Buying His Bride Of Convenience
Michelle Smart
Daniele Pellegrini must wed or lose his family inheritance. Eva Bergen is the perfect candidate for three reasons:1. Her body is pure temptation2. She can’t reject his outrageous charitable donation in exchange for their vows.3. Most importantly, she can’t stand him – this hard-hearted tycoon won’t risk his wife falling in love!When Eva’s first youthful marriage ended in tragedy, she buried any hope of loving again. She’s certain she’ll have no problem keeping her second marriage on purely convenient terms…until her husband changes the rules with his expertly ruthless seduction!Book 3 in the Bound to a Billionaire trilogy
Daniele Pellegrini must wed or lose his family inheritance. Eva Bergen is the perfect candidate for three reasons:
1. Her body is pure temptation.
2. She can’t reject his outrageous charitable donation in exchange for their vows.
3. Most important, she can’t stand him—this hard-hearted tycoon won’t risk his wife falling in love with him!
When Eva’s first youthful marriage ended in tragedy, she buried any hope of loving again. She’s certain she’ll have no problem keeping her second marriage on purely convenient terms...until her husband changes the rules with his expertly ruthless seduction!
‘If you agree to marry me, this money—all one million dollars of it—will be handed to the Blue Train Aid Agency tomorrow morning. And that is only the start.’
‘The start?’ Eva asked faintly, looking back at all that lovely money.
‘Agree to marry me and this money goes directly to your charity. On the day of our marriage I will transfer another two million into their account, and a further three million dollars for every year of our marriage.’
Eva’s head spun. Had she slipped into some kind of vortex that distorted reality?
She shook her head and took a breath. ‘You want to pay me to be your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why would you want to marry me?’
‘It’s nothing to do with want. It’s to do with need. I need a wife.’
‘You’ve already said that. But why would you choose me for the role when there are hundreds of women out there who would take the job without having to be bribed into it? Why marry someone who doesn’t even like you?’
There was no point in pretending. She didn’t like him and he damn well knew it.
‘That is the exact reason why I want you to take the role.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
A tight smile played on Daniele’s lips. ‘I don’t want to marry someone who’s going to fall in love with me.’
Bound to a Billionaire (#ud9a1c7ce-ae91-55a7-8593-20efb6e66f41)
Claimed by the most powerful of men!
Felipe Lorenzi, Matteo Manaserro and Daniele Pellegrini.
Three powerful billionaires who want for nothing—in business or in bed. But nothing and no one can touch their closely guarded hearts.
That is until Francesca, Natasha and Eva are each bound to a billionaire...and prove to be a challenge these delicious alpha males can’t resist!
Don’t miss Michelle Smart’s stunning trilogy.
Read Felipe and Francesca’s story in
Protecting His Defiant Innocent
Matteo and Natasha’s story in
Claiming His One-Night Baby
&
Daniele and Eva’s story in
Buying His Bride of Convenience
All available now!
Buying His Bride of Convenience
Michelle Smart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby, and she would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading—and writing them ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire, England, with her husband and two young Smarties.
Books by Michelle Smart
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
Once a Moretti Wife The Perfect Cazorla Wife The Russian’s Ultimatum
Bound to a Billionaire
Protecting His Defiant Innocent
Claiming His One-Night Baby
Brides for Billionaires
Married for the Greek’s Convenience
One Night With Consequences
Claiming His Christmas Consequence
Wedlocked!
Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed
The Kalliakis Crown
Talos Claims His Virgin
Theseus Discovers His Heir
Helios Crowns His Mistress
Society Weddings
The Greek’s Pregnant Bride
The Irresistible Sicilians
What a Sicilian Husband Wants
The Sicilian’s Unexpected Duty
Taming the Notorious Sicilian
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk/) for more titles.
To the always amazing Nic Caws.
thanks for everything you do—your encouragement and enthusiasm never fail to lift my spirits xxx
Contents
Cover (#ufe8eed2d-f325-515b-965b-abb5c86e1901)
Back Cover Text (#u03f8f660-2f5d-5ba6-ae1a-0a031b64d74f)
Introduction (#u95b96b8e-cd9c-52d3-a8f7-4b60f74d4a93)
Bound to a Billionaire (#u843e93ea-419e-523b-9926-dc64b76f1bb3)
Title Page (#u90022ee3-45b2-5e70-bd60-220969ac1b36)
About the Author (#ue1d00d67-271a-5ed6-bf1c-138f6fd7ffd9)
Dedication (#ua09cdcbe-5c9a-5441-a6f8-481df81e56f7)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9830024e-d066-5158-a9a1-f8fcff8f0b90)
CHAPTER TWO (#u86b037e6-8e58-5b5c-9589-a75a71a60d5b)
CHAPTER THREE (#u8ad752b4-b540-5c6e-b601-c17caf77e32b)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ud9888a71-12d1-596e-9e9f-1ab116d7af30)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ud9a1c7ce-ae91-55a7-8593-20efb6e66f41)
‘WILL YOU KEEP STILL?’ Eva Bergen told the man sitting on the stool before her. She’d staunched the bleeding from the wound on the bridge of his nose and had the tiny sterilised strips ready to close it up. What should be a relatively simple procedure was being hampered by his right foot tapping away and jerking the rest of his body.
He glared at her through narrowed eyes, the right one of which was swollen and turning purple. ‘Just get it done.’
‘Do you want me to close this up or not? I’m not a nurse and I need to concentrate, so keep still.’
He took a long breath, clenched his jaw together and fixed his gaze at the distance over her shoulder. She guessed he must have clenched all the muscles in his legs too as his foot finally stopped tapping.
Taking her own deep breath, Eva leaned forward on her stool, which she’d had to raise so she could match his height, then hesitated. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one of the medics to look at it? I’m sure it’s broken.’
‘Just get it done,’ he repeated tersely.
Breathing through her mouth so she didn’t inhale his scent and taking great care not to touch him anywhere apart from his nose, she put the first strip on the wound.
It was amazing that even with a busted nose Daniele Pellegrini still managed to look impeccably suave. The quiff of his thick, dark brown hair was still perfectly placed, his hand-tailored suit perfectly pressed. He could still look in a mirror and wink at his reflection.
He was a handsome man. She didn’t think there was a female aid worker at the refugee camp who hadn’t done a double-take when he’d made his first appearance there a month ago. This was only his second visit. He’d called her thirty minutes ago asking, without a word of greeting, if she was still at the camp. If he’d bothered to know anything about her he would’ve known she, like all the other staff based there, had their own quarters at the camp. He’d then said he was on his way and to meet him in the medical tent. He’d disconnected the call before she could ask what he wanted. She’d learned the answer to that herself when she’d made the short walk from the ramshackle administrative building she worked from to the main medical facility.
When Hurricane Ivor had first hit the Caribbean island of Caballeros, the Blue Train Aid Agency, which already had a large presence in the crime-ridden country, had been the first aid charity to set up a proper camp there. Now, two months after the biggest natural disaster the country had ever known and the loss of twenty thousand of its people, the camp had become home to an estimated thirty thousand people, with canvas tents, modular plastic shelters and makeshift shacks all tightly knit together. Other aid agencies had since set up at different sites and had similar numbers of displaced people living in their camps. It was a disaster on every level imaginable.
