The Italian’s Doorstep Surprise by Jennie Lucas
CHAPTER TWO
PERSONALLY, I THINK I’d be happy to see you shot.
As Honora disappeared out the beach house’s front door into the storm, Nico stared after her in shock. Standing in the foyer, he felt his men’s gaze on him, before they discreetly turned away. He felt a twist in his solar plexus.
So you don’t remember my name and you don’t remember our night. How can you be so heartless and cold?
Her scornful words made him feel hollow inside, reminding him of similar words from Lana when he’d called her film set in Paris on Christmas Eve to end their engagement.
You heartless bastard. You never loved me at all, did you?Lana had yelled into the phone.
No, he’d replied shortly. Sorry.
Being woken earlier that morning with news of his estranged father’s death had felt like being submerged in ice water. Prince Arnaldo Caracciola had dropped dead of a heart attack in Rome, right before he would have been forced to fly to the Hamptons to beg for Nico’s mercy.
What point was there in being engaged to a movie star if he couldn’t rub the old man’s face in it?
After hanging up with Lana, Nico had tried to go to work as if nothing had happened, but he’d found himself shouting at, even firing, several of his most valued employees. “It’s Christmas Eve. Go home before you ruin us,” his vice president of operations had said quietly, then handed him two sleeping pills. “Get some rest. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
It was true; he’d barely slept all week in anticipation of his father’s visit. But Nico didn’t need sleep. He was fine. Never better. To prove it, he’d gone to his gritty downtown gym and sparred against a former heavyweight boxing champion. Nico had pushed himself in the ring, insulting his bigger, better-skilled opponent, until he’d gotten himself knocked out twice. The second time, when he sat up, he hadn’t been able to see anything for nearly three minutes. But as soon as his sight returned, he’d started to get back in the ring.
The owner of the gym would not allow it. “You want to destroy your brain, Mr. Ferraro, go do it somewhere else. I’m not running a morgue. And get a doctor to look at that concussion!”
Doctor. Nico had sneered at the idea, but his head had ached as he walked back the long city blocks to his midtown penthouse.
Late afternoon on Christmas Eve, his home had been deserted, all the employees gone home to spend the holiday with their families. The dark, empty rooms had echoed inside him. He’d reached for a bottle of Scotch, sent to him by a rival congratulating him on his recent acquisition of beachfront land in Rio, which would soon be developed into a world-class hotel. He’d paced all Christmas Eve night, looking out at the city lights, his soul howling with fury.
He didn’t remember much after that. He’d started to hallucinate and imagine things. At some point, he must have taken the two sleeping pills and washed them down with Scotch, because when his housekeeper arrived early the day after Christmas, she’d found him collapsed in the hallway with a smashed bottle of Scotch on the floor. Alarmed, she’d called an ambulance.
Nico had woken up in the hospital to see his doctor standing over him with worried eyes. “You need to take better care of yourself, Mr. Ferraro. You’ve had a severe concussion, which was not helped by alcohol and sleeping pills.” He’d paused delicately. “Perhaps you’d find it beneficial to talk to someone. Or I could recommend a residential facility that would help you rest and work through whatever you’re—”
“I’m fine,” Nico had said, detaching himself from the monitors. Against medical advice, he’d checked himself out of the hospital and rolled onto his private jet, just in time to make it to the old man’s funeral in Rome.
His father, who’d denied him everything all his life, couldn’t stop him from doing it, now he was dead. Nico had had the last word. But as his evil stepmother glared at him with tearful, accusatory eyes over the grave, Nico had felt otherwise. He’d felt heartsick that wintry day in Rome, as if his father had won, contriving to die of a heart attack just when Nico finally had him by the throat.
Now, Arnaldo would never be forced to admit that his abandoned son had surpassed him, or to say that he was desperately sorry for seducing his maid, Nico’s mother, then tossing her out like trash. The married prince had known Maria Ferraro was pregnant, but he’d still refused to take responsibility. He’d left her and Nico to starve. The man deserved to be punished for—
Personally, I think I’d be happy to see you shot.
