Читать книгу Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child - Julia James - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

‘WELL, I THINK that all went off exceedingly well!’ Marlene Viscari’s voice was rich with satisfaction as she bestowed a gracious smile upon Vito and his mother, who was standing beside him as she had been all evening, with a fixed expression on her face.

His mother was not the only one with a fixed expression. Carla Charteris, Marlene’s daughter, was wearing one too. Vito hadn’t seen her for some time, and the last he’d heard of her was that she was in the throes of a torrid romance with Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna, no less. Presumably, he thought, Carla was as eager to get back to him as he was eager to get back to Eloise.

Marlene was speaking again, graciously inviting him and his mother to stay for coffee now that their guests had departed.

‘We have so much to discuss,’ she said. ‘Now that you are back from your little jaunt, Vito!’

Her attempt at lightness and her referring to his essential business tour as a ‘jaunt’ grated on him—just as everything about her did.

But a moment later his every brain cell went on high alert.

Marlene sailed on. ‘And we really do need to settle all this business about the allocation of the shares, do we not?’

Vito tensed, his eyes like gimlets. What was Marlene up to? He’d been keeping checks on any movement in the markets, listening to the rumour mills around the hotel industry in case Marlene was making any moves to dispose of her shareholding in any way other than by selling to him, but there’d been no sign of any suspicious activity at all.

Not even from Nic Falcone, who had made no secret of being more than keen to take any bites going from Viscari Hotels to feed his ambitious plans for his own start-up hotel chain. Vito had been keeping very close tabs on that particular rival!

But surely even Marlene wouldn’t be so disloyal to the family she’d married into as to contemplate such a betrayal of her late husband’s trust? Nevertheless, he could not afford to ignore her blatant hint just now.

He turned back to his mother. ‘Mamma—I’ll see you to your car, then stay for coffee with Marlene.’

He exchanged significant eye contact with her and she nodded, casting a sharp look at her sister-in-law, who had a look about her of a cat about to engage with a bowl of cream.

Her expression had changed when he returned to the salon. Marlene was sitting down, Carla standing behind her, and the fixed look on her face was stonier now, so much so that he wondered at it. Was something wrong with Carla?

But it was her mother he must attend to right now. He would hear her out. Too much depended on her. The whole future of Viscari Hotels—the legacy he was dedicated to protecting—rested on his shoulders. Even though the legacy was now fatefully split between himself and Marlene Viscari—who was entirely free to dispose of it however she wanted.

Unless he could find a way to stop her. And he had to—somehow he had to!

Into Vito’s head sprang the vision he hated to allow in—the vision that sent anguish spearing through him like the point of a blade. His father, stricken after his heart attack, lying in a hospital bed in the last few minutes of his life, his hand clutching at Vito while Vito’s mother collapsed, sobbing, at his side.

‘You’ve got to get those shares back—Vito, you must...you must! Whatever it takes—whatever it takes get them back! Pay whatever price she demands. Whatever it costs you! Promise me—promise me!’

And he had promised. What else could he have done with his dying father begging him so? Binding him with an unbreakable obligation.

Unbreakable.

The word sounded in his head now as he heard Marlene out. She was taking her time in getting to the point, asking him about his tour as they drank their coffee, but eventually she set down her cup and glanced briefly at her stony-faced daughter—who had left her coffee untouched, Vito noticed.

‘And now,’ began Marlene, setting her gaze upon Vito, ‘we must look to the future, must we not? The matter of Guido’s shares—’

At last! thought Vito impatiently.

A benign smile was settling across Marlene’s well-preserved features...a smile that did not reach her eyes. And at her next words he froze.

‘My poor Guido entrusted his shares to me, and of course I must honour that trust. Which is why...’ her unsmiling eyes held Vito’s blandly ‘...I can think of no better way to resolve the issue than by a means long dear to my heart.’

She paused, and in that pause Vito felt his brain turn to ice.

‘What could be better than uniting the two shareholdings by uniting...’ she beamed, glancing from Vito to her daughter and back ‘...the two halves of our family? You two young people together!’

