Billionaires: The Hero

“I am...Mina Mastrantino,” she said haltingly, digging her teeth into her bottom lip in that trademark nervous tic of hers. “I—I don’t use my real name when I work. But you can’t—I mean—please keep that between us.”

Who was he going to tell? And—what? Lina was Mina? Why in God’s name was she working as a chambermaid?

Lina, or rather Mina, gestured to a room to the left. “Please come in. Sit down.”

He walked past her into the richly appointed, slightly outdated salon which had clearly once been the showpiece of the villa with its hand-carved fireplaces, crystal chandeliers and elegant arches. Mina followed and indicated a chair for Nate while she perched on a sofa. He sat down, his gaze moving over the distraught bride’s face.

Her eyes were full of turmoil as she lifted them to his. “I would love to sell you the ring, Signor Brunswick, but unfortunately, I cannot.”

“Nate,” he corrected. She had seen him in a towel, after all. “And why not?”

“It’s a family heirloom. My father bequeathed it to me upon my marriage.”

He looked pointedly at her expensive wedding dress. “Which is happening today...”

“Yes.” Her lips started to quiver again, a tear escaping those dark-as-night eyes.

His blood pressure shot through the roof. Dear Lord, he didn’t need this right now. He really didn’t.

“Mina.” He moved across the room to sit beside her on the sofa, likely not the smartest move given the chemistry between them, but he couldn’t help himself as he lifted a hand to her delicate jaw to turn her face to him. Her dark lashes were soaked with tears that ran down her cheek like sparkling crystals. Her sultry mouth was vulnerable and bare of color. Undeniably enticing. But it was the dark shadow on her cheek the sunlight pouring in through the windows revealed that caught his attention. Turned his blood to ice.

He knew it was none of his business, knew he should walk out the door right now and come back tomorrow, but he couldn’t seem to move. He was a smart man. He could put two and two together and he did not like what he saw.

“Your fiancé,” he said quietly, dangerously, “gave you that bruise on your cheek?”

Her fingers flew up to cover it. “Oh, no, I—”

“Mina...”

She stared at him, dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

Dammit all. Nate wrapped his arm around her and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her against his chest. She stiffened against him as if ready to bolt, then another sob racked her petite body and she melted into him, her tears soaking his shirt. Shredding his self-possession.

He held her as she cried, ruthlessly commanding his all too aware body that the soft curves that fit so perfectly against him were utterly off-limits. His hand stroked her silky hair, nudging some curly tendrils free from the perfect knot as her sobs dissolved into sniffles, but he didn’t care. She was trembling like a leaf.

“Tell me,” he ordered, “what is going on here.”

She shook her head. “Silvio—my fiancé—he’s a very powerful man. He would kill me if I said anything.”

He lifted her chin with his fingers. “Funny thing about that, Mina, but I’m a powerful man, too, and I don’t hit my women. Silvio who?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Silvio Marchetti. He owns half of Sicily. You really don’t want to get mixed up with him.”

He would like to get very mixed up with Silvio Marchetti right now. Violently, aggressively mixed up with Silvio Marchetti. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here for him to inflict the desired punishment.

“Why are you marrying a monster?”

Her dark eyes shone like polished ebony. “He is my mother’s choice. It’s been...arranged.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “That still happens?”

“Here it does.”

“Does your mother know he hits you?”

Her chin wobbled.

Hell. “Tell her you won’t.”

“I have. I—we need this match.”

“Why?” She could hardly need it.

Mina shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Everyone is at the church already. I am marrying Silvio in front of half of Palermo in—” she looked at her watch “—less than an hour.”

“Call it off,” he grated. “You can’t possibly marry him, Mina. Look at you.”

She pushed a hand against his chest to get up. He held her firm. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because we need the money,” she bit out. “I need to marry to get the ring so I can sell it and pay off our debts. My mother and I are bankrupt. That’s why I was working at the hotel.”

So she was going to marry a violent man to make that happen?

He let her go. Watched as she stood and paced the room, the train of her dress following behind her. “Why not marry someone of your own choosing, then?”

“I told you already.” She stopped and jammed her hands on her hips. “My mother arranged the match. Silvio was the last of a dozen candidates she put forward. I am out of choices.”

“Why did you reject the others?”

“Because I didn’t love them.”

Oh, boy. She was one of those. He hated to burst Ms. Mastrantino’s bubble at this particular dire moment in time but... “Love is a myth, Mina.” He gave her a hard look. “Find a man you’re comfortable with, who treats you right, and marry him.”

“It’s too late for that.” Her gaze swung to the window, a frantic, trapped look in her eyes. “The carriage will be here any minute.”

He studied the tension in every muscle of her slim body. The panicked aura that wove itself around her. She was truly terrified. And why not? She was about to marry an abusive man in minutes.

