Harlequin Presents July 2017 Box Set : Sicilian's Baby of Shame / Salazar's One-night Heir / the Secret Kept from the Greek / Claiming His Convenient Fiance (9781460351802)

by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie

  Which left her with only one option: to marry him. He’d already been as good as his word, flying to Belgium this week to convince his grandmother to accept a public apology on the part of the Hargroves as compensation for her family’s crime. Then he’d followed that up with a call to sweeten the pot. Marry him and he would buy them a property in upstate New York where she could build her dream stables away from the oppressive presence of her father.

  A generous gesture of goodwill, a tempting one at that, but it couldn’t buy her trust. That he would have to earn.

  She bit her lip as she considered a brilliant, clear blue Kentucky sky. Her choice might be clear but none of it negated her fears of picking up her life and plunking it down in New York as Alejandro’s society wife. The thought of leaving her home was unbearable. She simply didn’t think she had any choice.

  She gave Bacchus a final scratch behind the ears and headed for the house and the inevitability that lay ahead. The door to her father’s study was closed. About to turn away, deep male voices raised in anger froze her feet in place.

  Alejandro’s voice.

  He couldn’t have. Wouldn’t have.

  Breaching the social etiquette that had been drilled into her since birth, she turned the handle on the door and let herself inside the leather and cigar-infused room. Her father, dressed in casual slacks and a shirt, stood toe-to-toe with Alejandro who looked gorgeous in a navy suit and ice-blue tie.

  Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as her father turned a freezing gray gaze on her. “Tell me it isn’t true,” he rasped.

  She swallowed hard, knees weak. “What isn’t true?”

  “That you are pregnant with his child.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, throat tight. “Yes,” she said quietly, looking her father in the eye. “I am. I was going to tell you today. Alejandro clearly beat me to it.”

  “Today?” her father bellowed. “You knew he came here under false pretenses. Knew what he was planning and you didn’t tell me? What were you—so caught up in him you were blind?”

  Her anger caught fire. “You knew about Zeus. About Bacchus… You lied to me, Daddy.”

  “I was protecting you from their lies,” he roared. “How could you be so stupid as to do this? I thought I raised you with some sense in your head.”

  Alejandro stepped to her side and slid an arm around her waist. “I think you should watch how you’re talking to your daughter,” he said evenly.

  “Stay out of this.” Her father kept his gaze trained on her. “The Salazars are out to ruin our name and you are playing right into their game.”

  “Granddaddy already did that. He broke laws doing what he did. He stole from them.”

  “It never happened. Adriana has never been able to get past her jealousy at Harper’s success, at our success, so she chooses to try and tarnish our name with her crazed ramblings.”

  “Alejandro has proof. The truth needs to come out, Daddy. No more lies.”

  Her father turned to Alejandro. “I want you off my property. Now. We will settle this in court.”

  “You are being shortsighted,” Alejandro drawled. “Take what my grandmother is offering… It’s the best you’re going to get. Make a public apology and put this all behind us.”

  Her father scowled. “You think I would risk a century-old dynasty offering the Salazars an apology for something that never happened?” He shook his head. “I will tie this up in legalities forever. It will never see the face of a courtroom.”

  Cecily’s heart sank. If it wasn’t true what her grandfather had done, there would be no need to stall a court case because the truth would come out.

  What else had her father been lying to her about?

  Alejandro’s fingers tightened against her back. “You are willing to trade your daughter’s happiness to perpetuate a lie? If you keep this up, Clayton, there will never be peace between our two families and your grandchild will be stuck in the middle.”

  “No it won’t,” her father disagreed. “The courts will give Cecily custody. They always rule in favor of the mother.”

  “That may be the case,” Alejandro rebutted coolly, “but it’s inconsequential because Cecily is going to marry me.”

  Her father’s face went a deep shade of gray. “That can’t possibly be true.”

  Furious at both men, Cecily would have loved to have told both of them to go to hell. But she’d made her decision. This baby was going to grow up with both its parents.

  “It’s true,” she confirmed. “I am going to marry Alejandro. So you, Daddy, need to wrap your head around ending this feud.”

  Clayton Hargrove’s jaw hardened. “No daughter of mine is marrying a Salazar. You walk out that door with him and you cut your ties with this family.”

  Her stomach lurched. “You don’t mean that.”

  Her father crossed his arms over his chest. “Stay and we’ll work through this. Leave and you are on your own.”

  Alejandro lowered his head to hers. “Go pack a bag. You can send for the rest of your things later.”

  She blinked. “You want me to leave with you now?”

  “Do you want to stay?”

  One look at her daddy’s face convinced her that no, she did not. She’d made her decision. She needed to go.

  * * *

  Alejandro spent the flight back to New York stickhandling the two deals he had up in the air after his whirlwind trip to Belgium and Stockholm—the Scandinavian tie-up he’d been negotiating with Joaquim and the acquisition of a twenty-five billion dollar Columbian coffee company Salazar had been lusting after for decades.

