The Price Of A Dangerous Passion

“No. The Riccis are pragmatic. None of you liked the bad press, and you were able to come together to downplay the succession issue.”

She made a face. “Not that the issue has gone away. It’s just smoothed over for the time being.”

“I think we’ve at least begun to whittle away at the issue. We aren’t burying our heads in the sand anywhere. Something has to be done.”

“But you personally don’t think Enzo’s son is the one to lead the Ricci company in the future.”

“I think he should be involved in management, but Antonio isn’t a visionary, and he’s overly cautious, which leads to a fear of making decisions. You can’t have your CEO afraid to make a decision.”

“And what of Marcello’s and Livia’s kids? Anyone there look promising?”

“Livia’s daughter, Adriana, is brilliant. She’s strategic and has this rather dazzling ability to ‘see’ the future while very much coping with issues of today. My vote would be for Adriana, but that won’t be popular with my brothers. They both have sons and they’re both grooming their sons to head the company.” He paused and looked down at her. “And who knows what our child’s strengths will be, but I’m hopeful he or she will also embrace the family, as loud and fierce and complicated as we are.”

“Yet you all love each other,” she said after a moment. “I think that is the thing that struck me most. You quarrel rather passionately, but that’s because you all care so much.” Her family was the opposite. The quarreling wasn’t warm and loving. The quarreling was incredibly divisive, so divisive that Charlotte was more comfortable with her stepbrothers and sisters than her own siblings.

He shrugged. “We’re family. Family sticks together.”

Or not.

He looked at her, silver gaze assessing. “You don’t agree?”

“My family isn’t as neat and tidy as yours, so I’m not sure how I feel about ‘family.’ It’s not a simple question, nor a simple answer.”

His expression eased, and he smiled. “Then how about I pose a simple question. Are you hungry? Lunch should be served soon.”

“I am hungry,” she admitted. “Lately I feel like I’m always hungry.”

“Then let’s walk back to the house, and you can freshen up before we meet on the terrace for lunch.”

Brando escorted her back to the sprawling castello, where he left her at the foot of the stairs—on her insistence, as she didn’t need to be walked all the way to her bedroom door—but as she climbed the stairs to the second floor, she couldn’t help thinking of what Brando had said when they’d first arrived, that Castello Marescotti is where he’d want to raise his children, because there would be room for them to run and play. He was right, there was plenty of room here, both indoors and out. The stone house was huge, almost too big for a game of hide-and-seek, but she’d been raised in such a place herself and had thought nothing of the grandness, or the sheer amount of space. It’s what she knew. It was home.

In her room, she took a brush to her hair, combing through the long blond strands until they were smooth, and then touched up her makeup. As she reapplied her lipstick, Charlotte tried to imagine this house as her baby’s home and felt an odd prickle of pain and her hand shook. She had to draw a breath and steady her hand before putting the cap on the lipstick. It wasn’t that this grand medieval house wasn’t comfortable, because the interior was stylish and yet welcoming, a place both grown-ups and children would be at ease, but rather it was the idea of the baby being here without her...that her baby would have a whole life without her...

Sudden tears stung her eyes and she blinked hard, clearing her vision. She wasn’t usually emotional, and yet all she felt right now were emotions, strong, intense, overwhelming.

She loved her unborn child rather desperately, and every fiber of her being wanted to protect the baby. But how could she do that if she wasn’t with him or her?

How could she bring a child into the world and then not be part of his or her life...even part-time?

She put away her lipstick and slid the makeup bag and hairbrush into the top dresser of the pretty vanity, and then squared her shoulders. She could do this with Brando. She could be civil, and calm, and make him understand that she wasn’t going to let a baby grow up without her. She didn’t know the answer to “sharing” the baby, she just knew she was going to be with her child full-time, end of story.

CHAPTER FOUR

BRANDO WAITED FOR Charlotte on the terrace, the sun warm overhead as he stood at the balcony overlooking the valley. It was perfect weather for lunch al fresco, the temperature warm, the air fragrant, smelling of roses, citrus blossoms and jasmine. The table was set for two, and a lush bouquet of pale pink and creamy white antique roses created a charming centerpiece, especially when paired with the fine china and delicate Venetian stemware.

