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Ruthlessly Bedded by the Italian Billionaire
Emma Darcy
Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.Billionaire Dante Rossini brings the secret Rossini heiress back to the family home to face her destiny… Hiding from her own past, Jenny Kent has been living her life as Bella Rossini. And this is the chance ruthless tycoon Dante Rossini has been waiting for…Holding her innocent deception against her, he forces Jenny to return to Capri, where only designer dresses and diamonds will do – after all, if she’s pretending to be a Rossini she’ll have a public role to play… As well as the private arrangement that Dante is ruthlessly demanding…
‘Maybe the best way to quell yourrebellion is to storm your defencesand seduce you,’ Dante said witharrogant certainty.
His mouth covered hers, and the shock of his kiss and the strength of his powerful body completely robbed Jenny of any resistance. His mouth ravished hers, his tongue sweeping over her palate, making it tingle with intense pleasure. He had read her character rightly. Submission was not in her nature. Every primitive instinct she had was suddenly triggered, dictating a need to do to him what he was doing to her.
The self-discipline that had ruled her life for so long broke into an angry passion. He held her body by force. She flung her arms around his head, hands burrowing fiercely into his thick hair.
His mouth was locked on hers, kissing with ravaging intensity. Only when he’d tumbled her backwards onto the bed did he break away, his eyes blazing with the desire to enslave her to his will.
Never, she silently shot at him.
Initially a French/English teacher, Emma Darcy changed careers to computer programming before the happy demands of marriage and motherhood. Very much a people person, and always interested in relationships, she finds the world of romance fiction a thrilling one and the challenge of creating her own cast of characters very addictive.
Recent titles by the same author:
BOUGHT FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE
THE BILLIONAIRE’S CAPTIVE BRIDE
THE BILLIONAIRE’S SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE
RUTHLESSLY
BEDDED BY
THE ITALIAN
BILLIONAIRE
BY
EMMA DARCY
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
Sydney, Australia
‘MISS Rossini…’
Another voice calling to her, using Bella’s name.
Jenny struggled to understand. Her mind felt weirdly disconnected, taking in only snatches of what was said. She couldn’t make sense of what she heard. It was as if she was locked inside a fog that almost cleared sometimes but then swallowed her up into a blank nothingness. Was this a nightmare that kept coming and receding? She needed to wake up, get a grip on what was real, but her eyelids were so heavy.
‘Miss Rossini…’
There it was again. Where was Bella? Why did the voices use her friend’s name as though it belonged to her? It was wrong. Her head ached with trying to figure it out. The fog swirled. So much easier to slide back into oblivion where there was no painful confusion. Yet she wanted answers, wanted the torment of this nightmare to end. Which meant focusing all the energy she could summon on opening her eyes.
‘Oh, dear God! She woke up! She’s awake!’
The screech hurt her ears. The sudden glare of light made her want to close her eyes, but she fought the impulse, frightened of losing the strength to open them again. Her blurred vision picked up a flurry of movement.
‘I’ll get the doctor!’
Doctor…white bed…white screens…tubes stuck in her arm. This had to be a hospital. Some kind of sling was on her other arm. She couldn’t see her legs. The blanket on the bed was covering them. She tried to move them but couldn’t manage it. Dead weight. Her mind filled with a galloping fear. Was she paralysed?
A nurse appeared at the foot of her bed, a pretty blond woman with anxious blue eyes. ‘Hi! My name is Alison. I’ve paged Dr Farrell. He’ll be here in a minute, Miss Rossini.’
Jenny tried to say that wasn’t her name but her mouth wouldn’t co-operate. Her lips, her throat were so dry they felt cracked.
‘I’ll get you a cup of ice,’ Alison said, darting away.
When she returned she was accompanied by a man who introduced himself as Dr Farrell. Alison fed her a piece of ice which she rolled around her tongue, working moisture from it, grateful for the lubrication trickling down her throat.
‘Glad to have you with us at last, Miss Rossini,’ the doctor was saying, looking cheerful about it. He was a short stocky man, probably mid-thirties, dark hair given a buzz cut that seemed to defy the receding hairline, certainly no vanity about hiding it. His bright brown eyes twinkled approval of her wakeful state. ‘You’ve been in a coma for the past two weeks.’
Why? What’s wrong with me? Panic churned through her as she tried to telegraph the questions with her eyes.
‘You were in a car accident,’ he said, understanding her need to know. ‘For some reason you were not wearing a seat belt and you were thrown clear of the wreck. However, you suffered a severe concussion, and the bruising of the brain undoubtedly contributed to the coma. You also had three broken ribs, a broken arm, deep lacerations on one leg and you have a cast on the other, fixing up a broken ankle. However, you are mending nicely and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be on your feet again.’
Relief whooshed through her. She wasn’t paralysed. However, her bruised brain wasn’t working so well. It couldn’t recollect any memory of a car accident. Besides, it didn’t make sense that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. She always did. It was an automatic action whenever she got into a car.
