The Italian's Token Wife Read online

  No one, but no one manipulated him—not this avaricious bimbo, not his perdittione father! No one!

  "Seems to me you don't have a choice, Rafaello, cara, "she said bitingly. 'You need a wife in a hurry—well, that's fine by me—but I won't be hemmed in by a stupid prenuptial!"

  "Your choice."

  "And just what do you think you're going to do for a precious bride, huh?" The voice behind him was taunting and vicious. He didn't even bother to turn around.

  "I'm going to marry the first woman I see," he answered silkily, and was gone.

  Mama Mia! Harlequin Presents'

  THE ITALIAN'S TOKEN

  Julia Harries

  ITALIAN HUSBANDS

  They're tall, dark…, and ready to marry.'

  If you love marriage-of-convenience stories that ignite into marriages of passion, then look no further. We've got the heroes you love to read about and the women who tame them. Watch for more exciting tales of romance, Italian-style!

  Available only from Harlequin Presents'!

  HARLEQUIN

  TORONTO ■ NEW YORK ■ LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY«HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM ' ATHENS 'TOKYO "MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE -WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  'What the hell do you mean, you won't sign?"

  Rafaello di Viscenti glared down at the woman in his bed. She was a voluptuous blonde with flowing locks and celestial blue eyes, her naked body scantily covered by the duvet.

  Amanda Bonham slid one slim, exposed thigh over the other, and widened her eyes.

  'It's so sordid, darling—signing a pre-nup.' she said purringly.

  Rafaello's sculpted mouth tightened.

  'You agreed to all the terms in the pre-nup. Your lawyer went through it with me. Why are you balking at it now?"

  Amanda pouted up at him. 'Raf darling, we don't need a pre-nup! Wasn't last night good for you?" Her voice had gone husky, and she let a little smile play around her generous mouth. 'I can make it that good—every night."

  She nestled back into the pillows invitingly and slid her legs again, simultaneously letting the duvet slip to reveal one delectable breast.

  'I can make it that good right now," she went on, her eyes lingering over her lover's lean, honed body, with her sensual gaze openly stripping him of his extremely expensive hand-made suit of such superbly elegant tailoring that it screamed a top designer name.

  Rafaello slashed an impatient hand through the air. He was immune to Amanda's plentiful bedroom charms—he'd had his fill of them for most of the night, and enough was enough.

  'I don't have time for this. Amanda. Just sign the damn document, as you said you would—' In his obvious anger his Italian accent was pronounced.

  The inviting look vanished from the blue eyes, which were suddenly as hard as jewels.

  'No," said Amanda, yanking the duvet over her breast with a sharp motion. 'You want to marry me—you do it without a ridiculous pre-nuptial contract.'

  Her lush mouth set in an obstinate line.

  Rafaello swore beneath his breath, drawing on his extensive range of native Italian vocabulary unfit for polite society. He really, really could do without this.

  His obsidian eyes bored into his bride-to-be. Amanda, cara," he said with heavy patience, 'I have explained this to you already. I want a temporary bride only—you've gone into this with your eyes open; I have never attempted to deceive you. I want a bride for six months and then a swift, painless divorce. In exchange you get living expenses—very generous ones—for half a year, following one brief...very brief...visit to Italy, and you leave the marriage with a lavish pay-off. A pre-agreed lavish pay-off. Capisce?"

  'Oh, I capisce all right!' Amanda's voice sounded hard. And now you can capisce me! The only pre-nup I'll sign is one with twice the pay-off!'

  Rafaello stilled. So that was the way it was. She was upping the ante. He should have seen it coming. Amanda Bonham might be the ultimate airhead, but she had a homing instinct for money.

  But no one, no one manipulated him—not this avaricious bimbo, not his perdittione father. No one.

  A shutter came down over his face, and his olive-toned features became expressionless.

  'Too bad.' His voice was implacable. Anyone who had ever done business with him would have known at that point to back off and give in if they still wanted to do a deal with Rafaello di Viscenti. Amanda was not so wise. Her blue eyes flashed.

