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

by Elizabeth Power

  ‘Perhaps—but then, as you’ve intimated so many times, I’m not your son! You made that quite clear often enough all the time I was growing up. How do you think it felt knowing you were forced to take me on because my father’s mistress didn’t want me? Because he was too proud to see his own son turned out into the world with strangers?’

  ‘Is that why you’re marrying her? To save Giorgio from having a stepmother? Are you so bitter, Romano, that you don’t care about anyone? Your own happiness? Mine? Hers? Just so long as you make me suffer for the past?’

  ‘You’re the one who’s bitter, Sophia. And what I do and with whom is my business. It’s absolutely no concern of yours.’

  ‘It will be if she uses her new position as your wife to try and take Giorgio away from us. Have you considered that, Romano? That your marrying her gives her a far stronger chance to try and sue for custody?

  ‘I see that you haven’t,’ she went on when no response from Romano was forthcoming. ‘But don’t try to tell me you love her because I’d find that would take some believing.’ Again there was only silence from Romano. ‘You can’t say it, can you?’ Sophia’s tone was almost triumphal. ‘Because you’re incapable of loving any woman. You can’t say it because you don’t—and I’ve never known you lie.’

  ‘Since you’ve clearly worked it out for yourself, there’s no point in my denying it, is there? You’re right, Sophia. As always. Yes, I want the best for Giorgio. Is that surprising after all I was forced to endure through a double dose of maternal indifference? You’re right. I won’t see my nephew suffer the same fate. I want what’s best for him and to hell with everyone else!’

  Libby’s hand flew to her mouth to stop herself crying out. She couldn’t be hearing this. She couldn’t!

  ‘Why, Romano?’ Sophia’s tone had turned pleading. ‘Why must you always do what you so adamantly believe to be right?’

  ‘Goodnight, Sophia.’

  Forgetting all about the biscuits, Libby raced back upstairs, her heart striking cruel blows against her ribs.

  So he was marrying her solely for Giorgio’s benefit! But she’d known that all along, hadn’t she, even if she had tried to fool herself into thinking that he did care a little? Yet now she knew the reason for a lot of other things as well. Like why he’d despised her so much initially. Even without believing she was a gold-digger, his view of her would have been soured anyway just for giving up her baby, because his birth mother had done exactly the same thing with him! And Sophia clearly hadn’t shown him much affection, Libby realised, if that raw bitterness in his voice was anything to go by. It was no wonder, she deduced, aching inside for him, that he showed such little feeling towards her—towards any woman, his mother had said—if he was so badly scarred by his past.

  What was also painfully clear now, though, was why when she had told him she loved him he had chosen to totally ignore it, treating her only with amused indulgence afterwards. What had he been doing? she wondered, fresh pain spearing her as she thought about his unforgettable tenderness that day. Humouring her? Or had he been pitying her? she considered with a stifled little cry escaping her. Dear heaven! She could bear anything but that!

  Slipping into her room, she heard the distant growl of his car through her open window, then the throbbing note of its engine as he pulled away.

  She would help him if she could. But supposing she couldn’t? Supposing she could never reach that part of him that she longed to reach? What then? What would happen when he grew tired of his adoring and convenient wife and his ‘best possible solution’ for Giorgio? Would he seek more interesting diversions elsewhere?

  She wanted to ring him straight away. Confront him with it. Make him fully aware of what she had heard. But her decision to do so—even her angry and hurt resolve to call off the wedding—dissolved under the crushing reality of what such an action would mean.

  She would be forced to leave Giorgio if she didn’t go through with this marriage and that would be far too great a price to pay. Romano Vincenzo might not love her, but he wanted the best for his nephew and, as far as she was concerned, that was the only thing that she wanted, wasn’t it? And then there was the coming baby to consider…

  But what about your own happiness? Your self-respect? a tormenting little voice started to nag way down inside. The torture of being married to a man who doesn’t love you? But she ignored it, because none of those things mattered just as long as she never had to be parted from Giorgio again, did they? she asserted unflinchingly, and managed to convince herself of that—almost.

