DREAM LOVER (23 page)

“Ah, but he won’t find out,” Damian smirked.  “We’ve laid the groundwork so perfectly that poor Nicolo won’t find a single trace of you.  We’ll convince him you’ve run off with another man, someone wealthier; that ought to bruise his pride enough to get him marry a more suitable woman.”

“You… you mean you’re planning to kill me?”

Renato cast a nervous glance over his shoulder.  “Enough talk.  Let’s just get it done so we can get out of here and establish our alibis.”

Rochelle struggled in earnest when Damian effortlessly picked her up and strode past his brother.  “Put me down!  If you don’t let me go I’ll scream so loud everyone in the house will come running.”

Damian only laughed.  “You can scream until you’re hoarse and no one will hear you.  Lord knows I’ve heard Nicolo brag often enough about how well built the Covelli mansion is, so by all means, scream to your heart’s content.”

Despite Nicolo’s assurances he would keep her safe, Rochelle’s heart was pounding in her chest as Damian carried her deeper and deeper into the woods.  She pummeled him with her fists and even tried to scratch his face, but he simply tossed her up over his shoulder and continued on until he came to a small clearing.  Rochelle was crying in earnest when he set her on her feet.  She stumbled backwards, her eyes frantically searching the woods for Nicolo.  Where was he?  Why hadn’t he come to rescue her as he’d promised? 

Damian’s dark laughter made her cringe and she shrank away from him when he reached out to touch her, certain that this was the end.  Even knowing what was going to happen ahead of time hadn’t done anything but delay the inevitable, and now she would have to endure being assaulted by these two disgusting excuses for men before they walled her up in that tomb and allowed her to die.  But just as Damian’s fingers brushed against her arm, the woods seem to come alive as several dark figures emerged from around the trees and surrounded them.

“Get away from her before I kill you with my bare hands,” Nicolo growled.

“Nicolo, it’s not what you think.”  Damian’s eyes darted nervously from one man to the next as their rifles were raised in unison at both him and Renato.  “She lured us out here, I swear.  That kind of woman can’t help but flirt and entice a man…”

Nicolo skewered him with an icy glare.  “Is that what Rochelle was doing when she was hitting and kicking you?  Was she trying to entice you by demanding you let her go?”

Renato let out a snort of disgust.  “For God’s sake, Nicolo, we know you’re infatuated with her but she’s just a damn housemaid.  Damian and I are family.  All we were trying to do was get her out of the picture so you could think a little straighter and see it’s beneath you to marry a woman like that.”

“Tell me cousin,” Nicolo’s voice was venomous, “exactly what kind of woman is she?”

“An uneducated housemaid who has used her beauty to worm her way into your bed and will most likely rob you blind once you’re married then leave you for someone with even more money.”

Nicolo nodded to Rochelle.  “Come here, bella.”  Once he had her tucked up close by his side, he eyed his cousins with cold disdain.  “Maybe it’s time I introduced my fiancé properly.  Her name is Adalina Rochelle DiCarlo, and I assure you if anyone is marrying below their station it’s Rochelle.”

“DiCarlo?”  Damian shifted uncomfortably.  “You mean she’s…”

“A princess,” Nicolo interjected.  He looked down at a Rochelle with a soft smile.  “You’ve always been my princess, even before you came clean and told me who you really were.”

The enormous love she felt for him shone through her eyes.  “I know.  That’s why I told you.”

Renato cleared his throat, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Damian.  “Well, that… uh… makes a huge difference.  Clearly, we were mistaken about Rochelle… Miss DiCarlo, and I’m sure Damian agrees that we owe you both an apology.”

“An apology,” Nicolo repeated angrily.  “That doesn’t even come close to what you owe.  I know what you were planning to do.  After taking turns assaulting her you were going to murder her.”

Damian bristled.  “That’s ridiculous!  We only wanted to scare her off.”

“Don’t waste your breathe lying,” Nicolo ground out.  “I saw the pile of bricks you’d hauled down to the wine cellar and I know exactly what you intended to do.”  He turned to one of the men who’d emerged from the woods with him.  “Get them out of here.  It makes me sick just to look at them.”

After Damian and Renato had stomped off with no less than six rifles trained on them, Rochelle and Nicolo headed back towards the mansion.  With his arm firmly around her waist, she felt safe and protected and had finally stopped trembling.  Neither of them spoke until they were back in his room, although it was preceded by a very long and in depth kiss.

“What will happen to them, Nicolo?  Will they go to jail?”

“It would be a waste of time and energy to try to prosecute them without any proof they intended to murder you.  No, what I have in mind for them is much worse than jail.  I’ve made arrangements to have them escorted to Italy where my grandfather is waiting to deal with them.  Family means everything to him and he’s extremely unhappy at how close those two came to bringing shame down on the Covelli name.”

“They… they won’t try to come back, will they?”

Nicolo reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.  “Grandfather will make sure they understand the consequences if they even attempt it.  Trust me, they will never set foot outside Italy again.”

“Did you really find bricks in the cellar?”

Nicolo’s jaw flexed.  “I’d already searched the sheds and even the ice house and was still hoping you were wrong when I remembered you'd mentioned a cellar.  When I saw the bricks piled beside a small room near the back…” he stopped abruptly and crushed Rochelle in a fierce embrace.  “When I realized how close I’d come to losing you, I wanted to kill them both.  It was my mother who made me see reason and suggested shipping them off to Italy.”

Rochelle drew her head back.  “Your
mother
?”

“When I told my parents that I suspected Damian and Renato were planning to murder you and showed them what I’d discovered in the cellar, they were mortified.  I know you probably won’t believe this but Mother actually cried and begged me to forgive her for the way she’d behaved.  She said if marrying you would make me happy then she would give us her blessing.”

