The Italian's Doorstep Surprise
Autor
Jennie Lucas
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13
HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
A FIERCE SUMMER storm was raging off the Atlantic coast, pummeling his sprawling oceanfront mansion. Nico Ferraro stared out the open window, his mood as dark as the crashing surf below.
Rain blew inside his study, running down the inside wall to the hardwood floor as bright lightning crackled across the sky. He took another sip of Scotch. Thunder shook the house, rattling the windows. Nico remained unmoving, staring broodingly into the night.
He’d lost the thing that mattered most. All the billions he’d accumulated, his fame, his romantic conquests, meant nothing. He’d lost his chance at vengeance, had it ripped from his grasp at the very moment of his triumph.
Nico heard a loud bang from the other side of the house. Not thunder this time. Someone was banging at his front door.
“Please,” a woman’s voice screamed into the storm. “Please, Mr. Ferraro, you have to let me in.”
Nico took another sip of the forty-year-old Scotch. His butler would handle the intruder, assisted by his security team if necessary. He was in no mood to see anyone tonight.
“If you don’t, someone will die,” she cried.
Now that piqued his curiosity. He suddenly wanted to at least hear the woman’s story before he tossed her back into the rain. He started to turn from the open window, hesitated, then closed the glass window behind him. He didn’t give a damn about this place—just another anonymous fifty-million-dollar Hamptons beach house—but he’d be putting it on the market tomorrow. This estate was useless to him now it could no longer be the scene of his revenge.
Going down the wide hallway to the foyer, he saw three men gathered in a semicircle around the front door. Behind them, Nico saw the smaller shape of a young woman, soaking wet, with her hair plastered to her skin and her clothes stuck to her body...
Nico sucked in his breath as he realized two things.
First, the young woman, beautiful and dark-haired, was pregnant. Beneath the light on the front porch, her white sundress revealed every luscious outline of her body, her full breasts and heavily pregnant belly.
Second, he knew her.
“Stop,” Nico said, coming forward. “Let her come inside.”
His head of security frowned back at him. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, boss. She’s been talking wild—”
“Let her in,” he cut him off, and his henchman reluctantly stepped aside.
“Thank you, oh, thank you,” the young woman cried, though it was hard to tell if those were tears streaming down her cheeks or rain. She grabbed at Nico’s hand urgently. “I was so scared you wouldn’t...when I have to tell you—”
“It’s all right.” Nico tried to remember how to be polite. His skills were a little rusty. “You’re safe now, Miss—” Then he realized that he’d forgotten her name, which of course was embarrassing and damnable, since her grandfather was the longtime gardener at his Manhattan penthouse. To cover, he said sharply, “Your hands are like ice.” He turned to a bodyguard. “Get her a blanket.”
“Of course, Mr. Ferraro.”
Her teeth were chattering with cold. “But I have—have to tell you—”
“Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re not freezing to death.” He started to offer her the half-empty glass of Scotch still in his hand, but then stopped as he remembered pregnant women generally avoided such things. “Perhaps a warm drink?”
“No, really,” she croaked, “if you’ll just listen—”
Nico turned to his butler. “Find her some hot cocoa.”
Sebastian looked rather doubtful. “Cocoa, sir? I’m not sure—”
“Wake the cook,” he bit out, and the man scurried off.
It occurred to Nico that his staff had gone to seed. Once, it would have been unnecessary for him to repeat any order—ever. All of his houses, like his international real estate conglomerate, had run like well-oiled machines. Though of course, that was before. How long ago had that been, when Nico had still cared so desperately to make his life appear perfect?
Christmas. It had been Christmas Day. And now it was—
“What day is it?” he barked at his security chief. The man looked at him like he was mad.
“It’s the first of July, Mr. Ferraro.”
Six months. And he could barely recall any of it, though he’d obviously continued to buy properties and run his company from Rome. He clawed his hand through his dark hair. Was he losing his mind?
“Nico. Please.”
Hearing his gardener’s granddaughter call him by his first name drew Nico’s attention as nothing else had. He looked at her.
The young woman gripped his hand, looking up at him pleadingly, and he had a strange stirring of memory. But of what?
