Nicolo: The Powerful Sicilian

by Sandra Marton

  Enough was enough. It was time to get his life back. See a lawyer. Discuss his choices. Legal separation. Divorce. The ways in which they would affect his demand for custody when his child was born because, without question, he would demand it.

  He would not permit his son or daughter to be raised five thousand miles away by a woman with the same duplicitous morals of her fifteenth-century ancestors. She was not fit to be a mother. What he saw now…what he thought he saw now—her changed diet, the hand over the belly, even the tears he’d thought had glittered in her eyes during that sonogram—

  Lies, all of it. But then, lies were her specialty.

  Okay. He needed to make an appointment with an attorney. Not the ones Orsini Brothers retained, not until he told his brothers about Alessia, and then he’d have to let the entire clan in on his secret and he could imagine what a mess that was bound to—

  His intercom light blinked. His PA was calling. Never mind. Whatever she wanted could wait. But the light kept blinking and finally Nick cursed and reached for the phone. Even as he did, the door burst open and his sisters, Anna and Isabella, marched into the room.

  Nick forced a smile.

  “Hey, girls. I’m glad to see you, but it’s polite to wait until—”

  “We are not ‘girls,’” Izzy said, in a tone that dropped the temperature fifty degrees. “We are women.”

  “Yeah. Right. I only meant—”

  “But then, what do you know about women?” Anna said, eyes cold as ice.

  “Listen,” Nick said, “whatever this is, I’m not—”

  “What in the bloody, holy hell do you mean by getting married and then hiding the marriage and your wife from the rest of us?”

  Nick blanched. He looked past his sisters, saw his PA just behind them, saw her mouth fall open.

  Say something, he thought furiously. But his mind was blank.

  Instead, he strode past both Anna and Izzy. “No calls,” he barked, ushering his PA out the door and slamming it after her.

  “Nick,” Izzy said, “we want an answer.”

  Izzy, normally as sweet and gentle as the flowers she loved to nurture, looked as if she wanted to slug him. Anna was breathing fire as only she could. He had a quick flash to what she’d been like as a teenager, how she’d dyed her pale blond hair black, painted her nails black, dressed in black, wore black lipstick, how she’d stood up to her brothers’ teasing, their mother’s hand-wringing and, most impressively, their father’s fury…

  “Are you deaf?” she snapped. “We were just at your place. We saw her. And we want to know—”

  “What were you doing,” Nick demanded, narrowing his eyes, “snooping around in my place?”

  “Oh, that’s perfect!” Izzy laughed with disdain. “He’s going to try and lay the blame on us—but what else can you expect from a man?”

  “Listen here, you two—”

  “No,” Anna said, tossing her blond hair out of her eyes and pointing an accusatory finger at his chest, “you listen! You are married. You have a wife. And you’re expecting a baby.”

  Nick glared back. Then he let out a groan, went behind his desk and sank into his swivel chair.

  “Yes.”

  His sisters looked at each other. Anna snorted. Izzy shook her head.

  “And when,” she said, “when, exactly, were you going to let the rest of the world know?”

  Nick gave a strangled laugh. “I don’t know. After the baby’s born. After my divorce.” He looked up, laughter gone, jaw flexing with tension. “Now, what were you doing at my condo?”

  “We met for lunch,” Isabella said. “And Anna remembered you had something for her at your place.”

  Nick looked blank. Anna rolled her eyes.

  “I’m taking tort law this semester, remember? The day of Falco’s wedding, you promised you’d give me the legal analysis from that French deal you did last year—you said you had it in your home office and if you didn’t remember to courier it to me, I could just stop by if I was in the neighborhood and get it myself, but I got busy and forgot about it until now and—”

  “And,” Isabella said impatiently, “we were having lunch a couple of blocks from your condo, and Anna thought of that file. So, she phoned to make sure your housekeeper was in, a woman answered—”

  “A woman answers,” Anna said, picking up the story, “and I say, ‘Hi, this is Anna Orsini,’ and she says, ‘Who?’ and I say, ‘Anna, Nick’s sister, who’s this?’ and she says, ‘This is his wife,’ and then she bursts into tears!”