“Of course she’d say that,” Rochelle replied bitterly.  “As soon as she found out I wasn’t a housemaid then our marriage was suddenly socially acceptable.”

Nicolo’s eyes danced with amusement.  “I think you’ve both misjudged each other.  It’s true she wasn’t happy that I’d set my sights on you, but it wasn’t because you were a housemaid.  She’d heard such glowing stories about you from your parents that she set her heart on making the perfect little princess my wife.  Rochelle… I didn’t tell them who are.”

“You mean she really does accept me just as I am?”

“As God as my witness.  Not only that,” he said as he started unbuttoning her dress, “she insisted that we get married right away so we can give her a grandchild.”

Rochelle took his hand and moved it to her abdomen.  “I think getting married soon is a very good idea.”

Nicolo’s eyes met hers.  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Her smile was radiant as she wound her arms around his neck.  “Yes, my darling, we’re going to have a baby.”

Whenever Rochelle looked back on this night, it wasn’t the terrifying ordeal with Damian and Renato she remembered.  It was the joy on Nicolo’s face when she told him about the baby she was carrying and the glimmer of tears in his eyes when he grabbed her up in his arms and gave her a kiss that was so tender she felt it clear down to her toes.  But the most poignant memory of all was when Nicolo surprised her by leading her downstairs where the minister was waiting to marry them.

“You are my heart, my soul, my everything,” he said as he slipped the glittering diamond ring on her finger and made her his wife.

Her dream had finally come true.

“Let me get this straight,” Monica said in a tone that left no doubt she thought Rachel had taken a swan dive off the deep end.  “The dreams started about the same time you agreed to work on the Covelli mansion, and the woman in the dream is reaching out to you from beyond the grave to tell the story of how she was murdered.”

“That’s right,” Rachel affirmed.

“But you’re also having dreams about your own lover who you meet later because I set up an appointment for you to have a dream study done.  Then,” she started ticking off the points on her fingers, “you two have an instant attraction to each other, he goes to the mansion with you where he teaches you how to manipulate your dreams, and through your dreams you go back in time and save this other woman which in turn changes that family’s history so that your lover… Nic, was it?… is never born.  And now,” Monica stared at her incredulously, “you’re convinced that what happened between you and Nic was real and you’ve lost the love of your life because you saved his great grandmother from being murdered.”

Rachel poured herself another glass of wine and settled back against the sofa.  She didn’t care if Monica believed her or not.  She didn’t care if anyone ever believed her.  Nic was real, she’d loved him with all her heart, and now that he was gone she couldn’t feel anything but this constant hollow ache and it was slowly killing her.  Two months ago she’d fallen asleep in Nic’s bedroom at the Covelli mansion and woke up alone in her own bed.  At first Rachel tried to convince herself it was simply a dream within a dream, but had gradually come to the conclusion it really happened. If it hadn’t been real, how could she still felt so desperately in love with Nic it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears every time she thought about him?

“I know it sounds crazy, Monica, but in my heart I know it happened.  Maybe in time I’ll be able to function again, but right now I’m still… grieving.”

“Grieving for a man who never existed?”

“He
did
exist,” Rachel snapped.  “Look, I don’t mean to take out my frustration on you.  I just thought…” she shrugged and gulped down the rest of her wine.

“And that’s another thing,” Monica snatched the bottle off the coffee table just as Rachel was reaching for it.  “Since when do you drink in the middle of the day?  I’m worried about you, Rach.  This isn’t like you at all.”  She set the bottle on the fireplace mantle before returning to the sofa and plopping down beside her sister.  “I know what you thought,” she said more gently.  “You thought I’d concoct some fantastic scheme to prove that it was real so you could at least come to terms with it and move on.”

Tears pooled in Rachel’s eyes.  “I’m not sure anything will help me get over him.”

“Oh boy,” Monica sighed.  “The first time my sister falls in love and it has to be with a man who only exists in her dreams.  Okay, let me think for a minute.”  She gnawed at her lip as she went over the story Rachel had told her until an idea finally started to form.  “You said you have a meeting with Antonio Covelli tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, he’s bringing me the floor plans along with a list of changes he’d like to have made.”

“I think you should call him and ask if you can meet at the mansion instead.  Once you’re there you’ll have a chance to look around and see if it’s the same place you’ve been dreaming about.  You could even check out that secret passageway to see if it’s real.  That alone would tell you it wasn’t just something your subconscious mind dreamed up.  And maybe Antonio can tell you if there really was a plot to kill this Beaumont woman.”

“I don’t know if that would make it better or worse,” Rachel said miserably.

“Listen, Rach.  Even if it did happen, who’s to say Nic wasn’t born anyway?  I mean, he’d have a different great grandmother, but if Antonio exists then maybe he does too.”

Rachel shook her head.  “I saw a picture of Antonio in a business magazine.  There are a lot of similarities, but he’s not the same man I met.  I even went down to the Lucisano Research building and there’s no Nic Covelli listed on the directory.”  She offered her sister a tremulous smile.  “But you’re right, seeing the mansion again and finding that hidden passageway would prove one way or another if he ever really existed.”

                         ***

Rachel checked her hair one last time in the visor mirror, grimacing at how tired and drawn she looked.  She’d lost weight over the past few months, which made her cheekbones even more prominent and gave depth to the dark circles under her eyes.  At least her skin hadn’t suffered; it was still smooth and soft although she’d lost the rosy glow that had been there when she was with Nic.  Her chest tightened.  How was she going to get through the endless hours and days and years without him?