The Italian's Pregnant Prisoner
Автор
Maisey Yates
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Chapter One
Once upon a time…
LET DOWN YOUR HAIR…
Charlotte Adair’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure the person next to her could hear it. And she was shaking. Shaking and fighting against the rising tide of emotions and memories that were threatening to compromise her ability to think straight.
Although, it could easily be argued that her being here at all was proving she lacked any ability to think with clarity.
She had escaped. For five years she had been free.
But there was unfinished business. Rafe.
He would always be unfinished business. There would be no fixing that. But she could see him. She could see him one more time.
And, at least, he wouldn’t be able to see her.
Pain burst in her chest, hot and acidic, her stomach tightening. Yes, his abandonment had hurt her. Immeasurably. But that didn’t mean the thought of such a powerful man being injured in the way he had been wasn’t painful.
Of course, any thoughts of Rafe were painful.
And as she stood in the darkened corner of the antechamber that led into the ballroom, her palms beginning to sweat, the red gown she was wearing started to feel so tight she could scarcely breathe.
She couldn’t hold off the memories any longer…
* * *
“Let down your hair.”
“You know I’m not allowed to,” Charlotte said, moving away from Rafe, every nerve ending in her body tingling. Every part of her demanding that she follow his simply issued command, regardless of the consequences.
Which was basically the same demand she’d been issuing to herself from the moment she’d first seen him.
She wanted him. Whatever that had meant at first, she hadn’t fully known. Only that she wanted to be near him. Always.
“I see. And what exactly are the rules concerning men in your bedroom?”
She blushed, her skin heating all over. “Well, I would assume that it’s frowned upon. Of course, it is nothing my father ever thought to forbid me expressly from. I suppose I’m meant to take it as read.”
Rafe smiled, and she felt the impact of it all the way down to her toes. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. That had been her very first thought about seeing him when he’d come to work for her father two years earlier.
She wasn’t entirely sure of the circumstances, only that he was an apprentice of sorts, which made her stomach tremble in a not-too-pleasant way. Because while the circumstances of her father’s business were kept largely secret to her, she wasn’t stupid. Yes, she lived a secluded life at his villa in Italy, transplanted from their native United States when Charlotte had been just a child, but in that seclusion she had taken the opportunity to learn how to gain information by quiet observation.
Charlotte had become part of the wallpaper in the villa many years ago, and as a result she was often underestimated. She liked it that way.
Being invisible.
But then Rafe had appeared, and he had not allowed her to remain invisible. He had seen her. From the first. She had been sixteen the first time she’d laid eyes on him, when she had been certain that her heart was going to claw its way up her throat and out of her mouth. Not just because he was beautiful—though, he was certainly beautiful. In his early twenties at the time, with broad shoulders, a jaw so square she thought she might cut her finger on it, and dark, fathomless eyes that she wanted desperately to get lost in.
He was a tall man, well over six feet, and she had the feeling that if she were to walk up to him and stand just in front of him that she would only come up to the middle of his chest. Which, she could not help but think, would be solid, strong, perfect to rest against.
Yes, her obsession had begun that first moment, and it had not abated. Apparently, it had been the same for him. He had tried to warn her away from him. But she’d persisted. She’d made a fool of herself, following him around. But it had worked. Eventually, he had stopped telling her to go away. Eventually, they had begun to form a friendship.
Except, she supposed friends didn’t have to sneak around. Friends did not have to wait until the house was dark, and everyone was safely asleep to meet out in the stables, or to catch a moment with one another in the brilliant light of day out in one of the fields well away from the house.
It was chaste. Always.
Until one afternoon when they’d been in the corner of the barn, and he had told her it was time for him to go back to his post—whatever that meant—and she’d been filled with a strange kind of desperation that she could not fathom or fight.
She had reached up, touched his face with her fingertips. And then she’d had his iron grip wrapped around her wrist, his dark eyes burning hotter than she had ever seen them before.
Before she could protest—before she could question anything—his mouth had been on hers. Claiming. Marking her as his own.
She had never been kissed before that moment. Hadn’t even thought much about it. But kissing Rafe was like touching the surface of the sun. She could hardly bear it.
It was too hot. Too bright. Too much.
And far too brief.
But that night, he had climbed the trellis and come into her room. Her tower bedroom, high above the rest of the house, separated from everyone, as she always was. No one came into her bedroom.
But he had. And he had treated her to another kiss. Then another.
He had come to her room every night for the past two weeks. Their kisses had gotten longer, deeper. They’d begun shedding clothes. Lying on the bed together. Trading intimacies she would have found shocking before him. Would have found shocking if it were with anyone but him.
