we need the money,” she bit out. “I need to marry to get the ring so I can sell it and pay off our debts. My mother and I are bankrupt. That’s why I was working at the hotel.”
So she was going to marry a violent man to make that happen?
He let her go. Watched as she stood and paced the room, the train of her dress following behind her. “Why not marry someone of your own choosing, then?”
“I told you already.” She stopped and jammed her hands on her hips. “My mother arranged the match. Silvio was the last of a dozen candidates she put forward. I am out of choices.”
“Why did you reject the others?”
“Because I didn’t love them.”
Oh, boy. She was one of those. He hated to burst Ms. Mastrantino’s bubble at this particular dire moment in time but... “Love is a myth, Mina.” He gave her a hard look. “Find a man you’re comfortable with, who treats you right, and marry him.”
“It’s too late for that.” Her gaze swung to the window, a frantic, trapped look in her eyes. “The carriage will be here any minute.”
He studied the tension in every muscle of her slim body. The panicked aura that wove itself around her. She was truly terrified. And why not? She was about to marry an abusive man in minutes.
In that moment, he realized he could not leave Mina here to suffer that fate. It was insane, ludicrous. He had certainly never pegged himself as anyone’s Prince Charming, but he was not walking away and abandoning this vulnerable woman to a violent man. It went against every code of honor his mother had drilled into him.
He stood up and joined her at the window. She turned to look at him, a glazed, resigned expression on her face. “What would you do if you had a choice?” he asked. “If you could marry someone other than Silvio and sell the ring?”
“I would pay off our debts,” she said quietly, “walk away and start a new life for myself.”
“Silvio will be furious,” he said. “To have his bride jilt him at the altar in front of the whole city. You would have to leave town. And quickly.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I was merely speaking in ‘what ifs.’ Of course I would never do it. It’s far too late now.”
He held her gaze. “Someone I care about very deeply wants that ring back. It was once his—years ago he had to sell it to survive. You need to get out of this situation. There is no way you can marry Silvio. So I’m proposing a business solution. Marry me, sell me the ring and I will fly you out of here tonight on my jet. We’ll get the marriage annulled immediately after the deal is done. We both get what we need.”
She gaped at him. “That is...crazy. I—I don’t even know you. Silvio will—” she waved a hand at him, the multicarat ring she had not been wearing while cleaning blinding in the light “—lose his mind.”
“You had me vetted at the Giarruso,” he reminded her. “They do full security checks. And you know this isn’t going to get any better. If he’s hit you once, he’ll hit you again. And again. Until you’ll think it’s normal to greet the day with bruises. If he doesn’t send you to the hospital with broken bones.”
She stared at him mutely.
“My jet is waiting on standby.” He kept his gaze on hers, steady and sure. “I’m offering you a way out of this. The decision is yours. If you choose to marry Silvio, I can come back at a mutually agreed upon time and make you an offer for the ring.”
Her cheeks drained of color. She pressed her hands to them and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Make a decision,’ he advised, casting a deliberate look toward the window. “And fast. When that carriage arrives, you are out of options.”
She paced the length of the room. Back and forth. Finally, she stopped in front of him, her small palms curled into fists by her sides. “You are really willing to do this? What about whatever woman is in your life? How is she going to feel about it?”
His mouth lifted. “There is no current woman, and even if there was, she’d know marriage is never in the cards for me. I’m fine with this, Mina. The question is are you?”
Her chin moved up and down.
“Is that a yes?”
“Sì.”
“You’re sure?” He held her gaze with his. “You have to be sure. There’s no turning back.”
“I’m sure.” Fear filled her eyes. “What if Silvio comes after us?”
“I will deal with him,” he said roughly. God help the man if he got his hands on him.
He swung into execution mode. “Get your purse and passport. Everything else can wait.”
She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, elaborate dress trailing behind her. Nate raked his hair out of his face. This might be the most unique business deal he’d ever made, but it certainly wasn’t the most complex. This one was simple. Marry the girl, get the ring and have their union annulled. As far as marriages went, it was the kind he could wrap his head around.
* * *
Mina was in shock. She must be, she decided as she sat in the backseat of the luxury car alongside Nate and attempted to contemplate the enormity of what she was doing. At this very minute, she was standing up Silvio Marchetti, one of Sicily’s most powerful figureheads, at the altar where her mother and her family and everyone they had known for generations were waiting for her to appear.
An image of her fiancé’s hard, unyielding face with its cruel edge flickered through her head. The incredulity of her failure to show up spreading across it until that white-hot rage of his set in. He would lose his mind. He would take it out on those around him. Her hands, laced together in her lap upon the fine silk of her dress, went ice-cold.
Would he take it out on her mother as the next best thing to her? Would her mother ever forgive her?
Simona Mastrantino might be an unfeeling, ambitious, repressed aristocrat willing to trade on her daughter’s fate, but she was all the family Mina had.
Would Silvio send his henchmen after her when he discovered what had happened? Did he have henchmen?
Her stomach heaved, a determined swallow all that was keeping her breakfast in her stomach. She was giving up everything she knew, agreeing to marry a man she hardly knew, to start a life far away from her home. Where would she go? To Paris where Celia was? Where she could use her French? Or was that too close to danger?
Nate continued to make phone call after phone call on his mobile, barking out orders in that deep authoritative tone of his. Phrases and words flew by in rapid succession. Civil ceremony, marriage license, documentation, prenup.
Nate flicked her a glance. “Can you have your solicitor give us the ring today? It would be better for us to leave tonight rather than wait around until the open of business tomorrow morning.”
Which might give Silvio a chance to track her down
