Nicole’s eyes widened. ‘How utterly romantic.’
‘If you imagined flowers and love letters, I’m afraid I won’t be that kind of husband.’
‘This is all very overwhelming, Rigo. Three days ago I was living a quiet, normal life. Now you are asking me to voluntarily put myself back into the media circus...’
‘You would have to deal with their judgement either way. Why not do it on your own terms for once? In this world our lives are just one big game to the public. Sometimes we are forced to choose whether to play or be played.’
NICOLE LOOKED UP at the man who was offering both to save her and ruin her all at the same time. What kind of woman would she be if she agreed to such a marriage? She knew exactly what kind she would be. One just like her mother.
Except her mother had never chosen her husbands based on the interests of her daughter. It had only ever been about money and magazine spreads. Nicole had simply been another instrument to use in her love affair with the media.
‘If I were to agree to this, I would want your word that Anna will never be a part of your public image. She will never be used for photo ops or anything of the sort.’
‘She will be protected. You have my word on that.’
Nicole nodded, swallowing the ever-growing lump forming in her throat. Her hands were trembling. The enormity of what she was agreeing to threatened to unravel what was left of her composure completely.
‘We can agree on the finer details in good time. For now, am I correct in assuming that you are accepting my proposal?’
Nicole took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I will marry you.’
Triumph gleamed in his eyes and he nodded his head once in approval. ‘Bene. I will call a meeting with my PR team and get the ball rolling.’
He held the door open for her before striding ahead out into the large bustling atrium of the top floor.
Nicole frowned. That was it? She had just agreed to marry him—surely they had more to discuss? Their living arrangements...the backstory for this ridiculous charade.
She followed quickly behind him, all the while feeling as though her head was no longer attached to her neck. She was doing the right thing, surely? This was the best course of action for her daughter. It didn’t matter that she was essentially selling her life to this man in return. It was a business arrangement. He would likely be gone most of the time and she would be free to carry on raising her daughter in peace.
‘Rigo—wait.’ She reached out, bringing them both to a stop. ‘I need to know what happens next. This is all very fast.’
‘I will take care of it. You just need to worry about playing your part.’
Nicole felt the coldness of his words right down to her toes. Unable to speak, she nodded her head, avoiding his eyes.
Rigo began tapping his phone. ‘I’ll have you both moved into my apartment immediately. You can give a list of the items you need from your old home to Alberto.’
‘We will be living together so soon?’ Nicole asked, dipping down to look in at Anna, where she still slept peacefully in her stroller.
‘We will need to get started on our united front right away. We will let the press know that we have nothing to hide.’ Rigo turned around, entering into a hushed conversation with his right-hand man and effectively cutting her off.
Nicole tried not to balk at his complete lack of interest in interacting with his daughter. She needed to curb her expectations here. There was no point in expecting anything close to normal from this arrangement. It was enough that Rigo had proposed marriage to protect their child. She wouldn’t dare to hope for anything more from him.
* * *
Rigo stayed as long as possible at the office before returning to his apartment. The ninth-floor penthouse in the sixteenth arrondissement had been his first purchase as CEO five years ago. It boasted a wide-open rooftop terrace and a sweeping view of the Bois du Boulogne. An ideal space for the little leisure time he took—the perfect blend of modern decor and 1930s vintage features to suit his taste. Although almost everything was made of hard edges and high gloss—not exactly the ideal place for a small child to roam about.
Listening for a moment, he was relieved to hear no noise coming from the bedrooms. Nicole and the child had been moved in early in the afternoon and he had purposely waited until well after dinner to return. He’d needed time to think, to process this monumental shift.
The living room held no signs of change at all. Everything lay just as he had left it that morning. It was a bachelor pad of the highest order, with a large black marble bar dominating one side of the dining area and a flat-screen television mounted in pride of place above the fireplace. Had it really only been fourteen hours since he had downed his coffee while watching the morning news? He had walked out through the door just as he had every other day, sure that he had everything in his life under control.
Nothing could have prepared him for those test results.
There had never been a single doubt in his mind that Nicole was chancing her arm at palming her pregnancy off on her richest conquest. Money-hungry admirers came with the territory when you were a Marchesi. He’d had enough experience of gold-diggers to last him a lifetime.
And now he was a father.
The thought hit him on the chest with heavy finality. He could sit there all night and brood, while getting painfully intoxicated, but that wouldn’t solve anything. It would only serve to leave him with a raging headache, and the issue of fatherhood would still be there in the morning.
He had long ago made a difficult choice, knowing that one day he would be able to reverse it if he so wished. But he had never once expected it to reverse itself. His doctor had assured him this afternoon that it was extremely rare. ‘Natural reversal’—that was what he’d called it. Rigo called it mutiny. He had become quietly accustomed to the idea of never having a child of his own. The decision to have a vasectomy had been both necessary and final.
What were the chances? The one night he had forgotten to use a condom... A night that he had never been able to forget...
Nicole Duvalle was the exact kind of woman he had spent the past ten years avoiding like the plague, and yet he had taken her to his bed without a second thought. That night he had thrown caution to the wind and taken what he wanted for once. For a brief moment in time he had believed that maybe he could be someone other than who he was. Being with her had unleashed a thirst inside him for something more than the rigid confines of his world. And then he had found out who she was and that thirst had disappeared with crushing finality.
She had been like a drug to his numbed senses. In a world of falseness she had seemed so real and pure. He had drowned in the intoxicating attraction that had burned between them, losing track of time. If his right-hand man hadn’t intervened and told him who she was...
He walked to the window, looking down at the inky darkness of the Bois du Boulogne. It didn’t matter what might have happened. It didn’t get much more complicated than this. He was engaged to marry a woman with a reputation murkier than most politicians. She had raised hell through the tabloids for most of her adult life and she was only twenty-five. Nicole swore that she was a changed woman and that she wanted nothing from him or the media. But he knew all too well how a woman could lie.
Feeling tiredness seep into his bones, he made the decision to choose his usual eight hours’ sleep over a night of wallowing in the past. He walked down the hall to his bedroom, pausing when he noticed the decidedly feminine articles of clothing draped across his bed sheets. The bathroom door opened and Nicole emerged, her hair wet from showering, covered by only a short bathrobe.
She