The Borghese Bride Read online

  Arianna’s hand shook. Carefully, she put down the picture.

  She’d never felt anything like that excitement in her life. She’d had a couple of lovers. The relationships had been discreet. Pleasant. Dinner and the theater. A movie, a museum, walks in Central Park and, after a while, kisses and caresses and sex.

  Nothing like that had happened with the stranger. There’d been no preliminaries. No pretense at anything more than hunger. They hadn’t even exchanged names. They hadn’t said much of anything but what needed to be said.

  “You’re exquisite,” he’d whispered, his voice deep and brushed with an accent. “My Princess of the Night. And I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman.”

  He’d touched her then. While they stood on the terrace, where anyone could have come out and seen them. He’d cupped her face, taken her mouth with his, run his hands down her body and slipped them under her short skirt and—and God, oh God, she’d come apart.

  “Come with me,” he’d said.

  And she’d gone. To his penthouse suite high atop the hotel. To his bed, where he’d made love to her, with her, where he’d done things that had made her peak again and again in his arms.

  A soft sound burst from Arianna’s throat. She shut her eyes, trying to close out the memories, but she hadn’t been able to do that in five long years. The images were crystal-clear. The feel of his body against hers. The taste of his mouth. How she’d responded to him, so wild and hot and hungry for everything he gave, everything he took.

  She remembered the shock of awareness when it was over, how she’d stared into the darkness, waited until his breathing slowed, how she’d eased from his bed, dressed in the dark, taxied to her apartment where she’d showered and showered until her skin felt raw, trying to forget what she’d done.

  But forgetting was impossible.

  A month later, she missed her period. She’d been late before; that was what she’d told herself even as she bought a pregnancy test kit at the drugstore. And the man she’d gone to bed with had used a condom. Condoms, she’d thought, her face heating as she remembered the night.

  But condoms weren’t one hundred percent reliable. And she wasn’t late. She was pregnant. Pregnant, by a man whose name she didn’t even know.

  She’d handled it by pretending it wasn’t happening, until she awoke one morning sick to her stomach. Forced to face reality, she’d made an appointment with her gynecologist.

  “I can’t have this baby,” she’d told him.

  But on the day of the scheduled procedure she’d looked at herself, naked, in her bathroom mirror. There was a life growing inside her still-flat belly.

  Instead of keeping her appointment she’d driven to Connecticut and stopped at the first realtor’s office she saw in a little town she’d passed through during a weekend in the country.

  A month later, she’d signed the papers for a pretty little house three hours and a million lifetimes from Manhattan and anyone she knew. Step one, she’d thought, and girded herself for step two, telling the marchesa about her pregnancy—but her grandmother had suffered a heart attack before she had the chance. Her doctors were sure she’d recover fully but from now on, she’d have to take things a bit easier.

  That had been the end of Arianna’s news.

  To this day, she’d never told the marchesa about her pregnancy, her baby’s birth, her son’s very existence.

  Nobody knew.

  Jonathan was Arianna’s sweet secret. She spent weekdays at her city condo, weekends and vacations in the sunny country house where her child, and her heart, had taken up residence.

  The stranger had stolen her self-respect, but he’d given her a son she adored.

  Impulsively, she reached for the telephone and pressed a button. Jonathan’s nanny answered. A moment later, Arianna heard her son’s voice.

  “Hello, Mommy.”

  “Hello, darling. Susan says you had a picnic under the big maple tree.”

  “Uh-huh. Susan made cupcakes with funny faces. An’ she made hard-boiled eggs with faces, too. Olives for the eyes an’ that red stuff for the mouths.”

  “Pimiento,” Arianna said, and wished, as she did every day, that she could be in Connecticut instead of here. At least one good thing would come of the Butterfly’s demise. She’d sell the condo, find a job closer to home, spend every day and night with her little boy.

  “Mommy? Are you coming home tonight?”

  Arianna swallowed hard. Her son always asked the same question.

  “I can’t, baby. But tomorrow is Friday, remember? I’ll be home by supper time and we’ll have the whole weekend together.”

