The Diplomat's Pregnant Bride

by Merline Lovelace

  The introductions didn’t take much time. The telling took only a little longer. What could Gina add to the stark facts? She’d emerged from the bathroom. Found Dom and two strange men in Jack’s suite. Dom stepped forward, knocked her out. She woke alone.

  “I cannot understand any of this,” Zia said fiercely. “But whatever happened, Dom had some reason for his actions.”

  Agent Driskell chose to exert her authority at that point. “We’d like to talk to you about your brother, Ms. St. Sebastian.”

  “It’s Dr. St. Sebastian,” Zia interrupted acidly.

  “Right.” The agent turned to the duchess. “Is there some place my partner and I can speak privately with Dr. St. Sebastian?”

  “Yes, of course. Maria, will you show them to the breakfast room?”

  The kitchen door swished behind them, leaving Gina and her grandmother alone for a few precious moments.

  “Eugenia, for God’s sake, be honest with me.” The duchess held out a trembling hand. “Did you fall? Hurt yourself or the baby?”

  “No.” She took her grandmother’s hand and sank into the chair Maria had just vacated. “Dom caught me before I hit the floor.”

  “He knocked you unconscious but didn’t let you fall? This…none of this makes any sense.”

  “I know.”

  She was no closer to understanding when Agent Driskell and her partner departed some time later. Before leaving, Driskell gave Gina a business card imprinted with her office and cell phone numbers.

  “There’s a chance your cousin or whoever’s he’s working with may try to reach you. If they do, call me at once.”

  “I will,” Gina promised, slipping the card into the pocket of her jeans. “And you’ll call me immediately if they contact someone in Jack’s office?”

  Driskell nodded. “In the meantime, we’ll pull the police officer here in the apartment but keep one in the lobby just in case.”

  * * *

  With the agents’ departure, an uneasy silence gripped the four women. Maria broke it by pushing heavily to her feet.

  “You must eat, Duquesa. All of us must. I will make a frittata.”

  She swished through the swinging door to the kitchen, leaving Gina and the duchess to face a clearly worried Zia.

  “I knew my brother had worked with Interpol,” the Hungarian said with a deep crease between her brows, “but I was not aware he was…he was…” She waved a hand, as though trying to pull down the right word.

  “An undercover agent?” Gina supplied.

  “Igen! An undercover agent.” Her accent reflected her agitation. The Eastern European rhythm grew more marked with each word. “Dominic never spoke of such things to me. Nor to our parents.”

  Gina wanted to believe her. Her aching chin dictated otherwise.

  “He said last night he’s no longer with Interpol,” she reminded Zia coolly. “As I recall, he mentioned that he’s now an independent entrepreneur. What, exactly, does that mean?”

  Her cousin’s eyes flashed. “I don’t know. He has business all over. Many parts of the world. Something to do with security. But…I don’t know.”

  She raked a hand through her silky black hair. She was dressed casually today in navy leggings and a belted, cream-colored tunic with a scoop neckline that dipped off one shoulder. Tall and slender and impossibly elegant, she stirred Gina’s frumpy, dumpy feelings again.

  Of course, it didn’t help that she’d been in such a hurry to jump back into bed with Jack this morning that all she’d done in the bathroom was pee, splash her face with cold water and brush her teeth. Nor was her appearance uppermost in her mind when she’d come to. After her panicked 911 call, she’d scrambled into the same jeans and crab-apple stretchy T-shirt she’d worn last night. If she’d dragged a comb through her hair, she couldn’t remember it. Makeup had never entered her mind. Aside from the ice pack Agent Driskell’s partner had thrown together with a towel and minicubes from the wet bar to keep her jaw from swelling, Gina had given zero thought to how she looked.

  She was feeling that omission now. She wanted a shower, a hairbrush, a change of clothes and another ice pack in the worst way. She hated to take the time for even a quick scrub, though. What if Agent Driskell called? Or Dom? Or Jack?

  She was still debating the issue when Zia addressed the duchess. “This is very awkward for you,” she said stiffly. “And for me. I think perhaps I should pack my things and…and Dom’s…and go to a hotel.”

  The duchess frowned but before she could reply the cordless phone on the table beside her chair rang. Gina dived for it, praying fervently. Jack! Please, God, let it please be Jack!

  “Hello?” Stabbing the talk button, she fumbled the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Gina! Thank God!”

  She had to strain to hear her sister’s voice over the roar of some kind of engine.

  “Grandmama called us early hours and hours ago,” Sarah shouted above the noise. “She said you’d been in some kind of an incident. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The baby?”

  Gina laid a hand over her still-flat stomach. Dom had caught her just as her knees crumpled. She hadn’t hit the floor. Hadn’t bruised anything but her chin. Which, she realized belatedly, must have been his intent.

  “Also fine,” she assured Sarah. “What’s that noise? Where are you?”

  “Just about to touch down at the 34th Street Heliport.”

  “You’re here? In New York?”

  “Dev ordered his private jet two minutes after Grandmama called. We’ll be at the Dakota shortly. Gina, you’re not hurt? You swear you’re not hurt?”

  “I swear.”

  “Okay, see you in a bit.”

