A Ring for Vincenzo's Heir(31)

He couldn't fight Scarlett, so he'd run. He'd never run from anything in his life.

Vin ran an unsteady hand over his forehead.

When he'd told Scarlett about the post-nup, he'd expected to feel triumph, or at least a sense of calm control.

Instead, watching the happiness in his wife's eyes melt into horror, Vin  had experienced a physical reaction he'd never expected. His hands had  tightened into fists. He'd instantly wanted to destroy whomever had hurt  her.

Except he had no one to blame-but himself.

"Vincenzo."

Vin abruptly stopped in the gilded, high-ceilinged hallway when he saw Giuseppe waiting for him.

Just what he needed. He gave a silent curse. Another person to heap  scorn on him, when he was doing a fine enough job heaping it on himself.  He bit out, "What do you want?"   





 

Giuseppe came forward, solemn in his formal tuxedo. "We have to talk."

"Make it quick."

"I always knew you weren't my biological son." He gave Vin a small smile. "Is that quick enough for you?"

He gaped at him, dumbfounded. "What?"

The older man shook his head. "Vincenzo, your mother's eyes were blue.  So are mine. What are the chances we could conceive a child with eyes as  dark as yours?"

After twenty years of keeping the secret, Vin was staggered. "But my  mother used you for money. For years. Why didn't you tell her to go to  hell, tell her I wasn't yours?"

"Because you are mine," he said, coming forward. "From the moment I held you as a tiny baby, Vincenzo, I was your father."

Vin thought of the first moment he'd held his own son in his arms. He knew what that felt like.

Giuseppe put his hands on Vin's shoulders. "I didn't give a damn what  some DNA test might say. I loved you. You were-you are-my son. And you  will always be."

Vin felt dizzy, like he'd gotten drunk on that one glass of champagne. The floor was trembling under him.

He'd been so wrong. He, who'd believed he could never be wrong about anything, had been wrong about everything.

He thought he'd never run away from a fight?

He'd been running for twenty years.

All these years he'd avoided Giuseppe and Joanne, avoided emotion,  avoided life. For what? For the sake of a secret that didn't matter?

His whole adult life, he'd tried to control everything, to make sure he  never felt tied to anyone, so he'd never feel pain when they left. When,  against his will, he'd come to care for Scarlett, it had terrified him  so much he'd thought he needed to bring her to heel. To make her his  slave.

Had he really thought he could rule her with a piece of paper? He was  powerless where she was concerned. No pre-nup or post-nup in the world  could change that.

I love you, Vin. And you love me. That was the whole reason for this, wasn't it? You're afraid to love me.

Giuseppe sighed ruefully in the hallway. "I just wish I'd known that was  the reason you stayed away from us." He glanced at his wife, who'd come  up behind him, followed by Maria. "We were foolish to keep silent, but  we didn't want to give you more reasons to stay away."

"You knew, too?" Vin said to Joanne. She smiled, even as she wiped tears away.

"Of course I knew, darling. Giuseppe and I have been married a long time. We have no secrets."

"Well, I didn't know!" Maria cried sulkily behind her, tossing her long white veil. "No one tells me anything!"

Vin glanced at his young sister in her white wedding gown, and in that instant, his whole life came sharply into focus.

Scarlett was right. About everything.

Part of him had thought if he pushed her, she would flee, which would  prove his worst beliefs and justify his actions in making her sign the  post-nup.

He'd wanted to push her away.

You're afraid to love me. Yes, afraid. You tried to create a wall  between us. But I'm not going to let you do it. We love each other. We  belong together.

From the first moment he'd met Scarlett, so silly and free in the New  York dive bar, choking at her first taste of vodka, he'd been enchanted.  He'd never met anyone like her, so feisty and sexy and warm.

He'd wanted her from the start, and he'd been willing to make deals to  possess her-like his ridiculous fantasy that he could protect his own  heart, and stay in control, by making her sign a form, or by trying to  love her less, because he, the one who cared less, was the one who had  the power.

But that was wrong. He saw that now.

It wasn't the one who loved less who had the power, but the one who  loved more. Not because you could control the outcome, or keep from  getting hurt, but because it meant you were brave enough to live without  fear, hurtling yourself headlong into both joy and pain.

