serious face of a news reporter standing outside the venue where she was supposed to have been for the presentation last night. The reporter was talking about the tight-knit world of the racing community and denying that Hunter had been loaded and got behind the wheel.

  ‘The Lachance team manager insists that he fell...’

  And then they flashed to an image of Hunter leaving a medical centre and Abby swallowed because if he fell, then it must have been from some considerable height and in several directions!

  She called Bella.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Abby said. ‘Did he take out a car?’

  ‘Oh, this was no car accident,’ came the gleeful reply. ‘Your lovely sponsor paid him a visit last night.’

  ‘Matteo?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Oh, no...’ Abby felt sick. ‘Has he been charged?’

  ‘That’s just it—Matteo wants to be charged!’ Bella laughed. ‘In fact, when he’d finished with Hunter he took out a business card and dropped it on him and said that he was looking forward to explaining his actions in front of a judge. Oh, Abby, it was one of the best nights of my life. We’re all still drinking and cheering.’ But then Bella was serious. ‘Hunter came on to me once. God, Abby, don’t ask but...’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Abby said. ‘I get it.’

  They would talk properly some day.

  ‘Where is he?’ Abby asked.

  ‘Having his teeth reimplanted, I think.’

  ‘No, I mean, where’s Matteo?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bella answered. ‘He just left afterwards and no one knows where he is...’

  Abby did.

  As she rung off she heard the door and then his voice and there, swaying in the doorway, looking rather the worse for wear, was Matteo.

  ‘I know you hate violence...’ he started.

  Abby did.

  ‘But he had to pay.’

  Matteo had a black eye and bruised knuckles and a chipped front tooth. It would have been some fight; Abby knew how hard Hunter worked to stay in shape and she also knew, firsthand, how violent his temper could be.

  ‘Come in,’ Abby said and she held the door open but Matteo shook his head.

  ‘Nope, I’m just here to tell you one thing. Two actually.’

  ‘Well, can we at least do that inside?’ Abby asked and finally Matteo nodded and in he came. She spoke first. ‘I tried to call you.’

  ‘I threw my phone out the car.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to talk me down,’ Matteo said, ‘which you would have tried to and then you’d have worried all night.’ Then he was more direct. ‘And I was cross with you.’

  She’d thought that he might be.

  ‘What Hunter did to you was despicable. What he’s still doing to you, you shouldn’t allow. Stop wasting your life exacting revenge.’

  ‘I know that now.’ Abby was trying not to cry. ‘Even when we won the cup, I kept wanting to explain that I was happy, just that we’d won, not because of beating him.’

  ‘Good,’ Matteo said and then he gave in standing and went and took a seat on a large dark sofa.

  He looked around her apartment and, after the night he had had, it was nice and relaxing just to sit in silence. There must be a huge tree outside because the only view he could see as he stared out was green leaves.

  ‘I’ll get to the second thing in a moment,’ Matteo said and rested his head back for a while.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Abby offered.

  ‘A drink.’

  She guessed he didn’t mean coffee.

  ‘I don’t think you should be drinking,’ Abby said but then went and poured him a very nice cognac.

  ‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ Matteo said, taking a long, slow sip.

  ‘I run a motor team,’ Abby said. ‘They get tired of lemonade. Actually, my friend Bella gave it to me when we came fifth last year. I’ve been hiding it from them since then.’

  ‘Good.’

  But the small talk didn’t last for very long.

  ‘Second thing,’ Matteo said and he watched as her cheeks went pink and her eyes, which were still red from crying all night, blinked a few times. ‘Don’t ever again compare me to him.’

  ‘I’m really sorry for what I said.’

  ‘And so you should be,’ Matteo responded, ‘because I would never treat any woman that way.’

  ‘I get that, Matteo. I was cross, I was upset...’

  ‘No excuse!’ he said and he pointed his finger at her. ‘Because I love a good row but if you ever hurl that at me again I’ll be straight out of the door.’

  He served her a very serious warning but even as he did there was this little thing called hope flickering in her heart because...did that mean that they might, just might, have a future?

  Oh, not a big one, he’d made that very clear, but he’d lived in her heart for three months yet and she didn’t want it all to end on a row.

  ‘And you’re never to compare me to your father either.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Abby said.

  ‘He knows what happened?’ Matteo checked. He still couldn’t believe it but Abby nodded.

  ‘He just carries on as if it didn’t. I hate how he has that photo still on his wall.’

  ‘It isn’t any more. I smashed it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And I tore it up into a million pieces and it still wasn’t enough and so I went and found him and I don’t regret it.’ Matteo stood. ‘I’m going to go.’

