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Until she was twenty-four. The day she’d met Vin Borgia, she’d been weak, emotional, vulnerable. And he’d caught her up like a butterfly in a net.
She looked out the window with its view of the back garden, full of roses and ivy. A secret garden, surrounded by New York skyscrapers. A strangely calm, verdant place that seemed miles from the noisy traffic and honking cabs of Fifth Avenue. Rising to her feet, she started to pace.
A frosty gray afternoon last February, she’d been picking up a medicine prescription for Mrs. Falkner when she received a text from an old Boston friend of her father’s with news that had staggered her.
Alan Berry had just died in an inconsequential knife fight in a Southie bar. The man who’d betrayed her father seventeen years before, who’d cut a deal for his own freedom and forced Harry Ravenwood to go on the run with his sick wife and young daughter, had died a meaningless death after a meaningless life. All for nothing.
Standing in the drugstore, Scarlett’s knees had gone weak. She’d felt sick.
Five minutes later, she’d found herself at a dive bar across the street, ordering her first drink. The sharp pungent taste had made her cough.
“Let me guess.” A low, amused voice had spoken from the red leather banquette in the corner. “It’s your first time.”
She’d turned. The man came out of the shadows slowly. Black eyes. Dark hair. Powerful broad shoulders. A black suit. Hard edges everywhere. Five-o’clock shadow. He was like a hero—or a handsome villain—from a movie, so masculine and powerful and handsome that he’d affected her even more than the vodka shot.
“I had a...bad day.” Her voice trembled.
An ironic smile lifted the corners of his cruel, sensual mouth. “Why else would you be drinking in the afternoon?”
She wiped her eyes with a laugh. “For fun?”
“Fun. That’s an idea.” The man had come close enough to see her red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks in the shadowy dive bar. She’d braced herself for questions, but he just slid onto the bar stool beside her and raised his hand to the bartender. “Let’s see if the second shot goes down easier.”
In spite of what she knew about him now, Vin Borgia still affected her like that. When Scarlett had seen him standing at the altar with his beautiful bride, all the memories had come back of their night together in February, when he’d taken her back to his elegant, Spartan, wildly expensive penthouse. He’d seduced her easily, claiming her virginity as if he owned it. He’d made her life explode with color and joy.
She’d known Vin’s name, since his doorman had greeted him with the utmost respect as “Mr. Borgia.” But she’d never told Vin her last name. Some habits were hard to break.
A phone call from Mrs. Falkner’s nurse had woken Scarlett when Vin still slept. Only her sense of duty had forced her to wrench herself from the warmth of his bed. She’d returned to the Falkner mansion and handed over the prescription, then dreamily looked up her one and only lover online.
That had woken her up fast. She’d been horrified by what she found.
Vincenzo Borgia was a ruthless airline billionaire who’d risen from nothing and didn’t give a damn who got hurt in his pursuit of world domination. She couldn’t imagine why a man like that had seduced her, when he usually had liaisons with socialites and supermodels. But she was grateful she hadn’t given him her last name. She wouldn’t give him the chance to hurt her.
Later, when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d wondered whether she’d made the right decision. But seeing Vin’s engagement announcement in the paper had clinched it.
Scarlett had never expected to see Vin again. She’d planned to raise her baby alone.
She wasn’t scared to be alone. She’d grown up on the run, and her fugitive father had secretly taught her skills after her mother got too sick to notice. How to pick pockets. How to pick locks. And most of all, how to be invisible and survive on almost nothing.
Compared to what she’d already lived through, raising a child as a single parent would be easy. She wasn’t a fugitive. She’d never committed any crimes. She had a marketable skill as a nurse’s aide. She’d even saved some money. She no longer had to hide.
Or did she?
Scarlett stopped pacing the thick rug of the cathedral rectory, staring blankly at the faded floral furniture. Did she really want to take the chance that Vin Borgia, the man she’d read such horrible things about, could be a good father? Did she dare take that risk, just because she’d loved her own father so much?
She could see the soft shimmer of dust motes through a beam of fading golden sunlight from the window. She put her hands gently on her belly.
