Nicky, it turned out, was to be weaned away from the Hannard’s crèche and bonded with his new nanny in time for their move to Milan. Fredo always delivered him and Lissa back to Enrico’s Mayfair house by lunch-time, when Freya was allowed to play the mother again.
And whatever else Enrico was trying to wean her son away from, Freya could at least console herself with the knowledge that she was still the first person Nicky wanted when he was tired, hungry or upset because he’d hurt himself.
But how long would that last? How long before her importance to Nicky began to fade?
Each morning Sonny would appear with that day’s list of instructions and off they would go to spend the morning transforming Freya into someone fit to be seen as the wife of Enrico Ranieri—and the mother of his son.
They became good fodder for the tabloids. The paparazzi followed wherever she and Sonny went. They called her a gorgeous and sexy redhead and they tossed questions at her about her past relationship with Enrico that she refused to respond to—until one dared to ask her if she’d been dumped three years ago in the same way that Enrico had dumped Sofia Romano last week?
Sonny was in the process of hustling Freya into a bridal shop when the question was posed.
‘Who is she?’ Freya demanded the moment they had privacy inside the shop. The fact that Sonny stiffened up was enough to make her freeze.
‘Not my question to answer.’ Sonny shrugged, and left it for her to find out the hard way—via the first newspaper she could lay her hands on.
Freya refused to try on any more clothes. She refused to be led around any longer by the nose. When another reporter dared to ask if Enrico was as amazing in bed as her predecessor had said he was, she answered kindly, ‘Perhaps Miss Romano likes to exaggerate.’
They laughed, thought it hilarious. Sonny uttered an under-the-breath groan. Freya sizzled quietly with anger all the way back to the house. The moment that Fredo delivered Lissa and Nicky, she took her son out again—sneaking out the back way and staying out with him all afternoon.
Enrico didn’t laugh when he heard what she’d said. That night he showed her just how amazing he could be when he climbed into their bed and grimly hauled her across the gap.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘SO, THE gorgeous and sexy redhead about to marry Enrico Ranieri has a sense of humour?’
Enrico was quoting directly from a newspaper article, his voice silken, the smile on his lips a circling shark’s kind of smile.
Freya’s pulse quickened. ‘ Romano has a great sense of humour, too,’ she hit back. ‘She made me laugh all the way through my wedding-gown fitting after I read her account of how you fed diamonds around her slender wrist then murmured, “Sorry, but these mean farewell!”’
‘What did you expect me to do—let her read about our marriage in the papers the next day?’
‘Did the farewell and the diamonds come before or after our amazing sex?’
‘You jealous, vindictive witch,’ he gritted.
‘And you are a two-timing rat!’
‘I dumped her! How does that make me a two-timing rat?’
‘You dumped her after you’d had me over your desk!’ Freya lashed at him. ‘That makes you the lowest kind of two-timer there is! Get off me!’
‘I know a worse one.’ Enrico clamped her flat against the silk-sheeted mattress with his impressively naked torso. ‘She two-timed two cousins in the same damn bed!’
‘With your blessing, don’t forget!’
‘Don’t star
t that again,’ Enrico muttered.
‘Then leave me alone,’ she cried, pushing at him with her fists. ‘I hate you. I don’t know why I’m letting you do all of this to me. I don’t even know how I’ve managed to share the same bed!’
‘By clutching at the mattress to stop yourself rolling into me,’ he derided. ‘And I left you alone because I decided to at least attempt to give us both a proper wedding night—but to hell with that.’
In a single swift move he threw back the covers then came to straddle her, all naked rippling muscle and aroused, angry male. His hands went to the hem of her nightdress to tug it upwards; her fingers clutched at it to hold it in place.
‘I won’t let you,’ she spat at him.
‘You will be begging me in seconds.’