He barely knew her. He’d seen her occasionally over the years, of course, as she’d grown up amid the rooftop gardens of Nico’s Manhattan penthouse, a few hours from here. She had to be in her midtwenties now. Perhaps he’d said hello once or twice, or wished her happy holidays, that sort of thing, but nothing more. Nothing to warrant her suddenly calling him Nico, as if they were friends. As if they were lovers.
He withdrew his hand, folding his arms. “Why are you here? Why have you made such a scene?”
As a bodyguard wrapped a warm blanket over her slender shoulders, she nearly sobbed, “Just listen.”
“I’m listening,” he said. “Tell me.”
Her eyes were an uncanny green in her pale complexion, beneath striking dark eyebrows that matched her wild, dark hair. She took a deep breath. “My grandfather is coming here to shoot you.”
Nico frowned. “Your grandfather? Why?” He could think of no complaint the gardener might have against him. To his best memory, he hadn’t even spoken to the man since before Christmas, when he’d given him exact instructions about the holiday lighting for the pergola and trees on the penthouse terrace. Back when Nico had cared about such things. Back before—
He pushed the thought away. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Why would I joke about that!”
He saw the terror in her eyes. However ridiculous it sounded, clearly the woman believed her story. So it was either true, or she was having some kind of psychotic breakdown. He could hardly judge her for that, after his six months of near-fugue state as CEO of Ferraro Developments Inc. He knew he’d made multimillion-dollar deals, but he could hardly remember a single one. “Why would he want to kill me, Miss...uh...?”
Damn it. Too late, he remembered again that he didn’t know. Glaring at the Scotch, which he held entirely to blame, he set the half-empty crystal glass on the hallway table.
The woman’s expression changed as she stared up at him with big eyes. She said slowly, “You don’t remember my name?”
There was no point in pretending.
“No. I’m sorry. I mean no disrespect to you or your grandfather. Even if he’s trying to kill me.” He smiled grimly, and when she didn’t return the smile, he sobered and said, “Tell me your name.”
There. He’d said I’m sorry, which he rarely did.
But she didn’t seem particularly impressed. She lifted her chin, her green eyes shooting emerald sparks in the light of the foyer.
“My name is Honora Callahan, my grandfather is Patrick Burke and he thinks you’ve disrespected both of us. That’s why he’s on his way here right now with his old hunting rifle, intending to shoot your head off.”
Nico almost laughed at the image. He stopped himself just in time. “Why would he?”
She stared at him, her pretty face bewildered. He shifted his feet, growing uncomfortable beneath her searching gaze.
“I’m sure you can guess,” she said finally.
He snorted. “How would I know?”
She licked her lips, glancing nervously at Frank Bauer, his security chief, and the other bodyguard still standing by the front door. Both men were pretending not to hear, though they’d moved their hands to their holsters when Honora mentioned her grandfather’s rifle.
“Fine,” she said. “If that’s how you want to play it. But when Granddad gets here, he’ll be waving his rifle and shouting crazy threats. Just tell your bodyguards to ignore him. Don’t let them hurt him.”
“What would you prefer? That I just let your grandfather kill me?” he said acidly. “Burke is a good gardener, but there are limits to what I’ll do for employee morale.”
“As soon as he gets here, I’ll go outside and calm him down. Just stay in here, and tell your men not to pull out their guns. That’s all.”
“Hide like a coward in my own home?”
“Oh, for the love of—” Honora stamped her small foot. As she did so, Nico’s gaze fell unwillingly on the bounce of her full breasts. He could even see— His mouth went dry. The shape of her hard nipples were clearly visible beneath the wet, thin fabric. “Just stay inside and don’t respond.” Her voice changed. “Should be easy for you.”
There was some criticism there he didn’t understand. Forcing his gaze upward, he said, “You still haven’t explained why Burke would do this. I haven’t spoken to the man for months.”
Honora’s pale cheeks seemed to burn. Ducking her head, she glanced down at her belly and mumbled, “You know why.”
Nico’s heart dropped to the floor, as if somehow his body knew what she was about to say, even though his brain protested it was impossible. “No.”
Honora huffed with a flare of nostrils. “I’m pregnant, Nico. With your baby.”
Lightning flashed, flooding the foyer with brief white light as Honora stared up at Nico’s handsome face, her heart pounding. Thunder followed, rattling the windows of the oceanfront mansion. Her whole body was shivering. Not from cold, but from fear.
