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The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella
Michelle Smart


Bought for his convenience…But their chemistry is impossible to resist! Posing as commanding billionaire Dante Moncada’s fiancée at a glamorous society wedding is a far cry from Aislin O’Reilly’s modest life, but she’ll do anything to secure money for her sick nephew. Her deal with Dante is strictly business—the gorgeous Sicilian playboy is danger personified. Yet soon their mutual explosive passion rips through the terms of their arrangement, leaving them both hungry for more…







Bought for his convenience...

But their chemistry is impossible to resist!

Posing as commanding billionaire Dante Moncada’s fiancée at a glamorous society wedding is a far cry from Aislin O’Reilly’s modest life, but she’ll do anything to secure money for her sick nephew. The deal with Dante is strictly business—the gorgeous Sicilian playboy is danger personified. Yet soon their mutual explosive passion rips through the terms of their arrangement, leaving them both hungry for more...

Get swept away by the glamour of this convenient engagement!


MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby and would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading them—and writing them—ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire, England, with her husband and two young Smarties.


Also by Michelle Smart (#uf83b6f95-f512-5aa9-b7c9-d035f7648afd)

Married for the Greek’s Convenience

Once a Moretti Wife

A Bride at His Bidding

Bound to a Billionaire miniseries

Protecting His Defiant Innocent

Claiming His One-Night Baby

Buying His Bride of Convenience

Rings of Vengeance miniseries

Billionaire’s Bride for Revenge

Marriage Made in Blackmail

Billionaire’s Baby of Redemption

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


The Sicilian’s Bought Cinderella

Michelle Smart






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-08739-1

THE SICILIAN’S BOUGHT CINDERELLA

© 2019 Michelle Smart

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To all the Emmas in my life.

Love you all! Xxx


Contents

Cover (#u69fa6799-7761-5a64-a557-935393d372b8)

Back Cover Text (#u14d85cfb-6410-5c8c-a7b5-2a4810aa21cc)

About the Author (#ud7bdb017-ac00-5a1d-bb5e-c6cb4822a4b4)

Booklist (#u2a6ccc49-038b-56dc-ab33-444135ad0daf)

Title Page (#u16c8895a-460d-5241-8cae-a535e147d5db)

Copyright (#ucdf9d1aa-c8de-5b5c-9d0c-a6bd3287bc12)

Dedication (#ub61dff5a-2d7d-5607-8248-4a19979042df)

CHAPTER ONE (#u6326baf8-f948-593e-a3ea-3af26d8f9b42)

CHAPTER TWO (#ude4f41bc-aea9-5de6-a85f-b2599ae27ff9)

CHAPTER THREE (#uc77cae75-a789-531b-b3d4-636b1c15f752)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u1454c6bf-e6bd-5b0d-ba9e-58f3ce567911)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#uf83b6f95-f512-5aa9-b7c9-d035f7648afd)


DANTE MONCADA JUMPED into the car beside his driver, two of his men clambering in behind him. This was all he needed, someone breaking into the old cottage that had been in the Moncada family’s possession for generations.

As his driver navigated Palermo’s narrow streets and headed into the rolling countryside, Dante thought back to his earlier conversation with Riccardo D’Amore. The head of the D’Amore family had put the brakes on a deal Dante had been negotiating for the past six months. Riccardo ran a clean, wholesome business and was concerned Dante’s reputation would tarnish it.

He muttered a curse under his breath and resisted the urge to punch the dashboard.

What reputation? So he liked the ladies. That was no crime. His business empire was built on legitimate money. He did not play the games many Sicilian men liked to play. He kept his nose clean literally and figuratively. He liked to drink and party, but so what? He didn’t touch drugs, never gambled and avoided the circles where arms, drug dealing and people trafficking were considered profitable business enterprises. He worked hard. Building a multi-billion-euro technology empire from a modest million-euro inheritance, and with an accountancy trail even the most hardened auditor would fail to find fault with, took dedication. For sure, he cut the odd corner here and there, and his Sicilian heritage meant he did not suffer fools, but every cent he’d earned he’d earned legitimately.

But the legitimacy of his business was not the factor behind Riccardo’s foot coming down on the deal that Dante and Alessio, Riccardo’s eldest son, had spent months working on. The D’Amores had developed the next-generation safety system for smartphones that had proven itself hack-proof, out-performing all rivals. Alessio and Dante were all set to sign an exclusivity agreement for Dante to install the system in the smartphones and tablets his company was Europe’s leader in. This system would give him the tools to penetrate America, the only continent Dante was still to get a decent foothold in.

