A Marriage Fit for a Sinner
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Maya Blake
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16
Chapter One
‘ONE PLATINUM CHRONOGRAPH WATCH. A pair of diamond-studded cufflinks. Gold signet ring. Six hundred and twenty-five pounds cash, and...Obsidian Privilege Card. Right, I think that’s everything, sir. Sign here to confirm return of your property.’
Zaccheo Giordano didn’t react to the warden’s sneer as he scrawled on the barely legible form. Nor did he react to the resentful envy in the man’s eyes when his gaze drifted to where the sleek silver limousine waited beyond three sets of barbed wire.
Romeo Brunetti, Zaccheo’s second-in-command and the only person he would consider draping the term friend upon, stood beside the car, brooding and unsmiling, totally unruffled by the armed guard at the gate or the bleak South East England surroundings.
Had Zaccheo been in an accommodating mood, he’d have cracked a smile.
But he wasn’t in an accommodating mood. He hadn’t been for a very long time. Fourteen months, two weeks, four days and nine hours to be exact. Zaccheo was positive he could count down to the last second if required.
No one would require it of him, of course. He’d served his time. With three and a half months knocked off his eighteen-month sentence for good behaviour.
The rage fused into his DNA bubbled beneath his skin. He showed no outward sign of it as he pocketed his belongings. The three-piece Savile Row suit he’d entered prison in stank of decay and misery, but Zaccheo didn’t care.
He’d never been a slave to material comforts. His need for validation went far deeper. The need to elevate himself into a better place had been a soul-deep pursuit from the moment he was old enough to recognise the reality of the life he’d been born into. A life that had been a never-ending whirlpool of humiliation, violence and greed. A life that had seen his father debased and dead at thirty-five.
Memories tumbled like dominoes as he walked down the harshly lit corridor to freedom. He willed the overwhelming sense of injustice that had festered for long, harrowing months not to explode from his pores.
The doors clanged shut behind him.
Zaccheo froze, then took his first lungful of free air with fists clenched and eyes shut. He absorbed the sound of birds chirping in the late-winter morning sun, listened to the distant rumble of the motorway as he’d done many nights from his prison cell.
Opening his eyes, he headed towards the fifteen-foot gate. A minute later, he was outside.
‘Zaccheo, it’s good to see you again,’ Romeo said gravely, his eyes narrowing as he took him in.
Zaccheo knew he looked a sight. He hadn’t bothered with a razor blade or a barber’s clippers in the last three months and he’d barely eaten once he’d unearthed the truth behind his incarceration. But he’d spent a lot of time in the prison gym. It’d been that or go mad with the clawing hunger for retribution.
He shrugged off his friend’s concern and moved to the open door.
‘Did you bring what I asked for?’ he asked.
Romeo nodded. ‘Sì. All three files are on the laptop.’
Zaccheo slid onto the plush leather seat. Romeo slid in next to him and poured them two glasses of Italian-made cognac.
‘Salute,’ Romeo muttered.
Zaccheo took the drink without responding, threw back the amber liquid and allowed the scent of power and affluence—the tools he’d need for his plan to succeed—to wash over him.
As the low hum of the luxury engine whisked him away from the place he’d been forced to call home for over a year, Zaccheo reached for the laptop.
Icy rage trembled through his fingers as the Giordano Worldwide Inc. logo flickered to life. His life’s work, almost decimated through another’s greed and lust for power. It was only with Romeo’s help that GWI hadn’t gone under in the months after Zaccheo had been sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He drew quiet satisfaction that not only had GWI survived—thanks to Romeo—it had thrived.
But his personal reputation had not.
He was out now. Free to bring those culpable to justice. He didn’t plan on resting until every last person responsible for attempting to destroy his life paid with the destruction of theirs.
Shaking out his hand to rid it of its tremble, he hit the Open key.
The information was thorough although Zaccheo knew most of its contents. For three months he’d checked and double-checked his sources, made sure every detail was nailed down tight.
He exhaled at the first picture that filled his screen.
