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The flirtatious sparkle that had been in his eyes had vanished. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why—Valente had just remembered Beth was a mother...
Either that or she’d imagined the interest she’d seen in his eyes. The latter was most likely. Beth was seriously out of practice with the big, wide world and the flirtatious practices that went on in it. She’d never been party to the flirtatious practices when she’d been a full-time part of it.
‘This is Dom,’ she confirmed. Telling Valente she was Dom’s legal guardian and not his biological mother would only lead to the inevitability of further questions. Caroline’s death was still too raw for her to talk about it without turning into an emotional mess. The next twenty-four hours were going to be manically busy. She needed to focus on the job she was being paid to do. ‘I would introduce you but he’s only just gone off to sleep.’
He cast one more look at the sleeping baby. ‘Let’s get you to the palace and introduce you to the nanny who will look after him while you work.’
So saying, he picked up her suitcase as easily as if it were filled with nothing but air and carried it to the exit.
Keeping step with him, Beth found herself wondering, not for the first time, how a man who exuded such raw power as Valente could be comfortable working for anyone but himself. Even the way he composed his emails suggested a man who should be ordering minions around, not a man earning a living doing another’s bidding.
When Alessio stepped out of the airport, he found the sun had risen in the Viennese morning sky. Its hazy beauty passed him by.
That was his orphaned nephew sleeping in the pram.
‘Have you been to Vienna before?’ he asked Beth. He needed to keep conversation flowing.
Until a few minutes ago, the closest he’d come to Domenico, the child Beth called Dom, was through photographs.
His plan had worked seamlessly. Beth was here and she’d brought his nephew with her.
And she still had no idea who he really was.
There had been only a small chance Beth would recognise him. Alessio, like the rest of the Palvettis, guarded his privacy zealously and the few pictures of him in the public domain were obscured. There was nothing in the way of similarity between him and his deceased brother either, in personality or looks.
It had been tough, learning his brother had died in a drunken accident without a family reconciliation, tough to learn he’d secretly married and tough to learn how long he’d been dead. His brother’s remains had been interred in a small cemetery in London rather than in his rightful place in the family plot in Milan. But to learn Domenico and his wife had given guardianship of their son to a stranger, a woman who was not even a blood relative on his mother’s side...?
That had been the hardest blow.
Domenico’s estrangement from and loathing of his family had gone beyond the grave. It had been the ultimate act of defiance against a family who had pandered to all his selfish needs and fanciful dreams.
Alessio had pushed his grief and fury towards his dead brother aside and set about bringing his nephew home. He would not allow the son to suffer for his father’s petulance. Domenico’s son was a Palvetti and deserved to be raised as such, not be left in the care of a stranger who didn’t even share his blood.
Employing a private investigative team to dig into the guardian’s life, he’d discovered she was a single twenty-four-year-old woman. Doubtless, she would be pleased to be rid of the burden of an orphaned child. Or so he’d thought.
He’d sent her a polite email requesting that they meet. She had replied with a curt ‘No.’ He’d got his lawyers involved but she’d remained unmoved. Assuming she was holding out for a financial offer from him—he’d learned the unpaid leave she’d taken from her workplace, presumably to care for his nephew, had left her dirt-poor—he’d offered her a million pounds for custody of his nephew.
Her instant dismissal of this offer and her threats to take legal action if he continued his ‘harassment’ had intrigued rather than angered him. By this point his investigators had compiled their final reports on her and what he’d learned had made interesting reading. Before going on leave, Beth had been a successful events manager.
A career-minded woman with a clear affection for his nephew...? A plan had germinated in his mind.
Alessio had wanted to spend a couple more years at the helm of Palvetti, the exclusive jewellery and perfumery business founded by his great-grandparents, before taking the ultimate step of selecting a wife and continuing the family dynasty. But if he was to take custody of his nephew that meant bringing his life plan forward. He would employ wraparound childcare, but his nephew would need a mother. Alessio’s own mother had never been maternal but her feminine influence had been strong in his life and he wanted his nephew to have that same influence.
But marriage was not an institution to go into on a whim and investigative reports on a person only revealed so much. He needed to learn for himself if Beth was as ideal a candidate in real life as she was on paper.