With Rafe, all these things felt right. She’d been asking him for more. Asking him to take her virginity. But so far he’d kept it to pleasuring her, and never taking things to their ultimate conclusion.
She had been okay to wait. But tonight she felt urgency. Tonight, there was a rock in her stomach, and she knew that she had to tell him about the conversation she’d had with her stepmother earlier that day.
Her father didn’t often speak to her, if he did at all. Most of the relevant information was conveyed through Josefina, her stepmother, who was the most hardened, suspicious person Charlotte had ever known.
And given Charlotte lived in a compound with criminals, that was quite a feat.
Earlier today she had informed Charlotte that her father’s ultimate purpose for her was about to be fulfilled. He had found another kingpin in a corner of Italy Charlotte had never been to who was looking for a wife. And it was an alliance her father wanted to cement with his own bloodline. A dynastic union. The one use he could think of for a daughter he had never wanted.
Josefina seemed nothing but happy to be rid of the stepdaughter she had always seemed jealous of. A jealousy Charlotte could not understand, given she was a glorified prisoner in her father’s home. But Josefina had once been a poor girl from the village her father’s estate was built near, and she had clawed her way from poverty to being Michael Adair’s mistress, then ultimately his wife. She wasn’t quiet about that achievement, and it was Charlotte’s belief that her stepmother was secretly afraid she might someday lose her elevated position, which made her a bit vicious.
She had certainly seemed vicious when telling Charlotte of her upcoming marital fate.
Dimly, Charlotte had always thought that her life might come to this. Because her father was nothing if not a medieval lord, the master of his keep and all who depended on him for anything. And of course it was not outside the realm of imagination that he would try to cement his power in the criminal world through marriages. Like a dark king, trading family members to prevent wars. Or to start them. Depending on the present circumstance.
But even though part of her had always known it was a possibility, she had done her very best not to think of it. And now, there was Rafe.
Rafe, who made love and sex something that wasn’t theoretical. Rather, something that she wanted. Something that she craved. Not in a general sense. She wanted it with him.
The idea of sharing her body with someone else… It could not be endured. Her need for Rafe, for his touch, his kiss, for everything… It was so intimate. It went deeper than the electric need that sparked over her skin.
It was heart. He was her heart.
“Yes,” he said, “I suppose that is the letter of the law, if not the spirit of it.” His dark eyes turned intense, a black flame that burned through her. “I would like you to break some rules for me. I know your hair is considered quite the asset. You’re not allowed to cut it—is that true?”
Charlotte touched her heavy bun. “Not entirely. I get the ends trimmed. But yes. My father considers my hair to be part of my beauty.” And the importance of her beauty had become shockingly clear with her marriage deal being brokered.
“Creepy.”
She forced out a laugh. “You work for him. And here you are.”
“I only work for him until my debt is repaid. I have no loyalty to your father. On that you can trust me.”
It was the first time Rafe had said anything like this to her. “I didn’t…I didn’t realize.”
“I am forbidden from speaking of it. But then, I am certain that I am also forbidden from being in here. And I’m also forbidden from touching you like this.” He put his hand on her cheek, and then he kissed her. “Let down your hair,” he whispered against her lips.
This time, she obeyed. For him. Only for him…
* * *
Charlotte was dragged back to the present, and her heart was beating out of control, as it had been in the memory. It had only been a couple of weeks after that when everything had fallen apart. When she had been left devastated, wounded beyond the healing of that devastation.
When Josefina had told her that Rafe had gone, that he didn’t want her. And that she had no choice but to go and marry Stefan. Charlotte had protested. So much so, that she had found herself locked up. So much so that she had seen the true nature of her father. He did not love her. Not at all. He would kill her if she didn’t marry the man of his choosing; that was what he’d told her. And Charlotte had been ready to believe it.
She had also not been ready to accept her fate. Because if there was one thing that being with Rafe had taught her, it was that there was more to life than the villa. More to life than her tower bedroom. More to intimacy with a man than a simple transaction.
And she had wanted those things. All of them.
So when her father had paid his men to transport her across the country and they had stopped at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere she had taken her chance.
She’d slipped from her restraints and fled, running deep into the woods, certain they wouldn’t follow her there. Somehow, she was right. They had searched for her along the highways, perhaps checking in with passing motorists and various business owners.
They certainly hadn’t expected her—cosseted princess of the Adair family empire—to take her chances with the wolves and foxes out in the thick forest.
But she had.
Ultimately, had found a certain measure of safety living in rural Germany, moving from cottage to cottage, never settling in one place too long, taking simple positions at shops and farms over the years.