Daniele was the brother of the great philanthropist and humanitarian, Pieta Pellegrini. Pieta had seen the news about the hurricane and how the devastation had been amplified by the destruction of a large number of the island’s hospitals. He’d immediately decided that his foundation would build a new, disaster-proof, multi-functional hospital in the island’s capital, San Pedro. A week later he’d been killed in a helicopter crash.
Eva had been saddened by this loss. She’d only met Pieta a few times but he’d been greatly respected by everyone in the aid community.
She and the other staff at the Blue Train Aid Agency had been overjoyed to learn his family wished to proceed with the hospital. The people of the island badly needed more medical facilities. They and the other charities and agencies did the best they could but it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.
Pieta’s sister, Francesca, had become the new driving force for the project. Eva had liked her very much and admired the younger woman’s determination and focus. She’d expected to like and admire his brother too. Like Pieta, Daniele was a world-famous name, but his reputation had been built through his architecture and construction company, which had won more design awards than any other in the past five years.
She’d found nothing to like or admire about him. Although famed for his good humour and searing intellect, she’d found him arrogant and entitled. She’d seen the wrinkle of distaste on his strong—now busted—nose when he’d come to the camp to collect her for their one evening out together, a date she’d only agreed to because he’d assured her it wasn’t a date and that he’d just wanted to get her input on the kind of hospital he should be building as she was something of an expert on the country and its people. He’d flown her to his exclusive seven-star hotel on the neighbouring paradise island of Aguadilla, spent five minutes asking her pertinent questions, then the rest of the evening drinking heavily, asking impertinent questions and shamelessly flirting with her.
She would go as far as to say his only redeeming features were his looks and physique and the size of his bank account. Seeing as she was immune to men and cared nothing for money, those redeeming features were wasted on her.
The look on his face when she’d coldly turned down his offer of a trip to his suite for a ‘nightcap’ had been priceless. She had a feeling Daniele Pellegrini was not used to the word ‘no’ being uttered to him by members of the opposite sex.
He’d had his driver take her back to the airfield without a word of goodbye. That was the last she’d seen of him until she’d walked into the medical tent ten minutes ago and found him already there, waiting for her. It was immediately obvious that someone had punched him in the face. She wondered who it was and if it was possible to track them down and buy them a drink.
‘I’m not a nurse,’ she’d said when he’d told her he needed her to fix it.
He’d shrugged his broad shoulders but without the ready smile she remembered from their ‘date’. ‘I only need you to stop the bleeding. I’m sure you’ve seen it done enough times that you have a basic idea of what needs to be done.’
She had more than a basic idea. Principally employed as a co-ordinator and translator, she, like most of the other non-medical staff, had often stepped in to help the medical team when needed. That didn’t mean she felt confident in patching up a broken nose, especially when the nose belonged to an arrogant billionaire whose suit likely cost more than the average annual salary of the Caballerons lucky enough to have a job.
‘I’ll get one of the nurses or—’
‘No, they’re busy,’ he’d cut in. ‘Stem the bleeding and I’ll be out of here.’
She’d been about to argue that she was busy too but there had been something in his demeanour that had made her pause. Now, as she gently placed the second strip on his nose, she thought him like a tightly coiled spring. She pitied whoever would be on the receiving end of the explosion that was sure to come when the coil sprang free.
Taking the third and last strip, she couldn’t help but notice how glossy his dark hair was. If she didn’t know it was a genetic blessing, having the same shine as the rest of the family members she’d met, she’d think he took a personal hairdresser with him everywhere he travelled. And a personal dresser.
If she was feeling charitable she could understand his distaste for the camp. Daniele lived in luxury. Here there was only dirt and squalor that everyone’s best efforts at cleaning barely made a dent in. Being in front of him like this made her acutely aware of the grubbiness of her jeans and T-shirt and the messy ponytail she’d thrown her hair back into.
Who cared about her appearance? she asked herself grimly. This was a refugee camp. All the staff were prepared to turn their hand to anything that needed doing. Dressing for a fashion shoot was not only wholly inappropriate but wholly impractical.
It was only this hateful man who made her feel grubby and inferior.
‘Keep still,’ she reminded him when his foot started its agitated tapping again. ‘Almost done. I’m just going to clean you up and you can go. You’ll need to keep the strips on for around a week and remember to keep them dry.’
Reaching for the antiseptic wipes, she gently dabbed at the tiny drops of blood that had leaked out since she’d first cleaned his nose and cheeks.
Suddenly a wave of his scent enveloped her. She’d forgotten to hold her breath.
It was perhaps the most mouthwatering scent she’d ever known, making her think of thick forests and hanging fruit, a reaction and thoughts she would have laughed at if anyone had suggested such romantic notions to her.
How could such a hateful, arrogant man be so blessed? He had more talent in his little finger than she could spend a lifetime hoping for.
And he had the most beautiful eyes, an indecipherable browny-green, his surroundings dominating the colour of them at any particular moment. Eyes that were suddenly focussed on her. Staring intently into hers.
She stared back, trapped in his stare before she forced herself to blink, push her stool back and jump down.
‘I’ll get an ice pack for your eye,’ she murmured, flustered but determined not to show it.
‘No need,’ he dismissed. ‘Don’t waste your resources on me.’ He dug into his inside suit jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. From it he took some notes and thrust them into her hand. ‘That’s to replace the medical supplies you used.’
Then he strolled out of the medical tent without a word of thanks or goodbye.
Only when Eva opened the hand that tingled where his skin had brushed it did she see he’d given her ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
* * *
‘There has got to be an alternative,’ Daniele said firmly, pouring himself another glass of red wine, his grip on the bottle tight enough to whiten his knuckles. ‘You can have the estate.’
His sister Francesca, who he’d directed this at, shook her head. ‘I can’t. You know that. I’m the wrong gender.’
‘And I can’t marry.’ Marriage was anathema to him. He didn’t want it. He didn’t need it. He’d spent his adult life avoiding it, avoiding any form of commitment.
‘Either you marry and take control of the estate or Matteo gets it.’
At the mention of his traitorous cousin’s name, the last of his control deserted him and he flung his glass at the wall.
Francesca held out a hand to stop Felipe, her fiancé, an ex-Special Forces hard man, who’d braced himself to step in. Her voice remained steady as she said to Daniele, ‘He’s the next male heir after you. You know that’s a fact. If you don’t marry and accept the inheritance, then Matteo gets it.’
He breathed deeply, trying to regain control of his temper. The red liquid trickled down the white wall. Looking at it from the right angle, it was as dark as the blood that had poured from his nose when anger had taken possession of him and he’d flown at Matteo, the pair exchanging blows that would have been a lot worse if Felipe hadn’t stepped in and put a halt to it. Since that exchange he’d felt the anger inside him like a living being, a snake coiled in his guts ready to spring at the slightest provocation.
Matteo had betrayed them all.
‘There has got to be a legal avenue we can take to override the trust,’ he said as the wine, splattered over the wall, obeyed the laws of gravity and trickled to the floor. He’d have to get it repainted before he got new tenants in, he thought absently. He owned the apartment in Pisa but his sister had lived in it for six years. Now she was marrying Felipe and moving to Rome, and unless he thought of an alternative he would be forced to marry too. ‘It’s archaic.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘We all know that. Pieta was working with the trustees to get it overturned but it isn’t as easy as we hoped it would be. The trust is cast-iron. It’ll take months, maybe years, to get that clause overturned and while we’re waiting, Matteo can marry Natasha and take the inheritance.’