Nico sucked in his breath. Was it possible that he was doing the same thing as the man he’d despised?
Could Nico have fathered a child with—well, not a maid, but with his gardener’s granddaughter? Could Honora Callahan be telling the truth?
No. He would remember!
He’d never had an affair with an employee. He preferred the women he slept with to have power that matched his own. His mistresses before Lana Lee had been supermodels. Heiresses. A chemist. A makeup millionaire. They were women who wanted hot sex, who wanted to see and be seen, but who wouldn’t demand emotional intimacy he couldn’t give. For the entirety of their six-month engagement, he’d never felt emotionally close to Lana; he’d assumed she preferred it that way, too.
The idea of anyone sacrificing their own self-interest for the sake of someone else seemed like total insanity to Nico.
Like when Patrick Burke became guardian to his orphaned granddaughter thirteen years before. Nico had thought it was sheer lunacy for an elderly widower to raise an eleven-year-old child. But it didn’t affect the man’s work, so Nico had never said so. He had no right to an opinion.
But the old man sure seemed to have an opinion about his employer, coming here with a hunting rifle.
Going to the window, Nico looked past the silk curtains. In the dim light from the windows, he saw Honora talking to her grandfather some distance from the house, beneath the lightning and rain. There was another dark figure hovering nearby. What the hell? Was that his chauffeur, who’d apparently driven the murderous old gardener here to kill him, in Nico’s own Bentley?
He saw the old man waving the rifle around, seeming to point it toward the house. He couldn’t hear his words.
There was another flash of lightning, and he saw Honora’s pleading face before she turned away, trying to block her grandfather from approaching the house.
Patrick Burke seemed very sure that Nico was the father. Honora had seemed so, too. You know I came to your bed a virgin.
But he would remember sleeping with her, wouldn’t he? Yes, he’d slept with many beautiful women, and some people called him a player. But even with a bad concussion, even hallucinating from insomnia, even on sleeping pills washed down with Scotch, he’d remember—
Her long, dark hair spread across his pillow. Her emerald eyes glowing up at him as she whispered, I can’t believe this is happening... The softness of her skin as he slowly stroked down her naked body, cupping her breasts, then moving down farther still, as he lowered his mouth to taste her sweetness...
Oh, my God.Nico’s eyes went wide.
Turning abruptly from the window, he pushed open the door and went out into the dark, wind and rain.
Behind him, he heard Bauer shouting, “Sir?”
The Bentley was parked in the circular driveway, with his chauffeur standing behind it. Nico went straight to where the old man stood with Honora.
The old gardener sobered when he saw Nico. He quit waving the rifle around, even as he lifted his chin defiantly.
“You think you can just take whatever you want, Mr. Ferraro?” His voice broke. “Even seduce an innocent girl, and then toss her callously aside, when she’s pregnant with your child?”
“I didn’t know,” Nico ground out. “She never told me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I tried.”
“Well, now that you know,” Patrick Burke said pointedly, “what are you going to do about it?”
Honora nervously placed herself between the two men, as if she were afraid of what they might do. “I don’t need him to do anything, Granddad. He made it clear he’s not interested in being a father. I can raise my baby alone.”
Not interested in being a father. It was jarring. He had a sudden flash of a memory of his own mother holding him tight when he was a boy, and they were evicted from their tiny apartment outside Rome.
Why won’t your father pay for you? Why doesn’t he want you? How does he expect me to do this on my own?
Now, Nico felt oddly suspended in time as the storm pelted him with rain and lightning flashed across the wide dark sky. In the distance, he could hear the roar of the ocean against the shore.
For six months, he’d been lost, even to himself, after the failure of a lifetime’s worth of plans. Just when ultimate triumph had been within his grasp, he’d lost his last chance at victory. His father was dead, and would never recognize Nico’s right to exist, much less claim him as his son.
Nico couldn’t inflict the same pain his father had. He could claim his own child.
If this baby was his, he had the opportunity to be better than his father ever was.
