Baby By Accident: International Billionaires III: The Italians (8 page)

The other board members mumbled and shuffled their papers. The tiger at the end of the table smiled his charming grin. “No,” he replied.

The vote was a
fait accompli
. Like all the other votes being held lately.

Lise stared at the agenda in front of her and tried to inflate the usual outrage. She tried to find the willpower to make an objection, throw obstacles in his way. Ruddy hell, a few months ago, she would have had a list of reasons why it wasn’t going to work, why his plans were a farce.

She could tell herself it was just the pregnancy, her lack of energy, that stopped her. But it wasn’t, was it?

Be honest with yourself, Lise.

During the last three months, as he’d mesmerized her staff into implementing the changes he’d ruthlessly pushed through the board, she’d had to acknowledge the projections she’d dismissed as con games were, in reality, correct. The company,
her
company, was coming to life under the direction and guidance of Vico Mattare. Even in her miserable state, she sensed the rebounding of excitement, the rise of optimism in the corridors. The pulse of energy which emanated from his corner office and enthralled everyone in the building.

Hannah had been right. Worse, Vico Mattare had been right.

Such a stunning realization was enough to make a girl cry. Which she did routinely. But not about him, not in the least.

Hormones. Only hormones.

Her presumption he’d grow bored and walk away, leaving her to clean up the mess of her company was unmistakably not in the cards. Quite the opposite. As his changes were implemented, the tiger had become even more interested and focused on every aspect of her company. No department was left as is. No decision was left unmade. No direction was ever withheld. He hadn’t gallivanted off to the nearest beach intent on pleasure. Instead, he’d made it to work every day before she could drag herself in, and proceeded to plow through more work in one hour than any other person could do in a week.

It burned. It really burned her pride.

Of course, he still showed his true stripes in his nightly activities. The activities the tabloids slavishly documented. She’d seen the pictures, the endless photos of him with a bevy of ladies, an endless variety of completely idiotic women gazing at him as if he were some god. Her one night of illicit passion with him hadn’t made a dent in his prodigious sexual appetites. She was one of a thousand—a million—notches on his bed.

This also burned, burned in her eyes.

Hormones. Nothing else.

“Ms. Helton.” The sex addict gave her another of his fake smiles. “Would you be kind enough to present the current financials to the board now?”

The financials showing he’d been right. She’d been wrong.

How it must please him to no end to have her report his triumph. She bet he jumped up and down in the privacy of his office every time he had a chance to stomp on her pride.

She lifted her chin, shot him a cool glare, and began the presentation.

He didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the baby.

A baby she’d become worried about. Instead of poring over financial statements when she got home, she now spent her time reading about babies. Prenatal, postnatal, vitamins, exercise. Every one of the books had told her most women stopped being sick after their first trimester.

Was there something wrong?

Suz assured her there wasn’t anything wrong. She should know after going through six of her sister’s pregnancies. Yet she’d cheerfully accompanied Lise to the doctor yesterday and waited patiently as
her compulsive, obsessive friend
peppered the patient physician with questions.

There was nothing wrong
, the doctor echoed Suz.
You only need to relax more
.

Relax more?

Relax when her mother kept ranting and raving about the broken engagement? Relax when she still had the odorous chore of telling her mother she was going to have a baby and be a single mom? Relax when she had a job she had to keep, but felt like every moment she was under surveillance?

“Thank you, Ms. Helton,” the bane of her existence said smoothly. “Very thorough and also very encouraging.”

She glanced up to meet his smile. Behind it lurked both hate and pleasure at her defeat.

And a threat?

This constant, nagging fear she lived with was ridiculous. This niggling in her stomach she could not assign to her usual morning sickness. It was completely stupid to spend her nights staring at her ceiling thinking of the awful things he could do if he put his mind to it.

Because, surely, Vico Mattare wouldn’t put his mind to it. Look at his reaction when she’d told him it was Robert’s. The man had grinned like a hyena released from a zoo into the wild. He’d clearly been ecstatic—he could walk away scot-free.

Why had his reaction hurt? Why had she closed her office door behind him and suddenly burst into tears?

The hormones. Only the hormones.