The bloody inheritance. The family estate, which included a six-hundred-year-old castello and thousands of acres of vineyards, had belonged to the Pellegrini family and its descendants since the first stone had been laid by Principe Charles Philibert I, the original bad-boy Prince of the family. The family had renounced their titles decades ago but the castello remained their shining jewel. To keep the estate intact, primogeniture ruled and thus the eldest male descendant always inherited. This ruling hadn’t been enough to satisfy Principe Emmanuel II, a particularly cruel and mad prince from the nineteenth century, who had suspected his eldest son of being a homosexual and so had drawn up a ruling, still enforced to this day, that the eldest male descendant could only inherit if he was married. Principe Emmanuel must have had some insight to how social mores would evolve in the future because the marriage clause had specifically stated the spouse had to be female.
This archaic marriage clause had never been an issue. After all, everyone married eventually. It was what people did, especially those of the aristocracy. But times, along with social mores, changed.
Daniele had been a toddler when his grandfather had died and his own father had inherited the estate. Being the second son, Daniele had always known Pieta would inherit when their father died. He was comfortable with that. He didn’t want it. He hated the draughty old castello that leaked money as quickly as it leaked water, and he especially hated the idea of marriage. It had given him perverse satisfaction throughout his adult life to remain single, to be the antithesis of the dutiful, serious Pieta.
But now Pieta was dead.
For two months Daniele had clung to the hope that Pieta’s wife Natasha might be pregnant—if she was and the child was a boy, the child would inherit the estate and Daniele would be free to continue living his life as he’d always enjoyed.
It transpired that Natasha was indeed pregnant. Unfortunately, Pieta wasn’t the father. Before her husband was even cold in the ground, she had embarked on an affair with their cousin Matteo, the cousin who had lived with them as a sibling from the age of thirteen. The disloyal bastard himself had told Daniele that she was pregnant with his child.
Now there were two routes that could be taken. Daniele either found himself a wife and gave up all his cherished freedoms to inherit an estate he didn’t want, or their disloyal cousin inherited everything his father and brother had held dear.
He clenched his jaw and rolled his neck, thinking of his mother and her own love and pride in the family and the estate she had married into as a nineteen-year-old girl.
When it came down to it, there was only one route.
‘I have to marry.’
‘Yes.’
‘And soon.’
‘Yes. Do you have anyone in mind?’ Francesca asked quietly. She knew how much he loathed the idea of marriage. She had an even sharper legal mind than Pieta had done. If she couldn’t think of a way to overturn the clause without Matteo taking everything, then it couldn’t be done.
One day it would, he vowed. The next generation of Pellegrinis would never be forced into a deed they didn’t want, a deed that came with such a heavy price.
Daniele’s mind flickered through all the women he’d dated throughout the years. He estimated that of those who were still unmarried, approximately one hundred per cent of them would high-tail it to a wedding dress shop before he’d even finished proposing.
And then he thought of his last date. The only date he’d been on that hadn’t ended in the bedroom.
Unthinkingly, he touched his bruised nose. The steri-strips Eva had so carefully put on him were still there, the wound healing nicely. He remembered the distaste that flashed in her crystal-clear blue eyes whenever she looked at him.
She’d acted as a translator for him on his first trip to Caballeros a month ago. On an island surrounded by so much destruction, the prevalent colour brown with all the churned-up mud, she’d shone like a beacon in the gloom. Or her scarlet hair had, which she wore in a girlish ponytail. It was a shade of red that could only have come from a bottle and contrasted with her alabaster skin—she must lather herself in factor fifty sun cream on an hourly basis to keep it so colour free—so beautifully he couldn’t see how any other colour, not even that which nature had given her, could suit her so well.
Despite dressing only in scruffy jeans and an official Blue Train Aid Agency T-shirt, Eva Bergen was possibly the most beautiful and definitely the sexiest woman he’d met in his entire thirty-three years. And she hated his guts.
Daniele looked at his sister’s worried face and gave a half-smile. ‘Yes,’ he said with a nod. ‘I know the perfect woman to marry.’
When he left the apartment an hour later, he reflected that whatever else happened, at least his mother would finally be happy with a choice he’d made.
* * *
Eva queued patiently at the staff shower block, playing a game on her phone to pass the time. There was limited fresh water at the camp and the staff rationed their own use zealously. She’d become an expert at showering in sixty seconds of tepid water every three days. Like the rest of the staff, she experienced both guilt and relief when she took her leave, which was every third weekend, and she had the luxury of flying over to Aguadilla and checking into a basic hotel. There, at her own expense, she would laze for hours in sweet-smelling, bubbly, limitless water, dye her hair, do her nails and cleanse her skin, all the while trying to smother the guilt at all the displaced people at the camp who couldn’t take a few days off to pamper themselves.
One thing that wasn’t in short supply at the camp was mobile phones. It seemed that everyone had one, even the tiny kids who barely had a change of clothes to their name. The current craze was for a free game that involved blasting multiplying colourful balls. A technology whizz had linked all the camp players together, refugees and staff alike, to compete against each other directly. Eva had become as addicted to it as everyone else and right then was on track to beat her high score and crack the top one hundred players. At that moment, playing as she waited for her turn in the skinny showers, she had three teenagers at her side, pretending to be cool while they watched her avidly.
When her phone vibrated in her hand she ignored it.
‘You should answer that,’ Odney, the oldest of the teenagers, said with a wicked grin. Odney was currently ranked ninety-ninth in the camp league for the game.
‘They’ll call back,’ Eva dismissed, mock-scowling at him.
With an even wickeder grin, Odney snatched the phone from her hand, pressed the answer button and put it to his ear. ‘This is Eva’s phone,’ he said. ‘How may I direct your call?’
His friends cackled loudly, Eva found herself smothering her own laughter.
‘English?’ Odney suggested to the caller, who clearly didn’t speak Spanish. ‘I speak little. You want Eva?’
Eva held her hand out and fixed him with a stare.
Glee alight on his face, Odney gave her the phone back. ‘Your game didn’t save,’ he said smugly to more cackles of laughter.
Merriment in her voice—how she adored the camp’s children, toddlers and teenagers alike—Eva finally spoke to her caller. ‘Hello?’
‘Eva? Is that you?’
All the jollity of the moment dived out of her.
‘Yes. Who is this?’
She knew who it was. The deep, rich tones and heavy accent of Daniele Pellegrini were unmistakable.
‘It’s Daniele Pellegrini. I need to see you.’
‘Speak to my secretary and arrange an appointment.’ She didn’t have a secretary and he knew it.
‘It’s important.’
‘I don’t care. I don’t want to see you.’
‘You will when you know why I need to see you.’
‘No, I won’t. You’re a—’
‘A man with a proposal that will benefit your refugee camp,’ he cut in.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Meet me and find out for yourself. I promise it will be worth your and your camp’s while.’
‘My next weekend off is—’
‘I’m on my way to Aguadilla. I’ll have you brought to me.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight. I’ll have someone with you in two hours.’
And then he hung up.
