Italian Bachelors: Brooding Billionaires: Ravelli's Defiant Bride / Enthralled by Moretti / The Playboy's Proposition

‘You can’t,’ Cristo countered with chilling bite. ‘It will damage other people. You and your siblings are not the only individuals likely to be affected by this.’

‘I don’t care about anyone else,’ Belle admitted truthfully. ‘I want my brothers and sisters to be able to hold their heads high and know who they are without shame.’

‘You want the impossible,’ Cristo derided, turning on his heel.

‘No, I want justice.’

Justice! Cristo reflected contemptuously, a deep sense of frustration ruling him, for Cristo never backed down and never failed to find solutions to problems. Damage limitation was his speciality. How could it be justice that Zarif’s throne would be rocked by the extent of Gaetano’s infidelity and the revelation of his secret family in Ireland? Like father, like son, Zarif’s critics would sneer. Mary Brophy had made her choices when she chose to get involved with a married man and have his children. Her daughter, Belle, had too much pride and her resentment of the Ravelli family, or, more specifically, his father, had persuaded her that she could somehow rewrite history. But washing the family dirty linen in public was not going to make those children feel that they could raise their heads high. No, it was much more likely to shame them by depicting their parents in ways they would never forget. No child of Gaetano’s had ever been proud of him or his name. Gaetano had been a cruelly selfish and uninterested parent.

Ironically, Cristo had always believed growing up that he would be a better man than his father and now he wondered what had happened to that dream and at what point cynicism had killed that honourable goal stone dead. He knew that he had not once considered the plight of Mary Brophy’s children from any viewpoint other than his own. He was a pragmatic man and he knew he was selfish. But even he recognised that Belle Brophy was too young and her grandmother too old to take on full responsibility for Gaetano’s children. Cristo was suddenly very conscious that those kids, right down to the little one with his father’s eyes, were his flesh and blood too, even though he didn’t want to recognise that unwelcome fact.

And then the answer to the problem came to him in a sudden shocking moment of truth. He recoiled from the prospect at first, but as he filtered through the list of challenges he currently faced and that solution ticked every box he began to mull it over as a genuine possibility. It was not as though he were ever likely to fall in love again. Indeed it was a wonder it had happened even once to a male as detached from emotion as he was, he reasoned grimly. Gaetano and Mary’s affair could be decently buried and the children’s antecedents concealed from the media. As for Belle, in the role he envisaged, which was frankly Belle reclining wearing only a winsome smile on his bed in London, well, she would be perfect there, he reflected with the very first flicker of enthusiasm for the challenge of sacrificing his freedom for the greater good.

* * *

Belle suffered a restless night of sleep. She relived the kiss again and again and got hot and bothered while tossing and turning in guilty discomfiture. Cristo was a Ravelli just like Gaetano and the very last man alive she should enjoy kissing. In the morning, she made breakfast for the children on automatic pilot because her brain felt fuzzy and slow. There had been too much agonising over whether or not going to court was the right thing to do for the children, she decided irritably. She did not have a choice. There had never been a choice and there was no way on earth that she planned to trust in any promises made by Cristo Ravelli, who would undoubtedly be every bit as slippery in such delicate negotiations as his late father had proved to be. Exasperated by the constant parade of anxious thoughts weighing her down, Belle saw the twins off to school and then told her grandmother that she was taking Franco down to the beach.

* * *

When he reached the beach, Cristo had the pleasure of seeing Belle looking relaxed for the first time. Her wild mane of curls was blowing back from her face in the breeze that plastered her jeans and her blue tee to her lithe, shapely body. She was engaged in throwing a stone into the sea while the leg-clinging toddler bounced up and down in excitement and the dog circled them both barking noisily. Espying Cristo first, the Jack Russell raced across the sand to attack.

‘No!’ Cristo thundered as he strode across the sand.

Tag cringed and rolled over and stuck his four little legs up in the air, beady eyes telegraphing terror.

‘You didn’t need to shout at him,’ Belle criticised, rushing over to crouch down and pet the little animal. ‘Look how frightened he is! He’s very sensitive.’

‘I’m a little sensitive to being bitten,’ Cristo murmured drily.

‘Man!’ the toddler exclaimed and immediately went for Cristo’s left leg. Cristo froze, wondering if he could do it—actually take on the whole bunch of them and survive with his dignity and sanity intact. He wasn’t a family man, he hadn’t a clue how a normal family functioned and didn’t really want to find out.

Belle was looking up at him, her lovely face flushed and self-conscious, clear green eyes wide above her dainty freckled nose, and her vibrant beauty in that instant scoured his mind clean of all such thoughts. She made him think about sex, lots and lots and lots of sex, and on one level that unnerved him and on another it turned him so hard it literally hurt.

Belle stood up. Tag, the terrified dog, was clasped to her bosom, and now giving Cristo a rather smug look. ‘Did Isa tell you where I was?’

‘I could be down here for a walk.’

Belle raised a fine auburn brow, scanning his lean, powerful body with assessing eyes. It amazed her that a man who spent so much time in a business suit could be so well built but there he was: broad of shoulder and chest, lean of hip and long of leg with not even the hint of jowls or a paunch. Clearly, he kept fit. And although she had long thought business suits were boring Cristo’s dark, perfectly tailored designer suit screamed class and sophistication and was cut close to his powerful thighs and lean hips, directing her attention to areas she didn’t normally appraise on men. Her colour heightening, she tore her attention from the prominent bulge at his crotch and dropped it down to his highly polished shoes, which were caked with sand, and she wondered why he couldn’t just admit that he had come looking for her.

