he said carelessly.
‘You’re unbelievable.’
‘Believe it.’ His eyes locked onto hers and she shivered with the force of his power. ‘And make a decision.’
‘A decision? My decision is for you to get out of my house!’ She wrenched the door open. ‘Or I’ll call the police!’
He stared at her for several moments, towering over her, and his breathing matched her own, then he shook his head. ‘I do not want to fight with you.’
‘I don’t want to fight with you either,’ she said and she shoved at his chest. ‘Get out of my house! Right now!’
She didn’t think he was going to go. And she hated that there was a very small part of her that didn’t want him to go, that wanted him to stay and fight and plead with her. To apologise for what he’d done, or tried to do. To take it all back and say he didn’t hate her family, that he wasn’t actively working to bring down her brother and father’s commercial interests.
But that was a very, very small part. Most of Amelia diSalvo hated Antonio Ferrara with every single bone in her body in that moment and couldn’t wait to see the back of him.
‘This isn’t over,’ he said, but it was soft, almost apologetic, and then he stalked out of the door and, she hoped, out of her life.
* * *
Antonio wasn’t surprised to receive a call from Carlo diSalvo the next day, but he was surprised at the effect the call had on him.
He could not speak to Carlo without thinking of Amelia, and the way her body had responded to his. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing her tiny cottage and the fairy lights she’d decorated almost every surface with—and there was something so her about that design choice.
‘You’re a bastard,’ Carlo snapped down the phone line. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?’
Antonio stared at the view of London he had from his penthouse, Mayfair sprawling with all its Georgian beauty before him, opening up to a verdant Hyde Park. ‘I didn’t much care,’ Antonio said, not completely honest. Because he did care about something.
Amelia.
It was ridiculous, but he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since leaving Bumblebee Cottage the night before. Nor could he shake the feeling that, for the first time in his life, he might not have handled things in the best possible way. He hadn’t achieved his aim, and he’d made things monumentally more difficult by sleeping with the enemy.
‘So what’s your plan?’ Carlo demanded, switching to his native Italian.
Antonio followed him effortlessly. ‘To destroy you. No, to do more than destroy you. I will eviscerate you. I will take everything you care about and destroy it, just for the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. My life has become a testament to your ruination.’
Carlo cursed down the phone line. ‘You actually think you’ll be able to succeed in that?’
‘It is already done,’ Antonio said, a wolfish smile spreading across his features. He disconnected the call and pushed all thoughts of Amelia from his mind. Sleeping with her hadn’t been part of the plan, but that didn’t matter. It was beside the point, just like he’d said to her. Sex had nothing to do with business, and this business was something he’d spent long years planning for.
He scrolled to his personal lawyer’s number and held the phone to his ear.
‘Herrera,’ he spoke without preamble when the call connected. ‘I need to see you. It’s about the diSalvo situation.’ He reclined in his chair, staring straight ahead and seeing only the gleam of success. The satisfaction of long-awaited revenge.
And the pair of big blue eyes that haunted him as he told his lawyer to begin tanking diSalvo interests?
They were just eyes—he would forget them soon enough. He would forget her too. Because nothing mattered more than righting the wrongs of the past. Nothing, and no one. For his father, he would succeed.
AMELIA STARED AT the name across the foyer, emblazoned in solid gold letters: Herrera Inc. Her tummy was in knots as she waited in the echoing silence.
Not knots of anxiety, she hastened to remind herself. Knots of anger. Fury. Panic. Disbelief that six weeks after spending the night with a wolf in sheep’s clothing—or no clothing, as the case had been—it had been necessary to fly to Spain and wait in his office on a day that was hot and sticky, when she would have far preferred to be home in her lovely little cottage with only her books and an enormous pot of tea for company.
She’d thought about calling him and breaking the news to him over the phone. It would have been satisfying to have the power to deliver the life-changing words and then disconnect the call, letting him stew on the discovery as she had been for almost a week. But this wasn’t news one delivered over the phone, and she’d accepted that, even when it meant she would need to see Antonio once more.
Her face was pale and, though she didn’t realise it, the immaculate secretary of Antonio Herrera was watching her from beneath hooded eyes.
‘He won’t be much longer, madam,’ the woman assured her.
Did she really look that bad?
She’d mostly escaped the dreaded morning sickness, but of course it had reared its head that morning and she’d been feeling queasy all day.
She’d be better once this part was over. She had a plan, and it was simple.
Antonio, I’m pregnant, but I’m sure you won’t want any part of the pregnancy or the baby’s life, given that it’s the devil’s spawn.
Or, Antonio, I’m pregnant, and you can’t offer any amount of money that will induce me to sell this baby to you. Not everything is for sale.
Then there was the option where she just blurted names at him, every single one she could think of, obscenities and curses, in all the languages she knew.
She ground her teeth together, her hand curled around the strap of her bag, her mouth dry. She thought about getting another cup of water from the dispenser, but she must have already drunk a litre since arriving in his office almost an hour earlier.
If he’d known she was coming, she would have blamed him for keeping her waiting. But she’d intentionally used a fake name to see him, pretending to be a journalist writing an opinion piece for a broadsheet newspaper. Eventually the assistant had cracked, offering a fifteen-minute slot. But apparently Antonio viewed journalists with disdain, if his inability to stick to the schedule was anything to go by.
Another fifteen minutes later and the door cracked open. A man emerged first—not Antonio. Blond, with green eyes and tanned skin, wearing a suit but looking like he’d much prefer to be in board shorts and riding a wave. When he spoke, it was with an American accent. ‘Great to see you again, brother.’ He grinned, and he was film-star-handsome. Sigh...
Damned