CHAPTER TWO (#ud9a1c7ce-ae91-55a7-8593-20efb6e66f41)
EVA’S HEART SANK at the sight of the plush hotel at the end of the long driveway Daniele’s driver was taking her down. It was the same hotel Daniele had tricked her into dining with him in at on their ‘date’. She supposed anywhere else would be beneath him. The Eden Hotel was the most luxurious hotel in Aguadilla and catered to the filthy rich. She was wearing her only pair of clean jeans and a black shirt she’d been unable to iron thanks to a power cut at the camp. She couldn’t justify using the power that came from the emergency generators to iron clothing when it was needed to feed thousands of people.
When Daniele had driven her—he’d actually deigned to get behind the wheel himself then—into the hotel’s grounds the first time her hackles had immediately risen. She’d turned sharply to him. ‘You said this was an informal discussion about the hospital.’ She’d thought they would dine in one of the numerous beachside restaurants Aguadilla was famed for that served cheap, excellent food, upbeat music and had an atmosphere where anyone and everyone was welcomed.
‘And so it is,’ he’d replied smoothly, which had only served to raise her hackles further. They’d walked past guests dressed to the nines in their finest, most expensive wear. She’d been as out of place as a lemming in a pigpen.
Dining in the restaurant had been a humiliating experience the first time around but this time she at least had that experience to fall back on, and it served to steel her spine as she walked into the hotel’s atrium with her head held high. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel inferior even if she did look like a ragamuffin, despite her sixty-second shower.
A hotel employee headed straight for her. At close sight she saw the title of ‘General Manager’ under his name on the gold pin worn on his lapel.
‘Ms Bergen?’ he enquired politely, too well trained to even wrinkle his nose at her.
She nodded. She guessed she’d been easy to describe. Just look for the scarlet-haired woman who doesn’t fit in.
‘Come with me, please.’
Like a docile sheep, she followed him past an enormous waterfall, past the restaurant she’d dined in a month ago, past boutiques and further restaurants and into an elevator that came complete with its own bellboy. It was only when the manager pressed the button for the top floor that warning bells sounded.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘To Mr Pellegrini’s suite.’
They’d arrived at the designated floor before he finished answering. The bellboy opened the door.
Eva hesitated.
Dining in a private hotel suite had very different connotations to dining in public. Under no sane marker could it be considered sensible to go into a rich man’s suite alone.
The manager looked at her, waiting for her to leave the safety of the elevator and be led into the lion’s den.
All she had to do was say no. That would be the sensible thing. Say no. If Daniele Pellegrini needed to see her so badly that he’d flown to the Caribbean for the sole purpose of talking to her, then he could dine with her in public. She could demand that and he would have no choice but to comply.
But, for all his numerous faults, including being a sex-mad scoundrel with no scruples over who he bedded, her gut told her Daniele was not the sort of man to force a woman into anything she didn’t want. She wasn’t being led into the lion’s den to be served as dinner.
She stepped out of the elevator and followed the manager up the wide corridor to a door on which he rapped sharply.
It was opened immediately by a neat, dapper man dressed in the formal wear of a butler.
‘Good evening, Ms Bergen,’ he said in precise English. ‘Mr Pellegrini is waiting for you on the balcony. Can I get you a drink?’
‘A glass of water, please,’ she said, trying very hard not to be overawed by the splendour of the suite, which was the size of a large apartment.
Having a butler there relieved her a little. It was good to know she would have a chaperone, although she couldn’t fathom why she felt she needed one.
The manager bade her a good evening and left, and Eva was taken through a door into a light and airy room, then led out onto a huge balcony that had the most spectacular view of the Caribbean Sea, dark now, the stars twinkling down and illuminating it. To the left was a private oval swimming pool, to the right a table that could comfortably seat a dozen people but was currently set for two. One of those seats was taken by the tall, dynamic figure of Daniele Pellegrini.
He got to his feet and strolled to her, his hand outstretched.
‘Eva, it is great to see you,’ he said, a wide grin on his face that was in complete contrast to the set fury that had been on it three days ago when he’d demanded she fix his nose.
Not having much choice, she reached her own hand out to accept his. Rather than the brisk handshake she expected, he wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her to him, then kissed her on both cheeks.
Her belly did a little swoop at the sensation of his lips on her skin, diving again to inhale his fresh scent, which her senses so absurdly danced to.
As much as she hated herself for the vanity of it, she was thankful she’d so recently showered. Daniele looked and smelled too good, his easy, stomach-melting smile back in its place. And he was clean, his dark grey trousers and white shirt immaculately pressed. Everything here in this hotel, including the guests, was spotless. Standing before this beautifully smelling, impossibly handsome man made her feel, again, like a ragged urchin. No matter how hard she tried to keep herself presentable, living in a refugee camp where dust and mud were prevalent made it an impossible task.
She was even more thankful when he let her go, and had to stop herself wiping her hand on her jeans in an attempt to banish the tingles from where his fingers had wrapped around hers.
‘Your nose looks like it’s healing well,’ she said, for want of something to say to break the fluttering beneath her ribs. The swelling had gone down substantially and her vanity flickered again to see the butterfly stitches she’d applied were still perfectly in place. There was slight bruising around his left eye but that was the only other indication he’d been in a fight. Her curiosity still itched to know who his opponent had been. One of Caballeros’s corrupt officials? A jealous boyfriend?
‘You did a good job.’
She managed the smallest of smiles. ‘Did you see a doctor?’
He made a dismissive noise in his throat. ‘No need.’
The butler, who she hadn’t noticed leave the terrace, returned with a tray containing two tall glasses and two bottles of water.
‘I didn’t know if you’d prefer still or sparkling so I brought you both,’ he said, laying them on the table. ‘Can I get you anything else before I serve dinner?’
‘Not for me, thank you,’ she said.
‘Another Scotch for me,’ Daniele requested. ‘Bring the bottle in.’
‘As you wish.’
Alone again, Daniele indicated the table. ‘Take a seat. To save time, I’ve ordered for both of us. If you don’t like it, the chef will cook you something else.’
Eva bristled. She wasn’t a fussy eater—with her job she couldn’t be—but his presumption was another black mark against him. ‘What have you ordered?’
‘Broccoli and Stilton soup, followed by beef Wellington.’ He flashed his smile again as he took his seat. ‘I thought you’d be homesick for English food.’
Bemused, she took the place laid out opposite him. ‘Homesick for English food? But I’m from the Netherlands.’
‘You’re Dutch?’
His surprise almost made her smile with the whole of her mouth but not out of humour, out of irony. They’d spent a whole evening together in which he’d flirted shamelessly with her but not once had he cared to ask anything of substance about her. She’d just been a woman he was attracted to, whom he’d been determined to bed. He’d assumed she’d be so honoured to be singled out by him that she would accompany him to his suite—this suite?—like some kind of fawning groupie and climb into bed with him. ‘Born and raised in Rotterdam.’
A groove appeared in his forehead. ‘I thought you were English.’
‘Many people do.’
‘You have no accent.’
‘English people notice it but you’re Italian so it’s not obvious to your ear.’
The butler brought Daniele’s bottle of Scotch and asked if Eva wanted anything stronger to go with her meal.
She shook her head and fixed her eyes on Daniele. ‘I think it’s best I keep a clear head this evening.’
Daniele smiled grudgingly. He should keep a clear head himself but after the last few days he liked the idea of numbing everything inside him. The Scotch would also help him get through the forthcoming conversation.
‘What other languages do you speak?’ Eva spoke English so precisely and fluently it hadn’t occurred to him that she was any nationality but that. When he’d first met her she’d acted as a translator for him and his now despised cousin Matteo. He had only a rudimentary comprehension of Spanish but her translations between them and the Caballeron officials had sounded faultless.