  They talked for another few minutes. Arianna didn’t want to end the call but Jonathan said, with childish innocence, that he had to go because Susan was going to take him on an adventure to find the lost wolf cave.

  “Have fun,” Arianna said cheerfully.

  She hung up the phone, leaned her elbows on her desk and pressed her hands to her eyes. Ridiculous, this sting of tears. Susan loved Jonathan and he loved her. That was good, wasn’t it? She didn’t have to worry about him every day, she only had to miss him—

  “Arianna?”

  “Yes?” Arianna sat up straight and looked at her assistant, standing in the doorway. “What is it, Tom?”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just a headache, that’s all. What’s happening?”

  “Your grandmother’s on line three. Your private line was busy, so—”

  “Thanks.” Arianna picked up the phone as Tom closed the door behind him. “Nonna?”

  “Arianna,” the voice at the other end said in familiar, imperious tones, “I have been trying to reach you for hours. How long can you possibly stay on the telephone?”

  Arianna smiled. “It’s nice to hear from you, grandmother. How are you feeling today?”

  “Impatient. How else would I feel, waiting to talk with you, waiting for this dreadful Manhattan traffic to move?”

  “I was on the phone, grand—” Arianna frowned. “Manhattan traffic?”

  “Driver? How much longer until we reach SoNo?”

  “SoHo,” Arianna said automatically. “Are you in New York?”

  “Certainly I’m in New York. Didn’t you get my message? I telephoned your office yesterday”

  Arianna riffled through the stack of papers on the side of her desk. “No. No, I didn’t. Grandmother, you shouldn’t have made this trip. You know what your doctors said.”

  “They said I’m fine and that I can do as I wish.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Good. Don’t think. Listen instead. We will be at your office in half an hour. That’s what the driver says, though I suspect that will only be possible if this limousine sprouts wings.”

  “What limousine? And who is ‘we?”’

  Static crackled across the line. “I can’t hear you, Arianna.”

  Arianna switched the telephone to her other ear. Was her grandmother on a cell phone? It didn’t seem possible. The marchesa distrusted things like cell phones and computers, and couldn’t be convinced to use them.

  “Nonna? Can you hear me?”

  “I—” Crackle. “…barely hear…” Crackle. “…tea for me…” Crackle. “…coffee for Signore…” Crackle. “…soon, Arianna.”

  “Grandmother? Grandmother!”

  The line went dead.

  Arianna hung up the phone, frowned and pressed the intercom button. “Tom? Did my grandmother call yesterday? No. I didn’t think she—No. Never mind. No problem. Just—would you put up some tea, please? Coffee, too, and a plate of chocolate biscotti would be fine.”

  Why was the marchesa in New York? Perhaps she’d decided to be present at the closing of The Silk Butterfly. And who was with her? Her lawyer? Her accountant?

  Arianna touched her hands to her temples. Of course. The man was bound to be a representative of Borghese International, come to audit the remaining assets of the Butterfly.


  Quickly, she put Jonathan’s picture into the desk drawer. Then she rose to her feet.

  What did Dominic Borghese think? That she’d tiptoe out the door with a few bolts of lace under her arm? That she’d tuck a couple of dozen silk teddies under her coat? Perhaps he did business that way, but he had a nerve assuming she would behave like him.

  “Tom!” Arianna strode from her office into the adjoining reception area where her assistant was pouring boiling water into a tea pot. “Tom, please print out the year’s inventory records and bring them to me.”

  “The entire inventory? That’s an awful lot of data.”

  “I want all of it, and the sales figures for the same period.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “And forget the biscotti,” Arianna said grimly. “Dominic Borghese’s sending a flunky to check my integrity. I have to let him in, but I don’t have to treat him with courtesy.”

  “Wrong on all counts, Miss Cabot. No one is questioning your integrity, and I would advise you to treat your guest with the utmost courtesy even if he were, as you say, a flunky.”