Vin had saved her from Blaise, but rich, powerful men all had one thing in common: they wanted to be in control. And Vin Borgia was richer and more powerful than most.
She should just leave before he returned.
Right now.
Scarlett took a step, then stopped when she remembered her suitcase and handbag were still in Blaise’s limo, with her money, ID, credit card, phone. When she’d fled him in terror, those had been the last thing on her mind. But now... How could she run with no money and no passport?
She looked down glumly at her bare toes snuggled into the plush rug. She didn’t even have shoes!
“What’s your name?”
She whirled to face the door. Vin had entered the room, his jaw like granite as he loosened his tie. Just looking at his hard-muscled body caused a physical reaction in her, made her tremble from the inside out, with a mixture of fear and desire. Even the sleekly tailored tuxedo couldn’t give him the look of a man who was entirely civilized. Especially with that hard, almost savage look in his black eyes.
She swallowed. “You know my name. Scarlett.”
He glowered at her. “Your last name.”
“Smith,” she tried.
Vin’s jaw tightened. Turning away, he picked up a carafe of water sitting on a tray on a nearby table. He poured water into one of the glasses. “Your last name is Ravenwood.”
Her lips parted in shock. “How did you—”
Reaching into his jacket pocket, he held up her wallet, his handsome face impassive.
“How did you get that?”
“Falkner sent your purse to me. And your suitcase.”
“Sent? You mean he dumped them in the street?”
“I mean his bodyguards personally brought them to me, neatly stacked, with his compliments.”
Oh, this was so much worse than she’d feared. Scarlett breathed, “The worst man I know is afraid of you?”
He smiled grimly. “It’s not unusual.” He held her wallet out toward her. “Here. Seventeen dollars cash and a single credit card. With an eight-hundred-dollar limit.”
“Hey!” She snatched at it. Her cheeks burned. “How do you know my credit limit?”
Picking up his glass, Vin swirled the clear water thoughtfully. “I wanted to know what I was dealing with. An orphan who never lived anywhere for long, who came to New York for a thankless live-in job, who saved every penny for two years, who made no new friends, who worked all the time and never went out.” He tilted his head, looking at her with heavily lidded black eyes as he murmured, “With one memorable exception.”
A flash of heat went through her, then cold. She couldn’t think about that night. Not now. “You have some nerve to—”
“The Falkners barely paid minimum wage, but you saved every penny you could. Impressive work ethic, considering your jailbird father—”
“Don’t you dare call him that!” she shouted. “My dad was the kindest, best man who ever lived!”
“Are you serious?” Vin’s lips curved. “He was a bank robber who became a fugitive and dragged you and your mother into a life on the run. You had no money, barely went to school, and your mother died of an illness that she might perhaps have survived with proper care. What am I missing?”
“Stop judging him,” she raged. “My father gave up that life when I was a baby. But a friend of his convinced him to try for one last score. After my mother found out, she gave him an ultimatum. He gave the money back to the bank!”
“Just gave it back, hmm?”
“He left the bags of money outside the police station, then tipped them off with an anonymous call.”
“Why didn’t he turn himself in?”
“Because he didn’t want to leave my mom. Or me.” Scarlett took a deep breath. “We would have been fine, except Alan Berry was caught spending his own share of the money six months later and threw my father under the bus as the supposed mastermind of the crime! After he’d tried to do the right thing—”
“The right thing would have been for your father to turn himself in at the start,” Vin said mercilessly, “instead of waiting ten years to find the courage, and dragging you and your mother through such a miserable life on the run.” He calmly took a sip of water. “The only truly decent thing your father ever did was die in that plane crash after he got out of prison. Giving you that tidy multimillion-dollar settlement offered by the airline.”
Scarlett nearly staggered to her knees at his easy reference to the greatest loss of her life, one that still left her grief-stricken every day—her father’s sudden death, along with thirty other people, in a plane crash a year and a half before, as he was coming to New York to see her, finally free after five years in a medium-security prison.
Vin looked at her curiously. “You gave all that money away.” He tilted his head. “Why?”
She was so shocked, it took her a moment to find her voice. In mere minutes, Vin Borgia had casually ripped through her privacy and exposed all the secrets of her life.
