Blackmailed For Her Baby (Bought For Her Baby Series Book 4)

by Elizabeth Power

  His comments flayed as he pushed back the sliding door, his broad shoulders filling for a moment the gap he had created, before he stepped lithely down from the trailer and strode away.

  Staring after his lean, elegant figure, Libby felt frustrated tears bite behind her eyes. The real world, he’d said. Was that what he called the Vincenzo mansion and its accompanying millions? When it was his and his family’s world that had taught her how the other half lived! The half who could buy anything, threaten anything, just as long as they got exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it, regardless of who got hurt!

  Her knuckles whitening as she gripped the open door, anguish a crushing weight in her chest, she almost gave in to the urge to call him back. Tell him that she would go to Italy with him. Now if he demanded it of her. Agree to anything he stipulated just so long as she could see Giorgio again. But he was already folding himself into the low sports saloon parked in front of her own favoured Porsche that he had spoken of so critically, and the next instant the powerful car was growling away.

  Without even bothering to cream off her make-up, Libby packed up her few belongings and followed his example. The day, accommodatingly bright and cloudless for the shoot, was turning overcast as she headed back to the city and the rain had set in heavily before she had got very far. She tried to keep her mind on her driving, but even concentrating hard on the wet road through the double speed of the windscreen wipers couldn’t keep the bitter memories at bay.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE had still been at college when she had met Luca Vincenzo.

  Motherless, with her father pensioned off early through ill health, she had been waiting tables at weekends and during term holidays in a chic little bistro in the Sussex village where she lived, eager to contribute in whatever way she could to their frugal finances.

  She couldn’t deny that her unusually photogenic looks and striking red hair, which she accepted without a trace of vanity, helped to get her noticed with the customers, bringing in more than a fair share of tips from admiring male members of the clientele, from whom she always managed to pleasantly but firmly distance herself.

  Luca had been the one exception to the rule. A handsome Italian boy with a daredevil attitude to life, he had dined there every night for a month, wooing her with his crazy Latin charm and that hint of devilry in his sparkling dark eyes until she took his threat of hiring a helicopter and lowering himself onto the top of Nelson’s column, where he promised to stay until she put him out of his misery and agreed to go out with him, as serious. It was only after she had laughingly consented to that she discovered exactly who he was; what a wealthy, respected and—in his own words—stifling family he had been born into.

  Braking to allow a van to pull across into her lane, she remembered how much her father had liked Luca. As he’d liked Luca’s grandfather, Giovanni Vincenzo, she recalled fondly, whom he’d worked for, prior to his forced retirement, as head gardener on the man’s large country estate fringing the village. When Giovanni Vincenzo had died, it was Luca’s father, Marius, who inherited the family empire. Preferring to run his international enterprises from his native Italy, he had turned the house into a conference centre and country club and, with the exception of a few small properties, sold off the rest of the estate.

  Earmarked for a responsible position in the family business, Luca had spent that summer getting experience at the conference centre that still remained in Vincenzo hands. At twenty-one and three years older than her, Luca had seemed like a man of the world, Libby thought, looking back. Well-travelled. Exciting. Although it was his warm humour and the feeling that he wasn’t wholly appreciated by a family who wanted to curb his adventurous spirit that had endeared her to him. A family, she thought disparagingly now, who were far too busy multiplying its millions to take much interest in anything Luca wanted.

  Head over heels in love, when he had asked her to marry him after only a few weeks she didn’t even have to think about it, she remembered sadly, trying to focus on the road through the spray thrown up by the van in front of her. They had been married almost immediately in a small private ceremony in the local register office with only her father and another waitress from the bistro as witnesses. It had all seemed so exciting and romantic at the time. It wasn’t until her new husband had taken her to meet his parents in their restored castle in Italy that she had realised how strongly they’d objected to Luca’s marrying her. Regardless of her studies, she was just a part-time waitress with no money and no prospects, and in their eyes an opportunist and a gold-digger. Their unveiled coolness towards her could have been chipped at with an ice-pick, his mother’s unrestrained remark privately to Libby that she had anticipated a far more suitable match for her son leaving Libby in no doubt as to exactly where she belonged. Anywhere but in the close-knit Vincenzo family circle!

  As she steered her car through the slow-moving, increasingly heavy traffic, it still hurt to remember her in-laws’ attitude towards her, even though she had tried desperately to win their respect. Because of the conditions his father had laid down, she had had plenty of opportunity. They were to live in the castle, he had stipulated unswervingly. Otherwise he would take it to mean that their son was no longer a Vincenzo.

  Luca had been all for walking out, Libby recalled, until she had persuaded him against it. The last thing she had wanted was to be responsible for a break-up between her husband and his family.

  ‘They’ll come round. You’ll see,’ she had naïvely reassured him, unaware of how influencing him to stay only served to reinforce her in-laws’ derogatory opinion of her. After all, she thought with cutting poignancy now, if she had allowed Luca to oppose his father she would have been walking away from the fortune he would have eventually inherited, wouldn’t she?

  The van in front of her stopped dead, causing her to ram on her brakes. Through her obscured vision she could just make out that there were traffic lights ahead.

