The Accidental Elopement

by Maggie Dallen

  Well, he along with one of his security guard henchmen. They hadn’t even given him the chance to explain or to even talk to Lucia. His wife! Okay fine, so in name only, but still….didn’t he have a right to defend himself?

  “You don’t know the whole story, Ryan.”

  Ryan looked over at Daniel and was surprised to find him staring at him, the documents in his hand apparently forgotten as he focused on him. Shifting in his seat, Ryan sighed. “And what exactly don’t I know?”

  “The truth about your father.”

  Ryan stiffened, his eyes locked on the man across from him. He didn’t want to be curious. Everything his mother had told him over the years was still fresh in his mind—how this man had discovered the company’s vulnerabilities and swooped in to steal it out from under them. Out from under him. This man was merciless, conniving, and duplicitous. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop Daniel when he started to speak.

  “Your family’s company was my first solo takeover.” Daniel shrugged, “I’d worked on plenty with my partners, but this was my first chance to take the reins.”

  Ryan turned to look out the window, though there was nothing to see. He didn’t want to hear this man’s rationalizations.

  “The company was in bad shape. It was bordering on bankruptcy and vultures were getting ready to swoop in.”

  “Vultures like you,” Ryan muttered. The old anger and resentment flared up in him like a match ready to be struck at a moment’s notice.

  “Yes. Like me.”

  Ryan’s head swiveled back to Daniel, who continued to watch him. “So you admit it?”

  “That I’m an opportunist? Absolutely. That I was ready and willing to invest in a failing company? Of course. That’s my job.” His voice was level; he wasn’t bragging and he didn’t sound the least bit defensive.

  Ryan turned back to the window but he continued to listen, his body on edge as he waited for Daniel to make his point.

  “The difference between me and the other vultures,” Daniel continued, “was that I wanted to help your father—help your family.”

  Ryan’s laugh was humorless and short. “I’m sure.”

  Daniel was silent for so long Ryan finally turned back to him, only to find Daniel’s gaze fixed on him. “I’m serious. I wanted to help your father because he….well, he was fighting some demons of his own.”

  The gambling. The drinking. The vices his family refused to speak of after his death.

  Ryan’s jaw clenched but he kept silent.

  “I offered to help him,” Daniel said.

  The air rushed from Ryan’s lungs. “What? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, unlike the other vultures, I offered to give your father a second chance at running the company.”

  Ryan blinked at Daniel across the few feet that separated them. “And?”

  Daniel shrugged. “And he turned me down. Told me to go to hell.”

  Ryan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “That company, his employees….they were everything to him.”

  Daniel’s gaze was so close to pitying, it took everything in Ryan to meet his eyes.

  “I promised him I would keep the employees. And I did. Every last one. But your father, he opted to leave. He said he had too much pride to stay and be someone else’s lapdog.”

  Ryan could hear his father’s voice even as Daniel spoke. That bitterness, the stubborn pride—it was the same voice he heard coming from his brother’s mouth now and the same mantra he’d heard from his mother since forever.

  “What are you saying?” Ryan asked, the age-old anger flickering in the face of Daniel’s cold reason. “Are you saying you’re some kind of savior here?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No, definitely not a savior. I was and am a businessman.” He cracked a small smile. “No one would ever call me a saint. I guess I just wanted to let you know that I’m not the devil either.”

  Ryan was silent as he studied his family’s arch nemesis. Funny how one’s nemesis could be so logical and….human when you were sitting across from him face to face. Much as he hated to admit it to himself, Daniel’s words rang true. It fit his father’s personality and was in keeping with the memories he had from that era….the drinking, the gambling, the fights about how he was going to lose the company.

  He had lost the company. And blaming the man who’d saved it….who’d saved the employees…that hadn’t done anyone any good. All the blame, all the resentment….where had it gotten them? It had killed his father and destroyed his mother and brother. Turned them into bitter shells of themselves, so focused on avenging the past that they’d never faced the future.

  And Ryan. Where had it left him? Sitting alone in a plane with Daniel Gladwell as he left the only woman he’d ever loved. She’d have woken by now and he was certain her grandfather had shown her the site. She must hate him.

  “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

  “Because you don’t seem like an irrational man, Ryan.” Daniel’s voice was even but somehow Ryan sensed it was a high compliment coming from this man.

  “Thanks?”

  Daniel ignored the sarcasm. “Normally I wouldn’t explain myself or my actions…to anyone. But I will not see my friends hurt over some misplaced sense of vengeance.”

  The mention of Lucia and the incident, as he was starting to think of it, had him gripping the armrests. How many more ways could he say it? “I. Didn’t. Do. It.”

  Daniel barely flinched in the face of Ryan’s clipped, angry tone. “Then who did?”

  Ryan threw his hands up in the air. “How should I know? All I know is, it wasn’t me. I would never hurt Lucia like that. I—I love her.”

  A heavy weight lifted from his chest. There. He’d said it. He’d finally said the words out loud…and to his family’s enemy.

  He fell back in his seat with a sigh. How romantic.

