It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

He was striding through the bedroom on his way to the toilet when he spotted the folded piece of paper leaning against the lamp base.

Hurrying over, he snatched it up and opened it.

Dear Gino,

I decided to leave this way as I didn’t want one of those morning-after scenes. Tonight was great, but there is no future for us. We’re just ships passing in the night, just as we were ten years ago. Please do not come after me. You will be wasting your time. I have plans for my future and they do not include you. Go home to Melbourne and marry that Italian girlfriend of yours. She is Italian, isn’t she? Of course she is.

Ciao. Jordan.

Gino slumped down on the side of the bed.

Shattered did not begin to describe his feelings. Though it was a good start.

He’d made a big mistake not telling Jordan the truth last night. Hell, he could have at least confessed that he’d broken up with Claudia.

But of course his emotions had been very mixed up last night. So had his intentions. From the moment he’d arrived at that dinner he’d lurched from one train of thought to another.

But his head was clear now. Jordan’s leaving him like this had cleared it in a hurry.

He scanned the note again, trying to read between the lines, trying to find some shred of hope that he still had a chance with her.

He couldn’t really find any.

Her saying they had no future together reminded him of his deathbed promise to his father. Clearly Jordan wanted marriage, and he simply could not offer her that.

Nothing in that note made him feel good. Nothing except for the bit about his Italian girlfriend. That part sounded somewhat jealous.

Why be jealous if she didn’t care?

Gino’s heat skipped a beat, but he did not dare to hope too much.

Still, it was all he needed to spark some action. He could not go to back to Melbourne until he’d explored every avenue. If there was the slightest chance Jordan still cared for him, he was going to grab it.

He didn’t know the time, but it had to be quite late in the morning, judging by his extremely bristly chin.

Time to get himself showered, shaved, dressed, and on Jordan’s front doorstep.

By mid-morning Jordan was totally sick of herself. She’d been crying on and off since arriving home at some ungodly hour in the morning.

She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten.

Perhaps if she rang Chad and got that dreadful job over and done with she might feel better.

It was about lunchtime in New York—not the middle of the night or anything.

Feeling simply appalling, Jordan steeled herself for one of the worst phone calls of her life.

When Chad didn’t answer straight away, her first emotion was relief. When a woman answered, any relief was swiftly replaced by irritation.

‘Can I help you?’ the woman said, in a sing-song fashion.

‘Could I speak to Chad, please?’ Jordan said through gritted teeth.

‘Chad, darling. It’s for you.’

Chad darling finally came on the line.

‘Hi there,’ he said.

‘Chad. It’s Jordan.’

‘Jordan…’

‘Yes, your fiancée,’ she bit out. ‘Remember me?’

‘Ahh.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I was going to call you,’ he said, in the most guilt-laden voice Jordan had ever heard. And she’d heard quite a few during her lawyering years.

‘Who was that woman?’ she snapped.

‘That was Caroline.’

‘Am I supposed to know who Caroline is?’

‘I was engaged to her once. Before I came to Australia. We…we had this fight, you see, and I thought…Well, I thought she didn’t love me any more…’

‘But she does?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you still love her?’

‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry, Jordan.’

Jordan didn’t know what to say.

‘Look,’ Chad went on, ‘even before Caroline and I got together again I’d begun to suspect that my proposing to you was a mistake. I mean, men like me…basically, we want a woman who makes being a wife and mother their career. You’re a great girl, Jordan. And I really enjoyed our time together. But the truth is you’re not what I want in a wife.’

Not what he wanted in a wife.

‘You want an American wife?’ she said, her voice as deflated as her spirit.

‘Yes. That’s the bottom line. I want an American wife.’

Like Gino wanted an Italian wife.