Trapped by Vialli's Vows

by Chantelle Shaw

  His earliest memories were of being cared for by a nanny. He assumed his parents had visited him in the nursery wing of the penthouse, but he did not remember receiving much affection from his mother and father.

  Marnie glanced at Leandro, startled by his emotive statement. ‘That’s a pretty old-fashioned viewpoint—to expect a woman to devote herself entirely to her child and maybe sacrifice her career.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily have to be the mother. A father can be just as good at parenting.’

  When Henry had been born Leandro had been determined to be a better father than his own father had been to him. He felt a sensation as if his heart was being squeezed in a vice. If the child Marnie was carrying was his he would want to protect it. Dio, he would love his child.

  ‘If I am the father I won’t allow you to take my child to America for nine months,’ he said harshly.

  ‘You won’t be able to stop me. Anyway, why would you care? You’ve made it clear that you don’t want the baby.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said I wanted proof that you are expecting my baby, and if you are I will absolutely want to be part of my child’s life.’

  ‘Well, in that case I suppose we’ll have to discuss access arrangements.’ Marnie couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘If I join the graduate programme next year perhaps you can come to visit the baby in California.’

  ‘How do you intend to fund your studying in America? Even if you receive an academic bursary you will still need to pay living costs. If you have to find a job as well as attend lectures you won’t have much time to care for a baby.’

  ‘I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.’ Although it was difficult to see how she would be able to juggle single motherhood with studying for her career, Marnie acknowledged.

  ‘If I am the baby’s father I would be willing to pay for you to continue your studies in America, or anywhere else in the world, in return for you leaving the child with me and not contesting my claim for full custody.’

  She frowned as she tried to make sense of Leandro’s words. ‘Are you suggesting I leave the baby behind in England with you for nine months?’

  ‘Not just for nine months—for ever,’ he said curtly. ‘You would be suitably financially recompensed for giving up all your parental rights.’

  Finally Marnie understood, and she felt sick. ‘Do you honestly think I would give up my baby for money?’ Her voice shook with disgust. ‘What kind of man are you to suggest such a terrible thing? I don’t believe any woman would sell her child as you have asked me to do.’

  ‘It happens,’ Leandro said grimly.

  When his parents had divorced he’d believed that his father had been awarded custody of him by a judge. But when he was a teenager he had discovered that his mother had accepted a substantial pay-off from Silvestro Vialli in return for handing over the Vialli heir.

  ‘I can’t believe I fell in love with you,’ Marnie said in a choked voice.

  Leandro glanced at her and ruthlessly ignored the pull on his heart when he noticed a single tear slide down her cheek. ‘I never asked you to—nor gave you any indication that I wanted you to develop feelings for me.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry, you’ve killed any feelings I had for you stone dead.’

  ‘Marnie...for God’s sake!’

  Too late, he realised her intention as she opened the car door. The line of traffic had come to a standstill, and Leandro was powerless to prevent her from jumping out onto the pavement.

  ‘Marnie—get back in the car. You need to calm down.’

  He had never seen her cry before and the sight of her standing in the pouring rain with tears streaming down her face shook him.

  ‘The only thing I need is to get away from you,’ she yelled. ‘If I could travel to Mars it still wouldn’t be far enough. I hate you, and I never want to see you again.’

  Leandro watched her run into an underground station and swore as the traffic began to move and he had no option but to drive off.

  To say he’d handled things badly was an understatement, he acknowledged, furious with himself, because in business he had a reputation for being a brilliant negotiator. The best thing he could do now was give Marnie some space and allow her temper to cool. The fact that she had shouted at him was a measure of how badly he had upset her.

  Seeing himself in this new light made him feel uncomfortable, because he recognised similarities between himself and his father. Silvestro was a control freak who expected everyone to agree with him, and as he was a billionaire it meant that people invariably did.

  Leandro swore. His instinct had been to keep Marnie in his sight until he received the result of the paternity test, but she had said that she never wanted to see him again and he had to respect her wishes for now. Although if it turned out that the baby was his she would have to talk to him—either directly or through lawyers.

  At least he knew where she was staying. After she had moved out of his house in Eaton Square he had phoned her once, to ask for the address of her cousin’s flat so that he could redirect her mail. He refused to dwell on why every night for the past two weeks he had driven to Dulwich and parked outside the flat until he had seen Marnie turn the lights off before she went to bed. For some strange reason he slept more easily knowing that she was safe.

  * * *

  Marnie slept badly after her confrontation with Leandro. She was desperately hurt by his suggestion that she hand their baby over to him. He could not have a very high opinion of her—especially if he believed she had been involved in the theft of the jewellery from the safe. His unfair accusation had reminded her of when she had been arrested for shoplifting. It had been a terrible mistake. She had been so caught up in her grief over Luke’s death that she hadn’t been thinking properly when she’d run out of the shop holding the designer handbag.

  The police hadn’t believed she was innocent of stealing, but this time she was determined to clear her name and prove to Leandro that she had not stolen his mother’s jewels. And the only way she could do that was to find her brother.