Disbelief paralysed Vito. What kind of farce was Marlene trying to play out? Urgently he threw a look at Carla, waiting for her to express the same rejection and revulsion that he was feeling. But, like a shockwave going through him, he registered that there was no such reaction from her. Instead she was turning a steely, unblinking gaze on him.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that’s an excellent idea.’

He stared, hearing the words fall from her tightly pressed lips.

Oh, hell! thought Vito.

* * *

Eloise tossed restlessly in bed. How long could that family function of Vito’s go on? It was way past midnight already. She’d spent a forlorn evening. Calling Room Service for a dinner she had only picked at, staring unseeingly at an English-language TV channel. Missing Vito. Feeling left behind.

Finally she had resorted to bed—but the huge king-sized mattress seemed empty without Vito’s lean, muscled form.

She tried to think positively. Maybe Vito was spending some time with his mother—after all, he hadn’t seen her for weeks now, while he’d been inspecting his hotels. It was natural for her to want to spend a little time with her son.

A thought struck her. Maybe Vito’s telling her about me!

But what would there be to tell? That elegant Frenchwoman in Nice—one of his exes as he’d admitted—had acidly called her Vito’s latest beautiful blonde.

Implying I’m just one in a long line... None of them meaning anything special to him.

But was she something special to Vito? And did she want to be?

I want to find out! I want time with him, a proper relationship with him. I want to find out what he means to me and me to him!

Living in Rome, being settled here, would surely show her that? She could get a daytime job as a nanny—maybe to an ex-pat family—while Vito took up the reins of running his family hotel business. She would learn Italian cooking—how to make fresh pasta, even!

She felt her imagination take over, seeing herself cooking dinner for Vito, being part of his everyday life. Eagerness leapt within her. Bringing with it a realisation of just how attractive to her that image was—and why.

It must mean he’s important to me—far more than just a passing romance! Mustn’t it?

She tossed and turned, knowing for certain only that she wanted Vito back with her tonight. That she missed his company.

She must have fallen asleep eventually, for the next thing she knew she was awake.

‘Vito...?’ she said, her voice warm with drowsy pleasure.

He was standing by the window of the bedroom, silhouetted against the pale curtains. He didn’t move for a moment, but went on looking down at her.

A thread of uneasy disquiet went through her. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

Vito felt her anxious gaze on him. Savage emotion seared through him. No, everything was not all right! It was the damnable, impossible opposite of all right!

His fists clenched in his pockets. In his head he heard Carla say, yet again, those fateful words.

‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’

Fury and disbelief had exploded within him. ‘You can’t possibly mean that!’

Carla hadn’t answered, had only tightened her mouth, while Marlene, with a little light laugh, had got to her feet.

‘My dear Vito,’ she’d said, relinquishing her daughter’s hand, which had promptly closed like a vice over the back of the chair instead, ‘you must know how much I would love to welcome you as my son-in-law! It is my long-held dream!’

The triumphant expression in her eyes had made Vito’s fury sharpen.

She’d scarcely left the room before he’d rounded on his step-cousin.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Carla?’ He hadn’t minced his words. ‘You’ve always stone-walled your mother in her insane obsession about us marrying—just as I have! And as for Guido’s shares... I’ve told you that I’m more than willing to pay a generous price for them—’

Carla’s voice had cut in tautly. ‘Well, the price is marriage to me, Vito.’

He’d shot right back at her, his voice icy. ‘Carla, I will not engage in your mother’s demeaning and quite frankly distasteful fantasy about the two of us marrying.’

Two spots of colour had flared in his step-cousin’s cheeks. ‘So you think it demeaning and distasteful to marry me?’

There had been an edge in her voice that had made Vito pause.

‘That isn’t what I said,’ he’d retorted.

He’d taken a breath—a heavy one—staring hard at her, his eyes narrowing.

‘Carla, what’s going on here? The last I heard you were running around with Cesare di Mondave—the two of you were all over each other!’

