A Ring for Vincenzo's Heir(23)

"Oh, come on," Scarlett said with a laugh, rolling her eyes. "It's a villa in Rome. How bad could it be?"

The answer to that question came soon, as she gingerly entered the  faded, dilapidated eighteenth-century villa, set behind a tall gate with  a guardhouse and a private cobblestoned drive.

Holding the baby carrier carefully in her arms-she'd refused all offers  from bodyguards and her husband to carry it, as her baby's eight pounds  was precious cargo to her-Scarlett went through the enormous front door  into the foyer. Stepping over the crumpled trash on the floor, she went  farther into the villa.

On the high ceiling of the great room, a disco ball gleamed dully in the shadows. She stopped.

Black leather furniture, zebra and leopard print pillows, strobe lights  and multiple bowls of overflowing cigarette butts decorated the room. In  front of the enormous marble fireplace was a bearskin rug stained with  red wine...at least she hoped it was wine. Empty liquor bottles littered  every corner.

Wide-eyed, Scarlett turned to her husband, who was watching her with amusement. "I told you."

"Was your tenant a playboy?" she said faintly. "From the early seventies?"

"Styles change. People don't always change with them." Vin's lips  quirked. "Luigi did live here a long time. He was quite the ladies' man,  for eighty-five."

"Eighty-five! So did he move, or...?" She paused delicately.

Vin shook his head with a grin. "Decided he was finally ready to settle  down. Moved to Verona and married his childhood sweetheart."

"Wow," Scarlett breathed. "Getting married. At eighty-five."

"Just goes to show it's never too late to change your life." His sensual  lips lifted to a grin. "He only moved out last week. So this place  hasn't been remodeled yet." He tilted his head. "The suite at the hotel  is still available..."

Scarlett shook her head. "No hotels. When I was young, we didn't live in  any house long enough to make memories, good or bad. Don't worry," she  said brightly. "We'll make this the home of our dreams!"

He snorted. "Dream-or nightmare?"

"This house has good bones," she said with desperate hope. "Wait and see."

Later, Scarlett looked back and thought the next two months of  remodeling the Villa Orsini were some of the happiest of her life.

Their first night was admittedly a little rough. The bodyguards brought  in the necessary supplies, then hastily decamped to a neighboring  three-star hotel. Only the bodyguard who'd lost the coin toss was forced  to remain, and he chose to sleep on a cot in the foyer rather than face  the rats' nests of bedrooms upstairs.

So it was just Vin and Scarlett and their baby sleeping in the great  room, where the black leather sectional sofas were in decent repair,  that first night.

She and Vin heated water themselves on the old stove for the baby's  first sponge bath. It was almost like camping. There were no servants  hovering. No phones ringing incessantly. No television or computers,  even. They just shared a takeaway picnic dinner on a blanket on the  floor, then played an old board game that Vin found in a closet  upstairs, before they both crashed on the sofa, with Nico tucked warmly  into his portable baby car seat next to her.

Her husband was protective, insisting that Scarlett take the most  comfortable spot on the sofa, offering to get her anything she needed at  any moment. When the baby woke her up at two in the morning to nurse,  Vin woke up as well and tucked a pillow under her aching arm that held  the baby's head.

"Thank you," she whispered.   





 

"It is nothing, cara." His eyes glowed in the darkness. "You are the hero."

Just the two of them, she thought drowsily, regular first-time parents, a  married couple in love, with each other and with their newborn baby.

The next morning, the hiring began, of designers and architects and a  construction crew to start the remodel. No expense would be spared. "If  you're determined to live here," Vin told her firmly, "we'll get it done  as soon as possible."

As the villa was cleared out, cleaned, and slowly began to take shape,  Vin suggested that they bring in permanent house staff. He wanted two  full-time nannies-one for day, one for night-and a butler, housekeeper,  gardeners. After their blissful night alone together, Scarlett had been  crestfallen. She'd tried to convince Vin that she could take care of the  villa herself. He'd laughed.

"You want to spend your every waking hour scrubbing floors? No. Leave  that to others." He kissed her. "You have a far more important job."

"Taking care of Nico?" she guessed.

