Читать книгу A Ring For Vincenzo's Heir - Дженни Лукас, Jennie Lucas - Страница 11
ОглавлениеTHERE WAS ONLY one thing that mattered in life, Scarlett’s father had always told her as a child. Freedom.
Freedom. It was Harry Ravenwood’s rallying cry every time their family had to flee in the night, tossing their belongings into black trash bags and heading blindly to a new city. At seven years old, when Scarlett accidentally left her teddy bear—her only friend—behind, she’d cried until her father comforted her with stories of Mr. Teddy backpacking around the world, climbing the Pyramids and the Pyrenees. His funny stories of her bear’s adventures finally made her smile through her tears. On cold winter nights in Upstate New York, as their family shivered in unheated rooms and icy wind rattled the windows, Harry sang jaunty songs about freedom.
Freedom. Even on the bleak night when Scarlett was twelve, when her mother died in the emergency room of a hospital in a faded factory town in Pennsylvania, her father kissed Scarlett as tears streamed down his weathered face. “At least now your beautiful mother is free of pain.”
Scarlett had her freedom now. From Blaise Falkner. From Vin Borgia. She and her unborn baby were free.
But it had come at a cost.
To start with, her flight two weeks ago, from Boston to London, had had a little trouble over the Atlantic.
A small fire in the cargo hold caused the plane to divert to a small airport on the west coast of Ireland. As the plane descended, she saw dark clusters of birds through her porthole window, flying rapidly past the plane. “Bird strike!” a passenger cried out, and as one flight attendant rushed toward the cockpit, another tried to murmur reassuring, unconvincing words to the passengers. Wide-eyed, Scarlett gripped her armrests as she felt the plane ominously vibrate and groan in midair.
All she’d been able to think was, she shouldn’t be on this plane. Pregnant women weren’t supposed to fly after their seventh month. She was nearly at eight. She’d fled from New York, with a quick stop in Boston, because she thought it was her only way to escape Vin. But now that danger seemed small when she and her child were both going to die. Just like her own father had died in that wintry plane crash a year and a half ago. She never should have gotten on a plane.
“Prepare for crash landing,” came the pilot’s terse voice over the intercom. “Brace for impact.” The flight attendants repeated the words as the nose of the plane started to plummet and they rushed to buckle themselves in. “Heads down! Brace for impact! Stay down!”
Scarlett had braced herself, hugging her belly, thinking, please don’t let my baby die.
Like a miracle, the plane had finally steadied on one engine and limped hard, landing with a heavy bang on the edge of the runway. No one was hurt, and passengers and crew alike cheered and cried and hugged each other.
Sliding off the plane on the inflatable yellow slide, Scarlett had fallen to her knees on the tarmac and burst into noisy, ugly sobs.
She never should have gotten on a plane. Any plane. After her father’s death, she should have known better.
But just like when she’d accepted that limo ride from Blaise Falkner, she’d ignored her intuition and convinced herself that her fears were silly. And both she and her baby had nearly died as a result.
She’d never ignore her intuition again. From now on, she’d listen seriously to her fears, even when they didn’t make rational sense.
And above all: she would never, ever get on any plane again.
But why would Scarlett need to? She had no family in New York. No reason to ever go back. Vin Borgia had done her a huge favor, warning her in advance that he intended to rule her life and their child’s with an iron fist and separate her from her baby if she ever objected or tried to leave him. She didn’t feel guilty about leaving him, not at all.
She did feel guilty about stealing his wallet. Stealing was never all right, and her mother must be turning over in her grave. Scarlett told herself she’d had no choice. She’d had to cover her tracks. Vin was not only a ruthless billionaire, he owned an airline and had ridiculous connections. If she’d stepped one toe on a flight under her own name, he would have known about it.
So she’d contacted one of her father’s old acquaintances in Boston to buy a fake passport. That cost money.
So she’d taken—borrowed—the money from Vin. She hadn’t touched anything else in his wallet. Not his driver’s license, or his credit cards, most of them in special strange colors that no doubt had eye-popping credit limits. And after she’d arrived safely in Switzerland via ferry and train from Ireland, and gotten her first paycheck at her new job, she’d mailed back Vin’s wallet, returning everything as he’d left it. She’d even tossed in some extra euros as interest on the money she’d borrowed.
She’d gotten the euros from northern Italy, where she’d gone to mail back the package. She could hardly have sent Vin money in Swiss francs, letting him know where she was!