His eyes had rested on his step-cousin, taken in the sudden paling of her face, the flash of burning emotion in her violet eyes.

Slowly, words had fallen from him as realisation had dawned. ‘So that’s it—he’s finished with you, hasn’t he?’

The two spots of colour in her cheeks had flared again. ‘You are not the only one, Vito, who considers it “demeaning and distasteful” to marry me,’ she said tightly.

Immediately his expression had changed. ‘Oh, Carla, I’m sorry.’ His voice had been sympathetic—genuinely so. ‘Sorry because...well, to speak frankly, it was always going to end that way. The Conte di Mantegna can trace his bloodline back to the ancient Romans! He’s going to marry a woman who can do the same! He might have affairs beforehand, but he’ll never marry a woman who—’

Carla’s voice had sliced across his. ‘A woman, Vito, who is about to announce her engagement to another man!’

There had been viciousness in her tone—clear and knifing.

‘And marrying me is the only way you’re going to get those shares back!’

She’d stormed off, leaving him to feel the pitiless jaws of Marlene’s steel trap biting around his guts. Jaws he still felt now as he stood looking down at Eloise.

Eloise! She could blot out for him the trap that had been sprung.

He lowered himself down upon the bed, sweeping her up into his arms. Her soft, slender body was like swansdown in his embrace, her hair like silk, her skin as soft as velvet. He crushed her to him and she murmured to him. Words that were like balm to his stormy soul.

This was where he wanted to be! Here, with Eloise.

He hugged her again, and as he did so he could feel her breasts peaking against the fine lawn of his dress shirt, feel their crests grazing him...arousing him. His mouth nuzzled into the silken hair, seeking the satin skin beneath, and he glided his lips over her throat, her jaw, soon reaching their goal—the soft, parting lips that sought him, too, clinging to him.

He heard her give the soft little moan that he knew so well was a presage of her growing response to him. He gloried in it...revelled in it. He deepened the kiss, his hands going to his shirt buttons to free him from all this unnecessary clothing. Free him from the jaws of the trap that had been sprung on him. Free him to find what he sought most.

Eloise in his arms and he in hers, her body welcoming his, her mouth clinging to his, her breasts swelling against him, her thighs parting for him, taking him into her, taking him to the only place he wanted to be—the place only she could take him.

The rest of the world melted away like honey on a heated spoon—melted and flowed and became only and entirely what he was feeling now, what he was doing now. Because there was nothing else. Nothing else mattered and nothing else existed—only this, only now...

Only Eloise.

And when the fire had consumed him, consumed them both, and after a long, long burning died away, leaving only the warm, sweet glow that was their tangled limbs, their clinging bodies, only then did the words form in his head.

I’m not losing this!

* * *

‘Is everything all right?’

Eloise’s voice was rich with concern. She’d asked Vito that question last night but he hadn’t answered, only swept her away to the sensual paradise he always took her to, blotting everything out except the bliss of his possession. Blotting out the unease and disquiet that had nipped at her when he’d come into their bedroom, gazing almost sightlessly down at her with his tense stance, his closed face...shutting her out.

That same unease came again now, as they breakfasted out on the roof terrace of their suite. There was an air of abstraction about Vito, despite his sunny airy smiles and words.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Vito assured her, making his tone as convincing as he could. He would not trouble Eloise with his troubles.

But even as his gaze lingered on her another woman intruded into his vision. Carla, lashing out in the pain of rejection by her lover, who had spurned her in order to marry a woman from his own aristocratic background, driven to make that outrageous ultimatum to save her own stricken pride.

It was the only way to get Guido’s shares back.

Frustration seethed in him—and more than frustration. Grief—tearing, abject grief.

Again he recalled his last memory of his father—begging him with his dying breath to get back the shares that would safeguard Viscari Hotels, protect the legacy that was Vito’s duty to pass on to his own son, to the next generation.

And the memory of his own grief-stricken voice, making that promise to his father—the last words his father would hear him say before sinking into unconsciousness and death...