  He thought it a good thing Cecily had some time to cool down with a parade of drivers, passport officials and flight attendants providing a buffer between them. She was clearly furious with him, in one of her patented snits, when all he’d been trying to do was help given how wary she’d sounded about approaching her father.

  Having scaled three countries in forty-eight hours cleaning up the mess she had had an equal hand in creating, he was not in the mood. Not after his confrontation with his grandmother in which she had accused him of a lack of judgment, of loyalty, when he’d told her about his relationship with Cecily.

  His knuckles gleamed white as he snapped his laptop shut with more force than necessary. They had cut right through him those words, coming from the woman who had taught him the meaning of honor—who’d been the guiding force in his life. For her to question his loyalty had both gutted and infuriated him, made worse by the fact that he’d been forced to lie to her about being in love with Cecily in order to bring some sanity to the situation.

  His grandmother had, nonetheless, grudgingly agreed to make the compromise he’d asked of her—the offer Clayton Hargrove had so foolishly rejected. He could only hope Cecily’s father had the sense to come around.

  His fiancée, unfortunately, was no calmer by the time they got home. She turned on him the minute they’d walked through the door of his architecturally striking, five-story Upper East Side townhouse, blue eyes blazing.

  “Why did you do that?” she erupted. “You just made everything worse.”

  “It’s going to be fine,” he murmured soothingly, shutting the door. “I promise you. Your father will cool down, I will bring your horses to New York, we will find a place to keep them and we will have a good life together.”

  “I just don’t understand,” she raged, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Is your head so thick you didn’t think I’d know the right way to handle this?”

  His jaw clenched. “Then why haven’t you? What were you doing, waiting for divine inspiration…for the muses to give you the green light? Perhaps if your father had already absorbed the shock of your pregnancy, he would have been better able to consider my offer.”

  “I was going t
o tell him after I talked to you. I would have eased him into it. But no, you had to fly in like a big hotshot and call all the plays.”

  “That’s not what I was doing,” he said silkily, temper beginning to fail. “I’m stretched to the limit as I seek to solve our dilemma, querida. I was trying to help. Forgive me if I neglected to use the finesse you so clearly desired.”

  She blinked. “How could you possibly be helping?”

  “You sounded unsure about telling your father. I thought if we handled it together it would be better.”

  “You handled it by yourself,” she growled. “You have no sensitivity. A typical male.”

  Por amor a Deus. He ran a hand through his hair. Was this what his marriage was going to be? One argument after another? The very thing he’d promised himself it would never be.

  He understood she was upset, that her life had been blown apart, but so had his. He was marrying her, for God’s sake. He was going to be a father. If he wasn’t so busy he might be experiencing a severe case of “free market pre-withdrawal” withdrawal.

  “And then,” she bit out, on a roll now, “you had the audacity to assume I was going to accept your marriage proposal before I even gave you my answer.”

  “But you were,” he came back evenly. “Just out of curiosity, why did you?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “My mother died when I was fourteen. I spent my most formative years without a female influence. I will never deprive my child of its father.”

  “Then we both agree that putting our child first is what this is all about.”

  She gave a reluctant nod.

  “Along that vein,” he suggested pleasantly, “let me give you a tour of your new home. I think you’re going to love it here.”

  “I will never love New York,” she said flatly. “Not like I love Kentucky. I mean it’s exciting and all, but I feel like I can’t breathe here.”

  “You can, I assure you. I do it every day.” He flicked a wrist toward the living room. “After you…”

  He gave her a tour of the luxury residence he’d paid twenty-three million for—through the dramatic, double-height living room with its twenty-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls and fireplace, to the magnificent dining room built to entertain.

  He thought perhaps the private nanny quarters, the yoga studio or the multi-level roof garden might win her over, but Cecily remained stone-faced throughout the tour. He abandoned his enthusiasm when they reached the top floor master bedroom suite with its massive arched windows and wood burning fireplace, leaving her to freshen up before dinner.

  He must’ve been insane to ever contemplate this marriage. Not only was his soon-to-be wife persona non grata with his family, she was so far from the practical solution he’d envisioned, it was like ending up with a custom-made, extremely temperamental sports car when all you’d really wanted was a sleek-looking sedan.

  * * *

  Cecily knew she was being a shrew, but she was so angry at Alejandro for what he’d done, so sideswiped by the events of the day, she thought it better to say nothing at all than let loose with something she shouldn’t.

  By the time they sat down to dinner on the terrace, she thought she had gotten her emotions firmly under control. A serene, stunning oasis with its hidden nooks and vibrant landscaping, the outdoor space was a slice of heaven in the middle of New York City.

  It went a long way toward soothing her raw edges, a good thing because sitting across from Alejandro dressed in jeans and an old Harvard T-shirt, his hair mussed, feet bare, didn’t exactly put her in a relaxed frame of mind. He was just that gorgeous and looked far too much like the man she’d fallen for in Kentucky.

  “Why this?” she asked, waving a hand around them as his housekeeper, Faith, removed their salad plates and brought them coffee and tea. “Why a home instead of some big shot bachelor penthouse from which you can rule the world?”

