by Caro LaFever
He stalked back to his steel-and-glass desk and sat.
Scanned his emails.
Stared at the computer screen.
His concern was merely for the company. Lise Helton was an important part of running this place. Important only for a few more months until he consolidated his power and control, and managed to wrench her loyal minions entirely from her grasp. Once he had accomplished this, Ms. Helton would be redundant. He’d planned the final confrontation down to the actual words he would use as he let her go. He’d dreamed about it, relished it during the last few weeks as his rage and guilt had swirled inside.
Vico tapped an answer to one email, then another.
She now resembled a ghost—wispy and white. A waif instead of the warrior he’d first met. Her eyes were hollow, although they continued to glare at him in their meetings. Yet he sensed it was a token fight. This ugly, unwanted connection between them told him clearly: she didn’t care about the company and the direction he took it. Not with the consuming zeal she had before.
He snapped off his computer and leaned back in his black leather chair.
The flu? After all this time?
Unlikely.
The tiny clutch in his gut, the one he’d been ignoring for two weeks, flared again. He knew it wasn’t an ulcer. He knew it was the old alert, the one he’d relied on to keep him alive and safe on the streets of Naples. The one he trusted when he decided what company to buy.
His gut told him this wasn’t the flu, this wasn’t a migraine, and this couldn’t be only emotional upheaval.
But what could he do about it? Ask for her doctor’s report? He didn’t think that was legal. Demand she take some time off? She still did her job well, so he’d have a hard time enforcing that, too. Insist she confide her thoughts and feelings to him? Insist she tell him the truth?
He snorted at the absurdity of the idea.
His phone buzzed.
Glancing at it, he let out a sigh. Family. He never ignored his family. Not now.
“Chiara.”
His sister bubbled. “Vico, you’ll never guess—”
Her words poured forth, needing no assistance or response from him. Leaning back even farther in his chair, he stared at the ceiling.
“Then, Momma and I went over to—”
Lise Helton was an emotional wreck, true. The clutch in his gut twisted. But maybe she was something more.
“So obviously we had to find—”
He had to do something. Had to find out for sure.
“Momma was sure you’d agree—”
The hard, hot clutch in his gut scorched the edges of his shame and fury.
“Vico?”
His sister’s voice tugged him back. “Si?”
“What’s wrong?”
What was it about women? Why did they immediately assume if a male went quiet, something was wrong? Why did they have the damn uncanny ability to know when there was something wrong?
“Not a thing.”
“Vico…”
The way she dragged out his name told him the story. He’d have to give her something or she’d never stop coming at him. And he knew for certain it wouldn’t be exclusively his sister. His close, loving family would be informed; something was wrong with Vico. Which would result in a flurry of phone calls, appeals to come home to Italy, threats of visits.
“I have an employee who is sick, that is all.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Chiara was a trained nurse, but what if the only thing Lise Helton needed was emotional and psychological help? He might very well be blowing this all out of proportion and jumping to wild conclusions.
His gut twisted.
“Vico?”
“It’s nothing, Chi.”
“Don’t give me your usual brushoff. You’re always, always helping me.”
“I’m not—”
“First with my schooling. Then with my wedding. Now with the new house.”
“Chi—”
“Let me help you this one time.” Her voice filled with determination. “You owe me a chance to pay you back.”
He owed her, the whole family, much, much more. He owed them for their forgiveness for something that really was unforgivable. He owed them for standing by him when no sane family would have. Giving his sister this information, he supposed, was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
He sighed. “She’s been sick for weeks.”
“She?”
“My employee,” he said with sharp inflection. He wanted to stamp out the tiny hint of interest in his sister’s voice immediately. For the last several years, his whole family had been yapping at him to settle down, to find a wife, to give his momma what she most dearly wanted—his babies. In fact, at his last visit only months ago, his momma had assured him with a grave face she would never be fully happy until she held his child in her arms.
His gut flipped completely over. He would be an abysmal failure as a father.
“What are this employee’s symptoms?”
His brain began to pound with the possibility. Bam. Bam. Bam—his heart took on the beat. He tried to push the pounding, the bam-bam-bam, the clutch in his gut all away.
This couldn’t be. No.
He was only thirty-one and he was having too much fun. The tabloid tales were, of course, ridiculous, pure exaggeration. Sure, he enjoyed the ladies, why shouldn’t he? But the number of women in the photos ending up in his bed were few. He’d certainly had his share of relationships, but he’d never been promiscuous. In fact, he was fairly careful and thoughtful before embarking on a sexual relationship.
Except for that one night.
His gut twirled, his heart slammed, his head exploded.
“Vico?”
“She said it’s the flu,” he choked.
“No flu goes on for weeks and weeks,” Chi said. “Has she gone to the doctor?”
“Si. She told me the diagnosis was the flu.”
“You’ve discussed this with her? How interesting.”
“She’s an important part of my staff. It was reasonable to discuss this with her.” Reasonable wasn’t what he felt right now. A slick line of sweat ran down his back.
“Tell me her symptoms.”