In that moment, he realized he could not leave Mina here to suffer that fate. It was insane, ludicrous. He had certainly never pegged himself as anyone’s Prince Charming, but he was not walking away and abandoning this vulnerable woman to a violent man. It went against every code of honor his mother had drilled into him.

He stood up and joined her at the window. She turned to look at him, a glazed, resigned expression on her face. “What would you do if you had a choice?” he asked. “If you could marry someone other than Silvio and sell the ring?”

“I would pay off our debts,” she said quietly, “walk away and start a new life for myself.”

“Silvio will be furious,” he said. “To have his bride jilt him at the altar in front of the whole city. You would have to leave town. And quickly.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I was merely speaking in ‘what ifs.’ Of course I would never do it. It’s far too late now.”

He held her gaze. “Someone I care about very deeply wants that ring back. It was once his—years ago he had to sell it to survive. You need to get out of this situation. There is no way you can marry Silvio. So I’m proposing a business solution. Marry me, sell me the ring and I will fly you out of here tonight on my jet. We’ll get the marriage annulled immediately after the deal is done. We both get what we need.”

She gaped at him. “That is...crazy. I—I don’t even know you. Silvio will—” she waved a hand at him, the multicarat ring she had not been wearing while cleaning blinding in the light “—lose his mind.”

“You had me vetted at the Giarruso,” he reminded her. “They do full security checks. And you know this isn’t going to get any better. If he’s hit you once, he’ll hit you again. And again. Until you’ll think it’s normal to greet the day with bruises. If he doesn’t send you to the hospital with broken bones.”

She stared at him mutely.

“My jet is waiting on standby.” He kept his gaze on hers, steady and sure. “I’m offering you a way out of this. The decision is yours. If you choose to marry Silvio, I can come back at a mutually agreed upon time and make you an offer for the ring.”

Her cheeks drained of color. She pressed her hands to them and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Make a decision,’ he advised, casting a deliberate look toward the window. “And fast. When that carriage arrives, you are out of options.”

She paced the length of the room. Back and forth. Finally, she stopped in front of him, her small palms curled into fists by her sides. “You are really willing to do this? What about whatever woman is in your life? How is she going to feel about it?”

His mouth lifted. “There is no current woman, and even if there was, she’d know marriage is never in the cards for me. I’m fine with this, Mina. The question is are you?”

Her chin moved up and down.

“Is that a yes?”

“Sì.”

“You’re sure?” He held her gaze with his. “You have to be sure. There’s no turning back.”

“I’m sure.” Fear filled her eyes. “What if Silvio comes after us?”

“I will deal with him,” he said roughly. God help the man if he got his hands on him.

He swung into execution mode. “Get your purse and passport. Everything else can wait.”

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, elaborate dress trailing behind her. Nate raked his hair out of his face. This might be the most unique business deal he’d ever made, but it certainly wasn’t the most complex. This one was simple. Marry the girl, get the ring and have their union annulled. As far as marriages went, it was the kind he could wrap his head around.

* * *

Mina was in shock. She must be, she decided as she sat in the backseat of the luxury car alongside Nate and attempted to contemplate the enormity of what she was doing. At this very minute, she was standing up Silvio Marchetti, one of Sicily’s most powerful figureheads, at the altar where her mother and her family and everyone they had known for generations were waiting for her to appear.

An image of her fiancé’s hard, unyielding face with its cruel edge flickered through her head. The incredulity of her failure to show up spreading across it until that white-hot rage of his set in. He would lose his mind. He would take it out on those around him. Her hands, laced together in her lap upon the fine silk of her dress, went ice-cold.

Would he take it out on her mother as the next best thing to her? Would her mother ever forgive her?

Simona Mastrantino might be an unfeeling, ambitious, repressed aristocrat willing to trade on her daughter’s fate, but she was all the family Mina had.

Would Silvio send his henchmen after her when he discovered what had happened? Did he have henchmen?

Her stomach heaved, a determined swallow all that was keeping her breakfast in her stomach. She was giving up everything she knew, agreeing to marry a man she hardly knew, to start a life far away from her home. Where would she go? To Paris where Celia was? Where she could use her French? Or was that too close to danger?

Nate continued to make phone call after phone call on his mobile, barking out orders in that deep authoritative tone of his. Phrases and words flew by in rapid succession. Civil ceremony, marriage license, documentation, prenup.

Nate flicked her a glance. “Can you have your solicitor give us the ring today? It would be better for us to leave tonight rather than wait around until the open of business tomorrow morning.”

Which might give Silvio a chance to track her down in a murderous rage. She shivered. “I will call him and find out.”