  Seems to me you don't have a choice, Rafaello cara,' she said bitingly. 'You need a wife in a hurry—well, that's fine by me—but I won't be hemmed in by a stupid pre-nup!'

  He answered with a careless shrug as he made to turn away. 'Your choice.' He glanced back at her. 'I'll phone for a taxi for you.'

  He walked across to the pier table set against the wall of the bedroom and picked up his mobile. Amanda scrambled out of bed.

  'Now, wait just a minute—' she began.

  Unperturbed. Rafaello went on punching numbers into the phone.

  'Deal's off, cara. Better get your clothes on.'

  A hand clawed over the fine suiting of his sleeve.

  'You can't do this. You need me.'

  He brushed her off as though she were a pesky fly.

  'Wrong.' There was adamantine beneath the accent. 'Joe?' His voice changed. Call a cab. Will you? About ten minutes.'

  He glanced back to where the naked blonde stood quivering in outrage in his bedroom. Casually he slipped the phone inside his breast pocket.

  'You can cool down under a shower—but make it quick.'

  He turned to head to the double doors that led out into the rest of the apartment.

  And just what do you think you're going to do for a precious bride, huh?'

  The voice behind him was taunting, and vicious. He didn't even bother to turn round.

  'I'm going to marry the first woman I see." he answered silkily, and was gone.

  Magda flexed her tired fingers in the rubber gloves and set to work in the lavish marble-walled bathroom, wishing she didn't feel like death warmed up. Benji had been awake for two hours in the night—his sleep patterns were hopeless— but at least, she thought, smothering a yawn and brushing back a rogue wisp of hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist as she paused in rubbing at the porcelain with her cleaning sponge, it meant he was sleeping now.

  A frown furrowed her brow. She wasn't going to be able to keep going with this job for much longer, she knew. While Benji had been younger it had been simple enough to carry him round with her, propping him up in his folding lightweight baby chair while she cleaned other people's luxury apartments, but now he was toddling he hated being strapped in and confined. He wanted to be out exploring— but in apartments like this, where everything from the carpets to the saucepans was excruciatingly expensive, that was just impossible.

  She squirted cleaning fluid under the rim and sighed again. What kind of job could you do with a toddler in tow? Leaving him with a minder while she worked was pointless—what she earned would go to pay for the child-care. If she had any kind of decent accommodation she could be a child-minder herself, and make some money by looking after other people's children as well as her own little boy, but what mother would want to park her child in the dump she lived in? Even she hated Benji being in the drab, dingy bedsit, and took him out and about as much as she could. She'd grown adept at making the hours pass in places like libraries, parks and supermarkets—anywhere that was free.

  A smile softened her tired face. Benji—the light of her life, the joy of her heart. Her dearest, dearest son...

  He was worth everything, everything to her, and there was nothing she would not do, she vowed, f
or his sake.

  Rafaello strode angrily across the wide landing towards the open-tread staircase that led down to the reception level of the duplex apartment. Damn Amanda for trying to hold him to ransom. And damn his father for putting him in this impossible position in the first place.

  His jaw tightened. Why couldn't his father accept there was no way he was going to be forced to marry his cousin Lucia and provide the rich husband she craved? Oh, she had looks, all right, but she was vain and avaricious and her temper was vicious—though she veiled it successfully enough from his father, who was now convinced she would make the perfect bride for his recalcitrant son. When orders and lamentations hadn't worked, his father had stooped to the final threat—selling Viscenti AG from under his son's nose. Dio, Lucia knew every weak spot a man had—from his father's obsession with getting the next-generation Viscenti heir to his own determination to keep Viscenti AG in the family. She'd played on both like a maestro.

  His father's parting words rang in Rafaello's ears. 'I want you married or I sell up. And don't think I won't. But—' the older man's voice had turned cunning '—present your bride to me before your thirtieth birthday and I make the company over to you the same day.'

