The Ultimate Revenge

by Victoria Parker - The Ultimate Revenge

  Carvalho out and about in Barcelona with a mystery blonde.

  Goldsmith heiress leaving the Fortuna mansion under cover. Hiding tears?

  Billionaire Nicandro Carvalho at his nightclub in Barcelona with a new playmate. Who could she be?

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed, her fingers fluttering over her mouth, the tears scorching the backs of her eyes making the hideous photograph of her and Nic distorted and blurred. She looked like a tramp. She looked like the whore her father had told her she was—and, goddammit, she felt like it!

  And that girl—the girl Nic was apparently marrying—looked genuinely devastated as ravenous newshounds circled her, ready to catch her fall on candid camera. Suddenly Pia was grateful for them, because she’d ignored the truth, convinced herself there was more between them. Instead she’d fallen under his spell, surrendered herself to him body and soul during his magnificent last act.

  Hadn’t she learned anything? Had the past taught her nothing? She was only good enough to use. Worthless for anything more.

  Pia slammed the laptop down, bolted upright, sending the chair screeching across the floor, and stormed through the living room, headed for his bedroom, furiously brushing at her tears because she would not cry in front of him—she would not.

  The shrill of her phone cast her to stone. The phone she’d been ignoring most of the night. Something she’d never, ever done before.

  She didn’t have to look at the caller. She didn’t have to greet Jovan or say a word. Because in that moment she might not know the why but she certainly knew the who.

  ‘Pia? Tell me you got my message—tell me you are not still with him.’

  Self-loathing so thick she almost choked on it. Humiliation so sharp she almost cut herself on it. Pain so powerful it almost crushed her bones. Heartbreak so shattering she could hear her soul weep.

  She could barely breathe for hating. Herself or Nicandro Carvalho, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Pia, are you there? I still cannot believe he is alive. I was there, Pia. At the Santos mansion. I was there! Where are you, dammit?’

  ‘In bed with the enemy. Am I not?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Eiffel Tower—Monday 6:00 p.m. Zeus will be there.

  THAT HAD BEEN her goodbye. The only lingering tangible evidence to prove she’d been in Barcelona at all and that Nic hadn’t lived a dream was the red samba dress, every shoe and scrap of clothing he’d ever gifted her and her black-velvet scent on his skin.

  Nic stepped out of the glass elevator on the top floor of the Eiffel Tower and walked to the railing, to stare unseeingly at the breathtaking architecture: the Arc de Triomphe, the Champ de Mars—on it went, along with the slow drift of the River Seine, everything that embodied Paris...the city of love.

  Knuckles white, he gripped the iron bar as the scathing wind whipped through his hair and pierced his skin with needles of ice. His thick black overcoat with the collar up failed dismally to keep him warm as the shadows of the past had him in a stranglehold.

  She’d seen the pictures splashed all over the news. She must have. All the damning articles about his upcoming marriage. A marriage he hadn’t even fully committed to. Yet. And the way he was feeling right now, Goldsmith could go to hell.

  Yeah, right, Nic. You want Santos Diamonds so badly you’d deal with the devil himself.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and raked his palm over the hard ridges of his aching stomach, trying to ease the pain of an all-encompassing sadness. One night with Pia and nothing looked the same. Pushing inside her had somehow been the most perfect, most important, most heartbreaking thing he’d ever done.

  He’d never pictured a world where his need for revenge would collide with his heart to mingle and smear together, distorting his views, until the future looked vague and devastating.

  ‘Hello, Nicandro.’

  His heart stopped.

  His first thought: she’d broken her written word. Zeus wasn’t coming.

  His second thought came hard on the heels of that, because deep down he knew Pia would never break her word. It was sacred to her. So when realisation hit his eyes sprang open to land on her statuesque frame—flaxen hair pinned back, designer powerhouse black suit, long cream cashmere coat, lips coated in armour, eyes glacially cold.

  The ice queen was back, and that was more devastating than the implications of what he faced.

  Had he been played all along? A first-class double-cross?