‘I speak English, Spanish and French with full fluency and passable Italian.’
‘Prove it,’ he said, switching to his own language.
‘Why?’ she retorted, also in Italian. ‘Are you trying to catch me out?’
He shook his head and laughed. ‘You call that passable?’ It had been rapid and delivered with near-perfect inflection.
‘Until I can watch a movie in the host’s tongue without missing any cadence, I don’t consider myself fully fluent,’ she said, switching back to English. ‘I have a long way to go before I reach that with Italian.’
‘Then let us speak Italian now,’ he said. ‘It will help you.’
Her ponytail swished as she shook her head. ‘You said you had important things to discuss with me. Your English is as good as mine and I would prefer to understand everything and not have anything lost in translation that will give you the advantage.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘I admire your honesty.’ It was a rare thing in his world. His family were faultlessly honest with him but since he’d really stamped his authority in the architecture world and made his first billion—canny investments alongside his day job had helped with that—he hadn’t met a single outside person who openly disagreed with a word he said or ever said no to him.
The butler returned to the terrace with their first course. He set the bowls out on their placemats and placed a basket of bread rolls between them.
Eva dipped her head to inhale the aroma and nodded approvingly. ‘It smells delicious.’
The butler beamed. ‘The rolls are freshly baked but we have some gluten-free ones if you would prefer.’
‘I’m not gluten-intolerant,’ she said with a smile. ‘But I thank you for the offer.’
Eva was the only woman Daniele had been on a date with in at least three years who hadn’t been gluten-intolerant or on a particular fad diet. It had been refreshing, yet another difference between herself and the other women he’d dated. It showed on her physically. She had curves for a start and heavy breasts that just begged to have a head rested upon them. Eva Bergen was one sexy lady and he couldn’t wait to see what she looked like when wearing feminine clothes. No clothes at all would be even better.
When they were alone again, she helped herself to a bread roll and broke it open with her fingers. ‘What is it you wished to discuss?’
‘Let’s eat first and then talk.’
She put the roll down. ‘No, let’s talk while we eat or I’ll think you’ve brought me here under false pretences again.’
‘There were no false pretences on our last date,’ he countered smoothly.
‘I was very specific that it wasn’t to be a date. You made it one. The questions you asked me about the hospital could have been dealt with over a five-minute coffee.’
‘Where would the fun have been with that?’
‘My work isn’t fun, Mr Pellegrini—’
‘Daniele.’ He must have told her a dozen times not to address him so formally during their date that, according to Eva, wasn’t a date. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be anything but delighted with his attention. His family name and looks had always been a magnet for the ladies. Once the architectural accolades and money had started rolling in he couldn’t think of a single woman who hadn’t looked at him with fluttering eyelashes, not until he’d met Eva. There had been a spark of interest there, though, a moment when their eyes had locked together for the first time and a zing of electricity had passed between them.
It had been the first real hit of desire he’d experienced since his brother had died. In the two months since Pieta’s death, Daniele had lost all interest in women. The opposite sex had flown so far off his radar that the electricity between him and Eva had been a welcome reminder that he was alive.
After that initial zing her manner had been nothing but calm and professional towards him, which he’d assumed had been a product of the environment they’d been in. He’d also assumed that getting her out of the pit of hell that was Caballeros and into the more picturesque setting of Aguadilla would remove the straitjacket she’d put around herself. He’d certainly got that wrong.
Despite the zings of electricity that had flown between them that evening, she’d remained cool and poker-faced, his usually winning attempts at flattery being met with stony silence. She’d outright rejected his offer of a nightcap. Not only that, but there had been contempt in her rejection too.
There had been no denying it—Eva Bergen had been looking down her pretty little nose at him. At him.
No one had ever looked at him like that before. It had felt bitter and ugly in his guts and he’d dismissed her without a second thought. Rejection he could deal with but contempt?
It had been too much like the expression he’d seen on his father’s face when the media reported on one or another of Daniele’s dalliances with the opposite sex. His parents had been desperate for him to marry. Pieta had found a woman to settle down with—even though it had taken him six years to actually exchange vows with her—which meant it had been time for Daniele to settle down too.
Daniele had had no intention of ever settling down. His life was fun. He pleased himself, not answerable to anyone. If he wanted a weekend in Vegas, all he had to do was jump on his jet and off he would go, collecting some friends on the way to share the fun with. His perfect brother had never behaved anything but...perfectly, and he’d been held up as the shining beacon for Daniele to emulate. He’d been held up as the shining beacon before Daniele had even been out of nappies.
Well, Daniele had had the last laugh. He’d earned himself a fortune worth more than Pieta’s personal wealth and the estate Pieta would inherit combined.
And then the last laugh had stopped being funny. Pieta had died in a helicopter crash and the man he’d loved and loathed in equal measure, his brother, his rival, was no longer there. He was dead. Gone. Passed. All the terms used to convey a person’s death but none with the true weight of how the loss felt in Daniele’s heart.
‘I take my job very seriously, Mr Pellegrini. I’m not here to have fun.’ Eva said it as if it were a dirty concept. ‘Your flirting was inappropriate and your offer of a nightcap doubly so.’
No doubt his sister would call him a masochist for choosing to marry a woman who openly despised him. Francesca wouldn’t understand how refreshing it was to be with a woman without artifice. She wouldn’t understand the challenge Eva posed, like an experienced mountaineer peering up from the base of Everest, the peak so high it was hidden in the clouds. To reach the top would be dangerous but the thrills would make every minute of danger worthwhile.
The only danger Eva posed was to his ego and he would be the first to admit that his ego could use some knocks. He despised thin-skinned men and looking back to his reaction when Eva had rejected his offer of a nightcap, he could see he’d been as thin-skinned as the worst of them.
‘I would have thought an intimate meal for two in a Michelin-starred restaurant was the most appropriate place to flirt with a beautiful woman.’
The faintest trace of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘If you flirt with me again I’ll leave.’
‘Without hearing what I wish to discuss first?’
‘That’s up to you. If you can control your natural tendency to flirt and actually get to the point, it won’t be an issue.’ She put a spoonful of soup into her wide, full-lipped mouth.
Daniele took hold of his spoon. ‘In that case I shall get straight to the point. I need a wife and want you to take the role.’
A groove appeared in her forehead, crystal-clear blue eyes flashing at him. ‘That is not funny. What do you really want?’
He sipped at his soup. Eva was right. It was delicious. ‘What I want is to get on my jet and fly away from here, but what I need is a wife, and you, tesoro, are the perfect woman for the job.’
There was a moment of stunned silence before she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. ‘You are despicable, do you know that? You can keep your mind games to yourself. I don’t want to play. And for the record, I am not your darling.’
Snatching her canvas bag from the foot of her chair, Eva turned to stalk away from the terrace, out of the suite, and far away from this arrogant man who she had no intention of ever seeing again.
She hadn’t taken two paces when the sound of clicking echoed in the air and Daniele said, ‘Before you leave, I have something to show you.’
‘You have nothing I want to see.’
‘Not even a million dollars in cash?’
Against her better judgement—again—Eva turned her head.
There on the table, beside his bowl of soup, lay an open briefcase.
She blinked. How had he moved so fast? What was he? Some kind of magician?
The briefcase was neatly crammed with wads of money.