  Berating herself for her lack of concentration, she tried to steer her thoughts back to the present. But the floodgates of her past, blown apart by that earth-shattering visit from Romano, had unleashed a torrent of unwelcome memories and, now that they had free passage, nothing could stem the flow.

  Romano had been working abroad, she remembered, when Luca had taken her to Italy, but had come home within a few days of their arrival, sent for, she was sure, to meet, vet and generally dissect his younger brother’s new wife.

  At twenty-seven, Romano Vincenzo had already been a powerful player in the family’s global commercial empire. Where Luca was warm, witty and handsome, Romano Vincenzo was cold with a serious mind and an incisive intellect, linked with that raw animal attraction that transcended mere good looks. It wasn’t just the hard structure of his face and that athletically built physique that made one notice him, Libby accepted resentfully, watching the rain streaming down the windscreen. It was everything about him—and he had it in bucketfuls. Presence. Personality. Poise.

  Standing there in the castle’s imposing drawing room, he had intimidated her from the first, asking her questions about herself, innocent enough on the surface but leaving her feeling as though he was testing her with every perfectly articulated syllable, while his richly accented English ran like honey off his well-trained, interrogative tongue! Consequently, nervous and awkward in his presence, she had cloaked herself in a confidence she was far from feeling.

  Sometimes during that first trip home of his she’d glanced up to catch him watching her, the dark absorption in those penetrating eyes disturbing her as much as she was sure it had been his intention to, before he’d resumed whatever it was he had been doing and turned dispassionately away.

  It was the day he was due to fly back to whatever area of the Vincenzo empire was calling him that stood out in her memory. Having said his goodbyes to the rest of the household, he had come out onto the terrace, where she had been emerging from the pool after seeking some relief from the strained atmosphere inside the house.<
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  ‘It’s been more than…interesting meeting you, Libby,’ he’d told her silkily, his dark, executive image doing untold things to her equilibrium as she’d stood there in nothing but her skimpy bikini. ‘In fact it’s been rather remiss of me, but I do believe I haven’t yet kissed my brother’s new bride.’

  She’d held herself rigid as he’d placed his hands on her wet shoulders, heart thumping against her ribcage, back stiffening in rejection as his lips impinged in no more than a brotherly gesture on her burning cheek.

  ‘You claim to love Luca, but I think we both know differently, don’t we?’ he’d challenged with a menacing softness, his warm breath fanning her hair, his scent and sound and touch an assault on her screaming senses before he’d picked up the briefcase he’d set down on the tiles and stridden away.

  Staring broodingly after his broad back, she had wondered if he’d sensed the way that simple gesture had made her blood race through her, and if he’d guessed at her mind’s screaming rejection of the sensations that had ravaged her even from that briefest contact with him.

  He probably thought he was irresistible to her! she remembered thinking hotly, because his ego was enormous enough and because, just like his parents, he believed that her interest in Luca lay only in what she could gain financially.

  The incident, though, had unsettled her. Even remembering it now caused an icy little shiver to course down her spine. It was the cold realisation that it was entirely possible to love one man while still being shockingly aware of another—even if you didn’t like him, she thought, grappling with the gear stick as an impatient hooting from the car behind jolted her into realising that the lights had changed. And she certainly hadn’t liked Romano Vincenzo! The feelings he’d aroused in her had been irrational, born only out of a kind of warped fascination coupled with dislike, and nothing like the warm, tender feelings she’d shared with Luca.

  On the move again, she recalled how elated she had been when she’d become pregnant almost immediately, and how her joy had been tempered by the sudden worrying turn of her father’s health. With no one to look after him, she’d made frequent visits back to England, the long periods she’d spent caring for him instead of being in Italy with her husband adding yet another detrimental mark against her in her in-laws’ eyes.

  As she brought her car into the familiar tree-lined square, the memory of that time and everything that followed pressed down on her like a dark, suffocating cloud.

  When she had gone into labour, unexpectedly here in England, given birth to a healthy baby boy, her life should have been complete. But it hadn’t worked out that way, she reflected achingly. Luca had had that accident rushing to the airport to be with her, and his parents, already despising her more than she could have believed possible, had no qualms about blaming her for his death. After all, if she’d been there where she belonged instead of abandoning her husband and her responsibilities, their son would still be alive, his mother had sobbed accusingly to her over the phone.

  It was something Libby had been all too conscious of, but having it spelt out by someone else—someone who loved him just as much as she did—was almost too much to bear.

  It was several weeks later when she’d gone back to Italy to collect a few of her and Luca’s things that they had dropped their bombshell.

  They wanted to adopt Giorgio. Bring him up as their own. Couldn’t she see that the boy would have a far more privileged and stable upbringing with them than he would with a sick grandfather and a single mother? How could she allow their grandchild to be deprived of all they could offer him? How could she be that selfish? they had asked her when, horrified, she’d refused at first even to give any headroom to such an unthinkable idea. She’d wanted to look after her baby herself—and care for her father. She’d known there would be difficult times ahead, but she’d manage, she’d determined. Wouldn’t she? After all, other girls did. It had continued to be impressed upon her, though, how selfish she was being. That she didn’t have her child’s interests at heart. Even her father had tentatively suggested that perhaps she ought to consider the Vincenzos’ offer very carefully. She was young—had her whole life in front of her. Had she considered the enormity of what she was taking on?

