Читать книгу Billionaires: The Hero: A Deal for the Di Sione Ring / The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize / The Baby Inheritance - Maisey Yates - Страница 13
ОглавлениеNATE SURVEYED MINA’S panicked expression, her fear as she curled her hands around the armrests, knuckles white, overriding the fury he felt at his now excessively complicated life. The fury he felt toward the abusive man who had just tried to come after her.
“I suspect so,” he said grimly. “I will find out for certain. But there’s no need to worry. He can’t touch you now.”
Her eyes flashed. “What if he sends his men after me? Pasquale could give him all our information.”
“Then he will know I am not a man to be messed with. That it’s fruitless to come after you.”
“You’re only one man. You saw the men he sent.”
“He won’t get past my security detail.”
“Security detail?”
“I’m a rich man, Mina. It’s a prerequisite.”
She sat back in her chair, looking so chalk white he feared she might pass out. When the attendant came around to offer them drinks he asked for two glasses of brandy and put one in front of Mina.
“I don’t drink liquor.”
“Today you do.” He nodded toward the glass. “Drink. It’ll help your nerves.”
She stared dubiously at the amber liquid. Took a little sip and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it.”
“Keep drinking.”
He leaned back against the seat, resting his brandy on his thigh. His temporary wife was now his wife for a year, a year, a state of being he had never once contemplated entering into nor wanted. That was if he chose to go through with the deal he and Mina had made, a vastly different one than he had signed on for.
He took in the stunning, innocent creature who was now his wife. Her disheveled hair, streaked makeup and worry lined face. His cynical side suggested she might have known about the year-long clause in the will, perhaps had seen an opportunity for escape in him that had been sweetened by the idea of a rich husband. But his gut told him that wasn’t the case. Mina hadn’t even blinked when he’d said the word prenup. She’d looked as frozen, as in shock, as he’d been when Pasquale Tomei had unveiled that condition. It could not have been manufactured.
With that stipulation, the key to her escape had been stripped from her, the ability to start a life away from her clearly uncaring mother and abusive ex-fiancé. He had been the one walking into the middle of things offering solutions. And now he had a much bigger one to find.
What was he going to do with a wife? With Mina? He couldn’t just dump her in Capri and tell her to contact him when she could sell him the ring. Marchetti was too likely to get to her there.
She needed his protection. He needed that ring to show Giovanni before he died. To give him a chance to reconnect with the past. Which meant his wife was now his responsibility. For a year.
“When you talked about obtaining your freedom,” he said, “what did you envision yourself doing?”
“I speak multiple languages. I thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps. Become a businesswoman.”
“Do you have a business degree?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together, her dark gaze dropping away from his. “I went to a finishing school in France.”
A finishing school. Did those still exist? “And your father. What business was he in?”
“He was the CEO of our family chocolate company—Felicia. It was one of the biggest in Europe before my mother sold it to an American conglomerate.”
He took a sip of his drink. “Most people who want to get into business today have studied it in school. It’s very difficult to find a position without a degree or a diploma.”
Her chin rose. “I expect to start out at the bottom. I’d thought maybe I could work as a chambermaid at the Giarruso, then find a higher position.”
Admirable if wishful thinking. Unless, of course, a superior was willing to give her a shot in the business as Giovanni had given him.
He thought back to Mina’s quick, well-thought-out answers that day at the Giarruso. She had the natural business instincts he himself had once had. A moldable brain. Was it time for him to pay it forward? To give her the same chance he had been given?
He had been eighteen, working the night shift at a food warehouse, when Alex had tracked him down to save Giovanni. Eighteen and angry. His mother had managed to straighten him out after his run-in with the dark side in his midteens, begging him to stop running errands for the neighborhood enforcer before he got himself shot or killed. But she hadn’t been able to convince him to go back to school. They needed the money and he couldn’t just stand by and watch her work herself into her grave while he studied in a useless English lit class.
He’d taken a job at the warehouse where he’d discovered what hell truly felt like. Eight-hour night shifts in the dank, cavernous space, the fluorescent lights beating into his temples as he broke his back hauling flat after flat of produce into place.
