Italian's Stolen Wife
Author
Lorraine Hall
Reads
19.1K
Chapters
16
Stealing the bride-to-be is all too tempting for the vengeful Italian in this marriage of convenience romance by Lorraine Hall. "There has been a change of plans…You will be marrying me instead." Crashing his estranged half brother's wedding seems the perfect way for billionaire Aristide Bonaparte to get revenge on the family that rejected him. Stealing the bride? Even better. Yet Francesca Campo is not the demure heiress he expected — his wife's fiery passion reawakens something Aristide long thought dead. Francesca's betrothal was to escape her controlling father. Her first ever reckless act, marrying Aristide, thrills her. But matching her husband's demands, touch for touch and kiss for kiss, risks blurring the lines of their convenient agreement — and consuming them both…
CHAPTER ONE
FRANCESCA CAMPO SAT in the beautiful suite of Valentino Bonaparte’s estate and studied herself in the ornate gilt mirror. She looked perfect. Not a dark hair out of place, not a speck of makeup smudged. The white bridal gown had been made just for her and would look flattering at every angle.
Francesca would accept nothing else. This moment was the culmination of years of hard work. Desperate, imperative work. In a few short hours, she would be Francesca Bonaparte.
And she would be free.
She was on the cusp of getting everything she’d spent the past four years planning. Escape from her father. Certain it was a better situation than the one she’d grown up in. She’d made sure of it.
Maybe Vale was a little...uptight. Aloof. But they understood each other. She had done her due diligence in selecting him. So, Vale would give her everything she needed. Freedom, above all else. Safety, on this beautiful, ancestral tidal island off the coast of Italy. Her father couldn’t—and more importantly wouldn’t—reach her here.
As long as today went off without a hitch. Anxiety twisted in her gut, but this was normal. Every day, really. She’d spent her entire life walking on eggshells around a volatile, violent father whose money made him, essentially, invincible. She had been the pawn he’d moved around the world of his making, molded into perfect, obedient submission—or so he thought.
But he’d had no idea that instead he’d built the kind of person who would one day design her own escape. And no one would ever believe her capable of such pragmatic, single-minded ruthlessness because everyone only saw the flawless image her father had crafted.
Which made her plan perfect.
In the press, she was goodness personified. A veritable saint of an heiress to Bertini Campo’s impressive fortune. No one had ever been able to find a single flaw—her father had beaten those out of her long ago—and she wouldn’t start with flaws on the most important day of her life.
Even now, after so much hard work, it was difficult to believe she’d made it. In the beginning, Francesca had assumed she would have to pretend to fall madly in love with Vale Bonaparte. Fluff his ego and play to his pride and continue to portray the image of exemplary, obedient bride material.
But this had not been the case. Over her months of trying to woo him without letting him realize she was trying to do so, she had soon learned that Vale had no interest in passion or romance.
He was looking for a sure deal, and, fortunately, so was she. They understood each other, would help one another, and that was that.
She gave herself one last look in the mirror, took a deep, careful breath and counted as she let it out. Then she fixed on her best, sweet, innocent smile that she would flash at all the guests. Every last onlooker.
No cameras. No one outside the carefully curated guest list. Vale had insisted, and she, being the good, obedient perfect fiancée, had agreed. Of course, she wouldn’t have minded a few pictures. Deep down, she would have rather liked a grand, rollicking party to celebrate her freedom.
But she’d long ago locked up those “deep down” impulses. Besides, this very small, very private wedding was a nice reprieve considering her father usually insisted on every camera he could wield his power over to follow her about, forever growing her reputation as the perfect heiress.
Forever holding her prisoner.
Angelic enough to be acceptable, charitable enough to not be considered vapid. She’d gone to university, proven her intellect so that even whispers of her father buying her grades were laughed off. But she also dressed modestly, smiled, never argued, and made everyone in her orbit feel listened to.
She knew how to wrap anyone around her finger, and all the biting her tongue, pretending she was someone else, perfecting a mask that sometimes made her feel dead inside...well, it was all paying off.
She moved to the arched window that looked down over the entrance. The day was sunny and warm beyond her window, and guests were filing in. It was almost here. She was almost free.
She saw a woman with a scarf wrapped around part of her face, an odd choice in the warmth of the afternoon. Francesca studied her, something about the woman’s half-hidden profile so familiar.