“I didn’t want their blood money,” she whispered. “I gave it to charity.”
“Yes, I know. Cancer research, legal defense for the poor and help for children of incarcerated parents. All fine causes. But I don’t understand why you’d choose to be penniless.”
“Like you said, maybe I’m used to it. Anyway.” She clutched her wallet. “Some things matter more than money.”
“Like a baby?” Vin said coldly. He put the glass down with a thunk on the wooden table. “You let me seduce you and take your virginity, then snuck out while I slept. You never bothered to contact me. You waited until my wedding to spring the news on me that you were pregnant.”
“I had no choice—”
“There were plenty of choices.” His jaw tightened. “Tell me the truth. If Falkner hadn’t threatened you today, you never would have told me about the baby, would you?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head.
“Why?” he demanded.
The warmth from the cathedral garden was failing. Scarlett glanced at the fading afternoon light, now turning gray. She didn’t answer.
“You refused to even tell me your last name that night. Why?” he pressed, coming closer. “Was it because you were also encouraging Falkner’s attentions?”
“I never did!” She gaped at him. “I knew he wanted me, but I never thought he’d attack me while giving me a ride from his mother’s funeral!”
“Ah. That explains the black dress.” He looked down at her pale pink toenails. “But why are you barefoot?”
“I kicked off my shoes running on Fifth Avenue. I knew your wedding was here today.” She looked down. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”
“Yes. Well.” His jaw tightened as he said grudgingly, “I suppose I should thank you.”
“You didn’t know your bride was cheating on you?”
“She convinced me she was a virgin and wanted to wait for marriage.”
A laugh rose to her lips. “You thought she was a virgin? In this day and age?”
“Why not?” he said coldly. “You were.”
Their eyes met, and Scarlett’s body flooded with heat. Against her will, memories filled her of that night, of being in his arms, in his bed, his body hard and hot and slick against hers. She tried to smile. “Yeah, but I’m not normal.”
“Agreed.” His dark gaze seared hers. “Am I really the father of your baby, Scarlett? Or were you lying just because you needed my help?”
“Of course the baby’s yours!”
He bared his teeth into a smile. “I will find out if it’s not true.”
“You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with, so I’m pretty sure!”
“The only man? Ever?” For a moment, something stretched between them. Then it snapped. “So what do you want from me now? Money?”
She glared at him. “Just point me in the direction of my suitcase and I’ll be on my way!”
“You’re not going anywhere until this is sorted.”
“Look, I’m deeply grateful for your help with Blaise, and sorry if I ruined your big wedding day, but I don’t appreciate you digging into my life, then assuming that I’m either a con artist or a gold digger. I’m neither. I just want to raise my baby in peace.”
“There will be a DNA test,” he warned. “Lawyers.”
She looked at him in horror. “Lawyers? What for?”
“So we both know where we stand.”
Scarlett felt a whoosh of panic that made her unsteady on her feet. Her voice trembled. “You mean you intend to sue me for custody?”
“That will not be necessary.” She exhaled in relief, before he finished, “Because once I have proof the baby’s mine, Scarlett, you will marry me.”
* * *
With those words, Vin took control over the spinning chaos of the day.
He’d been wrong about Anne Dumaine. He’d convinced himself she was modest and demure when all the while she’d been cheating on him and lying to his face. To say she’d turned out to be a disappointment was an understatement.
“Sorry,” she’d whispered the last time he’d seen her, when she’d pressed the ten-carat engagement ring into his palm. But she hadn’t looked sorry as she’d joyfully turned to her lover—a boy of maybe twenty-three, ridiculously shabby in a sweater, and they’d fled the cathedral hand in hand, Anne’s wedding veil flying behind her like a white flag.
Leaving Vin to face the annoyed glower of her father.
“If you’d bothered to show my daughter the slightest attention, she wouldn’t have fallen for that nobody!”
The merger with Transatlantique was clearly off.
Vin’s mistake. He’d never bothered to look beyond Anne’s cool blonde exterior into her soul. Truthfully, her soul hadn’t interested him. But he should have had his investigators check her more thoroughly. Trust no one had been his motto since he was young. Trust no one; control everything.