‘You didn’t come down here for a walk dressed like that.’

‘Sand brushes off,’ he fielded carelessly as she settled the dog down on the beach and he scampered off.

In silence, Belle studied Cristo’s lean, extravagantly handsome features, heat blossoming in her pelvis and butterflies flying free in her tummy. She felt as clumsy and ill at ease as a schoolgirl in the presence of her idol. But then was it any wonder that she was embarrassed? She had looked at his body and positively delighted in the strikingly strong muscular definition inherent in his build. She could not recall ever doing that to a man before. But the need to look at Cristo felt as necessary as the need to breathe. In reaction to that humiliating truth she flushed to the roots of her hair, mortified by her failure to control her reaction to his looks and dark, charismatic appeal.

Cristo reached down to detach the toddler’s painful grip from his leg. Starved of male attention, he recalled, thinking that he could certainly understand that. Neither in childhood nor adulthood had Gaetano ever touched him or, indeed, enquired after his well-being. ‘We have to talk,’ he said succinctly.

‘There’s nothing more to talk about. We said it all last night,’ Belle tossed over a slim shoulder as she started down the beach again and extended her hand. ‘Franco, come here!’

‘No!’ the toddler said stubbornly and, deprived of Cristo’s leg, grasped a handful of his trousers instead, making it difficult for Cristo to walk.

Cristo expelled his breath in a slow measured hiss. ‘I placed the Mayhill estate on the market this morning,’ he fired at her rudely turned back.

Belle came to a dead halt, her narrow spine suddenly rigid as panic leapt inside her at the prospect of losing the roof over their heads. There was certainly no room for them all to squeeze into Isa’s one-bedroom apartment in the village. She stared out to sea but the soothing sound of the surf washing the sand smooth failed to work its usual magic. She turned her bright head, green eyes glittering. ‘Couldn’t that have waited for a few weeks?’

Cristo took his time crossing the sand to join her, her little brother clinging to whatever part of Cristo he could reach and finally stretching up to grip the corner of his suit jacket with sandy fingers. ‘No. I want the property sold as soon as possible. I want Gaetano’s life here to remain a secret.’

‘And what about us? Where are we supposed to go?’ Belle demanded heatedly, her temper rising. ‘It takes time to relocate.’

‘You’ll have at least a month to find somewhere else,’ Cristo fielded without perceptible sympathy while he watched the breeze push the soft, clinging cotton of her top against her breasts, defining the full rounded swells and her pointed nipples. The heavy pulse at his groin went crazy and he clenched his teeth together, willing back his arousal.

‘That’s not very long. Bruno and Donetta will be home from school for the summer soon. Five children take up a lot of space... They’re your brothers and sisters too, so you should care about what happens to them!’ Belle launched back at him in furious condemnation.

‘Which is why I’m here to suggest that we get married and make a home for them together,’ Cristo countered with harsh emphasis as he wondered for possibly the very first time in his life whether he really did know what he was doing.

‘Married?’ Belle repeated aghast, wondering if she’d missed a line or two in the conversation. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You said that you wanted your siblings to enjoy the Ravelli name and lifestyle. I can only make that happen by marrying you and adopting them.’

Frowning in confusion, Belle fell back a step, in too much shock to immediately respond. ‘Is this a joke?’ she asked when she had finally found her voice again.

‘Why would I joke about something so serious?’

Belle shrugged. ‘How would I know? You thought it was acceptable to suggest to their mother that she give them up to be adopted,’ she reminded him helplessly.

‘I’m not joking,’ Cristo replied levelly, a stray shard of sunlight breaking through the clouds to slant across his lean, strong face.

All over again, Belle studied him in wonder because he had the smouldering dark beauty of a fallen angel. His brilliant dark eyes were nothing short of stunning below the thick screen of his lashes and suddenly she felt as breathless as though someone were standing on her lungs.

‘I’m a practical man and I’m suggesting a practical marriage which would fulfil all our needs,’ Cristo continued smoothly. ‘You’re aware that I don’t want a court case. I also want to prevent the squalid story of Gaetano and his housekeeper leaking into the public domain. You would have to agree not to discuss the children’s parentage with anyone but nobody need tell any lies either. As far as anyone need know, the children are simply your orphaned brothers and sisters.’

Belle breathed in deep and slow but it still didn’t clear her head. ‘I can’t believe you’re suggesting this.’

‘You didn’t give me a choice, did you? The threat of a court case piled on the pressure. Are you prepared to settle this out of court?’ Cristo studied her enquiringly.

Belle didn’t hesitate. ‘No.’

Cristo raised a sleek ebony brow. ‘Then what’s your answer?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Belle protested.

‘Isn’t it? I’m offering you everything you said you wanted.’

Her lashes flickered above her strained eyes. She felt cornered and trapped. ‘Well, yes, but...marriage? I could hardly be expecting that development!’

Annoyance lanced through Cristo. It was his very first proposal of marriage and he had never before even considered proposing to a woman. Without a shade of vanity he knew he was rich, good-looking and very eligible and yet she was hesitating and he was grimly amused by his irritation.

‘Look, I’ll think it over until tonight,’ Belle muttered uncomfortably.