The Ranieri Bride

A shiver ran down her back. Oh, no, she thought, and lowered her face to her knees because she just couldn’t face the idea of him having the power to ruin her life—again.

Once had been enough.

Once upon a time three years ago she’d had a wonderful job as his personal assistant. She’d lived a wonderful life as his live-in lover. They’d barely survived being out of each other’s sight. Two hot lovers with passionate and feverishly possessive temperaments, they’d matched each other, fire for sizzling fire.

Then she’d met his cousin and within weeks it was all over.

‘Monkey,’ Nicky said levelly.

‘We will see the monkeys tomorrow,’ Freya promised, lifting her head to look at this dark-haired little boy who was the most important thing in her life—whoever his father was.

‘No, monkey over there,’ he insisted, pointing with a finger.

Turning her head, Freya found her eyes fixing on the bulky shape of Fredo Scarsozi. He was standing beneath the shade of a tree not twenty feet from them. As she stared he sent her a brief nod in acknowledgement and she knew then, knew with every single fractured nerve she possessed that, far from dismissing them, Enrico was right there watching them from behind the steady gaze of his most trusted employee.

Well, this was one fight he was going to have with himself because she was not going to play any part in it, she decided as she clambered to her feet. Nicky was her son and only hers, and it was going to be up to Enrico to prove otherwise.

If he cared enough.

Bitterness welled, and anger—a hard, cold rod of contempt that straightened her spine as she held a hand out to her son.

‘Come on, sweetie,’ she murmured. ‘It’s time for us to go back now.’

Nicky came without argument. With no bread left, the ducks had scooted back into the pond. Plus her son was used to the routine he had been living with since he was three months old and she had been so very fortunate to land a job at Hannard’s with its crèche all ready and waiting to take in her son.

The job itself might be basic and the pay reflected the money it cost her to place Nicky in day care, but at least he was right there in the same building with her and she could see him whenever she needed to. Their little flat might be poky and erring towards shabby but they managed.

They were happy—content to have just each other. They did not need a man in their lives and once Enrico had recovered from the shock of seeing them he would realise that he could not want anything to do with them.

‘The monkey is following us,’ Nicky informed her.

‘He’s not a monkey, he’s a man,’ Freya corrected and refused to glance back at Fredo—refused.

But that cold chill was striking at her again, the grim knowledge that she was lying to herself if she dared to believe that Enrico was going to let her off the hook without knowing the truth.

He was ruthless and tenacious.

CHAPTER TWO

LYING, cheating, vindictive whore…

Enrico sat behind the desk, silently throwing those insults at the photograph sourced from Hannard’s security files that looked out at him from his computer screen.

She looked so cute, so sweetly innocent, he mocked acidly. As if butter would not melt in her mouth.

But it did melt.

With a flick of the mouse he blanked her out by pulling up a photograph of the boy and once again felt that soul-shattering, crash-and-burn feeling rock his insides.

‘What do you think—is he mine or Luca’s?’ he asked Fredo.

Fredo gave one of his shrugs. ‘If he is Luca’s, then the bambino has been fortunate enough to miss out on his papa’s less savoury genes,’ the bodyguard said drily before adding quietly, ‘He has your eyes and mouth and your—stubbornness. He also has your sense of fun…’

Fredo was thinking about the way the boy had kept glancing up to check on him all the way back here and the cheeky smile he’d worn on his little mouth. As they’d entered the building he’d turned and shouted, ‘Bye, monkey!’ before being dragged off chuckling by his mamma who’d refused to glance Fredo’s way at all.

Enrico did not feel as if he had so much as a drop of fun in him right now as he sat there staring at the child’s face; it was as if those ink-dark eyes were making a link with his own—he could feel it right down to the dregs of his swirling, tensing gut.

‘He is mine, I feel it,’ he uttered gruffly.