Avenging angels, p.33
Their Boardroom Baby, page 33
She swept a protective hand over her abdomen.
Very few people would have been able to guess that she was pregnant at this moment. Would the father of her child have been one of them?
“Erin, if he finds out…” Maria shuddered at the thought, unable to even finish the sentence. “I just need some time. And then, when I’m ready, I’ll tell Micha.”
“Tell me what, cara?”
Maria spun round in shock, coming face-to-face with Micha.
“I saw you leave,” she whispered in horror.
“Well, I came back,” he said, grim-faced and hard-eyed. “And now I think it’s time that you tell me exactly what’s going on, whether you’re ready or not.”
His gaze bored into hers, flicked down to where her hand was on her abdomen and rose back up to her face, eyes widening, lips parting in shock.
“You’re pregnant.”
A brand-new and captivating trilogy from Harlequin Presents author Pippa Roscoe.
Filthy Rich Italians
One billionaire family…three convenient proposals!
Powerful heirs Antonio, Enzo and Maria have found themselves in a bind. Their cunning grandfather has been scheming behind the scenes to ensure that his billion-euro company stays in the family—whether they like it or not! Wedding bells are certainly ringing—but do they signify business deals, or could there be more than money at stake…?
Six years ago, strangers Antonio and Ivy entered into a convenient marriage. Now, to save his family company, Antonio needs a divorce—but the judge won’t grant it! The couple must prove that they’ve tried everything to make their marriage work, but after two weeks together in Tuscany, will a separation still be a straightforward solution…?
Inconveniently Wed
Erin Carter will stop at nothing to buy back her family company. And the new owner is willing to sell, on one condition: She has to marry his billionaire playboy grandson! But Enzo Rossetti will not be anyone’s pawn. So when he overhears a beautiful stranger’s plan to trap him into marriage, he decides to play her at her own game…
The Rossetti Ring Requirement
Maria Gallo is furious to find Micha Rufina, wrongful CEO of her family company and the man who broke her heart, on her doorstep. Micha needs his rival’s help to run the company. But she’s got her own bombshell to drop—she’s pregnant with his child! And now Micha won’t settle for anything less than marriage…
Their Boardroom Baby
All available now!
Their Boardroom Baby
Pippa Roscoe
Note to Readers
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9781335213525
Pippa Roscoe lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you all. Follow her on X @pipparoscoe.
Books by Pippa Roscoe
Harlequin Presents
The Wife the Spaniard Never Forgot
His Jet-Set Nights with the Innocent
In Bed with Her Billionaire Bodyguard
Twin Consequences of That Night
Forbidden Until Midnight
A Billion-Dollar Revenge
Expecting Her Enemy’s Heir
The Greek Groom Swap
Greek’s Temporary “I Do”
Filthy Rich Italians
Inconveniently Wed
The Rossetti Ring Requirement
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Excerpt
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
He had to find Maria. He… Micha could barely pull his thoughts together. They’d scattered like the marbles he’d seen other children play with on the streets. He couldn’t… He didn’t…
Gio Gallo, the man he’d had the temerity—and desperation—to try and steal from, the man who had plucked Micha and his mother from the streets, given him a job, an education, a place to live, a future, the man to whom he owed everything, had just broken his heart.
Ask her. Ask her and see what she says.
Micha was a few days from his eighteenth birthday. And he’d been happy. He’d been pinch-me-hard-because-this-didn’t-happen-to-people-like-me happy. Gio had been his fairy godfather far beyond the time when Micha had believed in fairytales—if he ever had.
He’d grown up hard and quick, forced to do and see things most adults never did. Not that he’d ever lay the blame at his mother’s feet. She’d done the best she could. She’d done whatever she could and he forced his thoughts away from the darkness that filled his mind when memories of the past came calling. His father had run off before he was born, leaving his mother saddled with debts she had no hope of paying, and debtors who had plenty of ideas. He’d been on edge, hovering between desperation and hopelessness when he’d run across Gio.
Gio, who had given him everything.
Gio, who wanted to send him away.
Gio had brought him into his business, his family and his sprawling family estate in Tuscany, and Micha had thrived. As for the rest of his family? They were not all like Gio, who had seen in him what no money could have bought—an intelligence that matched his own and a determination that would achieve great things, given half the chance. No, instead, most of the Gallos simply saw a half Italian and half Russian illegitimate street urchin who would never amount to anything.
Maria hadn’t thought that though. She and Antonio had never treated him as anything but an equal. They had befriended him, and they became inseparable. The Three Musketeers, that’s what they had been called. He hadn’t understood the reference at first and had to look it up, but he liked it. Three friends who would do anything for each other.
Ask her and see what she says.
