“What did you mean, about time?” He prompted, his face business like, his manner brusque.
Annie had, over the years, learned to navigate Giac’s various personas. Most of the time, he was an adoring husband and very attentive lover. Occasionally, he slipped into Tycoon Entrepreneur mode, demanding rather than asking, solving rather than discussing.
She intentionally prevaricated. “You’re so lucky to have grown up here.”
He pulled a face. “My home was nothing like this, cara.”
She nodded. “I mean the countryside. It’s so beautiful.” She put her hands on her hips, looking down over the village.
“What did you mean, Annie Medici?”
Slowly, she turned to face him. “I mean that time is a factor, after all.”
His frown was thick with confusion. “Amelia is not the first child to spend her toddler years in an apartment.”
“No, that’s true.” Annie nodded slowly. “But you don’t like London, not really.”
“I like it if you like it,” he contradicted, kissing the tip of her nose.
“That seems silly, when we have this beautiful villa at our disposal.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting we move here?”
“Si.” She grinned. It was just about the extent of her Italian language, so she said it again. “Si.”
He shook his head. “You’d hate it.”
“I’d love it,” she promised earnestly. “Amelia loves it here. The house is big enough that we could have my folks, or Stu and Chloe and Harry, come stay often enough that I wouldn’t miss them. Besides,” she put a hand on his forearm. “We’ll need a new nursery soon enough.”
Giac, always sharp as a tack, took some time to process her remark. Finally, his eyes searching her face, he said, “Are you saying… do you mean…?” He lowered his gaze to her still-flat stomach.
Annie nodded, unable to contain her excitement. “I know it’s soon. Do you mind?”
“Do I mind?” His laugh was thick with pride. “I would have a dozen children if you would oblige me.”
Annie shuddered in mock revulsion. “Not going to happen.”
He laughed, pulling her to him. “I’m thrilled. But what about you, cara? You were looking forward to going back to work.”
She shrugged. “I’ll still work. I’m sure I can find something to do, somehow fitting it around the children. But my focus, for now, is on making mini-Medicis.”
His kiss began as chaste, but progressed to something deeper almost instantly. “Oh, Annie. I don’t understand how this happened.” He moaned against her mouth.
Annie pulled away and arched a perfectly shaped brow. “Oh? I can give you a lesson in biology, if you’d like, Giac.”
He smiled. “Touché. I mean that we most certainly were not trying.”
“No.” She nodded. “I suppose it’s just meant to be.”
Giac nodded, looking beyond his wife to the land he’d grown up in. He couldn’t think of a better place to bring his family to live.
“Ah.” He ran a hand over her tumble of dark locks. “That makes sense. Everything about us is meant to be, Annie. I was born to love you, and you to love me.”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips to his. “Forever and ever and evermore.”
THE END.
Following are the first three chapters from THE BILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS REVENGE by Clare Connelly. To purchase, please visit Clare Connelly’s Author Page.
CHAPTER ONE
He’d watched the video enough times to be certain, but still he hit the play button once more.
A strange lurching feeling clenched in his gut as he watched his wife, his beloved wife, check into a hotel with another man. He knew every curve of her body. Her hair was so pale, like silver, that it almost glowed in the grainy monochromatic footage.
He’d tried to imagine a justification. Some reasonable explanation as to why, at two o’clock in the afternoon, when she was supposed to be working, his wife would instead be with a strange man, at the concierge of Claridge’s.
At least she looked guilty. That was some consolation, though it did nothing to ease his strong sense of betrayal. Her beautiful face jerked towards the door once more, as though she was terrified she might get caught. And though the quality was poor, and the video grainy, he was a world expert in Bianca Casacelli and he knew she was scared out of her mind.
He almost felt sorry for her, except that she’d cheated on him. And Niko was not a man to be made a fool of. It had taken only a few minutes for the entire fantasy of an idyllic marriage that he’d built to crumble down around him. He who had never believed in Happy Endings, who had never thought love and marriage were at all sensible, who had grown up knowing women were inherently untrustworthy, had put all his doubts and beliefs aside the second he had seen Bianca Scott-Lee. She had completely turned his world on its head, and he had imagined she felt the same. That same blissful, enervating energy that flowed through him when they were together, surely she had felt it too? But this was clear evidence that she hadn’t. Not in the same way, at least.
It was the worst possible moment, but then, Marcos had a knack for catching Niko at his worst. He pushed into Niko’s office and began speaking immediately about a friend of theirs, but one look at his brother’s ashen face silenced him.
“Niko? What’s going on?”
For the smallest moment, Niko considered concealing the truth from his brother. A strange protective instinct made him want to shield Bianca from the condemnation that Marcos would certainly feel for her. But such loyalty wasn’t required anymore. Not when she had broken the vows of their marriage.
“I’ve just discovered Bianca has been cheating on me.”
Marcos stopped walking and inclined his dark head, surprise evident in every line of his body. “I’m sorry, Niko. Did you just say…?”
“Yes. Bianca’s having an affair.”
Marcos pulled two bottles of sparkling mineral water from the fridge and tossed one towards Niko. He caught it easily in his left hand, and put it straight back down again. He didn’t want a drink. Not of water, anyway.
