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The Sicilian's Ruthless Marriage Revenge
Carole Mortimer
For Sicilian billionaire Cesare Gambrelli, the death of his sister was the fault of reckless Simon Ingram.The feud between the two families could only be settled by vengeance! It was Ingram's sister Robin who would pay the price. Cesare's plan of revenge demanded marriage and motherhood. It was the last part Cesare savored–with passionate pleasure. . . .
In July, escape to a world of beautiful locations, glamorous parties and irresistible men—only with Harlequin Presents!
Lucy Monroe brings you a brilliant new story in her ROYAL BRIDES series, Forbidden: The Billionaire’s Virgin Princess, where Sebastian can’t ignore Lina’s provocative innocence! Be sure to look out next month for another royal bride! The Sicilian’s Ruthless Marriage Revenge is the start of Carole Mortimer’s sexy new trilogy, THE SICILIANS. Three Sicilians of aristocratic birth seek passion—at any price! And don’t miss The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Wife by Sharon Kendrick—the fabulous conclusion to her GREEK BILLIONAIRES’ BRIDES duet.
Also this month, there are hot desert nights in Penny Jordan’s The Sheikh’s Blackmailed Mistress, a surprise pregnancy in The Italian’s Secret Baby by Kim Lawrence, a sexy boss in Helen Brooks’s The Billionaire Boss’s Secretary Bride and an incredible Italian in Under the Italian’s Command by Susan Stephens. Also be sure to read Robyn Grady’s fantastic new novel, The Australian Millionaire’s Love-Child!
We’d love to hear what you think about Presents. E-mail us at Presents@hmb.co.uk or join in the discussions at www.iheartpresents.com and www.sensationalromance.blogspot.com, where you’ll also find more information about books and authors!
They seek passion—at any price!
A new series by Carole Mortimer
Sicilian heroes—with revenge in mind and romance in their destinies!
The Sicilian’s Ruthless Marriage Revenge
July 2008
At the Sicilian Count’s Command
August 2008
The Sicilian’s Innocent Mistress
September 2008
Carole Mortimer
THE SICILIAN’S RUTHLESS MARRIAGE REVENGE
All about the author…
Carole Mortimer
CAROLE MORTIMER is one of Harlequin’s most popular and prolific authors. Since her first novel was published in 1979, this British writer has shown no signs of slowing her pace. In fact, she has published more than 125 books to date!
Carole was born in a village in England that she claims was so small “if you blinked as you drove through it you could miss seeing it completely!” She adds that her parents still live in the house where she was born, and her two brothers live very close by.
Carole’s early ambition to become a nurse came to an abrupt end after only one year of training, due to a weakness in her back suffered after a fall. Instead she went on to work in the computer department of a well-known stationery company.
During her time there, Carole made her first attempt at writing a novel for Harlequin Books. “The manuscript was far too short and the plotline not up to standard, so I naturally received a rejection slip,” she says. “Not taking rejection well, I went off in a sulk for two years before deciding to have another go.” Her second manuscript was accepted, beginning a long and fruitful career. She says she has “enjoyed every moment of it!”
Carole lives “in a most beautiful part of Britain” with her husband and children.
“I really do enjoy my writing, and have every intention of continuing to do so for another twenty years!”
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
GONE.
It was all gone.
The money had been spent long ago. In the last year, his London apartment had gone too, plus the villa in France and his red Ferrari. All of them lost to the turn of a roulette wheel.
It was a sickness; he knew it was. But, hard as he tried, it was a sickness he didn’t seem to be able to find a cure for.
Last night he had lost the one thing that he had always sworn he would never use to finance his gambling, and he had let his family down in the worst way possible.
Oh, God…!
His hands tightened on the steering wheel of the car he drove—a hire-car; he had no money left to buy one of his own. His steering was instinctive as he negotiated the hairpin bends of the mountain road that took him away from Monte Carlo, the azure blue of the Mediterranean Sea sparkling invitingly far below. It was a journey which he knew, despite his efforts to fight the urge, he would make back again this evening, when the fever became too much for him and he once again returned to the fascination of the gaming tables.
How would he ever be able to face his father and Robin, and tell them what he had done? How could he ever explain his betrayal?
He couldn’t.
After all the heartache he had already caused them, he really couldn’t!
And that blue sea below did look so very inviting…
Maybe he wouldn’t bother to turn the wheel at the next sharp bend. Maybe that was the answer to the sickness that possessed him, like a fever in his blood, drawing him back time and time again to Lady Luck.
A lady that had completely abandoned him….
Over.
It was all over.
All her hopes and dreams meant nothing now that she knew Pierre had never loved her at all. Certainly he’d never had any intention of leaving his wife for her.
She had believed him a year ago when he’d told her he loved her, hadn’t cared that he was a married man, only wanted to be with him, to be loved by him, to love him in return.
She had been so sure that the son she had borne him three months ago would be the spur he needed to leave his wife. Instead, the coward had chosen to confess all to his wife, to beg her forgiveness in order to stay at her side!
Her poor little son.
Her Marco.
She had brought shame and disgrace upon her family to bring him into the world. And it had all been for nothing. Pierre didn’t love her. Last night, as she’d lain replete in his arms after their lovemaking, and had begged him to come to her and their small son, he had told her the truth—that he had never loved her, that she had merely been a diversion, another conquest in a long list of such affairs.
