The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain (16 page)

 

Alicia used the last of her cash getting to the airport. She'd managed to evade the ever present paparazzi outside the hotel by getting a lift with one of the hotel workers from the back entrance to the main road in town. When she finally got to the ticket desk to ask for a one way fare to the UK, she could have wept with relief when the card was accepted. It was surely maxed to the hilt by now.

She made her way, following a long queue to the security desks and boarding gates. She caught a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye and looked around. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Serena and her husband Jeremy with a mountain of luggage and about three people helping them. Her husband looked very red in the face and Serena was sulky, and then she looked over and saw Alicia.

Alicia had to blink. Surely she was seeing things? But no, Serena was stalking over in her high heels, venom in her blue eyes, spittle coming out of her mouth as she shrieked at Alicia, ‘Are you happy now? Now that everyone knows that I was duped as well?' She flung a hand back to her embarrassed looking husband. ‘I've been sent packing like a naughty child—'

And like something from a cartoon, suddenly Serena was gone, moved bodily out of the way, and Dante stood in front of her. She looked up and up. The queue was now snaking around Alicia, people looking at her and the little drama avidly.

He arched a brow. ‘Going somewhere?'

‘Home,' she said faintly. Someone jostled her and Dante took her arm and, picking up her bag, he walked her away from the line of people. She stopped in her tracks. ‘Hang on a second. What are you doing here? Didn't you get my note?'

‘I got your note and threw it out.'

‘But why? I'm going home.' She crossed her arms and looked at him mutinously. ‘I'm not going back there to be the cause of your embarrassment.'

‘Don't you get it?' he asked, as if talking to a small child.

She shook her head.

‘Serena is going home.'

‘But that's just going to make things worse,' she wailed, her arms going down by her sides. ‘What's to stop her going to the press at home?'

Dante shook his head, the light in his eyes making her breath stop. ‘She won't be doing anything of the sort. Her husband is so mortified that he's threatened to cut her off and divorce her if she so much as breathes a further word of this. Derek went to them this morning. Of course her husband knew the full
real
story; she would have had to defend herself to him in case he ever found out about it. It didn't take much to get her to make a confession that she had maliciously twisted the truth to make you look bad. She deliberately caused the rumour but luckily it hasn't reached Buchanen's ears.'

Alicia's mouth dropped open again, her eyes wide. ‘But how on earth…?'

Dante shrugged. ‘It doesn't matter now. I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for doubting you, Alicia.'

She just looked at him. The way he was looking at her now was making her blood melt and flow like molten liquid.

He held out a hand. ‘So please, will you come back with me?'

Alicia looked at his hand and then back at the queue snaking behind her. She knew if she'd ever had a chance of leaving, this was it. She looked at him briefly. ‘I know I agreed to come and be…with you for the conference…but…' Her mind seized up, the awful reality was that she couldn't even contemplate walking away.

Dante could see the struggle on her face, in her eyes. If she turned and walked away now…But at that moment he felt her small hand creep into his palm and he closed his tight around it, relief shocking him as it surged through him. Before she could change her mind, he pulled her outside and into the car.

A
S HE
drove back into the city Alicia tried to take in everything that had just happened. She could feel him looking at her.

‘When you said Raul Carro had been the cause of you going to Africa…you meant to get away from him?'

Alicia nodded. ‘It was so horrific. His poor wife…I still feel awful about it. I always will.'

‘But you didn't know.'

‘It doesn't matter; it feels even worse, he was such an operator. In a way, I'm actually glad Serena called his wife. She had to know, and he had to be found out.'

‘But he
was
in Africa?'

‘Yes, but not till the end. He came just days before I left.' Disgust made her voice tight. ‘He barely recognized me and I could see already that he was making the move on various nurses…'

‘Do you still love him?' Dante didn't know why he'd asked the question or why his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he waited for Alicia's answer. He glanced at her but she was looking straight ahead; she seemed to be locked in another place. He wanted to reach out and turn her face to him so that he could see her eyes—and read what? he asked himself angrily.

After a long moment she said, ‘No. And I don't think I ever did, to be honest.'
Not now that I know what real love feels like…and it's a million times more scary…
Alicia felt as though she stood on moving tectonic plates—one false move and she'd disappear down into a crack for ever.

Dante's hands tensed on the wheel again as another wave of relief flowed through him. When he'd found her gone and the note in the room, his insides had seized with panic. At the thought that she could just disappear like that, out of his life, gone. It had made him feel out of control…And that was before Derek had found him and told him what he'd found out. Which had made him feel even more out of control.

He flicked the woman beside him a glance. She was still here. And, he told himself, that was all that mattered because he needed her to maintain this precious respectability, which was now restored.
When you've never let it bother you before?
He shut out the voice and concentrated on the traffic.

 

That night they sat out on the balcony of their suite and shared an after dinner liqueur. Alicia felt very much as if they'd turned a corner, but to go where? Dante had apologized for judging her wrongly but she couldn't really blame him in the first place as she hadn't defended herself, not seeing the point. And, now that she had stayed, she felt as if her heart were visibly beating on her sleeve, plain for all to see.

‘What are you thinking about?'

Alicia blushed and choked slightly on her drink. She could just imagine the look on his face if she told him. Instead she shrugged. ‘Nothing in particular.' She felt him turn more fully towards her and found herself tensing slightly.

‘Did you go to Africa to punish yourself?'