Nico could never inherit the title of prince, or the aristocratic Caracciola name. But he could sire his own dynasty. Build his own legacy. And make sure that his own children never felt as he had—rejected, adrift, alone.
“You will do something about it,” Patrick Burke told him fiercely, his whiskers shaking beneath the rain as he shook his rifle in Nico’s direction. “You’ll take responsibility for what you’ve done! Or meet the short end of this stick!”
Reaching out, Nico yanked the rifle away in a swift, easy movement. For a moment, the old man stared at him, shocked and outraged.
Backing up a step, Nico held the rifle almost casually, pointing it upward. “I take your point, Mr. Burke. I believe we can come to some arrangement.”
“Arrangement?” Those bushy gray eyebrows shook. But it wasn’t just his eyebrows, Nico realized. The man’s hands were shaking, as well. He was upset. And why shouldn’t he be if he truly believed his boss had coldly taken Honora’s virginity and then refused to take responsibility? “What kind of arrangement?”
Nico looked at Honora, who was watching with big eyes as rain fell, all of them so wet they might as well have been swimming in the sea. “Why don’t you come inside where it’s warm, and we can discuss it.”
The old man scowled. “If you think my granddaughter will ever accept a payoff...”
“No. If she is pregnant with my baby, there can be only one answer.” Lifting his chin, Nico looked straight at Honora’s lovely, worried face. “I will marry her.”
Honora’s jaw fell open. She felt dizzy.
Behind her, Benny Rossini, the young chauffeur, said harshly, “You don’t have to do that, Mr. Ferraro...”
But her grandfather was staring only at Nico. “Do you give me your word, sir?”
Nico Ferraro’s handsome face was deadly serious. “I do.”
“Well, then!” Her grandfather was suddenly beaming. A flash of lightning crackled in a sizzling line above them, cracking the sky. He came toward Nico, holding out his hand. “Welcome to the family.”
“Thank you,” said Nico, shaking his hand gravely, still holding the rifle upright with the other.
And just like that, it seemed, Honora’s fate was sealed.
Was she losing her mind?
“What century are we living in?” she said incredulously. She looked at Nico. “I’m not going to marry you!”
Her grandfather, whom she’d always trusted and obeyed, turned to her almost chidingly. “That’s no way to talk to your husband, little one...”
“My future husband. Which he isn’t!”
Patrick waved his hand airily. “You two kids have a lot to talk about.” Turning to Benny, he said, “We should give the happy couple time to discuss wedding plans.”
“Wedding plans?” she sputtered.
“But there’s no reason to remain out here in the cold and rain.” Nico nodded toward his sprawling Hamptons beach house. “Come inside.”
As Benny started to step forward, Patrick stopped him with his hand on his arm.
“No.” Her grandfather’s shoulders sagged in his old coat, as if he’d just aged twenty years in five seconds. “I’m exhausted, as only an old man can be. Please, Benny.” He looked at the young chauffeur plaintively. “Just take me home.”
Honora looked at her grandfather sharply. Other than a touch of arthritis, Patrick Burke was more energetic than some men half his age. Was he up to something? Or had the worry of her unwed pregnancy truly exhausted him?
“All right,” Benny said grudgingly. Turning to Honora, he said, “You coming?”
She bit her lip. She was grateful the young driver had helped her keep Granddad from harm, but she was afraid Benny felt more for her than friendship. And she’d never love him back, no matter how many times he offered to run down to the local bodega to buy her ice cream and pickles. No matter how many times he tenderly offered to marry her and be the father her baby “obviously needed.”
It annoyed her. Why was it that everyone seemed to think that just because Honora was pregnant, she was desperate for a husband? They didn’t seem to realize, as Nico had said earlier, that it was the twenty-first century!
But at least Benny’s proposal had been real. Unlike Nico’s. Setting her jaw, she tossed a glare at her baby’s father.
“Please take Granddad home, Benny. I want to stay and have a little chat with my future husband here.”
“Honora,” her grandfather said quietly, “be nice.”