  Arianna’s heart leaped. That voice. So deep. So soft. So—so filled with warning.

  She took a breath and turned around. Her grandmother stood in the doorway. Beside her was the man Arianna had gone to bed with five years ago.

  “Quite right,” the marchesa said brusquely. “Arianna, where are your manners? No one is questioning anything and you will most assuredly treat our guest with courtesy. Signore, this is my granddaughter, Arianna del Vecchio Cabot. Arianna, this is our benefactor, Signore Dominic Borghese.”

  Arianna gaped. Say something, she told herself desperately. Say anything…

  Instead, she dropped to the floor like a stone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DOMINIC and the marchesa had flown to New York in his private plane.

  The marchesa had slept most of the way. Dominic had spent the time thinking about the coming encounter with the woman who’d slipped from his bed.

  For years, he’d been plagued with questions about her. What was her name? Why had she vanished?

  The only thing he’d been sure of was that he’d never taken a woman as he’d taken her. No polite conversation. No pretense at civility. Just heat. Heat and hunger. And pleasure, Dio, pleasure beyond anything he’d ever experienced.

  And she’d walked out while he slept.

  At first, it had puzzled him. After a while, it had angered him. He supposed it was petty. They’d shared a couple of hours in bed. When it was over, after she’d cried out beneath him as he’d emptied himself into her, they’d owed each other nothing.

  It was just that waking and finding her gone without leaving a note, a name, a telephone number, having her dismiss him as if he were a beggar in the streets…

  Yes, that had made him angry.

  Still, the night was history. He’d probably have gone on thinking about it once in a while, but when fate stepped in and the woman in his bed turned out to be the marchesa’s granddaughter…

  Only the gods could have scripted such a tale.

  That the marchesa wanted him to marry her granddaughter was a bonus. Of course, he had no intention of agreeing to the plan, though he’d yet to tell that to the marchesa. He would, when the time was right. Surely, there’d be a way to do it that would help even the score.

  Petty? Perhaps, but revenge could be sweet.

  As his jet flew through the clouds high over the Atlantic, he’d tried to imagine Arianna’s reaction when she saw him. He’d expected her to be shocked, staggered, horrified…

  What he hadn’t imagined was that she’d take one look at him and pass out.

  The marchesa screamed. Dominic cursed, rushed forward and caught Arianna before she fell. Her assistant came barreling through the door and added his cries to the old woman’s.

  Dominic shouldered past them both and laid Arianna on a tapestry-covered sofa. Her face was white and when he clasped her wrist, he felt her pulse racing beneath his fingertips.

  The assistant was still making a fuss but the marchesa had fallen silent. Her face was pinched and as white as her granddaughter’s.

  Wonderful, Dominic thought grimly. One woman had fainted and the other was about to do the same, and if the damned fool assistant didn’t shut up…

  He swung toward him and barked out a single word. “Silenzio!”

  It worked. The man clapped a hand to his mouth.

  “What is your name?”

  “T-Tom. Tom B-Bergman.”

  “Tom. Bring me some cool water.”

  “There—there’s water in that carafe.”

  “Pour two glasses and give one to the marchesa.” Dominic touched the old woman’s shoulder. “Per favore,” he said gently, “sit down.”

  To his relief, she didn’t argue.

  “Is Arianna all right?” she whispered as she sank into a chair beside the sofa.

  “Yes, she’s fine. She fainted, that’s all. Please, take that glass and drink some water.”

  The marchesa nodded again and brought the glass to her lips. Dominic turned to Tom. “Ice,” he said crisply. “And a compress.”

  “A compress? We don’t have—”

  “Anything, for God’s sake. A napkin. A scarf. Something I can fill with ice and hold to Signorina Cabot’s forehead, si?”

  “Si. I mean, yes. Yes, sir. Right away.”

  Arianna moaned softly. Dominic squatted beside the sofa and eased his arm beneath her shoulders. If it weren’t for the presence of the old woman, he thought coldly, he’d let her lie there until she recovered consciousness on her own. But the marchesa was leaning forward, and the hand that held the glass was shaking.

