“With all my heart, I beg you to finally agree to marry me.” He cleared his throat and smiled in the lopsided way that drove her crazy. “Please.”
She laughed, but she was nodding, her smile broad as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Well, seeing as you said the magic word,” her joke was weakened by the tremor in her voice.
He kissed her back, then pulled away, so that he could flip open the velvet box. The ring inside was exactly what she would have chosen, if she could have chosen any ring in the world. A stunning solitaire diamond was surrounded by a circlet of diamonds, framed in platinum gold. Carrie watched as Gael slipped it on her finger.
“I love it,” she said honestly.
“I’m glad,” he pulled her to him, and stood. “Did you really think things would ever get dull and boring for us?”
She grinned and shook her head from side to side. A slight breeze rustled off the orchard, blowing with it the fragrance of summer and orange blossoms. “I guess we should get ready to go to your mother’s; she and Antonio have been excited about showing us their new house for weeks.”
He made a guttural sound of agreement. “Right now, my mother and her toyboy are the last thing on my mind.”
Carrie burst out laughing. “He’s only four years younger than Gabriella. And he adores her.”
“Yes, yes,” he said with a shrug. “But they’ll keep.”
Carrie blinked her big blue eyes up at him. “Will they?”
“At least a little longer.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her against his chest through their house.
Carrie missed Juanita, but other than that, she thought of her life in London as a closed chapter.
Here, on Sol Sobre Del Mar, she was home. With the man she loved, on an island that spoke to her, she was amongst flowers, bees, birds, waves, sunshine and everything that made her happiest in life.
“You know, this will be a wonderful place to raise our family,” she said thoughtfully, as he laid her gently down on their bed.
His heart turned over at the very idea. “When you are ready, princesa, that will please me greatly.”
She smiled. “I think we should start trying right away.”
“Before the wedding?” He said, genuine surprise in his voice.
She nodded. “I’ve already thought of that. Let’s get married here. In a month. Just your mother and Antonio, Juanita and Tom.”
“And Alexandra?”
Carrie’s lips tightened, as they always did when she thought of her mother. Though their relationship had improved, it was still far from perfect. “Perhaps. We’ll invite her. I daresay she’ll refuse to come.”
“Is this really what you want for your wedding?”
“I want to be Mrs Gael Vivas. I don’t care how or where. Just that it happens.”
Pride ran through him, a rich current of pleasure and gratification. “Fine. A month from today, here on the island.”
“And your mother will cook an enormous paella for our guests.”
“Yes,” he laughed. “Your favourite.”
And so it happened that four weeks after accepting Gael’s proposal, Carrie stood before their dearest friends and family and pledged to spend the rest of her life with him. It was a formality. Anyone who had spent time with the pair had understood that promise and commitment shrouded them totally.
And yet saying it in front of their loved ones brought a sacred bond into being. The sun was shining high over the island, the beach was the background to their vows, and abundant arrangements of wild roses adorned every surface.
They danced afterwards, aware only of how perfect it felt to be together, in one another’s arms.
And finally, at the end of the day, when they were alone again, Carrie sang for Gael. It was the same song she’d sung that night, nine years earlier in the rose garden.
His heart thumped heavily in his chest, as past and present wove around him, to create the perfect future with the one woman he had ever loved.
She was his, forever more.
THE END
The Billionaire’s Untouched Bride
Prologue
BENEDETTO DI FIORI WASN’T a man to walk away from a challenge. Nor was he a stranger to hardship. In fact, if you’d asked him a week ago what he lived for, he might have answered ‘the fight’.
For as long as he could remember, he’d done things the hard way. Not by choice so much as circumstance: despite the fact he now occupied a position amongst the world’s elite, his position in society hadn’t been handed to him on a silver platter— nothing had been.
No, Benedetto had done it the hard way, using his considerable brains, guile and fearless attitude to shape himself into one of the world’s most ruthless and wealthy bachelors.
If you’d asked him a week ago, he would have said he relished a challenge, but that was before his world came crashing down around his ears in the most spectacular fashion.
“You’re sure this is what they intended?”
Across the boardroom from him, an elderly lawyer who’d introduced himself as Bogart Welsh regarded a fistful of papers over the rim of his spectacles.
“You are Benedetto Alfredo Di Fiori?”
The Italian’s lip quirked in an expression of his trademark disdain. He was known the world over, his name practically a household one thanks to his aggressive investment in the private space exploration and satellite industries, not to mention his pioneering efforts with life-saving medical equipment. Fiercely private, he hated the attention, but he’d become reconciled to it over the years.
“Si.” He bit the word out with more derision than he’d intended.
“Then yes,” the old man continued, his American accent pronounced. Beyond the windows of this steel and glass high rise, snow swirled. Benedetto couldn’t look at it without an ache in his gut, a painful accusation that the drifts of white could never answer.
