A Ring To Take His Revenge

Antonio’s hawk-like gaze raked over her—all of her. Even dressed in the clothes he now saw that she wore like armour, she outshone Amber like the north star.

‘I was just telling Marcus how much I’m enjoying the gala. A truly wonderful event. And with that in mind I have decided to double the donations raised this evening. Marcus,’ he said, turning back to the man, ‘please be so good as to announce that before the meal starts. Let’s see if it greases some wheels.’ He tried not to look at the man’s glasses as he spoke.

His statement signalled the end of the conversation, but Marcus Greenfeld still took an awkward moment to realise it was his cue to leave.

Emma was looking at him with huge round eyes. The same eyes that had first caught his attention in London. He needed to get his own eyes off his PA and on to the next fiancée option. He needed to keep his mind on track. He wasn’t here for the charity—he was here to help secure the Bartlett deal.

‘That’s...that’s wonderful, Antonio. Thank you so much.’

‘You don’t have to thank me. It’s my charity, after all. Besides... It’s good publicity.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ she said, levelling him with a stare that saw far too much, and speaking in a voice that held too much optimism. ‘I think you’re doing it out of the kindness of your heart.’

‘Don’t paint any illusions about me, Emma. Trust me—there’s very little good left in me.’

‘Well, then. I’ll just have to nurture that last little bit of goodness.’

As she slipped away into the throng of guests his errant mind wondered what else she might nurture and he cursed himself to hell and back.

When the guests started to make their way in a somewhat chaotic line through to where the meal was being served, he saw Dimitri peel off from a group of attractive women.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ Antonio asked as they stood back and watched the guests pile in for the meal.

‘Absolutely. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,’ Dimitri replied, full of laughter.

‘I’m glad you find humour in this.’

‘And in your purpose,’ Dimitri responded, clinking his glass of champagne against Antonio’s. ‘So, anyone caught your eye yet?’

As Antonio scanned the guests at the gala, all decked in the kind of finery that suited their opulent surroundings, his eyes snagged on Emma once again.

‘Emma shared the list of suitable candidates with me, and I must say, apart from that girl Amber, she’s chosen wisely. Though if you’re not overly taken with option one I’d be happy to take her off your hands.’

‘Che palle, Dimitri.’ Antonio cast Dimitri a dark look, but his friend only shrugged.

‘Ti?’ Dimitri queried in Greek.

‘Natasha Eddings—“option one”—is not up for grabs. This isn’t a cattle market, Dimitri. This is important. If Bartlett is even going to meet with me, then I need a fiancée to resolve any detrimental effects of my previous...assignations.’

‘Is that what the kids are calling it these days?’

‘Don’t joke. This is a serious matter.’

‘I know,’ Dimitri said, his eyes shining with understanding. ‘But, Antonio, you can’t just stumble across a woman you’ve never met before, make her an offer to be your fake fiancée, expect her to have little or no ulterior expectations, and present her to Bartlett wrapped in a bow.’

Antonio bit back a curse. Dimitri was right. Urgency and necessity had made his usually quick and clever mind sluggish and slow. He saw the many flaws in his plan immediately.

What had he been thinking? He needed the deal, he needed to bring Steele to his knees, and he needed a fiancée who would understand and support him in it.

His eyes caught Emma, laughing with a member of the hotel’s staff before stepping away through the glass doors to the balcony that wrapped around the outside of the hotel. She had done so much. He was impressed with how she’d multi-tasked, clearly making an unprecedented success of the event whilst never missing a beat in her day-to-day role. She was conscientious, bright and articulate. And above all she was professional. In short, she was perfect.

* * *

‘Mum, it’s...’ Emma paused, pulling her mobile briefly away from her ear to check the screen for the time ‘...one a.m. in London. What are you doing up?’

‘Oh, I got stuck into a painting and the next thing I knew it was midnight.’

As Emma looked out onto the famous New York skyline she imagined her mother in the brightly lit, airy loft of her home in Hampstead Heath. When her parents had divorced her father had been the one to leave, moving into a flat nearer to the school where he worked, but only round the corner from the home they had all once shared.

The divorce had signalled the end of the nightly fights that had become a regular feature of Emma’s life—desperate and painful arguments her parents had thought she hadn’t heard. The heart-wrenching accusations, the arguments over how differently to handle their sick daughter, and her father’s confusion as to why Louise Guilham had changed beyond his recognition.

Emma had initially felt relief when they’d separated, and then guilt, knowing that her father still desperately loved her mother. His painful bewilderment at the transformation in his wife and child had cut Emma deeply, and prompted the awful thought that had it not been for her illness her mother might have somehow stayed with her husband, and she might have somehow found a way to keep them all together.

‘Where’s Mark?’

Emma liked her mum’s partner. He made her happy, and he also gave her the space she needed to be creative at unsociable times. Emma knew better than most that when her mum ‘got stuck into a painting’ she could be gone for days. She loved her mum’s paintings—her favourite one hung on the wall of her little Brooklyn flat—and still felt bad that her mother’s work had been put on hold during her illness at a critical time in her mother’s career.

‘Asleep. I just wanted to know how the gala went.’

‘It’s still going, but it’s going well. Antonio has offered to double the event’s donations.’

‘That’s wonderful, darling.’

But even through her mother’s happiness for her Emma could sense her distraction. She was probably staring at the painting critically right at that very moment.

Emma was about to ask when they might come over to visit her. Her mother and Mark hadn’t made it out there yet, but that was okay, because she’d hardly had a spare moment since working for Antonio. But as if the very thought of him had conjured him from thin air, she felt rather than heard his presence behind her.

‘Love you lots, but I’d better go.’

Emma hung up the call and put her mobile back in her purse. She gathered herself, knowing that her emotions were a little too close to the surface for her to face her boss just yet.

Adjusting her mind’s eye back from her home in Hampstead to the beautiful night-time vista of famous skyscrapers silhouetted against the stars, she felt a cool breeze pass over her skin—and that was why she had goosebumps, Emma assured herself. Not because Antonio had come out here to find her.

He should be with the other guests sitting down for the meal. Perhaps he’d come to tell her that he’d found his perfect fiancée, she thought, uncharacteristically bitter.

She needed to pull herself together. Surely she could handle Antonio Arcuri’s fiancée as well as she could handle him. But the thought of handling