Draco's Marriage Pact (The Dante Inferno: The Dante Dynasty Series Book 7) Read online

  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. A painful honesty underscored 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, but he kept that last part to himself. Shayla and Stefano would discover it soon enough.

  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 she 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 only she and her husband knew how and why they’d ended up there. She could state for a fact 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 certainly 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 ev
en 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 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 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 they’d been exchanged for inferior stones. I was the last one on record for handling them.”

  “And the gemologist?”

  “Long gone.” He turned to look at her, his eyes empty of emotion. “I’m not sure anyone really believed me when I told them what happened.”

  “Oh, Draco, no!”

  “I’d always been the troublemaker in the family,” he persisted. “If I’d stolen them, the family preferred to turn a blind eye to my shame. If I’d been careless and allowed someone else to take them, then I was a fool. Of course, it didn’t help that I had no business sneaking into the vaults in the first place.”

  “How did you get in?”

  Draco shrugged. “I lifted Primo’s passkey.”

  She winced. “Ah. I guess that didn’t help matters, either.”

  “Not at all.”

  “And you’ve been searching for them ever since?”

  He didn’t need to answer. She could see it in his face, a drive and determination every bit as ingrained as it had been in her grandmother. “There’s only one left. But if we trace this latest stone back, I’ll have the gemologist.”

  “Will you be able to prove he’s the one who took them?”

  “Juice will.” Draco’s expression hardened, became as ferocious as a dragon who’d just discovered his treasure had been stolen out from under him. “It would probably be best for all concerned if I stay well away from the man until after we’ve proven his guilt.”

  Shayla studied the diamond again, wishing she had a pair of tweezers so she could get a better look. “This really is a beautiful stone. What’s the clarity?”

  “Flawless.”

  “Really?” she asked, impressed. “Were they all like this one?”

  Draco nodded. “All rounds. Ideal cut. All five carats or larger. All fire diamonds.”

  She’d received enough training to know her way around gemstones, and come close to guessing the value of what he’d lost. “Dear heaven, Draco,” she murmured.

  “Someone lived in style off them. One appears on the market every couple of years, though it takes several months before we find out about it. By then it’s changed hands several times and is being offered as a legitimate sale item. This latest one was dumped within the last six to nine months.” He fished a loupe from his pocket, along with a diamond holder. “Would you like to have a look?”

  “Thanks, I’d love to.” She carefully picked up the stone and studied it. Something about it nagged at her but before she could make the connection, Stefano began to fuss again. She frowned as she folded the diamond back into its paper liner, then lifted the baby from his carrier. “He’s been doing this on and off all day.”

  “Let me take him.” Draco eased Stefano into his arms and gave him an expert bounce. “Is he hungry?”

  “I just fed him.” She ran her hand over his head. The instant she did, her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, God. He’s burning up, Draco. Feel him.”

  Draco’s hand joined with hers and tension leaped into the muscles along his jaw. “Call Dr. Henderly.” He gave every appearance of calm, except for his eyes. She could see a bone-deep fear lurking in the depths, a fear that warned she wasn’t being a nervous new mother. Something was seriously wrong with their child. “Tell her we’re on the way to the emergency room. I’ll get the baby strapped into his car seat and pull the car around.”

  The next several hours took on a nightmarish quality. The wait to see a physician seemed to take forever. Finally, Dr. Henderly appeared and the pace kicked into high gear, speeding by so fast Shayla had trouble keeping up. The medical staff checked Stefano from head to toe, then stuck an IV in his tiny arm while he screamed his objection.

  More than anything she wanted to go to him, to hold and protect him. Instead, she turned into Draco’s arms. She could feel his tension and knew he felt every bit as helpless, holding himself in check through sheer raw nerve. The medical personnel ushered them out of the examination room while they ran a series of tests. Having to walk away from her baby was the most difficult thing she’d ever done. If it hadn’t been for her husband, she’d have gone insane.

  But he held her. Held her and gave her his strength. Murmured encouragement that gave her hope. Kissed her with a bone-deep passion that told her she wasn’t alone and never would be. When they arrived at the waiting room, Shayla discovered Draco had called the family. One by one they filtered into the area, lending their emotional support, wrapping father and mother in a protective cocoon of solidarity.