That was when Alessio had contacted his old friend and called in the favour owed from their English school days. In return for Alessio providing an alibi that had saved Giannis Basinas from expulsion twenty years ago, Giannis would host a ball in the heart of Vienna, in the sumptuous palace he’d bought a few years ago and spent millions renovating. And he would employ White’s Events to run it for him with the specific request that Beth Hardingstone be the manager for it.
Alessio’s name would not be mentioned in the same breath as the masquerade ball. This was not only to keep Beth Hardingstone oblivious to his plans. Alessio lived his life quietly and discreetly, far from the media spotlight, keeping the Palvetti mystique that his great-grandparents had first cultivated and which enhanced the allure of their brand.
With no idea of the real reason for her being there, Beth answered his question with a cheery, ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Vienna but this is the first job to bring me here.’
They’d reached his car, a gleaming black four-wheel drive. He clicked the fob to unlock it.
‘Is this yours?’ she asked with obvious surprise.
‘It’s for work.’ Another evasion of the truth, he acknowledged ruefully as he opened the back door. Intrinsically honest, he found the deception about his identity increasingly hard to maintain.
Beth opened the back door then fixed large brown eyes as velvety as chocolate on him with a smile. ‘You remembered a baby seat.’
He nodded. Damn, but she was beautiful when she smiled.
He’d been struck by that smile at their first meeting then in all their subsequent video calls. Her wide, generous mouth naturally turned upwards, as if smiling were her default position.
Today she’d dressed in a pair of slim-fitting cream trousers that rested above her ankles and a striped grey and white shirt. On her feet were flat ballerina-slipper-style shoes which, remembering the heels she’d worn to their first meeting, he guessed were for the practical reason of having a child in tow. Her long, dark hair had been left loose, the slight breeze lifting random silky strands, some falling across her pretty heart-shaped face. She wore no make-up that he could see but, with her lightly golden, clear complexion and those large, chocolaty eyes, she didn’t need it.
She reached into the pram and unstrapped Dom.
Alessio held his breath as she carefully lifted the sleeping infant out.
The bundle in her arms was the reason he was doing all this. This bundle was a Palvetti, flesh of his flesh.
He cleared his throat. ‘Do you need help?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she replied with a cheerful smile, oblivious to the rush of blood pounding through him at this first clear sighting of his nephew.
With obvious practice, she placed the baby into the car seat then leaned over to fiddle with the straps to secure him.
Suddenly Alessio found his attention transfixed on her pert bottom.
His mouth dried and the blood rushing through him rapidly heated and diverted to concentrate in his loins.
It was a primitive reaction, the like of which he hadn’t experienced since his teenage years.
‘Aha!’
He blew out a puff of air and willed the burgeoning ache to subside. ‘Sorry?’
She turned her head and wrinkled her nose. ‘This was a bit more complicated than I thought it would be but I got there in the end.’ Then she grinned again and turned back to Domenico to place a kiss on his cheek.
Pulling himself together, Alessio put her luggage in the boot of the car while Beth climbed into the front passenger seat. When he was done, and feeling more in control of his functions, he jumped into the driver’s seat.
The moment he closed the door he found his senses springing back to life as a heady fragrance dived into him. Beth’s perfume.
Dio, it was the most mouth-watering of scents.
‘Ready?’ He put the car into gear.
‘Absolutely.’ She laughed, an infectious, melodic tinkle. ‘Take me to the palace!’
He grinned back.
Inappropriate though his responses were at this moment, he welcomed them.
Having worked with her these past six weeks, albeit remotely, he’d come to the conclusion that his initial thoughts had been correct. Beth would be an asset for any business.
Factor in her natural beauty, and his visceral response to her, and she had the exact traits he required in a wife.
CHAPTER TWO (#ueec57014-f4bc-52f6-a7c3-733e81012efa)
BETH’S TIREDNESS HAD GONE. Now she buzzed with the adrenaline that always came when an event was within touching distance. She had never worked so hard in her life as she had these past six weeks. Lucinda, her boss, had diverted staff and resources to her, allowing Beth to co-ordinate everything with a military precision she hadn’t known she was capable of.
She’d never got by on so little sleep, either. The hours during which Dom slept or napped had been spent ensuring everything Giannis Basinas required for his masquerade ball was exactly as it should be.