‘I see you frowning, Miss Rossini. Are you up to speaking yet?’ the doctor asked kindly.
I’m not Bella. Why didn’t they know that?
She licked her lips and managed to croak, ‘My name…’
‘Good! You know your name.’
No!
She tried again. ‘My friend…’
The doctor sighed, grimaced. His eyes softened with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that your friend passed away in the accident. Nothing could be done for her. The car burst into flames before help arrived. If you had not been thrown clear…’
Bella…dead? Burnt? The horror of it brought a gush of tears. The doctor took her hand and patted it, mouthing words of comfort, but Jenny didn’t really hear anything but the tone. All she could think of was that being burned was a terrible way to die and Bella had been so kind to her, taking her in, giving her a place to live, even letting her borrow her name so she could work at the Venetian Forum since everyone employed there had to be Italian. Or of Italian heritage.
Was that how their identities had got mixed up?
The tears kept coming. The doctor left, appointing the nurse to sit at her bedside and talk to her. Jenny couldn’t speak. She was too overwhelmed by the shock of her situation and the dreadful loss of her friend. Her only friend. And Bella had had no one, either. No family. Both of them orphans—a bond that had given them immediate empathy with each other.
Who would bury her? What would happen to her apartment and all her things…the home she’d made, waiting for her to come back…except she never would return to it.
Eventually the exhaustion of grief drew her into sleep.
Another nurse had replaced Alison when she woke up.
‘Hello. My name is Jill,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Can I get you anything, Miss Rossini?’
Not Rossini. Kent. Jenny Kent. But there was no one to care about who or what she was now that Bella was gone.
Fear speared through the dark turmoil in her mind.
Where would she go when they finally released her from this hospital? Social Services would probably find some place for her, as they had throughout her childhood and early teenage years—places she’d hated—and if she was forced back into the welfare system because of her injuries, that sleazy abusive creep might hear of it.
Revulsion cramped her stomach. The officials hadn’t believed her when she had reported their highly experienced social worker for helping down-and-out girls in return for sexual favours. He was too entrenched in the system not to be trusted, and the other girls had been too frightened of his vengeful power to back up her report. She’d been painted as a vindictive liar for not getting what she wanted from him, and no doubt he would revel in victimising her again if he became aware of her present circumstances.
Yet what other choice was viable? Simply to survive she would have to be dependent on welfare until she could stand on her own two feet again and make her way, selling her sketches on the street as she had before meeting Bella. Impossible to stay on at the Venetian Forum without the Rossini name.
The wild thought flashed into her mind—did she have to give it up?
Everyone thought Jenny Kent was dead.
There was no one to care if she was, no one to come forward to claim her. If officialdom believed she was Isabella Rossini…if she found out why they did…would it be too terrible of her to take over her friend’s identity for a while…stay in the apartment…go on working at the Venetian Forum…build up some savings…give herself time to think, to plan out what to do when she felt up to coping on her own?
Wouldn’t her friend have wanted that for her instead of all of it just…ending?
CHAPTER TWO
Rome, ItalySix Months Later
DANTE Rossini unwound himself from Anya’s voluptuous charms and reached for his cell-phone.
‘Don’t!’ she snapped. ‘You can pick up the message later.’
‘It’s my grandfather,’ he said, ignoring the protest.
‘Oh, fine! He calls and you jump!’
Her burst of petulance annoyed him. He sliced her a quelling look as he flipped open the cell-phone, knowing it could only be his grandfather because no one else had been given this private number—an immediate link between them. He’d bought the phone for this specific use when Nonno had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and yes, he was ready to jump whenever it rang. Three months at most, the doctors had forecast, and already a month had gone by. Time was running out for Marco Rossini.
‘Dante here,’ he said quickly, aware of a tight knot of urgency in his chest. ‘What can I do for you, Nonno?’
Frustrated that her jeering words had had no effect on him, Anya flounced off the bed and strutted angrily towards the bathroom. Time was running out on Anya Michaelson, too, he decided. She always expected to be indulged, which he hadn’t minded in the past, given her fantastic body and her talent for erotic games, but her self-centred core was beginning to irritate him.
He heard his grandfather wheezing, gathering breath enough to speak. ‘It’s a family matter, Dante.’
Family? Usually it was a business issue he wanted resolved. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’
‘You want me to come now?’
‘Yes. No time to waste.’
‘I’ll be there before lunch,’ he promised.
‘Good boy!’
Boy… Dante smiled ironically as he flicked the cellphone shut. He was thirty years old, already designated to take over the management of a global business, having met every challenge his grandfather had set for him from his teenage years onward. Only Marco Rossini had the balls to still call him a boy, and Dante excused it as a term of familial affection. He’d just turned six years old when his parents were killed in a speed-boat accident and he’d been his grandfather’s boy ever since.
