Dante's Blackmailed Bride by Day Leclaire Read Free Book Online Page A

Dantes to its former glory, he had no choice but to steal her away from the Fontaines.
    “When you first saw Nonna—before you touched—what was it like?”
    Primo hesitated as he considered and dug bony fingers into his right hand, massaging the palm. Over the years Sev had witnessed the habitual gesture more times than he could count, long ago assuming it resulted from arthritis or some other physical complaint. Now he knew better. Worse, he’d caught himself imitating it over the past few hours. Even now he could barely suppress the urge.
    “I had been away at university and returned for the engagement party. The minute I set eyes on Nonna, it was as though we were connected. As though a ribbon of desire joined us. The closer we came, the stronger it grew. When we touched, the ribbon became stronger than a steel cable, binding us together so we could no longer distinguish my heartbeat from hers. We have beat as one ever since.”
    The story affected Sev more than he cared to admit, probably because it rang with such simple sincerity. True or not, Primo clearly believed every word. Not that the origins of his grandparents’ romance helped with his current predicament. Okay, so he’d felt that connection, the shock and burn when they’d touched, that ribbon of lust, as he preferred to consider it. But ribbons could be cut.
    “How do I get rid of it?” he demanded.
    Primo drank down the last of his beer before setting the empty bottle on the table with enough power that the glass rang in protest. “You do not,” he stated unequivocally. “Why would you want to?”
    “Because she’s the wrong woman for me. There are…complications.”
    Primo released a full-bodied laugh. “More complicated than her belonging to your best friend?” He swept his hand through the air, the gesture leaving behind a smoky contrail. “It is impossible to cut the connection. The Inferno has no respect for time or place or complication. It knows. It chooses. And it has done so for as long as there have been Dantes. You either accept the gift and revel in the blessing it offers, or you walk away and suffer the consequences.”
    Sev stilled. “What consequences?”
    “You ignore The Inferno at your own peril, nipote. ” He leaned forward, each word stone-hard. “If you turn your back on it, you will never know true happiness. Look at what happened to your father.”
    “You think The Inferno killed him?” Sev demanded on a challenging note. “Are you that superstitious?”
    Primo’s expression softened. “No, it didn’t kill Dominic. But because he chose with his head instead of his heart, because he married your mother instead of the woman chosen for him by The Inferno, he never found true happiness. And Dantes suffered as a result.” He stabbed his cigar in Sev’s direction. “I am warning you, Severo Dante. If you follow in your father’s footsteps you, too, will know only the curse, never the blessing.”
     
    Tina Fontaine threw herself into a chair near where Francesca sat at her drawing board, while Kurt filled the doorway leading into the small office. One look at their expressions warned Francesca that her previous night’s indiscretion had left her career teetering on a knife’s edge.
    “You owe my dear husband a huge thank-you for stopping me from calling the police last night,” came Tina’s opening volley.
    Francesca stared in horror. “The police?”
    Tina leaned forward, not bothering to disguise her fury. “It was your big night. And you disappeared with a bloody fortune in gems around your neck without bothering to tell anyone where you’d gone. What did you expect me to do?”
    “I’m sorry. Truly. I have no idea what came over me.”
    The ring of truth in Francesca’s comment gave Tina pause. “Where the hell did you go?”
    “I think I can guess,” Kurt inserted. “Holed up somewhere clutching a wastebasket, were you?”
    Francesca stared at him, utterly miserable. She didn’t have any