  Snippets of conversation, visions of business papers and the ultimate feminine power flashed through his mind and, like pieces of a complex conundrum, all slotted into place, fitted together to create a perfect picture of truth.

  Dios, he’d been so blind.

  The realisation grabbed him by the throat and he found he could barely speak past the iron fist. ‘Good evening, Olympia. Or should I say Zeus?’

  ‘You may call me anything you desire, Mr Carvalho, while I hear the truth.’

  He smiled ruefully as his entire world shifted beneath his feet. ‘Is Antonio Merisi dead?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  Thirteen years. Thirteen years of waiting for his chance to ensure Antonio Merisi felt even a tenth of the pain Nic or his avô or indeed his parents had felt gone with three little words and a contingency he’d never have considered in a million years. But why would he have when Zeus’s name still lingered on people’s lips?

  Olympia Merisi. Zeus.

  Nic was sure he should feel something. Anger. Rage. Hatred. The need to lash out and scream at the injustice of it all. Except his whole body was devoid of sensation. He was numb. Nic supposed the only saving grace was that the toxic wrangle of emotions Pia had left inside him had been numbed too.

  ‘He died of a heart attack four years ago. I now own and control his companies, as well as my own—and let’s not forget Q Virtus.’

  Knowing what was coming, he lifted his eyes to hers and locked on to those chips of ice.

  ‘Do I have you to thank for the revolt that has brought my club to its knees, Nicandro?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you manipulate the stocks and shares at Eros International?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you trying to annihilate my world, Nicandro?’

  ‘Yes.’ No point denying it. Every word was true. ‘Except it wasn’t your world, Pia. Not in my eyes.’

  ‘Oh, but I think it was. You knew I was inextricably linked, regardless. Let’s not open the doors to the past just yet. Let us pretend my father is here to answer for his sins. What have I ever done to you? What heinous crime could I have committed for you to take revenge on my body and on my world?’

  ‘Not you per se, Pia. This was not person—’

  ‘Do not tell me this was not personal, Nic.’ Fire had obliterated the ice in her eyes until they were a deep violet-blue. ‘You made it personal when your mouth touched mine. You made it personal when you held me down and took my body.’

  Closing his eyes, he swallowed. Hard. He wanted to deny it, but what good would that do? At the heart of the matter she was right. She was simply laying out the facts in all their stone-cold merciless glory. He could tell her he hadn’t known her at the start. He could tell her he’d fought with his conscience. But at the heart of the matter she was still right.

  ‘You’re right, of course. The moment I saw you, found out you were his daughter, my mind was set. Destroy him and take from you as he took from me.’

  ‘And what did my father take, Mr Santos?’

  ‘My entire world.’

  ‘Yet here you stand, a new man.’

  Right then he realised what she’d said. Santos. ‘How...?’

  ‘While I was falling into your deceitful practised arms Jovan was digging into your real world. I asked him to check out Santos Diamonds back in Zanzibar. The way you looked at me when I was wearing that necklace...with such vitriol...it wouldn’t leave me. Would you believe he actually lied to me too, that day? Something that will take me a
long time to get over.’

  She’d trusted Jovan implicitly. Had started to trust Nic. Then the bottom had fallen out of her world. So now here she stood, unable to trust a living soul.

  The implications of what had happened to her were hitting him as hard as the bullet that had pierced his back all those years ago.

  ‘He said he had no idea what had happened to Santos Diamonds. Turns out he was right there all along.’

  Nic frowned deeply. ‘At the house? No.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘I would have recognised him.’

  But would he have? Thirteen years was a long time to pass without any physical changes. Nic hadn’t had the greatest viewpoint of the room back in the Santos mansion, and what was more when they’d met in Zanzibar he’d been too busy fighting Othello’s green-eyed monster to see past Jovan’s relationship with Pia.

  ‘He was there. He thought you’d died that day.’

  Nic thought he’d heard a chink in her icy armour, but when he glanced over she wasn’t even looking his way and her cold façade remained unreadable, unreachable. Dios, it was heartbreaking. All her laughter, all her smiles, all that fire in her eyes and in her soul gone. Destroyed by him.