‘What about me?’ Anya demanded as he rose from the bed.
She’d propped herself provocatively against the bathroom doorjamb, every lush naked curve jutting out at him, her long blond hair arranged in tousled disarray over her shoulders, her full-lipped mouth pouting. The desire she’d stirred earlier was gone. The only feeling she raised now was impatience.
‘I’m sorry. I have to leave.’
‘You promised to take me shopping today.’
‘Shopping is unimportant.’
She was blocking the way into the bathroom. He took hold of her waist to move her aside. She flung her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him, her green eyes sparking anger. ‘It is not unimportant to me, Dante. You promised…’
‘Another time, Anya. I’m needed on Capri. Now, let go.’
His voice was cold. His eyes were cold. She let go, infuriated by his command but obeying it. He stepped past her and walked into the shower stall, not glancing back.
‘I hate the way you switch off!’ she screeched. ‘I hate it!’
‘Then find yourself another man, Anya,’ he said carelessly and turned on the water, drowning out any extraneous noise. The last thing he wanted was to be subjected to a hissy fit, and he didn’t really care if Anya found herself another man. Let someone else buy her clothes and jewellery for the pleasure of her body. There were always other beautiful women, eager to share his bed.
She was gone when he emerged from the bathroom and he didn’t give her another thought. As he plunged into the business of getting ready to leave—calling the helicopter pilot to be on standby for a flight to Capri, dressing, grabbing some breakfast—his mind was sifting through the family positions, trying to work out who was causing his grandfather concern.
Uncle Roberto was currently in London, overseeing the refurbishing of the hotel, happily immersing himself in the kind of creativity he loved. He’d always managed his gay life with discretion and Marco tolerated his son’s homosexuality, with the proviso that it wasn’t paraded under his nose. Had something unacceptable happened?
Aunt Sophia had shed her third money-sucking husband a year ago, at the cost of several million dollars, causing Marco to gnash his teeth over his wayward daughter’s total lack of judgement. She had married in turn an American evangelist, a Parisian playboy and an Argentinian polo player, all of whom apparently exuded enough sexual charisma to woo and win themselves a very wealthy wife. Had she started another unsuitable liaison?
Then there was his cousin, Lucia, Aunt Sophia’s twenty-four-year-old daughter by the Parisian playboy, a sly little minx whom he’d never liked. Even as a child she’d had a habit of spying on people and tattling if she thought it would win her some advantage. But she was always sweetness itself to Marco. Dante couldn’t imagine her giving their grandfather a problem. Lucia would avoid that like the plague, especially when there was a hefty inheritance in sight.
Marco himself had only married once. His wife had died before Dante was born, and Marco had satisfied himself with a string of mistresses over the years. They’d been treated well and paid off handsomely at the end of each ‘arrangement.’ None of them should be causing trouble.
Mulling over the possibilities was probably pointless, though Dante liked to be mentally prepared to carry out any directive his grandfather gave. Marco had drilled into him that knowledge was power. Anyone who was surprised at an important meeting had not done their homework and was instantly at a disadvantage. Dante was rarely surprised these days. Though he had been surprised by his grandfather’s choice to spend his last months at the villa on Capri.
Why not the palazzo in Venice? The worldwide chain of Gondola Hotels, the Venetian Forums built in ‘little Italy’ sections of major cities…all were inspired by the place Marco called home. Of course, the air in Venice was not as sweet as on the island, the view not as clean, the sunshine not so accessible, not for a very sick man. Still, his grandfather had been born in Venice and Dante had expected him to want to die there.
He wondered again about that choice as the helicopter flew him towards Capri. His gaze swept around the high grey cliffs dotted with scrubby trees, the rocky outcrops spearing up from the sea, the predominantly white township sprawling around the top edge of the island, the water below a brilliant turquoise blue. There was nothing even faintly reminiscent of Venice.
The villa had always been a holiday place, mostly used by Aunt Sophia and Uncle Roberto. Dante had spent some of his school vacations there but his grandfather had only ever dropped in on them, not staying for long, certainly not ever demonstrating a fondness for the relaxed lifestyle it offered. He’d always seemed impatient to be gone about his business again.
The helicopter landed on the rear terrace of the villa grounds. It was almost noon and the sun was hot enough for Dante to be glad to reach the flag-stoned walkway, which was well shaded by pine trees and the profusion of bougainvillea spread over the columned pergola. He was not so glad to see Lucia at the other end of it, walking out to meet him.
She favoured her father in looks, more French than Italian, dark-brown hair cut in a very chic bob, her fine-boned face featuring a straight elegant nose, a full-lipped sensual mouth, bright brown eyes that were always keenly observant. She wore a coquettish, little-girl dress that shouted French designer class, geometrically patterned in brown and white and black, the miniskirt showing off her long slim legs.
‘Nonno is in the front courtyard, waiting for you,’ she said, turning to accompany him as he came level with her.