Being a fully alive human being, with the courage to love completely-what could be more powerful than that?

And as much as he loved his son, it wasn't the baby who'd first cracked open his heart.

It was Scarlett.

He looked at his father. "I need to go talk to my wife."

"Go, son," Giuseppe said fiercely. "Show her who you really are!"

Vin nodded, turned back down the hall.

He never should have rented their home out from under her. Another way  he'd tried to push Scarlett into hating him. It had never felt like his  home-until now. Scarlett had taken the sad, faded, tumbledown prison of  his childhood and brought it to joyous life.   





 

She'd done the same for him. Before they'd met, Vin had been focused on  money and power, to the detriment of his own happiness. He'd been so  afraid of being vulnerable that, if Scarlett hadn't shown up in the New  York cathedral that day, he would have married a woman he didn't give a  damn about.

If not for Scarlett, he would have turned into a man like Salvatore  Calabrese: selfish, shallow and cold, too insecure to risk the only  thing that mattered. His heart.

So many things Scarlett had done for him, and all she'd asked in return  was for him to love her. For him to be the man he'd been born to be. The  man she deserved.

Vin's walk turned into a run. Nodding at the sleepy security guard sitting inside the foyer, he pushed open the front door.

Outside the palazzo, the street was dark and quiet. Silent white snow fell softly to the ground. But where was Scarlett?

Then he saw her.

Still in her diamond necklace and sapphire-colored gown, her red hair  looked tangled and twisted, and she had terror in her eyes.

A man was holding her. A man with a gun. A man with all kinds of darkness in his eyes.

"Vin!" she cried, struggling.

"Borgia." Blaise Falkner gave him a cold, evil smile. "I should have  known you wouldn't keep away for long. You've wrecked my plan, but I'm  almost glad. Now you'll see what I'm going to do to her, right in front  of your eyes."

Terror ripped through Vin's heart as he looked from Falkner's face to  the revolver, black as a deadly snake, held against Scarlett's forehead.  For a split second, Vin's world started to go dark with fear.

Then he took a deep breath. He didn't do fear. Ever. And he wasn't going  to start now, when his wife needed him to be strong. There was only one  emotion he could let himself feel right now. He let the waves of it  roll over him, like an ocean in a storm.

Rage.





CHAPTER TWELVE

WHEN BLAISE HAD pulled a gun on her in the quiet, snowy street, Scarlett  had thought bitterly of how Vin had ordered her to keep a bodyguard  nearby. Why hadn't she listened?

Because she'd never imagined she might need a bodyguard in the center of  Rome. She'd never imagined that anyone might want to attack her...

"I've been watching your house for a week," Blaise had said, keeping his  black revolver trained on her. "Hoping to get you alone."

"Why?" Her teeth chattered. "You can't still want to...to marry me?"

"Marry?" His lip had twisted scornfully as he came closer, until she  could smell the sickening stench of old sweat half masked with musky  cologne. "I'm way past that now. Your husband made this personal. He  ruined my life. Now I will do the same to him."

Snowflakes fell softly against her skin. But that wasn't what froze her to the bone. "How?"

"He loves you."

"You heard us argue-"

"Yeah, I heard it all. It's perfect." His smile became venomous. "Now  when you disappear, he'll blame himself for the rest of his life and  think he drove you away. He'll always wonder. He'll never know."

"You can't!"

"Watch me." With his gun still trained on her, he snatched her  crystal-encrusted clutch bag from her hand. "My car is around the  corner..."

"I'm not going anywhere with you." She straightened. "Shoot me here."

"You'll go. Or my next stop will be at your house. Your baby is there,  with no one but the housekeeper to protect him. Shame if they had a  little accident. If the doors were blocked and the place went up in  flames."

"No!" she cried, whimpering at the thought. "I'll go with you. Just leave them alone..."

"That's more like it." Blaise motioned with the revolver. "Over there, in the alley..."

But as she started to move, the front door of the palazzo banged open.  Quick as a flash, Blaise grabbed her, placing her in front of him,  holding the gun to her forehead.