It might look beautiful and soft, but he knew the truth. This weather phenomenon had killed them and his life would never be the same again.
“It makes no sense,” he pronounced, as though he could argue his way out of this. He pushed up from his chair, striding towards the windows, staring out at Manhattan without really seeing its distinctive skyline.
The lawyer made a noise that might have passed as agreement. After all, there was no one on earth who would have said Benedetto Di Fiori was a wise candidate to be legal guardian of a child.
“The Will is quite specific,” Bogart continued. “And it was updated only a week after Alfredo’s birth.”
Alfredo. His namesake. An all-consuming sense of panic surged inside Benedetto, like a tidal wave at its tipping point.
“What the hell were they thinking?” His eyes swept shut and he saw them as clearly as though they were standing right before him. Veronica and Jack, his best friends - except more like siblings to him than friends. Hell, they were the closest thing he had to family.
When the proverbial had hit the fan a year earlier, when his affair with Melinda had hit the tabloids and all the world had condemned his as a home-wrecker, they’d been there by his side, sneering with the same contempt that curdled his insides. Even if the papers had been right; even if he’d judged himself so much harsher than anyone else could.
Veronica and Jack hadn’t judged him. They’d understood. They knew him.
But surely they also knew how defective he would be as the legal guardian to a child? Surely they knew how little he would want this role?
He turned to face Bogart with an expression that would have put fear in his business enemies’ hearts. But Bogart was experienced in matters of probate law, and was used to dealing with frayed tempers and confounded expectations.
“There is a requirement that you will include Veronica’s sister in some decisions – education, for example – but otherwise, the Will is emphatic on this score. Full custody and raising of Alfredo Higham passes to Benedetto Alfredo di Fiori in the event of our death.”
Benedetto curved his hands over the back of a chair, his posture rigid, his lips a disapproving gash in his face.
“What the hell were they thinking?” He repeated; it was a rhetorical question, asked purely of himself, with no expectation of a response.
But Bogart had experience in such matters, and he said, quietly, sympathetically, with a small shake of his head. “I expect they were thinking they’d never die.”
Benedetto’s golden brown eyes – eyes that earned him the nickname il Lupo as a child, for their distinct wolf-like shape and depth – flicked to the older man as though he were being roused from a nightmare, being forced to meet an even scarier reality.
Jack had every reason to understand how closely death stalked – he’d already cheated its gnarled grip once, to hope for a reprieve a second time was to hope for too much.
“They should have known better.” Benedetto stalked to a different chair and lifted his suit jacket from the back. The funeral leaflet was still in his pocket, so as he shifted the jacket, it fell to the floor. He squatted down on powerful legs to scrape it up, his eyes landing on the portrait of Jack and Veronica, taken on their wedding day. The wedding day at which he’d acted as best man. The wedding day when he’d witnessed for himself true happiness, true exultation and trust.
His stomach clenched, because he knew he had to accept this. For as long as he cherished his friends’ memories, he had to respect their wishes. And for some ungodly reason, unbeknownst to anyone on this good earth, they’d left their child to his care.
Benedetto was now, to all intents and purposes, father to a three year old boy.
And he’d just have to learn to live with that.
1
Six months later
“COME IN.”
Cleopatra hesitated a moment, running a hand down the front of her simple suit – a steel grey that brought out the shimmering blue of her eyes – then pushed the door inwards, holding her breath a little without realising it.
The man didn’t look up from his computer when she entered. “Take a seat.”
Nerves were normal in an interview. It was just being here, in the Roman townhouse – more like a mansion, in fact – of a man like Benedetto di Fiori that set her nerves even more on edge than usual. This place was as grand as a museum, or a wing of the Vatican, all high ceilings, highly-sheened marble floors, priceless works of art hanging on the walls. Everywhere she looked there was proof of a sumptuous and expensive lifestyle.
She took the seat he’d gestured to, clasping her hands in her lap, keeping her eyes on him out of compulsion rather than choice.
He had a face that demanded inspection. Strong features, as though each had been scraped from granite using a palette knife – a straight nose, chiselled jaw and cheekbones, a high forehead. His eyes were wide-set and large, and the darkest brown – almost black – she could imagine. His flesh was a dark brown, like caramel and his shoulders were broad, hinting at a muscular frame. Her mouth was inexplicably dry.
He looked at her, finally, his eyes sweeping over her face with a small frown etching across his lips.
“Cleopatra Ash-Compton.”
She’d started using her grandmother’s name after she’d received the letter from her brother – the brother she hadn’t known about until a few years ago, a brother she had no intention of ever knowing.
His brows drew together and he studied her for several long seconds, in a way that made her feel as though she were being pulled apart and weighed, bit by bit.
“You applied for the job I’ve advertised?”
And despite her nervousness, the hint of a smile twitched at the corner of her lips. “Yes.”
His only response was to draw his brows closer together. “You look too young to be a nanny.”