  She awoke the following morning so nauseous that it was some time before she could even think about getting ready.

  Fortunately Angelica came in with one of the maids to lead Giorgio away to prepare him for his proudly anticipated role as Libby’s page-boy, leaving Libby struggling with her make-up until Sophia popped her head round the door to request the hairbrush he had left behind.

  ‘Santo cielo!’ she exclaimed on seeing Libby’s pale, drawn features. ‘You aren’t even dressed yet! Are you ill?’

  Sophia’s eyes were red, as though she had spent the night crying, but after a long night tossing and turning, and then the sickness this morning, Libby was in no state even to think about it.

  She had told Angelica she had a stomach upset, which had brought the concerned little housekeeper scurrying back with a glass of something fizzy, which Libby hadn’t touched. But after another bout of nausea had sent her darting into the en suite she realised, on returning to the bedroom, that Luca’s mother wasn’t going to be so easy to fool.

  ‘Are you pregnant, by any chance?’ Sophia’s tired eyes raked over the ivory camisole and matching briefs that gave no indication of Libby’s condition. ‘Romano said nothing to me.’

  ‘Why should he?’ Libby dissembled, flopping down again on the dressing-table stool to try to continue where she had left off. ‘I know I’m the last person you would want for Romano, Sophia, but you’ve no need to worry. I haven’t trapped him into this, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  Had she imagined it? Or did those gracefully slim shoulders seem to sag in relief before their owner turned away?

  ‘Why do you despise me so much, Sophia? Is it all because of Luca?’ In the mirror she saw the retreating figure stop—turn around. ‘Because he was the only one in this family related to you by blood? Because Romano isn’t your natural son?’

  A blend of unfathomable emotions crossed the beautiful, matronly face. ‘So he told you?’

  Libby thought carefully before answering. She didn’t want Sophia to realise she had overheard them last night. Besides, in a way, it was because of Romano that she knew. ‘Not the finer details.’ She put down a little jar of foundation cream. ‘What happened to his natural mother? When did you adopt him?’ Whose son is he? she wanted to know, questions that had been going around in her head all night.

  ‘She was married to someone else, while my husband was married to me. My marriage was in a sense an arranged marriage between him and my father. A merger of fortunes. I was forced to marry Marius to save my father’s company. I knew he didn’t love me. I even anticipated that he would be unfaithful. What I didn’t anticipate was being forced to face the reality of his love for someone else in the shape of their child. Romano’s mother was forgiven by her husband, but he refused to keep another man’s baby. She was a businesswoman. Totally single-minded. She didn’t want him anyway. We’d spent six months in America and when we came back Marius presented me with Romano. No one ever knew he wasn’t mine. I couldn’t show him the affection he needed—no—that he craved from me. Is that understandable?’

  Libby couldn’t answer. What was there to say?

  ‘He is very bitter. This is why I told you he only has Giorgio’s interests at heart. He will do anything to prevent the boy suffering in the same way.’

  Even marrying someone he didn’t love.

  Anguish tore through Libby, showing itself, she recognised when Sop
hia said with unusual softness, ‘I think you’ve realised that, haven’t you?’

  ‘Is that why you said Giorgio was all you had left? Why you—both of you—bullied me into giving him up?’

  A thin smile touched the woman’s lips. ‘The exact word Romano used when he confronted me about it that night after Giorgio fell down. But you were a mere girl. You couldn’t have given the child the things we did—the stable home he’s had here.’

  ‘So you took him from me.’

  ‘No.’ In the mirror her golden gaze fell, and when it lifted again it held something amazingly close to contrition. ‘I wasn’t aware of the lengths to which my husband stooped to get Giorgio. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? You have him back. And a husband, even though you’ve probably guessed you’ll be left wanting his love. That he can’t give anything of himself to a woman—any woman. I know. I’ve had to listen to more than one foolish hopeful in tears. And yet, knowing that, you’ll still go ahead with this wedding?’