  Daniel sat in silence for so long, Ryan thought he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open. But then, finally, Daniel said, “So what are you going to do about it?”

  * * * *

  Lucia was crying but her grandfather was…smiling? What was wrong with this scenario?

  “Why do you look so happy?” she demanded. “I’m heartbroken over here.”

  “Why, because you’re in love with your husband?” her grandfather said with a laugh. “I can think of worse fates.”

  Lucia let out a miserable little moan and reached for the ever-present box of tissues on her grandfather’s desk. “This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I don’t want to be in love.”

  “Why not?” Her grandfather was leaning forward over the desk, still wearing that annoying smile.

  Lucia shredded the tissue in her hands as she struggled to find words. “Because I don’t want another boyfriend telling me what’s best for me—”

  Grandpa frowned. “Does Ryan do that?”

  Lucia stared at him. “No, but—”

  Her grandfather’s sigh was so loud it stopped her in her tracks. “I know I’ve been an overprotective grandfather and Lord knows that idiot Marco is as old-fashioned as they come—”

  “I thought you liked Marco.”

  Her grandfather raised a brow at her in disbelief. “Marco is a good kid and I put up with him because he seemed to make you happy, but I was never a fan of that relationship.”

  They stared at one another in silence for a moment before they both started to laugh.

  “Look, mi princip—” Her grandfather cut himself off. “Ryan was right about one thing. I won’t apologize for being overprotective—that’s my right as your grandfather—but he’s right that you are an adult now and it’s time I trust you.”

  “What are you saying?” Lucia sniffled a bit and blew her nose.

  “I’m saying you are not your mother, God bless her soul. She made her fair share of mistakes but she was young and innocent, neither of which are crimes. I can’t say I regret offeri
ng your father the money to leave—if he’s the sort of man who would walk away from his family over some money than he wasn’t worth having around.”

  Lucia watched in silence as her grandfather struggled to rein in his emotions. “But you are not your mother. She was a terrible judge of character and weak in a way that you are not.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’d like to think she would have grown out of it. That she would have come back from the hurt and rejection and been stronger for it. But sadly, she wasn’t given the chance.”

  Her grandfather looked at her then. “You don’t need me to step in and protect you. You have always been strong and you’ve always been able to see people clearly, even as a young girl.”

  Lucia might have agreed with him up until these past few weeks when she had been blindsided by Ryan’s ulterior motives. And then, against all odds, falling for the man who was just supposed to be her accomplice. Okay, and maybe her fling. But he wasn’t supposed to be the one.

  Lucia’s heart twisted again at the way she’d all but rejected him the night before and the tears that she’d managed to stop started flowing once again. “I ruined everything. And now he’s going to think that I believe this nonsense about him exposing my life story to the tabloids—”

  Her grandfather crossed his arms. “Are you so sure it wasn’t him?”

  Annoyance flared up in a heartbeat. She leveled her grandfather with a glare. “Remember what you said about trusting my judgment? I need you to trust me now, about this.”

  Her grandfather held up his hands in mock surrender. “There is the girl I raised. Trust your own judgment, that’s what I’ve always told you.”

  Lucia rolled her eyes. It was just like him to take credit.

  “And if you’re serious about this boy,” he continued. “Your marriage has my approval.”

  Lucia sat back in stunned silence. Just like that? After all these years of his overprotective, overbearing ways, it was hard to believe he was willing to accept her marriage to a man he barely knew. His trust in her judgment warmed her heart as the enormity of his statement settled in. With his approval, she had access to her trust fund. But her shocked silence wasn’t just because he’d said the words that would make her a millionaire in her own right but because….she’d forgotten all about the money. “You are?”

  Her grandfather nodded. “It’s a silly addendum, this whole, you needing my approval rule.”

  “Aren’t you the one who added the ‘silly addendum’?”

  Her grandfather looked surprised. “No, of course not. That was your mother’s idea.”

  Her mother? She fell back in her seat, stunned into momentary silence for a second time. “But…why?”

  He tilted his head to the side as he thought of how best to answer. “I think she wanted to be sure that you would be comfortable, especially once you were ready to start a family. But she was worried you would make the same mistake that she did and fall for the wrong man.”

  Lucia nodded slowly. It made sense, she supposed. Funny, she’d never thought about her mother in that way—as an actual mother who worried about her daughter’s future and her happiness. Since she’d died when Lucia was so young, she’d never given it much thought. A bittersweet ache filled her chest at the realization that her mother, despite her mistakes, had tried her best to protect her. But she hadn’t needed it. Despite her fears, she hadn’t repeated her mother’s mistakes—at least, not with Ryan. “I didn’t fall for the wrong man. I just….went about it all wrong.”

  To her surprise, her grandfather shrugged. Shrugged. As if marrying a near stranger while in disguise and then falling for her husband was no big whoop.

  “The course of true love never did run smooth,” her grandfather quoted with a regal air.

  “Somehow I don’t think Shakespeare was envisioning an elopement in Vegas when he wrote that.”