  “Merda,” Nick said, and instead of yelling at him again, his sisters saw the misery in their brother’s face, looked at each other and went around the desk. They squatted beside him and each clasped one of his hands.

  “Nicky,” Izzy said softly, “tell us what happened.”

  So he told them. Everything.

  Almost everything.

  He left out the part about the pain lodged deep within his heart because he’d barely begun to admit that to himself. Why should a man’s heart ache over a woman who was a cheat and a liar?

  But he told them all the rest. How he’d thought Alessia was an honest, good woman. How he’d discovered, by accident, that she wasn’t. That she had lured him into doing what her father had wanted, lured him into more than that, into having to marry her…

  They listened.

  That had always been the thing about his sisters. They both knew how to listen. They never sat in judgment. Anna, maybe because she’d been judged too many times in her black hair/black nails/black clothes/black lipstick days; Isabella, maybe because from childhood on, she’d given herself over to nurturing things that nobody else thought could be saved. They listened, and when he finally stopped talking, they sighed.

  “You want my third-year, almost-ready-to-graduate-from-NYU-law-school-and-pass-the-bar, legal-eagle opinion?” Anna asked. Nick nodded, and she sighed again.

  “You’re screwed.”

  Nick looked at her. For the first time in weeks, in what felt like centuries, he laughed. Really, really laughed.

  “That’s your legal-eagle opinion? I hate to tell you this, kid, but if it is, you’re not ready for that bar exam.”

  “You’re screwed,” his sister said softly, “because you’re in love with your wife.”

  Nick snatched his hand from hers. “No way!”

  “You’re in love with her, Nicky,” Isabella said, “and she’s in love with you, and unless one of you comes to your senses, you’re going to toss away a really good thing.”

  Nick jerked his hand from hers, too. A muscle knotted in his jaw.

  “You don’t get it,” he said coldly. “Alessia Antoninni—the Princess Antoninni—is one hell of an actress. Just because she saw her chance to play another scene in this farce, just because she told you she loves me—”

  Anna stood up. “What she told us was that she despises you. That you’re the most pigheaded, most stubborn, most impossible idiot she’s ever met.”

  Nick smiled grimly. “Sure sounds like a declaration of love to me.”

  Isabella got to her feet, too. “Did you ever ask her to explain that conversation you overheard?”

  “And hear another lie?” Nick hesitated. “Why? Did she explain it to you?”

  “She didn’t explain anything. She didn’t tell us anything. She only said she hated you. And, Nicky, trust us. When a woman says she hates a guy the way Alessia said she hates you, what she’s really saying is that she’s crazy in love with him.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Nick said, but something inside him seemed to stretch its wings. “She doesn’t love me. And I don’t love her. Once she’s had my baby—”

  “Nick,” Anna said gently, “go home. Talk to your wife. Ask her to tell you what she feels about you.”

  “It’s pointless.”

  Isabella smiled. So did Anna. It crossed Nick’s mind that they were right, they weren’t girls anymore.

  “If it is,” Anna said, �
��I know a really terrific almost-attorney who’ll handle the divorce, cheap.”

  They blew him kisses, and then they were gone.

  Nick’s PA left.

  His brothers hadn’t been in at all that day. It was a Friday and all three had been out of town on business. They were back; Rafe and Dante had called a couple of hours ago, Falco had phoned minutes after that. All had left the same message. They’d be at The Bar at seven this evening, an old Friday-night habit, one they’d kept though they no longer stayed there longer than a couple of hours.

  Nick considered stopping by for a beer. Anything to clear his head of the nonsense Anna had put into it.

  No. Bad idea.

  He’d tried that last week, figuring maybe it would keep him from thinking about Alessia. His brothers had spent the first hour talking about their wives and the second asking him how come he was so quiet lately and wasn’t there anything new in his life?

  Not a hell of a lot, he’d been tempted to say, just a wife I don’t trust, a kid I didn’t plan on…

  No. He was not going to drop into The Bar.