From this distance, Francesca almost ignored it, but then the woman tilted her head just to look around, and Francesca had the image of many, many pictures.
This was no ordinary guest. This was Princess Carliz del las Sosegadas. And she was not on the guest list.
Francesca felt her chest get tight with panic. Vale’s ex-lover, princess or no, could not ruin this for her. She whirled away from the window. She had to do damage control. To make a big deal about the woman’s appearance—as though she had been thoughtfully and graciously invited.
As though they were all the best of friends. So the press could not twist it into something that might cause a problem. So this woman could not interrupt her very necessary wedding.
In retrospect, this moment should have been Francesca’s first clue that she did not wield quite the control she thought she did.
She reached for her mobile to call her assistant but didn’t finish the move because she heard the door to the room squeak open. As she had been insistent that she wanted to be alone to have some private, prayerful contemplation before the ceremony, she assumed this interruption would be her father—who was still under the impression marrying Vale had been his idea, his boon, his, his, his.
Gritting her teeth, she took a breath and fixed the smile of servitude on her face and turned to face him. The last time, she promised herself, she’d ever have to pretend. She would get rid of him and then—
Except it wasn’t her father. It was not anyone she knew. At least personally. She’d seen this man’s face splashed across a dozen magazines and gossip sites. She had heard stories of him from everyone around her—except Vale, who was very careful to mention his wild, impetuous, illegitimate half brother as little as possible.
They looked so very much alike. Thick dark hair, broad shoulders, arrestingly handsome features and olive skin. They could have been twins, really, except for the eyes. Vale’s were blue. This man’s were brown.
And perhaps that smile. Which spoke of a wildness and danger that if Vale had, he kept hidden well under wraps.
“Ciao,” he offered, very carefully closing the door behind him. Aristide wore an impeccable tuxedo that couldn’t be all that much different than Vale’s groom attire. And yet, where Vale would look ruthlessly styled, perfect from every angle just like her, Aristide Bonaparte somehow gave off the aura of casual insolence. His dark hair wasn’t mussed but seemed to hint that a woman’s fingers had been trailing through it not all that long ago. His posture was straight, his shoulders broad, and still he gave the impression of a man who could care less about what went on around him.
Because in his world, everything revolved around him.
It was strangely dizzying, all these suggestions that weren’t the reality of the man who stood before her. For a moment, she forgot about her very pressing business of a princess crashing her wedding.
“Hello,” Francesca replied carefully. When he said nothing, she remembered herself. Smiled. Lowered her gaze to unassuming timidity. “You are Aristide, are you not? Vale’s brother.”
“I am Valentino’s half brother, yes.”
He didn’t offer anything else. Francesca tamped down her frustration—he was ruining her timetable. She needed to get her version of the Princess’s arrival out before anyone else did. Still, she kept her smile in place and decided to treat this like a meeting. Smile. Shake hands. Ask questions. Feign interest and get to the bottom of why he was here. She held out her hand. “I am Francesca. It is so good to mee—”
He took her outstretched hand, but he did not shake it. He simply held it, turned it slightly to the right and then the left, as if to watch her jewelry sparkle in the light. Something about the move, the contact, the size of his hand made it somehow impossible to finish her sentence.
Slowly, he moved his gaze from her hand, and up to her eyes. The impact of all that swirling dark—knowing and arrogant, with a hint of humor she had definitely never seen in Vale—felt like a detonation.
“Yes, I am very well aware of who you are, cara.”
His smile felt like some kind of lethal blow. Francesca could not understand why it should make her feel breathless and devastated.
But she had spent her life in such a state. So she kept her smile in place and waited patiently for him to explain his appearance. Even if her heart seemed to clatter around in her chest like it was no longer tethered. A strange sensation indeed.
“I am afraid there has been a change of plans today,” he said at last, his low voice a sleek menace.
Francesca kept her sweet smile in place, her hand relaxed in his grip, her posture perfect. She was an expert at playing her role. Even as panic began to drum its familiar beat through her bloodstream. “Oh?” she said, as if she was interested in everything he had to say.
No one would change her plans. No one. She narrowly resisted curling her free fingers into a fist.
“You will be marrying me instead.”