He remembered leaving work one morning a few months after he’d started, the faint light of dawn creeping across the sky. Back killing him, lungs tight, he’d stopped and leaned against the building, wondering if this miserable existence was life. Because if this was what it was, he didn’t want it. At least when he’d been working the streets he’d had money in his pocket. He’d had his self-respect. He’d been somebody.
For the first time in years, he’d allowed his hatred toward his father loose, driving his fist into the concrete facade of the warehouse, leaving him with two broken fingers and no less bitterness. He hadn’t wanted a life like his half siblings’ lives—but to be the result of his father’s slumming? To not even be worthy of acknowledgment? It festered in him like a slow-moving disease.
When Alex had sought him out weeks later, he had been teetering on the edge of darkness and light, his old life a seductive siren’s call. Giovanni had made him choose. Embrace the chance you’ve been offered, he’d said, or forever cling to your anger. There is no in between.
The darkness he’d sensed in his grandfather, the raw acknowledgment he knew the dark side because he hadn’t been able to pull his own son from it, had touched something inside Nate, perhaps the tiny sliver of hope he had left in him. He had chosen the light.
Blinking, he pulled himself out of the memory to focus on Mina’s big dark eyes, the expression in them as adrift, as fear-driven, as his had been. She had no money, nowhere to go. She was as lost a soul as he had been. He couldn’t let her fall through the cracks.
By the time they had landed in Capri a short while later, a plan had formed in his head. It would solve all his issues, except, of course, the ring on his finger. That, unfortunately, wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
Mina stood on the terrace of the penthouse suite of the Grand Hotel Emelia, the Bay of Marina Piccola sparkling in the distance. She had been to the glamorous island of Capri once with her family when she had been very young, six or seven. She only remembered bits and pieces of the holiday, but it was one of her best memories.
The beautiful beaches and the lovely walks along the coast had been her favorite activities, made extra special by the time she’d gotten to spend with her busy father, who’d taken a real holiday for once. They’d spent hours playing in the sand, digging sand castles and moats while her mother shopped and lunched with the jet-set crowd.
Her father had indulged her mother’s every whim on the trip, including generous amounts of both his time and money. Her mother had, in turn, sparkled, and everything had been perfect for once. No arguments between her fiery parents that seemed to come all too frequently at home. Just sunshine and laughter.
She remembered playing with her favorite doll, Eva, on the beach with her father. Ankle-deep in the surf, she’d turned her back on the doll, only to find Eva gone when she turned around seconds later. Her father had spent the better part of an hour trying to retrieve the doll, understanding this was life or death for Mina. When he’d finally found her, laying a soaked, bedraggled Eva in her eager hands, he’d given her one of his stern lectures. “Take care of precious things, Mina. When they’re gone, they’re gone. I won’t always be able to bring them back for you.”
Her eyes burned as the glittering water of the bay she’d misplaced Eva in sparkled in the early-evening sun. How apropos her father’s words had been. She’d lost him soon after that—her one grounding force.
Her lashes came down to shield her eyes from the hot glow of the sun, a pang of longing rippling through her. How she wished he was here right now to make sense of everything. If he was, she would never have left her life to venture into the complete unknown. She wouldn’t be married to a stranger, “Bastien Nathaniel Brunswick,” her marriage certificate had elaborated, who was apparently so wealthy he owned this five-star hotel the glitterati called home. She wouldn’t be feeling so wholly, all-encompassingly lost.
She wrapped her arms around herself as a chill nipped at her skin, the heavenly scent of bougainvillea and campanula floating on the breeze. She didn’t even own the clothes on her back. The expensive dress she was wearing was one Nate had sent down to the boutique for so she could get out of her wedding dress, a good thing because every time she looked at it she thought about Silvio and how furious he must be. How furious her mother must be.
Something Nate was apparently ascertaining as he made a litany of phone calls to Dio knew who to find out. Her pulse picked up, her blood thrumming through her veins. What could he possibly say to smooth things over? To fix the mess she’d created? To warn Silvio off?
Was he finishing off his role as hero by ensuring Silvio left her alone before he threw her out and said thank you, but no thank you? I had only intended a twenty-four-hour marriage and a ring as compensation and this is way, way beyond that...
A whiff of citrus filled her head just before a delicate silk wrap landed around her shoulders. She jumped as Nate reached around her to tie the silk into a loose knot.
“You’re still jumpy.” He leaned against the railing beside her, his gaze on her face.
