by Jennie Lucas
She gave an incredulous laugh. “You think you own a house? You’re not sure?”
A ghost of a smile traced the edges of his sensual lips. “I haven’t been back to my birth country for twenty years. I grew up in Rome, but—” his lips twisted bitterly “—my memories aren’t terribly happy there.”
His voice was strained, and his jaw tightened in a way that suggested she shouldn’t ask any more questions. But Scarlett was dying to ask them. It occurred to her that she knew very little about his past, or what had driven him to become a self-made billionaire who was cynical at the thought of love.
But before she could try to think of a way to formulate the question that he might actually answer, Vin took her hand and led her across the grass, back to the clinic’s parking lot, where the bodyguards waited with the cars.
As they walked, Scarlett glanced down at Vin’s hand holding her smaller one. Feeling the warmth of his rough palm against hers, skin on skin, his fingers wrapped so possessively around hers, made her tremble as she walked. Her lips still tingled from his kiss.
“Congratulate us.” Vin brought her to the three hulking, scowling bodyguards. “Scarlett has agreed to be my bride. We’ll be married in a few days.”
The three bodyguards lifted up their mirrored sunglasses, and their scowls gave way to bright smiles. They looked almost human as Vin introduced each of them by name. Each man shook her hand, murmuring congratulations. It was amazing how much less scary they suddenly seemed. Scarlett couldn’t help smiling back.
“You’re on her protection detail now,” Vin told them, “as much as mine.”
The men snapped to attention. “We’re on it, boss.”
“Welcome to the family, Miss Ravenwood,” the first bodyguard told her with a big smile. Then the sunglasses snapped back, along with the scowl. “We’ll keep you safe.”
“Thank you.” She hid a smile. As if she needed protecting! What was she, some politician or celebrity or something? But she was willing to play along.
Vin opened the door of the red sports car for her, then spoke quietly to the bodyguards before he climbed into the driver’s seat beside her. He started the engine with a low smooth roar.
To her surprise, he didn’t drive back immediately to the expressway but went the other direction, with the bodyguards following them in the SUV, deeper into downtown Geneva. “Where are we going?”
Vin turned onto the exclusive Rue du Rhône. “You agreed to marry me.”
“So?”
His eyes slanted sideways to her hand. “You need a ring.”
An hour later, they’d left the elegant jewelry store and were crossing into the French Alps, near Chamonix and Mont Blanc, en route to Italy. The mountain scenery was breathtaking, but Scarlett couldn’t take her eyes off the biggest rock she’d ever seen: the ten-carat, emerald-cut, platinum-set diamond now on her left hand.
As she moved her finger, the enormous diamond reflected sparkling prisms of sunlight against her body, against her face, against the luxurious interior of the car. Against the handsome, powerful man driving beside her.
“I didn’t need such a big diamond,” she said for the tenth time.
He changed gears. “Of course you need it. You’re going to be my wife. You must always have the best.”
The ring was spectacular, but she felt briefly troubled. She would have been fine with a plain gold band, but his desires had overridden hers. What if her original fears were proven true—that he would attempt to rule her life?
Calm down, it’s just a ring, she told herself. And if she were truly honest with herself, part of her was dazzled by the huge diamond, over-the-top and impractical as it was. She tried not to think about how much it had cost. More than she’d ever earn in a lifetime, that was for sure.
The highway wound through mountains and tunnels as they headed south. As they traveled, Vin kept asking if she was comfortable, if she’d like to stop for a meal, for a break or just to stretch her legs and admire the view.
Anxious to arrive in Rome so she could be done traveling and settle in, she mostly refused, stopping only briefly at a truck stop near the Italian border.
As they crossed through Tuscany, the orange sun was lowering into the west horizon of lush autumn fields like a ball of fire, and Scarlett’s stomach started to growl. “Could we stop for dinner?”
