The Marriage Ultimatum (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  The Marriage Ultimatum

  Christine Glover

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Also by Christine Glover

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  The Marriage Ultimatum © 2017

  Christine Glover

  Edited by: Jayne Wolfe

  Cover by: http://sweetnspicydesigns.com/

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales, or persons living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For information about subsidiary rights contact the author via her website.

  www.christineglover.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9981113-0-8

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  ISBN: 978-0-9981113-0-8

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  Chapter 1

  Holding a cold compress to his leg, Stefano Durante limped through the doors of Mountain Brook, Georgia’s local clinic. “Damn, that was a close call,” he said to his cousin, Gian. A little too close considering the tree’s branches could have speared him through the chest instead of his left thigh.

  Gian shook his head. “You’re lucky this happened in a tourist town and not at home in Italy. Otherwise our grandfather might have called you back and made you walk down the aisle pronto.”

  His taciturn grandfather’s warnings to settle down before Stefano’s adrenaline junkie ways killed him rang through his head. “Ever since the doctor’s tests to determine why Nonno has been rapidly losing weight, grandfather insists that I ‘get married, make bambini.’”

  “He’s worried.”

  “We’re all worried,” Stefano said. And that meant he had to get with grandfather’s program, or lose his position at the helm of Durante Enterprises. “But the idea of marriage—even to set grandfather’s mind at ease—gives me virtual hives.”

  Gian nodded. “Doesn’t help that every woman you’ve dated only wants you for your wealth, not because they actually care.”

  The last one had been just like his mother. Dio. “Why does Nonno insist on old-fashioned tradition when the only thing that matters is my business track record?” Though he couldn’t blame the old man after what his father did just before he’d died in a fiery car crash.

  Embezzling from the family coffers wasn’t easily forgiven. Not even when Stefano had done everything in his power to prove to his grandfather that he’d never steal from Durante Enterprises. He had a lot to make up for because of his father’s mistake.

  “Your record could go up in smoke if this accident reaches his ears—he’s a hard man to please.”

  “No kidding.”

  Pain shot through Stefano’s leg and his head throbbed. The clinic’s florescent lights buzzing seemed to get louder, increasing the agony pinging in his temples while he hobbled toward the admitting desk. “There’s got to be another option other than a marriage of convenience. No way in hell I’m following in my father’s footsteps,” Stefano said. After all, he had suffered the consequences of his father’s poor judgment from the time he had been two years old.

  “Our grandfather might be dying,” Gian said. “But perhaps the last deal you brokered in Las Vegas will prove you’re responsible.”

  “Doubtful. It won’t be enough to save our company if I don’t make things work out with Phillip Anderson.”

  Behind the scenes, Stefano had labored tirelessly to ensure that Durante Enterprises continued to stay in the black. But his family’s steel manufacturing company—with factories in Northern Italy, parts of Europe, and Canada—was in trouble and the only way to guarantee his family’s future profits was to bring it into a new age of innovation. He’d secretly been negotiating a merger with the Information Technology entrepreneur without his grandfather’s consent in the hope that he could convince the old man to let go of the family reins.

  After another huge no from Durante’s patriarch, Stefano had channeled his frustration into hang gliding near Anderson’s corporate retreat in Northern Georgia. Then he’d address the situation in person with Nonno when he returned to Italy.

  Unfortunately, he’d lost control of the glider and crashed.

  Now Stefano surveyed the tableau of misery filling every corner of the anemic room. Battered chairs, old toys, and a small television that looked like it had stepped out of the last decade accentuated the poverty that was hiding behind the upscale resort Stefano had stayed in during the week.

  Babies wailed, squirming in their mother’s arms. Other children cried. Adults drooped in chairs, some clearly injured. Old men moaned and groaned in wheelchairs, and mothers cajoled toddlers with promises of feeling better. Stefano inhaled the odor of antiseptic, the sickness permeating the air, the faint stench of sweat and cleanliness melding together.

  He pulled out his wallet, and drew out several bills. “Give this to the front desk nurse as a donation, then find out who I need to contact about getting some decent furniture and televisions in this place.” Every inch of him hurt, but Stefano welcomed the pain. It meant he had lived to see another day, unlike his father. Even now Stefano wondered what had led to the accident: his mother’s multiple affairs or being fired from Durante Enterprises when his corporate theft had been discovered. Most likely both had played a part, but the crash had been ruled an accident.

  “Sure thing.”

  Stefano leaned against the counter while Gian slipped the pretty brunette manning the desk the money along with a dash of his own special brand of Italian flattery.

  Gian returned with a clipboard and a pen. “I’ve got the administrative director’s information.” He passed the board to Stefano. “Fill this out. I convinced the nurse to let you cut to the front of the line.”