Scarlett Ravenwood was different. She didn’t have the education or pedigree of Anne, her manners were lamentable and she had no dress sense. Her only dowry would be the child she carried inside her.
A baby. His baby. After his own awful childhood, he’d decided long ago that any child of his would always know his father, would have a stable home and feel safe and loved. Vin would never abandon his child. He’d die first.
Standing in the shabby room of the rectory, surrounded by chintzy overstuffed furniture, Vin looked at Scarlett, so vivid with her pale skin and red hair.
The dark sweeping lashes over her green eyes, the color of every spring and summer of his Italian childhood, seemed to tremble. When he’d first seen her in that bar nearly eight months ago, right before Valentine’s Day, coughing over her first taste of vodka, it had been like a burst of sun after a long cold night, a sunrise as bright and red as her hair, filling him with warmth—and fire.
His mind moved rapidly. She had no fortune, but perhaps that was an advantage. No father-in-law to scream in his ear. No family to become a burden. She had nothing to offer him but their baby. And her sexy body. And the best lovemaking of his life.
He shivered just remembering that night...
It was, he reflected, not the worst way to begin a marriage. He could make of her what he wanted. She could be the perfect wife, made to his order. She had no money. She was grateful to him for saving her from that imbecile Falkner. He already had complete control.
Now she just had to realize that, as well.
“You want to marry me?” Scarlett repeated, staring at him in shock. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” He waited for her to be suitably thrilled. Instead, she burst into laughter.
“Are you crazy? I’m not marrying you!”
“If the baby is mine, it is our only reasonable course of action,” he said stiffly.
As if he’d told her the best joke in the world, she shook her head merrily. “You really don’t want to lose your wedding deposit, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Am I expected to just put on your last bride’s wedding gown, and you’ll let the guests know there’s been a slight change in the lineup? You’ll just change the color of the bride’s hair on the cake topper from blond to red, and proceed as planned?”
“You think I’d marry you to avoid losing a little money?” he said incredulously.
“No?” She tilted her head, on a roll now, clearly enjoying herself. “Then what is it? Is marriage just on your schedule, and you need to check it off your to-do list before you pick up your dry cleaning and pay your electric bill?”
“Scarlett, I get the feeling you’re not taking this seriously.”
“I’m not!” she exploded. “Why on earth would I marry you? I barely know you!”
Vin felt irritated at her irrational response, but he reminded himself that she was pregnant, and therefore to be treated gently. “You’ve had a trying day,” he said in the most soothing voice he could muster. “We should go to my doctor.”
“Why?”
“Just to check you’re doing fine. And we’ll get the paternity test.”
“You can’t just take my word the baby’s yours?”
“You could obviously be lying.”
For some reason, she seemed upset by this. She glared at him. “I’m not doing some stupid paternity test, not if it causes risk to the baby—”
“The doctor just draws a little blood from your arm and mine. There’s no risk to the baby whatsoever.”
“How do you know that?”
Vin didn’t care to explain the sordid story of the one-night stand who last February had tried to claim her baby was his, even though he’d used a condom and she’d claimed to be on the pill. It had turned out the DNA test was unnecessary as she wasn’t pregnant at all. She’d just hoped he would marry her and she’d get quickly pregnant—and he’d be too stupid to do the math. That experience had left him cold.
It was ironic that after confronting that one-night stand over her lies, he’d stopped for a drink in a new bar—and, meeting Scarlett, they’d ended up conceiving a child.
Looking at Scarlett now, he felt his body tighten. She had no right to look so lovely, her riotous red curls tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes so wistful and luminous, her lips so naturally full and pink. Her breasts strained the modest neckline of the simple black dress, and her large baby bump made her even more voluptuous, more sexy.
Pregnant. With his baby.
If it was true, he would devote his life to giving this baby a very different childhood than he’d had. His child would always be safe, and loved. Unlike Vin, his child would always know who his father was.
If her child was even his, he reminded himself. She could be lying. He needed proof. He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
With visible reluctance, she put her hand in his. “If I go with you to the doctor, and you get proof you’re the father, then what?”