How can I betray that promise? Betray what he begged me to do in the last moments of his life?

Emotion knifed him like a blade in his heart. How could he betray his father? Break the promise he’d made that nightmare day?

‘Vito?’

Eloise’s voice invaded his consciousness, made him refocus on her. He put a smile on his face, though it was an effort. But for Eloise he would make that effort.

I don’t want her affected by any of this—it’s too grim, too damn awful!

No, he wanted her protected—insulated. Until he was free of this hideous nightmare closing in on him.

When it’s all over—when I’ve got those shares back—then...

Then he would be free to do what he wanted—focus on Eloise, on discovering just what she meant to him.

Discovering whether she’s the one woman for me.

But there was no chance of that yet—not until he’d found a way to smash his way out of the trap that Marlene had sprung on him to fulfil his deathbed promise to his dying father.

‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to hide the effort it cost him, ‘I’m planning my work day already. Speaking of which—I really have to make a move and head to the office.’

He smiled at Eloise apologetically, scrunching up his napkin and getting to his feet, downing his coffee as he did so. Leaving her was the last thing he wanted to do. But he had to get to his desk. Find a way—somehow!—to extricate himself from Marlene’s trap.

As she watched him leave Eloise’s eyes were troubled.

Is he finishing with me? Is that why he’s being like this? Evasive?

The questions were in her head before she could stop them. Bringing with them a painful clench of her stomach. A painful self-knowledge. A painful truth.

I don’t want my time with Vito to end.

* * *

Vito sat at his desk—the desk his father had once sat behind. The pressure in his head tightened. He heard Carla’s shrill, vicious voice—‘Marrying me is the only way you’ll get those shares back!’

Forcibly, he fought down his anger. Maybe in the morning light his step-cousin would realise how impossible—how insane—her demand was. Maybe Cesare di Mondave would rush back to her and ask her to marry him.

The brief flare of hope died instantly. He didn’t know Cesare well, but he knew enough of him to be sure that il Conte would have some aristocratic female lined up somewhere in the background as his eventual bride-to-be, once he’d done playing the field with sultry, voluptuous types like Carla Charteris.

A pang of sympathy for her shot through him, despite the ugliness of the scene last night. If Carla really had fallen hard for Cesare di Mondave, however unwise that had been, he could only pity her. Losing someone you’d fallen in love with would hurt badly...

Not that he’d ever been in love himself.

Without conscious thought, he found Eloise’s beautiful image in his head. Eloise, who had literally fallen at his feet and whom he had lifted up into his arms—his life. Emotion surged within him. Whatever it was he felt about Eloise, one thing he knew with absolute, total certainty. He did not want to part with her—not yet! No way was his romance with her played out.

But until he had sorted out the unholy mess of Guido’s shares he was not free to think of Eloise. He felt his teeth grinding. Here he was, one day back in Rome, and Marlene thought she could corral him with her ludicrously offensive scheming. His expression sharpened. She had made no such move while he’d been making his tour of the European hotels.

So why don’t I just take off again? If I’m not in Rome, she and Carla will be stymied.

So where to go? Somewhere far away... The Caribbean would be ideal! The latest addition to the Viscari Hotels portfolio was taking shape on the exclusive island of Ste Cecile—he could combine a site visit with whisking Eloise away from this impossible situation here in Rome!

Mood lifting, Vito reached for the phone, wanting to tell her immediately. It rang as he touched it and he snatched it up impatiently, eager to get rid of whoever was phoning him.

It was his director of finance.

‘What is it?’ he asked, trying to hide his impatience.

‘I’ve just had a phone call,’ came the reply, and Vito could immediately hear the note of clear alarm in his voice. ‘A financial journalist I know—asking for a comment on a rumour that’s just hitting the wires that Falcone is in discussion with Guido’s widow about her shareholding. What do you want me to say?’

Vito froze. The new hotel in the Caribbean, and his trip there with Eloise, went totally out of the window.