  “That wasn’t necessary. And completely unfair to the people waiting ahead of me,” Stefano said, though nausea rose in his throat and the room spun.

  Gian caught Stefano before he hit the ground. “It’s a done deal. And you had better hope this godforsaken place is so far off the grid that grandfather’s radar will miss it,” he said.

  “The man has eyes everywhere,” Stefano said, scribbling information onto the forms while propping on the front desk for support.

  Gian pulled his smartphone from his back pocket. “I’ll check the Internet for any leaks about the accident just in case we need to do damage control.”

  Black spots danced in front of his eyes. “Good idea. This accident could screw up everything with Nonno.” Not to mention, raise more flags about the company’s financial vulnerability. If Anderson caught wind of this, he might take his money and his ground breaking software platform to one of Stefano’s competitors. Didn’t help that corporate piranhas had started circling around Durante Enterprises when rumors of his grandfather’s declining he
alth surfaced.

  Stefano had to find a way to convince Nonno to give him full power over Durante Enterprises.

  His back pocket vibrated as Gian looked up from his phone. “Sorry, cousin. Your luck has officially run out.” He showed him the screen. “The crash went viral on the Internet.”

  “Shit.” Stefano pulled out his phone and read the text from his grandfather’s secretary. “Grandfather expects me to return to Italy after I’m treated for my injuries.” He doubted the formidable man who had raised him would back down from his demands. “He’ll cut me out of the business if I don’t settle down immediately.”

  “Who does he have in mind?” Gian asked.

  “No one yet, but I’m sure he’ll find someone in his little black book of friends with eligible daughters.” Today’s hang gliding accident, and the resulting leg wound, had popped the last balloon in his permanently single and loving it ride.

  Gian cringed while he quickly finished filling out the paperwork. “You might want to start looking for your own wife.”

  Stefano handed the clipboard back to the admission’s nurse. “That’ll have to wait until after I’m treated.”

  Stefano caught a flash of caramel-colored, wavy hair out of the corner of his eye, and scrutinized the woman sitting in the corner of the room, holding her little boy.

  The tilt of her head, the soft curve of her cheek as she pressed it against her son’s curls, held his attention. Something in the way she soothed the child sitting on her lap, caressing his back and weaving her fingers through his dark, curly hair stirred him. Before he acted on his curiosity, an attendant ushered him into a small room where the ER doctor and nurse examined his scrapes, cuts, and bruises.

  “You’ll need stitches,” the doctor said, examining the gash on his thigh. “And I recommend a tetanus shot as a precaution.”

  “Do what you have to do,” Stefano said.

  “I demand to get in to see the doctor immediately.” He heard a woman’s sharp, high voice. “Matthew is in a lot of pain. He can’t wait anymore.”

  Guilt thrummed through Stefano. He’d allowed Gian to use his affluence to get in and out of the clinic quickly. And he’d done so at the expense of a child who didn’t have the same privileges.

  “Gian, go tell the front desk nurse to bring the woman and child back here immediately. They can share my room.”

  “Sir, there are privacy laws,” his nurse objected.

  “Pull the curtain and it won’t be an issue.” He grimaced as the nurse plunged the needle containing topical numbing liquid into his leg. “I don’t want the boy to suffer needlessly.” And the mother fighting for her baby deserved a break.

  “Gotcha,” Gian replied.

  Moments later, the attendant returned with the woman and child. “Momma, Momma,” the little boy cried.

  Stefano cringed as the nurse continued stitching his leg and glanced at the mother who held her screaming child. Red clay smudged the back of the little boy’s dinosaur themed T-shirt and grass stains marred the child’s red shorts. “Shh, Matthew. The doctor has to check your bump and make sure you’re okay first.”

  Her voice had a familiar ring to it, reminding him of another woman’s southern drawl whenever he brought her to the brink of reason and beyond. He raked his gaze over her, took in her luxurious long hair, which obscured her face while she kissed her little boy’s head. Though she’d dressed in an ugly brown polyester uniform, the drab outfit failed to obscure her curvaceous body.

  Stefano did a double take. He remembered that hair. Hair he’d once twined his fingers through. Hair that had spilled on the pillow and sheets beneath him, fanning across the silk.

  He recognized the long tapered fingers stroking the little boy’s trembling back. He remembered her touch. Even now a flash of their final night together blinded him to the rest of the people in the room. Stefano only had eyes for her.

  It had been three years since he’d touched her. Sure, he’d had dozens of women since their crazy whirlwind two-week affair in Atlantic City, but he hadn’t erased her memory completely. He’d wanted to—badly. Because she’d almost made a fool of him. “Roxy?” he asked, quickly noting the lack of a wedding band.

  Her head snapped up and her silver eyes widened. Shock flashed in her answering gaze.