Be nice.
He rarely spoke those words to her, but they always made her shrink back in shame. Had she been unkind? Rude? Selfish? Had she acted in a way that meant she didn’t deserve to be loved—didn’t even deserve a home? Be nice made her try harder to be good, to be helpful, to be no trouble to anyone.
But this time, the unfairness of it made her catch her breath.
Turning in amazement, she glanced pointedly at the old hunting rifle. Patrick had the grace to blush.
“That’s different,” he said with dignity. “I was just doing a grandfather’s duty.”
“You’re right. We do have a great deal to discuss.” Nico gave her a calm smile. “It’s late. I’ll take you back to the city first thing in the morning.”
“Honora?” Benny demanded.
“Go. I’ll be fine.” Her eyes narrowed. But she wouldn’t say as much for Nico.
Nico gave the rifle back to Patrick, who pointed the muzzle at the ground, looking a little embarrassed.
“Oh, Benny.” She suddenly remembered. “Your car broke down a few miles up the road.”
“Then how did you get here?”
She shrugged beneath the rain. “I ran.” She felt, rather than saw, all three men look at her belly, as if judging her ability to run by her condition, and felt irritated. “It was fine. I’m fine.”
“You need to be careful,” her grandfather began.
“I’m so sorry,” Benny said at the same time. “I thought the engine was okay. I’ll have it towed tomorrow.”
“My men will handle it,” Nico said coolly. “I’ll have it repaired and brought to you. No charge of course.” He glanced at Honora. “Not when your car brought me such happy news.”
Benny ground his teeth into a smile at his boss. Then he turned and said reluctantly, “All right, Mr. Burke. I’ll take you home.”
“Great.” Her grandfather turned and leaped back to the Bentley like a teenager running a hundred-meter dash. Honora’s throat caught. So much for him being exhausted. She’d spent her whole life trying to be helpful and sweet and no trouble at all, either to her parents or, later, to her grandfather. Was she really such a burden that Granddad seemed so eager to be free of her?
“And this time, take the interstate,” the old man called to Benny. “I have no idea where you thought you were going, driving in loops all over Long Island. I’d expect a chauffeur to have a better sense of direction.”
Honora watched as the Bentley pulled away into the stormy night. Then she exhaled and turned to her grandfather’s boss.
“You have some nerve.”
“Say it inside.”
Taking her hand, Nico pulled her toward the house, out of the rain. She felt the warmth and strength of his palm against hers, and even hating him as she did, she shivered a little.
Once inside the grand foyer, as the front door closed behind them with a bang, she felt how much warmer it was, and realized that she was soaked to the bone.
“You need to warm up.” He glanced at his butler. “Where’s her cocoa?”
She had her anger to keep her warm. “I don’t need cocoa.”
“Cook had to send out for chocolate, sir. She’s warming the milk—”
“Tell her to hurry,” Nico said. “But first take Miss Callahan upstairs to the rose room. She’ll be staying the night.”
Was no one listening to her? Honora lifted her chin. “I have not agreed to—”
“Make sure she has everything she might require for her stay,” Nico said, ignoring her as he seemed to ignore anything contrary to his will.
“Of course,” the butler intoned. “Miss Callahan, if you’ll just come this way...”
“I can’t sleep here,” she said to Nico. “Unless you expect me to sleep naked.”
All four men in the foyer stared at her, startled. It took several seconds before any of them recovered. The butler was the first to clear his throat.
“We have ladies’ pajamas,” he ventured, “clean and never worn that I believe might fit.” Honora looked incredulously at Nico. Ladies’ pajamas! Did he bring lovers here on a regular basis? The butler continued, “And if you’ll just leave your clothes outside your door tonight, they’ll be washed, pressed and ready in the morning.”
“You don’t need to fuss over me,” she told the butler. “My grandfather’s a member of staff. I can catch a train back later tonight.”
Nico said sharply, “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re cold and wet, and clearly you’ve had a difficult night. If you’re the mother of my unborn child—”
“If?”