She jerked her head to look at him, eyes widening. ‘What on earth do you mean?'

His face was dark, unreadable and she felt naked, extremely vulnerable.

‘I was just wondering if part of your motivation for going there was in some way a reaction to what had happened.'

Alicia looked away from him again, out to the inky, starry darkness. Her mind whirled. She'd never thought of it like that, but
had
she chosen to go there as some sort of penance? At times, it certainly had felt like a punishment of sorts. She could feel him looking at her intently and desperately wanted his penetrating mind and gaze off her.

She shrugged slightly. ‘It certainly played a part in my reasons for going…but I hadn't thought about it too much, to be honest.'
And for him to be the one to assess the psychology behind her reasons?
Again, her head swirled and she felt unbelievably vulnerable. She took more than a sip from her drink and then turned to him, seizing on the first thing that came to mind to take his attention from her.

‘Will you tell me something about yourself…? It just feels a little funny…not really knowing anything about you.' She'd been about to add on,
After all, you're going to be my niece or nephew's uncle,
but stopped herself in time, not wanting to open that can of worms.

He looked at her darkly. ‘What do you want to know?'

She shrugged, relieved that they'd moved off the subject of her. ‘I don't know…How did you get to where you are now if you came from the streets…and what about your parents…?'

She held her breath. He looked away from her and she could see his jaw clench. When he spoke it was flat and emotionless, it made something go cold inside Alicia, because she recognized that it hid huge pain.

‘When my brother was one and I was six, my mother left us. My father had taken off long before that to God knows where, and Paolo's father was another wastrel. We were taken into an orphanage but it closed down a few years later due to lack of funds. So we lived on the streets and carved a niche for ourselves there.'

‘You and your brother?'

He nodded.

‘How old were you then?'

‘Thirteen, fourteen.'

He was silent for so long then that Alicia thought he'd had enough and she opened her mouth to speak but then he said, ‘One day a man saw me doing some labour, helping to build a house. He called me over and offered me a job there and then.' He glanced at her briefly. ‘I said I could only take it if I could bring my brother with me.'

‘But Paolo…'

‘Paolo was about nine then and running around getting into trouble.'

‘This man, Stefano Arrigi, took us in. He mentored me.' He shrugged. ‘Said he saw something in me that he'd never seen in anyone else, and I worked hard. He had no family. When he died I was twenty-one and he left his small construction business to me.'

‘And now the business is known all over the world…'

He nodded again with no apparent pride. Just quiet modesty.

Alicia's heart ached for the young man he'd been…She understood because she too had suffered a similar fate, albeit not ending up on the streets, thank goodness. But somehow she knew that he wouldn't appreciate her baring her soul, and she still felt far too vulnerable to reveal any more about herself. But it gave her an insight into his complex character and when he stood to lead her inside, clearly done with talking, she knew that, despite her best efforts, she had just fallen even harder in love with him.

 

When they returned to their suite the following Sunday evening from a group wine tasting trip to the beautifully leafy area of Stellenbosch, Alicia picked up a piece of paper that gave the details of a medical unit that was going to be in the hotel for the rest of the conference. She looked at him warily. ‘What's this about?'

Dante stood apart from her, arms folded. ‘While I thought you were off sightseeing all last week, I found out from Patricia that you were acting as an impromptu Florence Nightingale…'

He seemed almost angry. And Alicia had no idea why. It seemed like, no matter what she did, she'd end up annoying him somehow. They'd shared a comparative truce for the rest of the week but all weekend he'd been dark and brooding.

‘You don't have to go to the expense of this. I don't mind looking after the odd child with sunburn or someone with a tummy upset—'

He lifted a hand and ticked off fingers. ‘Or a child with a sprained ankle, or a man who can't sleep, or the receptionist with cramps, or—'

‘OK, OK, stop.' She held up her hands, aghast that he knew this. ‘If I'd known you'd mind so much I wouldn't have offered to help.'

Dante's head whirled with the way the whole anatomy of this relationship—this
situation,
he corrected angrily—had changed utterly. Alicia had endeared herself not only to his close friends, the O'Briens, but to everyone else too, it seemed. Buchanen's wife, who had arrived towards the end of last week, was in raptures over the fact that she and Alicia shared the vocation of nursing. He couldn't move for people stopping him and telling him how great she was, how sweet she was, how kind she was…

And it was killing him. Because he knew what she was. The facts were stark. Until that baby was born, the jury was out on Alicia and Melanie Parker. And he would be the biggest prize fool to forget it. Because he knew he was in danger of succumbing, believing in the myth. He'd seen the myth before and it had revealed a very ugly truth. This was when he had to be most vigilant.

He could cope with the fact that Alicia was what she was because he was equipped to deal with a woman like her. But he was angry with her dogged persistence in maintaining this…façade. He forced himself to cool down. Years before, it had affected him, but not any more.
He was in control now.
No matter what happened. All he was interested in was sating his physical hunger, which burned through him like a bushfire.

He strolled towards her and tipped her chin up. ‘Oh, I don't mind, Alicia. I just don't like sharing you around…that's all.'

His possessiveness should have excited her but it didn't, because the dark coldness in his eyes hinted at an emotion that began and ended with physical desire. He didn't want her to stop because he
cared
about her…foolish girl.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes as he claimed her mouth and the familiar sensations washed through her body. Nothing had changed. He still didn't trust her, he still thought that she and Melanie had concocted some plan to extort money…and after the end of next week she would be gone, back home.