Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child. Julia James

what? Dio mio! Explain I’m going to get engaged to another woman!

      Another curse of burning frustration dropped from his lips.

      I didn’t want any of this! All I wanted was to have Eloise with me in Rome—just her and me, being together, exploring our relationship, finding out what we mean to each other. Time together.

      And now Marlene and Carla were smashing that to pieces. Caring nothing at all for the complications of his own life right now. Of what was important to him.

      But, like icy water washing over him, he knew what was really overriding what he wanted. He had to fulfil the promise he’d made at his father’s deathbed.

      A hard, heavy weight pressed down on him. There was no escape. None. This was happening at the very, very worst time. But he must not let it endanger what he had with Eloise.

      But how to keep her safe from it? Away from all the gossip that would inevitably break out once his engagement to Carla was announced? He would never expose Eloise to that!

      A surge of protectiveness went through him as a possibility occurred to him—not perfect, but at least doable.

      I’ll take her to Amalfi—she can stay there, waiting for me. I’ll explain why—ask for her patience, her trust, while I extricate myself from Marlene’s trap, give Carla time to see sanity. To come down from the hysterics she’s throwing all over the place!

      But, even though he knew that getting Eloise out of Rome was essential, a sense of impending loss assailed him. He didn’t want to park Eloise down on the coast—he didn’t want to part with her at all, not even for a short while! Pressure like a vice crushed his skull. Pressure from his uncle, who had willed away half the Viscari legacy, from Marlene, hell-bent on forcing his hand, from Carla, intent on hitting back at the man who’d spurned her, and from his father, who had bound him with an unbreakable chain of love and loyalty, and his mother, desperate for him to accept that chain around him.

      For an instant a vision flared in his mind—a vision so unbearably tempting he almost reached out his hand to seize it.

      He and Eloise, walking hand in hand along a tropical beach in the moonlight. The Caribbean waves kissing their bare feet in the warm surf. Far, far away from here—far, far away from all that assailed him now! Free, oh, blissfully free of it all!

      Let Marlene do her worst! Let her! Let his uncle’s damn shares pass out of the family.

      I could do it—I could let it happen. I could grab Eloise by the hand and fly away with her...leave all this behind me. Just be with her.

      The vision hung in his head like a jewel, and his longing to seize it was painful inside him. Then, as the vice around his skull tightened, he let the vision go. Dull, pitiless resignation filled him. He couldn’t run—he couldn’t abandon his duty, his responsibility.

      I have to see this out. It’s a battle I have to face—and find a way to win.

      Because one thing he was adamant about. Whatever price he was going to pay for Guido’s shares, it was never going to be marrying his uncle’s stepdaughter.