Micha had genuinely thought he and Maria had been careful enough that no one had known about their relationship. He stumbled over the word love. He felt it, but could still hardly believe that someone like Maria could feel that way for him. But he adored her. She filled his every thought. She made his heart ache just at the sight of her.
But Gio wanted to send him away.
Micha had always wanted to work for Gio. He’d wanted to repay the man who had changed his and his mother’s entire lives. He was going to work for Gio and so was Maria. Because Maria wanted to run Gallo Group—the international conglomerate that Gio ruled with an iron fist.
But the only way that Gio would allow that to happen was if she married Antonio—her adopted cousin. Gio Gallo was fixated on the union of his two grandchildren, having given up fully on his own, useless children.
Micha had thought that if he could just prove himself, if he could show the old man just how good he was, Gio might eventually change his mind. He’d thought he would have time.
‘I’m sending you to Paris,’ Gio had announced that morning.
‘That’s…kind of you, Mr Gallo, but I’d rather stay here. To be near—’ Maria ‘—my mother.’ The guilt at the lie twisted in his soul.
‘This is no problem. I will be providing you both with accommodation.’
‘I have—’ friends ‘—colleagues here. And I was just beginning to grow—’
From behind his desk, Gio had pulled up to his full height, the black-eyed glare stopping Micha’s words so much so that he nearly bit his tongue.
‘It’s just that—’ Micha had tried again.
‘No,’ Gio said. The word a bullet. ‘It’s not your mother, it’s not your friends or your career prospects. What it is,’ he said, stressing the word, ‘is an impossibility.’
‘Sir, I—’
‘She is not meant for you,’ Gio spat, the poison dropping into Micha’s skin. ‘You know my feelings on this.’
Micha clenched his jaw.
‘But, really, it’s not my feelings you have to worry about. You know how much she wants to lead this company. At seventeen, she already has a better business head than my children do at twice her age. She was born for this. She wants this. And she will choose this over you, Micha.’
Micha huffed out a disbelieving breath.
She wouldn’t.
‘Ask her, Micha. Ask her and see what she says.’
He couldn’t say it was sadness that he’d seen in the old man’s eyes. Pity and such things were far beyond Gio’s emotional capabilities. But it didn’t matter, Micha thought to himself. She would choose him.
Micha found her lounging on the large verdant lawn of Gio’s Tuscan villa laughing with An tonio and for a moment a vicious splinter of jealousy cut through his heart. They did look good together. Together they could run Gallo Group and life would be easy and rich and…
‘Micha!’ Maria called when she caught sight of him, her gaze happy and her face bright.
His heart shuddered and he forced a smile to his lips.
‘Ciao bella,’ Micha called as he drew closer.
Antonio raised a hand to clap him on the back when he arrived.
‘Good, take this one off my hands, please. She’s driving me round the bend. I have to go, Mama is waiting,’ he said easily, dropping a kiss to Maria’s cheek and another slap to Micha’s back. ‘Look after her,’ Antonio called as he loped back up to the estate.
Maria smiled up at him and patted the ground beside her, Micha dropping to his knees strangely out of breath.
‘I have to ask you something,’ he said, focusing on the tumble of dark curls that surrounded her like a halo.
‘Hello, how are you? Well, thank you, and you?’ Maria said on a laugh which petered out when she saw the look on his face. ‘Of course, you can ask me whatever you like,’ she said, placing a hand on his forearm.
‘What would…?’ Micha swallowed.
Tell her.
No.
Tell her why you’re asking.
‘What would you do to become head of this company? If Gio offered it to you? What would you do?’ The words rushed out of Micha’s mouth, his heart thudding painfully, as if already he was running from her answer, as if already he was rushing to pack his bags for Paris.
Would you do it? Would you marry Antonio if Gio asked?
Maria blinked at him, pulling a strand of her curls that the wind had blown across her face. Her smile bright and her eyes gleaming.
‘Anything,’ she said, enthusiastically. ‘Anything. You know that.’
And then she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips, not knowing that her declaration had broken him forever.
CHAPTER ONE
Eleven years later…
The sound of her heels against the marble flooring of the foyer of Gallo Group headquarters in France made Maria Aurora Guilia Gallo feel like a boss. The boss that she would be within months.
Some may have found it petty that she had taken the Gallo Group jet from Italy to France for the sole purpose of rubbing that very fact into Micha Rufina’s face, but she didn’t care.
The receptionist looked at her warily and Maria realised that it was a very real possibility that she had just growled. Out loud.
She shook it off, sending a ripple across the billowing cream silk button-up shirt, tucked into the camel-coloured cashmere trousers pressed to perfection with a flawless crease down the centre of each leg. The patent leather cream one-of-a-kind Louboutins—the ones clicking so satisfyingly towards the private elevator that only family and board members had access to—were her favourite pair.