“I don’t believe it,” Marcos said finally. “You must be mistaken.”
“Unfortunately, I have ample evidence. Credit card receipts show a long history of deceit, and more damning than that, surveillance footage of her checking into a hotel with one Simon Cave.”
Marcos moved to look over Niko’s shoulder, at the computer screen. Though Niko was beginning to feel sick to the stomach, he once more pressed the play button, so that Marcos could see for himself the full extent of his wife’s duplicity.
When he’d watched the security tape fully, Marcos swore under his breath. The tape was damning. “How did you find out?”
Niko’s lip curled in a sarcastic grimace. “An over-efficient security staff member brought it to my attention.”
“I see. And what does Bianca say?”
Niko lifted his eyes to his brother’s, his pain obvious. “I haven’t spoken to her yet. I just found out.”
Marcos searched for the right words. “You fell hard for this woman. You need to speak to her. I know the video is pretty hard to argue with, but I know Bianca. She loves you, Niko.”
“Enough,” Niko said forcefully. “It has been going on since we returned from our honeymoon. Three years, she has been running around behind my back. With this idiot.”
“Only the one man?”
“Basta. One is enough.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Simon Cave. I am waiting for my security to furnish me with a file on him.”
Marcos held it in for as long as he could, but the words wouldn’t be ignored. “She’s not our mother, Niko.”
Niko shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes fixed on a small dent on the marble table top in the center of his office. Like his wife, it was a thing of great beauty. Rare, and elegant, but imperfect and damaged. Slowly, he forced himself to look at his
older brother. “Isn’t she? How is she any different?”
“She is, and you know it. Resist the temptation to punish her for our mother’s failings.”
Niko didn’t like being told how to feel, especially when it came to his marriage. He straightened his shoulders and nodded stiffly, but it was enough of a signal to Marcos. Conversation closed.
* * *
Bianca hummed under her breath as she slowly lifted the Christmas decorations from the tree. It was her least favorite chore, because it signaled the official end of Christmas. But to have the tree up in the house after the beautiful festive day had passed was likewise intolerable to Bianca. She almost felt that the tree mocked her love of the holiday, each moment it stood there beyond December twenty sixth. Just like that, it went from being an object of her adoration and delight, to something she scowled at as she passed, like an unwelcome invader. Eventually, she could handle it no longer and she had to remove any sign of Christmas. And so one by one, she lifted each decoration from its hook, and placed them carefully back into their boxes.
She heard the door open and shut, and then moments later felt the blast of cold air that had rushed through the townhouse. A smile played about the corner of her lips as she thought of Niko, and her heart started to race that little bit faster. Despite having been married for three years now, her husband never failed to make her feel like that. Giddy and excited, and breathless. Just the thought of him still managed to make her pulse race.
“I’m in here, Nik,” she called, reaching on her tiptoes for another ornament and carefully disentangling it from the lights and tinsel.
When he spoke, his voice was distant. Cold. “I know about the affair, Bianca.”
And just like that, her whole world started to shake uncontrollably. Her heart was racing now for an entirely different reason as guilt washed over. Slowly she turned and with piercingly blue eyes, she examined his face. It was the same face, the same man, who had stolen her heart the first second she’d seen him. Despite the passage of time, he looked exactly as he had then. Some men had nice eyes, or striking lips, but Niko Casacelli had it all. His face was overloaded with features: cheekbones that could have been slashed from stone, lips that were full and wide, even white teeth, dark speckled eyes that were rimmed with curling lashes, an autocratic profile, and all over his body, skin the color of warm caramel. But now, his face was cast in a mask of restrained anger that made her blink twice.
“What are you talking about, Niko?” Though she knew. She knew what he thought, and why. Inwardly, she cringed at having been so stupid. A man like Niko didn’t miss a beat. Had she really thought he wouldn’t find out? That this happiness could continue forever? She looked around their picture-book perfect lounge room, her eyes misting at what she knew she was going to lose.
His lips compressed so that they were just a slash in his symmetrical face. “Don’t even think about denying it, Bianca.”
For as long as she’d known and loved him, he’d never used that tone of voice with her. She’d heard him employ it to wayward staff, or business opponents he was locking horns with, but never her. To his wife, he had always been a picture of patience. But now, she saw why Niko Casacelli was famed for his hard-headed business style. When Time magazine had called him The Satan of the Stock Exchange, she had giggled uncontrollably. Her husband was no such thing! As she watched his dark brown eyes now, she finally saw what everyone else saw. He had a streak of iron in him, only he’d never needed to show it to her. Before now.
The decoration she held, a fine crystal star that she’d bought at Portobello and had loved because it was old and weathered, slipped through her numb fingertips. She watched it fall to the ground, and splinter into a million and one tiny shards. It was too symptomatic of what was happening in her life to be a coincidence.
“Niko, please,” her voice was husky, thick with emotion. “I can explain.” Could she? When it had all began, she had made a firm decision not to tell her husband. She had lied to him from almost the first day of their married life. How could she expect him to accept it had been going on for so long?
