The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride Of Convenience: The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride of Convenience (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Carol Marinelli

  Daisy twisted in my arms to look up at me, resting one hand against my cheek. ‘Don’t even say it, Matteo,’ she protested gently. ‘It was never that way between us.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Hush.’ She kissed me on the lips, her breath whispering into mine. ‘I’m crazy for you—don’t you know that?’

  Crazy for me.

  I’d wanted to keep my distance, and for Daisy to keep hers. I’d done my best to make sure our relationship stayed purely physical. But in that moment I knew we’d crossed a line. We’d crossed it days ago, if only I’d had the sense, as well as the courage, to see it.

  Because I was more than crazy for her. I was falling in love with her—and it absolutely terrified me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘SO YOU’RE MATTEO’S LATEST.’

  The bored drawl, nearing a sneer, had me freezing in my four-inch gold stilettos. It was the night of the hotel’s opening ball, and I’d just left Matteo to go and powder my nose in the ladies’.

  Slowly I turned around to face my accuser—a louche-looking man in his forties, with one hand stuck in his trouser pocket as he surveyed me with thorough insolence.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said, my voice as icy as I could make it. I lifted my chin to face him down, even though the lewd look on his face made my insides shrivel.

  ‘You’re Dias’s latest. His whore.’

  I jerked back as if I’d been slapped. I felt as if I’d been assaulted. Who was this man, and why was he treating me this way?

  ‘I’m his wife,’ I said, with as much cold disdain as I could muster. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me…’

  I started to shoulder past him, but he grabbed my arm. Everything in me froze.

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ the man asked in a low, vicious voice. ‘Do you know where he’s come from?’

  I stared at him in confusion, drawn despite myself and in spite of all I knew this man had to be. ‘Where he’s come from?’

  ‘The gutter, darling. The absolute gutter. His mother was a Portuguese prostitute who dropped him on a doorstep. His poor grandfather had no choice but to take him in—although I’m sure he’s regretted it every day since.’

  ‘What?’ I goggled at him, forgetting for a second that he was holding my arm, his body pressed alarmingly close to mine. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Has he not told you?’ the man mocked. ‘He does like to keep his secrets. Likes to lord it over everyone, acting as if he’s the crème de la crème, but everyone knows the truth. It’s just that he’s so wealthy…no one is willing to say it to his face.’

  ‘But you are, obviously,’ I said coldly, trying to jerk my arm out of his grasp.

  The man held on, his nails starting to dig in. ‘I am, and I’m doing you a favour by telling you. Get out while you can. Take him for all he’s worth while you’re at it.’

  ‘You’re despicable.’

  Again I tried to pull away, but the man just held on to me more tightly. True fear began to lick cold flames right through me. The crowded ballroom was only a few metres away, but we were alone in a narrow, darkened corridor. Anything could happen. Anything might.

  For a few torturous seconds I was back in New York, struggling on that sofa, feeling hands and a mouth on me… My vision blurred and my stomach heaved as the man moved closer. I just stood there—waiting, frozen.

  ‘Get your hands off her.’

  Matteo’s voice was low and deadly, and after an endless, awful pause the man finally released me.

  I stumbled away from him with a gasp. ‘Matteo…’

  ‘She was begging for it, Dias,’ the man drawled. ‘Can’t you tell? She wanted someone with real class.’

  ‘Get out.’ Seemingly from nowhere, two burly security guards materialised, each one grabbing the man by an arm and hustling him away.

  I drew a shuddering breath, one hand pressed to my heart. Matteo looked at me—a hard, unyielding look, his eyes as cold and dark as gunmetal.

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked, in a low voice that throbbed with fury.

  ‘What?’ I gaped at him, his words piercing me like the sharpest dagger. ‘You mean, what he said…? Are you serious?’

  Matteo stared at me for another long moment, his jaw tight and bunched. ‘Just answer the question. Did you welcome his attentions?’

  I shook my head, my stomach roiling at his words. ‘I can’t believe you’d even ask me a question like that.’

  ‘You’re not answering it—’

  ‘Because I won’t stoop to such a horrible level!’ I stared at him in disbelief and hurt. ‘Matteo, why are you like this? After everything I told you yesterday, how can you ask me that?’

  He stared at me for another hard moment. ‘I’m sorry.’ The words were gritted out. ‘Let’s just leave it.’

  And then he turned on his heel and did just that, leaving me alone in the hallway, reeling from everything that had happened with the stranger—and with Matteo.

  After a few stunned and awful moments I went into the ladies’ and splashed water on my face. In the mirror my face was pale, my eyes wide and dazed. I still couldn’t process everything that had happened—from the odious stranger’s sneers about Matteo to his over-the-top, unprecedented response.

  What had happened? What was going on?

  With a shuddering breath I turned from my shocked reflection to head back to the party—mainly because I didn’t know where else to go.

  It was in full swing, with everyone chatting, laughing and swilling champagne as I slipped through the crowds, instinctively looking for Matteo. I still couldn’t believe he’d just left me there. Why was he so angry with me? Did he actually think I’d invited that awful man’s attentions?

