The summer holidays had just begun. Only the day before she’d been surrounded by twenty-seven happy, curious eight-year-olds. Besides, she was the one who’d turned down invitations for the summer break. She had elected to stay at home.
So what good was it to dwell on the gaping void of people and company in her solitary existence? She’d chosen this life.
She’d turned her back on her father, her half-brother and the world they inhabited.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Would she?
* * *
The cottage could not have been quainter if it had been brought to life from between the pages of a Beatrix Potter storybook. Stone, painted a pale cream, roses in the front garden, wisteria scrambling over an arch that led to the front steps and a thatched roof that showed the house to be two-storey, with little dormer windows shaped into the roof. Lights were on inside, making the cottage glow with a warmth that did something strange to Antonio’s chest.
He studied it for a moment, a frown on his face as, for a brief and uncharacteristic moment, he rethought the necessity of this.
He had already bought his way into—through shell companies and entities—many of Carlo diSalvo’s businesses, giving him if not a controlling interest in their operation, enough of a stake to be difficult and a nuisance to the man he had been raised to hate.
But this was different. He would gladly let the rest go if he could only get this one company under his control. And if Amelia diSalvo proved difficult, if appealing to her sense of decency didn’t win her over, then he’d show her what he’d been doing and how close he was to ruining her brother.
He crossed his arms over his chest as the first drop of rain began to fall, quickly followed by another. It was a summer storm that brought with it the smell of sun-warmed grass and the threat of lightning. Inside the cottage a shape moved and he narrowed his gaze, homing in on its location.
Amelia.
He held his breath unconsciously as, with blonde hair scraped into a bun, she moved into his vision. Her face was pale; at this distance it was hard to tell, but he would say she wore no make-up. She stared out of the window for several moments and then turned away.
Certainty fired in his gut.
She was a diSalvo.
That made her fair game.
It had been less than a month since he’d buried his father and in that moment Antonio’s only regret was that Javier had not lived to see this final, deeply personal revenge be enacted.
With renewed determination, his stride long and confident, he walked up the winding path. Gravel crunched underfoot and the moon peeked out from behind a storm cloud for a moment, casting him in an eerie sort of silver light. Foreboding, some might have called it, but not Antonio.
Bumblebee Cottage, a brass sign near the door proclaimed, and he ignored the image it created—of sweetness and tranquillity. Amelia diSalvo might be playing at this life, but she was the daughter of a supermodel and the most ruthless bastard on earth. And she was also the piece of the puzzle he needed—victory was within reach.
* * *
As if her loneliness had conjured a companion, the doorbell rang. Olivia wasn’t so maudlin and self-indulgent to forget all common sense. It was almost nine o’clock at night—who could be calling at this hour?
She’d bought Bumblebee Cottage because of its isolation. No prying neighbours, no passing motorists—it sat nestled into a cul-de-sac of little interest to anyone but her and the farm that bordered the cottage on one side. It was a perfect, secluded bolthole. Just what she’d needed when she’d run from the life she’d found herself living.
She adored it for its seclusion but a frisson of something like alarm spread goosebumps over her flesh. She grabbed a meat cleaver, of all things, from the kitchen bench then moved to the door.
‘Who is it?’
A man’s voice answered, deep and gravelled, tinged with a European accent. ‘Can you open up?’
‘I can, but I’m not going to,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Who are you?’ she called more loudly. ‘What do you want?’
‘Something that is easier to discuss in person.’ He was hard to hear over the falling rain.
‘What is it?’
‘I just said—’ He released a soft curse in Spanish. When she was eight, she’d mastered curse words in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Greek, Mandarin and Polish. She’d been bored on a yacht and the staff—one from each of these nationalities—had spent one late night teaching her. ‘It’s important, Amelia,’ Antonio said.
The fact he knew her name got her attention. With a frown on her face, she unlocked the door, keeping the chain lock firmly in place so that it only cracked open a wedge.
It was dark on the porch, but enough light filtered out to show his face and it was strong and interesting.
‘How do you know my name?’
There was a beat of silence and then, ‘I’m a business acquaintance of your brother’s. I need to speak to you.’
‘Why? What about? Is it Carlo? Is he okay?’
The man’s eyes flickered with something and for a moment Amelia was worried, but then he smiled. ‘So far as I know, Carlo is fine. This is a proposition just for you.’
At that, Amelia frowned. ‘What kind of proposition?’
His look was mysterious. ‘One that is too confidential to discuss through the door.’
‘It’s late at night. This couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?’
‘I just flew in.’ He shrugged, his eyes narrowing. ‘Is it a bad time?’
She wanted to tell him to go away, because something about him was making her pulse fire and her heart race. Fear, surely?
‘It will not take long,’ he said once more, appeasing, and her eyes lifted to his.
When had she become so suspicious? True, she’d had a baptism of fire when she’d gone to live with her father and half-brother. She’d learned that there were many people out there who would hurt you—not physically, necessarily, but with any means it took. His so-called friends had proved to be wolves in couture clothing. But she’d fled those people, that world. She’d moved across the earth, to the sweetness of a tiny village, and the homeliness of Bumblebee, and she’d become not Amelia Hamilton, nor Amelia diSalvo, but Amelia Clifton—her mother’s real surname. A normal name. An unrecognisable name. A name that didn’t attract attention or interest, a name that was all her own.
Intrusions from her other life weren’t welcome.
‘Fine,’ she said crisply, pushing the door shut so she could unchain it and then opening it wide.
She did a double-take. Through the one inch of open door it hadn’t been possible to see exactly how handsome he was. But now? His dark hair sat straight and spiky, enhancing the sharpness of his bone structure and, rather than looking as though it had been styled that way, it was more like he’d dragged his fingers through it enough times to make the hair stand on end. His was a face that was all angles and planes, symmetrical and pleasing, with a square jaw and a chin that looked as though it had been carved from stone. Only there was a divot in its centre, as if his creator had enjoyed pressing a thumb into it, a perfect little indent that drew her curious gaze.
His lips were broad and his jaw covered in stubble. His nose was long, straight and autocratic, but it was his eyes that robbed her lungs, momentarily, of the ability to pump air out of her body. They were eyes shaped like almonds, a dark grey in colour, rimmed in thick black lashes that curled in a way Amelia was both