Oscar Pennington III. Distant relative to the royal family. Etonian. Old, if spent, money. Very much part of the establishment. Greedy. Indiscriminate. His waning property portfolio had received a much-needed injection of capital exactly fourteen months and two weeks ago when he’d become sole owner of London’s most talked about building—The Spire.
Zaccheo swallowed the savage growl that rumbled from his soul. Icily calm, he flicked through pages of Pennington celebrating his revived success with galas, lavish dinner parties and polo tournaments thrown about like confetti. One picture showed him laughing with one of his two children.
Sophie Pennington. Private education all the way to finishing school. Classically beautiful. Ball-breaker. She’d proven beyond a doubt that she had every intention of becoming Oscar’s carbon copy.
Grimly, he closed her file and moved to the last one.
Eva Pennington.
This time the growl couldn’t be contained. Nor could he stem the renewed shaking in his hand as he clicked her file.
Caramel-blonde hair tumbled down her shoulders in thick, wild waves. Dark eyebrows and lashes framed moss-green eyes, accentuated dramatically with black eyeliner. Those eyes had gripped his attention with more force than he’d been comfortable with the first time he’d looked into them. As had the full, bow-shaped lips currently curved in a smouldering smile. His screen displayed a head-and-shoulders shot, but the rest of Eva Pennington’s body was imprinted indelibly on Zaccheo’s mind. He didn’t struggle to recall the petite, curvy shape, or that she forced herself to wear heels even though she hated them, in order to make herself taller.
He certainly didn’t struggle to recall her individual atrocity. He’d lain in his prison bed condemning himself for being astounded by her singular betrayal, when the failings of both his parents and his dealings with the establishment should’ve taught him better. He’d prided himself on reading between the lines to spot schemers and gold-diggers ten miles away. Yet he’d been fooled.
The time he’d wasted on useless bitterness was the most excruciating of all; time he would gladly claw back if he could.
Firming his lips, he clicked through the pages, running through her life for the past year and a half. At the final page, he froze.
‘How new is this last information?’
‘I added that to the file yesterday. I thought you’d want to know,’ Romeo replied.
Zaccheo stared at the newspaper clipping, shock waves rolling through him. ‘Sì, grazie...’
‘Do you wish to return to the Esher estate or the penthouse?’ Romeo asked.
Zaccheo read the announcement again, taking in pertinent details. Pennington Manor. Eight o’clock. Three hundred guests. Followed by an intimate family dinner on Sunday at The Spire.
The Spire...the building that should’ve been Zaccheo’s greatest achievement.
‘The estate,’ he replied. It was closer.
He closed the file as Romeo instructed the driver.
Relaxing against the headrest, Zaccheo tried to let the hum of the engine soothe him. But it was no use. He was far from calm.
He’d have to alter his plan. Not that it mattered too much in the long run.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. While all three Penningtons had colluded in his incarceration, this new information demanded he use a different tactic, one he’d first contemplated and abandoned. Either way, Zaccheo didn’t plan to rest until all of them were stripped of what they cherished most—their wealth and affluence.
He’d intended to wait a day or two to ensure he had Oscar Pennington where he wanted him before he struck. That plan was no longer viable.
Bringing down the family who’d framed him for criminal negligence couldn’t wait till Monday.
His first order of business would be tackled tonight.
Starting with the youngest member of the family—Eva Pennington.
His ex-fiancée.
* * *
Eva Pennington stared at the dress in her sister’s hand. ‘Seriously? There’s no way I’m wearing that. Why didn’t you tell me the clothes I left behind had been given away?’
‘Because you said you didn’t want them when you moved out. Besides, they were old and out of fashion. I had this couriered from New York this morning. It’s the latest couture and on loan to us for twenty-four hours,’ Sophie replied.
Eva pursed her lips. ‘I don’t care if it was woven by ten thousand silk worms. I’m not wearing a dress that makes me look like a gold-digger and a slut. And considering the state of our finances, I’d have thought you’d be more careful what you splashed money on.’ She couldn’t stem her bewilderment as to why Sophie and her father blithely ignored the fact that money was extremely tight.
