by Jennie Lucas
She met his eyes. “Yes.”
“The baby’s mine?”
Her chin lifted. “You think I would lie?”
Vin remembered her soft gasp of pain when he’d first taken her, holding her virgin body so hot and hard and tight against his own in the darkness of his bedroom. Remembered how he’d kissed her tears away until her pain melted away to something very different...
“You couldn’t have told me before now?” he bit out.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t...” Then she glanced behind her, and her expression changed to fear.
Three men were striding up the aisle, the leader’s face a mask of cold fury.
“There you are, you little...” He roughly grabbed Scarlett’s wrist. “This is a private matter,” he snarled at Vin, barely looking at him. “Return to your ceremony.”
Vin almost did. It would have been easy to let them go. He felt the pressure of his waiting bride, of the pending merger, of her family, of the cathedral and the archbishop and the many guests, some of whom had flown around the world to be here. He could have told himself that Scarlett was lying and turned his back on her. He could have walked back to calmly speak the vows that would bind his life to Anne.
But something stopped him.
Maybe it was the man’s iron-like grip on Scarlett’s slender wrist. Or the way he and his two goons were dragging her back down the aisle, in spite of her helpless struggles. Maybe it was the panicked, stricken expression on her lovely face as all those wealthy, powerful guests silently watched, doing nothing to intervene.
Or maybe it was the ghost of his own memory, long repressed, of how it had once felt to be powerless and unloved, dragged from his only home against his will.
Whatever it was, Vin found himself doing something he hadn’t done in a long, long time.
Getting involved.
“Stop right there,” he ordered.
The other man’s face snapped toward him. “Stay out of this.”
Vin stalked toward him. “The lady doesn’t want to leave with you.”
“She’s distraught. Not to mention crazy.” The man, sleek and overfed as a Persian cat, yanked on her wrist. “I’m taking her to my psychiatrist. She’s going to be locked away for a long, long time.”
“No!” Scarlett whimpered. She looked up at Vin, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m not crazy. He used to be my boss. He’s trying to force me to marry him and give our baby away.”
Give our baby away.
The four words cut through Vin’s heart like a knife. His whole body became still.
And he knew there was no way he was going to let this man take her.
His voice was ice-cold. “Let her go.”
“You think you can make me?”
“Do you know my name?” Vin said quietly.
The man looked at him contemptuously. “I have no...” His voice trailed off, then he sucked in his breath. “Borgia.” He exhaled the two syllables through his teeth. Vin saw the fear in the man’s eyes. It was a reaction he’d grown accustomed to. “I...I didn’t realize...”
Vin glanced at his own bodyguards, who’d entered the cathedral and surrounded the other men with surgical precision, ready to strike. He gave his chief of security a slight shake of his head, telling them to keep their distance. Then he looked at the man holding Scarlett. “Get. Out. Now.”
He obeyed, abruptly releasing her. He turned and fled, his two bodyguards swiftly following him out of the cathedral.
Noise suddenly rose on all sides. Scarlett fell with a sob into Vin’s arms, against the front of his tuxedo.
And a young man leaped up from a middle pew.
“Anne, I told you! Don’t marry him! Who cares if you’re disinherited?” Looking around the nave, the stranger proclaimed fiercely and loudly, “I’ve been sleeping with the bride for the last six months!”
Total chaos broke out then. The father of the bride started yelling, the mother of the bride wept noisily and, faced with such turmoil, the bride quietly and carefully fainted into a puffy heap of white tulle.
But Vin barely noticed. His world had shrunk to two things. Scarlett’s tears as she wept in relief against his chest. And the tremble of her pregnant body, cradled beneath the protection of his arms.
CHAPTER TWO
OUT OF THE frying pan, into the fire.
Scarlett had escaped Blaise, but at what price?
For the last hour, she’d tried to calm the fearful beat of her heart as she sat in a faded floral chair next to a window overlooking a private garden. Vin had brought her to the private sitting room in the rectory behind the cathedral and told her to wait while he sorted things out. A kindly old lady—a housekeeper of some sort?—had pushed a hot cup of tea into her trembling hand.
But the tea had grown cold. She set the china cup into the saucer with a clatter.
Scarlett didn’t know which scared her more. The memory of Blaise’s snarling face. Or the fear of what Vin Borgia might do now to take over her future—and her baby’s.
She should run.
She should run now.
Running was the only way to ensure their freedom.
Growing up, Scarlett had lived in over twenty different places, tiny towns hidden in forests and mountains, sometimes in shacks without electricity or running water. She’d rarely been able to go to school, and when she did, she’d had to dye her red hair brown and use a different name. Things that normal kids took for granted, such as having a real home, friends, going to the same school for a whole year, were luxuries Scarlett had only dreamed of. She’d never played sports, or sung in the school choir, or gone to prom. She’d never even gone on a real date.
Until she was twenty-four. The day she’d met Vin Borgia, she’d been weak, emotional, vulnerable. And he’d caught her up like a butterfly in a net.
She looked out the window with its view of the back garden, full of roses and ivy. A secret garden, surrounded by New York skyscrapers. A strangely calm, verdant place that seemed miles from the noisy traffic and honking cabs of Fifth Avenue. Rising to her feet, she started to pace.
