The Ranieri Bride

The ‘terrible twos’ were an apt label when it came to her son, Freya thought ruefully as she fought to keep a grip on his hand. Give him the chance and he’d be off causing mayhem wherever he could wreak it. Lose concentration on him for a single second and he became a terrifying danger to himself.

She was going to have to purchase leading reins, she decided as she stood waging battle with one determined little boy. They would cause serious offence to his dignity, but hanging on to a writhing, kicking two-year-old meant that she was in danger of hurting him in her effort to keep him contained.

‘The park,’ she said, using a favoured destination as a key to unlock the door to her son’s more compliant side. ‘Be a good boy and walk nicely, and we will go to the park.’

‘Monkeys,’ he replied.

‘No,’ Freya returned firmly. ‘The monkeys live at the zoo. The park is closer.’

‘I like monkeys.’

‘I have hold of one right here,’ she laughed. ‘Be a good boy today, and we will go and see the monkeys tomorrow when we have more—’

‘He’s mine,’ a deep voice rasped like coarse sandpaper across her exposed nape.

Freya actually shivered, the blood in her veins beginning to freeze before she’d even lifted up her head and let her eyes clash with a pair of black eyes that flashed with raw hostility.

Her heart gave a shocked thump against her ribcage, then almost stopped altogether. It was like being hit over the head by your worst nightmare, she likened as she stared at six feet three inches of hard masculine aggression standing right over her and threatening hell. The black hair, the black eyes, the almost-black suit covering his tightly muscled framework, even the shiny black shoes on his long, narrow feet, all screamed: The devil has come to collect.

‘No,’ she breathed, not wanting to believe that Enrico, of all the rotten people in the world she could possibly meet again, was standing less than two feet away.

‘Madre de Dio, he is!’ Enrico bit out on a hushed, driven hiss of sizzling fury.

Freya blinked, still too locked in shock to realise that he had misunderstood her choked little negative. Then she watched his eyes drop to her son and fire up with the most ungodly flame of possessive rage.

Even Nicky was affected by that fierce look. Instead of continuing to tug on Freya’s hand, he clung tightly to it and shifted his wiry little body behind her legs. It was that defensive move from her normally fearless little boy that made anger burn out the deep freeze of her shock. With a lifting of her chin, Freya looked the hard, cruel, unrelenting devil right in the eye and repeated coldly, ‘No, he is not.’

Enrico moved with a tight shift of his lean body. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ he rasped out, dragging his eyes away from the little boy to fix back on his mother’s face. ‘You ruthless witch. I am going to make you pay for this!’

Freya could see that he meant it by the murderous glint in his eyes and that thin-lipped way in w

hich he was holding his mouth. An attractive mouth once, she found herself thinking, a gorgeously knowing and very seductive mouth. Like the rest of him: gorgeously sexy and disgustingly aware of it.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied stiffly.

Black eyes flared. He took a step towards her. For a horrible moment, Freya thought he was going to take hold of her by the throat. She gasped and took a step backwards, almost tripping over her son.

‘Enrico…’ Someone placed a warning hand on his arm.

It was only then that Freya became aware again of where it was they were standing. The whole foyer had gone silent and dozens of curious faces were turned on them. Enrico appeared to have forgotten his own entourage, one member of which was trying to remind him that they had an audience.

He glanced around, soot-black eyelashes flickering against fiercely jutting cheekbones. The whole structure of his lean, attractive face was savagely clenched. The atmosphere in the foyer was fizzing and popping with his barely contained violence, which he swung away from Freya and turned onto the person touching his arm.

Freya shuddered. Her grip on her son must have loosened in that mad moment of relief, because Nicky suddenly broke away from her. In the split second it took her to swing round to try and recapture the small boy he was already out of reach and heading straight for the exit like a mini-hostage suddenly set free.

Nicky knew those exit doors and exactly how to make them work: break the magic beam and they would swing open on a whole world of excitement for a small and fearless two-year-old.

‘Nicky—no!’ Freya cried out and went running after him.

He just gave a squeal of delight and kept going, little legs carrying him ever closer to freedom and the narrow pavement outside, which was the only point of safety between him and one of London’s busiest streets. Freya was already seeing his little body crushed beneath the wheels of a double-decker bus as she ran. Her skin had gone clammy, her heart was pounding agonisingly in her breast.

Then an arm reached out and a big body bent to scoop the child right off the ground. As Freya watched it happen through a haze of wild terror, she found her eyes fixing on yet another sickeningly familiar face.

Fredo Scarsozi, Enrico’s long-term bodyguard, was holding her son in a circle of formidable muscle-bound power. Her stomach rolled over. Nicky was yelling in frustrated temper while Fredo stood looking down at him—just looking.

Fredo could see the resemblance too, she realised as she skidded to a halt in front of him.

‘Give him to me,’ she demanded breathlessly, holding out her arms for her son.