Expecting her enemys hei.., p.1
Expecting Her Enemy's Heir, page 1
Amelia shook her head back and forth. This couldn’t be happening.
“No contraception is one hundred percent assured. It seems this is an instance of...” Dr. Moretti looked between Amelia and Alessandro as if trying to gauge the appropriate word, and decided it didn’t need clarifying. “You will want to visit your own doctor when you get home.”
Home. A flat she shared with her sister. A sister still hell-bent on vengeance against her baby’s father and cousin once removed. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to keep the swell of nausea down. It was all too much.
She glanced up at the doctor and then to Alessandro, who looked as pale and shocked as she felt.
Moretti, realizing that there was clearly much to be discussed, announced that he would let himself out and left the two of them alone in a room that suddenly felt stifling. Alessandro collapsed back into the chair she had found him in that very morning only a few hours ago, when the world had been completely different.
When she wasn’t carrying her enemy’s baby.
A Billion-Dollar Revenge
Revenge is best served...red hot!
Ten years ago, the lives of Issy and Amelia were ruined by Gianni and Alessandro Rossi. Ever since, the Seymore sisters have plotted their revenge against the Italian billionaires. Now, it’s time for Issy and Amelia to put their plan into action!
Innocent Issy will act as a distraction for playboy Gianni—then take down his company! But her attraction to him is as intense as it is unexpected... Soon, Issy’s charade leads to very real vows!
After working undercover for two years at Rossi Industries, Amelia can’t wait any longer for vengeance. Until she spends one incendiary night of passion with Alessandro—which has consequences! Now that she’s pregnant with his child, will revenge still be what Amelia wants?
Read Issy and Gianni’s story
Bound by the Italian’s “I Do’’
by Michelle Smart
Discover Amelia and Alessandro’s story
Expecting Her Enemy’s Heir
by Pippa Roscoe
Both available now!
Pippa Roscoe
Expecting Her Enemy’s Heir
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 Twitter, @pipparoscoe.
Books by Pippa Roscoe
Harlequin Presents
The Wife the Spaniard Never Forgot
The Diamond Inheritance
Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation
From One Night to Desert Queen
The Greek Secret She Carries
The Royals of Svardia
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess
Stolen from Her Royal Wedding
Claimed to Save His Crown
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
For Michelle,
Who knew exactly what I meant when I said, “and he kept the land because...”
Working with people that understand you is a dream but being friends with them is a gift.
Loves ya!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE ITALIAN’S INNOCENT CINDERELLA BY CATHY WILLIAMS
CHAPTER ONE
TODAY WAS THE DAY.
Amelia Seymore peered through the window at the dark grey clouds on the horizon, while early morning joggers and cyclists risked life and limb in the narrow juncture between the bus and the pavement. The start, stop of the number 176 as it crawled north across the bridge was making her nauseous, but it was the smell of damp wool and deodorant that forced her from the bus a stop early, gasping for fresh air. Or at least as fresh as you got in Central London during peak commuter hours. Amelia shook her head trying to regain the focus and sense of stability she had a reputation for. Maybe she was coming down with something.
Get yourself together, she ordered herself firmly. Nothing could distract her or knock her off course. Today had been ten years in the making, but it wasn’t the long hours, sleepless nights or the punishingly hard work that steeled her. It was the memory of her father’s face the last time they had spoken. The look in his eyes as he had turned away from her, his shaking hand reaching for the bottle of whisky on his desk. That was the reason she and her sister, Issy, were doing this. That was why she had to succeed today.
Scanning the four-lane road, and too impatient to wait at the lights, Amelia skipped behind a cyclist and in front of a police car. Waving an awkward ‘oops’ at the cops, she arrived in front of a building considered to be the brightest addition to the crown jewels of the London skyline. While the Shard glittered like a diamond and the Gherkin shone emerald green, the imposing rose-hued building that housed Rossi Industries had been affectionately nicknamed The Ruby and was considered the perfect edifice for the two devastatingly handsome property tycoons who owned it.
Amelia craned her neck to look up at the impressive head office of the international conglomerate that inspired both awe and anger in her. Every single day for the last two years she had made this same walk, knowing that she was entering the lair of the two men that had destroyed her family. And every single day she had promised herself and her sister that they would have their revenge.
Vengeance hadn’t come naturally to Amelia. And it certainly hadn’t been immediate. She and her sister had been fifteen and thirteen, respectively, when they had first seen Alessandro and Gianni Rossi. Not that they’d known who they were back then. No, they had simply been two young men who had interrupted a Sunday roast to speak with their father. And in one conversation, the Rossi cousins had stolen their father’s company out from under him and decimated everything that she and her sister had ever known.