  Gina cut the connection, battling the almost overwhelming urge to burst into tears. Dammit! These kamikaze hormones were killing her! But just knowing that the sister who always was and always would be her closest friend had rushed to New York on the basis of a single phone call made her want to bawl.

  She fought back the tears and sent the duchess a tremulous smile. “That was Sarah.”

  “So I gathered. They’re in New York?”

  “They’re about to touch down at the 34th Street Heliport.”

  Her grandmother’s paper-thin eyelids fluttered down, as though in prayer. “Thank heavens.”

  When her lids lifted again, relief was stamped all across her face. “If anyone can get to the bottom of all this, Dev can.”

  Gina wasn’t sure what her brother-in-law could do that two dozen assorted city, state and federal law officials couldn’t. She’d put her money on Dev, though. He didn’t have to play by the same rules those officials did.

  “Now I must leave,” Zia said, returning to the topic she’d introduced before the phone call. “Your other granddaughter comes, yes? You will need the bedroom for her.”

  “Why don’t we wait until Sarah and Dev arrive before we decide that?” the duchess suggested.

  Zia wasn’t fooled. Neither was Gina. They both knew the duchess intended to keep their only connection to Dom on a short leash until Dev had a chance to talk to her.

  Her cousin acknowledged as much with a curt nod. “Very well.”

  Then the stiffness went out of her spine. Like an elegant doll that suddenly lost its stuffing, Zia collapsed onto the sofa and put her head in her hands.

  “Dominic is the best of all brothers,” she said on a small moan. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand any of this.”

  Her distress was so genuine, so obviously unfeigned. If Zia loved her brother even half as much as Gina loved Sarah, this crazy situation had to be tearing her apart.

  The realization gave Gina more of a sense of kinship with her cousin than she’d felt at any point before.
It brought her out of her chair and halfway across the sitting room before the buzz of the intercom sent her spinning toward the wall unit. The flashing number on the panel signaled a call from the lobby.

  “It’s Gina, Jerome.”

  “There’s a gentleman to see you, Lady Eugenia. Mr. John Mason says…”

  “Send him up!”

  Thank God, thank God, thank God! Jack had returned from wherever he’d disappeared to.

  She raced to the front door and flung it open. She was dancing from foot to foot in wild impatience when the elevator doors pinged open. Like a stork hit by lightning, she froze with one foot lifted in the air.

  Jack’s father stalked out of the elevator, his face red with suppressed fury. “What the hell have you involved my son in?”

  Thirteen

  She fell back a step, stunned by the vicious accusation. Before she could respond, before she could even think of a response, Zia came running down the hall.

  “Come quickly! Special Agent Driskell’s on the phone. She thinks they have a link to the kidnappers.”

  Gina spun on one heel and raced for the sitting room. Footsteps pounded behind her but she had no thought for Jack’s father at the moment. Her heart pounding, she snatched up the phone the duchess held out and jammed it to her ear.

  “This is Gina St. Sebastian. What’s happening?”

  “We just got a tip from Interpol,” Pam Driskell said with barely suppressed excitement. “Antonio Cordi disappeared from their radar three days ago and may have entered the U.S. under a fake passport.”

  Like that told Gina anything!

  “Who’s Antonio Cordi?”

  “He’s the suspected capo of a vicious crime family operating out of southern Italy. Unfortunately, no one’s been able to penetrate the family or get close enough to pin anything on him.”

  “You’re kidding!” She gripped the phone with a white-knuckled fist. “What connection does Jack—Ambassador Mason—have to a Mafia don?”

  A grim, white-faced John Harris Mason II surged into her field of view. “I can answer that.”

  Gina had the phone plastered against her ear, trying to assimilate John II’s startling announcement, when she heard a commotion in the foyer. Her heart jumped into her throat.

  Jack! Dom! Please God, let it be one of them!

  She was hit with alternating waves of crushing disappointment and heartfelt joy when Sarah and Dev appeared. Waving a frantic hello, she relayed the latest development to Special Agent Driskell.

  “Ambassador Mason’s father is here at our apartment. He says he’s got information about this Antonio Cordi.”

  “Keep him there! My partner and I are only a few blocks away. We’ll return immediately.”

  Her thoughts whirling, Gina inserted the phone into its base. “Agent Driskell wants you to hang loose. She’s on her way back here.”

  The thump of a cane against the parquet floor commanded her attention. “I believe introductions are in order, Eugenia.”

  “Oh. Right. Grandmama, Sarah, Dev, Zia…this is Jack’s father, John Mason. John, this is my grandmother, sister, brother-in-law and…and cousin.”

  She hadn’t intended the stumble over that last part. In her heart of hearts, Gina refused to believe Dom had gone over to the dark side. She still hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation for his role in this morning’s extraordinary events, though. Neither had his sister. Their unanswered questions hung over the room like a black cloud.

  Zia acknowledged as much with a terse nod in the general direction of the newcomers. Which left Gina to pray the duchess hadn’t heard the accusation flung at her by Jack’s father in the hall a few moments ago. If Charlotte had, blood might yet be spilled.