The meeting went on and on. Lise wiggled in her chair. If it wasn’t a constant need to puke, it was a constant need to pee. This better end soon or she was going to have to excuse herself. She glanced down at the bump of her baby, which was successfully hidden by her endless line of suit jackets. In short order, she would have to stop the silly charade of not being pregnant. She suspected that most of the office had already come to the right conclusion.

Lise rubbed her hand across the bump and smiled.

Hormones, stress, nausea. All of it was nothing compared to the gift she’d soon have.

Looking up, her hand stilled.

Vico Mattare’s gaze rose from her hand and pinned her to the chair. Intense and piercing and determined.

Taking a halting breath in and then out, she tore herself from his scrutiny and stared at the papers in front of her. There wasn’t any threat there in his eyes. There was no reason to be concerned. This worry and speculation was only her imagination. Only the hormones messing with her emotions.

Or perhaps…a mother’s instinct?

V
ico stared at the stately
, imposing, regal house in front of him.

He hated the place.

Hated the cold blue of the door with its ostentatious gold trim. Hated the blank windows with the grey shades pulled down. And he especially hated the chilly white paint on the brick face.

This home fit Lise Helton to perfection.

Glancing around the quiet Mayfair street, he noted the plethora of Mercedes, BMWs, and Aston Martins. He gave them all a grim smile. Only the best kind of neighbors for the
Princesse,
si
? Too bad he’d come to spoil the tone of the neighborhood.

Too bad for her. Too bad for him.

No amount of class and aristocratic hauteur was going to stop him from finding out what he wanted to know. Hopefully, it was nothing. Still, the pulse in his gut told him this was not the case.

So, the last two weeks had been busy—very busy.

Vico strode to the damned door and pushed the pretentious doorbell with savage intent.

Two weeks ago he’d thought, for a moment, he’d escaped. When he’d stared into those ice-blue eyes, hate coloring the blue into spears of frost, he’d been relieved at her words. What man would want to tie himself to this kind of a woman? A woman as cold as the farthest star in the galaxy. A woman who hated him, looked down at him, treated him with disrespect. What man would want a woman like this to carry his
bambino
?

He’d walked back to his office in a daze. Because mixed with the blessed relief, he’d experienced a crushing despair. Which made no sense.

Then it had come.

The twist in his gut telling him something wasn’t right, something wasn’t as it should be.

He’d listened.

His security team was thorough. There was not an ounce of guilt in him for what he’d done. He had to know for sure. Had to build an arsenal of weapons to get what he wanted. Had to make certain…

He stared at the gold door knocker.

Why? Why was he doing this? Even now he argued with his gut, cursed his conscience. He didn’t want to be a father, could never be worthy of the care of an infant. What possible good would come of forcing the issue?

Yet, lurking behind his gut and his conscience was fear. Fear drove him forward. He’d failed once before, failed to follow through, failed to protect. If it was his child in her belly, then he had a duty to make sure it was born. To make sure, somehow, it was loved.

A small life cursed with Lise Helton as a mother. Certainly.

A
bambino
cursed with him as their father. Possibly.

But a child who needed love. A love his family could give abundantly.

“
Maledizione.
” He cursed her, himself, and her closed door.

He hated her. He wanted her out of his life. He wanted nothing to do with her or this child. But his conscience and his gut and his past made it impossible to walk away.

Until he knew, knew for sure.

Where the hell was she? He glared at the door and pressed the doorbell again. Eight a.m. on a Saturday meant she’d be at home. He’d picked this exact time and exact location for this reason. He wanted privacy and he wanted to catch her unaware.

No sound came from the residence. No shade lifted. No door opened.

Was she okay? The thought sprang into his brain with alarming sharpness. She’d appeared particularly ghastly at their last meeting yesterday. He’d had an almost uncontrollable urge to bundle her into his limo, drive her back to his home, and demand she go to bed immediately.

He snorted. As if she’d let him do any of those things.

The woman was supremely self-sufficient. He had nothing to worry about. He also knew she was here. He’d overheard her saying to her PA she planned on a quiet Saturday at home.

Sticking his hands in his jeans, he turned and leaned on the wall beside her door. He’d wait. For as long as it took. His fingers fiddled with the coins and car keys in his pockets. Eventually, she’d have to open this damn door and stick her pointy little nose out to see who lurked outside.