Cold fury tripped down her spine as she retrieved the ID swipe card that proclaimed her Project Manager for Rossi Industries and entered the building. Amelia smiled at the security guard in spite of the memories that held her stomach in a vice, passing through the barriers to the bank of lifts that would take her to the sixty-fourth floor.
As she waited in the deserted lobby for the lift to arrive, she counted down the floors as if it were a ticking bomb the Rossis had no idea of and she relished that today would be the day their world shattered, just as hers and Issy’s had. And then it wouldn’t matter if she had nearly thrown it all away in one night, just over a month ago...
We shouldn’t be doing this.
Amelia clenched her teeth, trying to ignore the way the rough, gravelly voice rubbed against her skin even now and once again desire wrapped around a part of her she’d never known she had. A desire that hit her like a tsunami, drawing her beneath the surface and snaring her in the undertow.
I... I want to.
With those three words she had betrayed her family, her sister, herself.
No!
She wouldn’t let that one night, that one mistake, ruin everything she and Issy had worked so hard for. Yes, she had spent one illicit night with her boss—her enemy—Alessandro Rossi. But it didn’t change anything. She just had to ignore the cascade of erotic memories that haunted her. Because no matter what had happened six weeks ago in Hong Kong, it in no way justified or excused what Alessandro and Gianni had done ten years ago to her family. And because of that, today was the day that the Rossi cousins would fall.
* * *
Alessandro looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his penthouse office to see London stretched out below him like a supplicant. Power. It ran through his veins, not just because of his immeasurable wealth, or the considerable achievements he and his cousin had accomplished in the years since they claimed control of their first business. It might have once belonged to another, but it had flourished into an empire under the Rossi name. No, the power came from the knowledge that the first meeting of his very busy day would green light a deal that promised to send shock waves through the business world.
The Rossi name was already renowned, but this deal would see it written in the history books. In years to come, there might even be two young upstarts who would read of the Rossi name and success and think—that’s what I want to be.
Alessandro caught the grim smile on the face of his reflection and nodded. How would his father feel when he saw it? When he heard that Alessandro and Gianni had achieved success beyond his wildest dreams...but not under the name of the men who had fathered them. No. The first chance he and Gianni got, they legally changed their names, desperate to erase the stain of their fathers in a way that they would feel to the core of their blackened souls. They had chosen Rossi to honour their nonna—the only member of their family who ha d truly shown them kindness.
My blood runs in your veins, boy. And it will run in your children’s and your children’s children’s.
But his father’s warning was irrelevant. The blood line would end with him. He would make sure of it.
Not that Alessandro indulged in self-sabotage. Rossi Industries was his life, consuming all his time and energy. Where his father sought to destroy and strangle the last breath from the vineyards he overworked, or the wife he had constantly abused, Alessandro was determined to leave the world better than it had been; that was his legacy.
His watch beeped with a fifteen-minute alert for the morning’s meeting. It really was bad timing that it coincided with Gianni’s one and utterly immoveable holiday of the year. But, he reminded himself, the Aurora deal had been vetted by his cousin, everyone on the board, by his most trusted advisors, and the project manager he trusted far more quickly than was deserved after just two years of service.
Amelia Seymore.
Alessandro straightened the knot in his tie, checking the button behind it, but in his mind he was undoing the button and yanking the tie from his neck as he watched that same woman looking at him, breathless want filling her words.
I... I want you.
Are you sure, Amelia? Because—
Just tonight. Just now. But we will never speak of it. Ever.
He’d been so desperate for another taste of her lips he’d have agreed to anything. Cristo, if she’d known how much power she’d wielded in that moment, she could have had him on his knees begging to give her everything he owned. Embarrassment crept up his neck in angry red patches.
He flexed his hand, the memory of her naked thigh beneath his palm taunting him, leading him deeper into the one night—the only night—he’d crossed a line both professionally and personally. A line that was as much a taboo as it was utterly wrong. Shame, thick, heavy and ugly, crawled across his skin. He wasn’t that man—he didn’t sleep with his staff. Only apparently he was.
We will never speak of it.
A knock cut through the memory of Amelia’s edict and he returned to the seat behind his desk, hiding the near constant state of arousal he’d been in since he and Amelia Seymore had returned from the successful deal in Hong Kong six weeks ago.
‘Come.’
His secretary entered the room two strides and stopped, having learned quickly that he liked his space.