Tears streaked her face as she drove along the mountain road back to Monte Carlo and the family-owned hotel there. To her child. Her small, beautiful, fatherless child.
He would be better off without her!
She had no heart left now—knew that it was broken in two, that it would never mend.
If she were no longer here, then her brother Cesare would care for Marco, would protect him from the stigma attached to his birth, would care for him as his own, safeguarding him, so that nothing and no one could ever hurt him.
Could she do this? Could she end this now?
End the pain of Pierre’s rejection?
His lies had brought her to this desperation.
His utter betrayal of a love she had thought so beautiful and perfect…!
Yes, she accepted, as she looked at the Mediterranean glittering and beckoning so temptingly far beneath her, like a diamond. Yes, she could do this. She could drive off the edge of this cliff and end the pain once and for all…
He had no idea there was a car approaching from the other direction. He only had time to register that neither of them had attempted to turn the bend in the road. The two vehicles met, joining with a crunch of screeching metal, then hurtled off into nothingness.
He turned to look at the driver of the other car, to register the beauty of the young woman’s face, and she looked back at him with haunted dark eyes.
And then the two vehicles began to fall, plunging down towards the deep, mesmerising depths of the Mediterranean….
CHAPTER ONE
‘THE WOMAN WITH Charles Ingram—do you know who she is?’ Cesare demanded harshly.
‘Sorry?’ Peter Sheldon, his male acquaintance, frowned his confusion.
Cesare’s mouth tightened as he bit back his impatient reply. After all, despite being at a charity dinner, the two men had been in the middle of a business conversation when Cesare’s attention had wandered. He’d been captivated by the woman who stood across the room at Charles Ingram’s side, looking so glitteringly gorgeous.
Next to Cesare’s bitterest enemy!
Cesare gave a smile, which showed the even whiteness of his teeth against his olive skin, but which did not reach the darkness of his eyes. ‘I was merely wondering who the beautiful woman is accompanying Charles Ingram…’ he voiced more calmly, his tone deliberately neutral even as his narrow-eyed stare remained on the ill-matched pair.
Charles Ingram was aged in his late fifties, silver-haired, and still a handsome man. In a room full of beautiful women wearing glittering jewellery and designer gowns, and elegantly suave men in tailored dinner suits, the tall, graceful woman who stood at Charles Ingram’s side still managed to stand out as extraordinary.
Her hair was the colour of honey, falling in lustrous waves halfway down her spine, and her eyes, even from this distance, were, Cesare could see, a deep, deep violet. She was laughing at something Charles Ingram said to her now, those eyes glowing. Her skin was a creamy magnolia, her mouth a full, tempting pout, her neck long and smooth, and the deep swell of her breasts was visible above the simple white gown she wore that nevertheless hugged the perfection of her alluring curves.
One of her hands—slender hands that could and no doubt did caress a man to the edge of madness—rested slightly possessively on the arm of her escort, and Cesare found himself gritting his teeth at the air of intimacy, of exclusivity, that surrounded the couple, despite the vast difference in their ages.
‘A beauty, isn’t she?’ Peter Sheldon murmured appreciatively. ‘Beautiful, but unattainable,’ he added regretfully.
‘Ingram has exclusive rights, you mean?’ Cesare questioned hardly, his jaw clenching just at the thought of all that sensual beauty being wasted on Charles Ingram.
‘Not at all,’ his business acquaintance dismissed humorously. ‘The lady in question is Robin Ingram—Charles’s daughter,’ he explained dismissively, when Cesare looked at him blankly for several seconds.
Robin Ingram.
Charles Ingram’s daughter?
Not the mistress Cesare had imagined at all. She wasn’t a mistress whom, just as an amusement to himself, after noting her own interested gaze fixed upon him, Cesare had been happily contemplating seducing away from her aging lover.
In the last three months Cesare had gathered all the information that he could on Charles Ingram—wanted to learn everything that he could about his sworn enemy, up to and including his shirt size.
Ingram’s second child had been included in that information, of course. But Cesare had assumed—erroneously, it now seemed!—that Robin was Charles Ingram’s younger son, and as such of little real interest.
‘I had thought that Robin was a man’s name?’ Cesare enquired. His English was faultless. As was his native Italian, and his French, German and Spanish.
‘It can be,’ his companion acknowledged lightly. ‘But it’s also one of those names that can be used by either sex.’
So Charles Ingram’s second child—Robin—was a woman…A beautiful, sexually alluring woman.
Which perhaps changed the direction of Cesare’s plans for his revenge on the Ingram family….
‘Daddy, do you know that man? No, don’t look over yet,’ Robin pleaded huskily, as her father would have turned to look in the direction of her own fascinated gaze. ‘There’s a man across the room—a dark-eyed, foreign-looking man—’
‘A handsome, dark-eyed, swarthy-looking man?’ her father teased lightly.
‘Well…yes,’ she conceded with a slight grimace. ‘But that isn’t the reason I noticed him.’
‘No?’ Her father smiled indulgently.
‘No,’ she insisted. ‘He’s been staring at me for the last ten minutes or so—’