Her ex-fiancé was already married. To another woman.

The information had rocked him. Still rocked him.

Vico stared at the precisely clipped hedge lining the side of her house. Not a single leaf or branch dared to challenge the rigid uniformity of the hedge. She probably demanded some gardener come here every day to ensure complete compliance from her shrubs.

His security team had been even more thorough. The additional information that the man was also a cheat had been a revelation. The man had been seen with the other woman long before the engagement with Lise Helton had ended.

Had she known?

Not likely. She didn’t strike him as a woman who’d put up with a mistress on the side. She had too much pride for that. So she hadn’t known and something else had broken the engagement.

Something like having sex with another man.

Had the ex found out and cut it off?

Not likely again. They hadn’t been seen by anyone they knew for the short time they’d been at the bar and she wasn’t the type to talk about her personal life. There’d been no gossip running around the office he could detect. And he was pretty good at detecting.

So, the only possible explanation was the one he’d grasped at the very beginning. She’d cheated, confessed and paid the price, and Vico Mattare had screwed up someone else’s life once more. The fact that she’d been saved from a marriage to another cheat didn’t lessen the guilt roiling inside him. The only redeeming element from all this conjecture was at least he knew she’d wanted him. Badly. Badly enough to risk screwing up her life. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to soothe his pride a bit. Yet it did nothing to dispel the guilt.

Another thought buzzed into his mind.

Lise Helton was a cheat, but at least she’d been honest with her ex. A lot more honest than she’d ever been with Vico Mattare. Telling him she had the flu. Telling him there wasn’t anything else going on with her body.

An irritated growl came from his throat at his scattered thoughts.

No more. No more guilt or frustration or anger. All of the emotions had to be washed away and in their place some good hard, cold logic had to land.

The ex-fiancé wasn’t a part of the picture.

The picture that had a baby in it.

He’d instructed his security to dig deeper, find the weapon he had to have to make her submit to his will. What mattered, he thought with grim determination, was he’d finally found her Achilles’ heel. The information that would…bring her to heel.

Her family home.

Taverwood Grange.

The photos and research his security team had sent had given him more than mere ammunition against her. The information had given him a clear understanding of the differences lying between them. The mansion, for surely there was no other way to describe it, stood on a knoll, looking grandly over the rolling hills and dales of a vast parkland. The Kent property had been in her family for hundreds of years. A priceless treasure house of art and antiques.

The place she’d been raised in.

The
Princesse
indeed.

The comparison to the two-bedroom flat above his uncle’s shop in downtown Naples, where he’d been raised, could not have been starker. The two bedrooms which housed his two brothers, his three sisters, his mother, and himself. Had there ever been a time when he had not yearned for privacy? For a place he could call his own? Had there ever been a day when he hadn’t dreamed of roaming free?

Not in the dirty streets of the ghetto where his family was forced to live. No, his childhood dream had been of green grass and streams and trees to climb.

Lise Helton’s childhood must have been a fantasy come to life.

Those memories must be very dear to her. Which played right into his hands. For he was now the proud owner of that magnificent property’s mortgage.

Si
. She would do what he wanted her to do.

Vico glanced back at the door. Pushed the doorbell hard. Listened as the chimes echoed dimly from behind the entrance.

He’d wait. But not as a supplicant. As a dictator.

A sound from behind the door made him straighten.

The doorknob turned. The door opened.

Her face was creased from sleep and her eyes were blurry. She wore a rumpled flannel nightgown that would have easily fit two of her in its folds. Blonde hair, tangling and tumbling, caught the early morning sunlight.

The ever-present lust roared through his veins, despite the fact that the
Princesse
currently resembled a bag lady.

The lust was followed by a fury, bright and hot.

“What the hell are you thinking?” he yelled. “Don’t open the door without looking to see who it is. Are you crazy?”

The dazed look she’d had at first, changed in a flash to horror and then into an answering rage. “Go away.”

The door began to swing shut, but his reaction was swift. Naples’ streets had taught him to move with instinct and speed.

“Get out of my house,” she cried as she stumbled back from his entrance.

