The Ranieri Bride

‘Stop playing this game, Freya.’ He frowned impatiently. ‘This is stupid. I know he is mine, even if you cannot be sure.’

‘Oh, that was good, Enrico.’ She smiled. ‘I turn the tables on you and you’re turning them back again—but that was a mistake,’ she declared. ‘Because all you’ve just managed to do is to confirm what a truly uncaring and cynical bastard you are. So let me put it bluntly…’ Freya straightened from the desk. ‘I don’t want you having any influence in my son’s life, therefore I will do whatever it takes to keep you out of it. I’ll fight you with medical science if you make me, then I’ll fight you in court.’

‘You have the cash handy to back that up?’

‘There is such a thing as legal aid in this country,’ she pointed out. And on that she turned for the door. ‘Call Fredo off,’ she added as she started walking. ‘Or I will inform the authorities that we have a child-stalker in the building.’

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

Freya’s head went back. ‘I’m walking out of here—’

‘Out of your job—?’

The challenge landed like a barb to hit dead centre of its target, acting like a lead weight that dropped at her feet and pulled her to a stop.

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘Need it, do you, Jenson?’ he drawled. ‘Need the meagre wages it pays into your bank?’

‘Yes,’ she breathed.

‘Need the day care it gives to your son, also? Now, just how would you manage if it wasn’t there…?’

Freya’s insides began trembling, the meaning behind each single taunt making her feel suddenly very sick. Cold defiance was only effective as a weapon when you had the resources to back it up.

Enrico had just shown her that she had none.

She turned slowly. It was the only way to do it if she didn?

?t want to collapse in a heap on the floor. He was still standing by the drinks cabinet, lounging there now like some super-arrogant modern sculptured Italian god, with his long legs crossed at the ankles and his casual air of sartorial elegance, his power and confidence knocking the spots off her attempt to gain the upper hand. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the windows, catching hold of his lean, golden features and glinting, hard eyes, and his even harder-looking mouth clipped by a tight, taunting smile.

She’d gone quite nicely pale, Enrico noted with grim satisfaction. Toss your head at me now if you dare.

‘You wouldn’t,’ she husked out.

‘Why not?’ he countered. ‘I am the crass bastard who hands you over to his cousin for a bit of good sex, remember? I am capable of doing anything.’

He didn’t mean it, Freya told herself anxiously. He was just getting his own back on her for calling him crass. ‘But it would hurt so many other mothers with—’

‘Oh, come on, Freya,’ he cut in, ‘you worked with me for a year so you know the score. If you wanted to cut costs at Hannard’s, where would you begin—?’

‘Not with the crèche!’ she cried out.

‘Because you have a vested interest there?’ Her eyes were flashing with fear, not defiance now, Enrico noted. ‘Whereas I do not.’

‘You—you…’ The words trailed off, bitten back before she could say them.

Enrico leant forward slightly. ‘Yes?’ he prompted. ‘Were you about to say something important then, cara? Were you about to tell me that I do have a vested interest there?’

‘No,’ she choked out.

He relaxed back again. ‘Your own job, then,’ he moved on with a zealous, razor-like slice. ‘If you had to sit on my side of the desk, what other cost-cutting exercise would you be looking at? The filing department, perhaps?’ he suggested. ‘That vast paper storeroom in the basement of this building that uses up expensive workspace that could be leased out to some other business for a damn good return?’

‘Every business has files to store.’ Her arms were back round her body again, trying to defend the panic erupting beneath their tight clasp.

‘All the efficiently run businesses I know do not employ a clutch of mindless people for the exclusive task of feeding paper into a couple of ancient scanning machines,’ he responded with contempt. ‘I could contract out—bring in fifty people with fifty state-of-the-art machines and clear that whole basement of paper in a week. It would cost me maximum—’ He named a figure that made Freya blench. ‘That makes your job and the jobs of your fellow paper-scanners redundant. Now, where do I turn next to cut costs?’

Freya was really trembling now—no, shivering, her skin as cold as ice. In one easy shift of his brain he’d threatened to relieve her of her job, plus those of the dozen others who worked in the basement with her. And if that wasn’t enough, he was also threatening to relieve thirty-four other mothers of their child-care facility, thereby making the staff that ran the crèche redundant, too.