Page 1 of Bride of Betrayal
Prologue
Rome
Leonardo Falzone stoodagainst the car, the folded arms and nonchalance of his stance giving no indication as to the thrumming tension in his tall, powerful body. The other drivers looked sideways at him, as if sensing there wasn’t something quite right about this particular chauffeur. Even though he wore a uniform and a hat, the clothes looked somehow…wrong.
And they’d be right, because Leo Falzone was no mere chauffeur, even if he had been hired—under a different name—to help ferry the guests away from the funeral of the man who had betrayed him heinously, taking advantage of a friendship that had been forged in the foster-care system.
A friendship Leo had believed to be as solid as a rock, until his friend and business partner had betrayed him not only professionally but also personally.
Except, Leo couldn’t exactly blame Aldo Bianchi for the personal betrayal. After all, Leo’s lover had chosen to turn her affections to Aldo, no doubt seduced by his promises to make her a rich woman. Rich from the years that Leo had spent sweating and toiling to create Falzone Industries.
You rejected her first.His conscience pricked. Yes, he had sent her away because she’d been saying nonsense, about loving him. He hadn’t asked for her love. He wasn’t in the market for that. So he’d told her to leave. And then she’d gone straight into his best friend’s bed.
Aldo had been his business partner, but they’d both known that Leo was the brains behind the company. Leo had thought Aldo was happy playing to his skills, utilising his social charm to bring in business and create financial partnerships, but Leo had underestimated just how jealous and bitter his friend had really been.
Aldo’s sense of injustice had grown along with his drug addiction, something Leo had failed to notice, much to his regret. Leo had only realised the full extent of the disaster that had unfolded when he’d had time to figure it all out in jail, where he’d spent the last three years. Accused of embezzlement and insider trading, by his closest ally. Set up and arrested before he’d had time to even get his wits together.
Aldo had demonstrated all too well that, in spite of his laissez-faire attitude to working, he had somehow managed to frame Leo so comprehensively that it had taken three years to prove his innocence. And in the meantime, Aldo had been at the helm of Falzone Industries—renamed Bianchi Industries.
Not only that, he’d married Leo’s ex-lover, a mere month after they’d split, demonstrating how little Leo had really known her. And her real agenda all along—to feather her nest.
Leo’s sentencing and incarceration had coincided with the news that Aldo Bianchi and his stunning wife had just bought a sumptuous holiday home in Sicily.
On his recent release from jail, Leo’s desire to seek revenge on his ex-friend had been thwarted when Aldo Bianchi had been found dead a week ago. He’d died of an overdose, in an alleyway behind one of Rome’s most famous nightclubs.
Leo’s mouth firmed. Maybe it had been Aldo’s guilty conscience that had pushed his drug-taking to dangerous levels, but more likely not. It had been the success of the company, which had thrived in the last three years—purely because of the way Leo had set things up. It couldn’t have failed to succeed. No doubt another consideration by his friend when timing Leo’s fall from grace.
But now Aldo was dead, depriving Leo of any sense of catharsis or revenge. But there was someone else in this equation. Someone who had arguably betrayed Leo even more heinously. Because she’d been the one who had lain in his bed and whispered lies into his ear. Had she been scheming with Aldo while she was with Leo? He couldn’t rule it out. In any case, she’d gone straight to Aldo and destroyed Leo’s life’s work and reputation by helping to put him in jail for a fraud he’d never committed.
Three years he’d spent in that stinking place, until his legal team had finally managed to prove his innocence.
Now, he wanted to regain full control of his company again, put it back into his name, and all that stood in his way of achieving that goal was the woman who had inherited Aldo’s share of the business. His duplicitous grieving widow.
The woman standing alone by the grave was a tall, still figure. Dressed in black, in a dress that on the surface looked demure—lace overlaid silk covered her from neck to wrist to knee, but it clung to her figure showcasing a classic womanly shape. High full breasts, narrow waist flaring out to her hips, and endlessly long legs. Feet encased in high, sharp heels. Thick, dark hair pulled back into a low bun.
A short veil hid her beautiful, treacherous face. A face that had haunted Leo for years. Three years to be precise. Green/golden eyes. Finely etched brows. Straight nose. High cheekbones, a delicate but defined jaw. A wide, lush mouth made for—Basta!Leo shut down his rapidly unravelling thoughts.
She did not affect him. Not any more. He had plans to regain control of his business and at the same time rehabilitate his damaged image. And for that, he needed not only the other half of his business, but also a wife.
And not just any wife. A wife who would understand that he had no desire for arealwife. A wife who would perform her duties in public but keep her distance in private. A wife who would hand over what he was owed.
After watching his entire family be gunned down by a Mafia thug in front of him as a young boy, Leo had never harboured any desire to risk inflicting such a horror on a child. He didn’t want a family. He’dhada happy family, parents, brothers, and it had all been wiped out in a few hellish minutes, instilling within him a deep primal fear of ever having that and losing that again. He’d only survived because his mother had shoved him behind a cabinet.
No, all he needed was a temporary wife and there was only one woman in the world who could perfom this duty for him.
His blood roared. The woman standing by the graveside was about to pay for her sins…by becoming Angelica Falzone.
Chapter One
Free. At last.Angelica wanted to rip off the net veil that covered her face, and throw it aside, tip her head back and let the rays of the sun blast all the way through her, incinerating the last three years of purgatory, cleansing her of the toxicity she’d had to endure.
Cleansing her of the cynical shell she’d had to build around herself to survive. Not just the sham marriage she’d never wanted, but also the pain of the earlier rejection she’d suffered at the hands of her first lover. And love. Who she’d thought had loved her. When she’d told him she loved him he’d turned arctic and told her to leave. Now she cursed the day they’d ever met.
She’d felt like such a naive fool. She’d fallen for the first man she’d slept with. She’d been mortified. She’d grown up on the edges of the systemic Mafia violence and crime in Sicily and she’d considered herself tough and street smart, yet out in the big world, she’d realised that she was as vulnerable as the next woman.
She’d been twenty-one and now she was twenty-four but sometimes she felt much, much older.
But three years ago, her lover had shown her that she’d still retained innocence and hope, even after seeing so much and losing her father to a violent murder by the criminal gangs who’d embroiled him reluctantly in their criminal activities.
