A Night of Living Dangerously

Lilley took a deep breath. She could live with that, she told herself. She’d be the wife he wanted. She’d keep her mouth shut and focus on being elegant and restrained. She’d try harder at her lessons and wear the clothes he wanted her to wear. She would be whomever he wanted her to be, if it would win his love.

Then it would all be worth it—wouldn’t it?

Suddenly shivering, she nestled closer into Alessandro’s warmth. In a moment, his eyes would open, and he’d lazily suggest dinner, or perhaps he’d want to make love to her again.

Whatever it took. She would convince him to give her the tiniest fraction of his heart, as she’d recklessly given him all of hers. And it would be enough. She would make it be enough. With a deep breath, Lilley squeezed her eyes shut.

Somehow, she would make him love her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

/> “STOP him. I don’t care how, just stop him!”

Sitting at his desk, Alessandro nearly shouted with fury before he hung up on his company’s chief financial officer. Clawing back his hair with a silent snarl, he lifted his hand to throw his phone across his study. Then he stopped himself, clutching the cold metal tightly in his hand.

Exhaling, he set the phone carefully on his desk. Rising to his feet, he paced in front of the window, swearing at Théo St. Raphaël in English and Italian and tossing in a few profanities in French, too, for good measure. Damned vulture. Their rivalry had begun years ago when the Frenchman had bought the Italian firm next door to Caetani Worldwide’s headquarters in Rome. The insult had deepened when St. Raphaël had stolen the Joyería deal a month ago. But this was the final straw. The man was brazenly making a play for the takeover of a Japanese company that Alessandro needed to deepen his reach in Asia.

Alessandro growled. He’d spent years building up contacts in Tokyo, in hopes of someday gaining control of the firm. And St. Raphaël had no reason to buy the company. It was pure retaliation for Alessandro’s purchase of the French vineyard. It was a taunt, pure and simple.

He must be imagining he smelled Alessandro’s blood in the water after the humiliation in Mexico City.

And why wouldn’t he? Someone had betrayed him. Alessandro’s chief financial officer had discovered why Miguel Rodriguez had sold Joyería to St. Raphaël instead of Caetani Worldwide. The Frenchman had learned of his plan to close the Mexico City studio and move it to San Francisco. Rodriguez had sold Joyería to the Frenchman to protect his employees’ jobs.

But how had St. Raphaël possibly known?

Sitting heavily at his desk, Alessandro stared at his computer. He’d been working with his team remotely as best he could, but the Tokyo deal was spinning out of control, and that was causing problems. He needed to end his honeymoon early and return to Rome.

Alessandro glanced out of the window, instinctively looking for Lilley. It was past five o’clock. She’d come into his study an hour ago, but he’d sent her away—something he’d had to do too often in the last two days. He’d spent a few hours in bed with her last night, then he’d returned to his study to discuss strategy with his Hong Kong office. Last night he’d fallen asleep over his keyboard.

Alessandro exhaled. He should have gone back to Rome two days ago. By remaining in Sardinia, away from his team, he’d put a woman ahead of his business. Something he’d never done before.

But this wasn’t just any woman, it was his wife.

There. He spied Lilley on the beach far below. A smile curved his lips and his shoulders unconsciously relaxed as he watched her frolic in the surf, dressed in one of the bikinis he’d bought her in Porto Cervo. Today the color was violet. He saw her pause and look up towards the sprawling white villa, as if she felt him watching her. Visibly squaring her shoulders, she went to talk to some children playing a distance down the beach. He squinted. He vaguely recognized a dark-haired young boy and small girl, the children of live-in servants from the next villa down the coastline. Lilley flopped down on the sand beside them and started enthusiastically to help build their sand castle.

He watched her as she played on the beach. She was so happy, so natural, so free, so good with children. He’d seen the sweet, tender look in her eyes whenever she spoke to him of dreams for their unborn child. Lilley was everything a man would want in a wife. Everything he’d want the mother of his children to be.

She had only one flaw. She loved him.

She’d very nearly confessed her love before their wedding, but he’d seen on her face what she was going to say and stopped her. He exhaled. As long as the words were never said, they had a chance. They could be lovers, even friends. Once the child was born, Lilley would channel her love into their baby. She would raise their child with a mother’s tenderness, while Alessandro would protect them and provide for them, ensuring his children would inherit a vast empire.

His wife and children would never be poor. Never be ashamed of their father. His behavior would be above reproach.

He regretted the shabby wedding he’d given Lilley, in the chapel of a Las Vegas casino, with no family and friends. It had been shabby indeed, but expedient and quiet. He had to give Lilley time to complete her lessons, to be fully polished like a hard-edged gemstone before he exposed her to the cutting, subtle mockery of his friends, or the people who passed for his friends. It was the only way to protect her, helping her become strong enough to protect herself.

No man he knew in Rome would have married a pregnant mistress. He would have simply paid her off with a generous check and perhaps a few gifts at the child’s birth.

But Alessandro had always vowed his children would know who their father was. After his own father’s selfish, callous example, and even more after his mother’s sickening revelation after his death, Alessandro had known the risk of sex, and so he’d waited until he was truly in love. When he’d fallen hard for a twenty-five-year-old waitress in his freshman year at Stanford, he’d taken his time, wooing her for months like a perfect gentleman. Until Heather had dragged him to her apartment and begged him to make love to her. She’d told him he didn’t need a condom, because she was on the Pill.

“You trust me, don’t you?” she’d asked with big eyes. After so many years of waiting, sex had been a revelation. He’d been rapturous with joy. When she’d gotten pregnant, it had seemed like a miracle.

Until his father died, leaving a shocking amount of debt and creditors all suddenly clamoring to be paid. Alessandro had dropped out of Stanford, planning to get a job to support his mother, and to propose immediately to Heather, so she’d know he intended to take care of her and the baby. He’d rehearsed his speech the night he planned to propose. They’d be poor at first, he would say, but he would work full-time by day and invest every penny he could. Someday, he would promise, he’d give her the life of a princess.

He bought a cheap ring he could ill afford and made her a picnic, preparing bologna sandwiches and fruit salad to eat in the park. But things didn’t go according to plan. As he gave her the speech, Heather was silent, setting down her sandwich barely tasted. Afterward, he took her out dancing, his favorite thing to do. He was trying to show her how romantic their lives could be, even without money.

But in the middle of the first song, Heather had stopped on the dance floor. She’d looked up at him, her eyes full of tears.

“I like you, Alessandro,” she’d whispered. “I really do.