  ‘I love him,’ Libby said simply.

  A spark of something like admiration brightened those tear-reddened eyes. ‘And there is nothing a mother will not suffer for her son.’

  For the first time Libby felt a glimmer of pity for her late husband’s mother, being forced into a marriage with a man who didn’t love her and having his illegitimate child foisted on her—startlingly she remembered Magdelena using that word, remembered Romano’s reaction—a constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity. Losing Luca—her natural-born son—must have driven her crazy with grief, with her grandson miles away in England with the young woman she blamed for causing the death of her only child. That must have made her insanely possessive of Giorgio as the only thing left to cling to. Even so, that didn’t excuse her actions, Libby thought. She had suffered unbearably because of the pressure Sophia and Marius had put on her to give up her baby. Especially Marius when he had issued that threat about evicting her father, knowing that she would crack under such pressure—that ultimately she would realise she had no choice. Yes, she had suffered terribly, she reflected. Lost a great deal, though perhaps not so much as Sophia. Whatever else she had to suffer, she thought, steeling herself to meet it, she would always have her son.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sophia,’ she whispered, meaning it as she met the emptiness in those golden eyes, knowing that for her, at least, a different kind of torture was only just about to begin.

  Heads turned to look at her as, far later than arranged, she stepped out of the helicopter. Now, with a rustle of ivory silk, she took Miguel’s arm.

  There was Sophia, Giorgio and the little stooping figure of Angelica. Several friends and acquaintances of Romano’s. Fran and a few other faces from the modelling world. All gathered there on the manicured, flower-dressed lawns in front of the sweeping arches of the villa, and where live strings played gentle music appropriate to the occasion.

  Romano was there, of course, looking, Libby thought with a catch in her throat, more stupendous in his pearl-grey wedding suit, white shirt and tie than she had ever seen him look before. And as he turned towards her, his face a complexity of emotions, his dark eyes burning with a questioning intensity, the ache of longing that rose up in her was accompanied by a sudden sharp wave of nausea so that desperately she found herself praying, Please let me make it through the service without throwing up!

  He had thought she wasn’t coming. When he had seen Sophia and Giorgio arrive, as previously arranged, by an earlier flight, he had been fuelled with excitement and then by an anxiety he couldn’t explain as the time for Libby’s arrival came and the minutes ticked ominously away.

  Sophia had seemed tense and withdrawn. A result, no doubt, of the words they had had the previous night. He had dreaded, though, that Sophia might have said something to change Libby’s mind about going through with this marriage, especially after the manner in which he had coerced her into agreeing to it.

  She had said she loved him the last time he had brought her here. Cried it out from the very depths of her soul. But other women had done that, only to take another lover the minute they realised he’d been serious when he’d told them he wasn’t looking for emotional involvement. It was what women did, in his experience, in the grip of extreme passion. So how could he dare to hope that with Libby it might have meant so much more?

  Now as she drew level with him the restlessness that had plagued him for the past half an hour deserted him. Beneath the sleek tailoring of his jacket his shoulders visibly relaxed as he stood, entranced, at the vision that was his bride.

  Her dress was the ultimate in elegance. A luminous creation that shaped every line and curve of her willowy body. Small white flowers adorned the blazing swept-up hair that had made her name, her veil just a whisper of lace worn back off her face, which now both shocked and concerned him as he gazed down at her.

  She looked pale, he thought, and as fragile as porcelain and, as she looked up at him with a faltering smile curving her soft mouth, he saw something that disturbed him in her guarded emerald eyes. What was it? he wondered. Misery? A totally painful acceptance of her fate?

  ‘Buon giorno…’

  The elderly man officiating had started, his voice deep and solemn over the occasional twittering of sparrows in the trees that hemmed in the villa and the more distant drone of a plane coming in to land at the island’s airport.

