Falling For The Venetian Billionaire. Rebecca Winters

CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Extract

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      AFTER A MORNING of driving his ski boat for his sister and her friends, thirty-year-old Vittorio Della Scalla, finance director of the Della Scalla Shipping and Passenger Lines Company in Venice, Italy, announced he had to get back to the office.

      His twenty-four-year-old sister, Maria, padded up to the front. “Please take Paola one more time,” she begged out of earshot. Maria’s best friend, Paola Coronna, was the same age as Maria, and both of them worked at the Della Scalla travel agency. “She’s been practicing on her slalom ski and is dying to show you her front flip.”

      Very few skiers could manage it, but Paola and her brother, Dario, who was a year younger, had always been a handful, if not willful at times. He shook his head. “I’m late for work now.”

      Maria’s gray-blue eyes pleaded with him. “Do it for me, Vittorio. Paola is crazy about you and wants to impress you.”

      That was the last thing Vittorio wanted to hear, but it was the end of vacation for everyone. Since it was September, he wouldn’t be coming out to the family villa on the Lido di Venezia again this year. Before he spent more time here, it would probably be late spring of next year when the weather started to warm up.

      Letting out a groan, he murmured, “Bene, but this is the final run. You and Dario are the spotters, remember. Don’t take your eye off her for a second!”

      “Grazie.” Maria kissed his bronzed cheek and walked back to tell the others.

      Fifteen years ago, Vittorio, along with three friends, had been out here skiing and goofing off. Drinking had been involved. But there’d been an incident. He’d been the driver and no one was watching carefully enough, including Vittorio. When the girl fell while skiing, they didn’t realize it in time for another boat to almost run over her after she’d fallen.

      The owner of the other boat happened to be a neighbor who lived on the Lido. He stopped and waited for Vittorio to pull alongside. He gave him a lecture he would never forget and called the police. Apparently, he’d been keeping track of the Della Scallas’ younger son and his antics with his other friends from high-profile families.

      This time he reported the drinking and negligence, and it made the newspaper as well as the news on TV. Vittorio’s father had to live with the bad press because there’d been other reports from locals that the privileged teens on the Lido, including Count Della Scalla’s younger son, were a menace. It brought out the paparazzi who followed Vittorio around for a long time.

      Vittorio’s father was a kind man, but he didn’t spare the discipline when it came to his younger son. Thus followed several years of humiliating pain for Vittorio, and his privileges were severely curtailed. No more partying on the ski boat, no more scuba diving, no more being allowed at the villa on the Lido without adult supervision.

      It didn’t matter that Vittorio hadn’t been the one drinking. He’d been driving the boat and had acted totally irresponsibly. In a vulnerable moment, his father had said that Vittorio’s older brother, Gaspare, would never have brought embarrassment to the family like Vittorio had done.

      His father’s disappointment in him, plus the offhand remark, had made a deep impression on Vittorio, who swore never to let anything like that happen again. He turned his life around, threw himself into his studies. In time, he made enough money to buy a sailboat and develop a plan to make money on his own. Even after his father put him to work in the company, Vittorio managed his own business on the side, determined to make his father proud of him.

      “She’s ready, Vittorio!”

      Brought back to the present, he turned on the engine. After looking around to be sure, he accelerated the throttle, then felt the tug of the rope. Soon he could see she was up. Paola was a good skier and a definite show-off. She did several wide arcs back and forth.

      He brought Paola around for the last time and headed to shore, watching her through the rearview mirror. She got in position to do her flip. But suddenly her body flew forward and hit the water at an odd angle.

      “Stop the boat!” Dario and his sister yelled at the same time.

      With his adrenaline surging, Vittorio swung the boat around and raced toward Paola. When he came alongside her, he put the transmission in Neutral and helped Dario pull her into the boat. That’s when he spotted two slalom skis bobbing in the water. Where in the hell had the other one come from?

      Once they’d laid a groaning Paola on the banquette, he saw blood dripping from her ankle. In trying to perform the flip, she had to have hit the other water ski hard for so much damage to have been done. He reached for one of the towels to stanch the flow. Already he could see swelling.

      “Hold her still, Dario. I’m calling for an ambulance.”

      Within a few minutes he saw the blue flashing lights of a water ambulance coming toward them with its siren blaring. Maria had hunkered down to comfort her.

      “You’re going to be fine, Paola. We’re getting you to the hospital.”

      Vittorio leaned over her. “I promise to take care of you, Paola.”

      While his sister tried to comfort her, he pulled both skis out of the water. Maybe someone skiing behind the other boat he’d seen in the distance had dropped it trying to get up on one ski. The wake could have brought it in their direction. Or it could have fallen off the transom at the back of a boat. Perhaps it had been out here for a long time. He stored both skis to get them out of the way.

      Nothing like this had ever happened before. As the medics put her in the ambulance, he phoned the Coronna family to let them know about the accident. Dario got on board with her to go to the hospital. Maria rode back to the villa with Vittorio, who had to phone the office and tell his private secretary that he wouldn’t be in.

      Two hours later Paola had been taken into surgery and put under a general anesthetic. The doctor made a cut on the skin near the ankle. Then special screws and plates were used to put the bones together and hold them in place. Finally a plaster cast was put on below her knee to the toes. After ten weeks an X-ray would be taken to see how the bones were mending.

      Vittorio talked with the doctor who explained that the sheer force of hitting the other ski had twisted Paola’s ankle in such a vulnerable spot, it was enough to cause the break. He hoped for a good outcome, but it was too early to tell.

      The bad news came when she suffered more pain in January and had to go in for a replacement of some screws. The second surgery, followed by physical therapy, fixed the problem and Paola eventually recovered. But she couldn’t walk on her foot the same way as before the accident. The doctor advised her to wear flats from now on, no high heels.

      Maria felt awful and wished she hadn’t asked Vittorio to take Paola on that last run. Naturally he was horrified that there’d been an accident at all. But for it to have happened on his watch, the same way a near accident had happened out here fifteen years ago...

      His father wasn’t going to be happy about this. Vittorio had spent years making recompense for his foolish behavior. He’d done everything in his power to preserve the family honor.

      Though he wasn’t responsible for this accident today, guilt put a stranglehold on him more intense than before.

       CHAPTER ONE

      Eight months later

      NOW THAT IT was nearing the end of May, Ginger Lawrence’s work in Italy was