impatiently.
‘Born into poor circumstances and raised without any advantages but nonetheless a hard-working, educated and respectable young woman...and my granddaughter.’
‘Your granddaughter,’ Raffaele repeated blankly, still trying to fathom at top speed what Stam Fotakis could possibly want from him to warrant such a threat.
‘Vivien Mardas, better known as Vivi,’ Stam supplied. ‘For a little while she was a friend of your sister’s.’
Raffaele went rigid, the link established and comprehension now possible. ‘I remember her,’ he said stiffly. ‘She is a member of your family?’
‘Yes,’ Stam said, equally stiffly. ‘And I am as protective of her as you are of your sister and determined to rectify any injustices she has suffered.’
Raffaele remained diplomatically silent, for a slow, deep anger was burning like hellfire inside him as he joined the dots and hit pay dirt. When he had known her, Vivi had definitely been unaware that she had a very rich and powerful grandfather. Evidently, having discovered that no doubt welcome reality, she had lied about the less presentable parts of her past in an effort to cover them up.
‘Injustices?’ he prompted flatly.
‘You ruined her reputation by referring to her as a prostitute. As that ludicrous designation and the story is still available online to anyone who cares to look her up, Vivi found it impossible to find a job commensurate with her abilities,’ Stam revealed. ‘She suffered a great deal for someone who was innocent of fault. Her friends dropped her, her name was bandied about. She was laughed at, despised and she was obliged to leave jobs until she was finally forced to legally take another surname to hide that embarrassing past. She is now known as Vivien Fox.’
Raffaele nodded, that little sob story of Vivi’s woes touching him not at all. Of course, he wasn’t an elderly man, keen to believe only the best of his grandchild, he reasoned without hesitation. He was cool, logical, innately critical and suspicious, particularly when it came to labelling a woman an innocent. He had yet to meet a genuinely innocent woman.
He remembered Vivi very well. Hair that glittered like copper wire in the sunlight but which felt like spun silk. A tall, beautiful redhead, who could look impossibly elegant in anything she wore, even jeans. Skin like translucent porcelain and eyes as brilliant a blue as the Italian summer sky. He also remembered how very close he had come to succumbing to her wiles, even though she didn’t fit his preferred expectations of a woman in any field. He had had a narrow escape there and he was still grateful for it and not one bit regretful for anything he had said that could have offended Stam Fotakis.
Unless his misfortune in offending Stam was to lead to his kid sister being harmed, he adjusted grudgingly. And harmed Arianna very definitely would be, if that dossier of her past foolishness was ever to be released to the press, because her fiancé’s family were very conventional, and he would come under a lot of pressure to ditch her. That would send Arianna reeling and straight back into the erratic behaviour she had left behind her after falling in love with Tomas.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ Raffaele intoned levelly. ‘But I cannot believe that you genuinely want to injure another naive young woman like my sister. Arianna was born with problems.’
Stam lifted a silencing hand. ‘I know she was born addicted to drugs and suffers from poor impulse control. I know she’s not particularly bright and is far too trusting of strangers, but she’s not my responsibility, she’s yours,’ he pointed out calmly. ‘To make restitution, I want you to marry Vivi and give her your illustrious name.’
‘Marry her?’ Raffaele exclaimed in angry disbelief before he clenched his jaw shut and bit back any unwise comments as to the likelihood of Vivi’s much-vaunted innocence.
‘Only for the ceremony, suitably publicised to give her proper standing in society,’ Stam continued in the same mild tone, much as though he were discussing the weather. ‘I want nothing more. You will part on your wedding day and a divorce will duly follow. No financial settlement will be required on her behalf either. It is a modest request.’
‘Modest?’ Raffaele queried with incredulous emphasis.
‘Yes. I have no doubt that you think yourself very much above my granddaughter in terms of background and breeding,’ Stam conceded drily. ‘I won’t hold that against you. But you should be grateful that the temporary use of your good name is all that I require from you in return for that dossier, which would have a catastrophic effect on your sister’s marital plans.’
Fotakis knew it all, Raffaele acknowledged grittily, and, no matter how outrageous Stam’s demand that he marry Vivi, he knew he would have to consider it to protect Arianna’s future stability and security. Tomas was charmed by his sister’s giggly immaturity and impulsiveness where many men would have run a mile, and he didn’t want her only because she was an heiress either. Tomas, as sensible and stable as Arianna was not, was his sister’s perfect match and, what was more, Arianna loved him.
How could he stand by in silence while she lost all that over matters as trivial as a naked bathing episode in a famous fountain and being mistakenly arrested as a shoplifter? Unhappily, there were other murkier episodes involved and included in that file, he conceded grudgingly, such as the time she had spent the night with two men because her so-called friends had dared her to do so.
‘I hated it,’ she had muttered guiltily, appalled that he had picked up on that unsavoury rumour. ‘But everyone else had done stuff like that and I wanted to fit in... I wanted them to like me.’
After that affair, Raffaele had begun vetting her friends as well, recognising that his sister was too vulnerable to be left at the mercy of those ready to take advantage of her gullible nature to entertain themselves at her expense.
‘Presumably you have already discussed this idea with Vivi,’ Raffaele remarked curtly. ‘And she, of course, will be keen.’
‘Keen?’ Stam surprised him by laughing out loud. ‘Vivi hates you and she definitely doesn’t want to marry you! I’m afraid that persuading Vivi to the altar is your personal challenge.’
‘You’re seriously expecting me to believe that she isn’t involved in this proposition?’ Raffaele incised in disbelief.
‘Of course, she isn’t involved. Vivi doesn’t work off logic, she works off emotion. My...er...suggestion that she marry you made her very angry but I’m sure a high achiever of your calibre will know exactly how to transform her view of you,’ Stam completed with wry amusement brightening his snapping dark eyes. ‘If you want that dossier to stay private, you have to get Vivi to the church.’
‘That’s to be my penance, is it?’ Raffaele pronounced between gritted teeth.
‘If you like to think of it in those terms, do so. It’s immaterial to me. You give her a wedding ring but you keep your hands off her,’ Stam Fotakis warned him bluntly. ‘I want her back as untouched and unharmed as she is now. Is that understood?’
Dark colour edged the smooth planes of Raffaele’s high cheekbones, accentuating his taut bone structure. He could not credit the warning he was being given. ‘I have never touched an unwilling woman in my life,’ he countered with icy hauteur.
‘Well, you will find my granddaughter very unwilling,’ Stam forecast with satisfaction. ‘I dare say you’re