‘There are no changes to the schedule for today. Asimov has checked into his hotel and he and his people will be here for the eleven a.m. briefing. Lunch is booked at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester and Gianni called to say, “Don’t mess it up.”’
‘He said “mess”?’ Alessandro queried.
‘I’m paraphrasing.’
Alessandro held back the smirk at what his cousin would have really said. Raised as close as brothers, their knowledge of each other’s thoughts was only one of the reasons for their immense success.
‘And the nine a.m. meeting?’ he asked his secretary.
‘The room is set up, the audio and visuals have been tested by IT, Ms Seymore is already in the room and has given me a spare presentation pack for you to view now, if you’d like.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
And it really wouldn’t. If Amelia Seymore said that she’d do something, she did it. She assessed projects, met with clients, ran projections, assessed workflows and got it done. She was nearly as exacting as himself. Which was why he’d entrusted the Aurora project to her. Not because they had shared one utterly incendiary and completely forbidden night together, but because she was excellent at her job, always early, always correct and always had the right answer. She could have been made purposefully for him.
‘Sir?’
If only she didn’t distract him in ways that no other person had ever done.
‘Repeat the question?’ he forced himself to ask, as distasteful as he found it.
‘Would you like your coffee in here, or down at the meeting?’
‘Here.’ Clearly, he needed to gather himself.
* * *
As members of her team filtered into the glass-walled meeting room, Amelia lined up the presentation packs with the notebooks and pens she’d asked Housekeeping to provide. Alessandro was particular, he liked things neat and exact.
And he’d liked the way she’d sounded when—
Red slashes heated her cheeks and a light sweat broke out across her shoulders. She slammed the door shut on her memories, trying to ground herself in the moment. Stepping back from the large boardroom table, she caught sight of the sketch of the building that might have changed the face of inner-city apartment living across the world, had the Rossi cousins not built their empire on the back of her father’s broken soul. Really, Alessandro and Gianni had brought this on themselves.
For ten years this was what she and Issy had planned for. The stars had aligned in a way that had seemed almost preordained. After two years of project after project, Amelia’s position within RI was unquestionable. And because of that, the most important project the Rossis had ever undertaken was in her hands, just as Gianni’s annual holiday broached the horizon. Everyone knew that together Alessandro and Gianni were undefeatable. But separated? It was the only time there was a chink in their legendary armour. A chink that Amelia and her sister would use to bring them to their knees.
Issy had spent years turning herself into the perfect distraction for the legendary playboy with his own hashtag #TheHotRossi. Yesterday, an Issy styled perfectly to Gianni’s tastes had flown to the Caribbean with the sole purpose of luring him onto a boat and keeping him away from Alessandro while the final decision on Aurora deal was made. And with Gianni safely out of contact, Amelia could now commit the greatest act of industrial sabotage ever recorded, ensuring that the Rossis’ world was left as obliterated as hers and her sister’s had been.
We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?
The question Issy had asked before she left for the airport yesterday had poked and prodded at Amelia’s conscience. Not because Amelia didn’t absolutely know that they were doing the right thing, because she did. But in order to set their plan in motion, she had been forced to lie to her sister. Something she’d never thought she’d ever do.
Years before, when they had first started their quest for vengeance, they had made a pact. No revenge without proof of corruption. From even the beginning they had refused to become the very monsters they hunted. And, of course, Amelia had agreed. Because there would be a paper trail. There would be evidence of countless corrupt deals and ruined businesses Alessandro and Gianni had left in their wake on their journey to becoming a globally recognised name in property development. But in two years she’d found...nothing. Nothing other than what had been done to their father.
Panic had begun to nip at her heels. What if she could never give Issy the justice she’d promised her? What if everything they’d sacrificed to achieve their revenge was for nothing? While normal teenage girls had been going to parties and clubs, Issy and Amelia Seymore had planned and plotted. Amelia had forced herself through every business course and language module possible to make herself the perfect future employee for Rossi Industries. And her sister? Issy had trawled through the online world, researching every inch of their enemies’ lives. No corporate press release, business deal, tweet or social media post was left unseen. They had spent years on their mission, forsaking so much of their teenage and young adult years.
But then had come the business trip to Hong Kong; her third major project with Rossi Industries and one she and her team had invested months of work on. Alessandro wasn’t supposed to have flown out for the meeting himself. It was highly unusual, but she hadn’t let it put her off her stride. She’d nailed the presentation, and the strong relationship she’d built with the client had earned them not only the commission but a personal invitation for her and Alessandro to dine with Kai Choi. It would have been a grave insult to refuse, so while her team members had returned to London, she and Alessandro had remained in Hong Kong.