“Of course, cara.” Vin glanced at the countryside around the highway. “There is an excellent restaurant not too far from here, in Borgierra. I often visited the town when I was young.”
“Borgierra? Sounds like your last name.”
“My family founded the village five hundred years ago.” He paused, then mumbled, “My father still lives there.”
Her jaw dropped. “Your father?”
“So?”
“You never mentioned him. I assumed he was...well...”
“He’s not dead. I just...haven’t seen him for a while. Since I left Italy.”
“Wait—twenty years ago?”
“Contrary to popular opinion,” he said irritably, “creating a billion-dollar airline doesn’t just magically happen. I’ve had to work all day, every day, from the time I was fifteen and set foot in New York. Gambling every penny I had. Working until I bled.”
“Don’t try to distract me from the main point.”
“Which is?”
“You haven’t seen your father for twenty years. Why? Was he horrible? Abusive?”
Vin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “No.”
Then she didn’t understand at all. “I want to meet him.”
He stared stonily ahead. “We don’t have time.”
“We have time to stop for dinner.”
“I’m not talking about this.”
“Too bad, because I am.” The interior of the sports car suddenly seemed very small. “Weren’t you the one who insisted it would be morally wrong of me not to allow our child to be raised by a father, as well as a mother? Now you expect me to ignore his chance to have a grandfather?”
His jaw tightened.
She tried again. “You say your father is a good person, but after two decades, you seriously intend to drive right by his house without stopping?” She glared at him. “It makes me wonder...”
He glared back at her. “Wonder what?”
She looked down, twisting the enormous diamond engagement ring. “When you said family was so important, I actually believed you.”
“You are my family now, Scarlett. You and our son.”
“The more family, the better.” She took a deep breath. “I never had any siblings or cousins. Since my parents died, I’ve been totally alone. Do you know how that feels?”
He didn’t answer.
Their eyes locked, and Scarlett’s heart twisted at something she saw hidden deep in his dark eyes. Some pain. She took a deep breath. “You should want our baby to have as much family—as much love—as he possibly can,” she said quietly. “Two parents are great, but what if something happens to us? Your father is our baby’s only grandparent. Why haven’t you seen him in twenty years?”
“It’s complicated.” He stared grimly forward at the road. “My mother never married Giuseppe. She preferred more exciting men who treated her badly.” He smiled grimly. “But she enjoyed keeping my father on a string, not letting him fall out of love with her, making him suffer. Most of all, she enjoyed him as a source of income to her jet-set lifestyle. Anytime he wished to see me, he had to pay her a small fortune.”
Her lips parted with shock. His mother had made his father pay for the privilege of seeing his son? “Oh, Vin...”
“When I was ten, he finally was able to stop loving her. He married another woman, Joanne.”
“A wicked stepmother?” Scarlett guessed.
He snorted, then sobered. “Not at all. She was kind to me. I spent Christmas with them when I was fifteen, when my mother was partying with her boyfriend in Ibiza. It was the best Christmas of my life, with them and my new half sis
ter. Maria was barely more than a baby then. When I had to leave, Giuseppe and Joanne said they wanted me to come live with them full-time.”
“So did you?”
Vin’s gaze was unfocused as he stared ahead. Then he shook his head. “My mother refused to let me go.”
Scarlett’s heart broke a little at the thought of a young boy, simultaneously ignored and used as a bargaining chip by his own mother, losing his chance to be in a stable home, safe and loved. No wonder he was so determined to be a good father to his own son.
“It doesn’t matter.” His voice changed. “My mother died shortly after that, and I moved to New York to live with an uncle.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.” She frowned. “But why didn’t you go live with your father after she died? There was nothing to stop you then.”
“It was all a long time ago,” he said grimly.
“But—”
“Drop it, Scarlett.”
She wanted to push, but something in his expression warned her. “Okay. For now.” She took a deep breath. “But if we’re driving by his house, can’t we just stop by so I can meet him? Just for ten minutes?”