  Jake had told her that he was going to start a new job on Lord Tannock’s estate in Scotland, and when she had looked online she had found it was near to the town of Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond.

  Her train to Glasgow left London mid-morning.

  After her sleepless night Marnie was so tired that once she was settled in a seat she soon fell asleep. She was woken several hours later by the train’s guard, who informed her that they had arrived at Glasgow.

  ‘The train to Balloch leaves in five minutes from a different platform.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  Disorientated from her deep sleep, and worried that she might miss her connection, Marnie grabbed her holdall from the overhead luggage rack and hurried off the train and through the busy station. But when she reached the ticket barrier in front of the platform where the Balloch train was waiting to depart panic set in as she realised she had left her handbag on the train from London.

  ‘Damn!’ she muttered as she tore back across the concourse.

  She remembered she had tucked her handbag under her seat. Fearing that she would be stranded without her phone, bank cards and train ticket made her ignore the stitch in her side and run faster.

  ‘Excuse me!’ She swerved to miss colliding with a passenger who had stepped into her path. Her feet slid from under her and she fell, hitting her head with a sickening thud on the concrete floor of the station.

  * * *

  Leandro checked his phone messages for the hundredth time as he walked across the terrace in the garden of his villa in Florence and lowered his tall frame onto a swing seat. Evening was his favourite time of day at the Villa Collina, but the golden sunset and the jasmine plants that covered the walls of the house with white
stars and filled the air with a delicate perfume failed to ease his tension as he waited to hear from the DNA screening clinic.

  He had spent the past week overseeing the renovation work on the theatre here, which he had saved from being destroyed, but the project which had once excited him no longer commanded his attention.

  He reread the background report that his security team had compiled on Marnie. She had told him the truth when she’d said she had twin brothers: Luke, who had died five years ago, and Jake. What she had failed to mention was that Jake had served one year of a two-year prison sentence for theft and had been released on probation—which meant he could immediately be sent back to prison if he reoffended.

  Without a photograph to verify the identity of the man on the CCTV film, Leandro did not know if the guy Marnie had invited into his house in Eaton Square was in fact her brother, or if she had a lover. Whoever the man was, he must have stolen the jewellery—but had Marnie helped him? She had known the code to unlock the safe, Leandro thought grimly.

  His thoughts turned to her insistence that she had been a virgin when they’d met. In his heart he knew it was true. He’d suspected it had been her first time, but he refused to believe that the incredible passion they had shared was in any way special.

  His phone rang, and his heart slammed against his ribs when he saw the name of the DNA testing clinic flash on the screen. Taking a deep breath, he answered the call. After a short conversation he cut the connection and ran his hand across his eyes.

  Santa Madre! Marnie was pregnant with his baby. He was going to be a father and, unlike Henry, this child could legitimately bear the name Vialli.

  His mind flew back more than ten years, to when Henry had been born. He had not witnessed the birth, because Nicole had elected to have a Caesarean section at an exclusive private hospital, but Leandro had been allowed to visit his wife and his son—or so he’d believed then—when the baby was a few hours old.

  Henry had been so tiny, so vulnerable. Leandro had never held a newborn baby before and he had been utterly smitten. Remembering the overwhelming love he had felt for Henry filled him with excitement and joy. When Marnie gave birth to his baby in a few months no one would take his child from him.

  Reality intruded on his euphoria as he acknowledged how badly he had treated Marnie. Joy turned to cold dread in his heart. What if she refused to allow him to have a relationship with his child? He had proof that the baby she was carrying was his, but he couldn’t cradle a slip of paper showing the result of the DNA test in his arms.

  Marnie might decide to register the baby with her surname. More importantly, she might take the child to live in America, or anywhere in the world, and he would be powerless to stop her. He was almost certain that he would not win a custody battle, and the prospect of having only visitation rights and spending alternate birthdays and Christmases with his child was unbearable.

  His jaw clenched as it occurred to him that Marnie was unlikely to remain single for ever. She was young and beautiful and there was every chance that she would fall in love with some other guy. If she married, another man would become his child’s stepfather.

  Leandro rubbed the bridge of his nose. His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest. The only certain way that he could have full legal parental rights over his baby was if he married Marnie. He had vowed never to marry again, but he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to claim his child.

  But there was a problem with his plan. The last time he had seen Marnie she had told him she hated him and she’d sounded as if she meant it. He accepted that she had every right to be furious with him because he had doubted the baby was his, and perhaps she was still angry—she hadn’t answered any of his calls during the past week. But somehow he would have to convince her that they must put their child’s interests first.

  There was no reason why they couldn’t have a successful marriage. Without the emotional expectations that most marriages carried they could focus on building a relationship based on friendship and a desire to be good parents. Their sexual compatibility was another factor in their favour.

