Dante's Marriage Pact (13 page)

“Oh, Draco, he's beautiful,” Shayla murmured. For some reason, she counted tiny fingers and toes, then counted them again as though she might have gotten it wrong the first time round. “He's the most gorgeous baby in the entire world.”

Gently, the nurse transferred the newborn from mother to father, showing Draco how to support a tiny head covered in a tuft of black hair. He stared at his son and felt his heart swell with a love so overpowering, he didn't think he could contain it. His gaze met Shayla's, sharing the moment with her.

His wife. His son.

It didn't matter what it took or what he'd have to do. He'd find a way to keep and protect them, to love and provide for them. He closed his eyes. And, ultimately, he'd set them free.

 

Draco joined his relatives in the waiting room, endless Dantes overflowing the area. “It's a boy,” he announced. “We have a son. Eight pounds, two and a half ounces.”

“And the lungs of an opera singer. A miniature
Lucianone
,” Rafe joked, using the affectionate name for Pavarotti. “We heard him all the way out here.”

Sev approached and slapped Draco on the shoulder. “Congratulations. We're all thrilled for you. With a mother as
beautiful as Shayla, you'll be beating the girls off with a stick before you know it.”

“Yeah, about that,” Draco muttered. He snagged his cousin's shirt and yanked him off to one side where they couldn't be overheard. “There's a problem.”

Sev's golden gaze flashed in alarm. “Is something wrong with the baby?”

“I think so.” Draco glanced uneasily in the direction of the delivery area. “I think… I think I may have broken him.”

Sev blinked. “Broken him.
Broken the baby?
”

“Keep it down, will you?” Draco swallowed—hard—before continuing in a low rush. “When I first found Shayla in Atlanta, I hugged her really tight and the baby kicked, like I'd squeezed him too tight. Then during delivery, she kept begging me to rub her back, you know, as hard as I could.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, forcing out his confession. “I think I smushed him.”

“Smushed,” Sev repeated.

“You heard me,” Draco growled. “Shayla kept talking about how beautiful he is. But I gotta tell you, Sev, that baby is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It's like someone made this beautiful face out of clay and then smacked a fist into it. And…and I think it was
my
fist.”

“Smush.”

Draco stabbed a finger in his cousin's chest. “Exactly. Smush. I smushed his face either when I hugged her or when I was giving her a back massage. But nobody in the delivery room seemed to notice.”

Sev burst out laughing, the sound ringing across the room. Then he locked his arm around Draco's neck and knuckled the top of his head. “Idiot.”

Draco fought free, offended. “Why am I an idiot?”

“All babies come out smushed. How great do you think you'd look if you'd just been squeezed out like toothpaste
from a tube? Hell, when little Lorenzo was born, he looked like the son of Godzilla. But everything popped back into place after a few weeks. Fortunately for the human race, even when they look like the spawn of Satan, all mothers think their precious newborns are the most beautiful creatures ever born to mankind.”

Relief threatened to send Draco to his knees. “So, I didn't…”

“Nope. Now, fair warning… If the kid's seriously ugly after a couple weeks, then you can blame yourself.”

Draco felt himself pale.

“Because then you'll know the poor kid takes after you.” Sev grinned. “And you have to be the most butt-ugly of all the Dantes.”

A
s far as Draco was concerned, the next few weeks would have been absolutely perfect if Leticia Charleston hadn't blown into town on her broomstick, accompanied by her flying monkeys—aka her lawyers. Ostensibly, she arrived to sign the final documents selling the Charleston diamond mines to the Dantes, an endless, foot-dragging nine-month process from negotiating the original leasing of the mines to the final sale. At least, that's what she claimed when she landed on their doorstep.

“Would you deny me the opportunity to see my only grandchild now that the Charleston mines are about to become the Dantes?” she demanded. She glared when he hesitated. “Well?”

“I'm thinking.”

“Draco?” Shayla's voice came from behind him. “Is that the door?”

He swore beneath his breath. “I've got it.”

“Who—” She cradled the baby against her shoulder and peeked around his shoulder. “Grandmother!”

With a long-suffering sigh, Draco stepped back and allowed Leticia across the threshold. “Come on in.”

“Gracious as ever,” she snapped as she sailed into the house. She paused to study the tiny bundle Shayla held. Something moved across her expression, something that replaced the coldness with an almost human warmth and longing. And then it vanished. “I assume from the excess of blue the poor child is wearing that it's a boy?”

“Yes. We named him Stefano, after Dad, as well as Draco's maternal grandfather.”

Leticia's spine snapped to attention. “Your father's name was Stefan, not Stefano.”

“But he's named in honor of Dad,” Shayla said gently.

Leticia relented enough to peer down at the baby. “He…he looks more like you than Draco. I don't suppose he could be Derek Algier's son?”

Draco saw red. “Son of a—”

Shayla cut him off with a quick shake of her head. “I insisted on a paternity test right after Stefano was born. Even though Draco knows he's the father, I heard there were rumors floating around Europe that Derek and I had an affair and I was pregnant with his child. I wanted the facts set straight for everyone's benefit.”