  He wasn’t going to try and have a conversation with his wife, either—and he had to stop thinking of her that way. Alessia was no more his wife than she was the sweet, innocent, loving woman he’d believed her to be, he thought as he stepped from a cab outside his Central Park West condominium building.

  She was exactly the cold, scheming daughter of the aristocracy he’d initially assumed her to be, and it was time to deal with reality.

  Tomorrow, he’d ask a friend to recommend an attorney, meet with the guy and get his advice on how to safeguard himself and his unborn child when he divorced Alessia, which he would do as soon as the baby arrived. She could go home to Daddy or stay in the States. He’d support her; he knew his responsibilities. But his kid would be his. Entirely his. And if he had to fight for custody—

  “Good evening, Mr. Orsini.”

  Cheerful chitchat with the doorman. It was the last thing he was in the mood for.

  “George,” Nick said, and started past the man.

  “I hope you don’t mind my asking…”

  “Asking what?”

  “If everything’s okay, sir. With Mrs. Orsini.”

  Okay. George was the only other person, aside from the ob-gyn and his sisters, who knew there was a Mrs. Orsini….

  Wait a minute.

  Nick stood absolutely still. Then he turned toward the doorman.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  George hesitated. “Well, I just thought—I mean, I’m not prying, sir, it’s just she asked me about the nearest hospital when I hailed the cab for her and—”

  “Where?” Nick’s voice was rough with urgency. “Where did you tell her to go?”

  “I suggested she go to Mount Sinai. I know it’s not the closest but—”

  Nick was already on his way.

  Friday nights were not the best time to be in an emergency room. The place was full of drunks and dopers and people clutching jaws and elbows and looking as if they were on their last breath.

  Alessia wasn’t among them.

  It took Nick ten minutes to find a nurse who might know something, but only two to convince her that he would take the place apart unless she told him where he could find his wife.

  Alessia had come in half an hour before, bleeding vaginally. She’d given her ob-gyn’s name. The admitting nurse knew the man, knew he had staff privileges. She’d called him and he was with Alessia now, in a private room, and if Mr. Orsini would just take a seat in the waiting room…

  Nick ran for the elevator, knew he’d never have the patience to wait and took the fire stairs. By the time he reached the right floor, found the right room, he was breathing hard.

  Breathing hard and scared as he had never been in his life, not in combat, not in clandestine ops, not in anything. His wife, his wife, was behind the door ahead of him. His wife, whom he loved with all his heart, all his soul, with everything he was or ever would be…

  He dragged in a deep breath. Knocked. Turned the doorknob…

  And saw his princess, pale and forlorn-looking, in an ugly hospital gown that only made her more beautiful, in a hospital bed that seemed to dwarf her.

  “Alessia,” he whispered.

  She turned her face toward him. Her eyes lit—and then the light in them dimmed.

  “Nicolo,” she said. “How did you—”

  He hurried to her side, grasped her cold hand in his, brought it to his lips. “What happened? Are you all right? Where’s the doctor? Why didn’t you call me?”

  Despite the heaviness in her heart, Nicolo’s rushed questions made Alessia smile.

  “I am fine, Nicolo. The doctor stepped out for a moment. As for why I didn’t call you…” Her smile faded. “I met your sisters today.” Her voice dropped to a choked whisper. “And—and I found out that you have not told anyone about me. About us. About the baby. And I knew then that any hope I had that you would someday want me, love me—”

  Nick silenced her the only way that mattered. He kissed her. Softly. Tenderly. The sweetness of her taste filled him.

  “Alessia, sweetheart…I love you with all my heart. I’ll always love you.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “You don’t. You are only saying it because—”

  “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  Alessia shook her head. “You say it because of this. The emergency. It has made you think you love me but—”

  “I love you, princess. I adore you. I was just too damned stupid to see it, or maybe too scared to put my heart in your hands.”

  Her eyes searched his. Some of the sadness in their blue depths seemed to fade. Nick felt his heart lift.

