The Ranieri Bride

CHAPTER SIX

‘QUITE the control-freak, aren’t you?’ Freya said coldly. ‘I suppose you would love to make me disappear altogether. Then you could claim full control over Nicky!’

‘Tempting proposition,’ Enrico drawled lazily. ‘I will give it some consideration.’

‘And maybe I will do the disappearing without your help,’ she flashed back.

‘With no job and no money to aid you?’ he mocked.

‘I’m not totally without friends.’

Something stirred inside him. ‘Men friends?’ he demanded. ‘Is there a man hiding in the shadows of your life who would be willing to finance this disappearance?’

‘Maybe,’ was all she said.

Something ugly changed the mood in the car. She’d taken him by surprise, Freya realised. It had not entered his arrogant head that there might actually be another man in her life!

‘Who is he?’ Enrico insisted angrily.

Triumph fizzed into life. ‘I don’t have to tell you that.’

The black eyes glinted. ‘You do if you want to leave this car in one piece.’

‘Get Fredo to bring me my son and I might tell you.’

‘We are discussing your disappearance, not my son’s. You can leave whenever you wish to. My son cannot.’

And that, Freya thought bitterly, said just about everything. ‘Unless this man feels that he has prior claim on Nicky, of course…’

She was referring to Luca! Enrico knew that she was referring to Luca. Her heart began to palpitate as she held on to his gaze and watched him flick his eyes away from her, his handsome face turning to cold granite, each beautifully honed feature locking up tight.

The air in the car became too thick to breathe, some soft, weak instinct begging her to take the taunt back.

But he had stolen her son, Freya reminded herself.

Enrico could call it what he liked, but he’d separated the two of them to keep her compliant. That knowledge alone was enough to keep the retraction locked in her throat.

The car came to a timely halt then. Freya escaped by opening her door and climbing out, leaving Enrico sitting there—just sitting, with his cousin’s name ringing inside his head.

A nerve punched in her tense spine as she stood taking in her surroundings. The afternoon was still hot and the sun was shining on the bright white walls of a Georgian property. This was not the same apartment block Enrico had used to live in three years ago; it looked a hell of a lot more palatial.

In fact, it didn’t look like an apartment block at all, but more like a converted house. When Enrico arrived at her side to unlock the front door she wanted to ask questions, but the grim mood between them was conducive only to silence—a hard, tough, don’t-look-at-one-another silence.

Inside, the wide, gracious hallway was the epitome of elegance, with a beautiful stairway leading up to the floor above. Freya had barely glanced around her before a door opened towards the back of the hall and a man appeared, dressed in tight jeans and a white T-shirt.

He pulled to a halt when he saw them. It was Sonny, Enrico’s long-time housekeeper-cum-chef. Sonny was around the same age as Enrico and about as beautiful as a man could be. He was also as gay as they came and proud of it.

?

??Thought I heard you come in,’ he said to Enrico, then flicked his gaze to Freya. ‘Ciao, sweetie; long time, no see,’ he greeted. ‘You have had one bambino since we last met, I hear…’

‘Yes,’ she answered—but did Sonny believe that Nicky was Enrico’s son?

It had been Sonny’s day off that time that Luca had come calling. Sonny only knew what he’d been told after the event. Enrico, Fredo and Sonny had grown up together on the huge Ranieri estate. Fredo and Sonny were Enrico’s most trusted friends as well as his employees. If Sonny had heard Enrico’s version, then Luca Ranieri’s face was floating right here in the hallway between them like a cynical, mocking spectre.

As if he saw it, too, Enrico shifted tensely. ‘Some coffee would be good,’ he prompted Sonny.

‘Sure.’ Flicking his gaze back to Enrico, Sonny kept his expression blank as he waved a hand towards a door. ‘Freya’s things arrived a few minutes ago. I was not sure what you wanted me to do with them, so I had them stashed in there…’