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‘If you carry my child, as you state emphatically that you do, there is only one course of action. In half an hour we will leave for Rome and we will be married.
‘Much as the thought of marrying you turns my insides, it’s not an institution I’ve ever held in any esteem, so it won’t cost me any emotion. It’ll ensure legitimacy from the outset for the Valentini heir, and I can keep an eye on your every move. It’ll also save my reputation; our shares have already been dropping in value on the back of this potential scandal.’
Cara felt the colour draining from her face as she struggled to take this in. ‘Never. I’d never marry someone like you,’ she breathed with horror.
Vincenzo went ominously still and said silkily, ‘Then are you willing to sign a legal document to renounce all claims that this child is mine? And to vow that you will have no further contact with me for the rest of your life? Because that is the only other alternative to marriage.’
Abby Green got hooked on Mills & Boon® romances while still in her teens, when she stumbled across one belonging to her grandmother in the west of Ireland. After many years of reading them voraciously, she sat down one day and gave it a go herself. Happily, after a few failed attempts, Mills & Boon bought her first manuscript.
Abby works freelance in the film and TV industry, but thankfully the four a.m. starts and the stresses of dealing with recalcitrant actors are becoming more and more infrequent—leaving more time to write!
She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her through her website at www.abby-green.com. She lives and works in Dublin.
BY
ABBY GREEN
www.millsandboon.co.uk
PROLOGUE
VICENZO VALENTINI stood for a long moment looking down at the set and cold features of the dead woman. His baby sister. She was only twenty-four. Her whole life ahead of her. But not any more. That life had been snuffed out like a candle in the mangled wreckage of a horrific car crash. And he’d been too late to stop it, to protect her. What felt like a granite block weighted down his insides.
He should have followed his instincts and insisted that she come home weeks ago…if he had he would have realised how much danger she was in.
That thought made his fists clench as pain and guilt surged through him, so strong that he shook with the intensity it took to not let it out in front of the anonymous morgue attendant. He’d been kept away deliberately. A crude ruse to ensure he didn’t come to check up on his sister. When he thought of how awfully futile it made him feel he wanted to rant and rail, to smash something. He fought to regain control. He had to keep it together. He had to bring his sister home. He and his father would mourn her there. Not in this cold country where she had been seduced out of her innocence and led down a dark path to this tragic end. He stretched out a shaking hand and ran a finger down one icy cold cheek. It almost undid him. The crash hadn’t marked her face, and that made it even harder to bear, because like this she might almost be eight again, clinging onto Vicenzo’s hand tightly. Summoning all his control, he leant forward and pressed a kiss against her clammy, lifeless forehead.
He stood and turned away abruptly, saying in a voice clogged and hoarse with grief, ‘Yes. This is my sister. Allegra Valentini.’ A part of him couldn’t believe he was saying the trite words, that this wasn’t just an awful nightmare. He stepped out of the way jerkily to let the attendant zip the body bag back up.
Vicenzo muttered something unintelligible and strode from the room, feeling constricted and claustrophobic, making his way up through the hospital, just wanting to get back outside and breathe in fresh air. Although that was laughable. The hospital was right in the smog-filled centre of London.
Outside, he sucked in deep breaths, unaware of the gaping looks he drew with his tall, lean body, and dark olive-skinned good-looks. He stood out like an exotic beacon of potent masculinity against the backdrop of the hospital in the harsh early-morning light.
He saw nothing, though, but the pain inside him. The doctor had described it as a tragic accident. But Vicenzo knew it had been much more than an accident. His fists clenched at the sides of his body in rejection of that platitude. Two people had died in the crash: his sister—his beautiful, beloved, irrepressible Allegra—and her duplicitous lover, Cormac Brosnan. The man who had calculatedly seduced her, with one grasping hand out for her fortune and the other hand holding Vicenzo back from interfering. Rage burned inside him again. He’d had no inkling of Brosnan’s influence and cunning until it was too late. He knew it all now, but that information amounted to nothing any more, because it couldn’t bring Allegra back.