  My stomach cramped and tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had unravelled—especially since the last two days had been the sweetest we’d shared yet.

  After telling Matteo about my awful experience with Chris Dawson he’d been so tender and caring. It had made my heart melt and my hope sing—because what else could this be but love? Or at least something close to it…something that was growing into it. Something I could start to trust.

  We’d had a lovely leisurely dinner in a private room at the restaurant, and then strolled through the gardens in the moonlight, hand in hand, while Matteo had told me how he’d taken his grandfather’s faltering empire and turned it into the global success it was today, dominating the luxury hotel market even as he refused to take the man’s name, insisting on keeping his mother’s.

  Such a contrary tangle of emotions, and I’d wondered if he saw it in himself. As much as he hated his grandfather, part of him craved something from him—perhaps even love. And it had made me more determined to show him my love, even if he persisted in believing he didn’t want it.

  Back at the bungalow we’d made love tenderly, our bodies and hearts so in sync we’d needed no words as we moved and clung together.

  Yes, this was love. At least it was on my part. I knew that now, and accepted it. I’d fallen in love with my husband. And I had started to hope, just a little, that he had fallen in love with me…whether he was willing to admit it to himself or not.

  Today Matteo had worked all morning, and then we’d spent the afternoon lounging and laughing by the pool before getting ready for the party tonight. He’d been attentive and at my side for the entire event, save for my brief foray to the ladies’, and now it felt as if everything had exploded.

  Shaking my head, knowing I was in no mood for the party, I slipped through one of the many sets of French windows that led to the cascading pools, the water silver in the moonlight, the path down the bougainvillea-covered hillside lit by flickering tiki torches.

  I walked past clusters of people, heedless of their speculative glances—everyone knew I was Matteo’s wife, and they’d a
ccepted it with varying degrees of surprise, pleasure or scepticism. I didn’t care about any of them now; I only cared about Matteo and I didn’t even know where he was.

  I made my way down the hillside, past the pools, not even caring where I was going. I just wanted to get away—from the crowds, from my own clamouring thoughts.

  At the bottom of the five pools the terrace was thankfully empty, and I leaned against the stone balustrade that overlooked the sea, listening to the comforting whoosh of the tide. The cool evening breeze blew the last of the tears from my eyes as I struggled to make sense of what had happened and figure out how to go on from here.

  My confidence had taken an almighty knock, with Matteo turning on me so suddenly. It had brought all my old insecurities and fears to the fore, making me wonder if I really was delusional after all, in hoping that this was going to turn into something real. A real marriage…one with affection and respect and love.

  Was I a fool for believing that? For thinking it could happen? Would it be better—smarter, safer—to cut my losses and go back to Amanos and the cold convenience of our former marriage?

  Our supposed trial of two weeks was up in just a few days but, as Matteo had reminded me, I might already be pregnant. And what if I was overreacting to what might be a silly argument, the kind any couple had?

  But in my heart I knew I wasn’t. I knew there was something dark and hidden in Matteo, something he didn’t want me to see. For a second I had seen it, and I was afraid that it changed everything. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe this was the reality I’d been blind to all along.

  ‘Daisy.’

  I stilled at the sound of his voice, everything in me aching. With my hands curled around the balustrade, my face towards the sea, I steeled myself for whatever happened next.

  ‘What is it, Matteo?’

  She looked like a sorrowful mermaid, gazing longingly out at the sea. Wisps of hair escaped the chignon one of the hotel’s beauticians had styled for her earlier in the evening, and the sea-foam-green dress, its gauzy material embroidered with gold thread, blew about her legs, emphasising her slender, almost ethereal figure. She was lovely, and she was hurting, and it was my fault.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said simply.

  I had no other words. I knew I never should have asked her if she’d welcomed that slug Farraday’s attentions; it had been painfully and glaringly obvious that she had not. Of course she had not. And I’d known for years that Farraday hated me—not for the circumstances of my birth, but for my business success. He’d bid for this resort development on St Cristiano and I’d won it.

  Daisy shook her head, her gaze still on the sea. ‘Why?’ she whispered.

  I didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘I don’t know. I was angry…caught up in the moment. I am truly sorry.’

  Slowly she turned, her face drawn in lines of sadness. ‘I feel as if there are things you aren’t telling me, Matteo. That you don’t want to tell me.’

  ‘What did Farraday say to you?’

  ‘Is that his name? The man who—’

  Jaw tight, I nodded. She stared at me for a long moment, her gaze moving over me slowly, as if she were trying to figure me out. To understand me, when I both hated and yet longed to be understood.

  ‘He told me you were illegitimate,’ she said at last. ‘He said your mother was a prostitute who left you on your grandfather’s doorstep.’

  I nodded, accepting. Of course I’d never expected to hide the truth from her for ever. Too many people suspected or outright knew the truth, because when I was young my grandfather had not sought to hide it. It was only later that he regretted his show of bitterness.

  ‘That doesn’t matter to me,’ Daisy said. ‘I hope you know that, Matteo? The circumstances of your birth…’ She shrugged. ‘I’m illegitimate as well. My parents were never married.’

  Surprise flickered through me. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It didn’t seem important.’ She eyed me carefully. ‘But this is? To you?’