A frosty gray afternoon last February, she’d been picking up a medicine prescription for Mrs. Falkner when she received a text from an old Boston friend of her father’s with news that had staggered her.
Alan Berry had just died in an inconsequential knife fight in a Southie bar. The man who’d betrayed her father seventeen years before, who’d cut a deal for his own freedom and forced Harry Ravenwood to go on the run with his sick wife and young daughter, had died a meaningless death after a meaningless life. All for nothing.
Standing in the drugstore, Scarlett’s knees had gone weak. She’d felt sick.
Five minutes later, she’d found herself at a dive bar across the street, ordering her first drink. The sharp pungent taste had made her cough.
“Let me guess.” A low, amused voice had spoken from the red leather banquette in the corner. “It’s your first time.”
She’d turned. The man came out of the shadows slowly. Black eyes. Dark hair. Powerful broad shoulders. A black suit. Hard edges everywhere. Five-o’clock shadow. He was like a hero—or a handsome villain—from a movie, so masculine and powerful and handsome that he’d affected her even more than the vodka shot.
“I had a...bad day.” Her voice trembled.
An ironic smile lifted the corners of his cruel, sensual mouth. “Why else would you be drinking in the afternoon?”
She wiped her eyes with a laugh. “For fun?”
“Fun. That’s an idea.” The man had come close enough to see her red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks in the shadowy dive bar. She’d braced herself for questions, but he just slid onto the bar stool beside her and raised his hand to the bartender. “Let’s see if the second shot goes down easier.”
In spite of what she knew about him now, Vin Borgia still affected her like that. When Scarlett had seen him standing at the altar with his beautiful bride, all the memories
had come back of their night together in February, when he’d taken her back to his elegant, Spartan, wildly expensive penthouse. He’d seduced her easily, claiming her virginity as if he owned it. He’d made her life explode with color and joy.
She’d known Vin’s name, since his doorman had greeted him with the utmost respect as “Mr. Borgia.” But she’d never told Vin her last name. Some habits were hard to break.
A phone call from Mrs. Falkner’s nurse had woken Scarlett when Vin still slept. Only her sense of duty had forced her to wrench herself from the warmth of his bed. She’d returned to the Falkner mansion and handed over the prescription, then dreamily looked up her one and only lover online.
That had woken her up fast. She’d been horrified by what she found.
Vincenzo Borgia was a ruthless airline billionaire who’d risen from nothing and didn’t give a damn who got hurt in his pursuit of world domination. She couldn’t imagine why a man like that had seduced her, when he usually had liaisons with socialites and supermodels. But she was grateful she hadn’t given him her last name. She wouldn’t give him the chance to hurt her.
Later, when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d wondered whether she’d made the right decision. But seeing Vin’s engagement announcement in the paper had clinched it.
Scarlett had never expected to see Vin again. She’d planned to raise her baby alone.
She wasn’t scared to be alone. She’d grown up on the run, and her fugitive father had secretly taught her skills after her mother got too sick to notice. How to pick pockets. How to pick locks. And most of all, how to be invisible and survive on almost nothing.
Compared to what she’d already lived through, raising a child as a single parent would be easy. She wasn’t a fugitive. She’d never committed any crimes. She had a marketable skill as a nurse’s aide. She’d even saved some money. She no longer had to hide.
Or did she?
Scarlett stopped pacing the thick rug of the cathedral rectory, staring blankly at the faded floral furniture. Did she really want to take the chance that Vin Borgia, the man she’d read such horrible things about, could be a good father? Did she dare take that risk, just because she’d loved her own father so much?
She could see the soft shimmer of dust motes through a beam of fading golden sunlight from the window. She put her hands gently on her belly.
Vin had saved her from Blaise, but rich, powerful men all had one thing in common: they wanted to be in control. And Vin Borgia was richer and more powerful than most.
She should just leave before he returned.
Right now.
Scarlett took a step, then stopped when she remembered her suitcase and handbag were still in Blaise’s limo, with her money, ID, credit card, phone. When she’d fled him in terror, those had been the last thing on her mind. But now... How could she run with no money and no passport?
She looked down glumly at her bare toes snuggled into the plush rug. She didn’t even have shoes!
“What’s your name?”
She whirled to face the door. Vin had entered the room, his jaw like granite as he loosened his tie. Just looking at his hard-muscled body caused a physical reaction in her, made her tremble from the inside out, with a mixture of fear and desire. Even the sleekly tailored tuxedo couldn’t give him the look of a man who was entirely civilized. Especially with that hard, almost savage look in his black eyes.
She swallowed. “You know my name. Scarlett.”
He glowered at her. “Your last name.”
“Smith,” she tried.
Vin’s jaw tightened. Turning away, he picked up a carafe of water sitting on a tray on a nearby table. He poured water into one of the glasses. “Your last name is Ravenwood.”
Her lips parted in shock. “How did you—”
Reaching into his jacket pocket, he held up her wallet, his handsome face impassive.
“How did you get that?”
“Falkner sent your purse to me. And your suitcase.”