  His ebony eyes sparked with warning. “I think that’s enough with the big shot comments, meu carinho. You are twenty-five, not five, no?”

  She sat back in her chair, cheeks hot. Maybe she hadn’t quite reacquired her powers of control.

  “The house,” he elaborated, “was a surprise for me. I was planning on buying something easier to maintain, then my agent showed me this.” He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe it was so many years spent in boarding schools, being shuffled between Brazil and Belgium with my parents living apart. I found I liked the idea of a home.”

  She absorbed the information about the man she really knew nothing about, which was disconcerting to say the least when he had been privy to her most intimate thoughts and feelings.

  “Where did you go to school?” she asked, in an attempt to rectify that.

  “New Hampshire.” He sat back, coffee cup balanced on his thigh. “My parents sent me to an elite boarding school when I was six. The plan was always to build up Salazar’s US operations, so having me and my brother in the States made sense. My father was always traveling and my mother spent most of her time on the road pursuing her equestrian career in Europe.”

  Six. Her heart contracted. She’d always thought the boarding school concept was inhumane, but that was so young.

  “It must have been difficult to live so far away from your family.”

  “It was all Joaquim and I knew. Life at home was hellish—we preferred to be at school. We had each other. And in the summers and on school holidays, we’d be at the farm in Belgium with my grandmother.”

  She sank her teeth into her lip. Absorbed the hard, impenetrable lines of his face. She had the feeling the emotionally closed-off Colt she’d come to know in Kentucky was very much the man sitting across from her—one shaped by his earliest, most painful experiences.

  She took a sip of her tea. Regarded him from over the rim of her cup. “What happened with your parents’ marriage? Were they ever in love?”

  “Madly so, according to my grandmother. It was a passionate, wild, emotional rollercoaster of a ride until my father’s attention wandered a few years after Joaquim was born. Not an unusual occurrence in the society we lived in, but my mother, as you can imagine from her ambitious career, was not the type to turn a blind eye.

  “She raged at him, threatened to divorce him and when neither worked, embarked on a series of affairs designed to win him back. But none ever did. Eventually she gave up and moved full-time to Belgium for her riding career, neither dissolving the marriage nor pursuing it because the arrangement worked.”

  Leaving her children behind in the process. “What’s your relationship with your parents now?”

  “My father and I have never been close. His focus has always been on the business to the exclusion of everything else. My mother—” his face assumed a neutral expression, “is…delicate. She withdrew into herself after the separation, focusing on her riding and her teaching. It would not be a stretch to say she knows some of her students better than she knows Joaquim and I.”

  Her chest tightened. She knew that sense of alienation—the pain that came with being distanced by someone you loved. Her father had withdrawn into himself after her mother’s death with nothing, it seemed, to give to her.

  “That couldn’t have been easy,” she said quietly, “having such a childhood.”

  “Thus my deep, dark, damaged views on love?” His mouth twisted. “It was actually a relief when my parents separated for good. My mother was happier that way. Things became civil. The tension was gone. It made me see how a practical marriage like the one you and I are about to embark on can work. Everyone’s happy…no one gets hurt.”

  She wondered if that could be true. If the practical union she had agreed to with Alejandro was a better choice than her deeply held desire to be loved? After what she’d gone through with Davis, she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t.

  “Practical, howev
er,” Alejandro continued, “will not do for my grandmother. The only way I could extract the concession I did from her was to make her believe we are madly in love—that we and this child are a foregone conclusion. She is anxious to meet you and hear about our wedding plans. I told her we’d stop in on the way home from England.”

  Wedding plans? Meeting Adriana? Her stomach folded in on itself. “I can’t even think about a wedding until my father comes around. I always imagined it would be at Esmerelda.”

  “Then an early October date will give him incentive to see reason.”

  Her jaw dropped. His expression remained firm. “I’m not so concerned people will know our child has been conceived out of wedlock. I do, however, intend for us to be married when it happens.”

  A tumble of words rose to her lips. “But that’s two months away,” she finally managed. “We can’t plan a wedding that quickly.”

  “You will have people to do it for you.”

  Dear God. She stared at him. “And how are we to handle the news of our baby in public? At this anniversary party, for instance. I think it’s too soon to talk about it.”

  “Agreed. Removing it from the equation also increases the likelihood people will buy this is a love match. Which,” he underscored, “is something we need to accomplish in England. It will be a very high profile party—anyone who’s anyone will be there—lots of paparazzi. As our public debut together, it will be our chance to send a clear message to everyone, including your family and mine, that this union is real. That they have no choice but to accept it.”

  A knot formed in her chest, all of it much too much all of a sudden. Perhaps it was the whirlwind wedding he was demanding…the baby she wasn’t ready for…the emotionally explosive day it had been. Or perhaps it was that only a few weeks ago she’d been head over heels for the man she’d thought he was. When acting as if she’d had feelings for him—carrying out this charade—wouldn’t have been an issue—it would have been a reality.

  “Speaking of babies,” he said, pouring himself another cup of coffee from the carafe, “my PA has made you an appointment with the best OBGYN in Manhattan. Better you initiate that relationship now so you can build on it as you go.”