Suddenly the thought that she would be in Luciano’s vicinity for the rest of the summer was a daunting one. She could never act polite and indifferent in the company of such a dynamic and passionate male. He lit her up like a fire inside but she ought to be fighting that tooth and nail. She was lying to Luciano and he was Nicky’s father, which meant that there was no possibility of any normal relationship developing between them. Keeping her distance and resisting temptation were what she needed to do. Intellectually she knew that...but knowing and actually doing were two very different things, as she had already discovered. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, Luciano’s attraction yanked at her on every possible level...
LUCIANO’S PHONE BUZZED into life after they landed, shooting out a string of text messages and missed calls, every one of which hailed from his British lawyer, Charles Bennett. His mouth quirking as he wondered what could possibly have prompted the relaxed Charles to such an uncharacteristic display of urgency, Luciano phoned the older man as soon as he stepped inside the airport.
‘I have the worst possible news for you. We’ve all been conned,’ Charles announced with rare drama the instant the call connected. ‘Jemima Barber is not the mother of your child—’
Luciano froze and waved an impatient hand at his bodyguards to silence their chatter while he listened. ‘That’s not possible,’ he declared.
‘I haven’t got all the details yet and I won’t waste your time with speculation but I believe that the mother of your child was one of an identical set of twins. She died when she was struck by a car a couple of months ago,’ the lawyer explained curtly.
Luciano was frowning darkly. ‘Which would mean—’
‘That at best our Jemima is an aunt to the boy and a con artist,’ Charles framed drily. ‘I have a top-flight set of investigators digging into this right now and I expect to have the whole story for you by this evening at the latest.’
‘How sure are you of these facts?’ Luciano prompted, watching Jemima detach his son’s clinging fingers from her hanging golden braid. Not Niccolò’s mother? How could that be? His brain, usually so fast to adapt to new scenarios, was for some reason still struggling to find solid ground in this shift of circumstances.
‘Take it from me—she’s definitely not the woman who gave birth to the boy. I now have that woman’s real name along with a copy of her death certificate. She called herself Julie Marshall. Matters are complicated by the fact that from the very beginning of your dealings with Julie, your son’s real mother was using Jemima Barber’s identity to hide behind.’
‘But why? You believe this was a conspiracy from the start?’
‘Who can tell? With one of them dead it’s doubtful that the full truth will ever be known,’ Charles pointed out cynically.
Rage began to shadow Luciano’s rational mind as the ramifications for his son began to filter into his thoughts. His son’s mother had deceived him and his staff from day one and now she was dead and, as such, untouchable. Luciano was his son’s only living relative. He refused to credit that an aunt could possibly have a claim to challenge his own. So, naturally, Jemima had not owned up to the truth. After all, her only way of making a profit through Niccolò was by pretending to be his birth mother.
As they climbed into a limousine outside the airport Luciano watched his son nestle trustingly into Jemima’s arms and then complain loudly at being placed in the car seat instead. His lean dark features shadowed. He was finally a parent and already he had failed. He had failed to protect his son from hurt. Niccolò had been encouraged to form a bond with his two-faced, duplicitous aunt and would be emotionally bereft when the woman disappeared from his world. Who did Luciano blame for the formation of that deceptive bond? Jemima Barber! She must’ve known from the outset that her only weapon would be the baby’s attachment to her. Niccolò was only a baby but he had already been tricked into bestowing affection where he should not. Luciano, in a rage beyond anything he had ever experienced, ground his even white teeth together while he pretended an interest in the emails on his tablet.
She was a lying, cheating prostituta with a stone for a heart! And just like her late sister, the only thing that greased the wheels in Jemima’s world was money. There was no other explanation for her behaviour! At any time she could have admitted the truth but she had preferred to lie and stage a scam to ensure that she wielded the greatest power she could and made the biggest possible profit out of her dishonesty. In ignorance Luciano had agreed to settle her debts—her sister’s debts?—and had made the mistake of offering her an all-expenses-paid trip to Sicily. And she would have even more cause to celebrate when she saw what awaited her at the castle...
Of course he didn’t want her now, he told himself fiercely. He wanted nothing more to do with her and out of sight would be out of mind. How long had it been since a woman put one over on him? He suppressed a shudder of all too fresh recollection. What did it say about him that the women who most attracted him were thoroughly immoral and unscrupulous characters? Was that some hangover from his ancestral forebears? Something dark and shady in his blood that slyly influenced his choices?
Although Jemima was trying not to stare at Luciano she was convinced that something unpleasant had happened. She had watched his lean, darkly handsome face freeze into rigidity while he was talking on the phone at the airport. Had he received bad news? Some business setback? Or something of a more personal nature? Jemima acknowledged how very little she actually knew about Luciano Vitale. He was a widower who had lost a wife and a daughter and that was the summit of her information. But whatever was amiss, Luciano’s jaw was rock hard with tension and he had barely acknowledged the existence of Jemima and his son since the jet had landed. Ironically, Nicky, who acted up whenever Luciano actively tried to get closer to him, now chose to stretch out an inviting hand towards his father, who might as well have been on another planet for all the interest he was showing in him. Still, there was yet another similarity between the two of them, Jemima reflected helplessly. Neither one of them could bear to be ignored...and ten to one that was exactly why Nicky was vying for attention now.
The limousine came to a halt and Jemima looked out of the window, surprised to see various aircraft parked. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘A private airfield. I use a helicopter to fly to my home,’ Luciano divulged, his firmly modelled lips compressing.
Jemima’s eyes widened in surprise. She had never been on a helicopter before and yet he evidently regularly used them just to travel home. Nothing could have more easily illustrated the vast gulf between their worlds. While they were boarding the helicopter, there was no further conversation, which was probably just as well because Jemima was concentrating on her exciting new experience.
As the helicopter took off Jemima peered out of the window to watch a slice of sea appear at a crazy angle. Her brow pleated in astonishment when the craft then flew out directly over the water. Where on earth were they going? Naturally she had assumed that Luciano’s home was either in a city or in the mountainous interior but as the minutes passed on their seabound journey it was clear that their destination could only be another island.
She watched land appear again with keen interest. A bright patchwork of forested slopes, olive groves and a vast brown building on the shoreline of a long beach appeared. The building had towers and turrets like a castle, and as the helicopter dropped down to land in the manicured grounds enclosed by tall boundary walls she realised that it was a genuine castle.
‘What’s this place called?’ she asked as she hopped down onto the grass and approached Luciano to take Nicky back off him.
‘Castello del Drogo. The island is named for it. I’ll keep him,’ Luciano told her, hoisting