She blinked again and met his eyes.
‘Do I have your attention now?’ he asked. All his previous good humour, which she had already suspected of being a façade, had been stripped away.
She nodded. Yes. He had her attention, but there was a part of her that thought she had to be dreaming. A briefcase stuffed with cash only existed in dreams or the movies. Not in real life.
Daniele Pellegrini didn’t exist in real life either. He was a billionaire from an old and noble family. His life couldn’t be more different from her reality than if he’d been beamed in from the moon.
‘If you agree to marry me, this money, all one million dollars of it, will be handed to the Blue Train Aid Agency tomorrow morning. And this is only the start.’
‘The start?’ she asked faintly, looking back at all that lovely money.
‘If you sit back down I will explain everything.’
Eva inched her way back to her seat, resting her bottom carefully while she kept her gaze fixed on Daniele so he couldn’t pull another rabbit out of a hat that wasn’t even there.
He downed his Scotch, poured another three fingers into the glass and pushed it to her.
She didn’t hesitate, tipping the amber liquid down her throat in one swallow, not caring that his lips had pressed against the same surface just moments before. It was the smoothest Scotch she’d ever tasted and she had no doubt the bottle cost more than her weekly salary.
‘Agree to marry me and this money goes directly to your charity. On the day of our marriage I will transfer another two million into their account and a further three million dollars for every year of our marriage. I will give you a personal allowance of a quarter of a million dollars a month to spend on whatever you wish—you can donate the whole lot for all I care, it won’t matter as I will also give you an unlimited credit card to spend on travel and clothing and whatever else you require for the duration of our marriage.’
Eva’s head spun. Had she slipped into some kind of vortex that distorted reality?
‘Can I have some more of that Scotch?’ she mumbled.
He took a drink himself then passed the glass back.
Drinking it didn’t make his words any more comprehensible.
She shook her head and took a breath. ‘You want to pay me to be your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why would you want to marry me?’
‘It’s nothing to do with want. It’s to do with need. I need a wife.’
‘You’ve already said that, but why would you choose me for the role when there are hundreds of women out there who would take the job without having to be bribed into it? Why marry someone who doesn’t even like you?’ There was no point in pretending. She didn’t like him and he damn well knew it.
‘That is the exact reason why I want you to take the role.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
A tight smile played on his lips. ‘I don’t want to marry someone who’s going to fall in love with me.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ud9a1c7ce-ae91-55a7-8593-20efb6e66f41)
HE WAS MAD. He had to be. No sane person could make such a suggestion.
And then she looked into those green-brown eyes and thought them the eyes of a man who was perfectly sane and knew exactly what he was doing. Far from reassuring her, the expression in them frightened her, and Eva was not a woman who scared easily. She’d learned to hide it. She hid it now.
‘There’s no chance of that,’ she said, hoping Daniele couldn’t hear the beats of her hammering heart in her words.
He shrugged and took the glass back, pouring himself another hefty measure. ‘Good. I don’t want a wife with romantic dreams. I’m not marrying for love. I’m marrying to inherit my family estate.’ He must have read her blank expression for he added, ‘My brother died without children. I’m the spare son. I can only inherit if I’m married.’
‘What do you need the estate for? You’re worth a fortune as you are.’
‘To keep it in the family.’ He swirled his Scotch in his glass before drinking it. ‘Duty has finally come calling for me.’
‘You need a wife to inherit?’
‘Sí. The estate is...’ She could see him struggle to find the correct English. ‘It is bound by an old trust that states only a married heir can inherit.’
‘Is that legal?’
He nodded grimly. ‘To unravel the trust and make it fit for the modern age will take years. I don’t have years. I need to act now.’
‘Then find someone else.’
‘I don’t want anyone else. Everyone else is too needy. You’re tough.’
‘You don’t even know me,’ she protested darkly. ‘Twenty minutes ago you thought I was English.’
If she was tough it was because she’d had to be. To turn her back on her family when it had made her heart bleed, then to lose Johann and find that same heart torn apart had put a shell around her. It had been an organic process, not something she had consciously built, a shell she’d only become aware of four years ago, back when she’d been living and working in The Hague and a drunk colleague had accused her of being an unfeeling, ball-breaking bitch. She’d returned home to the small apartment she’d once shared with Johann and looked in the mirror and realised there was truth in what her colleague had said. Not the part about being a ball-breaking bitch. She wasn’t those things, she knew that. But unfeeling...? Yes. That, she had been forced to accept when she’d looked in that mirror and realised she no longer felt anything at all. She was empty inside.
‘I know all I need to know, tesoro,’ he countered. ‘I don’t need to know anything else. I have no interest in your past. I don’t want to exchange pillow talk and hear about your dreams. This will be a partnership, not a romance. I want someone practical and cool under pressure.’
And he thought that person was her?
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Had she become so cold that someone could think she would be agreeable to such an emotionless proposition?
Once she had been warm. She had felt the sun in her heart as well as on her skin.
And what did his proposal say about him? What had made him this way? she wondered. How could someone be so cynical about marriage?
‘Marriage is not a game,’ she said slowly, thinking hard, her eyes continually drawn between the wads of cash and Daniele’s smouldering gaze. That money would make an incredible difference at the camp. The Blue Train Aid Agency was fully dependent on donations and there never seemed to be enough of it to go around all its different projects.
Those eyes...
She pulled her gaze away and stared into the distance at the sea, unable to believe she was even entertaining this ludicrous proposal.
‘I’m not playing games,’ he said, his words soaking through her. ‘Marry me and we all win. Your charity gets a guaranteed income to spend as it sees fit, you get unlimited funds to spend on yourself, my family get the knowledge the family estate is secure for another generation and I get my inheritance. You’re a practical person, Eva. You know what I’m suggesting makes excellent sense.’
She hadn’t always been a practical person. She’d been a dreamer once. She’d had so many hopes but they’d all been flattened into the dust.
‘I don’t know...’ She tightened her ponytail. ‘You say it isn’t a game but then you say everyone’s going to be a winner out of it. Marriage is a commitment by two people who love each other, not two people who don’t even like each other.’
He raised his hefty shoulders and leaned forward. ‘My family’s ancestry goes back as far as there are written records. The most successful marriages were arranged for practical reasons; to build alliances, not for love. I’ve never wished to commit my life to one particular person but I am prepared to commit myself to you. It won’t be a marriage built on love and romance, but I can promise you a marriage built on respect.’
‘How can you respect me if you’re trying to buy me?’
‘I won’t be buying you, tesoro. Consider the cash an inducement.’
‘I won’t be your property.’ She’d never be someone’s property again. She’d run away from her family the moment she’d turned eighteen, the day she’d stopped belonging to her parents, no longer subject to their stringently enforced rules. She flexed her left hand and felt the phantom ache in the tendons of her fingers. The fingers had long since healed but the ache in them remained, a ghost of the past, a reminder of everything she had run from.
‘If I wanted a woman I could own, I wouldn’t choose you.’
Before she could think of a response to this, the butler came in to clear away their soup. Eva was surprised to find her bowl empty. She couldn’t remember eating it.
She waited until their next course was brought in, a beef Wellington that was sliced and plated before them, before asking her next question.
‘If I say yes, what’s to stop me taking the cash you give me and running off with it?’
‘You won’t receive any money for yourself until we’re legally married. Under Italian law, you won’t be allowed to divorce me for three years but that wouldn’t stop you leaving me. I have to trust that you wouldn’t leave without discussing it with me first.’