But that was all behind her now. She’d paid everything back. She and her baby were free.
Scarlett took a deep breath of the clear Alpine air. She’d been in Gstaad for over two weeks now, and finally, finally she was starting to relax. She just had to hope when Vin couldn’t easily find her, he would forget about her and the baby, and she’d never have to worry about him again.
Scarlett passed out of the gates of the chalet, if the place could be called a chalet when it was the size of a palace, and turned her face up toward the sun.
It was mid-October, and the morning air was already frosty in the mountains around the elegant Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. The first snowfall was expected daily.
She had her own event to expect soon, too. Her hand moved over her belly, grown so large she could no longer button up her oversize jacket. Only two and a half weeks from her due date. Her body felt heavier, slower. But luckily her new job allowed plenty of opportunity for gentle morning walks.
She’d been lucky to get this job. When she’d fled the shoe store in New York, racing down the alley to hail a cab on Madison Avenue, she’d already decided exactly where to go. Her mother’s best friend, Wilhelmina Stone, worked as housekeeper to a wealthy European tycoon in Switzerland. Though Scarlett hadn’t seen her since her mother’s funeral, she’d never forgotten the woman’s hug and fierce words, “Your mother was my best friend. If you ever need anything, you come straight to me, you hear?”
Since then, she’d gotten only an occasional Christmas card. But when Scarlett had shown up uninvited and shivering at the gate of the enormous villa outside Gstaad, the plump, kindly woman had proved good as her word.
“My boss just asked me to hire a good cook for ski season. The best Southern cook in the US, he said. Can you make grits and fried chicken? Jambalaya? Dirty rice?”
Eyes wide, Scarlett shook her head. Wilhelmina sighed.
“All right, he usually starts coming here in early December, after the season starts. So you’ve got six weeks, maybe more, to learn how to make amazing fried chicken and all the rest. I’ll put you on staff payroll now. Just make sure you learn to cook for groups of ten or more, because Mr. Black always brings friends!”
For the last two weeks, Scarlett had been trying to teach herself to cook, using cookbooks and internet videos. She was still pretty bad. The security guard routinely teased her that even his dog wouldn’t eat what she cooked. It was sadly true.
But she would learn. Being a specialty chef for a hard-traveling, hard-partying tycoon who was rarely around was the perfect job for any single mother with a newborn. She would be able to take a week or two off to heal after the birth, then work with her baby nearby, almost as if this were her own home.
Plus, Switzerland was the perfect place to raise a baby. Scarlett tucked her hands in her jacket pockets as she walked along the slender road. Gravel crunched beneath her soft boots as she took a deep breath of crisp mountain air smelling of sunlight and pine trees. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes, turning her face to the sun. Her heart was full of gratitude.
Then she heard a snap in the forest ahead of her.
She opened her eyes, and the smile dropped from her face.
“Scarlett,” Vin greeted her coldly.
He stood ahead of her, wearing a long black coat, a sleek dark suit and a glower. She saw a sleek sports car and a black SUV parked on the road behind him. Three bodyguards lined the vehicle, an impenetrable wall of money and power.
She stumbled back from him. He was on her in seconds, grabbing her wrist.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
His grip tightened, his eyes like black fire. “You stole from me.”
“I paid all your money back—with interest!” She glanced back desperately toward the guarded gate, but it was too far. Johan would never see her. And how could one security guard take on Vin Borgia and at least three of his men?
“I wasn’t just talking about the money.”
She put her free hand protectively over her belly. “You’re not my baby’s father. I—I lied!”
“I think you’re lying now.”
Scarlett tried to pull her wrist from his grip. “Leave me alone!”
“I do not understand your behavior.” He wrenched her closer. “Most women would find it fortunate to be pregnant by a billionaire.”
“A billionaire who destroys people?” She shook her head. “You don’t just take companies—you ruthlessly crush and annihilate your rivals. Their marriages, their families, their very lives!”
Silence fell in the Swiss forest. The only sound was the call of birds.
Then he spoke, his voice low and flat. “So you did some digging on the internet, did you?”
“Why do you think I never tried to contact you after our night together?” She took a deep breath. “I had a good reason to leave you that first morning. A nurse called and I was needed at the Falkner mansion. I hoped to see you again. Until I looked you up online.” She glared at him. “If you think I’m going to let my precious baby be raised by a man who takes pleasure in other people’s pain—”
His lip twisted contemptuously. “If you think I’m such a bastard, why did you ask for my help?”