But one person had survived the crash. One person had walked out of this hospital just an hour after being admitted last night. The words of the doctor came back to him. ‘Not even a scratch on her body—unbelievable, really. She was the only one wearing a seatbelt and undoubtedly it saved her life. Lucky woman.’
Lucky woman. The words made a mist of red rage cloud Vicenzo’s vision. Cara Brosnan. Cormac’s sister. Reports stated that Cormac had been behind the wheel of the car, but even so Cara Brosnan had been no less responsible. Vicenzo’s hands clenched even harder, his jaw so tight it hurt. If he’d only got here sooner he would have made sure that she had not walked anywhere until he’d looked her in the eye and made it his business to let her know that he would make her atone. He’d had to endure that soul-destroying moment when the doctor had informed him that his sister had had high levels of drugs and alcohol in her system.
His driver, who must have seen him standing on the steps of the hospital, pulled up in front of him, the powerful engine of the sleek car purring quietly. Vicenzo forced himself to move and sat in the back. As they swung away from the front of the grim hospital he had to stifle a moment of blind panic, stop himself demanding that the car be stopped so he could go back and see Allegra one more time. As if he had to make sure for himself that she was really dead. Really gone.
But he didn’t. And he willed the awful, uncustomary feeling of panic down. She was dead. Only her body lay back there. He was aware that this was the first time in years anything had struck him through the iron-clad high wall he’d built around his emotions. And his heart. He’d grown strong and impervious since that time. And he had to draw on that strength now. Especially for his father’s sake. On the news of the death of his beloved only daughter his father had suffered a minor stroke and was still in a hospital—albeit stable enough to allow Vicenzo to make this trip.
As they entered the London rush hour mayhem, his mind seized once again on the woman who had played her part in causing this awful tragic day. Her brother was dead. But she was no less accountable than he for what they had planned to do together. They were a team. She might have walked free for now, but Vicenzo knew he wouldn’t rest until he had forced her to feel even a measure of the pain he felt right now. The fact that she’d walked from the hospital so soon after the crash made the bitter feeling even stronger. She’d got away scot-free.
He had to wait now—for papers to be processed, red tape to be navigated—before he could take his sister home, where she would be buried with her ancestors far too much ahead of her time.
Vicenzo’s mouth settled into a grim line as he looked out onto the busy streets, at people going about their everyday business, with not a care in the world. Cara Brosnan was one of those people. In that moment Vicenzo knew he would do his utmost to seek her out and make her face the fall-out of her devious manipulation.
CHAPTER ONE
Six days later
‘BUT, Rob, I’m fine to work, and I’m only going back to Dublin tomorrow. It’s hardly the other side of the world.’ Cara couldn’t quite keep the tremor from her voice, or stop the way she still felt a little shaky.
Her good friend noticed it too, with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow. ‘Right, and I just saw a pig fly past outside. Sit down on that stool now, before you fall down. You are not working on your last night here. I’ve promised you your two weeks’ wages, and you’re still owed tips from the door.’
She was about to point out that she wasn’t going to be working two weeks’ notice, but Cara saw the granite-like expression on his prettily handsome face and watched as he poured a shot of brandy into a glass before pushing it towards her across the solid oak bar.
‘Here, I think this is long overdue. You looked as if you were going to keel over at the funeral yesterday.’
Cara gave up the fight and sat on the high stool. The surroundings were dark and warm and familiar. This place had been her home for the past few years, and a well of emotion rose within her at the kindness of her old friend.
‘Thanks, Rob. And thanks for coming with me yesterday, I don’t think I could have done it on my own. It meant a lot that you and Barney and Simon were there.’
He reached over and placed a warm hand over hers, looking at her intently, ‘Sweetie, there was no way we’d have let you go through that by yourself. Cormac’s gone now. It’s over. And that accident was not your fault, so I don’t want to hear another word about it. It’s a miracle he didn’t bring you down with him. You know damn well it was only a matter of time before something happened.’