  Well, thought Rafaello grimly, he would, indeed, present his bride to his father on his thirtieth birthday. But not the bride his parent had in mind...

  A bride that would meet the letter of his father's ultimatum, but nothing more.

  Anger spurted through him again. Amanda Bonham would have been the perfect bride to parade in front of his father—a fitting punishment for forcing his son to this pass. She'd have sent the old man's blood pressure sky-high. A born bimbo, with hair longer than her skirts and nothing between her ears except conceit in her own appearance and a total devotion to spending her innumerable lovers' money.

  And now she'd blown it and he was back to square one.

  Looking for a bride who would infuriate his father and wipe the smirk off Lucia's face. A frown crossed his brow. It had been all very well calling Amanda's bluff just now. But getting hold of a bride in a handful of weeks was going to be a challenge—even for him.

  He walked down the stairs with a lithe, rapid step, a closed, brooding look on his face—and stopped dead.

  There was a baby asleep in the middle of the hallway.

  Magda gave a final wipe to the pedestal, and reached into her cleaning box for the bottle of toilet freshener. At least bathrooms in luxury apartments were a joy to clean. All the fittings were new and gleaming—and top quality, of course. On the other hand, in luxury apartments there were always an awful lot of bathrooms—one per bedroom plus a guest WC like this one, tucked discreetly off the huge entrance hall.

  For a moment she wondered what it must be like to live in an apartment like this. To be so rich you could have a two-storied flat as big as a house, overlooking the River Thames, with a terrace as big as a garden. The rich, Magda thought wryly, really were different.

  Not that she ever saw the inhabitants. Cleaners were only allowed into the apartments when the owners were absent.

  She flicked open the cap of the toilet freshener bottle and upended it, ready to squirt the contents generously into the bowl.

  'What are you doing here?'

  The deep, displeased voice behind her came out of the blue, and made her jump out of her skin. The reflex action made her squeeze the bottle prematurely, and turquoise fluid spurted out of the bottle onto the marble floor.

  With a cry of dismay Magda fell on the blue puddle and mopped it furiously with her cleaning sponge.

  'I spoke to you—answer me!'

  The voice behind her sounded even more displeased. Hurriedly Magda swivelled round, and stared up.

  A man stood in the doorway of the bathroom, looking down at her. Magda stared back, blinking blindly. Her dismay deepened into horror. The apartment was supposed to be empty. The caretaker had told her so. Yet here, obviously, was someone who definitely did not use service lifts.

  And he was quite plainly furious. With dismay etched on every feature, she just went on kneeling beside the toilet pedestal, cleaning sponge in her hand.

  I'm very sorry, sir.' she managed to croak, knowing she had to sound servile for someone like this, even though it was not her fault that she was where she apparently should not have been. 'I was told it was all right to clean in here this morning.'

  The man's mouth tightened.

  'There is a baby in the hall,' he informed her.

  With one part of her brain Magda registered that the man could not be English. Not only was his skin tone too olive-hued. but his voice was definitely accented. Spanish? Italian? Too pale to be Middle-Eastern, he must definitely be Mediterranean, she decided.

  'Well?' The interrogative demand came again.

  Clumsily Magda scrambled to her feet. She could not go on kneeling on the floor indefinitely.

  'He's mine.' she blurted.

  Something that might have been a flash of irritation showed in the man's dark eyes.

  'So I had assumed. What is it doing there? This is no place for a baby!'

  A child that age should be at home, not being dragged around at this hour of the day? What kind of mother was this girl? Irresponsible, obviously!

  'I'm very sorry.' she said again, swallowing, hoping some more abject servility would soften his annoyance at finding her cleaning when he was in residence. Clearly he was furious his pristine apartment was being cluttered up by something as messy as a baby. She bent to pick up her cleaning box, cast a swift glance around the bathroom to make sure it was decent, and said, as meekly as she could manage, 'I'll go now, sir. I'm very sorry for having disturbed you.'

