The Ranieri Bride

Michelle Reid
The Ranieri Bride

FOR Love OR MONEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

ENRICO RANIERI was striding across Hannard’s foyer with his dark head lowered. He was late and he was frowning, too preoccupied with the meeting he was about to attend to notice the drop-jaw looks of recognition he and his small entourage were receiving as they passed through.

It was the finest—finest—hint of a sound crashing into his consciousness that made him lift up his head. After that he stopped dead, every important thought preceding this moment wiped clean away by the sight that met his ink-dark gaze.

She was about ten feet away, just stepping out of one of the lifts. His insides flipped and then rolled as if he’d been put into a sudden steep dive. He struggled to believe it—or did not want to. It was years since he’d so much as clapped eyes on her, yet as she uttered some small, indistinguishable sound he found himself rendered so immobile he couldn’t make his brain move beyond the fact that she was right there before him in the flesh!

She had not noticed him yet because her head was lowered, her glorious mane of bright auburn hair caught up on the top of her head in one of those unflattering knots that had always challenged him to tug it free.

It challenged him again now, setting a couple of nerves flicking in his fingers, while something far more potent flicked at other parts of him.

Freya…

Her name sizzled across his senses in a tight, complicated mix of hate and pleasure. Three years ago he’d kicked her out of his life without conscience, then spent the next memorable year taking that decision out on anyone who fancied taking him on. Business or pleasure, he had not been fussy. She had worked for him. He’d trusted her. No woman before or since had ever earned that level of trust. She’d lived in his apartment and slept in his bed. He slept alone now and any physical activities always took place somewhere else.

In fact, she’d stolen so much away from him, it was no wonder he was sizzling with hate.

But—Dio—she looked good. Even wearing that unflattering grey suit, which looked at least one size too big for her, she was stinging his senses with first-hand knowledge of what lay hidden beneath the layers of high-street-cheap.

Like the clothes she used to wear before he’d taken her in hand and turned the scrappy sow’s ear into a breathtakingly beautiful silk purse.

That odd feeling moved to his chest, turning into a swirling, coiling stab of discomfort when he remembered how she had left all the silk behind when he’d kicked her out.

Now here she was, walking towards him with her head tilted downwards as if she was as preoccupied with her thoughts as he had been with his. His eyes narrowed as he watched her come closer. A fine layer of sweat went bristling across the surface of his skin as he waited for the silken arc of her gold-tipped eyelashes to lift up and show him a pair of vivid green eyes destined to turn as dark as his own with shock.

He wanted to see her shock—needed to see it, like a man possessed with a fevered desire to watch another human being squirm.

Did she work at Hannard’s? Had he unwittingly logged into a way to make the beautiful but deceiving Freya Jenson pay yet again for what she had done to him?

His white teeth came together with a snap of tension as he waited for the glinting red head to lift up. She was almost upon him. Hell, his senses were going crazy. Any second now she was going to cannon right into him! Anticipation leapt inside him like a mad, snarling wolf ready to attack.

She pulled to a stop suddenly and all of that swirling, tingling war of feeling completely blanketed him because he thought she had sensed his presence at last.

Then he heard her speak—

‘No, Nicky,’ she said. ‘It’s no use trying to pull free of my hand when you know Mummy is not going to let it go.’

Like a man hurled from a storm into a maelstrom, Enrico dropped his gaze downward. If his senses had made a violent dive when he’d first seen her, it was nothing to what he experienced now as his eyes came to rest on the small denim-clad boy who was fighting to get free of her restraining hand.

Curling black hair crowned a handsome little face, and a pair of fiercely determined ink-black eyes glared up at his mother.

Nicky, he thought.

Nicolo, he extended.

She had named her son Nicolo.

Right there in Hannard’s foyer, Enrico Ranieri, hardheaded businessman and cold, ruthless operator, quite simply crashed and burned.

The ‘terrible twos’ were an apt label when it came to her son, Freya thought ruefully as she fought to keep a grip on his hand. Give him the chance and he’d be off causing mayhem wherever he could wreak it. Lose concentration on him for a single second and he became a terrifying danger to himself.

She was going to have to purchase leading reins, she decided as she stood waging battle with one determined little boy. They would cause serious offence to his dignity, but hanging on to a writhing, kicking two-year-old meant that she was in danger of hurting him in her effort to keep him contained.

‘The park,’ she said, using a favoured destination as a key to unlock the door to her son’s more compliant side. ‘Be a good boy and walk nicely, and we will go to the park.’

‘Monkeys,’ he replied.

‘No,’ Freya returned firmly. ‘The monkeys live at the zoo. The park is closer.’

‘I like monkeys.’