He would have to trust her. But the question, she supposed, was whether she could trust him.
The beef Wellington really was superb. Having never eaten it before, Eva had always assumed it consisted of an old boot baked to within an inch of its life. Instead she cut into the pinkest beef wrapped in a mushroom pâté, parsley pancakes and delicate layers of puff pastry.
‘If you don’t want a traditional marriage, what kind of marriage do you have in mind for us?’ she asked after she’d taken her second mouth-watering bite. She couldn’t entertain a traditional marriage either, not with Daniele or anyone. But a marriage of convenience where pots of cash were given to the charity she held so close to her heart...that, she found to her surprise, she could entertain.
Daniele Pellegrini was an exceptionally handsome man. He had an innate sex appeal that poor Johann would have given both his skinny arms for. But that was all on the surface. Her body might respond to him but her heart would be safe. She would be safe. Daniele didn’t want romance or pillow talk, the things that drew a couple together and forged intimacy and left a person vulnerable to heartbreak.
She would never put herself in a vulnerable position again. She couldn’t. Her heart had been fractured so many times that the next blow to it could be permanent.
‘The outside world will see us as a couple,’ he replied. A slight breeze had lifted a lock of his thick dark hair on the top of his head so it stuck up and swayed. ‘We will live together. We will visit family and friends as a couple and entertain as a couple.’
‘We will be each other’s primary escorts?’
He nodded. ‘That’s an excellent way of putting it. And one day we may be parents...’
Immediately her food stuck in her throat. Pounding on her chest, Eva coughed loudly then took a long drink straight from the bottle of water.
‘Are you okay?’ Daniele asked. He’d half risen from his seat, ready to go to her aid.
‘No.’ She laughed weakly and coughed again. ‘I thought you said something about us being parents.’
‘I did. If we’re going to marry, then we’re going to share a bed.’
‘You didn’t think to mention that?’
‘I didn’t think it needed spelling out. Married couples sleep together, tesoro, and I will sleep with you.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Sharing a bed with you is the one plus point to us marrying.’
‘I don’t want to have sex with you.’
Instead of offending him, he laughed. ‘That, I think, is the first lie you have told me. You cannot deny your attraction to me.’
‘If I was attracted to you, I wouldn’t have turned your offer of a nightcap down.’
‘If you weren’t attracted to me, you wouldn’t have hesitated before turning it down. You think I don’t know when a woman desires me? I can read body language well and you, my light, show all the signs of a woman fighting her desire. I understand why—it can’t be an easy thing to admit that you desire a man you dislike so much.’
‘Have you always been this egotistical?’
‘It’s taken years of practice but I got there in the end. And you still haven’t denied that you’re attracted to me.’
‘I’m not attracted to you.’
‘Two lies in two minutes? That’s bad form for a woman who’s going to be my wife.’
‘I haven’t agreed to anything.’
‘Not yet. But you will. We both know you will.’
‘Let me make this clear, if I agree to marry you, I will not have sex with you.’
‘And let me make this clear, when we marry, we will share a room and a bed. Whether we have sex in that bed will be up to you.’
‘You won’t insist on your conjugal rights?’
‘I won’t need to insist. Deny it until your face goes blue but there is a chemistry between us and lying under the same bed sheets will only deepen it.’
‘But will you try to force me?’
Distaste flickered over his handsome face. ‘Never. I can’t promise that I won’t try and seduce you—Dio, tesoro, you’re a sexy woman... I’d have to be a saint not to try—but I respect the word no. The moment you say no, I will roll over and go to sleep.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he planned to take a mistress. It stood to reason that if she wouldn’t have sex with him he would get it from someone else.
But that was a whole new quagmire that instinct told her to leave alone. She’d been celibate for six years and had never missed sex. She had missed the cuddles but never the sex, which deep in the heart of her she had always found underwhelming. Why people made such a big deal out of it she would never understand, but they did and to expect Daniele to be celibate was like expecting a lion not to eat the lame deer that limped in front of it.
‘If I agree I will want to continue working.’ If he could list his requirements, then she should too.
‘You won’t need to work.’
‘Are you going to quit your job?’
He raised his eyebrows. They were very nice eyebrows, she noted absently.
‘You don’t need to work,’ she pointed out. ‘You could retire right now and never want for anything for the rest of your life.’
‘You want to work?’
‘I love my job.’
Now his brows knitted together in thought before he said slowly, ‘You won’t be able to work at the camp any more.’
Her heart sank. She loved working at the camp. Her job might be listed as administrative but it was so much more than that. She was useful there. She’d learned skills she would never have picked up anywhere else. In her own way, she’d made a difference to many of the people who’d lost so much.
‘I can’t just leave,’ she whispered.
‘Why not? The charity will be losing one employee but gaining three million dollars a year from it. Any loss of salary for you will be more than replaced by the allowance you’ll get from me.’
‘It’s not about the money.’
‘Then what is it about?’
She inhaled deeply. How could she explain that her job in the camp had given her a purpose? In the midst of all the deprivation she’d found hope when she’d been so sure there was no hope left inside her. And even if she could find the words to explain it, what would Daniele care? For him, money ruled everything. Marrying her meant he stood to inherit even more filthy lucre.
That made her mind up for her.
Fixing her eyes on him, she said, ‘Five million a year. That’s what you’ll have to pay the charity for me to marry you. And I’ll want it in writing. A legal document.’
His eyes didn’t flicker. ‘It will form part of our prenuptial agreement.’
‘I will have my own lawyer approve it.’
‘Naturally.’
‘I need to give a month’s notice and—’
‘No.’ His refutation was sharp. ‘That is too long. There are many things that need to be arranged and it can’t wait. I want us to be married in Italy as soon as possible and there is much to organise. You will hand your notice in tomorrow and tell your bosses you’ll be leaving with immediate effect or this suitcase of cash stays with me and I find another wife.’
He must have noticed her mutinous expression at his non-subtle warning that he could easily find another woman to be his wife, and likely one who was a hundred times more malleable, for he added, ‘I will arrange for someone suitable to take your place until the charity can find a permanent replacement for you.’
‘And if you can’t find a suitable replacement?’
‘I will.’ He looked so smugly confident in his assertion that she longed to smack him. ‘But the second I hand over the cash tomorrow you are committed to marrying me. There will be no going back on your word.’
‘Providing my lawyer agrees that the prenuptial agreement is unbreakable, I will not go back on my word.’
‘Then do we have a deal? You will marry me? You will quit your job and come to Italy with me tomorrow?’
‘Only if the agency agrees that your “suitable replacement” is suitable.’
‘They will,’ he said in that same smugly confident tone.
‘I’ll need to go home before I go to Italy.’
Now he drummed his fingers on the table with his impatience. ‘What’s your excuse for that?’
‘You’re an Italian national but I’ll be considered an alien. I used to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so I know what I’m talking about. I need to go to my home in The Hague to collect the papers your officials will require from me.’
‘I’ll send someone to get them.’
‘I’m not having a stranger go through my possessions.’
He studied her for a moment before giving a sharp nod. ‘Okay, I will take you to the Netherlands first. But that is it. I will agree to no further delays. Does this mean we have a deal? Do I instruct my lawyers to draft the prenuptial agreement?’