Sophie huffed. ‘This is a one-of-a-kind dress, and, unless I’m mistaken, it’s the kind of dress your future husband likes his women to wear. Anyway, you’ll be out of it in less than four hours, once the right photographs have been taken, and the party’s over.’
Eva gritted her teeth. ‘Stop trying to manage me, Sophie. You’re forgetting who pulled this bailout together. If I hadn’t come to an agreement with Harry, we’d have been sunk come next week. As to what he likes his women to wear, if you’d bothered to speak to me first I’d have saved you the trouble of going to unnecessary expense. I dress for myself and no one else.’
‘Speak to you first? When you and Father neglected to afford me the same courtesy before you hatched this plan behind my back?’ Sophie griped.
Eva’s heart twisted at the blatant jealousy in her sister’s voice.
As if it weren’t enough that the decision she’d spent the past two weeks agonising over still made her insides clench in horror. It didn’t matter that the man she’d agreed to marry was her friend and she was helping him as much as he was helping her. Marriage was a step she’d rather not have taken.
It was clear, however, her sister didn’t see it that way. Sophie’s escalating discontentment at any relationship Eva tried to forge with their father was part of the reason Eva had moved out of Pennington Manor. Not that their father was an easy man to live with.
For as long as she could remember, Sophie had been possessive of their father’s attention. While their mother had been alive, it’d been bearable and easier to accept that Sophie was their father’s preferred child, while Eva was her mother’s, despite wanting to be loved equally by both parents.
After their mother’s death, every interaction Eva had tried to have with their father had been met with bristling confrontation from Sophie, and indifference from their father.
But, irrational as it was, it didn’t stop Eva from trying to reason with the sister she’d once looked up to.
‘We didn’t go behind your back. You were away on a business trip—’
‘Trying to use the business degree that doesn’t seem to mean anything any more. Not when you can swoop in after three years of performing tired ballads in seedy pubs to save the day,’ Sophie interjected harshly.
Eva hung on to her temper by a thread, but pain stung deep at the blithe dismissal of her passion. ‘You know I resigned from Penningtons because Father only hired me so I could attract a suitable husband. And just because my dreams don’t coincide with yours—’
‘That’s just it. You’re twenty-four and still dreaming. The rest of us don’t have that luxury. And we certainly don’t land on our feet by clicking our fingers and having a millionaire solve all our problems.’
‘Harry is saving all of us. And you really think I’ve landed on my feet by getting engaged for the second time in two years?’ Eva asked.
Sophie dropped the offensive dress on Eva’s bed. ‘To everyone who matters, this is your first engagement. The other one barely lasted five minutes. Hardly anyone knows it happened.’
Hurt-laced anger swirled through her veins. ‘I know it happened.’
‘If my opinion matters around here any more, then I suggest you don’t broadcast it. It’s a subject best left in the past, just like the man it involved.’
Pain stung deeper. ‘I can’t pretend it didn’t happen because of what occurred afterwards.’
‘The last thing we need right now is any hint of scandal. And I don’t know why you’re blaming Father for what happened when you should be thanking him for extricating you from that man before it was too late,’ Sophie defended heatedly.
That man.
Zaccheo Giordano.
Eva wasn’t sure whether the ache lodged beneath her ribs came from thinking about him or from the reminder of how gullible she’d been to think he was any different from every other man who’d crossed her path.
She relaxed her fists when they balled again.
This was why she preferred her life away from their family home deep in the heart of Surrey.
It was why her waitress colleagues knew her as Eva Penn, a hostess at Siren, the London nightclub where she also sang part-time, instead of Lady Eva Pennington, daughter of Lord Pennington.
Her relationship with her father had always been difficult, but she’d never thought she’d lose her sister so completely, too.
She cleared her throat. ‘Sophie, this agreement with Harry wasn’t supposed to undermine anything you were doing with Father to save Penningtons. There’s no need to be upset or jealous. I’m not trying to take your place—’
‘Jealous! Don’t be ridiculous,’ Sophie sneered, although the trace of panic in her voice made Eva’s heart break. ‘And you could never take my place. I’m Father’s right hand, whereas you...you’re nothing but—’ She stopped herself and, after a few seconds, stuck her nose in the air. ‘Our guests are arriving shortly. Please don’t be late to your own engagement party.’