  At long last the doctor joined them. Her brows shot up when dozens of Dante eyes fastened on her, all filled with nervous dread. Draco’s hold on Shayla tightened, a stalwart buffer, and she had a crazy image of a ferocious dragon planting himself between her and danger, determined to protect her from whatever came next.

  Dr. Henderly shot them an encouraging smile. “It’s strep throat. Very rare in babies his age, but we’ve been seeing a lot of it this month and considering how contagious it is . . . Fortunately, you discovered it early, so try not to be too alarmed. We’d like to keep him overnight for observation and to give him fluids and antibiotics.” She focused on Shayla and Draco. “The bottom line is, he’s going to be fine. Good catch, Mom and Dad.”

  Shayla wanted to howl like her baby. Tears she’d fought to suppress rained down her cheeks. Beside her, Draco rocked her in place. “Shh. It’s okay now. He’s safe.”

  She lifted her head, clinging to Draco while she struggled for sufficient control to address the doctor. “When can we see him?” she asked.

  “Just give us a minute to get him up to isolation. He’ll have to stay there instead of in the nursery since we can’t risk his infecting any of the other babies. I’ll send a nurse for you. She’ll take you straight to your son.”

  The instant she left, conversation exploded around Shayla, relief the predominant emotion. All the while, Draco held her and continued to whisper reassurances to her. She’d never have made it through the trauma of the past few hours if it hadn’t been for him. He’d been an absolute pillar of strength.

  And more, his family had come storming to the rescue, as well. She’d never experienced that before, never had an extended family to help out in her moment of need. Well, other than her grandmother.

  She realized something else, too. Something that shocked her to the core. She wanted Draco beside her. Needed him. She tried to picture what would have happened if she’d been living in Atlanta when Stefano became ill. She wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist and clung. She’d have managed. For her child, she’d have done whatever it took.

  But she’d have done it alone.

  Stefano remained in isolation for two endless days before the doctor released him to return home. Though Shayla tried not to fuss throughout the ensuing days and nights, she couldn’t seem to help herself, rushing to check on him every time he so much as squeaked. A week after the crisis, Draco caught her hand when she ran upstairs to the nursery for the umpteenth time.

  “Enough,” he said, steering her into the master bedroom, a room and a bed they’d shared ever since she gave birth to
Stefano.

  “But I thought I heard—”

  “You heard the same thing I did. A baby sighing in his sleep.”

  “I need to check, Draco.”

  “Look at me, sweetheart.” He waited until her gaze was fixed on his. “Would I willingly allow anything bad to happen to our son? For that matter, would I allow anything bad to happen to you?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Then stop. You’ve been a bundle of nerves this past week and I won’t allow it to continue any longer.”

  Her eyebrows shot upward. “Won’t allow?”

  He didn’t back away from the word. “No. It’s not good for you or the baby. Listen to me, Shayla. I grew up with four male cousins and two brothers, not to mention a sister with a tomboy streak a mile wide. Accidents happen. I should know considering I broke my leg falling out of a tree.”

  “Oh, Draco.” It clicked then. “The scars on your leg?”

  “It was a bad break. It could have turned life-threatening. My parents stood right where we did, terrified, helpless. But afterward they found a way to let go. You can’t protect Stefano from every bump and bruise that will come his way. And they will come. Worrying about the what-ifs in life won’t help.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just—” She spared a swift glance toward the bedroom door and Stefano.

  “Will you smother him with worry? Will you clip his wings each time he tries to fly?”

  His question hit home and hit hard. Take away Stefano’s freedom, the way her grandmother had tried to do with her? Never! “It’s just that he’s so tiny and helpless.”

  Draco smiled gently. “He’ll always seem small and helpless. When he’s one and wants to walk without you helping him. When he’s three and wants to climb the slide by himself. When he’s six and goes off to school without you. When he has his first sleepover with friends. When he goes on his first camping trip. When he leaves for college.” Draco gripped her shoulders. “Of course you want to protect him and make sure he takes those steps without putting himself in danger. But you have to let him take them. Do for our son what your grandmother refused to do for you.”