  He wanted a bath and to tidy up; this wasn’t how today was supposed to be.

  ‘Don’t go yet.’

  ‘I’m a mess. I want to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll run you a bath,’ Abby said. ‘And you can sleep here.’

  She just could not stand another twelve or twenty-four hours’, or even, knowing Matteo, several weeks’ delay in p
roceedings.

  Abby ran him a bath and he stripped off as easily as he always did and got in and then she sat on the edge in her gown.

  ‘Why are you still wearing it?’ Matteo asked.

  ‘I fell asleep with it on.’

  ‘That’s very un-Abby.’

  ‘Yes, lately I am.’

  He had the loveliest body and she got a very nice view of the best of it as he lay back and ducked his head under the water for a moment and then came up again.

  ‘I know you don’t want to hear it,’ Matteo said, ‘but I am going to explain my version of things.’

  ‘I do want to hear it.’

  ‘Then get my jacket.’

  She did and he half drenched it as he went through the pockets and took out the necklace and then dropped his jacket back on the floor.

  ‘You know my grandfather brought us up?’

  Abby nodded.

  ‘And I told you about the fight. How, since then, we’ve worked at things. We don’t talk about much, but we do talk. I take him out and I care very much for him. In April he asked me to come and see him and told me that he was very ill.’

  She knew that much from his conversation with Allegra.

  ‘When we were growing up he used to tell us this tale about the Lost Mistresses. I never really paid much attention. He’d just say it all the time...’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Oh, no...’ Matteo rolled his eyes and put on an old man’s voice. ‘“Don’t ask me how I came by them...an old man must have his secrets...”’

  Abby laughed.

  ‘Well, he started going on about his Lost Mistresses again. He said he wanted me to find one of them for him. At first I thought he was a bit confused. But no, he showed me a photo of the necklace and said he wanted to go to his grave in peace and he begged me to find the necklace. I tracked it down to your father and I made him an offer, which he refused. Your father said that if I wanted the necklace I had to get you to come to his fundraiser, looking like a woman for once and wearing it.’ He looked over to Abby. ‘I should have said no then. It was wrong of me, I accept that. I told him that I wasn’t going to seduce you or anything. He suggested that I go in as an investor.’

  It hurt to hear.

  She couldn’t polish his words up like a stone.

  The very first time they met he had lied to her.

  ‘I thought you were interested in the team,’ Abby said...and it sounded so pathetic, but not as pathetic as admitting, she had hoped, almost from the start, that he had wanted her. ‘You said...’

  ‘Abby, I hated cars. And you know why.’ She nodded. ‘But I didn’t by the time we went to dinner.’

  Still, she recalled him saying how great she looked in those awful jeans and the ease he had put her at.

  To know it had all been a lie hurt like hell.

  ‘Abby, I thought you were the rudest woman I’d ever met. I had a hangover, and your attitude made it very easy to walk away. I was going to tell my grandfather there was no chance, or make your father a better offer. But the moment we started talking, I mean, really talking, I was in. I wasn’t pretending any more.’

  ‘Yet you still didn’t tell me,’ Abby said, and she wasn’t cross, just confused.

  ‘When?’ Matteo demanded. ‘When was I supposed to tell you?’ And then he told her something about himself. ‘I’m a good liar, Abby, and I don’t usually have much of a conscience. I say what I have to to get what I want and I’m very good at avoiding things. When my parents would fight I’d just go off into my own world. When my grandfather tells me he’s dying, I suggest we go out for a drink. When the woman I’m crazy about tells me all that’s happened to her and then comes down, so shy and nervous and wearing that necklace...should I have told you that night?’ he asked. ‘Would you have taken it well then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On Sunday night, as soon as I landed back in New York, I went and spoke with my grandfather,’ Matteo said. ‘I told him that he wasn’t getting the necklace, that I wouldn’t do it to you.’ He handed it to her. ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘Technically it’s yours,’ she said. ‘Gentleman’s agreement and that.’

  ‘Your father’s no gentleman, so that nulls that. It’s yours.’

  Abby took it. ‘What did your grandfather say when he found out he wasn’t getting it back?’

  ‘He was upset, I guess, but he’ll live.’ Matteo closed his eyes. ‘Actually, he won’t.’ He gave her a half smile. ‘He asked if he could see it one more time—is that okay?’

  ‘I think we could manage that.’ Abby stood.

  ‘Do you get now why I didn’t tell you?’

  Abby didn’t answer him; instead she stood and walked to the bathroom door.

  ‘You’re going?’ Matteo said.

  ‘Yep.’