‘I have hold of one right here,’ she laughed. ‘Be a good boy today, and we will go and see the monkeys tomorrow when we have more—’

‘He’s mine,’ a deep voice rasped like coarse sandpaper across her exposed nape.

Freya actually shivered, the blood in her veins beginning to freeze before she’d even lifted up her head and let her eyes clash with a pair of black eyes that flashed with raw hostility.

Her heart gave a shocked thump against her ribcage, then almost stopped altogether. It was like being hit over the head by your worst nightmare, she likened as she stared at six feet three inches of hard masculine aggression standing right over her and threatening hell. The black hair, the black eyes, the almost-black suit covering his tightly muscled framework, even the shiny black shoes on his long, narrow feet, all screamed: The devil has come to collect.

‘No,’ she breathed, not wanting to believe that Enrico, of all the rotten people in the world she could possibly meet again, was standing less than two feet away.

‘Madre de Dio, he is!’ Enrico bit out on a hushed, driven hiss of sizzling fury.

Freya blinked, still too locked in shock to realise that he had misunderstood her choked little negative. Then she watched his eyes drop to her son and fire up with the most ungodly flame of possessive rage.

Even Nicky was affected by that fierce look. Instead of continuing to tug on Freya’s hand, he clung tightly to it and shifted his wiry little body behind her legs. It was that defensive move from her normally fearless little boy that made anger burn out the deep freeze of her shock. With a lifting of her chin, Freya looked the hard, cruel, unrelenting devil right in the eye and repeated coldly, ‘No, he is not.’

Enrico moved with a tight shift of his lean body. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ he rasped out, dragging his eyes away from the little boy to fix back on his mother’s face. ‘You ruthless witch. I am going to make you pay for this!’

Freya could see that he meant it by the murderous glint in his eyes and that thin-lipped way in which he was holding his mouth. An attractive mouth once, she found herself thinking, a gorgeously knowing and very seductive mouth. Like the rest of him: gorgeously sexy and disgustingly aware of it.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied stiffly.

Black eyes flared. He took a step towards her. For a horrible moment, Freya thought he was going to take hold of her by the throat. She gasped and took a step backwards, almost tripping over her son.

‘Enrico…’ Someone placed a warning hand on his arm.

It was only then that Freya became aware again of where it was they were standing. The whole foyer had gone silent and dozens of curious faces were turned on them. Enrico appeared to have forgotten his own entourage, one member of which was trying to remind him that they had an audience.

He glanced around, soot-black eyelashes flickering against fiercely jutting cheekbones. The whole structure of his lean, attractive face was savagely clenched. The atmosphere in the foyer was fizzing and popping with his barely contained violence, which he swung away from Freya and turned onto the person touching his arm.

Freya shuddered. Her grip on her son must have loosened in that mad moment of relief, because Nicky suddenly broke away from her. In the split second it took her to swing round to try and recapture the small boy he was already out of reach and heading straight for the exit like a mini-hostage suddenly set free.

Nicky knew those exit doors and exactly how to make them work: break the magic beam and they would swing open on a whole world of excitement for a small and fearless two-year-old.

‘Nicky—no!’ Freya cried out and went running after him.

He just gave a squeal of delight and kept going, little legs carrying him ever closer to freedom and the narrow pavement outside, which was the only point of safety between him and one of London’s busiest streets. Freya was already seeing his little body crushed beneath the wheels of a double-decker bus as she ran. Her skin had gone clammy, her heart was pounding agonisingly in her breast.

Then an arm reached out and a big body bent to scoop the child right off the ground. As Freya watched it happen through a haze of wild terror, she found her eyes fixing on yet another sickeningly familiar face.

Fredo Scarsozi, Enrico’s long-term bodyguard, was holding her son in a circle of formidable muscle-bound power. Her stomach rolled over. Nicky was yelling in frustrated temper while Fredo stood looking down at him—just looking.

Fredo could see the resemblance too, she realised as she skidded to a halt in front of him.

‘Give him to me,’ she demanded breathlessly, holding out her arms for her son.

Fredo switched his gaze to her face and did nothing. True, unfettered fear closed her throat off and congealed her blood. Nicky suddenly stopped yelling, the curiosity value of being held by this big man winning over his protests, and an inquisitive frown puckered his face.

‘Please,’ Freya begged, lifting her arms higher.

The husky wobble in her voice grabbed her son’s attention. She was trembling all over. A restless stir was starting up around the foyer because the onlookers were uncomfortable with what was happening here, though they were not sure as to what that actually was.

Then Fredo switched his gaze to a place over her right shoulder. Icy fingers of dread stroked right down Freya’s spine because she knew he was looking to Enrico for instructions. One negative glint from those angry black eyes and it would take an army to drag her son free.