  Self-loathing sucked his throat dry. When had he become a man he barely recognised? The kind of man who would wreak his revenge on an innocent woman. Had the years of rage and resentment, the obsessive fixation on vengeance, left him so callous, so cold?

  ‘I know my father played dirty with yours. I know your parents died that day, and I am—’ Her voice did crack then, and he watched her throat convulse. ‘Truly sorry for your loss. For all of it. But that’s all I know—and considering Jovan was outside until almost the end that’s all I ever will know. You have my oath that I will not breathe a word. I only ask that you speak to Jovan for a moment or two. He was under orders to be there and retrieve the debt and I believe what happened has haunted him ever since. He would like to apologise, to explain...’

  Her voice didn’t just crack—it disintegrated.

  And why shouldn’t it?

  She’d just found out her father had been no more than a greedy, ruthless common crook. A man who’d sent his scapegoats to collect on a bet that he himself had rigged. All because he’d wanted Santos Diamonds. Nic would hazard a guess she didn’t even know he’d hailed from the Greek mafia. She was likely standing there wondering if she’d known her father at all. In the space of twenty-four hours Nic had betrayed her, her trust for Jovan had faltered and her father—the man she’d thought she’d known—had died another death in her heart. Was it any wonder she was frozen to the core?

  His body flooded with sensation, the agony returning fifty-fold and he reached for her, cupped her beautiful face. ‘Pia. Bonita, I am so sor—’

  She wrenched away, taking a large step back, and he watched her blink furiously. ‘Please don’t touch me. I don’t even know who you are.’ She bit down on her lips and closed those stunning violet-blue eyes for a beat or three. ‘I have no idea who I shared a bed with. What was deceit and what, if anything, was truth.’

  He could taste her misery in his heart and he wanted to choke on it. Could hardly speak past the lump in his throat. ‘Pia...please, let me explain.’

  ‘No, I... Jovan is waiting in a black limousine at the base of the Tower, if you’d like to speak to him, and I sincerely hope that you find happiness in your...’

  Her chest quaked, as if she was holding back a sob, and it tore at his heart.

  Then she whispered, ‘Goodbye, Nic.’

  Head high, she turned her back on him and walked away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DARKNESS HAD FALLEN over Paris.

  Glittering with dazzling promise, lit with elegant flair, the Eiffel Tower stood tall and magnificent, the perfect image from a romantic storybook, ignorant of the fact that Pia’s heart had shattered on its top floor.

  Suitcases stood by the door of her suite and Pia shoved the last of her business papers into her briefcase and pulled the zipper shut.

  If she’d thought the aftershocks of her last affair were bad, they were sugar-coated candy compared to this. This bone-deep sorrow. This heart-wrenching pain. This anger and self-hatred that simply wouldn’t cease.

  She’d been woefully unprepared for the chaos Nic was capable of unleashing, but as she’d torn down the walls and released all the terrifying implications it had become clear that Q Virtus was no more. Her one promise to her father and she’d failed to keep it.

  Pia collapsed on the sofa, surrounded by the caliginous gloom.

  Ah, yes, her father. The brilliant and unpredictable scion of a long line of Greek Godfather-wannabes. That is, phenomenally wealthy, untouchable criminals.

  And she hadn’t known a damn thing.

  How could that be? Yes, he’d been cold, hard, but she’d honestly thought he’d been honourable at his core. He’d taken her in, saved her life, and she’d spent years desperately trying to repay him and earn his pride. Such an arduous pursuit—because nothing she’d achieved, no amount of money she’d amassed, had been good enough. She’d still felt dirty, tainted. And right now that made her furious. How dared he call her trash when he’d lived such a life? At least she had honour, integrity. Wasn’t that worth more than dollar signs?

  A hard rap at the door yanked her from her ugly pity-fest and she shoved her arms into her coat, picked up her briefcase and went to catch her flight.

