His Merciless Marriage Bargain

Which was all very good and well at the corporate office, but sitting here in this enormous room, facing a tall, handsome, charismatic Italian, she was secretly terrified. She could sell a man a thirty-million-dollar airplane, but she fell apart when kissed, especially if the kiss was dark and sexual, destroying all rational thought.

“The silence is soothing, is it not?” she asked, struggling to sound as relaxed as he appeared.

He seemed to check a smile, grooves bracketing his firm mouth. “Indeed.”

“I hope we can drink our coffee in silence. Silence makes everything better,” she added, frustration growing. “Especially when it’s in such an impressive room.” She glanced around the salon, the proportions alone overwhelming, never mind the grand paintings and light fixtures. “I suppose you hoped to intimidate me by bringing me here to your grand salon.”

“This is not by any means my most impressive room. It’s actually one of the smaller salons on this floor, considered by most to be intimate and welcoming.” His lashes dropped, concealing the intense blue of his eyes. “It’s my mother’s favorite. If she were here, she’d serve you coffee here.”

Embarrassed, Rachel bit her lip and glanced away, more self-conscious and resentful than ever. Two weeks ago, when her private investigator gave her Giovanni’s address and she realized she’d have to come to Venice to get him to meet with her, she’d pictured meeting him somewhere neutral and public, perhaps at her hotel in one of the cheerful pleasant rooms downstairs, or maybe a quiet restaurant tucked away off the more public thoroughfares.

She’d imagined he’d be proud and arrogant, possibly grim and unsmiling. It hadn’t once crossed her mind that he’d kiss her, and then walk her into his home and shut the door and create this awful air of privacy. Intimacy. She swallowed hard and struggled to think of something to say. “Does your mother live here?”

“Part of the year. During the winter she likes to go to her sister’s in Sorrento.” He rose from his chair and walked toward the wall of tall windows, pausing before one window, his gaze fixed intently on a distant point.

She wondered if he was looking for the photographers, or if there was something else happening on the lagoon. She used the opportunity to study him. He was easily six-two, maybe taller, and his shoulders were broad, his spine long, tapering to a lean waist and powerful legs. Even from the back he crackled with authority and power. He was not the recluse she’d imagined.

Still staring out, Gio added, “I confess, I’m surprised you never reached out to her. I would have thought that in your desperation you would have approached her. Who to better love and accept a bambino than the grandmother?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “I did reach out.”

He turned to look at her. “And?”

“She wasn’t interested.”

“Is that what she said?”

“No. She never responded.”

“She probably didn’t get your messages then.”

“I didn’t just call. I wrote letters, too.”

“All sent to the Marcello corporate office in Rome?”

Rachel nodded.

His shoulders shifted. “Then that is why she didn’t receive them. Anything to my mother would go to my assistant, and my assistant wouldn’t forward.”

“Why not? It was important correspondence.”

“My assistant was under strict instructions to not disturb my mother with anything troubling, or upsetting. My mother hasn’t been well for a while.”

“I would imagine that she’d be delighted to discover that Antonio had left a piece of him behind.”

“I can’t—and won’t—get her hopes up, not if she is being used, or manipulated.”

“I wouldn’t do that to her.”

“No? You wouldn’t have asked her for money if she’d responded? You wouldn’t have demanded support?” He saw her expression and smiled grimly. “You would have, and you know it. I do, too, which is why I had to protect her, and shield her from stress.”

“I would think that having a beautiful grandson—Antonio’s son—in her arms would help her heal.”

“If the child in question really was Antonio’s…maybe.”

“Michael is Antonio’s.”

“I don’t know that.”

“I have proof.”

“DNA tests?” he mocked, walking again, now prowling the perimeter of the room. “I’ll do my own, thank you.”

“Good. Do them. I’ve been waiting for you to do your own!”

He paused, arms crossing over his chest. “And if he is Antonio’s, what then?”