Tara Pammi – The Surprise Conti Child (страница 5)

Like a black cloud waiting to swallow her, she felt the loss of breath, the violent impact of the air bag, of the crunch of bone and the shaft of nightmarish pain in her left arm all the way to her fingers...

The acidic taste of fear in her mouth...

Her hands shook, her skin clammy with sweat.

She buried her face in Izzie’s hair and took a deep breath.

As always, the sweet smell of her little girl’s skin anchored her in the now. Pushed back the nightmarish fingers of that panic to the edges...but she knew it wasn’t gone for long.

Anything could trigger it, she realized, remembering the almost episode at the store that very morning when the door had banged too hard.

She couldn’t go on like this, debilitated by fear.

Control, she needed control of this fear for Izzie. She needed to do something that wouldn’t paralyze her like this, something that would take care of her baby whatever the future brought...

And instantly her mind went to him.

The man with blue-black hair. The man who had given Izzie her shockingly clear gray eyes and her thick, straight black hair, unlike Alex’s strawberry blond curls. The man who had refused to see her again. Or speak to her. Or answer a single phone call seven years ago.

Even in that second before she’d lost consciousness, she’d thought of him. Of the desperate yet muted violence of his passion as he’d kissed her that night, of the way he’d moved inside her, of the way he had driven her to the edge of such intense pleasure that she’d thought she’d fragment into a million pieces...

One memory brought another now...

The disgusted look in his eyes after when she’d hung on to him like a limp vine, as his lust-heavy gaze slowly focused on her, followed by utter shock and disgust, of the jagged, agonized howl that had fallen from his mouth...the way he’d withdrawn immediately, righted her clothes so coldly and clinically, the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze as he drove them to the hotel Valentina and she’d been staying at in Milan...

The way he’d told her that he never wanted to see her again...

But now, now that she had faced almost certain death, Alex wasn’t willing to slink away in silence anymore. Even if that meant facing his rejection and failing.

Failure had haunted her throughout her entire life. She’d lived through being a disappointment, first to her parents, and then to herself, again and again, but she wouldn’t be one when it came to Izzie.

She deserved security, and she, Alexis, needed the peace of mind to live her life normally again. She needed to know Izzie would be taken care of if something happened to her.

The very thought of facing Leandro Conti again made her skin prickle alarmingly. But she’d do anything for her daughter.

* * *

“One of you will marry the Rossi girl.”

Impossibile!

Leandro Conti’s answer reverberated inside him to his grandfather’s ultimatum but walking deeper into the study, he stayed silent.

“Sophia Rossi?” his brother, Luca asked, shock etched into his face.

“Si.”

Leandro studied with interest the frail form of his grandfather, Antonio, behind the gleaming dark mahogany desk, still determined to intimidate his grandsons, while, next to him, leaning casually against the bookshelf, Luca adopted his usual devil-may-care attitude that infuriated Antonio so well.

Leandro sent his brother a warning glance. Antonio had not recovered completely from his heart attack a month ago.

Luca and his grandfather would have killed each other a long time ago, if it wasn’t for him. And he was tiring of playing the referee among his family members.

He had begun when he was fourteen and at thirty-five, he was still doing it.

“We’re too old for you to be arranging alliances for us, Nonno,” Leandro finally said into the cutting silence. “I will not marry again. And—”

“Ordering me to,” Luca interjected, “marry any woman is cursing the poor woman. Even one with steel balls like Sophia Rossi.”

Something glinted in Antonio’s eyes. “The only choice is which one of you will do it.”

“Or what, Nonno?” Luca spat the words. “You will cut Leandro and me out of this...venerable Conti empire?”

Luca’s tone made it clear it was anything but.

Because Luca’s creative genius and Leandro’s cutting-edge business practices over the past decade was what made Conti Luxury Goods a coveted designer label in Italy, and worldwide over the past three years.

That Antonio threatened them like this...it didn’t bode well.

“I will inform,” Antonio continued, “your sister that she’s not a Conti, that she...is the product of your mother’s shameful affair with her driver. I will disown Valentina publicly.”

A filthy curse erupted from Luca’s mouth, a fitting one while ice-cold fury filled Leandro’s veins.

He had learned all through his life that Antonio would do anything for their family’s business and knowing the kind of reckless, irresponsible, brutally selfish man his father had been, Leandro had even understood it.

But this was low, for a man Leandro respected, even liked sometimes.

Neither he nor Luca would let anything touch Valentina.

He swallowed the fury rising through him, and adopted an almost amenable expression. “Your heart attack has made you irascible, Nonno.”

“You cannot persuade me away from my course, Leandro. I let you bring Valentina here...your mother’s shame,” he spat the words, “I even accepted her as my own, but do not think—”

“You love Valentina, I’m sure,” Luca roared. “I thought you a better man than our father.”

Antonio flinched. Apparently, even he couldn’t stomach being compared to his son Enzo. “I accepted Valentina because that was Leandro’s price to let me mold him for the Conti empire.”

Luca turned to Leandro, disbelief in his eyes. “This is why you always let him rule your life?”

Leandro shrugged. “It was not a sacrifice, Luca. Snatching away the helm of the company from our father’s hands, ousting him from the board of directors, marrying Rosa, they were all things I did because I wanted to. That I could protect Valentina’s innocence was extra.” He turned to Antonio, letting him see his anger for the first time. “Luca and I have put Conti on the global map, something even you hadn’t dreamed about. What more could you want?”

“I want an heir to my dynasty.” Understanding glinted in his eyes but Leandro refused it. “Enzo was an utter failure as a son, as a husband, as a father, but even he gave me heirs.” Even the growl that fell from Luca’s lips didn’t detract Antonio. “This marriage to his daughter will silence that backstabbing Salvatore. Two birds with one rock.”

Leandro shook his head. “This is not the way—”

“What choice do I have?” Antonio’s voice loomed loud in the room. “You refuse to consider marriage and you...” Distaste robbed the old man of his words as he turned to Luca. “You change women like you change clothes.

“Death is not far for me, Leandro. I will not leave this world on the risk that Luca and you might be the last of the Contis.”

His desk phone rang and Antonio picked it up.

Frustration raging in his veins, Leandro turned to Luca.

Both Luca and he had learned early enough in life that Antonio had a will of steel. He had built Leandro both into a weapon against his own son, their father, even as it broke his own heart. Whether he loved Valentina or not, he wouldn’t back down from carrying out his threat.

“Luca—”

“Leandro, haven’t you done—”

The loud click of the phone hitting its cradle punctured the silence and both of them turned to Antonio.

“It seems there is no choice.”

Luca was the first to react. “What do you mean?”

“Salvatore Rossi’s daughter has decided only one of you will do for marriage.”

Thunder whooshed in Leandro’s ears.

“She wants you, Leandro.” His look toward Luca was withering. “Apparently, she is smart enough to reject the Conti devil.”

Luca’s glittering black gaze, so much like their father’s, turned to Leandro. A half smile played on his lips, and yet, Leandro had the sinking feeling that something else, something other than relief, hounded his brother. “Once again, the burden of this family falls to you, Leandro.”

With that, he left the study.

In the ensuing silence, they could hear the noise from the veranda. Valentina’s rapid words, along with laughter in between.

Valentina, who was all they had left of their mother...