  He brushed aside her comment with a wave of his hands and settled back into his chair with a determined look she knew well. “So then, you love this man. What are you going to do about it?”

  Chapter 14

  Ryan had traveled to Italy and back and then on to Vegas in the course of seventy-two hours. Exhausted didn’t even begin to cover it. He was desperately in need of a shower, his eyelids felt like sandpaper and he hadn’t had a real meal since Daniel had forced him to down a bite at his hotel, where he picked up his paycheck, the entirety of which was spent on a plane ticket to Vegas.

  All of which was to say—he was not in the mood for his family.

  He particularly did not want to hear their congratulations in what they assumed was his vengeance plan. “So you got the Brunelli’s money?” his mother asked when he answered the phone. Before he could answer she said, “Sure it’s not as good as taking money from the man himself but we’ll make do, won’t we Billy?”

  Ryan was on speakerphone and he could dimly hear his brother’s grunt of approval on the other end. The taxi stopped in front of the Vegas hotel where he’d spent his honeymoon with Lucia. It only seemed right that this marriage begin and end at the same location.

  “How did you get that info on the Brunellis?” Billy asked, a touch of admiration in his voice. He’d gotten their texts the moment he’d gotten off the plane. They knew all about the tabloid scandal. Lord knew how they found out or how they’d even managed to read the Italian story, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. When it came to getting revenge, his family was unstoppable. If only they’d applied that work ethic to something useful.

  Billy kept talking, undeterred by Ryan’s silence. “I mean, it would have been better if you’d gone after Gladwell’s wife, but his business partner….not bad. That article about Brunelli’s granddaughter was brutal. Daniel must be furious.”

  Ryan froze mid-step. His brother’s nasty laugh was the last straw. It wasn’t until the valet started to approach him with a look of concern that he resumed walking, his hands in fists at his sides. “I had nothing to do with that story, I already told you—”

  “But you married the girl,” his mother interjected, pride clear in her voice. “I’ve heard Daniel treats that family like they’re his own. Good work, son.”

  Their satisfaction in the face of Lucia’s humiliation made his stomach turn. His disgust—with himself and with his family—was almost more than he could take. Stopping short inside the overly air-conditioned lobby, he spoke in a low voice so only they could hear. “I will say this once, and only once. I did not set out to hurt Lucia and I will physically destroy anyone who does. Is that clear?”

  The dead silence on the other end was answer enough.

  “I’m not accepting any of the money from Lucia’s trust fund. Not for myself and not on your behalf.” His announcement caused an eruption of noise on the other end.

  Ryan had worked it all out with Daniel on the flight. Daniel would loan Lucia the money she needed to start up her fashion line, and once she had access to her trust fund she could pay him back. It may not be Lucia’s ideal method of getting that money but Ryan knew it was for the best. There could never be honesty between them when their relationship was founded on lies and greed and revenge.

  What relationship? She wanted nothing to do with him. Ryan silenced the doubts. He would win her back eventually. He had to.

  He waited until his family’s protests died down before he continued, “Dad lost the company. End of story. He could have continued on there, tried to help its comeback. He could have stayed with the company but he didn’t. He led the business into bankruptcy and he didn’t have the strength to stay once it had fallen.”

  It was painful to say the words aloud but it needed to be said. Someone had to start speaking the truth if this family was ever going to let go of the past. The silence at the other end only confirmed what he’d said. He’d known, even as Daniel had been talking, that his version of events made more sense. He’d been a kid at the time but old enough to be aware of what was going on around him.

/>   The drinking, the gambling, the pills….he’d seen it all. It was just easier to go along with his mother’s story. The version that let his dead father off the hook and placed all the blame on a cold, distant stranger.

  The cold, distant stranger who’d just helped him figure out what steps he needed to take next in order to win back his wife.

  All the anger left him and he was left deflated, listening to a shocked and hurt silence. “I can’t do it anymore. If you two want to keep holding a vendetta, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I want no part of it. I want to move on with my life and I suggest you do the same.”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He clicked the off button and took a deep breath of stale, casino air. He let himself fall back against a pillar. Maybe it was the fumes coming from the bar but he actually felt better already.

  And then he heard a voice from the other side of the column. “You sounded pretty great back there.”

  His whole body stiffened with excitement at the familiar Italian accent. It sounded like….but it couldn’t be…

  Turning toward the voice, he saw a petite and sexy-as-hell Italian woman come around the other side. It was his petite and sexy-as-hell Italian. His pulse raced and his brain went blank at the sight of her.

  “Lucia, what are you doing here?”

  Her smile was unusually shy as she shifted from one foot to the other with her hands clasped behind her back. Unlike the last time they were here, she was dressed casually in jeans and an oversized sweater and her long hair was pulled back from her fresh-scrubbed face in a long braid that fell down her back.

  The casino sounds around them seemed surreal—deafeningly close yet far away. He waited for her to speak. Hope threatened to drown him but a sensible part of his brain told him not to get carried away. She was probably here to give him hell for that story.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to say. When she didn’t say anything, he repeated, “What are you doing here?”