Fifteen minutes later, his face stark with anger, he was confronting his step-cousin in her apartment in the Centro Storico.

‘Carla, you can’t go on with this! It’s madness and you know it!’

Marlene was obviously flirting with Falcone to hasten her nephew’s consent to marry her daughter. Surely to God Carla could see how insane the idea was? They’d always got on well enough, and he’d kept an eye out for her when she’d arrived in Rome as an awkward teenager while she found her feet socially. And she was not responsible, after all, for her mother’s unpopular marriage to his uncle.

‘You haven’t the slightest interest in marrying me!’ he bit out.

‘Actually,’ she snapped back, her stony gaze flashing into bitter animation, ‘I do! I want everyone to see me marry Vito Viscari!’

‘What you want,’ Vito ground out, ‘is for Cesare to see you marry me—that’s all!’

‘Yes! And then he can go to hell—for ever!’ There was all the venom and all the fury of a woman scorned in her voice.

‘And after the wedding?’ Vito came back with angry sarcasm, determined to make her see reason. ‘When Cesare realises what he’s lost—then what? You’re stuck married to me!’

But her eyes only glittered manically. ‘I shall throw parties! Huge parties! And everyone will see how totally, blissfully happy I am!’

He gave a heavy, defeated sigh. For ‘everyone’ read ‘Cesare’ again.

He played his last card. Looked her straight in the eye. Expression totally serious. Spelled it out to her.

‘Carla, it’s impossible for me to marry you. I’m...involved with someone else—someone I met in England.’

There—he had said it. Stated it openly.

The words hung in his head, portentous. But all he got from his step-cousin was a harsh, derisive laugh.

‘What? Another of your endless parade of blondes?’ she countered. ‘Don’t trot that line out, Vito! I know you! Women come and go in your life like butterflies—they never mean anything to you!’ Her expression altered suddenly, twisting with pain. ‘Just as I never meant anything to Cesare—’

She broke off abruptly, her expression venomous again, but this time with a haunted, manic look in her eyes.

‘So—like I said—if you don’t want my mother to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone you’ll announce our engagement! Right away, Vito, right away!’

Her voice was rising, and he could hear the note of hysteria plain in it. If he went on any more she’d just threw a full-blown fit of hysterics.

For one long, angrily fulminating moment he went on glaring at her, her words knifing in his head. Then, without another word, he strode from her flat, fury burning in him.

His own words echoed in his head—I’m involved with someone else...

Eloise! Her beautiful, trusting face lifted to his.

I can’t do this to her.

Resolution speared in him. Whatever it took, there had to be a way—there had to be—of stalling Marlene, of extricating himself from her daughter’s desperate, drowning clutch that was trying to drag him down with her.

As he climbed into his waiting car his mobile rang and he glanced at it angrily. It was his mother, and he knew he had to answer it—knew, too, that he could not let her know what Marlene was doing now, touting Guido’s shares to his rival to force his hand.

But at his mother’s first panicked words, Vito knew it was too late for prevarication.

‘Vito! That woman has just phoned me! She’s threatened to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone if you don’t announce your engagement to Carla—so you’ve got to! You’ve just got to!’

‘Mamma,’ he said in a hollow voice, ‘you cannot mean that...’

There was a stifled cry down the line. ‘Vito, you made a vow to your father! He begged you with his dying breath! Don’t betray him, Vito—don’t betray your own father. You promised to get Guido’s shares back, and you can’t break that promise—you can’t!’

He swallowed. ‘Mamma, I cannot do what Marlene demands—’

‘You must! Vito, you must!’ There was desperation in her voice.

He closed his eyes. He could hear how distraught she was. He had to calm her down somehow, anyhow. ‘Mamma—listen. Listen. I will put out an announcement. OK?’

It wasn’t OK—it was total opposite of OK—but it would buy him something that, right now, was the most vital thing for him to get. Time—time to control this runaway situation. It would give him time to manoeuvre, to come up with a way out of this, time to think!