In only nine hours the guests would arrive. She had arranged events with impressive guest lists before but this one had made her gasp. Paying the extortionate sum to dance and be entertained were the world’s most famous faces: European royalty, Hollywood royalty, billionaires, heirs and heiresses, artists... This was a ball guaranteed to make news.
She thought of the plans that must have been changed so high society could attend the masquerade ball at such short notice—the cancelled holidays, the rearranged schedules...
If it all went wrong it would be her neck on the chopping block.
But if it all went right then a healthy bonus would be hitting Beth’s depleted bank account.
The salary she’d been paid for the ball up to this point had enabled her to pay her rent and buy Dom some new clothes. If she received the bonus she would have enough money to keep them going until her year’s leave was up with enough spare for any future legal battle with Alessio Palvetti.
She would then have the difficult decision of whether or not to return to work.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ Valente said, cutting through her thoughts. ‘Is something on your mind?’
She cast him a quick glance. His attention was fixed on the clean, wide road before them. There was something incredibly reassuring about his command behind the wheel. Not once in their thirty-minute journey from the airport had she pressed an imaginary brake. ‘I’m just thinking.’
‘About what?’
She laughed. ‘What do you think? The guests are due in nine hours. There’s a lot that can go wrong in those nine hours.’
‘Nothing is going to go wrong.’
‘Speaks the voice of experience?’
‘No, speaks the voice of someone who has found much to be impressed with your organisational talents.’
Embarrassed at how ridiculously flattered she felt at the compliment, she turned her face to look back out of the window. The view outside was almost as good as the view beside her. Little wonder this was a city famed for its romanticism. The architecture alone, grandeur and beauty at every turn of the head, was enough to make her catch her breath.
Sitting beside Valente kept making her catch her breath too. The longer she sat beside him, the more aware she became of his scent, the capable fingers controlling the steering wheel and the tensing of the strong thighs whenever he changed gear.
The longer she sat beside him, the more she became aware of him.
She cleared her throat and answered, ‘The proof of the pudding’s in the eating.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That we won’t know how good my organisational skills really are until the ball’s over.’
‘Why are you so nervous?’
‘I’ve never undertaken an event of this magnitude before... Is that the palace?’
They’d turned into an enormous courtyard with a water fountain right in the centre of it. Surrounding the courtyard like a titanic curved horseshoe rose the most beautiful building she had ever seen.
Gleaming white under the rising sun, it was impossible to count the number of windows, all aligned with perfect symmetry over three high storeys, or count the ornate white pillars. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
No wonder it had quickly become famed as the most expensive hotel in Europe.
The same sense of awe enveloped her when, Dom in her arms, she climbed the wide, curved steps and stepped through the main doors.
She thought she knew every inch of the palace’s ground floor from the photos, videos and scale drawings she’d been provided with but nothing could have prepared her for the reality.
If she closed her eyes, she could believe she was an eighteenth-century princess.
If she closed her eyes she could pretend not to be intensely aware of Valente watching her so closely.
‘Let’s get you to your suite,’ he murmured. ‘Dom’s nanny is waiting for you.’
Pulling herself out of her stupor, she followed him through the richly decorated corridors and up a flight of stairs, as wide as her flat, covered in thick royal blue carpet. They took a left at the top and walked to the far end of the mezzanine to her designated room.
She gasped.
‘This can’t be for me.’
Valente had not been kidding when he’d called it a suite.
Dazzling green eyes fixed on her. ‘You have a child. We weren’t going to put you in the servants’ quarters. Your outfit for the ball is hanging on your wardrobe.’
But she could see more than amusement in his gaze and that warm feeling trickled through her again, delving deep through her veins to coil into her bones and right into her core.
The glint in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils...
One of the many doors of the suite opened and a middle-aged woman appeared wearing a navy dress with a white sash tied around the waist.
Beth blinked and breathed a sigh of relief as she hurried over to introduce herself.
There was kindness in the nanny’s eyes and Beth’s nerves over handing Dom into the care of a stranger, however highly qualified and impeccable the references, evaporated.
‘I need to check in with Giselle before we do anything else,’ she told Valente when everything that could be discussed about Dom’s care had been discussed and they were heading back to the ground floor.
Dom was going to be fine. The nanny would take good care of him.
Beth had a job to do and it was time to get going on it.
Giselle was the manager of the palace’s hotel. While she had no involvement with the ball itself, many of the guests were staying there.