Francesca prided herself on being the kind of woman who could roll with the punches—after all she’d been dealt plenty of the literal kind. She held her mask up no matter the circumstances, but her mouth dropped open at that. “I’m sorry...what?” She jerked her hand away before she thought the action through to put a positive spin on it.
But why be positive to a man who was clearly insane.
“Vale has made a solid choice in such an upstanding character as yourself. So upstanding, I simply must have you for myself.”
For himself? She shook her head, taking a step back away from him and then another. “That is not the plan, and...it’s ludicrous.” So ludicrous that... “Is this some kind of prank? I regret to inform you, a wedding day is not the day to try and pull one.” She already had unwelcome royalty to deal with.
Aristide shrugged. “No prank. I am known for the ludicrous, of course. But you will be my bride, Francesca. We will leave at once and we will be married before the day is through. You can make that easy, of course.”
She barked out a laugh. Not her usual dainty one either. She breathed in through her nose, reminding herself that she was this close to escape. She would not be thwarted now. “I don’t understand what this is, but as this wedding is almost upon us, I think I shall see my plans and promises through.” She smiled. “Thank you,” she added.
But he did not look put in his place or swayed in any way. The curve of his mouth stayed arrogant and knowing. His eyes trailing over her like she was a possession he was determining the value of.
His possession.
It should disgust her, but she was too thrown off by all these unexpected things to really dissect the strange feeling that spiraled through her.
“You misunderstand me. You will either come with me to our wedding, or I will stop your wedding to Valentino in other ways, and from everything I’ve seen of you, angioletta, that would be a catastrophe. So, shall we go?”
Aristide Bonaparte had a few expectations of how this would go. The most likely reaction would be dramatics, of course, but everything he’d discovered about Francesca Campo in the past forty-eight hours since he’d decided she would be his bride, instead of his half brother’s, pointed to a woman who did not do dramatics. Ever.
She was a bit of a tabloid favorite—for all the opposite reasons he was. Her father trotted her about from glittering event to posh dinner, creating an image of the perfect heiress. Full of goodness, warmth, and a heart of gold. Any man would be lucky to have her, and so it made the most sense that the great, honorable Valentino Bonparate would win her.
Aristide, on the other hand, was known as a playboy who cared for nothing and no one but his own pleasures and whims. No one would celebrate their union.
At first.
Aristide doubted he or Francesca were as bad or as good as the press made them out to be. The great thing about his plan was it didn’t matter. The fact Vale was going to marry this woman only proved that even if she was not privately everything she made herself out to be, publicly she would be everything Aristide needed.
You could never have the kind of reputation your brother has built.
Aristide wanted to sneer at the memory of his detestable father’s dismissive words—delivered via messenger, because that was the only way his father deigned to communicate with him these days. Aristide didn’t mind living down to a low expectation—as long as he could take it even lower, but there was one man he always wanted to prove wrong.
So, he would.
Besides, it would be a fun little challenge to completely rebuild his public persona—as everyone said he couldn’t—while feeling the satisfaction of embarrassing Vale, the betrayer.
A man had to find enjoyment where he could, and Aristide always found his.
Francesca had stopped backing away from him, stopped shaking her head. She was staring at him with wide eyes.
He would give all the stories and gossip about her one thing. She was beautiful, in an unearthly sort of way. Like she didn’t quite belong in this world. But he did not think it was some inner goodness everyone else attributed it to. She was not a saint from a better world. Not an angel.
No, there was too much calculation going on behind those dark eyes. Because she didn’t reach for her phone, and she didn’t make a run for it as he’d half expected she might. No, she stood there. Regal and considering.
Instead of, say, screaming.
“How would you ruin my wedding to your brother?”
Interesting that the question was not why. But that was neither here nor there. “So many options, but I think the best is to wait for the priest to offer the crowd a chance to object, and to choose that moment to claim that you cannot marry my brother when you have been spending your nights with me.”
Once again, the woman’s mouth dropped open before she seemed to get ahold of herself. “What a ridiculous lie. Why would Vale believe that? Why would anyone? I’ve never even met you!”
Clearly, Francesca Campo did not know his brother all that well. “It does not need to be true for Valentino to believe it of me. Regardless of anything he might feel about you, he’s quite determined to believe the worst of me. Always. So, as you can see, it is in your best interest to come along.” He held out his arm. He had planned and timed this perfectly, but he didn’t have time for extensive conversations on the matter until he got her into his car.
