Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (103 page)

“Keyonna, I know I’ve said it a lot of times how beautiful I think you are and how much I feel drawn to you,” he said with frank warmth, “It’s been barely two weeks and my trip would soon be over, but somehow I sense there could have been a chance for us to see where this could lead. If only you…”

But Keyonna was distracted from hearing the rest of his words, because just then her eyes shifted to a point beyond Sergio’s shoulder to meet the fiery gaze of a blonde-haired woman.

It took a few more minutes for Keyonna to figure out where she’d seen that catty-eyed face before, and then she gasped inaudibly. Rachel Conte. Nick’s ex-fiancée. Keyonna watched with concealed horror as the woman excused herself from her male companion and walked from her table to stand in front of Keyonna. Rachel’s face was twisted in distaste.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rachel yelled at Keyonna. “And who’s this?” She jerked her chin to Sergio, who was frowning quizzically at her sudden appearance.

Keyonna was just as taken aback by the attack and felt somewhat speechless. The younger woman was the last person on earth Keyonna would have wanted to run into again.

“Ah, so this is your new conquest? It wasn’t enough that you stole my ex-fiancé. Oh no, that wasn’t enough for you,” Rachel snarled furiously, her beautiful face a mask of hate.

Keyonna strove to keep her cool. She wasn’t about to lose it on this snotty bitch, not in front of the shocked looking Sergio and certainly not in the fine restaurant in front of the many glamorous guests. But damn if she didn’t want to punch Rachel to pulp for the way she was talking to her.

Keyonna wasn’t sure just how much Rachel knew about what happened; she hadn’t seen or heard from the woman since that night at Mark’s party. Not a word had ever passed between them, until now.

“Just one month after marrying Nick, you’re already messing around with another man,” accused Rachel with a sneer. “I was right when I told Nick you were nothing but a slut.”

“Now watch your tongue, ma’am,” Sergio snapped as he shot to his feet. “I’m not averse to taking it upon myself to throw you out for being rude to my companion.”

Rachel’s eyes widened at his ice-cold tone, and Keyonna chose that moment to compose herself and speak before Rachel could think up another word.

She looked squarely up at the other woman. “Now you look here. What I do is none of your business. I certainly don’t care what you think of me either. If you think you can judge me then go ahead. I can see you still haven’t forgiven me for taking Nick away from you. But please, try to control your lack of manners and spare yourself any more embarrassment.”

Rachel dragged in an infuriated gasp, her mouth working soundlessly. It was obvious she was struggling with her temper, but then suddenly her green eyes narrowed suspiciously as she stared at Keyonna. “Something’s not right here,” she said slowly, still looking as furious as ever. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of it!”

After that she whirled round and with a swish of her full skirts returned to her table where her escort was looking up at her in amazement.

Keyonna turned to Sergio, her smile stiff yet apologetic as she saw him retake his seat. “I’m really sorry about that. I never dreamed I’d run into anyone from back home.”

Sergio’s eyes were worried. “Want to tell me about what happened? I mean between you and him?”

Keyonna shook her head sadly, glad that Sergio hadn’t mentioned Nick’s name. Talking to anyone about what she’d seen and heard that day, in the hidden corner of the garden – at her own wedding, was unbearable even if it was to Sergio. She had no doubt he’d be on her side if he heard the details, and he wouldn’t blame her for running off and jumping on a plane across the world just to get away from it all.

But now the whole night was ruined and the calm of the past few weeks was now totally shattered. It seemed like fate was reminding her that she couldn’t run away from her problems. She was only delaying the inevitable and she’d be worse off thinking she could hide away from making a decision and soon.

“Can we leave now, please?” she asked Sergio and he readily assented. He was trying to suggest they go out to a night club or something but Keyonna declined with a rueful smile.

“I’d just rather call it a night. I’m really tired,” she said.

Lying in her bed an hour later, Keyonna thought of how disappointed yet understanding Sergio had been when she’d chosen to go up to her room – alone. Then he’d planted a light kiss on her forehead and she’d smiled, touched by the soothing gesture.