“I was terrified of Blaise.”
“And now you’re terrified of me?”
“After I interrupted your wedding, I thought maybe I should give you a chance. My own father wasn’t perfect, but I loved him.” She narrowed her eyes. “Then you made your intentions clear.”
“What are you talking about? My intention to take responsibility, marry you and be a good father?”
“If I honestly believed we could be a family, and love and trust each other, I’d marry you in a second. But I’d rather raise my baby alone than with a man who might hurt me!”
“Hurt you?” he said incredulously. “I’ve never hurt a woman in my life!”
“With your cold heart? I bet you’ve hurt plenty.”
He relaxed. “Oh. You mean emotionally.”
“Yes, emotionally,” she retorted. “You don’t think that counts?”
“Not really, no.”
“And that’s why I don’t want to marry you.”
He abruptly released her wrist, his eyes strangely alight. “I’ve never killed anyone, no matter what the rumors say. I never poisoned someone or sabotaged an engine. Nor did I hire someone else to do it. A reporter just happened to notice that during some points in my business career, some men have coincidentally had problems.”
“You expect me to believe that? It was pure coincidence?”
“It’s the truth. A man was discovered in an affair while doing business with me. It was hardly my fault his wife took offense and dumped poison in his morning whiskey. Another man had a heart attack from stress during my hostile takeover. He could have walked away at any time but chose to fight and take the risk. Another man chose to start a feud with his sister when she sold her shares to me. Their family was ripped apart, yes—but again, not my fault.”
“Then why was Blaise so afraid of you? And you expected him to be!”
“I know the rumors about me. They’re not true, but people believe them. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.”
“And you’re no fool.”
“No.” His jaw tightened. “So I don’t appreciate that you’ve made me look like one. Twice.”
She turned her head back again toward the distant gate of the chalet. She wished she could run. But she’d become so heavily pregnant and slow—
“I want a paternity test,” Vin said coldly. “You have an appointment today with a doctor in Geneva.”
“I’ve got my own doctor in the village, thank you.”
“Dr. Schauss has a world-renowned clinic. She was obstetrician to a princess of Sweden and has delivered half the babies of the royal houses of the Persian Gulf. She’s well qualified.”
“I’m not gallivanting off to Geneva just because you want some extra-fancy doctor.”
“The choice isn’t yours to make.”
“And if I refuse?”
Vin’s eyes flickered. “I am acquainted with Kassius Black, the owner of this chalet.” He looked up at the imposing roofline over the trees. “What would he say if I told him that your friend, his trusted housekeeper, had knowingly hired a fugitive and thief to live here, and you were both conspiring to steal from his houseguests this coming ski season?”
“You wouldn’t,” she gasped. “It’s not true!”
He shrugged. “You are a proven thief and liar. It could be true. But the point is, are you willing to repay your friend’s kindness in giving you a job by causing her to lose hers?”
“You are despicable.”
His face hardened. “No, cara. You are despicable. I have done nothing but seek to fulfill my responsibility. I am trying to do the right thing, the honorable thing. It is you who are the thief.”
“I repaid every penny!”
“Yes, with interest. At an annualized interest rate of thirty percent. The money you repaid yielded a better return than many of my other investments. So it was profitable.” He gave a slight, ironic bow. “Thank you for stealing my wallet.”
“Oh?” she said hopefully. “So you’re not—”
“Stealing my child is something else.”
Scarlett’s brief hope faded. What could she do? She couldn’t let Wilhelmina be hurt for her loyalty and kindness.
The clinic in Geneva. That could be her escape route. Clinics had back doors. She could sneak out before her blood was even drawn.
Scarlett let her shoulders sag, scuffling her feet in the gravel, hoping she looked suitably downhearted. Her heart was beating fast. “You win.”
“I always do.” He gave a quick motion to the bodyguards waiting outside the black SUV with dark tinted windows, then turned back, his voice brisk. “The trip to Geneva will take two hours by car, and in your state of advanced pregnancy I am concerned this will be uncomfortable for you. I can have a helicopter here in ten minutes—”
“No!” she said a little too quickly. At his frown, she said in a calmer voice, trying to smile, “The drive will give us a chance to talk. It’s so beautiful around Lake Geneva this time of year.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “As you wish.”
Five minutes later, as a bodyguard went upstairs to pack up her meager possessions, she went to the kitchen to say farewell to Wilhelmina. The older woman seemed bewildered by the sudden turn in events.