“White as a ghost. Trouble with her balance. I believe quite a bit of nausea, if all the rumors running around are true.” As soon as he rattled off the list, his gut roared, the clutch of concern turning into ripe reality.
“I’ll bet she’s pregnant.”
The final words, words already forming in his brain, sent a blast of adrenaline up his spine. He shot out of his chair and his hand tightened on the phone. Grasping for anything, any excuse, he instinctively rejected the new realization hardening like a stone in his stomach. “Not a chance.”
“Are you sure?” Chi’s voice became avid with interest. “How would you know?”
Unprotected sex. Almost three months ago.
“Vico?”
His head went dizzy and for a moment, he thought he might faint.
“I’ve got to go,” he muttered and clicked the phone off.
The phone lines in Naples were going to explode. But he couldn’t think about that right now. Not now.
Pregnant. Pregnant.
Lise Helton pregnant.
He took in a deep breath. His brain snapped into gear. If this was true, it was probably her fiancé’s. Her ex-fiancé’s.
Probably.
Which would explain the tears his PA saw when she’d delivered a report to Lise’s office and caught Ms. Helton unaware. When Sally had mentioned it to him, with a worried look, he’d thought the guilt roiling inside him would surely scream to life and gorge on his remaining conscience. It had and still did. Along with another unnamed emotion roiling and burning in his gut. The one he had no intention of defining or describing. Or confronting.
Crying over the man she’d loved and lost. Because of him.
He prowled to the window and stared down blankly at the traffic.
&
nbsp; Lise Helton pregnant?
His mind boggled. And rejected.
No, not that cool, contained woman. Not his CFO, who was preternaturally organized to the point of obsession. Not Lise Helton of the endless lists, with such annoying attention to every last detail she drove him mad.
Not her.
She must be on some kind of birth control. He’d taken it for granted when he’d thought about not using a condom. He’d consoled himself with the knowledge. Excused himself from the guilt. Almost.
Also, if she was actually pregnant and she didn’t want the baby, she would have the cold nerves of steel to get rid of it. Wouldn’t she?
Get rid of the baby? Potentially my baby?
The thought splintered his soul into a million pieces. Before he could catch the pieces and put them back into order, Vico found himself stalking down the hallway towards her office. The place she’d made clear was off limits to him. Her PA glanced over and gave him a tentative smile which turned into a look of astonishment when he strode past her and right to the damned woman’s closed door without a by-your-leave.
To hell with it.
This was his office. His territory, not hers. Her sensibilities be damned.
The door flew open and crashed against the wall.
Lise Helton’s head jerked upright at the sound, and at the sight of him looming in her doorway her eyes instantly chilled. “Get out,” she said with cutting precision.
“No.” He stepped in and slammed the door closed behind him.
She appeared as fragile and delicate as a snowflake. Her skin was as pale as an eggshell, her eyes as ice blue as the coldest winter day. Yet she held herself like a queen looking down on her lowliest subject.
A hush settled. His breath came hot and fast. She didn’t appear to even breathe.
“What do you want?” She finally broke the silence.
“You’re still sick.”
A blonde brow arched. “You came charging into my office like a lunatic to make this statement? Are you mad?”
“You look like you have one foot in the grave.”
She merely stared down her nose at him.
“You throw up all the time.”
“Really?” she mocked, but a flush of heated color came to her cheeks. “Have you been lurking in the women’s lavatory, Mr. Mattare?”
Her scorn and condescension irked him. It wouldn’t deter him from his mission, though. “I bet you have lost almost a stone in weight.”
Her eyes flashed. “Are you crazy? You have no right to look me over and make such a statement.”
“Are you pregnant?” His words shot out into the room, a blast of emotion, a tidal wave of fear and anger and yearning mixed with guilt and agony and wonder.
She stared at him in horror, the color in her face leeching away.
The hush expanded, grew, magnified. A silence hung between them like the stillness before a wicked, wild, volcanic explosion.
“Yes.”
The turmoil in his gut threatened to pull him into a pit of indescribable pain and hope.
“Is it mine?” His words were harsh, hoarse.
Her eyes widened into two pools of bluest blue. For a moment, for a single moment he thought he saw something, something…something…
“No,” she snapped, as her eyes frosted below her frown. “Of course not.”
Was it possible to feel his heart crash to the bottom of his feet? “Of course not?” he managed to sling at her. “We had unprotected sex—”
“Once.” Her eyes became daggers of ice.
“Once is all it—”
“It’s Robert’s,” she stated with her usual complete decisiveness.
Was his heart still beating in his toes? Or was the pulse pounding in his head all rage and jealousy and—
Vico ripped his brain back into reality.
He should be happy about this. Gloriously relieved. The baby wasn’t his. Certainly not. He should be jumping down the hall high-fiving the staff.
Yet the guilt at what he’d done to her, done to the child, lunged and roared and devoured any relief he might have enjoyed. “Does the father know?” The unwanted jealousy roiled inside. “Are you getting back together?”
