‘I spoke the truth. My father died penniless,’ he told her slowly. ‘I gave him an allowance and paid his bills but, other than this cottage, he had nothing left to his name. Under Sicilian law, your sister is not even entitled to a share of that.’
Aislin closed her eyes and slumped in her chair.
The tone of his words held the ring of truth.
Defeat loomed so large she lost the strength to correct him, to say loud and proud that Orla was his sister too.
Aislin was a penniless student. Orla was a penniless single mother still fighting the insurance company for compensation for the damage to her son. They’d pooled the spare cash they’d had between them to instruct that rubbish lawyer who hadn’t even bothered to read up properly on Sicilian inheritance laws. Her open-ended return flight here and the car hire had left them skint.
If there was a loophole they could exploit to get something, they had no money left with which to do it.
‘This cottage and the land it stands on have been in my family for generations and I have no wish to sell,’ he continued, breaking through her defeated thoughts. ‘But I am prepared to give Orla half the value. Fifty-fifty.’
She snapped her eyes back open and met his unblinking gaze. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘One hundred thousand euros. It will be conditional on her taking a DNA test, but we can get that arranged soon. If the test comes back as positive, the money is hers.’
The relief that surged through her at that moment was enough to punch all the breath out of her.
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. ‘Thank you. You don’t know what that means—’
‘I also have an offer for you,’ he cut in before she could get carried away with her thanks. ‘An offer that is not DNA-conditional.’
‘What kind of offer?’
‘A mutually beneficial one.’ His eyes narrowed and he rocked his head as if he were thinking. Then he gave one final nod and stilled. ‘I have a wedding to attend this weekend. I want you to come with me.’
‘You want me to come to a wedding with you?’
‘Sì. And in return I will pay you one million euros.’
‘BUT...’ AISLIN COULDN’T form anything more than that one syllable. Dante’s offer had thrown her completely.
His smile was rueful. ‘My offer is simple, dolcezza. You come to the wedding with me and I give you a million euros.’
He pronounced it ‘seemple’, a quirk she would have found endearing if her brain hadn’t frozen into a stunned snowball.
‘You want to pay me to come to a wedding with you?’
‘Sì.’ He unfolded his arms and spread his hands. ‘The money will be yours. You can give as much or as little of it to your sister.’
‘Won’t your girlfriend mind?’
As soon as the words left her mouth, Aislin wanted to kick herself.
His beautifully thick brown eyebrows rose in perfect timing with the flame of colour she could feel rising over her face. ‘Did you research me?’
‘I saw a picture of you together when I was thinking up ways to get your attention,’ she muttered, dropping her eyes to examine her fingernails, desperately trying to affect nonchalance.
She hadn’t been researching him, more trying to get a handle on the man in the days before she’d set off for Sicily, trying to decide the best way to cut through the minders and hangers-on to grab his attention for long enough to have the conversation they were now having... A conversation that had taken a most bizarre turn that she was struggling to get her head around.
What she had learned was that Dante Moncada was a man any right-thinking woman would steer a million miles away from. His father had been a Lothario who had seduced Aislin’s mother when she’d still been a teenager, and all the evidence pointed to Dante being of the same ‘love them and leave them’ mould. Dante did not need to pay someone to attend a wedding with him. She would hazard a guess that, if he asked a roomful of women if any wanted to go with him, ninety-nine per cent of them would bob their heads up to agree like over-caffeinated meerkats.
Aislin was part of the one per cent who would duck under a table rather than accept. She’d been there, done that, stupidly having fallen for the biggest playboy on campus, believing his declarations of love and respect; believing they’d had a future that involved marriage and babies, only to find him in bed with one of her housemates mere weeks after her sister’s accident.
If she was ever stupid enough to get involved with a man again, her preference would be for a boring, gaming-obsessed hermit with zero libido who had an abhorrence of the outside world and would thus never be in a position or have the mind-space to cheat.
Not a man like Dante. Not this man, who was sexier and more handsome than should be legal.
She could practically smell the testosterone and pheromones wafting from him. They soaked into her pores in the same way his amazing deep voice did, sensitising her skin and settling deep inside her in a way that was, quite frankly, terrifying.
But a million euros...?
‘I ended it with Lola a month ago.’ He leaned forward, a sudden, unexpected gleam appearing in his eyes.
Her heart thumped, the beat ricocheting through her like a tsunami.
It took a huge amount of effort to keep her voice steady. ‘But you must have a heap of women you could take and not have to pay them for it.’
‘None of them are suitable.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I need to make an impression on someone and having you on my arm will assist in that.’
‘A million dollars for one afternoon...?’
‘I never said it would be for an afternoon. The celebrations will take place over the coming weekend.’
She tugged at her ponytail. ‘Weekend?’
‘Aislin, the groom is one of Sicily’s richest men. It is a necessity that his wedding be the biggest and flashiest it can be.’
She almost laughed at the deadpan way he explained it.
She didn’t need to ask who the richest man in Sicily was.
‘If I’m going to accept your offer, what else do I need to know?’
‘Nothing... Apart from that I will be introducing you as my fiancée.’
‘What?’ Aislin winced at the squeakiness of her tone.
‘I require you to play the role of my fiancée.’ His grin was wide with just a touch of ruefulness. The deadened, shocked look that had rung from his eyes only a few minutes before had gone. Now they sparkled with life and the effect was almost hypnotising.
She blinked the effect away.
‘Why do you need a fiancée?’
‘Because the father of the bride thinks going into business with me will damage his reputation.’
‘How?’
‘I will go through the reasons once I have your agreement on the matter. I appreciate it is a lot to take in so I’m going to leave you to sleep on it. You can give me your answer in the morning. If you’re in agreement then I shall take you home with me and give you more details. We will