I beg your pardon.”
Nico set the paper down. His patience was running thin. He had much on his mind lately, not the least of which was dealing with the vast mess his father had bequeathed to him.
“Yes, Andres?”
“The lady says it is most urgent that she speak to you. But she cannot do so in such a public place. She suggests you come to her room.”
Nico resisted rolling his eyes, but only just. Before his father’s death, Nico had been one of the top-ranked Grand Prix motorcycle riders in the world. He’d won the world championship a few months ago. He knew all about the kinds of schemes a woman might employ to catch his interest. He had been the object of many such plots in his life. Sometimes he played along because it amused him to do so.
Today would not be one of those times.
“Please tell her she will be waiting for a very long time,” he said smoothly. And then he glanced at his watch. “I have an appointment elsewhere, I’m afraid.”
The maître d’s face was a study in contrasts. He looked simultaneously uncomfortable and … gleeful was the word Nico wanted … all at once. “She said if you refused to give you this, my lord.”
He held out an envelope on a small tray. Nico hesitated, furious to be playing this game—and intrigued, damn him, as well. He jerked the envelope from the tray and ripped it open. A business card fell out. It was white, plain, with only a stylized D in one corner.
It was the name on the card that pierced him to the bone. He stared at the sweeping font that separated the two words from the paper.
Valentina D’Angeli.
The name sent a slice of old anger ricocheting through him. Not the first name; the last. Valentina’s brother, Renzo D’Angeli, had been his greatest rival on the track. His greatest rival in business, even now.
But once, Renzo had been his best friend. Nico and Renzo had worked together building a motorcycle that would take the racing world by storm—until everything had fallen apart amid accusations of betrayal and deceit.
It was a long time ago, and yet it still had the power to make Nico’s blood hum with dangerous anger. And sadness.
He focused on the name, tried to remember the girl who’d still been a teenager the last time he’d seen her. Valentina D’Angeli. She would be all grown up now. Twenty-four, he calculated. He’d not seen her since the day he’d walked away from the D’Angelis’ house for the last time, knowing he would never be welcomed back again.
Valentina had been a sweet girl, but terribly shy. Her shyness, he remembered, had bothered her brother. So much so that Renzo had planned to send her away to school once he had the money to do so, in the hopes that an exclusive education could fix her.
Nico had tried to convince Renzo to reconsider. He knew what it was like to be sent away to school, and he’d not been shy in the least. He’d felt isolated, no matter how many friends he’d had or how well he’d done in class. And he’d hated the loneliness, the feeling that his parents were happier without him, and that he was in the way when he was at home.
Nico frowned. It hadn’t been far from the truth, but he hadn’t found that out until a few years later.
Still, the exclusive education had certainly done its work on him. He had no doubt that it had done its work on Valentina, as well. The raw stone would now be polished to a high shine.
But what was she doing here?
Nico turned the card over. Room 386 was written on the back. He closed his hand over it. He should walk away. He should get up and walk out the door and forget he’d ever seen this card.
But he wouldn’t. He wanted to know what she wanted from him. Renzo must have sent her, but for what purpose? He’d not seen Renzo since that day on the track in Dubai, the first race of the Grand Prix circuit. Renzo had walked away from racing after it was over. He’d married his secretary and was currently making babies in the country, according to everything Nico had heard.
His blood ran cold. Renzo might be done racing, but he wasn’t done with motorcycles. They were still rivals in business. And Renzo must want something pretty badly to send his sister to get it.
She was nervous. Tina stood by the window and watched the cars moving along the street below. She did not know if he would come. What if he didn’t? Did she dare to go to his offices and demand to be seen? Or should she try and see him at his country estate instead?
Except he had more than one country estate these days, didn’t he? It had been nearly two months since she’d seen him in Venice. In that short time, his father had died and Nico was now the marchese di Casari, a man of far more consequence than he’d been when he used to spend hours working in the garage with Renzo.
Would a man of his stature come to see her? He and Renzo had been enemies for far longer than they’d ever been friends. It was very likely that Nico remembered nothing of her. She’d been a gangly girl, quiet and shy, who had crept into the garage and watched them silently. She hadn’t been at all memorable.
But that was a lifetime ago, and now she stood here pregnant with his child. Tina sucked in a tearful breath. My God. How—how—had this happened? It had been one night, one erotic and beautiful night in which she’d behaved in a way so very unlike her.
She’d hated being so shy growing up, hated even more that no matter how much education she’d had or how hard she worked at being someone bold and sophisticated, she was still the same painfully timid girl inside. The one time she’d determined to push past her comfort zone, to really be bold, the consequences had been staggering.
If she’d known who her mystery man was, she would have fled sooner. Because she wouldn’t have been able to let herself go so thoroughly if she’d known that the man stripping her naked was the same man she’d dreamed about for most of her life.
When she was fourteen, she’d idolized him. He’d been twenty and so achingly handsome that he’d taken her breath away. She’d never learned to relax around him even though he was always nice to her. He’d smiled at her, and she’d turned into a stammering puddle every single time.
And then one day when she’d crept into the garage just to see his handsome face, he hadn’t been there. He’d never been there again, and Renzo had refused to talk about it. She’d lain in her room at night for months and prayed he would come back, but he never did.
There was a knock on the door and Tina jumped at the sound like a startled deer. Doubts assailed her. Should she even be here? Should she tell him her secret?
He would be furious. And quite possibly horrified.
But how could she not? He had a right to know he was going to be a father. A right to know his baby. She’d never known her own father and her mother had refused to tell her who he was, other than to say he’d been English. She would not do that to her own child, no matter how difficult this was.
Swiftly, she strode to the door and yanked it open before she could change her mind. The man on the threshold was tall, dark, gorgeous—a more mature version of the young man she’d fallen for so many years ago. Just seeing him again made sparks zing through her body.
He simmered with tension as his stormy gaze met hers. And then he dropped his eyes down her body, studying her so thoroughly that she blushed.
She’d chosen to wear a skirt with sky-high heels and a silk tank beneath her jacket for this meeting. She knew she looked elegant and competent, as she’d intended, but for a moment the hideously shy teenager was back.
“Valentina?” he said, his voice containing a note of disbelief, and a hint of that sexual magnetism she’d found so irresistible in Venice. How had she forgotten his voice over the years? She could have avoided the situation she was now in if she’d only remembered the silken beauty of his tone, and recognized him sooner.
“Yes. It’s lovely