She’d spent six months dreading the thought of seeing Nico Ferraro again. But she’d never imagined it could be as bad as this.
It shocked her now to remember the schoolgirl crush she’d once had on her grandfather’s boss. Her infatuation had lasted throughout her teenage years, all those afternoons she’d helped Granddad after school, or done homework sitting at a bench in the far corner of the penthouse terrace.
She’d been in awe of Nico Ferraro, billionaire real estate tycoon, watching him with big eyes every time he came or went—equally handsome whether wearing a tuxedo with a beautiful woman on his arm as they left for some glamorous ball, or in a black leather jacket, going motorcycle racing; or even in casual khaki shorts, flying off to the Maldives in his private jet. It was a world that Honora couldn’t even imagine, even though she’d spent her entire childhood adjacent to it. And now, at thirty-six, he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen, a James Bond of the society set.
While Honora often felt invisible. When Granddad was done with his work tending the enormous rooftop garden, treating every plant and flower with loving care, they would head home on the subway to their two-bedroom walk-up in Queens. He’d raised Honora since she was eleven, after her parents had died. He’d been patient, gruffly kind and dutiful in his care of her.
But he saved his true devotion for his plants. Sometimes, Honora had wished she might have been a rhododendron bush, or perhaps a cypress or juniper, in order to get more of his warmth and attention. He seemed to save all of his true love, and most of his conversation, for them. He could chat and coax and croon to his plants in a way he never did to Honora.
But when she felt unloved, she told herself she was lucky her grandfather had taken her in and given her a home. She had no right to ask for more. Patrick Burke had always put duty ahead of all else. Honor was important in their family. So important her mother had named her for it.
That had made it all the more shocking and painful when Honora had had to tell her old-fashioned grandfather that she was pregnant—pregnant and unwed.
She’d known he would find out sooner or later. She’d hidden her pregnancy with loose clothing as long as she could, hoping with increasing desperation that Nico Ferraro would either answer her messages, or return to New York City. But he’d done neither. Which was really all the answer she needed, and it broke her heart.
As spring had turned to summer, it had become increasingly difficult to come up with good excuses to wear oversize hoodies. When New York City suffered its first blast of sticky humid heat in June, she was already so hot in her pregnant state, and their Queens apartment had no air-conditioning. Her grandfather caught her standing in front of the open refrigerator, gasping the cool air in her T-shirt and shorts. His eyes had gone to her belly.
“Oh, no,” he’d gasped, and for the first time since her parents’ funeral thirteen years before, he’d cried in front of her. Then his tears had turned to rage. “Who is the bastard who did this to you?”
Honora had refused to reveal the father’s identity, even to her friends. The chauffeur at the penthouse, Benny Rossini, an Italian American from the Bronx, had offered to marry her, which was very kind. Too kind, in fact. She’d thanked him, but couldn’t take advantage of their friendship. For a month, she’d held her breath, hoping somehow it would all blow over.
Then today, while she was helping her grandfather tend the rooftop garden, the housekeeper told them that after six months away, Nico Ferraro had finally returned to the US. His private jet had just landed in the Hamptons, a three-hour drive from New York City.
After more than a decade of working for him, Patrick Burke knew his employer’s playboy ways. He’d taken one look at Honora’s stricken face and dropped his shovel, muttering that he was going to their apartment to get his antique hunting rifle.
Honora had been terrified, imagining Nico Ferraro’s security team would take one look at her gray-haired grandfather waving his rifle like a maniac, and shoot the old man down immediately in an act they could reasonably claim was self-defense. Her only hope had been to get there first and reason with her grandfather’s employer.
It had taken all of Honora’s efforts to talk the older man out of his lunatic plan of jumping on an eastbound train with the big rifle slung openly over his shoulder. “At least have Benny take you,” she’d said desperately. “It will be faster than the train.”
When her grandfather grudgingly agreed, she’d rushed downstairs to ask the young chauffeur for help with her plan.
Benny had been shocked, then angry, to learn the identity of her baby’s father. But he’d recovered quickly and agreed to give her grandfather a ride to the Hamptons in the boss’s Bentley, and “accidentally” get lost on the way. He’d added with a nervous laugh, “Just make sure they don’t shoot us when we get there.”