Lise Helton stood with cool poise. She calmly walked around the desk and over to him. Staring straight into his eyes, she gave him a look of haughty rejection. “As I’ve said before,” she spat. “It's none of your damn business.”
His arms folded in front of him. He threw on a cocky smile. “I do remember those words being said before.”
She stared down her nose at him with complete disdain. “Then perhaps you’ll remember these words also.”
He forced the smile to grow wider even though he shook inside.
“Get out.”
* * *
She’d lied again.
Shame curled around her. Lying had become a habit with Vico Mattare.
She looked across the boardroom table and straight into his eyes. The eyes that never seemed to leave her whenever she, unfortunately, had to be in his company. Somehow, she’d grown unwillingly entranced with his tiger eyes. The gold mixed with green mixed with brown. A person might describe them as hazel, still there was a focus in them, a predatory intensity that made her think of a cat ready to pounce.
On her.
However, he hadn’t approached her or talked with her since their last confrontation a week ago. He’d shot her his usual stupid, arrogant grin and walked right out of her office after she’d spat those words at him and hadn’t come near her again.
A rude demand. An offensive ultimatum. A complete lie.
She’d been ashamed of herself. Not only for the lie, but her unladylike demeanor. If her mother had seen her, she would have fainted on the spot. In her defense, he’d surprised her. Jumped on her before she could get her wits together. Add in the fact he always brought out the worst in her, the loss of temper was understandable.
“Do you agree, Ms. Helton?” His voice was bland, yet she heard the coil of vindictiveness in his tone.
“No,” she bit out. “Does it matter?”
The other board members mumbled and shuffled their papers. The tiger at the end of the table smiled his charming grin. “No,” he replied.
The vote was a fait accompli. Like all the other votes being held lately.
Lise stared at the agenda in front of her and tried to inflate the usual outrage. She tried to find the willpower to make an objection, throw obstacles in his way. Ruddy hell, a few months ago, she would have had a list of reasons why it wasn’t going to work, why his plans were a farce.
She could tell herself it was just the pregnancy, her lack of energy, that stopped her. But it wasn’t, was it?
Be honest with yourself, Lise.
During the last three months, as he’d mesmerized her staff into implementing the changes he’d ruthlessly pushed through the board, she’d had to acknowledge the projections she’d dismissed as con games were, in reality, correct. The company, her company, was coming to life under the direction and guidance of Vico Mattare. Even in her miserable state, she sensed the rebounding of excitement, the rise of optimism in the corridors. The pulse of energy which emanated from his corner office and enthralled everyone in the building.
Hannah had been right. Worse, Vico Mattare had been right.
Such a stunning realization was enough to make a girl cry. Which she did routinely. But not about him, not in the least.
Hormones. Only hormones.
Her presumption he’d grow bored and walk away, leaving her to clean up the mess of her company was unmistakably not in the cards. Quite the opposite. As his changes were implemented, the tiger had become even more interested and focused on every aspect of her company. No department was left as is. No decision was left unmade. No direction was ever withheld. He hadn’t gallivanted off to the nearest beach intent on pleasure. Instead, he’d made it to work every day before she could drag herself in, and proceeded to plow through more work
in one hour than any other person could do in a week.
It burned. It really burned her pride.
Of course, he still showed his true stripes in his nightly activities. The activities the tabloids slavishly documented. She’d seen the pictures, the endless photos of him with a bevy of ladies, an endless variety of completely idiotic women gazing at him as if he were some god. Her one night of illicit passion with him hadn’t made a dent in his prodigious sexual appetites. She was one of a thousand—a million—notches on his bed.
This also burned, burned in her eyes.
Hormones. Nothing else.
“Ms. Helton.” The sex addict gave her another of his fake smiles. “Would you be kind enough to present the current financials to the board now?”
The financials showing he’d been right. She’d been wrong.
How it must please him to no end to have her report his triumph. She bet he jumped up and down in the privacy of his office every time he had a chance to stomp on her pride.
She lifted her chin, shot him a cool glare, and began the presentation.
He didn’t matter.
All that mattered was the baby.
A baby she’d become worried about. Instead of poring over financial statements when she got home, she now spent her time reading about babies. Prenatal, postnatal, vitamins, exercise. Every one of the books had told her most women stopped being sick after their first trimester.
Was there something wrong?
Suz assured her there wasn’t anything wrong. She should know after going through six of her sister’s pregnancies. Yet she’d cheerfully accompanied Lise to the doctor yesterday and waited patiently as her compulsive, obsessive friend peppered the patient physician with questions.
There was nothing wrong, the doctor echoed Suz. You only need to relax more.
Relax more?
Relax when her mother kept ranting and raving about the broken engagement? Relax when she still had the odorous chore of telling her mother she was going to have a baby and be a single mom? Relax when she had a job she had to keep, but felt like every moment she was under surveillance?
“Thank you, Ms. Helton,” the bane of her existence said smoothly. “Very thorough and also very encouraging.”
She glanced up to meet his smile. Behind it lurked both hate and pleasure at her defeat.