“You’re quitting your job, Scarlett? Just like that?”
“I’m sorry, Wilhelmina. You came through for me, and I’m leaving you in the lurch. I’m so sorry—”
“For me it’s fine. Honestly, your fried chicken still is something awful. Mr. Black would have thought I lost my mind, hiring you. You’re the one I’m worried about.” She looked doubtfully at Vin. “So this man is the father of your baby, but do you really want to go with him?” Her eyes narrowed in her plump face. “Or is he forcing you?”
* * *
The suspicion in the older woman’s face was less than flattering to Vin, but as she was a housekeeper to Kassius Black, a man whose reputation for ferocity was even worse than his own, he could understand her lack of automatic admiration for the average billionaire. The housekeeper, like Scarlett, had obviously had enough experience with the wealthy to know the ugliness that could lie behind the glamorous lifestyle.
“I will take good care of Scarlett and her baby,” he told her gravely. “I promise you.”
The housekeeper stared at him, then her scowl slowly disappeared. “I believe you.”
“Good.” Vin gave her his most charming smile. “We intend to marry soon.”
She looked accusingly at Scarlett. “You’re engaged?”
Scarlett looked a little dazed. “We haven’t decided anything for sure...”
“Mrs. Stone,” Vin interrupted, “I appreciate your loyalty and kindness to Scarlett. Should you ever want to switch jobs, please let us know.”
Handing her a card, he took Scarlett by the hand and led her out of the chalet as the bodyguards followed with her shockingly small amount of luggage: a purse and a single duffel bag. He watched as they packed it into the back of the glossy SUV. An unwelcome image floated through Vin’s mind of his own meager belongings when he’d left Italy at fifteen, after his mother’s devastating revelation and death, to go live in New York with an uncle he barely knew. He’d felt so alone. So hollow.
He pushed the memory away angrily. He wasn’t that boy anymore. He would never feel so vulnerable again—and neither would any child of his.
Vin opened the passenger door of the red sports car, then turned to Scarlett coldly. “Get in.”
“You’re driving us? Yourself?”
“The bodyguards will follow in the SUV. Like you said—” he gave a hard smile “—it’s a beautiful day for a drive.”
Once they were buckled in, he stepped on the gas, driving swiftly out of the gate and down the mountain, to the paved road that led through the expensive village of Gstaad, with its charming Alpine architecture, exclusive designer boutiques and chalets with shutters and flower boxes. The midmorning sun glowed in the blue sky above craggy forested mountains as they looped onto the Gstaadstrasse, heading west.
Vin glanced at Scarlett out of the corner of his eye. She was dressed very casually, an unbuttoned jacket over an oversize shirt, loose khaki pants and fur-lined booties. But for all that, his eyes hungrily drank in the sight of her. Her flame-red hair fell in thick curls down her shoulders. Her lustrous eyes were green as an Alpine forest. He could remember how it had felt to have those full, pink lips move against his skin, gasping in ecstasy...
He shuddered.
Why did Scarlett have such power over him?
For the last two weeks, since she’d left him standing on Madison Avenue with a stunned look on his face, he’d thought of nothing else. All of his considerable resources had been dedicated to one task: finding her.
She was in his blood. He hadn’t been able to forget her. Not from the first moment he’d seen her in that bar. From the moment he’d first taken her in his arms. From the moment she’d disappeared from his bed after the best sex of his life.
From the moment she’d violently crashed his wedding and told him she was pregnant with his baby.
Scarlett Ravenwood was half angel, half demon. There was a reason he hadn’t seduced any other woman for over eight months—an eternity for a man like Vin. He’d been haunted by Scarlett, haunted body and soul, driven half mad by memories of her naked in his arms.
Scarlett was the woman for him. The one he wanted. And he intended to have her.
“How did you find me in Switzerland?” she asked him quietly now.
Lifting his eyebrow, Vin focused on the road ahead. “It was a mistake for you to mail my wallet from a small Italian village. I still have connections in that country. It was easy to track down the postino who’d helped you. He remembered seeing your car with Swiss plates.”
“He noticed my car?”
He smiled grimly. “There are surprisingly few Swiss registrations of a 1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible in pale green. The postino kissed his lips when he described it. ‘Bella macchina.’ He remembered you, too, a pregnant redheaded woman, very beautiful but a tragic driver. He thought the car deserved better.”
“I chose that car from the chalet’s garage because I thought it was the oldest,” she said, sounding dazed, “so figured it was the cheapest.”
