“It’s too late for that.” Her gaze swung to the window, a frantic, trapped look in her eyes. “The carriage will be here any minute.”
He studied the tension in every muscle of her slim body. The panicked aura that wove itself around her. She was truly terrified. And why not? She was about to marry an abusive man in minutes.
In that moment, he realized he could not leave Mina here to suffer that fate. It was insane, ludicrous. He had certainly never pegged himself as anyone’s Prince Charming, but he was not walking away and abandoning this vulnerable woman to a violent man. It went against every code of honor his mother had drilled into him.
He stood up and joined her at the window. She turned to look at him, a glazed, resigned expression on her face. “What would you do if you had a choice?” he asked. “If you could marry someone other than Silvio and sell the ring?”
“I would pay off our debts,” she said quietly, “walk away and start a new life for myself.”
“Silvio will be furious,” he said. “To have his bride jilt him at the altar in front of the whole city. You would have to leave town. And quickly.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I was merely speaking in ‘what ifs.’ Of course I would never do it. It’s far too late now.”
He held her gaze. “Someone I care about very deeply wants that ring back. It was once his—years ago he had to sell it to survive. You need to get out of this situation. There is no way you can marry Silvio. So I’m proposing a business solution. Marry me, sell me the ring and I will fly you out of here tonight on my jet. We’ll get the marriage annulled immediately after the deal is done. We both get what we need.”
She gaped at him. “That is...crazy. I—I don’t even know you. Silvio will—” she waved a hand at him, the multicarat ring she had not been wearing while cleaning blinding in the light “—lose his mind.”
“You had me vetted at the Giarruso,” he reminded her. “They do full security checks. And you know this isn’t going to get any better. If he’s hit you once, he’ll hit you again. And again. Until you’ll think it’s normal to greet the day with bruises. If he doesn’t send you to the hospital with broken bones.”
She stared at him mutely.
“My jet is waiting on standby.” He kept his gaze on hers, steady and sure. “I’m offering you a way out of this. The decision is yours. If you choose to marry Silvio, I can come back at a mutually agreed upon time and make you an offer for the ring.”
Her cheeks drained of color. She pressed her hands to them and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Make a decision,’ he advised, casting a deliberate look toward the window. “And fast. When that carriage arrives, you are out of options.”
She paced the length of the room. Back and forth. Finally, she stopped in front of him, her small palms curled into fists by her sides. “You are really willing to do this? What about whatever woman is in your life? How is she going to feel about it?”
His mouth lifted. “There is no current woman, and even if there was, she’d know marriage is never in the cards for me. I’m fine with this, Mina. The question is are you?”
Her chin moved up and down.
“Is that a yes?”
“Sì.”
“You’re sure?” He held her gaze with his. “You have to be sure. There’s no turning back.”
“I’m sure.” Fear filled her eyes. “What if Silvio comes after us?”
“I will deal with him,” he said roughly. God help the man if he got his hands on him.
He swung into execution mode. “Get your purse and passport. Everything else can wait.”
She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, elaborate dress trailing behind her. Nate raked his hair out of his face. This might be the most unique business deal he’d ever made, but it certainly wasn’t the most complex. This one was simple. Marry the girl, get the ring and have their union annulled. As far as marriages went, it was the kind he could wrap his head around.
* * *
Mina was in shock. She must be, she decided as she sat in the backseat of the luxury car alongside Nate and attempted to contemplate the enormity of what she was doing. At this very minute, she was standing up Silvio Marchetti, one of Sicily’s most powerful figureheads, at the altar where her mother and her family and everyone they had known for generations were waiting for her to appear.
An image of her fiancé’s hard, unyielding face with its cruel edge flickered through her head. The incredulity of her failure to show up spreading across it until that white-hot rage of his set in. He would lose his mind. He would take it out on those around him. Her hands, laced together in her lap upon the fine silk of her dress, went ice-cold.
Would he take it out on her mother as the next best thing to her? Would her mother ever forgive her?
Simona Mastrantino might be an unfeeling, ambitious, repressed aristocrat willing to trade on her daughter’s fate, but she was all the family Mina had.
Would Silvio send his henchmen after her when he discovered what had happened? Did he have henchmen?
Her stomach heaved, a determined swallow all that was keeping her breakfast in her stomach. She was giving up everything she knew, agreeing to marry a man she hardly knew, to start a life far away from her home. Where would she go? To Paris where Celia was? Where she could use her French? Or was that too close to danger?
Nate continued to make phone call after phone call on his mobile, barking out orders in that deep authoritative tone of his. Phrases and words flew by in rapid succession. Civil ceremony, marriage license, documentation, prenup.
Nate flicked her a glance. “Can you have your solicitor give us the ring today? It would be better for us to leave tonight rather than wait around until the open of business tomorrow morning.”
Which might give Silvio a chance to track her down in a murderous rage. She shivered. “I will call him and find out.”
A quick conversation with Pasquale Tomei determined they were in luck. He had the ring in his home for safekeeping and could see them late afternoon. Which gave them time to marry first.
They pulled up at the Giarruso minutes later. She kept her head down as Nate put a hand to her back and guided her past curious onlookers through the front doors of the hotel and into the elevators to the penthouse suites. She breathed a sigh of relief as they rode skyward having avoided anyone she knew.
Everything happened in a blur after that. The arrival of the Giarruso butler with the prenuptial agreement Nate’s lawyer had sent along with a bouquet of beautiful white flowers for Mina and two simple, elegant gold bands. She kept her back turned as her colleague offered his congratulations to Nate, then left.
The civil registrar who had miraculously been produced to marry them arrived next. It was a testament to the authority of the stranger who was about to become her husband as every detail fell into rapid-fire place, nothing beyond his control.
Then she was standing by Nate’s side, her groom-to-be now dressed in a dark, expensive-looking suit rather than the jeans and shirt he’d had on when he’d arrived at her home. Insanely handsome.
The registrar began the short, textbook ceremony. Mina recited the words in Italian, Nate in English, words that should have been a sacred affirmation of a love that would last forever conducted in a church with a priest as with the traditions of her own faith.
Nate captured her hand in his as the ceremony came to a close, his dark, fathomless eyes holding hers as he slid the sparkling gold band on her finger. She swallowed hard, took the ring he handed her and slid it onto his elegant, strong hand. A flash of sensual awareness pierced the