“We’re on a tight schedule.”
“Please...”
“They might not even be at home.”
“I promise if we stop, and they’re not home, then I’ll quit talking about it the rest of the way to Rome.”
Vin stared at her. Then, with a sigh, he picked up his phone and told the bodyguards in the SUV behind them they’d be taking a detour.
The night was growing dark as they drove through a wrought-iron gate in the Tuscan countryside. The moon was full over the trees and fragrant fields. Vin seemed to grow progressively more tense as they drove down the long, dusty road, edged on both sides by cypress trees.
At the end of the road, Scarlett gasped when she saw a gorgeous three-story villa with green shutters and yellow stucco lit up by warm golden lights in the dark night.
When they reached the top of the hill, they saw at least forty cars parked around the circular drive and stone fountain.
“Looks like they’re having a party,” she said awkwardly.
Vin parked the car right by the front door and turned off the engine. For a moment he didn’t move. His handsome face looked strangely bleak. She reached for his hand.
“Two minutes,” he said, pulling his hand away.
“We agreed we’d stay for ten—”
At his look, she decided not to press her luck.
Moon laced through clouds, decorating the October night like bright pearlescent lace across black velvet. He walked toward the front door, looking like a man going to the guillotine. The bodyguards, after doing a quick eyeball check of the perimeter, hung back respectfully. So did Scarlett.
At the door, Vin glanced back at them, then set his jaw. He reached for the brass knocker and banged it heavily against the wood. For some moments, no one answered.
Then the door was thrown open, and light and music from inside the villa poured out around them. Scarlett saw a dignified gray-haired man standing silhouetted in the doorway.
“Buona sera,” Vin began woodenly, then spoke words in Italian that she didn’t understand.
But she didn’t need to. He had barely spoken a sentence before the man in the doorway let out a gasp and, with a flood of Italian words, pulled Vin into his arms with a choked sob of joy.
* * *
Vin was furious.
He hadn’t wanted to come here. He felt manipulated, backed into a corner. Exactly how he’d promised himself he’d never feel again: like someone else’s puppet, under their control.
But Scarlett had made her threat clear, with her pointed insinuation, twisting her engagement ring, that she might change her mind about their marriage if he didn’t do this. He’d barely contained his fury during their drive up the cypress-lined road. This was the thanks he received for striving to take good care of his pregnant soon-to-be wife, letting her have her way in everything? It still wasn’t enough? Now Scarlett wanted to put her spoon into his heart and stir?
He hated her for this. Up till the very moment when he’d banged on the door.
Vin had been prepared for a servant to answer, or someone he didn’t know, as there seemed to be a party. But he instantly recognized the man in the doorway.
Giuseppe Borgia had aged twenty years, with more lines on his skin and gray in his hair. But he’d known him. His father.
No. The man Vin had believed to be his father for his entire childhood. The man whose heart would be broken if he ever knew the truth.
The last time they’d seen each other, at his mother’s funeral, Vin had been hostile and cold. Nothing like he’d been the week before, during the happy Christmas he’d stayed at this very villa, believing he’d found a place to call home and a real family who loved him.
But when he’d returned to Rome after Christmas and asked his mother if he could permanently live with his father, she’d barked out a cruel laugh.
“You’re not even Giuseppe’s son,” Bianca Orsini had said. She’d taken a long drag off her cigarette. “It’s time you knew. I got pregnant after a one-night stand with a musician I met in a bar in Rio.” She smiled her brittle, hollow smile. “But I needed Giuseppe’s money. So I lied.”
“I have to tell him,” Vin had choked out.
“Do it, and for reward, he’ll just stop loving you.” Her fingers tightened around the shrinking cigarette. “Did you really think I’d let you go live with him and that British woman and give up my only source of income?”
Ironically, Bianca hadn’t needed that income for long. She’d died a few days later, when, while distracting her current boyfriend with caresses of an intimate nature—at least that was what the police believed—she’d caused him to accidentally swerve his convertible off a cliff, killing them both.