A quick conversation with Pasquale Tomei determined they were in luck. He had the ring in his home for safekeeping and could see them late afternoon. Which gave them time to marry first.

They pulled up at the Giarruso minutes later. She kept her head down as Nate put a hand to her back and guided her past curious onlookers through the front doors of the hotel and into the elevators to the penthouse suites. She breathed a sigh of relief as they rode skyward having avoided anyone she knew.

Everything happened in a blur after that. The arrival of the Giarruso butler with the prenuptial agreement Nate’s lawyer had sent along with a bouquet of beautiful white flowers for Mina and two simple, elegant gold bands. She kept her back turned as her colleague offered his congratulations to Nate, then left.

The civil registrar who had miraculously been produced to marry them arrived next. It was a testament to the authority of the stranger who was about to become her husband as every detail fell into rapid-fire place, nothing beyond his control.

Then she was standing by Nate’s side, her groom-to-be now dressed in a dark, expensive-looking suit rather than the jeans and shirt he’d had on when he’d arrived at her home. Insanely handsome.

The registrar began the short, textbook ceremony. Mina recited the words in Italian, Nate in English, words that should have been a sacred affirmation of a love that would last forever conducted in a church with a priest as with the traditions of her own faith.

Nate captured her hand in his as the ceremony came to a close, his dark, fathomless eyes holding hers as he slid the sparkling gold band on her finger. She swallowed hard, took the ring he handed her and slid it onto his elegant, strong hand. A flash of sensual awareness pierced the numbness blanketing her as the heat of his skin bled into hers. Those beautiful hands would be eminently capable of handling a woman.

Devastatingly exciting. Too bad she would never get to find out how exciting.

Her gaze lifted to his, curiosity plastered all over her face. A dark gleam entered his inscrutable gaze, injecting his almost black eyes with a heat that stole her breath.

The registrar indicated Nate could kiss his bride. He lowered his head to hers, his hands resting lightly on her waist to draw her closer. “Just to keep it real,” he murmured in her ear.

He pulled back and set his gaze on her lips. Her heart pounded in her chest as he bent his head and claimed her mouth in a whisper-soft kiss, his hard, sensuous lips settling against the pillowy softness of hers with unerring accuracy. For a moment she remained frozen, neither responding nor rejecting. Nate edged her lips further apart with a light pressure that commanded rather than asked. With a helpless sigh, she relaxed against him, sinking into his warmth as his hand came up to cup her jaw, angling her for his consumption.

It was every bit as good as she’d imagined it would be. She grabbed a handful of his shirt to steady herself, knees weak. She’d been kissed before, surely, by a couple of men, but never like this. Never so expertly, so thoroughly.

Utterly under his spell, a soft sound escaped her throat. The officiant gave a delicate cough. Nate’s hands fell away from her face as he put some distance between them, a flare of something she couldn’t read blazing in his eyes. Disappointment? Desire?

Her heart, already sorely under duress, beat a jagged rhythm. What was she doing? Making out with a playboy like Nate Brunswick—her soon-to-be ex-husband?

Nate turned to thank the registrar, apparently not as gobsmacked by the kiss as she had been. She attempted to gather her composure as he moved with ruthless efficiency to tie up loose ends with the officiant, summoned a bellboy to gather their things and had the car brought around.

When they were ensconced in the back of the sedan again, headed toward the affluent, beachside suburb of Mondello where her solicitor lived, Mina rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Relived that kiss. How her knees had literally melted beneath her.

“Are you okay?”

Deep and velvety soft, Nate’s sinful voice interrupted her recap.

She opened her eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“The kiss. That kiss.”

Amusement darkened his gaze. “That wasn’t a kiss, Mina. That was a peck on the mouth to satisfy the registrar’s expectations.”

She wondered what a real kiss from him would be like. Unforgettable, she imagined.

“I will concede,” he drawled, his eyes on the hot color flooding her face, “that we have some kind of chemistry, wife. Too bad it’s a marriage in name only.”

She laced her hands together in her lap and glued her eyes to them.

“Surely you’ve kissed Silvio,” he prodded. “Perhaps even bedded him? I looked him up, Mina. He has quite a reputation.”

She lifted her chin. “Silvio has always been a gentleman.”

His brows lifted.

“Well, until that...incidente.”

Nate sat back in the seat, arms crossed over his chest after that, watching her with an enigmatic look. Likely glad he was getting rid of her shortly...

They made the reasonably short trip to her solicitor’s home quickly in the quiet Sunday traffic.

Pasquale Tomei smiled as he opened the door of his Liberty-style villa. His smile faded as his gaze moved over Mina in her wedding dress and then to Nate. “Where is Silvio?”

“She married me, not him,” Nate said matter-of-factly. “True love and all that.”