Yes, but I could have tried harder to stop them…to protect Allegra… The words resounded sickeningly in Cara’s head. She smiled weakly. Rob’s words were meant to soothe, but they stirred up the seething emotions that were ever present. The awful burning guilt that she hadn’t been able to stop Cormac driving that night. She’d gone in the car with them in an effort to try and be the sober one, the one who would make sure they weren’t careless…
But Rob didn’t need to know that. She smiled again, a little stronger this time, hoping to make him believe she was okay. ‘I know.’
‘See? That’s my girl. Now, drink that up and you’ll feel a lot better.’
Cara did as she was told, wrinkling her nose as the liquid burnt down her throat like a line of fire. Immediately she felt the effect, a warming and calming in her belly. Impulsively she leant across the bar and pulled Rob towards her, kissing him lightly on the lips and hugging him. He meant so much to her. He’d watched out for her for so long. She couldn’t contemplate how empty and hopeless her life might have been without him as her friend.
He grabbed her too in a tight hug, before pulling back and kissing her on the forehead. Something caught his eye behind her and he said, ‘Looks like the first customers are arriving.’
Cara swivelled to look back briefly, and saw a tall, dark shape through the gap in the heavy curtains that cordoned off the VIP bar from the rest of the club. For some reason a frisson of sensation she didn’t understand raced through her, but she dismissed it and turned back to Rob. Up till now it had been blessedly quiet. She decided that she’d leave shortly. She had precious little to pack for going home to Dublin, but at least she’d be ready in the morning for when the solicitor came to take the possession of the apartment keys. Suddenly the thought of going back to that huge, empty, soulless apartment made trepidation fill her belly as she recalled the visit she’d been paid last night, alone in that apartment after the funeral. It was something she knew she was shying away from thinking about, the past week having simply been almost too much to bear.
Cormac, her brother, had left her with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. Since their parents had died and he’d been saddled with his sixteen-year-old sister he’d made his irritation at his fraternal obligation apparent. But he had quickly turned her presence to his advantage, seeing her as a live-in housekeeper of sorts. She hadn’t expected anything more, but still it had been a shock to find out that not only had he had astronomical debts, but in the same instant that they’d been paid off…
Rob drew her attention back to him and she welcomed it, the knot of tension in her belly easing a tiny bit. With his chin resting on his hand he looked past her, saying sotto voce, ‘Honey, don’t look, but that big dark shape that was looking in here just now is the most divine specimen of a man. I wouldn’t be kicking him out of bed for talking too much, that’s for sure.’
For some strange reason Cara felt that weird frisson again, and also a little self-conscious in her clinging jersey dress. She’d worn it as she’d assumed she’d be working, but now she felt herself tugging it down to cover more of her thighs. She wondered faintly at her reaction, but after the last few days perhaps it was just sleep deprivation and shock catching up with her.
She smiled at Rob’s drooling reaction, glad of the distraction. ‘Oh, go on—you say that about all the guys.’
Rob shook his head, a mournfully reverent look on his face. ‘Oh, no. This one is…like no one I’ve ever seen before—and unfortunately my finely honed intuition is telling me he’s as straight as a die.’
He straightened up. ‘Okay he’s coming in here. He must be someone important. Cara, sweetie, sit up and smile, I’m telling you—a little flirting and a hot one-night stand with a man like him and memories of that tyrant of a brother of yours would be all but forgotten. Because one thing’s for sure—you probably wouldn’t even remember your name. It’s exactly what you could do with right now. A fresh start and a bit of fun before you go home.’
And then quite seamlessly, without drawing breath, Rob switched his attention to the mysterious stranger, whose presence Cara felt beside her, and said brightly, ‘Evening, sir. What can I get you?’