Yet now that she was alone and huddled beneath the covers, she felt her eyes swim with tears. Why hadn’t she stayed as far away from Nick as she could from the start? There’d always been a sense of danger surrounding him and she’d kept him at a distance as much as she could. But then somehow their paths crossed in ways that made it impossible to simply back away. He’d approached her at Mark’s party and she’d been dumb enough to try to put him in his place to prove a point.

And now she was trapped in a hell she’d brought on herself with her foolishness. Who had ever said a kiss was just a kiss?

Chapter Twelve

Keyonna flicked her sunglasses off her face as she stepped out of the taxi which had stopped in front of her hotel. She preferred doing her shopping in the morning and now she was back for some brunch and maybe a nap in her room. She found herself pausing by a stall near the hotel where a man was selling fresh flowers. Buying an attractive bunch, she buried her nose in the colorful bloom as she turned to walk up the steps into the hotel.

But then she was startled by the sound of screeching tires and turned sharply to see a tall, familiar man spring from out of the driver’s seat, her name spilling from his lips.

“Keyonna!”

Nick. Here.

Those were the only two things she could process in her mind as she was struck with a sudden, inexplicable bolt of fear.

He’s found me!
Damn!
Wild thoughts flew through her head as she realized it must have been Rachel who told him. She should have known.

In a sudden spurt of panic, she dumped her shopping and the flowers and turned the other way to run. Running, always running. Her one aim always to evade that sharp feeling of dread that enveloped her senses from knowing Nick had come to get her back. She couldn’t let him catch her.

“Keyonna, stop!” Nick called out to her in a harsh, tortured voice. But Keyonna didn’t look back, hurtling forward on her choppy heels and quickly turning the corner. Then she tried to cross the road without looking both ways first and missed a moving motorcycle making straight for her.

The rider gave a shout but couldn’t stop in time. Keyonna couldn’t get back out of the way fast enough, and she was only able to let out a tiny scream as the motorcycle made impact and threw her to the ground. The last thing she was aware of was of Nick’s voice yelling, “
No
!” before she sank into a dark, painful nothingness.

* * * *

“Keyonna…
vita mia
. Please. Wake up.”

Slowly regaining consciousness, Keyonna clung to the husky, familiar voice speaking so softly, calling her ‘his life’. She sighed, savoring the gentle hand stroking her knuckles even as she slowly, painstakingly blinked her heavy lids open.

The sight of Nick sitting right by her bed, his head bent over her hand clasped in his, made Keyonna’s heart constrict.

“Oh Nick,” she breathed, very softly. But he heard her, and his head jerked up instantly. His pained eyes brightened when he saw her looking wide-eyed at him.

“Keyonna, my darling, you’re okay!” Nick exclaimed, his grip on her hand tightening.

“Yeah, I think,” Keyonna said with a smile at the relief on his face. She suddenly became aware of her surroundings and realized she must be in some kind of private hospital room. Under the white and blue sheets, she noted that she was wearing only a light cotton hospital gown. The windows were open and it was daylight, and there were flowers all over the nearby drawers and shelves.

Keyonna was at a loss, not sure what had happened to her. “Nick…what am I doing here?” Her tone was anxious.

“You had an accident,
tesoro
,” Nick told her hoarsely. “Close to the hotel. That bike ran you down, remember?”

Keyonna frowned incomprehensively. “Remember what?”

Nick stared at her, squeezing that much harder on her hand and causing her to let out a small cry in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he said, hastily loosening his grip. “But, you’re sure you don’t remember…anything?”

Keyonna’s eyes looked uncertain as she paused thoughtfully. “Well, we were supposed to be married…” This time her own fingers clutched tighter around his. “We did get married, didn’t we?”

Nick nodded, looking numb as he seemed unsure what to say.

“I remember now,” Keyonna said slowly. “We had this marvelous wedding, and then the reception with everything looking so perfect…But I can’t seem to recall anything after that. Nothing at all. Oh Nick, I’m scared,” she cried, and struggled to raise herself from the pillows on her elbows, but then the pain shattered through her whole body. Feeling faint, she gasped and then felt everywhere go black again.