  Now I was the one to shrug. ‘It matters little to me what side of the blanket you or I were born on, but unfortunately it mattered very much to my grandfather.’

  Bitterness corroded my insides and felt like acid coating my throat. As much as I steeled myself not to care, I knew I did. I always had, and that was the awful, shaming truth of it. Which was why I was trying so hard not to care about Daisy. Not to let myself be vulnerable. Not to get hurt.

  ‘Will you tell me?’ Daisy asked softly. ‘Please?’

  Her voice was a tempting whisper, the siren song of surrender, and part of me wanted to tell her—fool that I was.

  ‘You’ve heard most of it already,’ I said.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve only heard the beginning.’

  Slowly she walked from the balustrade to the side of the pool, pulling her dress up to reveal slender calves and trim ankles. She stepped out of her heels before sitting down at the side of the pool, dipping her feet in the moonlit water, and then she held out an arm, gesturing for me to join her there.

  After a long, lonely moment, I did.

  I took off my shoes and socks, tossing them aside before rolling up my trousers and dipping my feet into the cool water alongside her. We sat in a silence both companionable and strange for a few minutes, the only sound the gentle tinkling of the water cascading down from the pool above.

  Daisy didn’t push me—didn’t say anything or even raise her eyebrows in expectation. She just waited, as if she could wait for ever.

  ‘It’s not quite true,’ I finally said. ‘My mother wasn’t a prostitute, as far as I know. But she was poor, and she slept with my father to better herself. Unfortunately that didn’t work out.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She left me on my grandfather’s doorstep because she thought he would be able to provide a better life for me, and I suppose he has. My father died before I was born—a speedboat accident. He was drunk. His wife—he was married when he had an affair with my mother—insisted my grandfather take me in. She was living with him, but she was very frail, both emotionally and physically. She was also pregnant with my half-brother, Andreas.’

  ‘That sounds…complicated.’

  ‘In the end my grandfather made it very simple.’ I could not keep the decades-old bitterness from spiking the words. ‘My stepmother—if I can even call her that—died when Andreas and I were a year old. I don’t remember her, but I know she tried to be kind. After that my grandfather took the gloves off.’

  I swallowed hard, staring down at the water.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Daisy asked softly.

  ‘He hated me. Despised and resented me as the bastard grandson—the one who didn’t deserve anything, who reminded him of the son he’d hated for being a playboy and profligate. Because apparently I looked like my father, while Andreas looked like his mother. I think my grandfather would have thrown me out—left me at a convent, whatever—but for the stain it would have been on his reputation. Sometimes I wish he had.’

  I shook my head as the dark tide of memories lapped at me, threatening to take over.

  ‘Instead he made my life a misery.’

  I thought of Eleni, the nanny who had showered Andreas with affection and me with scorn and hate. You’ll always be a bastard. The locked cupboard… But I didn’t want to go into those horrible and shaming details, so I just shrugged and explained the minimum.

  ‘He let me know at every opportunity that he didn’t want me there, and that I would never get a penny from him. Andreas was groomed as the heir and given every opportunity—private school, horse riding lessons, whatever… I was raised separately with a nanny, in a poorer neighbourhood. I learned how to fight at the local school.’

  Where I’d been bullied mercilessly for being the posh boy, even though I was anything but.

  ‘I was kept apart f
rom them, and when my grandfather did deign to see me I was ignored or insulted.’

  Or worse. But again I kept silent. The last thing I wanted was Daisy’s pity.

  ‘It was a tough way to grow up,’ I resumed, keeping my voice brisk. ‘But in some ways it made me stronger, so I have my grandfather to thank for that.’

  ‘But he made you the heir to his business…’ Daisy said, her forehead furrowed with confusion. ‘And he required you to marry… How does that fit in?’

  My chest felt tight as memories washed over me. ‘When we were thirteen, as I told you before, Andreas was in a skiing accident. He suffered a traumatic brain injury which left him in the mental state of an eight-year-old. He was no longer fit to take over the business, but I was. My grandfather hated that, let me tell you.’

  ‘So he made your life even more of a misery?’ Daisy surmised. ‘Even though he needed you?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  There was a sudden transfer to boarding school, where I had the wrong accent, the wrong everything. Where the truth about me had always seemed to seep out like poison: He’s a bastard. His mother was a whore. And, worse, there were holidays back home, when my grandfather did his best to ignore me—or rage at me. At least Eleni was out of the picture by then…

  ‘There’s no love lost between us, as I told you three years ago.’

  ‘So why did he require you to marry?’

  I shrugged. ‘Sheer perversity, perhaps? Or he might have hoped it would lend me respectability when he handed over the reins—which he knew he had to. He had cancer, and I’d already shown myself to be more than capable.’

  ‘And then you married a down-and-out waitress instead of the blue blood I’m sure he was hoping for.’ She shook her head. ‘He must have loved that.’

  ‘He was annoyed, yes.’ I glanced at her. ‘But the last thing I wanted was some snobby socialite.’

  ‘So you chose me on purpose because of my lack of suitability?’

  She sounded amused, but I still felt the need to be careful.