  Tortured and afraid, she had clung desperately to Luca’s child. She could never give him up! She couldn’t! Though the pressure to do so had been almost overwhelming, she might not have given in. Not if Marius Vincenzo, determined to wear down her resistance, hadn’t come up with that cruel ultimatum…

  Blindly, she left her car in the reserved parking bay outside the rank of exclusive Georgian apartments and, dodging the rain, raced up the steps, shutting her mind to the bitter choice the man had given her. She couldn’t relive it—couldn’t think about it now.

  She only knew as she rode the lift up to the first floor—let herself into the welcoming haven of her own apartment—that when she had been forced to sign that piece of paper, handing over her son to Luca’s family, she had been too young and too worried about her father to see beyond her naïve hopes in believing that one day she would get her baby back.

  A persistent ringing of the doorbell had Libby reluctantly answering it. Since abandoning all thoughts of going out, she’d bathed and changed and she certainly didn’t feel like seeing anyone tonight.

  ‘Surprise!’ Fran and about a dozen others carolled from the front doorway, before breezing in brandishing bottles of champagne.

  ‘As it was obvious you weren’t coming to the party, we decided to bring the party to you,’ a young woman Libby didn’t even recognise announced, her voice raised above the animated conversation and laughter.

  ‘I can’t. Really, I can’t face this now,’ Libby protested over the sound of corks already being popped, glasses being hauled out of her china cabinet. Someone had switched on her CD player, and a sea of bodies began gyrating to a deafening rhythm.

  She wanted to scream at them to get out. After meeting Romano today there had been no question of attending the end of the assignment party. She had had a lot of decisions to make, appointments to cancel. On top of which her thoughts were in turmoil and her head was thumping.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Fran shouted to make herself heard above the noise.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ Libby yelled back. ‘I just want to be alone!’

  ‘You always do!’ Fran’s more mature features were contorted in friendly chastisement. ‘We thought it would do you good not to let you get away with not turning up for yet another party. We thought…Hey! Are you OK?’ The make-up artist looked genuinely concerned, but trying to compete with the din in her flat was hurting Libby’s throat.

  With a hopeless shrug she swept away from them all, towards the sanctuary of her bedroom.

  ‘Everybody! Everybody! Blaze doesn’t need this!’ From behind the closed door, she heard Fran’s futile attempts to make her protests heard. ‘I really think we ought to go!’

  Someone turned up the music. After a few moments the sound burst intrusively into the bedroom as the door opened and then closed again, admitting a penitent-looking Fran.

  ‘I’m sorry, Blaze. I didn’t realise,’ the woman expressed, as Libby flopped limply down onto the bed. ‘We really were only thinking of you. I tried…. What’s this?’ Fran’s sudden diversion drew Libby’s eyes to the single bed and the little white album lying on the coverlet that she hadn’t had chance to put away. ‘What is this?’ The woman was picking it up, surveying the embossed gold lettering on the leather-bound cover and, despairingly, Libby saw her taking in the first two pages of photographs, then the subsequent blank white pages that told their own story. ‘Am I imagining this…’ the woman’s puzzled gaze lifted from the few appealing baby photos to clash with Libby’s ‘…or does he look like…?’ Fran’s voice tailed off, her mouth an open circle of disbelief. ‘Yours?’ she whispered, dumbfounded.

  Leaping up, Libby grabbed the incriminating album and snapped it shut. ‘He belonged to someone else,’ she said
quickly, her voice noncommittal. Well, it was true, wasn’t it? she thought achingly. And if it got out that she had married into the Vincenzo family—one of the richest families in Italy—was the mother of Luca Vincenzo’s son, then because of her celebrity status Giorgio would be hounded by the Press, and his little life would cease to be his own.

  Fran gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Belonged?’ she echoed gingerly and, when Libby said nothing, ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman sighed, guessing that something had gone terribly wrong in her young friend’s life, but clearly didn’t want to probe too deeply. ‘You never said.’

  Libby shrugged. ‘It’s in the past.’ Only it wasn’t. It never would be, she thought, speared with wanting. Giorgio was hers—part of the here and now—and all she wanted was for this rowdy uninvited crowd to leave so that she could ring the boy’s uncle and tell him that she was ready to go with him. That she would throw in her job, her flat, and every commitment she’d made and leave now—this minute—with nothing but the clothes she stood up in just as long as she could see her baby again.

  Hastily she stuffed the album into a drawer. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything to the others?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Fran uttered in compliance, and Libby didn’t doubt that the woman would be as true as her word. ‘Was there some connection with that gorgeous hunk who turned up on the shoot today? Did you have an affair with him or something?’

  ‘No!’ Fran knew that there was no man in her life, and that she didn’t date, so an eye-catching specimen like Romano showing up would naturally arouse her curiosity.

  ‘He seemed pretty possessive. The way he slung that door closed in my face. Only a lover behaves like that.’