He heard the rush of emotion and relief in his mother’s voice. ‘Oh, thank goodness! I knew you would never, never break your promise to your father, my darling son!’

Automatically, his mind racing, Vito went into soothing mode, seeking to calm her—get her off the line so he could focus on how to neutralise Marlene, think through the implications of what he’d just agreed to.

It’s an announcement, that’s all—it’s not a wedding! That’s all Carla really wants—to shove her engagement to me into Cesare’s aristocratic face in order to save her own face. And I can go along with that—just for now. Until I can find a way to calm her down, get her onside so that the two of us can persuade Marlene to sell Guido’s shares directly to me without this farce of me marrying her daughter!

He sat back, his expression steeled. He was playing for time, that was all. He was staying Marlene’s hand, placating Carla, calming his distraught mother—finding a way out, a solution. A means to keep his promise to his dying father.

He headed back to his office. His first priority—after authorising that damn announcement—was to scotch those rumours about Falcone getting hold of any of the Viscari shares. He’d need to speak to his direct reports and his board members, to industry analysts, financial journalists... His mind raced down the list.

And, above all, he had to speak to Eloise.

You can’t announce your engagement to Carla and not explain the situation to Eloise!

He swore again. The need to get back to his office, do what had to be done there, was overwhelming. Rapidly, his mind raced. He could make the calls from his hotel suite, then talk to Eloise. Explain—

Explain what? Dio mio! Explain I’m going to get engaged to another woman!

Another curse of burning frustration dropped from his lips.

I didn’t want any of this! All I wanted was to have Eloise with me in Rome—just her and me, being together, exploring our relationship, finding out what we mean to each other. Time together.

And now Marlene and Carla were smashing that to pieces. Caring nothing at all for the complications of his own life right now. Of what was important to him.

But, like icy water washing over him, he knew what was really overriding what he wanted. He had to fulfil the promise he’d made at his father’s deathbed.

A hard, heavy weight pressed down on him. There was no escape. None. This was happening at the very, very worst time. But he must not let it endanger what he had with Eloise.

But how to keep her safe from it? Away from all the gossip that would inevitably break out once his engagement to Carla was announced? He would never expose Eloise to that!

A surge of protectiveness went through him as a possibility occurred to him—not perfect, but at least doable.

I’ll take her to Amalfi—she can stay there, waiting for me. I’ll explain why—ask for her patience, her trust, while I extricate myself from Marlene’s trap, give Carla time to see sanity. To come down from the hysterics she’s throwing all over the place!

But, even though he knew that getting Eloise out of Rome was essential, a sense of impending loss assailed him. He didn’t want to park Eloise down on the coast—he didn’t want to part with her at all, not even for a short while! Pressure like a vice crushed his skull. Pressure from his uncle, who had willed away half the Viscari legacy, from Marlene, hell-bent on forcing his hand, from Carla, intent on hitting back at the man who’d spurned her, and from his father, who had bound him with an unbreakable chain of love and loyalty, and his mother, desperate for him to accept that chain around him.

For an instant a vision flared in his mind—a vision so unbearably tempting he almost reached out his hand to seize it.

He and Eloise, walking hand in hand along a tropical beach in the moonlight. The Caribbean waves kissing their bare feet in the warm surf. Far, far away from here—far, far away from all that assailed him now! Free, oh, blissfully free of it all!

Let Marlene do her worst! Let her! Let his uncle’s damn shares pass out of the family.

I could do it—I could let it happen. I could grab Eloise by the hand and fly away with her...leave all this behind me. Just be with her.

The vision hung in his head like a jewel, and his longing to seize it was painful inside him. Then, as the vice around his skull tightened, he let the vision go. Dull, pitiless resignation filled him. He couldn’t run—he couldn’t abandon his duty, his responsibility.

I have to see this out. It’s a battle I have to face—and find a way to win.

Because one thing he was adamant about. Whatever price he was going to pay for Guido’s shares, it was never going to be marrying his uncle’s stepdaughter.