by Abby Green
She took a step back. Too much emotion was rising up. Scaring her.
Zac put out a hand as if to reach for her and she panicked. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I could do this...but I can’t.’
Zac frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’ His hand dropped.
Rose gestured to the dress, much as she had the other night, with a shaking hand. ‘This. You want to make some sort of point... Maybe you want an affair for a while...until you’re bored and you can relegate me to the sidelines as mother of your child... I know I owe you, Zac—I owe you more than I can ever repay you. But I don’t think I can do it like this.’
He came towards her then, with a savage look on his face. Rose only knew she’d backed away when she hit the railing where they’d stood and looked out over the view that first night. Dammit, she wished the memories would quit. She was going mad.
‘You think I brought you here like this as some sort of twisted fantasy? That I’d get a kick out of seeing you in that dress again and just want you for a finite amount of time?’
He’d put his hands on the railing now and boxed her in. He was so close that her belly was almost touching him.
‘You do owe me...’ he said then.
‘I know I do!’ Rose almost wailed it, willing herself not to respond and melt. ‘No one knows that more than me.’
He lifted a hand and cupped her jaw, and every sinew in Rose’s body pulled taut against her inevitable reaction.
‘For the past couple of weeks you’ve been keeping me at a distance and I won’t have it—not when you told me you loved me. Why are you acting as if you didn’t?’
Rose’s breath stopped dead. She wanted to dissolve and disappear. This was excruciating. She’d thought Zac was ruthless before, but this...this was sheer cruelty.
Angry at how he was forcing her complete humiliation, she said, ‘Because I’m not a masochist. That’s why I can’t do this...’
He said now, ‘When I said you owe me, I meant that you owe me nothing but your trust. Do you know why I asked you here like this? In this dress?’
Rose tried not to seize on what he’d said about her only owing him her trust. It was too dangerous.
‘Because you want me to start paying you back... Because it turns you on... Because I embarrassed you when I turned up at the function... I don’t know, Zac...’
‘You’re right about one thing: it does turn me on.’
Rose felt her nerves sizzling.
‘But the real reason is because I want to start again. I want us to recreate that night—except this time without any malevolent manipulation dictating events. We’re just two people who’ve never met before. No agenda.’
Hardly daring to breathe or to hope, Rose whispered, ‘Why? If all you want is an affair—’
‘Your words,’ he cut in. ‘Not mine.’ He shook his head. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? I haven’t brought you here just to sleep with you, or to continue some temporary affair. You’re here because you’ve brought me to my knees. Because everything that I ever believed was important means nothing unless you’re with me.’
He wasn’t finished.
‘I don’t just want one night...or a few weeks or months. I want every night and day. I want you and me and our baby—together. And I want that forever.’
Rose shook her head incredulously. Her heart was pounding wildly. ‘You didn’t believe me when I told you how I felt... How do I know you believe me now?’
Zac was intense. ‘Because I trust in that girl I met who was so conflicted...who just wanted to do the right thing but was falling, just like I was. I trust in the purity of what we felt for each other, regardless of how we came to meet.’
It was too much. The hope was too much... She had too far to fall, and Zac had distrusted her for so long.
She broke away and turned her back to him, standing at the railing, holding on with both hands, knuckles white. Her throat ached...her eyes burned. And then she closed her eyes helplessly when she felt him behind her, wrapping his arms around her. His hands spread across her swollen belly with a possessiveness that made her blood sing.
He said over her head, ‘I love you, Rose, and I’m not letting you go. Not until you believe me.’
She was crying now in earnest, silently. But he could feel her sobs and he just held her until they stopped. The baby kicked under his hands.
She felt Zac go still behind her, and then he said with a choked voice, ‘See? It’s two against one.’
As he held her and she looked out over the view, she felt something wild and soaring take root inside her. The past and the present...and the future? Could it really start here again?
She gathered all her courage and turned in his arms and looked up. Her face had to be ravaged from her tears, but she didn’t care. She looked, deep into those blue eyes, and saw nothing but a blazing truth, as if he could burn it into her with sheer will. And a question. Could she give them another chance? Could she trust him?
Rose tugged free of Zac’s hold and stepped back. The stark pain she saw in his eyes when she broke free told her everything. And that she never wanted to see it again.
She took a deep, not entirely stable breath and held out her hand. ‘I’m Rose O’Malley—nice to meet you.’
Zac’s eyes flashed with something fierce. Relief. Joy. And love. He smiled and took her hand. ‘Zac Valenti—nice to meet you too.’ Then he cocked his head on one side. ‘With a name and colouring like that you must be Irish?’
Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest, but she answered, ‘My parents emigrated here before I was born.’
Zac kept hold of her hand and slowly started pulling her towards him. ‘Why haven’t I seen you around before?’
Rose smiled tremulously and let herself be pulled. ‘I’m from Queens, and I’m afraid I’m just a humble maid.’
Zac pulled her right into his body and said, in a suspiciously choked-sounding voice, ‘As it happens, just humble maids are some of my favourite people.’ He threaded a hand through Rose’s hair, ‘Would you think it very forward of me if I kissed you, even though we’ve only just met?’
Rose’s voice wobbled even more as she said emotionally, ‘Only as long as you promise never to stop.’
‘That,’ Zac said reverently as he bent his head towards hers, ‘I can promise.’
And so that night, on a beautiful rooftop, in the middle of a magical garden high in the dark velvet sky, they started again.
EPILOGUE
A year later
ZAC VALENTI LOOKED around the massive glittering ballroom from his antisocial location, leaning against a pillar at the back of the room. Women passed him, dripping in jewels. He held in a scowl. And then something caught his peripheral vision and he looked to his right to see a bright flame of gold and green approaching him. Something swelled in his chest. His wife, his love, his world.
She emerged from the crowd, smiling at him. Her hair was swept up and she wore a shimmering strapless column of emerald-green that made her eyes pop out like two jewels. The only jewels she needed. Apart from her wedding rings.
When she reached his side Zac pulled her in close and it felt as it always did—as if a part of him was slotting back into place. He automatically breathed easier.
Rose looked up at him, eyes sparkling. ‘The gossip in the powder room tonight is about the sudden decision of a certain Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt to go on a long worldwide cruise.’
A familiar tension came into Zac’s muscles at the mention of that woman, but also a sense of release. He’d given a recent exclusive interview to a financial magazine, finally revealing the truth of his parentage and details of his hitherto less well-known Italian business concerns.
This cruise was his grandmother’s attempt to escape her fall from grace. The fact tha
t she would be hounded by reporters at every stop along her route was inordinately satisfying. As was the legal agreement he’d made her sign before she’d left, which had been her only chance of ensuring the Lyndon-Holt name would live forever.
The Lyndon-Holt fortune was to become a philanthropic foundation, with one of its main recipients being a new charity—set up by him and Rose—which allocated funds for expensive medical operations to those who couldn’t afford it.
Rose’s father had recovered fully from his operation, and they’d taken an emotional trip back to Ireland with her mother’s ashes shortly after their daughter’s birth. Needless to say, Simona May Valenti—named for her paternal grandmother with the Italian spelling, and maternal grandmother—was the apple of her doting grandfather’s eye.
They’d christened her three months previously, in the church near the graveyard where Zac’s ancestors were buried. It was also where they’d been married, before Simona’s birth. Italy was their second home now, and they retreated there as much as possible.
Zac said now, with faux gravity, ‘Quite frankly, I’m less interested in idle gossip and far more interested in seeing how quickly I can get you out of that dress, Mrs Valenti.’
Rose slipped her arms around his waist, pressing so close that he could feel the thrust of her breasts against this side. Lust shot through his system with predictable force, making his body respond.
‘Witch...’ he growled, and she smiled, well aware of her effect on him.
He pulled her around in front of him, as much to disguise his body’s reaction as to torture her a little too.
He smiled when he saw her cheeks flush and her eyes dilate. ‘What do you say to going somewhere a little less...stuffy?’
She smiled. ‘I say yes.’
And then they both became aware of a moment of déjà vu at the same time—recalling that first night when he’d said those same words,
Rose said more huskily, ‘Take me home, Zac.’
So he did.
They went home to their new Greenwich Village townhouse and, after sending their nanny home, checked on their peacefully sleeping baby daughter, legs and arms spread wide in abandon.
Zac stood looking down at her for a long time. It scared him sometimes, recognising how easily his life might have remained an arid wasteland, only feeling a desire for retribution for his parents and wanting to accumulate more wealth and power. He’d arrogantly assumed when he’d walked away from his family that he had it all figured out, when in fact he’d really been no better off.
It had taken meeting Rose and falling in love to show him the true meaning of wealth. And now his daughter had compounded that a thousandfold.
Rose’s hand slipped into his and he looked at her, too overcome to say anything for a moment. She smiled, and he could see everything he was feeling mirrored in those green eyes.
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘Me, too.’
