The Ranieri Bride. Michelle Reid
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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.