“You caught me off guard.” She looked down at the expensive-looking wrap he’d secured around her rather than stare at his smoldering good looks in a white T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans that molded themselves to his muscular thighs and long legs. “Another thing I can’t pay you for.”
A wry smile crossed his face. “I’m good for it, Mina. That much I know.”
What didn’t he know? What he was going to do with her? She pressed her lips together as her severely stressed imagination ran away with her. Get a hold of yourself, Mina.
“This is a magnificent property.” She looked out at the yachts bobbing on the cerulean blue sea as the sun made its descent into the horizon. “You said you named it for your mother?”
He nodded.
“She is special, then?”
His lips curved, a genuine warmth filling his eyes. “Extraordinary.”
She tilted her head to one side. “What makes her so extraordinary?”
“She was a single mother. She put me first every day of her life and kept me on the right path.”
The bittersweet ache inside of her swelled larger. “You are very lucky to have a mother who cares so much for you.”
“Yes.”
“And your father?”
“He was never a part of our lives.”
She studied the hard set of his jaw. The cold cast that had replaced the warmth in his eyes. Perhaps that was where some of the toughness surrounding this man came from.
She forced herself to ask the question she couldn’t avoid. “Was it Silvio who came after us?”
“Yes. But you don’t need to worry about him. I’ve taken care of it.”
“How?” She turned to face him, panic clawing at her throat. “He must be beyond furious. To be humiliated like that in front of half the city... He will want to punish me.”
“He is furious.”
Her heart leaped into her mouth. “You talked to him?”
“Pasquale gave him my name. I stole his bride.” He lifted a shoulder. “It was a necessary conversation.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing you need to know. Suffice it to say, he won’t be bothering you again.”
“Nate—”
“Stop.” His gaze hardened. “He isn’t a nice man, Mina, you knew that. He didn’t have nice things to say. All you need to know is that I communicated the point that you are mine. You are safe from him. End of story.”
She took a deep breath. Absorbed the deadly glimmer in his eyes. Who was he that he could so cavalierly tell Silvio Marchetti to call off the dogs and expect that he would? Had she jumped from the frying pan into the fire with him? Or did she trust Nate like she instinctively felt she could?
“What about my mother?” She’d been avoiding her calls to her mobile all day, with no idea what she’d even say if she did pick it up.
“She called me after I spoke with Silvio. Was worried about you, wanted to reassure herself you were okay.” His smile was grim. “I told her you’d like a few days of privacy to enjoy our honeymoon and then you would call her.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What else did you say?”
“That we are in love. That today was a mad, passionate impulse on our part.” He lifted a broad shoulder. “It seemed as good a story as any to get Silvio off your back. I mentioned your cold feet were a product of our short but intense courtship.”
Oh, mio Dio. She pressed her hands to her face. “You did not.”
“I needed to give him a good reason to leave you alone, Mina. Now he has one. A man like Silvio would consider you used goods.”
Used goods? She shook her head at the insanity of it all and paced to the end of the terrace. Now Silvio and her mother thought she had been intimate with Nate while she’d been engaged to Silvio. Maledizione. She didn’t even want to think of how her mother had reacted. Or the harsh words that were undoubtedly on her voice mail.
“What did Silvio say to all this?”
“He said he was done with you. I said, Good. Because I’d take him apart if he came anywhere near you. So put your mind at ease, Mina. It’s going to be fine.”
Easier said than done. Her head spun as he disappeared inside and returned with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. She watched him warily as he uncorked the bottle. “I think the brandy was quite enough.”
“You’re wound tight as a bow.” He worked the cork out of the bottle, a loud pop cutting through the air. “A glass of wine will help. And,” he added, flicking her a glance from beneath dark lashes, “I have a proposition for you.”
His request to deliver the Marc de Grazia Guardiola personally to his hotel room filled her head. He didn’t mean—
“No, I don’t mean that.” His mouth twisted as he read her thoughts. “As much as I think that would loosen you up, what I have in mind involves another business proposition for you and I. Because like it or not, Mina, we are stuck together.”
They were? Hope flared inside of her. “You’re proposing we stay married?”
“I see no other option.” He poured the champagne in the glasses. “As certain as I am that I got the message across to Silvio today that you are untouchable, I’m not about to set you loose on the streets of Capri like...an orphan searching for a home.”