“You want me to go with you,” she said, very calmly. She even brought her hands in front of her and clasped them, as though she were conducting a meeting. “Marry you, instead of your brother, immediately?”
“Yes.”
“And... You live on the island as well, yes?”
He very nearly frowned. He’d expected some...upset. Some tears, even if he knew she’d have to come with him after that threat. But this was all very...calm. “Yes.” The island had been split nearly in two, between him and his brother. His estate was on the opposite side of the island, the good side, he liked to tell Valentino the rare moments they were in each other’s presence.
Usually only at the Diamond Club they both belonged to—exclusively for the richest people in the world. Aristide smiled to himself. His brother still wasn’t over the fact Aristide had gotten himself an invitation. And loved to appear when he knew Valentino would be there. Just to twist the knife.
“And after we were married, we would live here?” his future bride asked with clear eyes and a speculative expression.
“Indeed. Some even say my estate is much more livable than Valentino’s mausoleum.” He smiled at her.
She did not smile back.
“It is quite well known that you are...not selective, shall we say, with your romantic exploits. Why would you want to marry at all?”
“The years have weighed on me,” he lied. Easily. “I want to rehabilitate myself, start a new leaf, and what better start than the perfect wife?” It was told that this woman was quite intelligent, but if she believed this story, clearly people were wrong.
Her expression didn’t change. “Yes, stolen brides and threats are known to be a great start for a character change.” Her delivery was so dry it nearly took him a moment to understand her true meaning.
He was tempted to laugh. “My, my, cara. Do I sense a flicker of a personality underneath all that polish?”
Her eyes cooled, but she didn’t jump to the bait. “What about a contract?”
There was something downright mercenary about her. It was quite surprising, and Aristide didn’t care one way or another if he enjoyed his chosen bride, but it would be nice to know she wasn’t quite the wet blanket the press and his brother had painted her as. “I have drawn one up that is almost identical to the one you were to sign with my brother. With my name instead, of course.”
“How did you have access to the contract we drew up?”
He shrugged. “Dastardly means, naturally.”
She sighed as if she was vaguely irritated with him. A bit like his mother did when he was purposefully baiting her. “So, we will just go. Now? And be married...?” she asked, still so unreadable, steady dark eyes studying him as though he were a complex math equation she would no doubt figure out if given the right tools.
It was unnerving, and not at all what he’d expected.
But this had always been where Aristide excelled. His name did not mean the best for nothing.
“Immediately,” he supplied.
Yet again, he braced himself for some kind of reaction. Tears. Despair. Anger. Fear. Maybe even demands.
But this woman simply nodded a regal chin. “Very well.”
This was not what he expected. He raised an eyebrow. “That easily?”
“You threatened to ruin this wedding either way, if you recall.” Inexplicably she looked behind her, out the window that looked down over where guests were entering. Then her gaze returned to him, dark and direct. “I know enough of your character to know you have ample means to accomplish this. Is capitulating to a threat easy or is it the intelligent course of action?”
No, she was not quite what anyone had made her out to be. Fascinating. “You didn’t even try to get around it.”
She waved this away as she walked over to her vanity table and picked up a mobile and a small purse that matched the white of her bridal gown. She fixed him with a gaze that had a strange ribbon of unease move through him, like he was getting in over his head.
When that was as ludicrous as she accused this turn of events of being.
She lifted her chin. “I am determined to be married today, and the identity of the groom is rather immaterial if the contractual terms remain identical. You have just as much money as Vale, you have just as much land on this island. The two of you are basically interchangeable to me if the contract is indeed the same. I need a groom. I don’t need a scandal.”
He frowned at that. That was his line. It suited his purposes that she be this amenable, though he was baffled what the perfect, honorable Valentino was doing marrying a woman who felt her groom was immaterial and interchangeable.
“I assure you, nothing about my brother and I are the same.”
She studied him, like she could see through his every thought. Ridiculous. “If you wish to think so, I won’t argue with you.”
“Excellent. I prefer a wife who doesn’t argue.”
Her expression went even more bland, sweet, innocent. “Of course,” she said, and there was no reason not to believe she was exactly that unassuming.
He was surprised to find he did not believe the image she presented. At all.
But it did not matter. He would get what he wanted.
Always.