Vin had barely been able to face Giuseppe and Joanne at the funeral a few days later. They’d tried to hug him, to console him, telling him to pack up and come home with them. But he’d known if they realized he wasn’t really Giuseppe’s child, how quickly they would have given him up. Especially since they had their own child, an adorable little girl of four, who actually deserved their love.
He couldn’t wait around for them to reject him. Better that he do it first. So he’d gone to live with his mother’s brother in New York, a lawyer who worked eighty-hour weeks and had little to offer his grieving, lonely nephew except his example as a workaholic.
Now Vin stared at Giuseppe in the doorway of the villa. The man he’d once believed to be his father, whose hair had since gone gray. They’d both changed so much over twenty years. Would Giuseppe even recognize him now?
“Good evening,” Vin said haltingly in his native Italian. The language tasted rusty on his lips. “I apologize for the interruption. I’m not sure you’ll recognize me—”
Giuseppe’s lips parted. Then his eyes suddenly shone with tears.
“Vincenzo,” he choked out. “My boy, my boy—you’ve come home at last!”
The old man’s arms went around him, and he felt the force of his father’s sobs. A stab went through Vin’s frozen heart, as if it had painfully started beating again.
Giuseppe pulled back, wiping his eyes, and called out loudly in Italian. Suddenly there were more people at the door, including two dark-haired women, one young, the other older, both pretty and smiling.
His stepmother, Joanne, and...could that be his sister, Maria, now a young woman of twenty-four? They both hugged him with cries of joy, and Giuseppe, weeping openly, hugged all three of them in his vast arms.
Vin blinked fast, feeling like his soul was peeling.
His father. His family. He longed to love them again. But he didn’t have the right. And if they ever knew the truth, their love would evaporate.
“But who’s this?” Giuseppe said in Italian, looking past Vin’s ear. He saw Scarlett fidgeting shyly behind him in the gravel driveway. Heavily pregnant and
still in the same casual khakis and jacket she’d worn in Gstaad, she looked incredibly beautiful, with her red hair, chewing her pink lower lip, her green eyes uncertain.
Vin took her hand.
“This is Scarlett, Papà,” he said quietly in the same language. “She’s carrying my child and we’re going to be wed.”
His father gasped, and all the new people now flooding around them—only a few of whom he confusedly recognized—immediately began crying out their welcome and approbation.
“You brought her home to meet us?” Reaching out, Giuseppe patted her cheek.
Vin said drily, “She insisted.”
“Then she is already beloved by me,” the old man said.
“Scarlett doesn’t speak Italian.”
He smiled. “She understands.” And indeed, she had a bright, joyful smile as she looked between him and Giuseppe. She thought she’d brought Vin and his father back together.
If only it was the truth. If only it were even possible.
But in this moment, surrounded on all sides by love, Vin could not fight it. He pushed away his shame about the lie. As the Borgias whisked them into the villa, it was easier to just pretend, for just a short while, that he really was their long-lost son, their long-lost brother. Easier to pretend he was actually deserving of their love and care.
“You came to my engagement party!” His dark-haired young sister said happily, slipping her arm around his as she led him through the grand hall toward the courtyard outside. “You have made this a party to remember!”
“You are engaged, Maria?” he said incredulously. “You were a toddler last time I saw you! Do you even remember me?”
Her smile broadened. “I confess my memory is not perfect, but I know you from your picture.” Her smile faded. “Our father often cried over it.”
“Maria...”
“But all is forgiven now you are here.” Brightening, she motioned across the decorated courtyard, her eyes sparkling. “That is my fiancé, Luca.”
Luca barely looked old enough to be out of college, Vin thought. Or maybe he himself was just old. Outside of Manhattan most people did not wait until they were thirty-five to be wed. And even in New York, no one waited that long to fall in love.