“Sent? You mean he dumped them in the street?”
“I mean his bodyguards personally brought them to me, neatly stacked, with his compliments.”
Oh, this was so much worse than she’d feared. Scarlett breathed, “The worst man I know is afraid of you?”
He smiled grimly. “It’s not unusual.” He held her wallet out toward her. “Here. Seventeen dollars cash and a single credit card. With an eight-hundred-dollar limit.”
“Hey!” She snatched at it. Her cheeks burned. “How do you know my credit limit?”
Picking up his glass, Vin swirled the clear water thoughtfully. “I wanted to know what I was dealing with. An orphan who never lived anywhere for long, who came to New York for a thankless live-in job, who saved every penny for two years, who made no new friends, who worked all the time and never went out.” He tilted his head, looking at her with heavily lidded black eyes as he murmured, “With one memorable exception.”
A flash of heat went through her, then cold. She couldn’t think about that night. Not now. “You have some nerve to—”
“The Falkners barely paid minimum wage, but you saved every penny you could. Impressive work ethic, considering your jailbird father—”
“Don’t you dare call him that!” she shouted. “My dad was the kindest, best man who ever lived!”
“Are you serious?” Vin’s lips curved. “He was a bank robber who became a fugitive and dragged you and your mother into a life on the run. You had no money, barely went to school, and your mother died of an illness that she might perhaps have survived with proper care. What am I missing?”
“Stop judging him,” she raged. “My father gave up that life when I was a baby. But a friend of his convinced him to try for one last score. After my mother found out, she gave him an ultimatum. He gave the money back to the bank!”
“Just gave it back, hmm?”
“He left the bags of money outside the police station, then tipped them off with an anonymous call.”
“Why didn’t he turn himself in?”
“Because he didn’t want to leave my mom. Or me.” Scarlett took a deep breath. “We would have been fine, except Alan Berry was caught spending his own share of the money six months later and threw my father under the bus as the supposed mastermind of the crime! After he’d tried to do the right thing—”
“The right thing would have been for your father to turn himself in at the start,” Vin said mercilessly, “instead of waiting ten years to find the courage, and dragging you and your mother through such a miserable life on the run.” He calmly took a sip of water. “The only truly decent thing your father ever did was die in that plane crash after he got out of prison. Giving you that tidy multimillion-dollar settlement offered by the airline.”
Scarlett nearly staggered to her knees at his easy reference to the greatest loss of her life, one that still left her grief-stricken every day—her father’s sudden death, along with thirty other people, in a plane crash a year and a half before, as he was coming to New York to see her, finally free after five years in a medium-security prison.
Vin looked at her curiously. “You gave all that money away.” He tilted his head. “Why?”
She was so shocked, it took her a moment to find her voice. In mere minutes, Vin Borgia had casually ripped through her privacy and exposed all the secrets of her life.
“I didn’t want their blood money,” she whispered. “I gave it to charity.”
“Yes, I know. Cancer research, legal defense for the poor and help for children of incarcerated parents. All fine causes. But I don’t understand why you’d choose to be penniless.”
“Like you said, maybe I’m used to it. Anyway.” She clutched her wallet. “Some things matter more than money.”
“Like a baby?” Vin said coldly. He put the glass down with a thunk on the wooden table. “You let me seduce you and take your virginity, then snuck out while I slept. You never bothered to contact me. You waited until my wedding to spring
the news on me that you were pregnant.”
“I had no choice—”
“There were plenty of choices.” His jaw tightened. “Tell me the truth. If Falkner hadn’t threatened you today, you never would have told me about the baby, would you?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head.
“Why?” he demanded.
The warmth from the cathedral garden was failing. Scarlett glanced at the fading afternoon light, now turning gray. She didn’t answer.
“You refused to even tell me your last name that night. Why?” he pressed, coming closer. “Was it because you were also encouraging Falkner’s attentions?”
“I never did!” She gaped at him. “I knew he wanted me, but I never thought he’d attack me while giving me a ride from his mother’s funeral!”
“Ah. That explains the black dress.” He looked down at her pale pink toenails. “But why are you barefoot?”
“I kicked off my shoes running on Fifth Avenue. I knew your wedding was here today.” She looked down. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”
“Yes. Well.” His jaw tightened as he said grudgingly, “I suppose I should thank you.”
“You didn’t know your bride was cheating on you?”
“She convinced me she was a virgin and wanted to wait for marriage.”
A laugh rose to her lips. “You thought she was a virgin? In this day and age?”
“Why not?” he said coldly. “You were.”
Their eyes met, and Scarlett’s body flooded with heat. Against her will, memories filled her of that night, of being in his arms, in his bed, his body hard and hot and slick against hers. She tried to smile. “Yeah, but I’m not normal.”
“Agreed.” His dark gaze seared hers. “Am I really the father of your baby, Scarlett? Or were you lying just because you needed my help?”
“Of course the baby’s yours!”
He bared his teeth into a smile. “I will find out if it’s not true.”
“You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with, so I’m pretty sure!”
“The only man? Ever?” For a moment, something stretched between them. Then it snapped. “So what do you want from me now? Money?”
