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A Ring for Vincenzo's Heir(6)

By:Jennie Lucas






 

There would soon be lots of other purchases, he thought. Baby booties. A  crib. A nursery. He'd have his houses baby-proofed. He'd hire a larger  staff. He would buy a few more family-sized SUVs to add to his personal  fleet of expensive cars. Small tasks that would distract him from  building his empire, but it would be worth it to finally have a family  of his own.

He'd be the parent he himself had never had. His child would never know  what it felt like to be abandoned. To be used. To be neglected and  alone.

Reaching into his tuxedo jacket, Vin felt for his wallet. Frowning, he  looked in his pockets. Empty. Had he left it in the car, or back at the  cathedral? Scowling, he motioned for one of his bodyguards to pay and  told the other one to track down the wallet. Sitting down at a nearby  bench, Vin called his doctor to arrange for an immediate appointment.  Then he tapped his feet.

Scarlett was taking a long time.

"Go check on her," he ordered his bodyguard impatiently.

Vin paced. Checked his phone again. Stopped.

Suspicion dawned.

She couldn't. She wouldn't.

She had.

"Miss Ravenwood is nowhere to be found, boss," Larson said when he  returned. "I had the bathroom checked. Empty." He hesitated. "There is a  door beside it that leads to a storeroom, then out to the alley."

With a low curse, Vin strode through the sporting goods store, his two  bodyguards behind him. In the back, near the ladies' restroom, he found  the storeroom. Store employees shrank back at his glare as he threw open  the back door with an angry bang.

Outside was an alley with graffiti-littered brick walls. Vin walked  slowly past the Dumpsters to the end: busy Madison Avenue, crowded with  people and cars packed bumper to bumper. He stared around him in shock.

Scarlett Ravenwood had not only walked out on him, she'd most likely  stolen his wallet. Not only that, she'd warned him first! "Shoes good to  run in" indeed!

Clawing his hand back through his dark hair, he gave a single,  incredulous laugh. He'd been ditched twice in one day. Lied to by two  different women.

Anne's loss he could accept. That had involved only money.

Scarlett was different. He'd never stopped desiring her. And now she was carrying his baby.

Or was she? Perhaps she'd lied. He rubbed his forehead. Why would any  woman run away when he'd asked her to marry him and live in luxury for  the rest of her life? Unless she was afraid of the paternity test. That  was the only rational explanation: the baby wasn't his. The thought  caused a sick twist in his gut.

Then he remembered the angry gleam in Scarlett's green eyes.

I don't appreciate you digging into my life, then assuming that I'm  either a con artist or a gold digger. I'm neither. I just want to raise  my baby in peace.

Standing motionless as pedestrians rushed by him on Madison Avenue, Vin narrowed his eyes.

Either way, he had to know.

Either way, he'd find her.

And this time, she wouldn't trick him so easily. Nothing would stop him  from getting what he wanted. He wouldn't listen to her excuses. Next  time, he'd bend her to his will.

Barefoot, if necessary.





CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS ONLY one thing that mattered in life, Scarlett's father had always told her as a child. Freedom.

Freedom. It was Harry Ravenwood's rallying cry every time their family  had to flee in the night, tossing their belongings into black trash bags  and heading blindly to a new city. At seven years old, when Scarlett  accidentally left her teddy bear-her only friend-behind, she'd cried  until her father comforted her with stories of Mr. Teddy backpacking  around the world, climbing the Pyramids and the Pyrenees. His funny  stories of her bear's adventures finally made her smile through her  tears. On cold winter nights in Upstate New York, as their family  shivered in unheated rooms and icy wind rattled the windows, Harry sang  jaunty songs about freedom.

Freedom. Even on the bleak night when Scarlett was twelve, when her  mother died in the emergency room of a hospital in a faded factory town  in Pennsylvania, her father kissed Scarlett as tears streamed down his  weathered face. "At least now your beautiful mother is free of pain."

Scarlett had her freedom now. From Blaise Falkner. From Vin Borgia. She and her unborn baby were free.

But it had come at a cost.

To start with, her flight two weeks ago, from Boston to London, had had a little trouble over the Atlantic.