Her throat suddenly running dry, Eva cleared it, trying to ignore the chorus of rebuttals ringing in her head.
What did it matter if she was agreeing to a cold, emotionless marriage when her life had been cold and emotionless for six years? Marrying Daniele meant the Blue Train Aid Agency would have the wonderful benefit of his money, which would be of far more value to it than she was as a lowly employee.
As Daniele himself had said only minutes ago, marrying him meant everyone was a winner.
But still the chorus in her head warned that for there to be a winner someone had to be the loser.
How could she be the loser in the deal? She wasn’t giving Daniele her heart, only her physical presence. She wasn’t giving him anything of herself so how could she be the loser?
So she ignored the chorus and met his gaze, her cold heart battering her ribs. ‘Yes. We have a deal.’
‘You will marry me?’
Closing her mind to the image of Johann that had fluttered to its forefront, she nodded.
‘Say it,’ Daniele commanded.
‘Yes. I will marry you.’
His firm lips turned at the corners, more grimace than smile. ‘Then I suggest we have a drink to drown our sorrows in.’
* * *
Daniele, looked at his watch and sighed. The money had been handed over to the astounded Blue Train Aid Agency bosses, his temporary replacement for Eva approved with only the most cursory of glances at the replacement’s CV, and the prenuptial agreement was in the hands of his lawyers and expected to be completed by the time they landed in Europe. Her canvas backpack had been put in the boot of his car by his driver, all the paperwork for the termination of her employment done. They should be long gone from this godforsaken camp by now but Eva had disappeared, muttering something about needing to say some goodbyes. He’d imagined it would take only a few minutes but she’d been gone for almost an hour.
He accepted another sludge-like coffee from a female employee who turned the colour of beetroot every time he looked at her and forced a smile. All he wanted was to be gone and away from this place that made him hate himself for the privileges he’d been born to. Although he would never admit this to Eva, he would have donated the million dollars cash to the charity that morning even if she’d turned his proposal down.
Just as he drained the last of the disgusting liquid—he’d have to add a lifetime supply of decent coffee for all staff and refugees to his donation, he decided—Eva appeared in the dilapidated building he’d been hiding in.
‘Ready to go?’ he asked in a tone that left no room for doubt that she’d better be ready to go or he’d chuck her over his shoulder and carry her out.
She nodded. She’d hardly exchanged a word with him since his arrival at the camp mid-morning and hadn’t met his eyes once.
‘Come on then.’
It was only a short walk to his car. His driver spotted their approach and opened the passenger door.
‘Eva!’
They both turned their heads to the sound and saw three teenage boys come flying over to them, jabbering and calling out in Spanish.
Eva’s face lit up to see them.
She embraced them all tightly in turn and, much to their pretend disgust, kissed their cheeks and ruffled their hair. Only after she’d embraced them all for a second time did she get in the car.
Daniele hurried in behind her so she couldn’t use another excuse to delay, and tapped the partition screen so his driver knew to get going.
The boys ran alongside the car as they left the camp, waving, hollering, blowing kisses, which were all returned by Eva.
Only when they were on the open road with the camp far behind them did Daniele see the solitary tear trickle down her face.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ud9a1c7ce-ae91-55a7-8593-20efb6e66f41)
EVA STEPPED INTO the small one-bedroom apartment she’d shared with Johann with a weight sitting heavily in her chest.
As she walked slowly through the living room, dust dislodged and filtered through the air. She hadn’t set foot in it for over a year. She hadn’t lived in it properly in four years. Intellectually she knew she should sell it or at the very least rent it out, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
All the old photos were where she’d left them. She picked up one on the windowsill, dislodging more dust. The picture was of her and Johann in the snow. Not even the thick winter clothing he’d been bundled up in could disguise Johann’s skinny frame. They both looked so young. They’d been so young, only nineteen when the picture had been taken.
She kissed the cold glass and put the frame back where it had been, pushing the old memories clamouring in her head aside and ignoring the urge to get the duster and vacuum cleaner out. She’d promised Daniele she would only be ten minutes.
He hadn’t been happy at her insistence he wait in the car. She didn’t want him in her apartment. This was the place she and Johann had made into a home when they’d been little more than children playacting at being grown-ups, neither having any real idea of what it entailed, learning as they went along, right down to when she’d put a nail in the kitchen wall to hang a picture, not having any idea that electric cables were nestled behind it and that she’d drilled right into them until they started receiving electric shocks every time they touched the tap or fridge. The electrician they’d had to scrape all their loose change together to afford had sternly told them they’d had a lucky escape—if either of them had touched the nail they would have been electrocuted. Even today, she couldn’t believe she’d been so lucky. What had been the odds that she could hang the picture without touching that live nail? At the time she’d considered it as evidence of their good luck; vindication that running away with him had been right.
But their luck had run out.
With a sigh, she pulled the suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe and quickly filled it with her meagre number of warm clothes. Snow was settling on the streets outside, the weather a complete contrast to the glorious sunshine she’d left in Caballeros.
She didn’t take anything else. She’d known when she’d accepted Daniele’s proposal that what she was agreeing to would not be permanent. But she could manage a few years, of that she was certain.
* * *
Daniele’s castello was almost identical to how Eva had imagined it, sitting high in the rolling Tuscan hills. Evening was falling and the few lights on gave it an ethereal, gothic quality. Thinking of how it would look with all the lights blazing in the total darkness, she could easily see where it got its name. Castello Miniato, the illuminated castle, would have shone for miles in medieval times.
What had once been a castle of majesty and splendour in a bright salmon pink was now on the verge of being a crumbling relic.
‘Are you renovating it?’ she asked as she got out of the car, which the driver had brought to a stop in an enormous courtyard. She could just make out scaffolding poles along a far wall.
‘My brother started on a renovation programme. He finished the south wing and now I need to think about what I want to do with the rest of it.’ There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
‘You don’t like it here?’
He shrugged. ‘I prefer modern architecture. If I could get away with it, I would pull it down and start again.’
She followed him through a wide solid oak door and found herself standing in a high-ceilinged room that, despite its size and grandeur, had a dank, cold feel to it.
The temperature change from what she’d been used to in the Caribbean hadn’t bothered her until that point. The cold weather front had engulfed the whole of Europe, with Tuscany expecting its own share of the white stuff over the coming days, but it wasn’t until she stepped into the castello’s reception room that Eva felt the cold in her bones.
‘The chef has prepared a meal for us,’ Daniele said, rubbing his hands briskly together. ‘I’ll show you to our living quarters.’
She trailed him for a good few minutes before he opened a door into a wide corridor lined with high, wide windows.
‘This is the family quarters,’ he said, then pointed to a door. ‘That is my room, which will be our room once we’re married.’ He threw the glimmer of a smile. ‘Of course, if you wish for it to be our room before then, you’re welcome to join me in it.’
She threw back a smile that quite clearly showed hell would freeze over first. ‘Which is my room?’
‘Take your pick. Serena, who runs the place, got the staff to put fresh bedding in all the rooms. The only one off limits is Francesca’s.’ He indicated another door, this time his smile indulgent. ‘If you want to make yourself a widow, just tell my sister I let you sleep in her room. She would kill me.’
‘Does Francesca live here?’ She’d assumed not but only now she was here did she realise she knew next to nothing about Daniele or his family, not on a personal, familiar level. All her dealings with them had been in Caballeros where medieval castellos and family trees had never cropped up in conversation.
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