“I’ll have my lawyers draw up a prenuptial agreement.”
“A pre-nup?” Her voice sounded surprised. “Why?”
He gave a grim smile. “I can hardly marry you without control.”
“Control of what?”
“Everything,” he said honestly.
He led her through the now empty cathedral, with only rapidly wilting wedding flowers and a few despondent janitors sweeping up. Her voice trembled as she asked, “What specifically would be in the pre-nup?”
“Standard things.” He shrugged. “Giving me final say on schooling and religion and where we will live. Things like that. I am based in New York but have homes all over. I am often required to travel while running SkyWorld Airways, sometimes for months at a time. I would not want to be away from my children.”
“Children? I’m not carrying twins.”
“Obviously, our child will need siblings.” She made a sound like a squeak, but he ignored her, continuing, “I expect you to travel with me whenever and wherever I wish.”
Her forehead furrowed. “But how would I hold down a job?”
“Money will no longer be an issue. As my wife, your only requirement will be to support me. You will be in society. You will learn to properly entertain powerful people to promote my company’s best interests. You may need comportment lessons.”
“What?”
“And, of course,” he added casually, “in the event we ever divorce, the pre-nup will simplify that process. It will clearly spell out what happens if you cheat on me, or either of us decides to separate. You’ll know what amount of money you’ll be entitled to based on years—”
“Of service?”
He smiled blandly. “Of marriage, I was going to say. Naturally, I would automatically gain full custody of our children.”
“What?!”
“Don’t worry. You would still be allowed to visit them.”
“Big of you,” she murmured. As they walked down the cathedral steps to his waiting car, his bodyguards waiting beside the large SUV behind it, Scarlett abruptly stopped.
“Before we go to your doctor and have the paternity test, could you do me a favor?” She smiled prettily, showing a dimple in her left cheek, then waved helplessly at her bare feet on the sidewalk. “Could we stop at a shoe store?”
Like Cinderella, Vin thought. He was surprised how well she was taking everything. The way she was looking at him so helplessly, so prettily. She would be easy to mold and shape into the perfect wife.
“Of course,” he said almost tenderly. “I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before.” Picking her up in his arms, he carried her. In spite of being heavily pregnant, she seemed to weigh nothing at all. He gently set her into the waiting car, still bedecked with flowers.
The driver’s eyes were popping out of his head to see Vin had left the church carrying a redhead, when he’d gone in to marry a blonde. But he wisely said nothing and just started the car.
Vin climbed into the backseat beside her. “Any preference about the shoe store?”
He expected her to name a designer store, the sorts of luxury brands that Anne had constantly yammered about, but here again Scarlett surprised him.
“Any shoes good to run in,” she said demurely, her black eyelashes fluttering against her pale cheeks.
“You heard her,” he told his driver.
Ten minutes later, Scarlett was trying on running shoes at an enormous athletic store on Fifty-Seventh Street. She chose her favorite pair of running shoes, along with a pair of socks, exclaiming at Vin’s generosity all the while.
“Thank you,” she whispered, suddenly giving him a hug. For a moment, he closed his eyes. He could smell the peppermint of her breath and breathed in the cherry blossom scent of her hair. Then she abruptly pulled back. Staring up at him wide-eyed, she bit her lip. Vin could imagine the sensual caress of those full, plump lips.
Then she smiled, and her eyes crinkled. “I’ll wear the shoes starting now. Excuse me.”
Vin watched her walk toward the ladies’ restroom, past the displays of expensive athletic shoes and equipment. His eyes lingered appreciatively over the curve of her backside, the sway of her hips. Scarlett made even a plain black funeral dress look good.
What a wife she would make. And as for the honeymoon...he shuddered.
Determined to hurry them into the car, he turned toward the cashier. Normally his assistant would have dealt with such mundane details, but he’d left Ernest at the cathedral to handle the logistical problems of the ruined wedding—returning mailed gifts, organizing early rides to the airport for disgruntled guests, donating the expensively catered reception dinner to a local homeless shelter. So Vin himself went to pay for the shoes.