The Ranieri Bride

Enrico sat behind the desk, silently throwing those insults at the photograph sourced from Hannard’s security files that looked out at him from his computer screen.

She looked so cute, so sweetly innocent, he mocked acidly. As if butter would not melt in her mouth.

But it did melt.

With a flick of the mouse he blanked her out by pulling up a photograph of the boy and once again felt that soul-shattering, crash-and-burn feeling rock his insides.

‘What do you think—is he mine or Luca’s?’ he asked Fredo.

Fredo gave one of his shrugs. ‘If he is Luca’s, then the bambino has been fortunate enough to miss out on his papa’s less savoury genes,’ the bodyguard said drily before adding quietly, ‘He has your eyes and mouth and your—stubbornness. He also has your sense of fun…’

Fredo was thinking about the way the boy had kept glancing up to check on him all the way back here and the cheeky smile he’d worn on his little mouth. As they’d entered the building he’d turned and shouted, ‘Bye, monkey!’ before being dragged off chuckling by his mamma who’d refused to glance Fredo’s way at all.

Enrico did not feel as if he had so much as a drop of fun in him right now as he sat there staring at the child’s face; it was as if those ink-dark eyes were making a link with his own—he could feel it right down to the dregs of his swirling, tensing gut.

‘He is mine, I feel it,’ he uttered gruffly.

‘Si.’ Fredo nodded.

Why the sombre confirmation from his bodyguard further creased him up Enrico did not know—but it did.

‘Get down to the crèche and keep your eye on him,’ he instructed.

For the first time in all the years they’d been together Fredo balked at a command. ‘You want me to spend the afternoon in a nursery—with bambinos?’

He was horrified. Enrico looked at him. ‘Who the hell else can I trust to keep an eye on him while I work this mess out?’

‘But he cannot go anywhere without his mamma! She—’

Enrico got up, all lithe muscle and brooding unease. ‘She could run,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot afford to let her disappear until I know the truth.’

Fredo was silent. He might not like the job he was being handed but he saw the possibility in what Enrico said. With a fatalistic shrug of his big shoulders he turned to the door.

‘Where is Luca hiding out these days?’ Enrico sent grimly after him.

Fredo paused. ‘Last I heard he was in Hawaii with his latest rich puta.’

‘Arrange to keep him there,’ Enrico ordered. ‘Use threats or money or both if you have to.’ Though it closed up his throat to give his cousin a single euro. ‘I don’t need him turning up and queering this for me when he hears I have a son by Freya.’

‘How will he hear it?’ Fredo asked in bewilderment. Luca had been cast out of the Ranieri family; he did not even have contact with his own mother any more!

‘He will hear it like the rest of the world will hear it,’ Enrico said. ‘When I announce it publicly that I have a son and intend to marry the boy’s mother.’

There was a very thick pause, then Fredo said carefully, ‘You are going too fast with this, Enrico—’

A pair of black-ice eyes lanced Fredo with a look that made the other man sigh.

‘You need positive proof before you—’

‘The boy is mine. I want him. The mother comes with the package.’

‘Try telling the signorina that,’ Fredo said drily.

‘I intend to.’

Freya was wistfully wishing she lived on the other side of the world right now.

But she didn’t. She was standing right here in Hannard’s basement, mindlessly feeding paper into an old flatbed scanner so the information on it could be transferred to the mainframe computer.

Trapped, she thought bleakly, by the need to earn a living.

And frightened, because she didn’t know what Enrico was going to do.

It was all over the building that he’d bought out Josh Hannard. It was also all over the building that he’d accosted her in the foyer this lunchtime and caused an ugly scene.

Her telephone rang. It hadn’t stopped ringing since she’d got back from lunch, flooding her with calls from her fellow workmates wanting her to dish the dirt as to what Mr Ranieri had said to her. The whole place was agog with curiosity and scared out of their wits for their livelihoods…more scared if they had a child in Hannard’s crèche. All she could do was to lie and say, what confrontation? He was just asking about the quality of care at the crèche.

Because the real truth was way beyond her means to tell—even to herself. She didn’t want to think about what it was going to mean to her and Nicky.

She picked up the phone, ready with her by now well-practised light answers.

‘A Mr Scarsozi has taken up residence in the crèche,’ announced the familiar voice of Cindy, its manager. ‘He says he’s here under instructions from our new boss to watch over Nicky. Can you tell me what the heck is going on?’

Freya closed her eyes as her heart sank to her stomach, fresh fears clenching her fingers in a tight clasp around the phone receiver. ‘Has he—touched Nicky?’ she asked unsteadily.

‘No,’ came the firm reply. ‘If he tried I wouldn’t let him.’

Try stopping him, Freya thought with a shiver as she recalled the way Fredo’s strong arms had secured her son once already that day.

‘He just stands in a corner of the playroom watching him and scaring the rest of us half to death,’ Cindy went on. ‘Have you seen him, Freya? He’s built like a gorilla! I want the scary thing out of my crèche!’

‘Right,’ Freya said, beginning to shake all over again. ‘Is—is Nicky scared of him, too?’

‘Are you joking? Your son had the bold cheek to go right up to him and say, “Hi, monkey, want to come and play?” Does Nicky know him?’

Now, there was a question. How did she answer it—no or yes? If she said no, she would put everyone involved in the crèche into a panic. If she said yes, she was setting herself up for more questions she had no way of answering.

‘I’ll deal with it,’ she replied, going for the sidestep response.

What did Enrico think he was doing? she wondered helplessly as she put down the phone. Was he trying to intimidate her through Nicky before he’d even—?

‘Your tea break, Freya,’ a frosty voice intruded. ‘Though the way you’ve been stuck on that phone all afternoon I’d say you’ve already had the equivalent of several of them.’

Freya blinked, green eyes looking blankly at her head of department, a cool creature with dyed blonde hair and a tight pink mouth, who loved ruling over everyone like a tyrant.

‘Be so good as to keep your personal life out of my department in future, if you don’t mind.’

The woman was also miffed because, like everyone else, she’d asked Freya the same eager questions, only to receive the same stock, frustratingly unrevealing answers.