“They’re rare and often sell for two or three million dollars.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. “So if I’d taken the brand-new sedan...”
“I wouldn’t have found you.” Gripping the steering wheel, he looked at her. “You keep wondering if I’m trustworthy. I could wonder the same about you, except I’ve seen the answer. You’ve lied to my face, stolen my wallet. Kidnapped my child—”
“Kidnapped!”
“What else would you call it?” He looked at her. “How do I know our baby will be safe with you? The criminally minded daughter of a felon?”
“Felon!” Fury filled her green eyes. “My father never should have gone to prison. If his accomplice hadn’t betrayed him—”
“Spare me the excuses,” Vin said, sounding bored. “He was a bank robber.”
“He returned all the money. Can you say the same?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and Blaise Falkner and every other billionaire—you are the real ones who should be...”
She abruptly cut herself off.
“Go on,” Vin said evenly. “You were about to accuse me of something?”
Scarlett looked him straight in the eye. “Every rich man I’ve ever known was heartless. My dad in his worst year was less a thief than all the corporate embezzlers and Wall Street gamblers with their Ponzi schemes, wiping out people’s pension funds, their savings, their hope!”
“You’re comparing me to them?”
“You wouldn’t sacrifice one of your platinum cuff links—” she glanced contemptuously at his wrist “—let alone risk your life or happiness, to save someone else.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I?” She lifted her chin. Through the car window he could see the gray-and-blue shimmer of Lake Geneva behind her. “You told me yourself. You don’t think twice about causing emotional pain. I bet you’ve never loved anyone in your life. And you asked me to marry you!”
“Love isn’t necessary.”
“That’s a screwed-up way of looking at things. That’s like saying there’s no point in eating things that taste good. Marriage without love, isn’t that like eating gruel for the rest of your life? Why eat gruel when you can eat cake?”
“Cake is an illusion. It all turns out to be gruel in the end.”
“That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.” She shook her head. “I feel bad for you. A billionaire who’s content to eat gruel for the rest of his life.”
Vin could hardly believe this penniless girl who had nothing and had once stolen his wallet actually felt sorry for him. “Better a hard truth than the sweet comfort of lies.”
“No, it’s worse than that. You’re a cynic who claims not to believe in the existence of love.” She looked up at him through dark eyelashes. “Some woman must have hurt you pretty badly.”
Yes. One woman had. But it wasn’t what Scarlett thought. “Then she did me a favor. Taught me the truth about life.”
“Taught you wrong.” She rubbed her belly, looking out the window as they drove closer to Geneva.
“Right or wrong, once the paternity test proves I’m your baby’s father, we will be celebrating our marriage.”
She tossed him a glance. “No, thanks. I’m no fan of gruel.”
Vin ground his teeth. “Are you trying to tell me your childish, foolish dreams of love are more important than our child’s welfare? A baby deserves two parents. A stable home.”
Her expression changed. “Don’t you think I know that? All I ever wanted my whole childhood was to have a real home. I don’t even know what it feels like to make roots, have friends, be part of a community.” Her voice cracked. “But you know what? We were still happy, even on the run. Because my parents loved each other. And they loved me.”
He didn’t know what that felt like, Vin thought unwillingly. He’d grown up in a derelict villa in Rome, neglected and ignored by a mother who was only interested in her love affairs. Her son was valuable for one reason only: to extort money from his father.
His so-called father.
Vin’s shoulders tightened.
Anyone he loved, he lost. His mother had coldly used him as a bargaining chip to finance her lifestyle, before she violently died. Paid nannies left or were fired. His kindly grandfather had had a stroke when Vin was eight. He’d become estranged from his loving father and stepmother at fifteen. Sometimes he felt like he’d been alone his whole life. As alone as that Christmas Eve, when he was only eight and was left utterly alone in the villa, forgotten in the dark—
He shook the memory away. His own child’s life would be very different. And he’d make sure his child’s mother was either a loving, stable, nurturing influence—or no influence at all.
“Why did you run away from New York?” he demanded. “Because you decided to believe everything you’d read about me?”
“Are you kidding?” Scarlett looked at him in amazement. “That pre-nup.”
Gripping the steering wheel, he glanced at her in surprise. “You wanted to avoid the pre-nup?”
“Did you really think I would sign papers to give you total power over not just me, but our child? Did you think I’d be so happy to become your trophy wife, I’d trade away my freedom for the rest of my life?”