It was a table setting that hinted at romance, but there was nothing romantic about his intentions. Brando had never been a man of romance—he was far too carnal, far too practical. He loved women and loved sex, but so far, he’d been careful to avoid commitments, much less serious entanglements.

And yet despite his best efforts to avoid entanglements, he was facing one now, an entanglement with lifelong implications.

He’d known that one day he’d have children—Italians were family oriented, and he had a wicked soft spot for his nieces and nephews, who made it clear they adored him—but marriage and children was down the road, far, far down the road, because marriage was forever. Marriage required complete commitment, as well as a suitable partner who one could grow old with, and hopefully, still like decades later.

His parents had had such a marriage. His parents married in their twenties, and had just celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary when his father passed away. Heartbroken, his mother had almost immediately moved to her widowed sister’s house in Cinque Terre, where she and her sister found happiness being under the same roof. They missed their husbands but found endless opportunities to see their children and grandchildren.

Livia and Enzo had grumbled about their mother moving to the coast, to a place that wasn’t easy to reach, but Marcello agreed with Brando that it was good for their mother to have an identity of her own, that she needed to have adventures and fun, adventures that had nothing to do with the rest of them.

Brando smiled thinking of his mother. She was a spitfire, full of endless energy, and she was always happy to see her family, but he respected her for not wanting to sit around her house, just mourning the death of her husband, and waiting for death to come. Life was meant to be lived. Life was meant to have passion, and gusto, and if anyone in the family had gusto, it was his mother.

But he also knew what his mother would say if he knew he’d gotten a woman pregnant. Her first question would be, “How will you make this right?” Not because a pregnancy was shameful, but a pregnancy represented life, and love, and family. He didn’t think of himself as a traditionalist, but the idea of someone, anyone, having his child and raising that child far from him made his skin crawl. Maybe Charlotte was comfortable picturing a world where her baby—their baby, he corrected himself—shuttled back and forth between two homes, but he wasn’t.

He knew her family had numerous marriages, divorces and out-of-wedlock babies in it. They took the idea of commitment far more loosely than his family did. There hadn’t been a divorce in his family for generations. Nor had there been a baby born out of wedlock.

One of his older brothers had married when his girlfriend was pregnant, and it had been a rather hastily arranged wedding, but they were still together, and had added three other children besides that first unplanned pregnancy.

Brando hadn’t been thinking of marriage, nor had he thought he was ready to settle down, but if Charlotte was pregnant, this was serious. This was a game changer. This impacted everything. Either she would agree to give him custody of the baby—which he didn’t see her ever doing—or she would agree to marry him. Those were the only two options he saw. He wasn’t about to have his firstborn raised in a bohemian househol

d in California, or at one of the sprawling estates owned by her family in England. Her family seemed to spend as much time in England as they did in France and that was not acceptable, not for a Ricci. His family was Italian, and proud of their heritage. He wanted his child—son or daughter—to be raised immersed in his culture, his language, his family.

Bottom line, he wanted his child to be part of his family.

And put like that, it did make him sound conservative, and old-world. But the Riccis were family oriented, and family came first, and last, and they understood what it meant to stick together, through thick and thin. It wasn’t that her family or culture didn’t count, but her culture was a mishmash of English, American, French, and then there were those years from the Swiss boarding school, years where he suspected young women were taught how to snare the world’s most eligible bachelors, rather than how to live a successful, independent life.

Charlotte, though, was probably the exception. She’d started her own business and had created a name for herself. She was financially independent, and successful. She’d be a good wife. Once he convinced her it was the right thing to do.

He thought of her, stubborn, proud, confident—and then just like that, she was there, stepping through the glass doors out into the Tuscany sunshine, blond hair spilling down her back, a hint of rose in her cheek, fire in her eyes—and he knew it would take some convincing, to get her on the same page.

She wasn’t going to want to marry him, but having weighed his options, it was the only real option before them.

Lunch was leisurely, with small courses being replaced by other courses, and the portions were perfectly sized so that Charlotte enjoyed everything as much as she could, considering Brando kept watching her with an intensity that she found dizzying. Every movement reflected his physical strength and grace. He was not a man of leisure. One didn’t get a body like his without hard activity. She had a sudden flash of memory, of his hips arching against hers, his body filling her so completely that she wanted nothing more than to be his, again and again.