  Matteo lay back in the water and closed his eyes again.

  Of course she was.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ABBY WENT INTO her bedroom and the same tree that filled the view from her lounge was there in her bedroom window.

  They could never end on a row.

  In a few days the bruises would be gone, that gleaming smile would be back in place and Matteo would be off to pastures new.

  Now though, even if he had lied to get past the locked door to her heart, she was very glad that he had.

  In the past few weeks she had opened up and become more trusting, less wary. Matteo was right—had he told her then she would have walked away.

  She had changed.

  Everything had changed.

  Right down to the fact that she took off her dress and she put on the necklace and then naked, save for the Lost Mistress, she walked back into the bathroom.

  She loved him.

  He had stood up for her, fought for her, and completely he accepted her and she accepted him.

  Not quite perfect.

  She wouldn’t have him any other way.

  For however long they had.

  Abby didn’t want to change him, nor for Matteo to change for her. She just hoped that one day he might lose his dark self-image and know the amazing man he was.

  He was lying, dozing in the steamy water, but he opened his eyes when she walked in.

  Yes, that shy nervous beauty had gone, as had that guarded woman, yet her eyes were a bit wary, no doubt wondering as to her reception as, for the first time, she initiated things.

  ‘Do you be naked, Miss Abby?’ Matteo said in a servant’s voice and he held out a hand and helped her into the bath.

  ‘Enough of that talk, young Matteo,’ Abby said and any trace of awkwardness evaporated like the steam from the water as they made each other laugh. She sat between his big long legs as he eased himself up and she just wished they could stay in the bath for ever and that he would never have to leave.

  ‘Oh, and you be wearing that lovely necklace,’ he said. ‘Can I feel your jewels?’

  ‘You can.’

  His hand slipped under the water.

  ‘That’s a fine one there,’ Matteo said and he watched her bite on her lip.

  God, it felt good, Abby thought as he moved deeper inside and his legs hauled her closer towards him.

  ‘Can I show you something, Miss Abby?’ Matteo asked and she could only guess what it was.

  She was wrong.

  ‘Lose the voice,’ Abby begged. She didn’t want to play servants any more and, as she climbed on, Matteo completely forgot he’d been about to produce a ring.

  They couldn’t kiss, given his swollen mouth, and so she just held on to his shoulders and moved on him at whim and then bent her head and bit him on the shoulder and wished, how she wished, she’d seen it in Dubai.

  His fingers now dug into her buttocks and he said words that were going to really hurt her later, because he told her that he loved her.

  ‘And I want to be with you for ever,’ Matteo said.

  He was a liar, Abby knew. He would say anything to win, and of course he did, as he pu
lled her down harder and faster. She was coming, and as he came he told her he loved her again.

  ‘You don’t play fair,’ Abby said, her head on his shoulder, feeling the last flickers of them, and then she pulled back and looked at the most complex man she could meet.

  ‘Can I show you something, Abby?’ Matteo said in his lovely, normal voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have to get off,’ he said and, as she did, he added, ‘While you’re up...’

  He made her, dripping wet, get out of the bath and into his jacket.

  ‘I was going to show you this before you so rudely interrupted me,’ Matteo said as she took out a small wooden box that was different, yet somehow the same, as the one she knew.

  ‘What this?’ Abby asked, opening the catch, and what she saw had her body tingle with goose bumps.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘My necklace,’ Abby said. ‘Except it’s a ring.’

  It was the most beautiful emerald that she had ever seen, and the setting was the same as the necklace that they had fought over.

  The necklace that had brought them together, even if it had torn them apart for a while.

  ‘You had this made for me.’

  ‘No,’ Matteo said. ‘I was walking past a shop... Yes.’ He stopped teasing her. ‘I had it made for you when I got back from Monte Carlo. I was going to tell you about the necklace and your father, tonight, in fact, and then I was going to give you this...’

  How badly she had judged him.

  She went to slip it on to her middle finger but it was too small.

  ‘It’s not a dress ring, Abby...’ Matteo said and there was no tease in his voice. ‘It’s an engagement ring.’ All joking was aside. He was as nervous as he’d expected to be, not because of what he was asking her—Matteo knew what he wanted. He was nervous that his past, that his father, that the doubts his own grandfather had about him, that he had had about himself, might have crept into her.

  ‘You want to marry me?’ She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

  ‘More than want to marry you,’ Matteo said. ‘I have to have you in my life. I was going to ask you tonight.’

  ‘I thought it was just dinner.’

  ‘Just dinner?’ Matteo checked. ‘Or did you want sex too?’ he said and Abby smiled as he pulled her back into the bath.