  Somewhere in another world, Libby thought through a haze of unreality. Another time…

  Can anyone give any reason why the two of you should not be joined…?

  They didn’t ask that, did they? Not here in Italy, she thought. Because if they did, would she be honest and utter the words that were screaming through her heart?

  Yes. He doesn’t love me!

  For one breath-catching moment, she thought she had cried it out loud.

  Blood pounding, she waited, tension mounting until it reached screaming pitch and she was sure that at any moment someone else would recognise the charade for what it was and make their discovery known.

  But the ceremony was continuing—smoothly, without interruption—with everyone oblivious to her harrowed thoughts.

  In a daze she heard the man asking if she wanted to take Romano as her husband. She looked at him and their eyes clashed. Did she? Could she spend a lifetime of loving him? Pleasuring him and being pleasured by him—knowing that he might never love her? Was she up to it? she asked herself, the familiar tension that heated her blood giving rise to a sudden wave of dizziness. She had to be, she reminded herself. For Giorgio’s sake.

  ‘I do.’ She whispered it with every beat of her excruciating love for him, her lashes coming down to conceal the intensity of emotion darkening her eyes.

  ‘Romano…’

  Now it was his turn.

  Romano’s back stiffened. Were they doing the right thing? Was he?

  He had given his lovely bride little choice when he had talked her into going ahead with this marriage and until this morning he had begun to hope against hope that she would grow to acknowledge that he had been right to persuade her—that he could make her happy. When she had walked up to him just now, though, the sadness in her eyes had made him feel like a heel for even imagining she would want to spend her life with him if she didn’t have to. But then those sad eyes lifted, clear and direct, her soft brows coming together as though querying his hesitancy and the raw emotion that coursed through him fuelled his determination and his escalating desire.

  ‘I do.’

  Had he taken a long time to answer? Or was this giddiness that was threatening to overwhelm her, robbing her, Libby thought, of all sense of time?

  The man conducting the ceremony was speaking again and they were both following his lead. Then Romano pressed the ring he’d slipped on her finger firmly in place and her fate was sealed.

  They were being declared united in matrimony. Libby wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand there until suddenly the officiator’s tones, lighter now, sounded as though they
were coming from under water. She felt sick and extremely faint and everything started to swim in a crimson haze.

  She heard Romano’s deep voice laced with shocked concern and, from what seemed a long way off, a loud unanimous gasp.

  And Giorgio.

  Through the swirling mist she caught his anxious little cry and then everything went black as the ground suddenly rose up to meet her.

  Strong arms were bearing her into the cool interior of the villa.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ was all she could say as Romano sat down with her across his lap on one of the white settees. ‘I didn’t mean to make such a fool of myself. Of you.’ Instinctively she knew that they were alone in the room; had heard his deep tones of command keeping everyone else back as miraculously, having caught her, he’d shouldered his way inside. ‘I hoped I wouldn’t let you down. Let myself down. That I could get through the ceremony at least…’

  ‘Get through the…’ His sentence tailing off, he was looking down at her with a darkening intensity in his eyes that made her despair. Was he that angry with her? Ashamed? ‘Is it so terrible to be marrying me, cara? Is that why you fainted? I felt something was wrong this morning. I knew it! Only I tried to convince myself that what I was doing was for the best. But if the thought of being my wife is so unbearable for you, perhaps we should seriously consider those vows we made to each other out there, Libby?’

  Her velvet brows pleated, two dark arches against the sickly pallor of her skin. What was he saying? She wanted to speak but couldn’t get her brain to engage her tongue.

  ‘Dio! You look like death! And it’s all my fault. I was wrong to think I could make this work. To force you into doing something you so obviously didn’t want to do.’

  ‘I do want to!’ Her voice was desperate. Fearful. ‘We both agreed it’s the best thing for Giorgio. I want it as much as you do.’ What was the alternative but never to be able to share her little boy’s life? As Romano had made quite clear to her when he’d proposed.