*
* * *

Nick stared unseeingly at the tiled floor as he listened to what the doctor was saying.

“It must have been the terrible shock of the accident…sudden trauma can do that to people. It has been known to happen, Mr. Vitale. Some memory loss can occur whereby the patient will blank out certain events – events that may cause them pain to remember. It’s generally a temporary condition. I suggest that you take it slowly and not try to force her to remember anything. It will all come back to her naturally, I’m sure. Just give it time…”

Time, thought Nick with bitterness. That’s exactly what he’d had to fight against these past several weeks since Keyonna disappeared from the wedding reception. Since then he’d endured different stages of torture. His first fear was that she’d been kidnapped – but soon he found out she must have run away because her overnight cases and some other items were found to have been missing.

He’d been half-frantic, half-enraged and had done all he could to find her, to hear from her own lips why she had done this to him. Nothing had prepared him for this; he hadn’t seen it coming. Day and night for the past five weeks he’d born the speculations of onlookers who’d had a field day over her disappearance.

If it hadn’t been for her parents informing him that they’d received a single phone call from Keyonna saying she was okay, but wouldn’t tell them where she was. Nick had wanted to smash anything and everything he could lay his hands on. One thing he didn’t stand for was being made a fool of and Keyonna had done just that. He’d been itching to show her who was in charge and he swore that he’d teach her a lesson the first chance he got. He’d put the best people on the job to search for her but it had been like she’d dropped off the face of the earth. There were no credit card records and there was no way to track where she’d headed to and as the days went by and she didn’t contact him, it seemed impossible to ever find out anything about what had happened.

And then, just two days ago he’d received that call from Rachel who gave him the shocker that she’d run into Keyonna in Verona, Italy. He couldn’t believe she’d gone that far away. He’d thought that she was still in the country but now that he knew for sure she’d flown all the way to his home town almost made him feel like it was a slap in the face. He’d been so fucking furious it had been hard to see straight for a minute.

But during the flight over in his private jet, Nick’s rage had dissolved into the overwhelming desire to see her again. He needed to make sure she was okay. He couldn’t take the risk of losing Keyonna a second time. Not now that he’d finally realized how much she truly meant to him.

When he’d watched her getting hit by that motorcycle, it had added ten years to his life. He’d never forget the way his heart had stopped when she’d tumbled to the ground with the bike and rider toppling over her. Those moments were the worst of his life.

If she’d died…

“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor was reassuring him now. “Just a concussion, and a mild one at that. You’ll be allowed to take her home tomorrow. She’ll be out of supervision by then.”

Nick nodded tiredly and thanked the doctor before leaving his office. Nick hadn’t slept a wink since she was brought in yesterday, and now he thought of Keyonna’s beautiful face swathed with plaster and her body weak with pain. What the hell had gone wrong and why had she left? He’d been so sure things were going fine. What could have happened to turn him into her enemy?

He began to walk past the reception area, his intention being to get back to his hotel, freshen up and then take a nap before returning to the hospital. He didn’t intend to let Keyonna out of his sight for long. He’d already informed her parents that though she’d been in an accident, she was going to be fine. Nick had felt guilt thinking how he’d been the cause of a lot of trouble for Keyonna; first she’d run away from her home because of him and then she’d almost gotten killed, another fault of his.

Sighing angrily to himself, he suddenly overheard a man ask the nurse at the front desk, “A friend of mine, Keyonna Hayes was admitted here yesterday. If I could…”

Before the man could even finish the sentence, Nick had spun him around and slammed him into the nearby wall. The guy was just as tall as him and only just that bit leaner, but he reacted fast enough to shove Nick’s grip off his shirt as both men came face to face. Nick was sure this was the man Rachel had told him she’d seen with Keyonna; he fit the description to a ‘tee’.

“Who the hell are you?” Nick barked, his eyes murderous. The man, with cool dignity, straightened his shirt, his own face stormy.