  “Oh, Nicolo,” she whispered, “I love you so much! If you knew how I have longed to hear you say that you love me, too…”

  “I’m going to say it every day for the rest of our lives, baby, if you’ll forgive me for having been such a fool all these weeks.”

  “I was the fool. I should have explained everything, but—”

  “We need to talk. I know that.” Nick lifted his wife’s hands to his lips and kissed them. “But first tell me what happened today. What did the doctor say?”

  “The baby is fine.”

  “Good. That’s great. But you. Are you all right? Because—because I can’t—I can’t lose you, sweetheart. Do you understand? You’re my world, my heart, my life.”

  His wife’s smile was the most beautiful sight imaginable. “As you are mine, Nicolo. And I am fine. The doctor says I only need a few days rest.”

  Nick let out a pent-up breath, tilted Alessia’s face to his and kissed her.

  “Can you ever forgive me? When I think of how I treated you, of what I so stupidly believed—”

  “No, no, it is my fault, too. I should have told you about…” Alessia took a deep breath. “My father had threatened to remove my mother from the sanatorio unless I met with you. But the rest—what I came to feel for you, it was all true. I fell in love with you, Nicolo, so deeply in love that I forgot to ask what he had done about my mother. The conversation you overheard was about her future. I was trying to find a way to be sure he could never hurt her again—”

  “He won’t,” Nick said, with such stern determination that Alessia knew his words were a promise. “I’ll see to it your mother is always happy and well-cared for.”

  “You are a good man, Nicolo Orsini,” she said softly. “I know you cannot be what—what I believed you to be.”

  “A thug?” Nick smiled as he gathered his wife in his arms. “It’s worse than that, sweetheart. I’m an investment banker.”

  She laughed, looped her arms around his neck and kissed him. After a long, long time, Nick drew back and framed her face with his hands.

  “Principessa. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  Alessia touched the tip of her index finger to her husband’s beautiful mouth. Her eyes were as bright as stars.
r />   “But we are already married.”

  “I want to marry you the right way.” He grinned. “A Sicilian wedding. The works. You know. The church. The reception. My brothers and their wives welcoming you to our family, my sisters driving you nuts, my mother sobbing because I’ve finally found the perfect sposa. You in a white wedding gown…and me in a tux that makes me look like something out of Madame Tussaud’s.”

  Alessia laughed again. It was, Nick thought, the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Smiling, he bent his head and laid his forehead against hers.

  “Is that a yes?”

  She kissed him.

  “It is, with all my heart, a ‘yes.’ Now, mio amante, per favore, take me home.”

  And, with joy filling his heart, Nick did.

  EPILOGUE

  SOFIA Orsini wept with joy at the news that her fourth son was taking a wife.

  The civil ceremony in Italy? It did not count. They would have a real wedding in the old-fashioned Greenwich Village church Sofia loved—the church she still thought of as being part of her beloved Little Italy. The reception would be in the conservatory of the Orsini mansion. Isabella would arrange for the flowers, Anna would deal with the menu, Chiara and Gabriella and Elle would take Alessia shopping for the perfect gown. Her veil would be the one her new motherin-law had worn so many years before.

  It would be, Sofia announced, a perfect day.

  And it was.

  Nick couldn’t seem to stop smiling. His brothers teased him about it, but then they herded him into a corner, hugged him, got teary-eyed—although, to a man, they’d have denied it—and told him how great it was to see him so happy.

  “Yeah,” Nick said, his smile becoming a grin, “well, you know, I couldn’t let you guys leave me in the dust.”

  Rafe, Dante, Falco and Nicolo all laughed. Alessia heard them, looked at her husband…

  The smile she gave him made him glow.

  She glowed, too. And everyone agreed that the small bump beneath the silk of her white bridal gown only added to her beauty.

  “I love your family, even your father, because he brought you into my life,” she told Nicolo later that afternoon, as they swayed together on the dance floor. “Your brothers are wonderful. So are their wives. And your sisters… Why are they not married?”