‘Monkey?’ Nicky questioned, and startled the tough Fredo Scarsozi into glancing at him. Then the big man’s mouth stretched into a reluctant grin.

‘Gratzi, bambino,’ he murmured drily.

Nicky grinned, too, all white baby teeth and excruciating little-boy charm.

‘Please give him back to me,’ Freya begged unsteadily.

‘Do as she says,’ Enrico coldly put in.

Heart thundering out of control now, Freya didn’t look round, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything but stand there and wait for her son to arrive safely back where he belonged. As Fredo handed him over, her arms closed around that precious little body so tightly that Nicky let out a protest, but she didn’t—couldn’t—slacken her grip.

One final wild glance into Fredo’s knowing face and then she and Nicky were out of the Hannard building as if the wild dogs of hell were after them.

Which was not far from what Enrico was about to put on their tails.

‘Go after her,’ he instructed Fredo.

With a nod, the bodyguard moved off with a muscle-bound lope that belied his lightness of foot.

Enrico turned and looked at the frozen crowd in the foyer. His expression was controlled now, the trampling mayhem that had been going on inside him grimly crushed to a low burn. His small clutch of assistants just stood there staring at him as if he’d lost his sanity. Others—complete strangers to him—were staring at him with fascination that was tinged with recognition and also understanding as to what his presence here had to mean.

Trouble—big trouble.

Enrico Ranieri was known throughout Europe as an acquirer of struggling businesses, a troubleshooter notorious for taking no prisoners as he worked to turn ailing companies’ fortunes around.

And he always struck without warning—a tactic that gave him the quick upper hand. So when Enrico turned up in your foyer, you didn’t only stop and stare, you felt your own vulnerability right through to your shoes.

When he was confronting one of your own, because she happened to have her child with her, you could see his reputation for ruthless throat-cutting acted out before your horrified eyes.

They think I dislike children, Enrico realised. They think they are seeing Hannard’s crèche being wiped out with a swift, decisive flick of my hand. And maybe I will do it, he thought brutally, as his cold eyes dismissed every one of them and he strode across the foyer and into one of the lifts.

He stabbed a button then turned to watch his now wary entourage rush to get into the carriage before the doors closed. No one spoke. They had the sense not to. He felt as if he’d been turned to a pillar of stone. Nothing was going on inside him now—nothing other than—

Freya had given birth to his son.

The lift stopped and the doors slid open at the executive top floor, where he was met by yet another sea of faces forming an anxious wall of greeting in front of him.

Enrico did not want it. He did not want anything to do with damned business right now. He wanted…

As he stepped out of the lift, the icy shards glinting in his eyes had the wall of suits parting in front of him, welcoming smiles withering, the hands half lifted to shake his hand dropping nervously away.

‘This way, Mr Ranieri,’ some brave soul prompted.

He nodded, flat lipped, and followed while everyone else fell into silent step behind. He was shown into a large office filled with light spilling in from wall-to-wall windows. Enrico stood for a couple of seconds taking in nothing—nothing, until the silent tension behind him finally got to him and he turned.

Ignoring each wary face but for that of Carlo, his PA, he instructed, ‘I want the personal profiles of every employee sent to my laptop within the next ten minutes.’

The Hannard suits shifted on a tidal wave of discomfort. His personal staff were wise enough to keep their body language under control.

‘Postpone the board meeting until tomorrow. And I will want to meet anyone with decision-making powers before it begins.’ He continued his instruction like a shark circling its next meal. ‘That is all.’

It was a dismissal. He turned his back on the lot of them before he strode over to the carefully cleared and freshly polished desk that used to belong to Josh Hannard but now was his. Behind him the shuffle of a mass exit began to take place.

‘But we thought we were going to have a working lunch so we could introduce everybody,’ he heard someone mutter in hushed bewilderment.

‘If I were you, I would skip lunch and start boning up on what it is you do here to earn your salary,’ one of his own people advised.

‘But Mr Hannard—’

‘Mr Hannard is no longer in charge here, Mr Ranieri is. And he has a nasty habit of chewing on spare flesh and spitting out the bones.’

Enrico smiled as he heard that. Quite a character reference, he mused thinly. Then he lifted his eyes to the rooftop view of London he could see through the window and the smile died.

His son—his son!

‘Cagna,’ he muttered. She was going to pay for this!

He, Enrico Ranieri, was going to chew on Freya Jenson’s delectable flesh and spit out her deceiving, lying, cheating bones!

Freya sat on the grass in the park surrounded by ducks while her son fed them the remains of her uneaten sandwiches—and she shivered despite the heat of the summer sun.

