Dante's Marriage Pact (17 page)

The instant the door closed behind Nonna and Stefano, Draco demanded, “What happened after that?”

Leticia sighed. “The years slid by and you Dantes grew more powerful, thanks to your lock on the fire diamonds. When you entered the international market, I could see the end, even though William remained blind to it. We struggled on. And then…”

When it was clear her grandmother couldn't go on, Shayla supplied the next piece of information to the group. “Grandpa had his heart attack,” she said. “It was fatal.”

“Yes,” Leticia whispered. “It was right after we discovered the mines were depleted. The discovery came as a terrible shock. I'm sure the news caused his heart to fail. His death, combined with the issue with the mines, threw Charlestons into chaos.” She spared Draco a brief look. “I begged my son
to take over, but you were correct in your analysis. Stefan didn't possess what it took. He simply didn't have the drive or ambition necessary to run Charlestons. We were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. If we went under it would all be gone. The business, the beautiful jewelry, the cars and parties and lifestyle. We'd even lose the mansion.”

“What did you do?” Draco asked, though he suspected he knew and threw a look of sympathy in Sev's direction.

Her chin wobbled and it took her a moment to continue. “I swallowed my pride and approached Dantes. I had my family to consider, to put ahead of my own dignity or embarrassment.” She clenched her fingers around her napkin. “So, I made an appointment with Primo.”

“I never met with you, Letty,” Primo instantly denied. “You know I would have helped you if I had.”

“Perhaps if your son hadn't taken the appointment in your place this would have all gone down far differently.” She closed her eyes briefly, aging before their eyes. “But Dominic did take the meeting, claiming it was at your insistence. It must have been just weeks before his death, near the time of my own son's death.”

“What happened at the meeting?” Draco asked gently.

Tears trickled down Leticia's cheeks. “I begged for mercy. Begged for time to reorganize. I had the crazy idea that maybe I could turn Charlestons around.”

“So you were going to try and run the company, after all?”

Her cup rattled against the saucer. “All right, yes. You were right, Draco.
Again.
I decided to take the reins. But I needed time, time Dominic wouldn't give me. He told me it was because I wouldn't help him with the Moretti matter, even though that was long past. For him, it might as well have been yesterday. He was cruel. Terribly cruel. He laughed at our plight. He said…” She set her tea down on the conference
table with such force the porcelain sang in protest and buried her face in her hands. “He said that if I couldn't afford to feed my family that perhaps I should apply for welfare and put Shayla in foster care.”

For a proud woman that must have been the ultimate slap in the face. Draco spared his grandfather and his cousins a swift look. They weren't taking the information well. He could see anger and resentment in some faces, a flat-out refusal to accept the story in Marco's. But Primo's expression proved the most telling. Not only did he accept Leticia's version of events, but he also felt compassion for her plight.

Draco pushed on. “I don't understand something, Leticia. Surely my uncle knew that someone at Dantes had hired your son, Stefan, to run the design department at our New York office?”

She lifted her head and fought for control. “I have no idea. If I had learned of my son's defection from Dominic, it would have crushed me. If he'd known, I guarantee he would have rubbed it in my face, so I suspect he hadn't been told at that point. After my meeting with him, I salvaged what I could. Then Stefan was killed and—”

She broke off, but everyone sitting at the table could see the emptiness and despair. And maybe, just maybe, they began to understand why she'd sought revenge.

Shayla broke the silence. “My grandmother's here to return the money you paid for the mines.”

Her grandmother released a slow sigh. “I always knew I'd have to.”

“You did.” Sev drawled out the words, a caustic edge to his voice. “Really.”

Leticia shot to her feet. “Don't you dare look at me with your father's eyes, Severo Dante, and presume to know what happened or what I would or would not have done. Of course
I'm returning the money. Taking it was no more than a coup, an act of defiance.”

Draco lifted an eyebrow, impressed despite himself. “Like when American Plains Indians would touch their enemy during battle to prove their bravery.”