And then she started backing out of the room, pulling him with her, with a knowing and very feminine smile on her face as they made their way to their bedroom.
And in that private space Zac let her take him apart—because he knew that she was the only one who could put him back together again. For ever.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Abby Green
AWAKENED BY HER DESERT CAPTOR
AN HEIR FIT FOR A KING
THE BRIDE FONSECA NEEDS
FONSECA’S FURY
Available now!
Don’t miss Lynne Graham’s 100th book!
BOUGHT FOR THE GREEK’S REVENGE
Also available this month.
Keep reading for an excerpt from WEDDED, BEDDED, BETRAYED by Michelle Smart.
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Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed
by Michelle Smart
CHAPTER ONE
THE SCREAM PIERCED through the silence of the Nutmeg Island chapel.
Gabriele Mantegna, having just climbed up the stairs from the basement, came to an abrupt halt.
Where the hell had that come from?
He switched off his torch, plunging the chapel into complete darkness, and listened hard.
Had that been a woman’s scream? Surely not? Tonight, only the armed security crew inhabited the island.
Closing the basement door carefully, he walked to the one small window of the chapel not made of stained glass. It was too dark to see anything but after a moment a faint light appeared in the distance. It came from the Ricci house where at that moment an armed gang were helping themselves to all the priceless works of art and antiquities.
The island’s security crew were blind to the gang, their monitors remotely tampered with and feeding them falsehoods.
Gabriele checked his watch and grimaced. He’d been on the island ten minutes longer than planned. Every extra minute increased his chances of getting caught. To reach the beach on the south side of the island, from where he would swim to safety, was a further ten-minute walk.
But he hadn’t imagined the scream. He couldn’t in good conscience make his escape without checking it out.
Swearing under his breath, Gabriele pushed open the heavy chapel door and stepped out into the warm Caribbean air. The next time Ignazio Ricci decided on a spot of peace and contemplation, he would find the code for the chapel alarm scrambled.
For a building designed for peaceable contemplation and worship, the Ricci chapel had been desecrated by Ignazio’s real purpose.
It had all been there, directly beneath the chapel altar, in a basement stuffed with files dating back decades. A secret trail of blood money, the underbelly of the Ricci empire, hidden from the outside world. In the short time Gabriele had been in the basement he’d uncovered enough evidence of illegal dealings to have Ignazio spend the rest of his life in prison. He, Gabriele Mantegna, would personally hand the copied incriminating documents to the FBI. He would be there every day of the trial, seating himself so that Ignazio, the man who’d killed his father, would not be able to avoid seeing him.
When the judge’s sentence was pronounced Ignazio would know that it was he who had sent him down.
But everything wasn’t sunshi
ne yet. The most important evidence for Gabriele, the documents that would have cleared his own name and exonerated his father once and for all, had not been found.
The evidence existed. He would find it if it took him the rest of his life.
Putting the missing evidence from his mind, Gabriele set out into the thick canopy of trees and, crouching low, made his way to the Ricci house, a huge villa set over three levels.
Lights shone from a downstairs window. Any subterfuge by the gang had been abandoned.
Something had gone wrong.
The men in the house were led by a criminal mastermind who went by the moniker of Carter. Carter’s specialisation was in purloining high-end goods for order. Ming vases. Picassos. Caravaggios. Blue Diamonds. There wasn’t a security system in the world, so the legend went, that Carter couldn’t crack. He also had a knack of knowing where the shadier elements of high society kept their even shadier valuables, the type of valuables the owner most certainly would not report to the authorities. Carter took those items for himself.
The front door had been left ajar.
As he approached it, voices could be heard, muffled but undeniably angry.
Knowing he was taking a huge risk but unable to rid himself of the sound of the scream ringing in his ears, Gabriele pressed himself against the outside wall of the window nearest the front door, took a breath, and turned to look inside.
The main reception room was empty.
He pushed the door open a few more inches.
The muffled argument continued.
He crossed the threshold. The instant his neoprene dive slipper trod onto the hard lacquered wood flooring, a squeak rang out.
Swearing under his breath, Gabriele tried another step, placing his whole foot down in one tread. This time there was no squeak.
He took stock of his surroundings. The reception room had three doors. Only one, directly opposite him, was open.
He crossed cautiously, wishing there were at least a life-size statue to hide behind if needed. Reaching the door, he peered through it, taking in the wide cantilevered stairs to his right and craning his ears to the left in an attempt to determine what the men were arguing about. If it was a simple heist-gone-wrong scenario he would return to his plan and get the hell off this island.