  She made for the door and he stood aside to let her pass. It was uncomfortable passing him so close. He was so immaculately attired, obviously freshly washed and showered, and she had just spent several hours cleaning. She was dirty and sweaty, and she had a horrible feeling she smelt as bad as she felt. She hurried out to Benji, who. blessedly, was still asleep, and made to scoop up his chair.

  'Wait!'

  The order was imperative, and Magda halted instinctively, Benji a heavy weight on her arm. Hesitantly she turned round.

  The man was looking at her. Staring at her.

  Magda froze, as if she were a rabbit caught in headlights. Or rather an antelope realising a leopard had just come out of the undergrowth.

  Oh. help, she thought silently. Now what?

  Rafaello let his gaze rest on the girl. She was slightly built drab in the extreme, with hair the colour of mud and un-memorable features. She also—his nose wrinkled in disdain—smelt of sweat and cleaning fluids. There was a smut of dirt on her cheek. She looked about twenty or so.

  He found himself glancing at her hands. They were covered by yellow rubber gloves. He frowned. His gaze went back to her face. She was looking at him with a look of deepest apprehension.

  'You don't have to bolt like a frightened rabbit,' he said. Deliberately he made his voice less brusque, though it didn't seem to alter her expression a jot. She still stood there, poised for flight, baby in one hand, cleaning materials in the other.

  Rafaello took a couple of steps towards her.

  Tell me—are you married?'

  The brusqueness was back in his voice. He didn't mean it to be, but it was. It was because part of his mind was telling him that he was completely mad, thinking what he was thinking. But he was thinking it all the same...

  A blank look came into the girl's eyes, as if he had asked her an unintelligible question.

  'Well?' demanded Rafaello. The woman seemed beyond answering him.

  Jerkily, the woman shook her head, her eyes still with that fixed, blank look to them. Rafaello's gaze focused on her more intently. So, she wasn't married—he hadn't thought so, even without being able to see if she wore a wedding ring. And despite the baby.

  His eyes glanced across to the sleeping infant. He wasn't any good at telling the ages of babies, but this one looked
quite big. Too big for that chair, in fact. It was dark-haired, head lolling forward, totally out for the count.

  But a baby was good—however irresponsible the mother! A baby was very good, he mused consideringly. So was the rest of her. Once again his eyes flickered over her. taking in the full drabness of her appearance, and he thought he could see her wince.

  'Boyfriend?"

  Her eyes widened and then went even blanker. With the same jerky movement she shook her head. She also, Rafaello spotted, edged very slightly closer to the front door. He frowned. Why was she being so jumpy?

  'I have a business proposition to put to you.' His voice was clipped as he banked down the anger at his predicament that still roiled within him like an injured tiger.

  A noise came from her that might have been a whimper, but that seemed unlikely since there was no reason for such a sound. Rafaello walked to the door leading into the kitchen and held it open with the Hat of his hand.

  In here.' He gestured.

  The strangled croaking noise came again, and this time the woman definitely shrank back towards the door.

  'I have to go!" Her voice came out high and squawky. Tm very sorry!'

  Rafaello frowned again. Just then a door slammed on the upper floor. The next moment Amanda was descending as fast as her four-inch heels and very tight short skirt would permit. As she saw the tableau below her face lit up with a vicious smile.

  'Why, Raf, darling.' she purred venomously, 'how galling for you. "The first woman I see".' She gave a bad imitation of his Italian accent. 'And that's what you get. Bad luck.'

  The man's accented voice answered the woman. He was purring, too. but it was the purr of a big cat, and it made the hairs stand up on the nape of Magda's neck.

  'Yes, indeed, Amanda, cara, and she is just perfect for me.'

  The look that crossed the other woman's face was a picture. Fury mingled with disbelief.

  'You're joking. You have to be.'

  For his answer, Rafaello simply lifted one darkly arched eyebrow and gave the woman a mocking look.

  'Your taxi will be waiting downstairs, cara. Time to go."