Pasquale’s eyes widened. Mina pushed a stray chunk of hair out of her face and straightened her spine. “We are in a bit of a hurry, Pasquale. If you could give us the ring, we can be on our way.”

“I’ll need to see the paperwork.” The solicitor waved them into the house. “There are terms I need to explain.”

Terms? Mina frowned as they followed the lawyer down a hallway and into his office. Sitting down beside Nate on the opposite side of the desk, she handed Pasquale their paperwork. He looked it over and handed it back. “This is quite a change in plans. Your mother was very excited about your and Silvio’s union.”

The color drained from her face. “Mina is free to marry whom she chooses,” Nate interceded, a blunt edge to his voice. “So if we could have the ring...”

Pasquale took a box out of the drawer and handed it to Mina. She opened the navy blue velvet jeweler’s box and there it was. The Fountain Ring. A stunning square-cut sapphire of the deepest blue surrounded by diamonds set in a platinum band. A beautiful piece to be sure, but it was its extensive history and the mystery that surrounded the ring’s origins that made it so valuable.

She closed the box and looked at Pasquale. “What were the terms you spoke of?”

The lawyer set forth a sheaf of papers that had been sitting on his desk, moving to a page he had marked with a colored tab. “There is one condition I must make you aware of. You must remain married for one year for me to grant you full title of the ring.”

If there was any color left in her face, it fled now. Nate’s jaw dropped open. “Why?”

“Mina’s father wanted to see her happily married before the ring was made hers.”

Mina shook her head. “That condition was never mentioned to me.”

“I’m sorry,” the lawyer said. “But as you can see, it’s there in black and white.”

She turned to absorb the silent tension in the man beside her. His usual even expression was firmly in place, but in his eyes she could read fury. Barely leashed fury.

He directed a look at the lawyer. “Mina can keep the ring in her possession during this time?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” Nate closed his fingers around her shoulder as he stood up, propelling her with him. “We should go.”

They thanked the lawyer. Nate hurried her down the steps and into the waiting car, giving the driver a curt instruction to take them to the airport. To step on it.

Her stomach dropped. She waited until the privacy screen had come up between them and the driver before she said quietly, “You are worried he will tip off Silvio.”

“Or your mother.”

Right. That would be just as bad because her mother would go straight to Silvio and... She took a deep breath and forced herself to remain calm. A tense silence stretched between them. “Nate—” she said haltingly. “I didn’t know.”

He turned his dark, blazing gaze on her. “It’s a pretty big detail to not know about, Mina, given your desire to get your hands on the ring and sell it.”

She pressed her lips together. “I was never told about this condition. I swear, I did not know.”

His gaze raked her face. She squared her shoulders under its hard, cold weight. “What are the terms in the document?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do we have to live together? Are there any other stipulations attached to the marriage?”

She shook her head. “That’s all the document said.”

He lapsed into silence. She curled up in her corner of the seat, blood pounding against her temples. What if he abandoned their agreement? Left her here for Silvio to punish? She had no money, no possessions, nothing to get away.

Long moments passed. When she was teetering on the edge of complete and irreversible panic, he turned to her, icy control back in his face. “What was your plan after we left? Where were you intending on having me take you?”

She shook her head, her mouth trembling. “I—I don’t have one. I just left my fiancé at the altar, Nate. I—I’m—”

In shock.

“Okay,” he said finally after a long moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get on my jet, we’re going to fly to Capri where I have business to attend to, and we will sort this out on the way.”

“Capri?”

His mouth tightened. “That’s the destination on offer.”

She closed her eyes. What choice did she have? Her first course of action had to be to get out of here. Then she could regroup.

The miles flew by and then they were at the airport, an expedited process seeing them quickly through security. The official asked for her passport. Mina handed it to him and smiled when he gave it back. Nate gripped her elbow in a tight hold and started walking her through the doors toward the tarmac. Fast.

“Keep your head down,” he muttered. “And keep walking.”

Her reflexive action, of course, was to turn her head. Two men in dark suits stood arguing with the guards covering the security checkpoint. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Dio mio. Nate—”

“Put your head down,” he barked, “and walk. He isn’t going to touch you. I promise.”

She kept walking, her knees threatening to give way beneath her. Nate slid his arm around her waist and propelled her forward. Up the steps to the jet they went, the doors closing behind them. Nate told her to sit down and buckle up, then walked into the cockpit to say something to the pilot.

In minutes they were cleared to leave by the control tower. Mina had never felt so light-headed in all her life as they taxied down the runway and took off, lifting sharply as a gust of wind buoyed them higher.

Dread consumed her. “It was Silvio, wasn’t it?” She turned to look at Nate as her stomach rose and fell with the ascending aircraft. “Who sent those men?”