“I have something to tell you,” Anais said a couple of years later.
They’d come to Maui for Damian’s school vacation, and were sitting out on the lanai of the house where they’d met for the first time six years into their marriage, the house Dario had bought from the Fuginawa estate after the old man had passed on. The rolling hills of the Kaupo countryside gleamed beneath the stars and, far below, he still thought he could hear the sea.
“Because all good conversations start exactly like that,” Dario murmured, pushing his laptop aside and closing it. Focusing on Anais. He didn’t like the way she stood there, almost mimicking the same positions they’d taken all those years ago, so he hauled her into his lap and got his mouth on her neck.
The same fire roared between them. It always had. It always would.
A wave of goose bumps washed over her, and she shivered in his arms, and only the presence of his children in this house somewhere kept him from pulling up that loose dress she wore and making them both a whole lot happier, right here.
“Remember how I told you I didn’t feel well?” she asked, angling her head to one side to give him better access.
“I do.” He pushed the silk of her hair aside and trailed heat along the line of her neck. “Remember how I told you my theory and you assured me you couldn’t possibly be pregnant?”
She didn’t reply and that old fear gripped him—that he’d ruin this again, that he’d ruined her irreparably. That she still didn’t trust him to be there for her and never would.
“I can’t think of anything better than another baby with you,” he told her gruffly. He’d never meant anything more. “Another member of this family. Our family. It would be a gift.”
And Anais laughed. She tipped back her head to look him in the eye and he knew then. She wasn’t afraid of telling him this news, she wasn’t worried about their future—she was teasing him. She trusted him.
She trusted him.
He couldn’t think of a better gift than that.
“Twins,” she said, her dark eyes laughing at him. “And get ready, Dare. They’re girls.”
He couldn’t think of a better gift except that, he amended as he covered Anais’s mouth with his, love and laughter and that same old hunger underneath, making it all sing.
Except that.
* * * * *
Sharon Kendrick
“I have the tiara you want and you have to pay for it.”
Dante Di Sione could forgive the beautiful blonde he kissed in the airport lounge for accidentally taking the suitcase with his grandfather’s precious tiara in it. But then she has the nerve to blackmail him into accompanying her to her sister’s wedding!
So when news of their supposed engagement breaks, Dante takes his revenge and ensures that Willow plays the part of his loving wife-to-be to the full. Only, he has no idea that Willow has faked all that bold confidence...and is a virgin!
Book 5 of The Billionaire’s Legacy
For Sarah-Jane Volkers who will know
exactly why this book is dedicated to her when
she reads it! And to the brilliant Rafael Vinoly,
whose words painted such a perfect vignette
of Long Island life…
DANTE DI SIONE FELT the adrenaline pumping through his body as he walked into the tiny airport terminal. His heart was pounding and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He felt like he’d been running. Or just rolled away from a woman after a bout of particularly energetic sex. Even though it was a long time since he could even remember having sex. He frowned. How long?
His mind raced back over the past few weeks spent chasing across continents and flitting in and out of different time zones. He’d visited a dizzying array of countries, been presented with a whole shoal of red herrings and wandered up against several dead ends before arriving here, in the Caribbean. All in pursuit of a priceless piece of jewellery which his grandfather wanted for reasons he’d declined to share. Dante felt the tight clench of his heart. A dying man’s wish.
Yet wasn’t the truth that he had been tantalised by the task he’d been given and which he had taken on as a favour to someone who had given him so much? That his usually jaded appetite had been sharpened by a taste of the unusual. Truth was, he was dreading going back to his high-octane world of big business and the slightly decadent glamour of his adopted Parisian home. He had enjoyed the unpredictability of the chase and the sense that he was stepping outside his highly privileged comfort zone.
His hand tightened around the handle of his bag which contained the precious tiara. All he needed to do now was to hang on to this and never let it go—at least, not until he had placed it at his grandfather’s sickbed so that the old man could do what he wanted with it.
His mouth felt dry. He could use a drink, and...something else. Something to distract him from the fact that the adrenaline was beginning to trickle from his system, leaving him with that flat, empty feeling which he’d spent his whole life trying to avoid.
He looked around. The small terminal was filled with the usual suspects which this kind of upmarket Caribbean destination inevitably attracted. As well as the overtanned and ostentatiously wealthy, there seemed to have been some photo shoot taking place, because the place was full of models. He saw several giraffe-tall young women turn in his direction, their endless legs displayed in tiny denim shorts and their battered straw hats tilted at an angle so all you could see were their cute noses and full lips as they pouted at him. But he wasn’t in the mood for anyone as predictable as a model. Maybe he’d just do a little work instead. Get on to René at his office in Paris and discover what had been going on in his busy and thriving company while he’d been away.
And then his gaze was drawn to a woman sitting on her own. The only pale person in a sea of tanned bodies. Her hair was blond and she looked as fragile as spun sugar—with one of those pashmina things wrapped around her narrow shoulders which seemed to swamp her. She looked clean. He narrowed his eyes. Like she’d spent most of her life underwater and had just been brought up to the surface. She was sitting at the bar with an untouched glass of pink champagne in front of her, and as their eyes met, she picked up her glass, flustered, and began to stare at it as if it contained the secret to the universe—though he noticed she didn’t drink any.
Was it that which made him start walking towards her, bewitched by a sudden demonstration of shyness which was so rare in the world he inhabited? With a few sure strides he reached her and put his bag down on the floor, right next to a remarkably similar brown leather carry-on. But then she lifted her head and all he could think about was the fragile beauty of her features.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ she said in a very English accent as she blinked up at him through thick lashes.
‘Have we met before?’ he questioned.
She looked startled. Like someone who had been caught in an unexpected spotlight. She dug her teeth into her lower lip and worried them across the smooth rosy surface.
‘I