Icy cold was how she always felt when she let herself think about Enrico. Hurt, hatred and contempt could turn a warm-blooded woman to a block of ice.

So could fear.

Of the unknown.

Of what Enrico was going to do next.

She shifted, blinking her green eyes as a hungry beak pecked at her fingers. Relinquishing the small crust to the greedy duck, she turned to Nicky, who was sitting there in his element, smiling—and looking so much more like his father than she’d ever let herself see before, that it came as a shock each time she gazed at him now.

Now that she had seen his father in the flesh again.

Now that she had seen the grown-up version of her son’s handsome face, those black eyes, the stubborn mouth and determined chin.

The fact that Enrico had been so quick to recognise himself in Nicky had shaken her to her very roots. How dared he—how dared he do that after all he’d said and done to disown responsibility?

She’d come to hate him for doing that.

‘Get out of my life,’ he’d ripped at her three years ago. ‘You are a cheat and a slut and I never want to see you again so long as I live.’

Bitter, cold, heartless. Arrogant, superior, judgemental; deaf…

She ran out of adjectives and made do with a sigh instead.

Maybe he’d had second thoughts about Nicky by now, she thought hopefully. He might have seen a miniature mirror image of himself in her little boy, but there again his cousin Luca was yet another reflection of those disgustingly handsome Ranieri features. A sly, mean, nasty mirror of Enrico, but the likeness was there, and Enrico would have remembered that by now and dismissed her and Nicky out of his nasty suspicious—

Then it hit her—the one thing she had been trying very hard not to think about.

What had he been doing in Hannard’s foyer, anyway?

He hadn’t bought Hannard’s—had he? He wasn’t about to become her boss again?

Her spine tensed up as nerve ends crashed together, her cold fingers twisting tightly on her lap. No, she thought—no! Don’t look for the worst-case scenario. He could have just been passing through. Maybe he was a friend of Josh Hannard and was only meeting him for lunch.

And maybe pigs can fly, she was then forced to tell herself. When Enrico Ranieri appeared in a company’s foyer with his faithful entourage stacking up behind him, then he was there for only one purpose.

It was a buy-out and, with his usual tactics, he was making a surprise hit on a new acquisition like a lethal bolt of lightning striking out of the blue.

A shiver ran down her back. Oh, no, she thought, and lowered her face to her knees because she just couldn’t face the idea of him having the power to ruin her life—again.

Once had been enough.

Once upon a time three years ago she’d had a wonderful job as his personal assistant. She’d lived a wonderful life as his live-in lover. They’d barely survived being out of each other’s sight. Two hot lovers with passionate and feverishly possessive temperaments, they’d matched each other, fire for sizzling fire.

Then she’d met his cousin and within weeks it was all over.

‘Monkey,’ Nicky said levelly.

‘We will see the monkeys tomorrow,’ Freya promised, lifting her head to look at this dark-haired little boy who was the most important thing in her life—whoever his father was.

‘No, monkey over there,’ he insisted, pointing with a finger.

Turning her head, Freya found her eyes fixing on the bulky shape of Fredo Scarsozi. He was standing beneath the shade of a tree not twenty feet from them. As she stared he sent her a brief nod in acknowledgement and she knew then, knew with every single fractured nerve she possessed that, far from dismissing them, Enrico was right there watching them from behind the steady gaze of his most trusted employee.

Well, this was one fight he was going to have with himself because she was not going to play any part in it, she decided as she clambered to her feet. Nicky was her son and only hers, and it was going to be up to Enrico to prove otherwise.

If he cared enough.

Bitterness welled, and anger—a hard, cold rod of contempt that straightened her spine as she held a hand out to her son.

‘Come on, sweetie,’ she murmured. ‘It’s time for us to go back now.’

Nicky came without argument. With no bread left, the ducks had scooted back into the pond. Plus her son was used to the routine he had been living with since he was three months old and she had been so very fortunate to land a job at Hannard’s with its crèche all ready and waiting to take in her son.

The job itself might be basic and the pay reflected the money it cost her to place Nicky in day care, but at least he was right there in the same building with her and she could see him whenever she needed to. Their little flat might be poky and erring towards shabby but they managed.

They were happy—content to have just each other. They did not need a man in their lives and once Enrico had recovered from the shock of seeing them he would realise that he could not want anything to do with them.

‘The monkey is following us,’ Nicky informed her.

‘He’s not a monkey, he’s a man,’ Freya corrected and refused to glance back at Fredo—refused.

But that cold chill was striking at her again, the grim knowledge that she was lying to herself if she dared to believe that Enrico was going to let her off the hook without knowing the truth.

He was ruthless and tenacious.