  In swung the door and Pia swayed on her feet. Had to do a double-take in case her traitorous imagination had conjured him up from her basest fantasies.

  No. He was here. At her door. In all his dark, brooding glory, wearing the same black overcoat and the same depth of pain in his eyes.

  He seemed so tired. A profound exhaustion of the soul.

  It shattered her heart all over again.

  She’d never given a thought to the possibility that Nicandro Carvalho could be so damaged. His polish was usually so brilliant and bright; he shone like a guiding star. But now the gloss was rubbed away it had left something so marred and cold she could plainly see the evidence of his mortality in the rigid lines of his body, and it all made a bittersweet kind of sense.

  Pia wanted to take him in her arms, stroke his hair and soothe his pain. A glutton for punishment, clearly. All along she’d been a means to an end. She’d let a man use her, play her, for the second and final time in her life.

  Lifting her chin in the face of adversity, she found her voice. ‘What are you doing here, Nic? I couldn’t possibly have anything else you desire.’

  Had he even wanted her in the first place? She had no idea. It had all seemed so real. She still couldn’t believe how hard and fast she’d fallen under his spell.

  ‘Can I come in for a few minutes, Pia?’

  When she hesitated he begged her with his eyes.

  ‘Please let me speak to you, querida. I need to explain. About Goldsmith too—you deserve at least that from me.’

  Yes. Yes she did.

  Leaving the door open, she walked through to the living area, leaned against the vast plate glass windows and crossed her arms to stop herself from reaching out, begging to be held, for him to take the pain and emptiness away. And what did that say about her? Not anything she remotely liked.

  Through the shadows she watched him enter the room, his footsteps hesitant, vague, as if he was no longer sure of his place in the world. She guessed that might happen to a man who’d been so driven for thirteen years, only to have the rug pulled from beneath his feet at the final hour.

  Pia hated her father right then. For ruining Nic’s life. Stealing his parents, his dreams. All she had to do was remember the utter joy on his face at that boutique, playing ball with that gorgeous little boy, and she wanted to cry all over again.

  Nic mirrored her position a few feet in front of her and leaned against the table.

  ‘Q Virtus,’ he said decisively, and it was the very last thing she’d expected.

  ‘Ah, yes. The rumour
s leading to its downfall. Mostly true I would say—wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but unless we do something the club will fall. You must know that.’

  ‘Of course I do, Nic. You’ve made it so that the members no longer trust me—and they have no idea who I even am.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the answer, Pia. You have to show yourself. We need to fix it.’

  ‘We?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘There is no “we”, Nicandro, and I can’t reveal my identity. I’ll lose it all. Then again, what does it matter now? You’ve already made certain of that.’

  The acerbity in her tone made her cringe, because if she was being honest she couldn’t blame him. To lose so much all in one night. All because of her father’s greed.

  ‘The old rules of the club state that only a Merisi male can lead, and my past is such...’ She swallowed past the rise of despair. ‘It’s dirty—you know that well enough. Listen, I don’t blame you for this... Or maybe I do, but I don’t hate you for it, or fail to understand your motivation. Nor do I want to see you ever again. So if that’s all you came for—’

  ‘Pia, listen to me.’

  There it was. That commanding Carvalho tone that made her shiver.

  ‘The old rules of the club are archaic—who better to change them than the woman who’s made it more successful than ever before. You are the law, Pia. Change it! Stand in front of them and show yourself. Quash the rumours dead. I guarantee no one in his or her right mind will leave. Worst case scenario: a couple of the troglodytes pack up and go—who cares? I bet you good money that, for some, a woman at the helm they can trust is of far more import than the ghost of a man who is mired in filth.’

  ‘My past isn’t much better.’

  ‘Don’t, Pia.’

  His voice turned hard, so dominant her blood fired through her veins.

  ‘Do not lower your worth to his level. I will not allow it. Know what I think?’

  ‘I never know what goes on in that head of yours, Nic. You’re a closed book.’

  ‘Not any more. Turn any page and I will read you a line.’