  Dominic smiled reassuringly. “You see? She’s coming around already.”

  Tom bustled into the room with a bowl of ice and a silk teddy. “Will this do? It’s the first thing I found.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Dominic scooped some ice into the teddy and held it to Arianna’s forehead. She moaned again and her lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened and met his. The color of her eyes was unusual, like the sky on a soft June morning. An innocent blue, he’d thought that night he’d taken her in his arms.

  His mouth twisted. He put down the ice, took the glass of water and held it to her lips as he raised her shoulders from the sofa.

  “Drink,” he said curtly.

  “What—what happened?”

  “You passed out. Drink some water.”

  She took a sip. As she did, she looked at him again and he knew the exact second the pieces fell into place. Her eyes widened. Color rushed to her cheeks.

  “You,” she whispered.

  Dominic smiled tightly. “What a surprise.”

  Arianna pushed the glass aside and jerked away from his encircling arm.

  “Sit up too quickly and you’ll faint again.”

  “Let go of me.”

  He shrugged indifferently and did as she’d asked. What did he give a damn if she passed out a second time?

  “As you wish.”

  Arianna sat up. Something wet and cold fell into her lap. She picked it up, looked at it and wished she hadn’t.

  “We had to improvise,” Dominic said wryly.

  She swung her feet to the floor. The room tilted and she took a deep breath and willed herself not to pass out again. Once was enough. More than enough. To faint at the feet of Dominic Borghese was bad. To do it in front of her grandmother, who looked as if she’d aged a dozen years, was horrendous.

  “Nonna.” Arianna reached for the marchesa’s hand. “Are you all right?”

  “Never mind me, child. I’m fine. It’s you I’m concerned about. What happened? Why did you faint?”

  Why, indeed? Arianna hesitated. She could hardly tell her grandmother she’d collapsed because she’d looked up to see the father of her child standing in the doorway.

  “Perhaps the signorina saw something that upset her.”

  Arianna
shot a glance at Dominic. He was smiling as if he found the situation amusing. Amusing? To discover that the woman he’d seduced was the same woman he was going to put out of business?

  “She didn’t have anything to eat today.”

  Everyone looked at Tom.

  “Not a mouthful,” he said accusingly. “She’s been so busy, preparing for tomorrow’s closing… Arianna, won’t you let me send out for something?”

  “Just bring the coffee and tea for my grandmother and our—our guest. I’m not hungry. Unless… “Grandmother?” Arianna said, deliberately ignoring Dominic. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “We just had lunch on Signore Borghese’s jet.” The marchesa smiled. “Such a lovely plane, Arianna. Tooled leather seats, low tables…”

  “I’m sure it’s wonderful,” Arianna said politely, “but I’m also sure the signore didn’t come all this distance so we can talk about his airplane.”

  “No.” The marchesa sighed. “He did not. He came to see the Butterfly, now that he owns it.”

  “He doesn’t,” Arianna said quickly. “Not quite yet.”

  “Ah, but I shall by this time tomorrow.” Dominic flashed another quick smile. “Does that trouble you, Signorina Cabot? That your beloved Butterfly will belong to me?”

  Oh, he was definitely enjoying this. Why? Because she’d left his bed before she could embarrass herself again? It didn’t matter. Whatever he thought, whatever she said, she’d lost the Butterfly anyway.

  “Yes,” she said coolly, “it does.”

  “Arianna,” the marchesa said, “for heaven’s sake—”

  “No, no,” Dominic said, “that’s all right. I like a woman who speaks her mind.” He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back a little on his heels. “I’m curious, signorina. What bothers you the most about this transaction? That you will lose the Butterfly, or that I will gain it?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Both.”

  “Arianna,” the marchesa said sharply, “watch your tongue!”

  “Signore Borghese might as well hear the truth, grandmother. It won’t change the final outcome.” Arianna turned to Dominic. “The Butterfly dates back centuries. From what I know of Borghese International, that won’t mean a damn to you.”