Page 9 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

Still smiling, Rebecca took a sip of her gin, briefly averting her eyes so she didn’t have to watch the generous mouth that had kissed her with such passion close around the crystal tumbler and the strong, tanned neck she’d adored dragging her lips over throwing itself back to admit the alcohol down it or see his throat moving as the liquid slid down his oesophagus.

When it was safe to look back at him, she said, ‘So your failure to marry me means that come midnight, half the business you played such a major part in making a success and is such a vital component of your main business belongs to me, and as probate’s been granted and you’re the executor, it’s your job to hand the shares for it over to me.’

He rubbed his head wearily as he nodded another agreement. It was the executor’s duty to deal with all the deceased’s assets and either cash them in for the beneficiary—in this case, Rebecca—or transfer them directly into the beneficiary’s name.

‘Eccellente,’she said in her best Italian. Sitting upright, she flashed him her very widest smile. ‘Now that I understand the situation even better, I shall wait here until midnight and have the pleasure of you handing those shares directly to me.’

Though his stare held hers without flickering, for the first time since her interrogation had started, Enzo didn’t immediately respond.

‘You’d better not be thinking about how you’re going to get out of giving them to me,’ she said sweetly. ‘If I’ve learned one thing since meeting you it’s that the press are like bloodhounds. I imagine they’ll stay camped outside until one of us leaves and they get the picture they need, or until one of us—moi—goes out and tells them how the ethical philanthropist Enzo Beresi was only marrying the English teacher because he wanted her inheritance.’

That’s what had ignited such press interest in Rebecca—her job. Okay, the world’s media would have been all over any woman Enzo had become engaged to, but that one of Europe’s richest and most eligible bachelors had fallen for a nobody primary schoolteacher had taken it to a whole other level. No wonder Enzo had thrown his money into protecting her from them, issuing writs left, right and centre ordering them to leave her alone. She’d believed he was protecting her but all along he’d been protecting himself from any journalist discovering the link to her grandfather. Yet another lie.

Long fingers she’d imagined stroking every inch of her body tightened around his crystal tumbler. When his light brown eyes locked on to hers, regret—no doubt because he’d lost—blazed from them. ‘I’m sorrier than you can know.’

She waved an airy hand. ‘Easy words to say.’

An edge crept into his voice. ‘Have I given you any reason to think I’m lying since we started this conversation?’

‘Enzo, every word you’ve said to me in the five months I’ve known you has been a lie. You’re so good at it you’d make Pinocchio feel like an amateur.’

‘I have never lied about my feelings for you.’

All the amusement at her grandfather’s dirty trick that had been hurtling through her flattened in an instant. ‘Say that one more time and I’ll give my share of the business straight to a dog charity.’ She would do it too. She could not bear the fake sincerity in his velvet voice. Could not bear how she still ached to believe it. Could not bear how her body was still so acutely aware of him. Could not bear to be reminded of how completely she’d fallen into his web of deceit.

‘Midnight,’ she added before he could speak. ‘I want the shares in my name at midnight.’

His stare didn’t waver. ‘Impossible.’

‘You’re Enzo Beresi. Nothing is impossible.’ This was the man who’d landed his helicopter on her school’s playing field at the end of the school day just so he could whisk her to Monaco for the evening, the man who’d magicked the best seats in the house for the opening of a sell-out Broadway musical she’d mentioned in passing that she quite fancied watching at some point. Before the musical, he’d also conjured up a table in New York’s most exclusive restaurant, one that boasted of being fully booked for the next three years. This was the man who, with one call on a Friday evening about the prototype of a new sports car he was interested in, had it delivered from Germany to his Florentine villa by the time he’d woken early the next morning.

‘It cannot be done,’ he refuted. ‘I will need twenty-four hours. Longer. Tomorrow is Sunday.’

‘Midnight.’

‘I am telling you, Rebecca, I need twenty-four hours.’

The pang in her heart rippled painfully. ‘I have already told you not to say my name.’

‘Then how do I address you?’ he demanded with another flash of anger. In all the months she’d known him, Enzo had always kept tight control of his moods, rarely displaying any sign of temper and never directed at her. The shell of charming perfection he’d always presented to her had well and truly slipped off him and she was glad of it. Glad because it meant he was truly feeling the loss of the game he’d been playing at her expense.

Whatever he was feeling wasn’t an ounce of the agony he was putting her through.

‘You can address me in the same way my pupils do—as Miss Foley.’ She looked at her watch. Nearly eight p.m. She could hardly believe how quickly time was passing. ‘Eight a.m. That’s my final offer.’

‘It can’t be done by eight a.m. Give me until three.’

‘Twelve.’

‘One o’clock. I will have the shares transferred into your name by one o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’

She folded her arms tightly around her chest, hating that she was thrown back to the day they’d negotiated the date of their wedding and all the reasons she’d believed he wanted to marry her so quickly.

But she had nevertrulybelieved them, had she? That nagging voice of doubt had always warned her she was just too plain and ordinary for a man as worldly and glamorous as Enzo Beresi.

‘Okay. One o’clock. But I wait here until it’s done.’ Not only because she didn’t trust him but to make him suffer her company with the full knowledge that he’d lost and that she was going to go skipping into the sunset with the very thing he’d fought so hard and so dirty to keep from her hands.

The flicker on his features before he nodded was unmistakable.

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