  “Stefano.” She raised her chin after several beats of silence. “I never expected to see you again after you dumped me three years ago without even leaving a sayonara note on my pillow.”

  “I had my reasons,” he said while he waved the nurse away.

  She tightened her hold on her son, her face flushed bright red and she pointed one Converse shoe toward the door she’d walked through. “Reasons you failed to share with me at the time.”

  “Just as you failed to share the truth about your past with me.” He’d almost broken his first cardinal rule about women—never confuse sex with love—and nearly proposed.

  Her lips narrowed into a razor sharp line and her nostrils flared. “I might have left out a few details about my background, but that’s because my family hasn’t played a starring role in my life since I was sixteen years old,” she said.

  “What about your brother?” Stefano asked.

  Roxy paled. “How did you find out about Doug?” she asked while Gian circled the small room and moved toward the door behind her.

  “Standard protocol to run a background check on any woman who might become the mother of my children.” Though he’d wanted to punt it, Gian had insisted that he not let her off the hook if only to satisfy any doubts Nonno would have about Stefano’s fiancée.

  “Doug isn’t a part of my life.” Roxy lifted her son higher. “But that doesn’t matter now. If you’d really cared about me, you’d have given me a chance to explain. Maybe things might have been different for all of us.”

  Stefano tasted a bitter tang of acid. He had a lot of experience with women explaining their lies. Lies that were always accompanied by crocodile tears and emotional pleas for financial handouts. “You had two weeks to tell me the truth, but you deliberately withheld important information.”

  “I suppose I didn’t measure up to your family’s standards when you found out about mine, especially when my brother had a rap sheet, but I never did anything wrong and I sure as heck paid the price.”

  Stefano refused to back down. “It’s not like I left you destitute. I showered you with expensive jewelry, which I’m sure you pawned along with the limited-edition Breitling watch you stole from me. I imagine you had plenty of financial capital to open your art studio in New York,” he said. Which made her presence in a Podunk, United States of America emergency room completely surreal.

  Roxy lifted a single brow and shot him a look of utter contempt. “You have no idea who I am, or a damn thing about my circumstances.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I already tried to three years ago when I found out…” She shook her head. “But you’re right. I sold everything—to get my brother into rehab and pay off his dealer and…”

  “And what?”

  Fear flashed in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Roxy took a step back toward the room’s door, her son still crying in her arms while the nurse bustled back to Stefano’s gurney. “We’ll wait outside.”

  Behind her, Gian glanced at the boy in her arms, raised his brows, and mouthed “what the hell?”

  What the hell didn’t begin to express the electricity crackling between him and the woman he’d been in a passionate love affair with three years ago. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. Regardless of what he thought about Roxy, Stefano couldn’t let her little boy suffer. “Your son needs help.” He touched the nurse’s shoulder, stopping her from stitching his gash. “Get the doctor and have him look at the boy, please.”

  “But your stitches,” the nurse protested.

  “This cut’s not going anywhere. You can finish sewing me up later.”

  “Okay.” The nurse shot Roxy a look. “This man’s i
njury is far more serious than a bump on the head, but I’d rather see a parent err on the side of protectiveness than neglect.”

  “Thanks, Sheila.”

  The nurse left and Stefano focused his attention on Roxy, pointing to her sobbing son. “You’re on a first name basis with the ER nurse,” he said. “You a regular visitor?” A sudden rush of memories about his multiple stitches, bruises, and scrapes surfaced.

  “He’s had more than his fair share of high fevers as a baby,” she said. “Now he’s a rambunctious toddler who finds trouble faster than most kids his age.”

  Her comment reminded Stefano of his grandparents’ ongoing concerns for him. “What happened to him this time?”

  “He fell off a swing set.” Roxy kept her son’s head pressed to her shoulder, sheltering the toddler from Stefano’s scrutiny. “Sheila’s right. You need attention now.” She took another step, turning toward the door.

  In that moment, he caught a glance of her little boy’s tear-streaked face and all his mental gears clicked into place. Quickly, Stefano calculated the days and months since he had last been with Roxy. The toddler in her arms, his hair dark as his own, squirmed and pushed to escape.

  Stefano could feel his pulse pumping in his wound. Instantly, he bolted off his gurney, disregarding the pain shooting through his leg, and rushed to grab Roxy’s shoulder. “Stop,” he said, his heart racing, his soul knowing what shouldn’t be possible.

  The little boy wiggled out of her grip, slipped to the ground, and charged straight into Stefano’s legs. “Go away,” he screamed.

  Stefano swooped the hysterical toddler into his arms. Cristo he was strong, twisting and crying and flailing his arms, punching and struggling for release. “Slow down, easy now,” he said, wondering if this was how his grandfather felt every time Stefano had done much the same when he’d been a child.

  He held the flailing boy at arms’ length and gazed into his eyes.