Читать книгу Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 11
ОглавлениеTHE SOUND OF a helicopter flying overhead made Elena shade her eyes and look to the skies.
She was sitting on the balcony of her cabin, exactly where she’d been for the past two hours since she’d walked away from Gabriele, before she’d given into the temptation to punch him in the face.
Never in her entire life had she hated someone. Never in her entire life had she felt so, so, so...much towards another person.
Her early childhood had been spent rallying against the injustice of being the only female in a household of males. She had come to realise the only way to get their respect was to behave like them. She might have been home educated, unlike her brothers who were sent to smart schools, and she might have been sheltered from the outside world, but within the household she had turned her anger to her advantage and become one of the boys. She had forced her brothers’ respect and at the same time gained her father’s.
Now she felt as helpless and angry as she had at the age of ten when she’d finally comprehended that the education she dreamt of, one where she could be with other girls her age, had been denied her. Even now she still struggled with other women. She just couldn’t relate to them. First kisses, first attempts at putting make-up on, everything that went with being a female adolescent had been denied her. She had learned to embrace it.
Well she wouldn’t embrace this situation. Gabriele would pay for this. She didn’t know how or when or...anything, but she would make him pay.
She couldn’t even think about what it would mean to have his child.
A child. A baby. The one thing she’d never thought she would have.
Having intended to spend her life as a Vestal Virgin, Elena had reconciled herself to never having a child of her own. Her brothers had taken too much glee in sharing salacious stories of their conquests. She’d listened to all the sordid details and heard their obvious contempt for the women who were always, without exception, referred to as whores.
By the time she’d turned fifteen Elena had known she would rather stay a virgin than be subjected to that kind of disgusting treatment. She would never allow herself to be treated as a piece of meat. Yes, there were ways to conceive a child that didn’t involve getting physical with a man, but they weren’t ways she could bring herself to consider.
A knock on the cabin door brought her out of her reverie.
She unlocked it and found Gabriele standing there, a thin document file in one hand, the case she’d taken to Nutmeg Island in the other.
‘Where did you get that?’ she asked, amazed.
‘I had it couriered to my assistant. She brought it on the helicopter.’
‘But how?’
‘A friendly police officer retrieved it.’ He smiled a secret smile. ‘Carter’s gang disabled the security monitors before you arrived. All your security team saw on their screens was the feed from the day before. No one knows you were on the island and I would imagine the gang won’t mention it unless they want to add assault and attempted kidnap to their list of charges.’
Immediately her blood pressure rose. ‘So they get away with it?’
‘Not at all.’ A darkness crossed his features. ‘They will pay for it. They were arrested before they could leave the island and can all look forward to a hefty sentence in a prison that will make the one I was incarcerated in look like a holiday camp.’
He threw a thin document file on her bed before she could argue any more about it. ‘Here’s the contract.’
‘You don’t waste time.’
‘Read through it, sign it and we can leave.’
‘Are we at Tampa Bay?’ She hadn’t seen any sign of land from her balcony.
‘No. You’ve already reached your decision so my helicopter will take us inland to my jet. My assistant and lawyer are waiting in the saloon—they’ll act as witnesses for the contract.’
‘You can’t expect me to sign it now?’
‘It’s written clearly and concisely. It won’t take you more than five minutes to read it.’
Giving him a baleful glare, Elena leaned over the bed to grab the file and see for herself.
As she turned back again, pulling the elegantly bound papers out, something about him made her stop.
There was an expression on his face she’d never seen before. A look in his eyes...
Heat pooled in her stomach and spread through her, climbing up to crawl through the veins in her face.
She’d taken his oversized shorts off the second she’d arrived back in her cabin.
She’d leaned over to grab the file totally forgetting she had no underwear on.
He’d seen her.
Gabriele’s breathing had become heavy, his eyes containing a blackness that was quite unlike the angry circles of ice he usually looked at her with.
Please, something, anything, swallow her up right now.
He’d seen her.
His throat moved and then he coughed and took a step back before pulling a small tube from his pocket. ‘This is some lotion for you to put on your wrists—it should help with the bruising.
‘I will leave you to dress and read through the contract.’ He no longer looked at her, his voice even deeper than normal. ‘I will send someone for you in thirty minutes.’
He didn’t wait for a response, throwing the tube on the bed and leaving the cabin in three long strides.
* * *
Gabriele concentrated hard on the conversation with his lawyer, discussing the finer details of the contract Milo had drafted for him.
Milo knew better than to try and talk Gabriele from the route he was taking. He had been his family’s lawyer for over two decades, and there was little about Gabriele that Milo didn’t know. It was this familiarity that made him sense the lawyer didn’t approve of this particular route.
Whether his lawyer approved was irrelevant. As for Anna Maria, his assistant, she was too well paid to have an opinion on anything.
His lawyer and assistant were the only people to know the truth and he intended to keep it that way. To the rest of the world, especially to Ignazio, his and Elena’s marriage would be the real deal.
It was only when Milo and Anna Maria both rose that he knew Elena had arrived.
Straight away his mind flashed to the image he’d been fighting not to see for thirty minutes.
The base of her bottom.
The base of her white, peachy, perfect bottom. The way it darkened at the base of the curve to show the promise of her hidden femininity.
One look and his pulse had paused for a heartbeat then surged into life, heat throbbing through his bloodstream.
He hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to a woman since his teenage years. Arranging his features into neutrality, he turned his head to see her standing by his chair. She’d changed into another pair of long, boyish shorts and a plain white T-shirt, her hair now neatly tied back.
Gabriele made the introductions.
She shook hands with them both before casting him with another of the baleful glares he was becoming accustomed to.
He waited until Milo and Anna Maria had left them alone before saying, ‘That is not the kind of greeting a man expects from his fiancée when in public.’
‘Get used to it.’
He fixed her with a stare. ‘I do not expect you take pleasure in my company but when we are in the company of others I expect you to treat me with respect and adoration. That will begin immediately.’
‘Adoration?’ she snorted, taking the seat opposite him and crossing her legs.
‘Have you read through the contract? It details it quite clearly.’
She met his eyes.
Colour flooded her cheeks and he knew that she knew what he had seen.
She snapped her gaze away and cleared her throat. ‘As long as you only expect adoration in public. In private you can sing for it.’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything else,’ he replied sardonically. ‘Do you have any questions about the contract?’
‘The sleeping arrangements...’
‘Are non-negotiable,’ he supplied before she could go any further. ‘For as long as our marriage lasts, it will be a traditional marriage, one in which we make a child.’
‘We can use insemination.’ Elena knew she sounded desperate but she didn’t care. How could she sleep with him? He might be a walking pack of gorgeous testosterone but she hated him.
He laughed. For once it sounded genuine. ‘No. We will make a baby in the traditional way. The world will believe our marriage is for real. Given the history between our families, our marriage will generate media scrutiny like nothing you will have ever experienced. Our staff will be besieged and offered money which would tempt even the saintliest person. We sleep together and that’s the end of the matter.’
Elena squeezed her eyes closed and wished herself away from this nightmare she had fallen into.
The contract had been as concise as Gabriele had promised but seeing the terms written so bluntly made her wish there had been some superfluous words to take the edge off.
Divorce proceedings shall be initiated by Party 2, Elena Ricci, only when conception has been achieved and subject to that Party 1, Gabriele Mantegna, shall initiate divorce proceedings without any encumbrances.
There were even long clauses regarding the custody of their mythical child, clauses that, while splitting custody evenly, gave Gabriele all rights with regards to education and ‘moral upbringing’ whatever that meant. He’d included her demands but had also stipulated his stance that her family must not be allowed any contact with their child or else all custody rights would be revoked and he would become sole guardian.
That he would use an innocent child as a pawn in his game of vengeance made her blood fire with fury. What kind of despicable monster would do such a thing?
Yet a different kind of heat suffused her as she imagined sharing a bed with him.
She’d never shared a bed with anyone in her life. To think of sharing one with a man as overtly masculine as Gabriele, of being burrowed under the same sheets...
‘The evidence against my father. I want it destroyed now, not when we divorce.’
He shook his head. ‘If I destroy it now there will be nothing to stop you from backing out of our deal.’
‘Isn’t my word good enough?’
‘You’re a Ricci. Your word is as useful as a chocolate teapot.’
A choked laugh razed her throat and she coughed.
One day she would learn not to laugh at inappropriate moments. Unfortunately it wasn’t something she had any control over and completely involuntary.
Finally daring to look at him, she found his quizzical gaze upon her.
‘You’re amused?’ he asked with an arched eyebrow.
‘I have a warped funny bone.’
A glimmer of light flashed in his eyes but it vanished as quickly as it came.
‘Do you have any other issues with the contract?’ he said.
‘Other than the entire document itself?’
‘Anything specific,’ he clarified drily.
‘I have issues with everything but no, not anything specific.’
‘Excellent. Then let’s get it signed and we can start our new life together.’
* * *
The helicopter took them straight to the airport where Gabriele’s flight crew were waiting for them in his private jet. Before long they were in the air and on their way to New York.
‘Why New York?’ she asked. She’d assumed they would go straight to his home in Italy, what with them both being Italian.
‘Because we can marry in a couple of days there.’
‘That soon?’
‘We’ll get the paperwork sorted on Monday and marry on Tuesday.’
She swallowed.
Everything was moving so quickly it felt as if she’d filled up on rocket fuel.
‘After we’ve married we’ll go to Florence. I’m launching a new car at my headquarters there in a month’s time so I need to be on site.’
‘I thought Mantegna Cars were based in the US?’ Despite herself, her curiosity was piqued. As a child she’d loved it when her father had taken her out for a drive in one of his new Mantegna Cars. They’d always been so glamorous and powerful, ahead of their time in the gadget department. She’d always been proud that so many of those gadgets had come from her father’s factories.
‘Florence is Mantegna Car’s birthplace and it’s always been our European headquarters.’ There was a hardness in his face. ‘My parents loved their time in America but with retirement around the corner, they wanted to go home. As you know, my father died before he could make it back. Being incarcerated solidified the decision for me. Florence is my main home now, and it’s back to being the headquarters of our entire company.’
A gleam came into his eyes, dispelling the hardness. ‘Just think, come the launch, you might have the seed of life growing inside you.’
‘But the nightmare won’t be over, will it?’ She crossed her legs as an unexpected ripple of heat pulsed low in her. ‘A child will tie me to you for the rest of my life.’
‘As long as you keep to the contractual obligations you signed, there will be minimal contact between us when we part.’