  He pictured Marnie the last time they had made love, when he’d arrived home from Paris after visiting Henry in hospital. She had looked so beautiful, lying naked on the bed with her blonde hair spread over the pillows. She’d smiled at him and he’d felt an odd sensation in his chest, as if a hand had squeezed his heart. Of course all he felt for her was sexual desire, he assured himself. But sex was as good a base as any other for marriage.

  Leandro preferred action over inactivity, and he decided that his first move would be to buy an engagement ring for Marnie. She had loved him once and he was confident he could persuade her to forgive him. What woman, he asked himself, would be able to resist a diamond ring and a marriage proposal from a multi-millionaire who was determined to make her his wife?

  * * *

  ‘Leandro, thank heavens you’re home.’

  His housekeeper, Betty, greeted him when he walked into his house the next morning, after an early flight from Florence.

  ‘The police have been here and they want to talk to you urgently. They say that Marnie is in hospital.’

  Time froze. A lead weight dropped into Leandro’s stomach.

  ‘Hospital? Why? What’s happened? Is she ill...has she been in accident?’

  Had she lost the baby?

  It stuck him as strange that he had thought of Marnie first and the baby second. But he did not dwell on the anomaly as he called the number that the police had given to his housekeeper.

  The news was shocking. Marnie had been found unconscious at a Glasgow railway station. Witnesses reported that she had been running along the platform when she had tripped and fallen. The police officer told him that she had been unconscious for two days and had not been carrying any form of identification. When Marnie had finally regained consciousness she had asked the police to contact Leandro.

  The officer had no more information about Marnie’s state of health and cold fear gripped Leandro as he tried to guess what effect a serious fall that had left Marnie in a coma for two days might have had on her unborn baby. He would watch over her like a hawk for the rest of her pregnancy, he vowed.

  He called his pilot and within the hour was on his private jet bound for Scotland. Although he fired up his laptop he could not concentrate on work. Had Marnie gone to Scotland to warn her brother, Jake—or whoever the man on the CCTV film was—that the jewellery theft had been discovered?

  Leandro remembered that the last time he had seen Marnie she had been so determined to get away from him that she had leapt out of his car while they had been in a traffic jam. The memory of her standing in the rain with tears streaming down her face made his gut clench. He was puzzled that she had asked the police to contact him rather than her relatives in Norfolk.

  At the hospital in Glasgow he was directed to a side room adjoining a main ward.

  ‘Miss Clarke will be pleased to see you,’ a nurse told him. ‘Her aunt and uncle, who are her next of kin, have been informed of her accident, but she insisted that you were contacted first.’

  Leandro was puzzled by what the nurse had said. He thought it was unlikely that Marnie would give him a warm welcome, but to his surprise and relief she greeted him with a smile when he stepped into her room. It was a good sign that she was sitting up in bed, but she was deathly pale.

  ‘Leandro! Oh, thank goodness I remember you.’

  ‘Cara, thank God you’re all right.’

  Emotions that Leandro had not expected to feel surged through him as he scrutinised the livid purple bruise on Marnie’s brow. He strode over to the bed and carefully drew her into his arms. Her hair smelled of lemons and felt like silk against his cheek. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed for a few moments. He had forgotten how small she was. She seemed so fragile.

  Hi
s eyes were drawn to the gentle swell of her stomach, visible beneath her hospital gown, and he swallowed hard. ‘The baby...?’

  ‘I had an ultrasound scan this morning, which showed that the baby is fine.’ She drew away from him and her mouth wobbled. ‘I couldn’t believe it when the doctor told me I’m expecting a baby. I have no recollection of being pregnant—just as I don’t remember a lot of other things.’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Tears slid down Marnie’s cheeks. She looked utterly wretched and scared, Leandro realised. Tension seized him. She wasn’t making any sense.

  Hiding his concern, he sat on the edge of the bed and took her cold hands in his. ‘Try to be calm, cara...’

  ‘How can I be calm?’ she sobbed. ‘Leandro... I’ve lost my memory.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘THE DOCTOR SAYS I have retrograde amnesia, which sometimes happens after a brain injury,’ Marnie explained, wiping away her tears with the tissue Leandro had handed her. ‘Apparently I banged my head so hard when I fell that I cracked my skull. I’ve had a brain scan, which shows some swelling. It should get better, and the brain trauma specialist I saw said that my memory might improve, but there’s no guarantee that it will come back.’

  Leandro was aware of his heart beating hard and fast. Marnie had been through a terrible ordeal and it was vital that he did not upset her further, he told himself. If she did not remember being pregnant then it followed that she had no recollection that they had parted acrimoniously, with anger and mistrust on both sides.

  ‘What is the last thing you remember?’ he asked gently.

  She rubbed her brow. ‘I know that I have been living with you at your house for a few months. You asked me out to dinner and we ended up in bed together.’ A tinge of colour stained her white cheeks.

  He nodded. ‘We became lovers and you moved into my house a year ago.’

  ‘That long?’ she said wonderingly. ‘I remember we stayed in a chalet in some mountains. It must have been last Christmas. You were going to teach me to ski, but we spent most of the week snuggled up in front of a roaring fire...’ Her flush deepened.