“Then I must insist you take care of yourself. Go take a hot shower. We can speak after you’re warm.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” Nico growled, moving closer. “I would. And if you don’t go with Sebastian right now, I’ll take you upstairs myself.”
Honora’s eyes went wide at his threat. The two of them, alone in a bedroom? Even if he couldn’t remember their night together, she did. Every moment of shocking pleasure would be forever burned on her skin, on her body, on her soul. Even if the secret sensual dreams she still had of him made her hate herself. She’d never forget. Especially not now that she was carrying his baby inside her.
“Fine,” she bit out. Following the butler, Sebastian—she wondered whether it was his first name, or his last—she went up the sweeping staircase and was escorted to an elegant, feminine room all in pink, where she found a brand-new, freshly laundered white silk nightgown and robe, as well as men’s pajamas and a white cotton bathrobe. The soaps and shampoos were Italian and imported.
This guest room had been meant for someone, she thought. But who?
The shower warmed her up and made her feel human again, as well as sleepy and comfortable. Suddenly, the idea of sleeping here rather than shivering on a rattling, cold train through all hours of the night seemed like an excellent plan. Which made her mad. She didn’t want Nico to make her feel good. She hated him for what he’d done, for what he was continuing to do.
I will marry her, indeed! She ground her teeth. Saying that to her grandfather! How could he!
Going downstairs in the soft silk nightgown and matching white robe that she was amazed fit her pregnant body so well, she found Nico in the grand living room off the stairs, beneath the wall of tall, curved windows overlooking the dark night. He was sitting in a sleek sofa beside a roaring fire.
For a moment, Honora hesitated, her gaze tracing over him unwillingly. It looked as if he’d had a shower, too. His dark hair was just long enough to be wavy, which looked impossibly sexy and Italian over his high chiseled cheekbones. He’d changed into comfortable clothes. A thin white T-shirt clung to his hard-muscled torso and low-slung sweatpants hung over his powerful thighs. His aquiline profile was facing the fire. His mood seemed pensive, even sad. She felt instinctive sympathy rise inside her.
She fought it with fury. Nicolo Ferraro feel sad? Not about anything but a dip in the stock market or a sudden drop in commercial rental rates!
Still. Best to get this conversation over with so they could move on with their lives. And she could go to bed. Striding forward purposefully, Honora sat next to him on the sofa. She was careful not to touch him.
“Look, I know you were trying to help,” she started, “but you’ve only made it worse with your lie.”
Nico looked at her, his handsome face bemused. “What lie?”
“Telling Granddad you wanted to marry me. Sure, that solved today’s problem, but long term it will be ten times worse. Do you think he won’t notice when you swan through the penthouse a week from now with some Instagram model?”
“I wasn’t lying,” he said, sipping a glass of amber liquid. “I’m going to marry you.”
She stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why?” He turned when Sebastian brought in a white ceramic mug on a silver tray.
“I apologize it took so long, Mr. Ferraro. Apparently the grocer had to be awoken to find and deliver the chocolate.”
“It’s fine.” But as Nico reached for the mug, he drew his hand back in irritation. “But it’s cold.”
The man bit his lip. “It was ready some moments ago, but as the young lady was upstairs—”
“Make another,” Nico said impatiently, leaving the mug on the tray.
“I don’t actually like cocoa,” Honora said.
Nico turned to her. “What do you want? Herbal tea? Hot apple cider?”
She could only imagine how much trouble that would make for the poor cook. Poor woman would probably be forced to go out and pick apples in the rain. “I want you to leave me alone.”
He said to his butler, “Herbal tea. With organic milk.” Turning to Honora, he confided, “Calcium is good for the baby.”
“Oh, is it now.” As if she hadn’t just spent the last six months reading every baby book and going to doctor’s appointments, while he’d only known about it for, like, ten minutes and already considered himself the expert. She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she added, “Tell me more about what my baby needs.”