Little hairs rose all over Cara’s skin, but she tried to ignore the way she immediately felt the man’s presence so acutely, putting it down to Rob’s vivid description. She also completely dismissed Rob’s well-meant advice. She had no earthly intention of losing herself in a night of passionate abandon with anyone—much less a complete stranger. Especially the night after her brother’s funeral, and even more especially as she hadn’t experienced for a minute any kind of passion in her twenty-two years. Rob, for all his intuition, seemed to have the impression that Cara was as worldly as she let on. But it was a self-protective front, something she’d found herself projecting to avoid the worst of Cormac’s snide comments, and also in the club, to avoid unwanted attention.
With every intention of leaving, she turned to slide off the stool—but before she realised it she’d turned towards where the man had come to stand at the bar. She became aware of a pregnant taut silence. Feeling absurdly compelled, she looked up and came face to face, eyeball to eyeball, with a fallen angel who was looking right at her. A dark fallen angel. With eyes that seemed to glow green and gold under long black lashes. And black brows. High cheekbones. A slashing line of a mouth which should have looked cold, forbidding, drew Cara’s eyes and made her stop and linger. She had the most bizarre and urgent desire to press her lips against that mouth, to feel and taste its texture. Something she’d never wanted to do with any man before—ever.
This was all within a nanosecond. Along with the realisation that he had shoulders so broad they blocked out what little light was in the bar and he must be well over six foot. From his effortlessly arrogant stance, Cara knew he possessed the kind of body that made Rob drool. He wore a heavy overcoat, but underneath the open top button of a shirt gave more than a hint of dark olive skin and a few crisp dark hairs.
Cara couldn’t understand the hot feeling in her belly, the sizzling in her blood as their eyes remained locked for what seemed like aeons. Her breath hitched and she felt dizzy. And she was still sitting down!
From somewhere very far away came a voice. ‘Sir?’
The man waited for a long moment before looking away to Rob. Cara felt as if she’d been caught high in the air, suspended, and now she was hurtling back to earth. It was the strangest sensation. His voice was low and deep. Accented. And before she knew it Rob was sliding another shot of brandy towards her and gesturing to the man with an unmistakable look of mischief in his eye.
‘From the gentleman.’
Rob moved away, whistling softly, and Cara cursed him silently as she started to protest. ‘Oh, no—really. I was just leaving, actually…’
‘Please. Don’t leave on my account.’
His voice, directed straight at her, hit her like a wrecking ball. Deep, with that delicious foreign accent. Loath as Cara was to look at him again and have that burning hot reaction, she had to. This time the reaction seemed to spread to her every extremity, lighting a fire through every vein and every bit of pulsing blood in her body. And when he smiled faintly the room seemed to tilt. She was vaguely aware that she was still stuck in a parody of trying to get off the stool. All of a sudden it seemed easier to stay where she was.
‘I…’ she said, with pathetic ineffectiveness.
He took off his coat and jacket, revealing the thin silk of his shirt, and the body Cara had suspected existed was now heart-stoppingly evident. The broad power of his chest was just inches away, the darkness of his skin visible through the material. The hint of defined pectoral muscles. He sat down easily on the stool beside her, effectively trapping her, making her attempt to escape awkward. She was fighting a losing battle and she knew it. Right here, right now, in just seconds, this complete stranger had awoken her body from its twenty-two-year slumber, and she was no more capable of moving than she seemed to be of stringing a sentence together.
‘Well…all right. I’ll just have the drink you bought me,’ she managed to croak out, and sat back on her stool more fully, hoping to put some distance between them.
He turned and angled his body towards her, and Cara grabbed the small glass with every intention of downing the lot in one gulp and legging it before she dissolved altogether. But then he spoke again, making her brain atrophy.
‘What is your name?’
She held the glass clutched in one hand and took a deep breath before looking at him, steeling herself not to react. Mortifyingly—especially considering Rob’s recent words—she had to think for a second. ‘Cara. Cara Brosnan.’
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes enigmatic and unreadable. ‘Cara…’
She flushed at the way he said it, almost like an endearment, and hastened to say, ‘Well, actually it’s more like Cara.’ She put the emphasis on a flat pronunciation, not the rolling way he’d said it, making her feel as if he’d drawn it like silk over her skin which now broke into goosebumps.