“I should be asking you the same question,” was his gritted reply, which made Nick scowl darkly, barely conscious of the shocked looks they were getting from the hospital staff and other onlookers.

“I’m Nick Vitale, Keyonna’s husband,” Nick snarled.

“Oh, the husband she never wanted to see again?” the stranger said with a cutting smile. Nick winced, his expression suddenly bleak.

“Is that what she told you?” Nick asked dully. He shoved his hand back through his hair as he came to grips with the fact that something
had
gone wrong that day of the wedding – right from the time he’d left her side at the reception. Because that had been the last time he’d set eyes on her until yesterday. What could have made her dump everything and just go for weeks on end, not even calling him to let him know where she was? He’d known Keyonna was a woman who had her own mind but he’d never have thought she would pull such a stunt just to spite him. He knew that he’d made her agree to the marriage against her will, and even now he loathed himself for using that method of persuasion. He never would have carried out his threat to destroy her investments but then he’d had to do what he could to get her. And now he wasn’t sure if he still had her, or if she was going to leave him again the first chance she got.

“She didn’t tell me in those exact words,” the other man was saying more calmly, as he watched the expressions flitting over Nick’s face. “But she did give me the impression that you hurt her pretty bad but then you should know better about that.”

No, I don’t, thought Nick to himself. How could he tell this guy he had no idea what he’d done to turn Keyonna against him?

“Look,” the man said, “I heard she was in an accident and that she was brought here. I need to know how she’s doing.”

Nick let out a ragged breath. “She’ll be fine. She had a slight concussion, nothing serious unless you take in the fact that a section of her life seems cut out due to the accident. From the time of our wedding reception until when she woke up lying in the hospital bed. She can’t remember a bit of it.” And then he looked away, squeezing his fingers to the bridge of his nose as he fought back despair. “
Dios
! She really must hate me. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

The man frowned thoughtfully. “If what you say about her memory loss is true, then I guess she wouldn’t remember me. So it might not be a good idea if I tried to see her. I really did need to make sure she was okay. But please, give her my regards. Tell her it is from a friend.”

Nick looked at him penetratingly and almost wished he didn’t need to ask but he just had to know.

“That’s all you two ever were?” he enquired with gruff reluctance. “Just friends?”

The man’s lips twisted. “Don’t worry, she never let me get that close. I guess you can figure out why. Well, Nick; you’ve got your second chance to win her back. That’s one special lady you almost lost so my advice to you? Don’t blow it again.”

Nick stared after him as the man walked out of the hospital. He’s right, thought Nick. Keyonna’s memory loss, no matter how temporary, was his opportunity to put things right; to start over. Make her see that he cared too much to let her go
ever.
He’d been such a fool to blackmail her into marrying him; he could have told her how he felt instead of taking the hard route. And now he was going to do all in his power to win her trust so that even if she got her memory back, she’d find it in her heart to forgive him for whatever she’d found him guilty of in the first place.

*
* * *

Keyonna smiled up at Nick as he drew open her door to help her out of the car. Her grin broadened when he held on to her hand as they both climbed up the ornate steps to the front entrance of the villa. They’d flown out from Italy to Greece, where Nick had a sprawling white villa and where they’d originally planned to spend their honeymoon. She’d been checked out of the hospital forty-eight hours ago and had been just as eager as Nick to make it to this dreamy location. The scene looked straight out of a storybook, all blue sea and gorgeous mountain slopes. The villa itself was a vision; she couldn’t wait to go inside.

“Really, Nick; you don’t have to treat me like glass,” Keyonna teased, as Nick carefully led her up the many steps, making sure she took each one slowly and not in bounds as she’d intended.

“I’m not going to break, you know…whoa!” Keyonna exclaimed as he suddenly swung her off her feet and into his arms as they reached the top step. “Nick!”

“Glass or not, you’re my bride and it’s been forever since I’ve been looking forward to doing this.” His lips touched hers briefly, yet the kiss was so sweet and hot that she clung to his shoulders to quell the dizzying sensation she felt.