She frowned.
He waved a hand at her. “The point is I need that ring to show my grandfather. You need to be protected. So we stay together for the year and, like our original plan, we both get what we need.”
Relief flooded through her. “I don’t want to be a burden. I could work for one of your hotels. Pay my way. I’m a very good chambermaid.”
“You’re smarter than that.” He handed her a glass of champagne. “You proved to me what an innovative thinker you are that day at the Giarruso. You have great ideas, Mina. I’m offering to take you on as my protégée for the year.”
“Protégée?” Her fingers tightened around the stem of the glass.
He nodded. “I own a chain of luxury hotels from one side of the globe to the other. The best of the best. If you want to learn about business I can teach you everything you need to know.”
She frowned. “Why would you do that? I mean, I know you said I had good ideas, but surely you must be too busy for something like that?”
He leaned back against the railing, champagne glass in hand. “I got my start in business from someone who took a chance on me. I believe in paying it forward.”
She thought about what few options she had—as in none without a cent to her name, without a home to go back to. She’d made a decision when she’d left with Nate: to stand on her own two feet; to not allow herself to be controlled by anyone anymore; to make her own way in the world. The only path left was forward.
Nate was offering her a chance to fulfill her dream—to follow in her father’s footsteps. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the best because he thought she was smart and had potential. Because he thought she was more than the pretty face her mother had always pegged her as.
A warm feeling spread through her, heat infusing her cheeks at the validation she had craved. To say the thought of becoming Nate’s protégée was intimidating vastly understated the apprehension snaking through her insides. The combined terror and exhilaration the thought inspired. And yet she trusted him. Had instinctively trusted him this entire, crazy day. He hadn’t blinked once at coming to her aid despite what she’d thrown at him. Yes, he wanted the ring, but there was more to it than that. He cared despite his tough exterior.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said finally. “You’re an honorable man, Nate Brunswick. Grazie.”
“Not so honorable, Mina.” A dark glitter entered his eyes. “You called me improper not so long ago. I can be that and more. I am a hard, ruthless businessman who does what it takes to make money. I will turn a hotel over in the flash of an eye if I don’t see the flesh on the bones I envisioned when I bought it. I will enjoy a woman one night and send her packing the next when I get bored of her company. Know what you’re getting into with me if you accept this. You will learn the dog-eat-dog approach to life, not the civilized one.”
Why did something that was intended to be a warning send a curious shudder through her? Mina drew the wrap closer around her shoulders, her gaze tangling with Nate’s. The glitter in his eyes stoked to a hot, velvet shimmer as he took a step forward and ran a finger along the line of her jaw. “Rule number one of this new arrangement, should you so choose to accept it, is to not look at me like that, wife. If we do this, we keep things strictly business so both of us walk away after the year with exactly what we want.”
Her gaze fell away from his, her blood hot and thick in her veins. “You’re misinterpreting me.”
“No, I’m not.” He brought his mouth to her ear, his warm breath caressing her cheek. “I have a hell of a lot more experience than you do, Mina. I can recognize the signs. They were loud and clear in my hotel room that day and they’re loud and clear now.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. To protest further would be futile when her skin felt like it was on fire, her knees like jelly. He watched her like a cat played with a mouse, all powerful and utterly sure of himself. “The only thing that would be more of a disaster than this day’s already been,” he drawled finally, apparently ready to have mercy on her, “would be for us to end up in bed together. So a partnership it is, Mina.” He lifted his glass. “What do you say?”
She seized hold of her senses. “So we have a marriage in name only and a business partnership. How are we positioning the marriage to others?”
“As if it’s a real marriage.” He shrugged. “I see no harm in that and there is the Silvio factor.”
“And what about—” A wave of heat sped to her cheeks. “I mean, if we’re not sleeping together, how will you—you know...?”
A wicked smile curved his mouth. “Relieve myself? There are ways. And if I choose to indulge, I’ll do it discreetly.”
Right. She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. Seized the moment. “Yes,” she said, lifting her glass. “Grazie, Nate. I accept.”
Her dark and apparently not so honorable husband pointed his glass at her. “Then tomorrow we begin. Get some good sleep tonight, Mina. You’re going to need it for the ride I’m going to take you on.”