A small fire in the cargo hold caused the plane to divert to a small  airport on the west coast of Ireland. As the plane descended, she saw  dark clusters of birds through her porthole window, flying rapidly past  the plane. "Bird strike!" a passenger cried out, and as one flight  attendant rushed toward the cockpit, another tried to murmur reassuring,  unconvincing words to the passengers. Wide-eyed, Scarlett gripped her  armrests as she felt the plane ominously vibrate and groan in midair.   





 

All she'd been able to think was, she shouldn't be on this plane.  Pregnant women weren't supposed to fly after their seventh month. She  was nearly at eight. She'd fled from New York, with a quick stop in  Boston, because she thought it was her only way to escape Vin. But now  that danger seemed small when she and her child were both going to die.  Just like her own father had died in that wintry plane crash a year and a  half ago. She never should have gotten on a plane.

"Prepare for crash landing," came the pilot's terse voice over the  intercom. "Brace for impact." The flight attendants repeated the words  as the nose of the plane started to plummet and they rushed to buckle  themselves in. "Heads down! Brace for impact! Stay down!"

Scarlett had braced herself, hugging her belly, thinking, please don't let my baby die.

Like a miracle, the plane had finally steadied on one engine and limped  hard, landing with a heavy bang on the edge of the runway. No one was  hurt, and passengers and crew alike cheered and cried and hugged each  other.

Sliding off the plane on the inflatable yellow slide, Scarlett had  fallen to her knees on the tarmac and burst into noisy, ugly sobs.

She never should have gotten on a plane. Any plane. After her father's death, she should have known better.

But just like when she'd accepted that limo ride from Blaise Falkner,  she'd ignored her intuition and convinced herself that her fears were  silly. And both she and her baby had nearly died as a result.

She'd never ignore her intuition again. From now on, she'd listen  seriously to her fears, even when they didn't make rational sense.

And above all: she would never, ever get on any plane again.

But why would Scarlett need to? She had no family in New York. No reason  to ever go back. Vin Borgia had done her a huge favor, warning her in  advance that he intended to rule her life and their child's with an iron  fist and separate her from her baby if she ever objected or tried to  leave him. She didn't feel guilty about leaving him, not at all.

She did feel guilty about stealing his wallet. Stealing was never all  right, and her mother must be turning over in her grave. Scarlett told  herself she'd had no choice. She'd had to cover her tracks. Vin was not  only a ruthless billionaire, he owned an airline and had ridiculous  connections. If she'd stepped one toe on a flight under her own name, he  would have known about it.

So she'd contacted one of her father's old acquaintances in Boston to buy a fake passport. That cost money.

So she'd taken-borrowed-the money from Vin. She hadn't touched anything  else in his wallet. Not his driver's license, or his credit cards, most  of them in special strange colors that no doubt had eye-popping credit  limits. And after she'd arrived safely in Switzerland via ferry and  train from Ireland, and gotten her first paycheck at her new job, she'd  mailed back Vin's wallet, returning everything as he'd left it. She'd  even tossed in some extra euros as interest on the money she'd borrowed.

She'd gotten the euros from northern Italy, where she'd gone to mail  back the package. She could hardly have sent Vin money in Swiss francs,  letting him know where she was!

But that was all behind her now. She'd paid everything back. She and her baby were free.

Scarlett took a deep breath of the clear Alpine air. She'd been in  Gstaad for over two weeks now, and finally, finally she was starting to  relax. She just had to hope when Vin couldn't easily find her, he would  forget about her and the baby, and she'd never have to worry about him  again.

Scarlett passed out of the gates of the chalet, if the place could be  called a chalet when it was the size of a palace, and turned her face up  toward the sun.

It was mid-October, and the morning air was already frosty in the  mountains around the elegant Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. The first  snowfall was expected daily.

She had her own event to expect soon, too. Her hand moved over her  belly, grown so large she could no longer button up her oversize jacket.  Only two and a half weeks from her due date. Her body felt heavier,  slower. But luckily her new job allowed plenty of opportunity for gentle  morning walks.

She'd been lucky to get this job. When she'd fled the shoe store in New  York, racing down the alley to hail a cab on Madison Avenue, she'd  already decided exactly where to go. Her mother's best friend,  Wilhelmina Stone, worked as housekeeper to a wealthy European tycoon in  Switzerland. Though Scarlett hadn't seen her since her mother's funeral,  she'd never forgotten the woman's hug and fierce words, "Your mother  was my best friend. If you ever need anything, you come straight to me,  you hear?"