Eva swallowed down her sorrow. ‘I’ve no intention of being late. But neither do I have any intention of wearing a dress that has less material than thread holding it together.’
She strode to the giant George III armoire opposite the bed, even though her earlier inspection had shown less than a fraction of the items she’d left behind when she’d moved out on her twenty-first birthday.
These days she was content with her hostess’s uniform when she was working or lounging in jeans and sweaters while she wrote her music on her days off. Haute couture, spa days and primping herself beautiful in order to please anyone were part of a past she’d happily left behind.
Unfortunately this time there’d been no escaping. Not when she alone had been able to find the solution to saving her family.
She tried in vain to squash the rising memories being back at Pennington Manor threatened to resurrect.
Zaccheo was in her past, a mistake that should never have happened. A reminder that ignoring a lesson learned only led to further heartache.
She sighed in relief when her hand closed on a silk wrap. The red dress would be far too revealing, a true spectacle for the three hundred guests her father had invited to gawp at. But at least the wrap would provide a little much-needed cover.
Glancing at the dress again, she shuddered.
She’d rather be anywhere but here, participating in this sham. But then hadn’t her whole life been a sham? From parents who’d been publicly hailed as the couple to envy, but who’d fought bitterly in private until tragedy had struck in the form of her mother’s cancer, to the lavish parties and expensive holidays that her father had secretly been borrowing money for, the Penningtons had been one giant sham for as long as Eva could remember.
Zaccheo’s entry into their lives had only escalated her father’s behaviour.
No, she refused to think about Zaccheo. He belonged to a chapter of her life that was firmly sealed. Tonight was about Harry Fairfield, her family’s saviour, and her soon-to-be fiancé.
It was also about her father’s health.
For that reason alone, she tried again with Sophie.
‘For Father’s sake, I want tonight to go smoothly, so can we try to get along?’
Sophie stiffened. ‘If you’re talking about Father’s hospitalisation two weeks ago, I haven’t forgotten.’
Watching her father struggle to breathe with what the doctors had termed a cardiac event had terrified Eva. It’d been the catalyst that had forced her to accept Harry’s proposition.
‘He’s okay today, isn’t he?’ Despite her bitterness at her family’s treatment of her, she couldn’t help her concern for her remaining parent. Nor could she erase the secret yearning that the different version of the father she’d connected with very briefly after her mother’s death, the one who wasn’t an excess-loving megalomaniac who treated her as if she was an irritating inconvenience, hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.
‘He will be, once we get rid of the creditors threatening us with bankruptcy.’
Eva exhaled. There was no backing out; no secretly hoping that some other solution would present itself and save her from the sacrifice she was making.
All avenues had been thoroughly explored—Eva had demanded to see the Pennington books herself and spent a day with the company’s accountants to verify that they were indeed in dire straits. Her father’s rash acquisition of The Spire had stretched the company to breaking point. Harry Fairfield was their last hope.
She unzipped the red dress, resisting the urge to crush it into a wrinkled pulp.
‘Do you need help?’ Sophie asked, although Eva sensed the offer wasn’t altruistic.
‘No, I can manage.’
The same way she’d managed after her mother’s death; through her father’s rejection and Sophie’s increasingly unreasonable behaviour; through the heartbreak of finding out about Zaccheo’s betrayal.
Sophie nodded briskly. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, then.’
Eva slipped on the dress, avoiding another look in the mirror when the first glimpse showed what she’d feared most. Her every curve was accentuated, with large swathes of flesh exposed. With shaky fingers she applied her lipstick and slipped her feet into matching platform heels.
Slipping the gold and red wrap around her shoulders, she finally glanced at her image.
Chin up, girl. It’s show time.
Eva wished the manageress of Siren were uttering the words, as she did every time before Eva stepped onto the stage.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t at Siren. She’d promised to marry a man she didn’t love, for the sake of saving her precious family name.
No amount of pep talk could stem the roaring agitation flooding her veins.