As the butler disappeared, Nico looked at her calmly. The firelight flickered over the hard, handsome planes of his face and the five-o’clock shadow over his square jawline. “A father, for a start. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did! I told you that I tried. I sent multiple messages to your office in Rome in February.”
“Saying you were pregnant?”
“Just saying it was personal, urgently asking you to return my call.”
He stroked his chin. “I don’t answer desperate messages from women I don’t know. Since I didn’t remember our night together, or your name...”
Irritated, she set her jaw. “I also left messages with the housekeeper at your new villa, since I heard you’d sold your apartment in Rome. I asked you to call me back as soon as you arrived.”
“The Amalfi Coast is hours from Rome. I never stayed there. I slept at the office.”
“What?” That explained why Luisa had sounded so doubtful every time Honora called.
“I have a sofa in my private office. A shower. There was no need for me to leave.”
“You slept at the office? For six months?”
“I was working,” he bit out. His handsome face was full of shadows. “I was fine.”
It sounded awful. When had Nico become a workaholic without a soul? He’d always been intensely focused on work, but in the past, he’d at least found some time for fun, whether that meant extreme sports or getting himself engaged to world-famous movie star Lana Lee.
Honora told herself she didn’t care. The state of his soul wasn’t her problem. “The point is, I did try to tell you. When I never heard a response, I realized you weren’t interested in anything I might say to you. So I decided to raise this baby on my own.”
His eyes narrowed. “Now that I know, I will give you and the baby everything. Including my name.”
“It’s not necessary. We’re good.”
“Good? Good how?”
It was a question Honora had often asked herself in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep for worrying. Her cheeks went hot. “I have a job.”
“Doing what?”
“I work in a flower shop. People need flowers,” she added defensively at his incredulous look.
“I’m sure they do, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to support you and the baby.”
“I’m also working my way through community college.”
“Studying what?”
She looked at the floor. “General education courses.” It was a sore point. Honora still hadn’t figured out what she wanted to do as a long-term career. She’d been unable to convince herself to study something she hated, just because it would pay, as her accountant friend Emmie had. “I’ll figure something out.”
Nico let that pass. “Does your current job even have maternity leave? Benefits?”
Honora bit her lip. Her boss, Phyllis Kowalczyk, was a retiree with few employees. The flower shop seemed more like a labor of love than a growing, profitable business. “Um. I’m not sure...”
“You’re probably still living with your grandfather.”
Guilt flashed through her. As if she needed to be reminded that she already felt like a burden to him. “So?”
“You deserve more.” He lifted an arrogant dark eyebrow. “I will take care of you and the baby.”
His tone got her hackles up. “No, thanks.”
“Why? Are you in love with someone else? Rossini?”
“Benny?” Frowning, she shook her head. “We’re friends.”
He relaxed. “Well, then. Shall we say next week for the ceremony?”
Ceremony? “But I don’t love you!”
He shrugged. “Love. A momentary feeling that makes people do things they regret once the madness passes. A make-believe notion. An illusion. I’m grateful that I’m immune.”
Honora stared at him. Was there no getting through?
“I’m not going to marry you.” She enunciated the words, trying to drive them into his arrogant brain. “I’d be a horrible wife for you. And you...you would be a disaster.”
Nico looked at her, his handsome face impassive.
“Why did you sleep with me, then?” he asked quietly. “Was it so horrible? Was it such a disaster?”
Everything she’d been about to say got caught in her throat. Yes, she wanted to tell him, it was a mistake. But then that would mean her baby was a mistake, and she wasn’t. She was precious.
As for that night... Honora remembered the sparkling Christmas lights glowing every color in the frosty night. The scent of pine from the enormous, decorated tree in the penthouse with two-story windows overlooking all of glittering Manhattan.
And Nico, taking her in his powerful arms. The taste of his kiss, sweetness and Scotch, savage and tender all at once. The feel of his body against hers as he’d made her feel pleasure she’d never imagined.
Honora couldn’t lie. She took a deep breath. Looking up at him with tears in her eyes, she whispered, “It was the most beautiful night of my life.”