It had been a lonely existence, but in many ways freeing.
It wasn’t until years later that she had seen anything of Rafe again. But then, there he was, splashed across the cover of a newspaper. The story of a man who had worked his way up from nothing, from the Italian slums, to become one of the wealthiest men on earth.
A blind man. Wounded in an accident that he refused to speak of.
After that, she saw him on the covers of papers quite a lot. It never got easier. It never got less painful. She ached for him. For what they might have had, had he truly loved her as she had believed he had. For the accident that had taken his sight.
She thought very little about his billions. If only because she had never truly doubted that Rafe would overcome his circumstances in a spectacular way. He was a singular man. He always had been. No one compared to him. And no one ever would.
It was why, when she had gotten the news of her father’s death, when she had found out about the invitation under his name to this event, and the fact that Rafe would also be in attendance, that she had decided to take her chances.
With her father out of the picture, no one was coming for her. And she very much doubted any of his men would recognize her now. She was no longer an eighteen-year-old girl.
And as for Rafe… Well, he would never see her. Just as he would never see anything ever again.
But she could see him. She needed to do that. Needed to put that part of her life behind her completely so she could move on. Her time of seclusion was at an end. And he was wrapped all up in it.
She was done hiding. But she had some ghosts to vanquish.
She took a fortifying breath and moved out of the shadows and into the light. She could honestly say it was the first time in five years she had done this. For the first time in five years, she wasn’t hiding.
She sensed that heads were turning, following her progress as she made her way through the ballroom. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t here for generic admiration. Or curiosity. She was here for him.
She had dressed up for him. Even if it was foolish. For one thing, he wouldn’t be able to see her. For another, she didn’t want him to.
It didn’t take her long to see him, though. Her eyes were drawn to him, like a magnet. He was near the center of the ballroom, standing and making conversation with a group of men in suits. He was the tallest. The handsomest. He had always been the singularly most beautiful man she had ever seen. And he still was. Except at thirty he was much more mature than he’d been at twenty-five. He had filled out, his chest thicker, his face more chiseled. Dark stubble sat heavy on his jaw, and she wondered…she wondered what it would be like to touch his face with it there.
She hadn’t touched a man since Rafe. She’d had no interest.
She needed to find some interest. Because she was going to have a normal life. After she claimed the inheritance she knew that she still had—untouched—in a trust at the bank in London, she was going to start her life in earnest.
Maybe go to school. Maybe start a shop of her own, since she had always enjoyed working in them over the past few years. Had enjoyed not being lonely.
Whatever she did, it would be her choice. And that was the point.
She didn’t know what answers she had expected to find here. Right now, the only clear answer seemed to be that her body, her heart, was still affected by him.
He excused himself from the group, and suddenly, he was walking her way. And she froze. Like a deer caught in the headlights. Or rather, like a woman staring at Rafe Costa.
She certainly wasn’t the only woman staring. He moved with fluid grace, and if she didn’t know better, she would never have known his sight was impaired at all.
He was coming closer, and as he did her heart tripped over itself, her hands beginning to shake. She wished she could touch him.
Oh, she wanted it more than anything. In that moment, she wanted it more than her next breath. To put her hands on Rafe Costa’s face one more time. To kiss those lips again. To place her hand over his chest and see if she could still make his heart race.
It was easy to forget that her stepmother had told her how Rafe had left, taking an incentive offered by her father to end his tenure there earlier. How he had thought nothing of Charlotte when he left. Nothing of all the promises he had made to her.
Yes, it was so easy to forget all of that. It was easy to forget that and remember instead the way it had felt when he had kissed her. Touched her. The way that she had begged him to use more than his hands between her thighs, more than his mouth. The way she had pleaded with him to take her virginity, to make her his in every way.
But he hadn’t.
For honor, he had said. And for her protection.
Except, really, he had never wanted her. At least, not enough to risk anything. So he had simply been toying with her.
She should remember that. Her treacherous, traitorous body should remember that well. But it didn’t. Instead, it was fluttering. As if a host of butterflies had been set loose inside her.
He came closer, closer still, passing through the crowd of people, everyone moving out of the way for him, as though he was Moses parting the sea.
Time seemed to slow. Everything around her. Her heartbeat. Her breathing.
Suddenly, he was there. So close that if she wanted to she could reach out and touch the edge of his sleeve with her fingertips.
Could bump into him accidentally, just to make contact. He wouldn’t know it was her. He couldn’t.
Suddenly, he turned. He was looking past her, his dark eyes unseeing, unfocused. But then, he reached out and unerringly grabbed hold of her wrist, dragging her toward his muscular body.
“Charlotte.”