Leticia chewed on that for a long minute. Based on her expression it must have tasted bitter. “How altruistic of you.”

“You never give up, do you?” Draco strove to keep calm.

She whipped around. “Would I rather the boy be Derek's? In a heartbeat. You Dantes have stolen everything from me. My business. My son. My granddaughter. Now you've even
hijacked the Charleston lineage, stamping your Dante genes into our pool.”

“Grandmother!”

“Muddying the waters?” Draco suggested coolly.

“Yes! That's exactly right. It wasn't enough that you killed my only child.” It was the most passion he'd ever heard from her, her breath sobbing from her lungs. “Now you've robbed me of my granddaughter and my great-grandson.”

“The Dantes aren't responsible for your son's death,” Draco stated. “Shayla's parents died in a car wreck.”

“Because they'd just found out we were bankrupt, bankrupt because of the Dantes.”

“First, the Dantes were only partly responsible for the bankruptcy. Granted, you couldn't compete against our fire diamonds. Not back then. But it was your mines drying up that ultimately ruined your business.”

Leticia swept that aside as of no account. “The bottom line is you destroyed my son!”

He wouldn't let her get away with it. “No, Shayla's parents died returning home from a night out celebrating,” he corrected. Reluctant compassion flooded through him. “I looked it up, Leticia. I looked it up after I learned that you blamed us for their deaths. I read the newspaper account. It was raining. They'd been drinking and took a cab home because neither were willing to drive.”

Leticia's chin quivered. “No. They had nothing to celebrate and every reason to despair.”

“He wasn't upset about the bankruptcy. They were celebrating his new job. A job with Dantes' New York office.”

Shayla stiffened. “Grandmother, is that true? All this time you told me the Dantes were responsible for my parents' death. But they weren't, were they?”

Her face crumpled. “Yes! It
is
their fault. Stefan would never have gone over to the enemy.”

“But he did,” Draco replied. “And that's what you can't for give. His betrayal.”

Tears rained unchecked down her cheeks. For the first time since he'd known her, she looked her age. “He'd never have accepted a job with you people if Primo hadn't tempted him.”

Despite the “you people” dig, empathy underscored Draco's comments. All things considered, he could afford to be generous. “After your husband died, you hoped Stefan could pick up the reins and run Charlestons. But he wasn't management material anymore than Shayla was. He was a designer. An artist. He didn't have the necessary skills for business.” He dared to take her hand in his. “But you did. Why didn't you step in, Leticia? You have everything it takes to go head to head with Dantes. You could have given us a real run for our money.”

For an instant, he thought he had her. Then she snatched her hand free and her chin assumed a proud tilt. “That would have been inappropriate for a woman in my position, with my upbringing.”

“Why? You expected Shayla to do it. Why not you?”

Her chin quivered ever so slightly. “Times have changed,” she whispered. There was a painful honesty underscoring her words. “By the time they did, I was too old to handle the reins.”

Before Draco could say anything further, his cell phone buzzed. He checked it swiftly and read the text message from Juice.
Found #5. Come now.
He returned his attention to Leticia, but she'd closed down. Worse, she fixed him with a “the South will rise again!” look of defiance, no doubt because he'd managed to slip beneath her guard.

“I'm sorry, Shayla. I have a meeting I need to take.” He shot an uneasy glance in Leticia's direction before returning his attention to his wife. “Will you be all right?”

“Just fine.” She smiled brightly. “I can spend the morning with my grandmother and the baby. We'll have tea.”

“Hmm. I don't think the baby can handle tea, yet.” Or his great-grandmother.

She laughed as he hoped she would. Leticia rolled her eyes. Reluctantly, he gave his wife a swift kiss and left. But he had an itch in the middle of his back, no doubt at the exact spot where Leticia wanted to plant a knife. And he couldn't help but wonder if he was making a terrible mistake by leaving.

 

“He only seduced you in order to get a better deal on leasing our mines, you know.”

“Dante mines,” Shayla corrected mildly.

It was an accusation she'd heard more than once. In the beginning, she'd gone for the bait every time. Now she just shrugged it off. Her grandmother didn't understand how it had been the night Shayla and Draco first met. As for which of them seduced the other… There were only two people who knew for certain what went on that night, only two people in the bed where Stefano had been conceived, which meant that only she and her husband knew how and why they'd ended up there. She could state for a fact that it had nothing to do with the Charleston mines or fire diamonds or Dantes, and everything to do with simple, irresistible passion.

“They're not Dante mines, yet. Not until I sign the final papers.” Leticia folded her arms across her narrow chest. “Maybe I won't sign. What do you have to say about that?”

“Think of all the money you'll be out if you don't sell. Money that will restore the mansion. Wouldn't you like to see it looking like it did in its heyday?”

“Of course I want to restore my home.” She paused, fussed with her collar. “But what's the point?”

“The point?” Shayla dropped a kiss on the top of Stefano's head, feeling a gentle warmth radiating from the baby. She
filled her lungs with his distinct baby scent and sighed in pleasure. How had she gotten so lucky? “I don't understand, Grandmother. Why wouldn't you want to restore the mansion?”