Every single item of clothing, down to the lace basque, had been intentionally chosen. They were pieces of her armour. The armour she would wear to the final battle she ever had with Micha Rufina—her nemesis. Her enemy. And if he had been anything before that, anything more, she had forced herself to burn it from her memory until all that remained was a jagged scar, hidden so deep, her heart could barely remember it.
She arrived at the lift, swiped her key card and waited.
A woman came hurrying up to her.
‘Mademoiselle Gallo, it’s so lovely…’ she trailed off when Maria cut her a glare. ‘Does Mr Rufina know you’re here?’ The pitch of the poor woman’s voice rose into the stratosphere.
‘No,’ Maria replied, turning back to the lift, ending any and all hopes of further conversation the receptionist may have had.
To her right was the bank of public lifts that would take the building’s staff to whatever floor they worked on. She was aware of a few of the staff casting surreptitious glances her way as they left for the evening. Or trying to at least.
At first, Maria had bemoaned the way that she drew the male gaze.
‘They’ll never take me seriously,’ she’d complained to her cousin Antonio. ‘All they see is this,’ she’d said, yanking on the thick tumble of long black curls. ‘And these,’ she’d said, pushing out her chest. Antonio had barked out a laugh and pushed her out of his face, telling her to ‘get those things away from me.’ They’d both ended up crying with laughter. ‘Then, mi amor,’ he’d said, ‘make them take you seriously in spite of it.’
He’d been right. As always. Her cousin, her favourite family member in the whole wide world, and not just because the rest of them were worse than a den of poisonous vipers out for whatever cent they could get their greedy little hands on. No, Antonio had always been there supporting her, cheering her on, even when her own parents wouldn’t. And so what if, for the last six years, Antonio had been a little distracted by his company, and avoiding the wrath of their grandfather. He was still the only person she could rely on to help her.
And so—despite having worked for longer, and harder, than most of the family members there—she had always used her clothing with near deadly intent.
Dress the part, act the part, get the part.
And today she had dressed rich. Expensive. She had dressed with the kind of class that went beyond money. And she’d done it for one reason and one reason only. She wanted Micha to know that she was so far beyond his reach they may as well be on different planets.
She wanted the boy she’d all but grown up with to know that this was the last time he would ever see her, no matter what he’d meant to her grandfather. The grandfather she had looked up to, had loved with everything she had in her, but who had never once seen her as worthy. The grandfather who had been a complex, deeply difficult man, but who sometimes she’d thought she understood. Until he had passed away and his last will and testament had been read. The shock waves that had rippled out had been catastrophic for some, but for her and Antonio? Life changing.
Because Gio’s last will and testament revealed that no matter what they had done in the last six years—Antonio marrying someone else, Maria working every hour god sent to prove her worth—Gio Gallo had never given up on his eccentric and utterly irrational plan for her and Antonio to marry and together produce the perfect heir to inherit and run his empire.
It didn’t matter that they were already Gallos. Antonio was adopted and she was female, these two things marring them in some way for their grandfather. But a child from the two of them? That was what Gio had wanted from the beginning. And if they didn’t marry and fulfil the terms of the will? The entire company would be handed over to Micha Rufina—something Maria would never allow to happen while she still had breath in her lungs.
Antonio felt the same, which was why he had agreed to marry her in name only, to fulfil the terms of the will. Once Antonio got a divorce from the woman he’d married for convenience six years ago, he would then be free to marry her. And once they were married, once they had inherited the company, he would sign over his share of the company that he had absolutely no interest in and they would go their separate ways. Him to his business, Alessina International, and her to Gallo Group. And no one would ever look down on her again.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened and she entered a small cubicle big enough for three people at a push. The rose gold mirrored glass threw her image back at her in soft reflections and she counted the floors down as she rose higher up the building, all the way to the penthouse.
She had been to the Paris office of Gallo Group several times over the past six years, but made sure to do so when Micha wasn’t there. She, unlike many others, had not been surprised by the meteoric rise of the boy Gio had taken under his wing all those years ago. No, she knew something of Micha’s mettle.
And it was cold, hard and impenetrable.
But still, even she had to begrudgingly respect the man’s business acumen. And where others in the family had snidely remarked about the ‘transferable skills’ of begging and thieving on the streets of Roma, she had only seen survival and determination, her sympathy for the boy she had once known refusing to budge on that instance. But she had also learned at her cost not to underestimate him.
Maria arrived at the penthouse floor with a ding and the lift doors parted to an exquisite reception area, continuing the use of the Gallo Group’s brand colours of rose gold and cream, she saw with no small sense of satisfaction.