“No.” He slammed the door behind him. So what if he barged into her place? He was merely fulfilling the role she’d assigned him.

A savage. A philistine. A brute.

Her breath rasped in her throat. The hollows under her eyes were nearly black. She clutched the front of her nightgown like an urchin.

He stared at her, glared at her. Fury mixed with lust and worry and something else. Something he couldn’t define. “We have to talk.”

“We can talk at work if we need to.” She lifted her chin and pursed her lips in derision. “There is absolutely no reason you have for being here. I want you to leave.”

Leaning back on the door, he crossed his arms in front of him. “We can either do this civilly or we can do it the hard way. Up to you.”

She followed his movement and folded her arms in front of her too. Was it his imagination or did it appear she had a bit more voluptuousness in her breasts?

The lust simmered in his blood.

“You are so predictable.”

He glanced up at her words. Answered her narrowed gaze and tightened mouth with a wicked grin. “I am a man. I look.”

Making a disgusted noise, she turned and marched down the hall. He followed her, looking around. This was a high-class mausoleum if ever he’d seen one. The walls were painted a cool grey. The plush carpet was the exact same color. White trim echoed the hideous paint on the outside. Lise Helton stomped to the center of the living room, a room decorated in shades of taupe and ash. The furniture appeared as if it had been designed with torture in mind.

Sterile, cold. Exactly like the woman.

No child of his would be raised in this place. Of that, he was sure.

“All right.” She spun around to face him. “Say what you have to say.”

“I want a DNA test.”

Her spine stiffened, her body went taut and her eyes widened, filling with stark terror.

The twist in his gut coiled around his heart and clutched tight.

He knew. Immediately.

He didn’t even need the test, though he would require it.

But he knew.

The
bambino
was his.

W
hy had
she answered the door?

He was right, damn him. She should have looked before opening. Because if she had, she wouldn’t be standing here dealing with this right now. She wouldn’t be standing in her living room looking like death, facing the inflexible gaze of this man.

A man who wore jeans and a T-shirt.

This was the first time she’d ever seen Vico Mattare in clothing other than a sleek Italian business suit designed to his specifications. This was the first time she’d ever been able to clearly trace his form beneath his clothes. The broadness of his shoulders, the bunch of muscles in his arms and chest. The dark hair on his bare forearms. The jeans clinging to his narrow hips and lean line of his thighs.

A magnificent male. While she surely appeared like warmed-over porridge.

Which didn’t matter. What did she care?

She cared
.

“A DNA test, Lise.” He repeated his demand, the accent of his voice deepening.

His words jerked her from the contemplation of his beauty versus her wretched ugliness. Terror flooded back through her bones and muscles, constricting around her panicked brain. “No.”

He laughed, a harsh sound. “Why am I not surprised at your response?”

“Then you shouldn’t have even come here if you knew what I would say.”

Ignoring her limp attempt at waving him toward the front door, he sauntered to the couch and sat. His arms rose to lie on the top of the seat. His long legs splayed out, accenting the hips, the thighs. The man looked at her with scary intent while his body projected casual confidence. “I have a right to know if it’s mine.”

“I told you it wasn’t.”

“You also told me you only had a case of the flu.”

She stared at him.

“Which was a lie.” His eyes went pure gold, heating with annoyance and disgust. “Why should I believe a woman who has proven she lies?”

I never lie
, she wanted to yell. Yet it was no longer true. Because of
him.

“Therefore,” he continued, “I will require proof it isn’t mine before I believe you.”

“You don’t have the right.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, protecting the baby.
Her
baby. “You don’t.”

His gaze pinned her, penetrated her. “I have every right.”

“No, you don’t.” She held herself tighter. The fear of what could happen if he ever found out pulsed through her and she used the only weapon her feeble brain could find to defend herself. “Not after what you did that night.”

His brows rose. “We had sex. We both were in that bed and we both participated.”

“You tricked me.”

“You wanted me.”

She clutched the flannel, damp sweat on her palms. “I was drunk and you took advantage.”

His whole body went taut and a flash of emotion went through the gold of his eyes, turning them brown. Had that been guilt? Was this man capable of feeling such a thing?