His dark eyes became tender. "Being the heart of our home." She melted a  little inside. Then his smile lifted to an ironic grin. "You've got  your work cut out for you, married to a ruthless bastard like me."

He was joking, of course, she thought loyally. Vin wasn't a ruthless  bastard. He was a good man, and in spite of his tyrannical instincts,  she knew he saw her as an equal partner. After all, he'd let her make  the decisions about driving instead of flying, about remodeling the  villa rather than enjoying the comfort of a hotel. And most of all, he  had married her without a pre-nup. As partners, they had a chance to be  happy in this marriage, she thought, really happy, for the rest of their  lives.

The days passed, turned to weeks. November became December. Scarlett had  pictured the Eternal City as a place of eternal sunshine, but to her  surprise, winter descended on Rome.

The villa had become livable. Tacky old furnishings were removed, and  the walls and floors of ten bedrooms were redone. The kitchen was  expanded and modernized. Bathrooms were scrapped and remodeled, and one  of the extra rooms was turned into a master en suite bathroom with  walk-in closet. Vin had wanted to fly in the interior designer who'd  decorated his New York penthouse, but remembering the stark  black-and-gray décor from the single night she'd spent there, Scarlett  had refused. She wanted to make the villa warm and bright and, above  all, comfortable. She'd do the decorating herself.

She loved every minute. Each morning when the baby woke her up to be  fed, Scarlett woke up with a smile on her face, stretching happily in  the enormous bed. She didn't get much sleep, with the baby waking her  through the night, but in spite of feeling tired, Scarlett had never  been so happy. Joy washed over her like sunshine.

She had the home she'd always dreamed of. The family she'd always  dreamed of. The husband she'd always dreamed of. She had everything  she'd ever wanted, except one thing.

Vin hadn't told her he loved her.

But soon. Soon, she told herself hopefully. In the meantime, the villa  was larger than she'd imagined her home could be, so she brought it down  to size. Made it homey and inviting for family and friends.

She carefully began to add household staff. Wilhelmina Stone was the  first person she hired, luring her away from Switzerland as housekeeper  by doubling her salary.

"You don't need to pay me so much," Wilhelmina had grumbled. "We're practically family."

"Which is why I insist," Scarlett replied happily.

Then a few other employees were added, two maids and a gardener, but  Scarlett flatly refused the idea of a butler and two full-time nannies.  Instead, the kind, fiercely loyal housekeeper soon became a second  grandmother to Nico.

When the guest rooms became habitable, the baby's actual grandparents,  Giuseppe and Joanne, came down from Tuscany for a visit in December,  bringing Maria and Luca with them. They all enjoyed a weekend of  sightseeing, which was ostensibly to "show the baby the sights of  Rome"-as if a five-week-old in a stroller who couldn't yet sit upright  would appreciate the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain.

"Of course he appreciates them," Giuseppe said expressively, using his hands. "He is my grandson! It is in his blood!"

"He can't even taste gelato yet," Vin pointed out, rather peevishly, she thought.

It was the only discordant note to the joyful melody of Scarlett's life.  Vin seemed strangely uncomfortable around his family, and the more  loving they were, the more he seemed to flee. Thirty minutes into their  sightseeing tour, he abruptly announced an emergency at the Rome office  that seemed like an excuse to leave. But Scarlett must be mistaken,  because why would he want to flee his family, who loved him so?   





 

In spite of that small flaw, Scarlett was happy and proud to share their  newly beautiful home with the family that had been so kind to her. The  best moment was when Maria and Luca announced they'd picked a wedding  date: the second week of January, in Rome.

"A winter wedding, in Rome," Maria had beamed, holding her fiancé's hand. "It'll be so romantic."

"You are romantic," Luca had said rapturously and kissed her.

Scarlett had looked at Vin, but he'd avoided her gaze.

Since his parents' visit, he'd seemed even more strangely distant,  spending all his time at the office, where his company was trying to  devise a new offer to interest Mediterranean Airlines' CEO, Salvatore  Calabrese. But the man flatly refused to have anything to do with Vin  now. It made Scarlett indignant, but she knew her husband would wear him  down. No one could resist Vin for long. Scarlett knew this personally.