The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain. Kate Walker
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one word in three of what she was saying, and plunged headlong into one of the flashbacks which had been part of his life for the last ten years.
Chapter Two
A FLASHBACK implied that you’d lost sense of your surroundings, but for Alessandro it was more a sense of dislocation, of being in two places at the same time.
Like today—in the here and now he was saying something that made the plastic blonde girl giggle, while simultaneously he was back on the dark road of that night, pressing the brakes and feeling no response.
The only outward evidence of what was happening to him was the sheen of sweat across his brow.
He could hear the blonde listing her favourite haunts. The flickering images always followed the same rigid sequence. He knew that the next one involved being pretty sure he was going to die.
‘I don’t go to nightclubs,’ he replied, when she finally asked his own preference.
She could have looked no more shocked had he confided a predilection for women’s underwear. Alessandro might have laughed had he not been calling on every skill he had, and then some he didn’t, in a futile attempt to control the car. Knowing as he did so that nothing he could do would affect the outcome.
Looking at the card scrawled with a number, he nodded and murmured an ironic, ‘You’re very kind,’ as his guts tightened in anticipation of the car launching itself into space.
Then the blonde was gone, and so was the car, and they were falling on and on. He could hear the high-pitched female scream that seemed to go on for ever, and then the screech of metal as it ripped and tore. The foul stench of petrol filled his flared nostrils.
Wiping a hand across his damp brow, he looked across the room and saw Samantha Maguire on the point of stepping through the French windows with his brother-in-law. Watching the couple slip outside, Alessandro narrowed his eyes in speculative anger. Did they think nobody had noticed?
Maybe conducting their illicit relationship under the very nose of Katerina added spice? Or maybe the redhead wanted to be discovered?
In his head there was silence, an eerie silence broken finally by his own voice calling to his parents, asking, ‘Are you all right?’
Imprisoned in his seat, he could only imagine why there was no reply to the question he kept repeating, and all the time he had the knowledge that it would take only one spark and the car and its contents would become a raging inferno.
Dawn had been breaking before the first rescuers had arrived.
Alessandro had still been in hospital when the inquest was held. And, thanks to the irritating intransigence of the surgeon responsible for uniting the shattered fragments of bone in his right leg, he had been banned from attending.
His personality was such that going against expert opinion did not normally present him with an obstacle. Alessandro’s problem on that occasion was that the expert advice he wanted to flout came from the man who had saved his leg when the general consensus of medical opinion had been that the mangled limb was beyond saving. He figured that following his advice was the least he owed the man who had operated not once but three times to give him back his mobility.
The inquest had gone ahead in his absence, and had resulted in the total recall of a series of high-performance cars, all of which had shared the faulty braking system discovered in the one that had plunged off the side of the mountain with him at the wheel. The fact that no blame for the fatal accident had been assigned to him personally, that in fact the crash investigators had said nothing he could have done would have prevented the car going over, did not lessen the responsibility that Alessandro felt for the death of his parents.
He had relived the disastrous moments innumerable times since, sure that if he had done something differently his parents would still be alive. Not that it was in his nature to waste time indulging his survivor guilt. He’d had a sister to bring up—a sister who, thanks to him, had no parents.
His chiselled jaw tightened as, without waiting for his heart-rate to return to normal, he made his way towards the terrace doors. The expression on his face made several people get out of his way.
It was time to issue a warning—a warning that was long overdue. And if Miss Maguire knew what was good for her she would take notice. If not? Well, that was her decision. For his part, Alessandro had no doubts concerning his ability to make her see things his way.
The terrace was empty because, despite the brilliant April sunshine, the fluffy white clouds and the expanse of daffodils on the wide green lawns, the wind held a bone-biting chill.
Sam shivered as the wind cut through the beige linen suit she wore. The skirt length and A-line cut didn’t do her petite, narrow-hipped and high-bosomed frame any favours. As her mother had pointed out earlier, she should never, ever wear beige as it made her look drained and haggard.
Sam had agreed. And of course since then she had felt drained and haggard.
‘God, I’m going to get hypothermia,’ she said, hugging her arms around herself as a particularly harsh gust of wind cut through the fabric. ‘Couldn’t you say what you needed to say inside?’
‘Here.’
Sam looked from the envelope he had thrust into her hand to Jonny’s solemn face. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, making no attempt to open it. She knew what it was.
He ran a hand through his disordered fair curls, and the familiar gesture made Sam’s heart ache. ‘I said I’d repay the loan, Sam,’ he reminded her.
‘And I said there was no hurry, Jonny,’ she returned quietly, hating the way his eyes slid from hers. ‘I don’t need the money. It’s just sitting there in the bank.’ The amount of money that worldwide sales of the Angela’s Cat series made was shockingly large, and Sam’s tastes were pretty simple. And in a funny way she owed her success to Jonny.
Without Jonny she would never have felt the need to escape, and she might never have discovered that writing was the perfect way to do so. In which case the chances were her children’s story might never have been anything more than a few pages lying forgotten in the back of a drawer. And she might still be working as a supply teacher.
‘You helped me out of a sticky spot, and for that, Sam, I’ll be eternally grateful. But,’ he said, closing her fingers around the envelope, ‘this is yours. And thanks to you Kat isn’t going to know how close to bankrupt I was.’
Sam gave a worried frown and hoped Jonny’s male pride wasn’t making him repay the loan before he could afford to. But, aware she couldn’t do much about it, she reluctantly shoved the envelope into her pocket. ‘Well, you know what I think, Jonny.’
‘That I should have told Kat I was on the verge of bankruptcy.’ He shook his fair head and gave a grim laugh. ‘Leave it, Sam. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I had to borrow that money.’
‘But your grandmother’s legacy—’ Sam protested.
‘Paid for the initial investment,’ he slotted in. ‘And I needed money to expand.’
‘Why expand?’
Jonny’s features settled into obstinate lines. ‘I couldn’t expect Kat to be a shopkeeper’s wife.’
Sam shook her head in exasperation. ‘For the record, I think you’re a total idiot. Your wife is rich, and her brother is—’
Jonny ran an unsteady hand over his cleanshaven jaw and interrupted. ‘Her brother is Alessandro Di Livio. That’s the whole point, Sam. He’s worth billions, and I—’
‘Kat knew you weren’t a billionaire when she married you,’ she interrupted impatiently.
His blue eyes slid from hers. ‘How could I tell a girl like Kat that I was taking less out of the shop in a year than she spends on shoes in a month? Her brother has always given her