There was no way he’d overlook her deception. Sure enough, disbelief was obvious in his haughty, olive-skinned face. “Oh, you are going to explain, cara. Start at the beginning.” And he sidestepped the spray of fine glass on the ground and took hold of her elbow, so that he could steer her towards the leather sofa.
Bianca’s heart was racing. Beneath the woolen dress she wore, she thought he must surely be able to see it actually palpating against her breast. Nervously, she wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, trying to work out how she could explain Simon’s place in her life without telling Niko the whole, terrible truth.
Because that was a secret she couldn’t tell anyone – least of all her husband. If he knew what she’d done, she thought with a shudder, he would despise her even more than he did now.
“I went to school with Simon,” she said quietly, biting down on her lower lip. Shock had set in and she was shaking. She clasped her hands on her lap to disguise the tell-tale sign. Her husband had zero tolerance for weakness. It would not engender sympathy in him now, to see the anguish she was experiencing.
“I’m more interested about how you just happened to fall onto his penis, once we were married, and how often it happened.”
Scarlet flamed in her cheeks. “Don’t be crude.”
He crossed to the dumb waiter in the corner and poured himself a generous measure of scotch. He didn’t offer her one, because she rarely drank, but now, God, she needed something. “Would you get me one of those?” She asked shakily.
With a perfectly arched brow, he tipped some of the amber liquid into a glass and handed it to her. As she took it, and her fingers touched his, she registered the way he startled, as though she’d slapped him.
She watched as he threw his own drink back, his head tilted towards the ceiling so that his dark curls shook a little.
“It’s not what you think,” she said finally, though inwardly she groaned. How many bad movies had she heard that line uttered in?
He didn’t look at her. “I am walking out the door in three minutes unless I hear something that –miraculously- explains why you’ve been staying in a hotel with a man you went to school with. Why you’ve been on trips together. Why you’ve been wining and dining your way around London with a man other than me.”
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been so happy just a minute earlier, but in the back of her mind, she’d always known this conversation was inevitable. The burning pain of finally having the axe drop was accompanied by a strange sense of relief. Lying to the man she adored had been agony. At least that was over.
“I…” she began, then opened her eyes, to stare straight into Niko’s furious face. This was the man who had taught her what love meant. Whose arms had made her feel safe. His body commanded hers in a way she didn’t know possible. And now he was looking at her as though she was some stranger he didn’t understand. Her courage, thin as it was, deserted her completely.
“All you’ve wanted for the last year is a baby and now I find out you’ve been whoring yourself out to ex-boyfriends in my absence? Mio Dio, I’ve never felt so furious.” Only he sounded calm. And contained rage was far, far worse than the yelling, screaming, angsting kind.
Her stomach flipped over at the mention of the baby they both wanted with all their hearts, and guilt, so real she could taste it, ran through her. There was no explanation for what she’d done. All she could do was apologize and hope he loved her enough to forgive her. Because believing she’d had an affair was actually preferable to the truth.
With angst and pain in her eyes, she stood and put her hands on his shoulders. When he would have pulled away, she shook her head. “I love you, Niko. You are my heart and soul, as you have always been. Isn’t that enough?”
He recoiled, physically rejecting her. “You don’t know the meaning of love. Please don’t insult us both by pretending we ar
e some great romance.” He shook out of her hands and paced the room. “I’ve seen our credit card statements. The first time you stayed at Claridge’s was only one month after we got back from our honeymoon.” He dragged long hands through his mop of dark curls, his expression tense, and watchful.
“It’s really not like that,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Oh, I got one of my security team to ask around. I’ve seen the surveillance footage. And fancy that! There you are, checking in with one Simon Cave.”
Bile rose in her chest. She remembered that day. She’d gone there to end it. To tell Simon she couldn’t do it anymore, but he hadn’t let her.
And now, finally, Niko raised his voice, cutting off when she tried to formulate an explanation. “Don’t! There is nothing you can say to make this acceptable. I appreciate you didn’t intend to get caught, but you have been. Red handed.” He strode across and stared bitterly down at her. “How could you do it? I never thought you capable of such bald-faced disloyalty.”
One silent tear trickled down her cheek and he dashed it away impatiently. “You don’t get to cry,” he said harshly, his eyes flecked with anger. “You don’t get to regret. You made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.”
He was so close that his firmly muscled chest was almost touching her breasts. Both were breathing raggedly, fiercely, passionately, and as always that current of electricity arced between them, hot and all-consuming. Even now, in the midst of the only real argument they’d ever had, he longed to pull her to him, and kiss all of this away. His weakness for this woman was not acceptable.
“I want a divorce, cara. And when I get back tonight, I want every trace of you out of this house.”
“You can’t be serious?” She said, her limbs feeling oddly tingly, her head clouded with confusion. It was a surreal, out of body sort of conversation to be having.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Marrying you was a mistake. The whole time!” He spoke loudly now, and she knew that he was barely controlling his temper. With a monumental effort, he lowered his voice. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time. I could never love you after this, Bianca. I could never live with you. You know enough of who I am, and what matters most to me, to know that this is the end.”
The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. Page 12