But her drive had taken longer than she expected. She’d borrowed Benny’s personal car, a vintage Beetle, and it had broken down three miles from the house. Terrified of arriving too late, she’d run here. At six months pregnant. In a sleeveless stretchy dress and strappy sandals, in a rain storm with the wind pushing against her every step.
Now, Honora looked between Nico and his bodyguards anxiously. “So you agree? When my grandfather gets here, you’ll keep your guns down and let me go out there alone?”
Nico came closer to her in the foyer. “You can’t be serious.”
She looked up at him, the billionaire playboy she’d once thought so exotic and wonderful. Her hands tightened at her sides. “I told you, this is no joke. Granddad’s already on the way, but they’re taking the long route—”
“I can’t possibly be your baby’s father,” he interrupted. “I never touched you.”
Honora’s mouth fell open. Never touched her?
It was one possibility she’d never considered. For him to deny he’d made love to her! As if she were lying about their night together. As if she were some gold digger trying to trap him into marriage under false pretenses!
In February, after she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d tried to do the right thing and let him know, but he’d ignored all the messages she’d left at his office in Rome and his villa on the Amalfi Coast. Resigned, she’d known she’d have to raise this child alone. If Nico wouldn’t take responsibility, so be it. She was a grown-up. She’d known the risks of sex.
But hearing him deny their night together, she realized Nico Ferraro had taken full advantage of her schoolgirl crush. He’d helped himself to her virginity, then meant to toss her and the baby—his baby—aside like trash.
It was the final straw.
Fury filled her, rushing like fire all the way to her fingertips and toes, burning her heart to ash.
“How dare you,” she said in a low, trembling voice. She clenched her hands into fists. “I have been nothing but honorable—unlike you—and this is how you treat me? By calling me a liar?”
Nico’s forehead furrowed, his expression turning perplexed as he stared down at her. “If I’d slept with you, I would remember.”
He was tall and broad-shouldered and so handsome, in spite of—or perhaps even because of—his dark hair being uncombed and wild. His tailored white shirt and black trousers were unkempt and wrinkled. He smelled of Scotch and leather and smoke from the fire and rain, everything masculine and untamed. She breathed it in and yearned for him, still, in spite of everything.
She hated herself for that, but not as much as she hated him. She’d never let herself want him again. Never, ever.
“So you don’t remember my name and you don’t remember our night,” she choked out. “How can you be so heartless and cold?”
His dark eyes narrowed as he said acidly, “And when do you claim you conceived this miracle baby?”
“Christmas night.”
He snorted. “Christmas—” Then his expression changed. His forehead furrowed, as if straining to remember a half-forgotten dream. For a moment, he looked bewildered. Then he lifted his chin defiantly. “Even if it happened, which I’m not saying it did, how could you be sure I’m the father?”
She looked at him, nearly speechless with anger. “You think I slept with other men the same week?”
“It’s the twenty-first century, and you’re a free woman...”
“You know I came to your bed a virgin!” She knew his men were listening, but she was too enraged to care. Her cheeks burned. “How dare you!”
Then their eyes widened at the noise of a car outside, and doors slamming.
“Get out here, Ferraro!” she heard her grandfather’s voice holler above the wind and rain. “Get out here right now so I can shoot you right between the eyes!”
She looked at the two bodyguards by the door, who’d already put their hands on their holsters.
“Please, don’t hurt him,” she pleaded. “I told you. I’ll go out and talk to him.”
The older bodyguard stared at her, then glanced at his boss. She saw Nico Ferraro give him a tiny nod, and she hated him for that. How awful to have to ask him for favors!
“Keep him outside,” the head bodyguard said. “If he doesn’t shoot at us, we won’t shoot back.”
“Thank you,” Honora said, but fear caught at her throat. How could she guarantee Patrick wouldn’t start taking potshots at the house in his current emotional state? Trembling, she hurried to the front door.
Then she suddenly stopped, whirling back to face Nico.
“I’m doing this to protect Granddad, not you,” she said. “Personally, I think I’d be happy to see you shot.”
And opening the door, she ran out into the dark summer storm, beneath the torrent of rain and howling wind on the wild Atlantic shore.
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