Cleopatra shifted her slim shoulders. “Do I?”
His lips quirked as though he’d enjoyed her quick response, but the emotion was flattened out of his face almost immediately.
“Exactly how old are you?”
“Twenty four.”
There was a beat as he processed this. “And you have experience?”
A smile touched Cleopatra’s lips as she thought fondly of Eloise. “Yes, Mr Di Fiori. I’ve worked the last six years for the American ambassador to Italy.”
A fact she was certain he possessed. There was no way she’d have been granted an interview with the great, renowned tycoon Benedetto di Fiori if he hadn’t done an extensive background check and personally called her references. She wondered if he’d uncovered her true identity? Unlikely, given that her father’s name wasn’t on her birth certificate and he’d never publicly acknowledged her. No, the secret that she had herself discovered less than a decade earlier was hers alone – no one other than herself and her biological brother and a handful of lawyers knew that she was, in fact, the love child of one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
“Why are you leaving?”
Another wistful smile. “Eloise – their daughter – just started boarding school. They don’t need me anymore.”
She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“They’ve been very kind,” she continued softly, her American accent more pronounced as she skated over the admission. “Offering for me to stay at their home for as long as I need, while I find a new position. But without Eloise, I feel somewhat surplus to requirements. Besides, I like to be busy and right now, I’m definitely not.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So you could start immediately.”
Cleopatra tilted her head and tapped her finger against her knee slowly. There’d been very little about Benedetto’s needs in the advertisement she’d seen. “WANTED; NANNY, FULL TIME. EXPERIENCE WITH SMALL CHILDREN ESSENTIAL. IMMEDIATE START.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?” It was clear from his recitation of the word that this man wasn’t used to being argued with. His expression confirmed that – halfway to a scowl, he looked impatient and cross.
She bit down on her lower lip. “I think one of the hardest things for a child – and for me, if I’m honest – is taking on a position that isn’t right. I think it’s important to know I’m a good fit for a charge before I officially agree to care for them.”
“Meaning?”
“I need to know a little more about your situation before I agree to start – immediately or ever.”
A shift of his lips again which once more signalled a grudging kind of approval. “You say this with a lot of authority for a woman who’s only had one position as a nanny?”
“Why do you presume I’ve only had one placement?”
“Your age.”
“Ah.” She shook her head. “I worked with another family before I took up the role with Eloise. It was …not really a good fit.”
“In what way?” He leaned forward a little, his eyes scanning her face.
Cleopatra’s cheeks flushed bright pink as she thought back to that awful stage of her life. A friendship she’d taken as innocent that had meant so much more to her charge’s father.
“Well,” she contemplated how to answer that. “Being a good nanny isn’t just about the child. I mean, obviously, he or she is the most important part of my job, and it’s why I do what I do, but the whole dynamic has to be right.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“No,” she shook her head, a polite smile on her face – a smile that clearly showed she had no intention of continuing the conversation.
His eyes narrowed, and she felt his curiosity emanating off him in waves; she felt his desire to know more. He restrained the impulse to ask however. “Six years with one family is impressive.”
She tilted her head forward in silent consent. “Why don’t you tell me about your… child?”
His lips twisted in a response she couldn’t interpret. “He’s not my child.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “I’m sorry. I just presumed--,”
He waved his hand in a gesture that
was part impatience, part dismissal. “Non ce di che. He’s three years old.”
Silence. She waited for him to elaborate, for Benedetto was caught in his own thoughts, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his stubbled chin. Finally, he went on.
“His parents died six months ago. They were my… closest friends.” A frown. A flicker of emotion in the depths of his dark eyes. “I didn’t realise they’d appointed me to act as his guardian.” He stood then, pushing his chair back, his body stiff as he moved to the window that overlooked the exclusive, tree-lined Via di Viola. “I don’t know what they were thinking. I’m the last person on earth who should be raising a child.”
Cleopatra’s eyes noted the broad spread of his shoulders, the straightness of his spine, and broadly muscled back, and leaned forward a little in her chair. “Why?”
He turned to face her. “I’m not father material. I have no interest in being a parent.” The words were said matter-of-factly. “And he – Alfredo – is a nightmare.”
At this, a small laugh escaped Cleopatra’s lips, without her intention.
“You think I’m exaggerating?”
“No,” she shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly.”
“I have gone through seven nannies in six months.”
The smile slipped from Cleopatra’s face. “Oh, no.” Sympathy squashed her heart. The poor little boy! “That’s the last thing he needs after losing his parents.”
“It has been extremely inconvenient.”
She rejected her first impulse – to scold him for sounding selfish in the midst of a child’s suffering.
“Why so many?”
“Did you not hear me? He is a nightmare. He cannot be reasoned with.”
If it weren’t such a dire situation, she might have laughed. They were, after all, talking about a three year old boy, not generally known for being micro-paradigms of reason and sense.