“Your father is gone. You're gone. My great-grandson is gone. What's the point of restoring something that will never be used by my family once I'm dead and buried?”

“Oh.”

Shayla looked at her grandmother. Really looked this time. Unhappiness glittered in Leticia's striking blue eyes and deepened the lines around her mouth, aging her. She played restlessly with the wedding ring strung on her necklace, the fire diamond winking slyly. Why she refused to wear it on her finger, Shayla had never understood, but then, there was a lot about her grandmother she didn't understand.

She'd never been a particularly cheerful woman, more inclined toward an autocratic nature, which was the exact opposite of how Shayla preferred to live life. But she'd always exuded a fierce determination and purpose. Drive and ambition. Until today.

Understanding slowly dawned. “If you sell the mines,” Shayla said slowly, “then your fight with the Dantes will be over. You won't have any new battles, will you? No more dragons to slay.”

“What the dickens are you talking about?” Leticia demanded testily. “My fight with them will never be over.”

“Even after everything Draco said?”

Her grandmother shot to her feet, fury igniting and driving her to pace the kitchen in her agitation. “You think I believe a word of what that man has to say? A man who only married you to get his hands on the Charleston mines?”

“Now you're not even being logical. How in the world would marrying me help the Dantes get their hands on our
mines? Just because I'm married to Draco doesn't mean you're required to sell them to his family.”

Before Leticia could respond, Stefano stretched, his little mouth popping open in a wide yawn. His ink-dark eyes fluttered, blinking up at her. Then he grinned, showing off his cute pink gums. Shayla refused to believe it was gas. Her baby saw her, tracked her with his gaze and responded every time he looked at her with that same happy smile. Or at least it started out happy. Then he spat up the little bit of milk she'd coaxed him into swallowing before his nap. His little face puckered and he let out a bellow that threatened to shatter glass.

“Lord have mercy,” Leticia said while Shayla mopped him up. “That boy has a set of lungs on him.”

“He has from the start.” Shayla checked his diaper and stood. “Okay, I think I've found the problem. I'll be right back, Grandmother. Then we'll finish our discussion about the Dantes and our mines.”

By the time she returned, though, her grandmother had left. A note sat on the kitchen table:
Must run. Time for my meeting with those vultures
. Shayla shook her head. She had a fair idea how much the Dantes were paying for the Charleston mines and the amount staggered her. Far from being vultures taking advantage of the Charlestons' misfortunes, they'd given her grandmother an excellent price. In fact, it made her uneasy wondering if her marriage to Draco hadn't added a zero or two to the back end of the check. Not that anyone would admit to such a thing.

She'd just finished feeding Stefano, concerned that he continued to fuss on and off while he suckled, when Draco returned from his meeting. She slipped their baby into his carrier. His little eyelids drifted closed and his face, a miniature of his father's, despite what her grandmother claimed, relaxed into sleep, innocence personified. She rested
her hand on his head, feeling the same warmth she'd detected earlier. Before she could comment on it, Draco strode into the kitchen.

She caught a fierceness in his expression, a restlessness in his graceful movements. A predator on the hunt, came the nerve-racking thought. His eyes flashed a sharp gold while a ruthless smile slashed across his face.

“We're close this time,” he informed her. “Really close.”

She stared at him in bewilderment. “Close to what?”

He blinked as though seeing her for the first time. “Close to uncovering the person responsible for stealing our diamonds. Juice thinks he can track the sale back to the source this time.”

Her breath caught in disbelief. “Some of your diamonds were
stolen?
How? When? How many?”

He answered her questions in reverse. “Six. Ten years ago. And they weren't exactly stolen. I suppose it would be more accurate to say I was swindled out of them.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved a folded piece of diamond parcel paper, marked with a set of numbers. He unfolded it and set the paper on the table, the diamond neatly centered in the middle of the thin blue inner liner. Flame flashed from the center of the stone. “This was one of them.”

She leaned in, studying it. “I can tell it's a fire diamond, and a good one, too. It's stunning.”

“One of the best to ever be pulled from a Dante mine,” he confirmed. “Equal to the ones you showed us.”

Her gaze shifted from the stone to her husband. “How were you swindled out of them?”

“I'd just turned twenty. Even then I had an eye for stones. Could tell a fake from the real thing, oftentimes without even using a loupe.” He thrust a hand through his hair and his mouth compressed into a hard line. “I was young and cocky and full of myself.”

“Not unusual at that age,” she offered gently.

“I had the stones out so I could prove just how good I was. I wanted to grade them. See how close I came to the expert assessment.”

“With or without permission?” she guessed shrewdly.

His smile of acknowledgment contained a bitter edge. “Without. One of our staff gemologists caught me and demanded that I turn them over so he could check them before I returned them to the vault.” Draco shrugged. “So, I did. He examined them at great length before he satisfied himself that I hadn't damaged them or switched them for other, lower-grade diamonds. My mistake was not watching him during his analysis. He returned all six to their containers and told me to put them back. Several months later it was discovered that they'd been exchanged for inferior stones. I was the last one on record for handling them.”