In a small, still functioning part of her bewildered brain she questioned her sanity and this unprecedented reaction. Was it the shock of the last few days? Rob’s suggestive words? Her grief? For, while she couldn’t say that she’d loved or even liked her brother—not after years of abuse had destroyed those emotions—she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t mourned the best part of him and the fact that now she’d lost her entire family. But she felt more grief for Allegra, her brother’s girlfriend, who’d also died in the crash.
The man quirked one black eyebrow, giving him a devilish look that he really didn’t need. ‘You’re from…?’
She welcomed him taking her thoughts away from the pain. ‘Ireland. I’m going back there tomorrow. I’ve been living here since I was sixteen, but I’m going home now.’
Cara was babbling and she knew it. He was looking at her intently, as if he wanted to see all the way into her head. She knew instinctively that a man like this could consume her so utterly he’d eclipse anything else. The minute she thought that, heat bloomed low in her belly, and she felt herself grow damp between her legs. She was drowning in his eyes as he looked at her.
He raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to new beginnings. Not everyone is fortunate enough to start again.’
Cara heard an edge to his voice, but he was smiling, scrambling her thoughts. She raised her glass to his, and the melodic chinking sound seemed to restore some semblance of sanity. She took a small sip of the drink, aware of the fact that her previous desire to down it in one had gone. She felt herself giving in to the inevitability of this conversation, this man. Some kind of inchoate recklessness was beating through her.
‘And you? What’s your name and where do you come from?’ She winced inwardly at sounding like a bad impression of a presenter on a TV quiz show, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He took another long moment to reply, as if he were considering something, making her nerve-ends stretch unbearably. Finally he spoke. ‘I’m from Italy…Enzo. Pleased to meet you.’
His mention of Italy had her insides seizing momentarily. Allegra had been from Italy: Sardinia. She forced herself to breathe. It was just a coincidence, but a painful one. He held out a big hand with long fingers, strong-looking and capable. Cara looked at it and gulped. Reluctantly she held out her own much smaller, paler one, covered in the freckles she’d despaired of for years.
Their hands met, his own dwarfing hers, warm and strong, his fingers wrapping around her hand until she couldn’t see even a sliver of her skin any more. His fingers rested on the frantic beating of her pulse point on the delicate underside of her wrist.
Helpless against the rush of sensation through her body at his touch, her mouth drying, she could have sworn that she felt her pupils dilate in that moment. He seemed to be similarly caught. Something in his eyes flared and a fleeting look of harshness crossed his face before it disappeared as he smiled again, making her believe she’d imagined it. His smile was slow and sexy and devastating.
Oh, God.
Cara finally pulled her hand from his and tucked it under her leg, telling herself valiantly that it wasn’t tingling. All of a sudden she needed space from this intensity. She was not used to it. She was more than a little freaked out. She scrambled off the stool, her body brushing against his for a moment, igniting tiny fires all over her skin.
‘Excuse me, I must go to the bathroom.’
On very shaky legs she hurried out towards the rapidly filling club, the music coming muffled at first through the thick velvet curtains, and then jarringly loud as she stepped through. She fled to the toilet, closing the door behind her with relief, and stood at the sink, resting her hands on the cool tiles. She looked at her reflection, shaking her head. Distance from that man was doing little to calm her pulse or the hectic flush in her cheeks. His very charisma seemed to cling to her, his image annoyingly vivid in her mind’s eye.
Why was this happening to her? Tonight of all nights? She was nothing special. Long straight dark red hair, green eyes that veered towards hazel, pale freckled skin. Too freckled. A too-gangly body. No make-up. That was what she saw. A rush of something went through her then, taking her by surprise—a kind of weird euphoria. She was finally going home tomorrow, away from London where she’d never felt at home. The fact that this club and its employees had felt most like home since she’d left Dublin after her parents had died said it all.