  Mason skated on that one, thank God. The duchess rose from her chair with the aid of her ebony cane and held out a blue-veined hand.

  “I’m sorry we have to meet under such unhappy circumstances, John. I may call you John, mightn’t I?”

  He gave a curt nod, his thoughts obviously spinning more on his son than on social niceties.

  “Good, and you may call me Charlotte. Now, please, sit down and tell us what connection your son has to a Mafia don.”

  Mason a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I’ll wait for the FBI.”

  Gina chalked the rudeness up to the worry that had to be gnawing at him but cringed at the expression his brush-off put on her grandmother’s face.

  “Gina says this FBI agent is on the way to take my statement. I’ll wait and…”

  “No, sir, you will not.”

  The duchess’s cane whipped up and took aim at his chest.

  “Look at that bruise on my granddaughter’s chin,” she commanded with icy hauteur. “If you have an explanation for why her cousin felt compelled to strike her and disappear into thin air with your son, I want to hear it. Now.”

  Gina guessed John II rarely, if ever, tucked his tail between his legs and backed off. He didn’t exactly do either at that point, but he offered a stiff reply.

  “I can’t tell you why this…this cousin of Gina’s struck her or how he’s involved in this situation. I have my suspicions,” he said, his jaw tight, “but nothing solid to base them on. All I can tell you is that I once headed a delegation chartered to examine international banking practices that shielded money laundering, both in the U.S. and abroad. We spent months in South America, more months in Europe digging into accounts reputedly owned by an Italian crime organization called the ’Ndrangheta.”

  “Go on,” the duchess instructed as she resumed her seat. “And for heaven’s sake, do sit down.”

  The demand for at least a semblance of normality drained the last of John II’s hostility. He sank into a chair, looking suddenly haggard and far older than his years.

  Gina and Sarah and Zia huddled together on the sofa. Dev took the straight-backed chair at the duchess’s gilt-edged escritoire. Every pair of eyes was locked on Jack’s father as he reduced what had to be a dramatic tale of international crime and intrigue to a few, stark sentences.

  “We were in Rome. With the help of the Italian authorities, we’d actually begun to decipher the labyrinthine flow of third-and fourth-tier transactions. One of those tiers led to a member of the ’Ndrangheta named Francesco Cordi.”

  “I thought his name was Antonio,” Gina said, frowning.

  “Francesco is—was—Antonio’s brother.

  “Was?”

  “Francesco’s dead.”

  John scrubbed a hand over his face. It was evident to everyone in the room he still carried vivid memories of those days in Rome.

  “He didn’t like us nosing around in his business and decided to let us know about it. Two of my associates were incinerated when their vehicle was firebombed. We found out later I was next on the hit list. Fortunately—or unfortunately as it now turns out—Jack flew over to Rome at the first sign of trouble. He was with me when Francesco made his move.” A fleeting smile creased the retired diplomat’s face. “There wasn’t a whole lot left of him to send home to his brother Antonio.”

  “Who’s now here, in the States,” Gina explained for Sarah and Dev. “The FBI says they got a tip that…”

  The buzz of the intercom had her springing her off the sofa.

  “That must be Agent Driskell and her partner now.”

  It wasn’t. Her stomach sank like a stone when Jerome announced another visitor.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Lady Eugenia, but there’s a Mr. Dale Vickers in the lobby.”

  Jack’s obnoxious chief of staff. That’s all she needed! Squeezing her eyes shut, Gina pressed her forehead against the wall.

  “He wishes to speak with you. Shall I send him up?”

  Hell, no! She knew darn well the officious little turd pos
sessed no vital information relating to his boss’s kidnapping. If he had, he would have taken it straight to the FBI. She would also bet he’d already used the weight of his office to extract every detail he could from them. Now he wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

  She guessed she couldn’t blame him. Vickers and Jack went back a long way. He had to be as shaken as everyone in the room. Sighing, Gina raised her head.

  “Send him up.”

  * * *

  Mere moments after the short, tightly wired Vickers said hello to Jack’s father and was introduced to others, he confirmed Gina’s cynical guess. The man had spoken to just about every local, state and federal official involved into the case.

  “They can’t tell me a damned thing beyond the basics. All they could confirm was that you and the ambassador were screwing around when he got snatched and…”

  “Stop right there, young man!”

  Incensed, the duchess tilted her chin to a dangerous angle.

  “You will address Lady Eugenia with courtesy and respect or you will leave this apartment immediately.”

  “I…”

  “Do we understand each other?”

  “I just…”

  “A simple ‘yes, ma’am’ will do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Despite the tension engulfing the room, Gina and Sarah exchanged a small smile. The sisters had seen their grandmother reduce bigger and stronger men than Dale Vickers to quivering blobs of sorry.

  Vickers’s next comment erased any inclination to smile, however. Too wired to accept the duchess’s icily polite invitation to have a seat, he paced the sitting room.

  “I know it was clutching at straws, but I even thought this might have something to do with the face-to-face between the ambassador and the CEO of Global Protective Services at that little soiree TTG put on last weekend.”

  Little soiree? Gina swallowed an indignant huff. She had to work hard to refrain from suggesting Vickers take a short leap off a tall building.