Leticia nodded. “Exactly. I knew you'd eventually realize that the shaft containing the fire diamonds was an aberration. Not that it matters.” She swept a hand through the air as though brushing aside a pesky mosquito and resumed her seat. “You'd have discovered soon enough that the sale wasn't even legal. How could it be when I don't own the mines?”

Shocked silence greeted that statement. “If you do not own the mines, then who does?” Primo demanded.

“Shayla does.” Draco dropped the information like a stone into a puddle. Varying reactions splashed from face to face, from unholy amusement to stunned disbelief, Shayla's the most stunned of all. He took her hand in his, lending her his strength. And he took heart in the fact that she let him. “Juice?” he prompted.

Juice regarded Shayla with sympathetic kindness. “The minute you married Draco, the mines became yours. You would have been informed as soon as the lawyer notified you.” He shot Leticia a look that contained a grudging hint of respect and, possibly, admiration. “Would it be an accurate statement to say you may have been a trifle lax about informing the lawyer of your granddaughter's marriage?”

“Grandmother, is this true?” Shayla whispered. Hurt and confusion vied for supremacy.

“I would have notified him. Eventually.” Irritation sounded in Leticia's voice. “Needless to say I wasn't in any great hurry to bother with such a trifling detail when I had more immediate concerns in need of my attention.”

Draco shot her an ironic look. “In other words, you didn't want the news to leak too soon or you wouldn't have had the
pleasure of watching the ants scurrying around when you kicked over the anthill.”

“See? You understand perfectly.”

“The scary part is…I do.” He allowed honed steel to gather in his words. “But what I find unforgivable is that you kept Shayla and me apart in order to prevent us from marrying. And all to carry on the Charleston name. All so that my wife wouldn't come into her inheritance too soon. If that happened the hand wouldn't have had time to play out, would it?”

A fierceness burned in Leticia's eyes, drying her tears and turning the irises an iridescent blue. “I didn't want you to just lease the mines, but to buy them. To be desperate to buy them. Careless. Hasty in your assessment. To be distracted enough to believe the reports—or rather forgeries—that hit your desk about the viability of the mines.”

“I'm curious. How did you manage that?”

Her mouth snapped closed, warning that she'd never reveal the name of those responsible. “Let's just say I still have contacts in the business,” she finally told him. “And it worked. The reports reassured you while the suspicion gnawed at you that I might decide to sell the fire diamonds to your competitors—once I'd bled you as dry as possible, of course. It forced you to buy the mines outright, and quickly.” She smiled, a cat-dining-on-canary type of smile. “The bottom line is…I finally beat the Dantes. That's all I ever wanted. To win.”

Fury exploded over Sev's face and only his grandfather's restraining hand held him in place. “And now?” Primo asked.

She shrugged carelessly. “Now that the game is finished, you can have your precious money back, less a small brokerage fee.”

“Grandmother!”

“What? I need a new car. It's not like they're going to miss thirty thousand or so.”

“Thirty!” Shayla choked.

“That's quite some car,” Draco said.

Leticia lifted an eyebrow. “Darling, I only travel in style.”

He let it go and focused on more important matters. “Now for the final piece of business.”

Leticia frowned. “I don't know what's left to be said. I've told you everything,” she insisted. “At least, everything I intend to.”

He didn't argue. He simply held out his hand. “Your wedding ring, please.”

For an instant, he thought she'd refuse. Then she slipped the necklace from around her neck and set it gently on the table. The diamond flashed with unmistakable fire.

Beside him, Shayla stiffened, then jerked as understanding struck. “Oh, Grandmother. What have you done?”

Leticia bowed her head. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry.”

Shayla's chin quivered. “I should have made the connection sooner. It's a fire diamond, but it can't possibly be a Charleston stone because ours were only recently discovered.” She stared at her grandmother in utter disillusionment. “I always wondered why you stopped wearing Grandpa's ring. It's because it's not his ring. You arranged the theft of Draco's fire diamonds, didn't you?”

“I swear I didn't. Please, Shayla, you must believe me.” She reached for her granddaughter's hand, but Shayla pulled back and Leticia's face crumpled. “But I am culpable because I know who stole them. He was a former employee of Charlestons, Clint Bodine, and I'll always regret that I didn't report him to the authorities when he told me what he'd done.”

“Why didn't you?” Draco demanded.

Her hands clenched. “Because he gave me one of the fire diamonds he'd taken, already set in that ring.”

“It is a wedding ring. Why would he give you a wedding ring, Letty?” Primo interrupted. “What happened to the one William gave you?”

“I sold it,” she whispered. “To help pay off our debts. Clint knew what I'd done and gave me this to replace it. I was going to return the diamond, but in the end I didn't. And for that, I'm truly sorry. And ashamed.”

What a strange woman. She didn't turn a hair at the idea of swindling Dantes out of millions of dollars. She saw that as justifiable. But keeping a stolen diamond was wrong. Shameful. Draco's eyes narrowed in thought. “You didn't return it because it was your safety net, wasn't it?”

She nodded, exhaustion lining her face. “In case of an emergency.” She reached again for Shayla's hand in a gesture part plea, part apology. When Shayla took the offered hand, she closed her eyes in blatant relief. “And I suppose, if I'm being brutally honest, it also provided a reminder of all the Charlestons had been through at the hands of the Dantes.”

The meeting broke up then. Primo insisted on speaking to Leticia privately, while the rest of the family went off to discuss what they'd learned. Juice approached Draco on his way out of the room. “I hope I helped, but somehow I suspect I've only made matters worse for your family, especially Sev.”

“My cousin and his brothers just need time to come to terms with what they've heard. We'll all help with that.” Draco offered his hand. “Thank you again, Juice. As far as we're concerned, you're family and your help is always appreciated.”

“Anytime.”

The instant the door closed behind Juice, Draco leaned
against the table and studied his wife. She continued to stand with her back to him. If she stood any stiffer he suspected her spine would crack. “Who goes first?” he asked mildly.

Shayla turned, holding her cup and saucer in front of her like a shield. “I'm so sorry, Draco,” she said with painful formality. “My grandmother has caused a great deal of damage.”

“You're not the one who owes me an apology. In fact, of all the people here, you owe me one least of all,” he informed her roughly. His mouth curved into a smile that held only a trace of old bitterness, a bitterness that faded with each passing second. “And somehow I suspect I won't be getting one from Leticia.”

Shayla hesitated. “So, what now?”

“First and foremost, you get the apology you deserve.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I am so sorry for everything I said yesterday at the suite. I was wrong to suspect you of any involvement in this mess. Dead wrong. It was a knee-jerk reaction based on past experience and a bad one. I should have known better. I should have known
you
better.”

He couldn't tell from her expression whether she accepted his apology or not. “How long did it take you to come to that realization?” she asked. She continued to hold her tea in front of her as though desperate to maintain a buffer between them.

Gently, he removed the cup and saucer from her hands and set it aside. “My heart knew the second you slammed the door in my face. It might have taken my head a little longer,” he confessed. “But I got there. Eventually.”

“You can be unbelievably stubborn.” A hint of her grandmother's tartness slid through the observation. “And now that you know I wasn't trying to swindle you?”

He took a step back and fought to keep his voice even and unemotional. “Now you have a choice,” he said carefully.
“I've been in touch with your old boss, Derek Algier. He's a tough man to track down because he's such a recluse, but Juice helped out.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Derek? Why would you contact him?”

“To see if he needed a translator. I explained your situation. Told him that once Stefano was a little older I would hire a nanny to accompany you abroad while you worked.”

“You…you want me to leave?” An odd quality entered her voice, hitched in her throat. “You want a divorce?”

“No!” The word was ripped from him before he could prevent it. He fought to steady it. His hands folded into fists as he struggled for control, struggled to present his case dispassionately. “We made a marriage pact, remember? I'm offering you your freedom, Shayla, just like I promised. Or…”