Riccardo’s talk about reputations boiled down to one thing. Dante’s parentage. His recently deceased father, Salvatore, had been a heavy gambler and the ultimate playboy. His mother, Immacolata, was known unaffectionately as the Black Widow, a moniker Dante had always thought unfair, as she had never actually killed any of her husbands, merely leeched them for money when she divorced them. His father had been her first husband. She was currently on number five. His mother lived like a queen.

Riccardo, on the other hand, had had one wife, eleven children, thought gambling the work of the devil and sex outside the confines of marriage a sin. Riccardo was concerned Dante was the apple that hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Riccardo wanted proof that Dante was not the mere sum of his parents’ parts and would not bring Amore Systems and by extension Riccardo himself into disrepute. Riccardo was now in advanced talks with Dante’s biggest rival about contracting the system to them instead.

Damn him. The old fool was supposed to have retired.

He had one chance to prove his respectability before the deal was lost for good, Alessio’s forthcoming wedding.

Dante’s angry ruminations on his business problems were put to one side when his driver pulled the car to a stop in a small opening amidst the dense woodland that ran along the driveway to the cottage. A few metres away, also cunningly hidden in the woodland, was a much smaller city car...

Dante reached into the footwell for the baseball bat he hoped he wouldn’t have to use.

Flanked by his bodyguards, he neared the run-down farmer’s cottage through the thick trees that hid their approach from watching eyes and rubbed his arms against the bracing chill under the cloudless night sky. The remnants of what had been an unusually cold winter still lingered in the air.

The small cottage with its peeling whitewashed exterior walls came into view. All the shutters were closed but smoke curled out of the chimney that hadn’t been used in two decades, wisping upwards into the still darkness of this early spring Sicilian evening. Marcello, who managed the land, had been correct that someone was there.

Keeping to the shadows, Dante and his men approached it.

The door was locked.

Brow furrowing, he pulled his key out and unlocked it.

He winced as the sounds of the creaking hinges echoed through the walls, and stepped inside for the first time since his teenage years, when he would sneak girls there. It hadn’t been his father he’d worried about catching him, it had been the girls’ fathers. Sicilian men did not take kindly to their daughters having a sex life before marriage; at least, they hadn’t twenty years ago.

The open-plan interior was much smaller than he remembered. The lights already on, he scanned it quickly, looking for damage. The window above the sink had been boarded in cardboard. He guessed that was where the intruder had gained entry, but there was no other visible damage, nothing to suggest his unwelcome visitor had come here intent on vandalising or robbing them. Not that there was anything to take unless the intruder had a penchant for decades-old musty furniture. An air of neglect permeated the walls, mingling with the black smoke billowing from the log fire. A pile of what looked like educational books was stacked on the small table.

He stared at those books, brow furrowed again at their incongruity.

A floorboard creaked above his head.

Adrenaline surged through him.

Keeping a tight hold on the baseball bat, Dante nodded at his men to follow and treaded slowly up the narrow staircase, cursing that each step was received with yet another creak. He could have left his men to deal with the intruder but he wanted to see the face of the man who’d had the nerve to break into his property before deciding what to do with him.

Like all men with his wealth and power, Dante had enemies. The question he asked himself was if it was one of those enemies hiding behind this door plotting against him or just a cold vagrant chancing his luck.

He nodded at his men one more time and pushed the door open.

His first thought as he entered the empty bedroom was that he was too late and the intruder had escaped. There was no second thought, for a figure suddenly burst through from the en suite bathroom and charged at him, screaming, with what looked like a showerhead in hand.

It took a long beat before his brain recognised the screeching figure for what it was—a woman.

Before the showerhead in her hand could connect with Dante’s head, Lino, the quicker of his men, grabbed hold of the woman and engulfed her in his meaty arms.

Immediately she started kicking out, hurling a string of obscenities in what sounded like English, but with a strong accent he had trouble placing.

Dante stared with amazement at this struggling intruder dressed only in a thick maroon robe.

Her eyes fell on him. There was a wild terror in the returning stare.

‘Let her go,’ he ordered.

Lino removed the showerhead from her hand and released her.

As soon as she was free from his hold, she backed away from them, her eyes going from Dante, to Lino, to Vincenzo and back to Dante, the terror still there.

He quite understood her fear. Dante was tall and physically imposing. Lino and Vincenzo were mountains.

‘Leave,’ he barked at his men. ‘Wait downstairs for me.’

Her eyes settled on him.

This woman might be an intruder, her reasons for being there to be revealed but, unless she had a gun hiding beneath that robe, which she would have already used if she’d had one, she posed no danger.

His men were too well trained to argue and left the room. Stealth no longer being needed, they thumped down the stairs like a herd of wildebeest.

Now that he was alone with her, Dante’s senses became more attuned. A wonderful scent filled the room, a soft floral smell that clung around the intruder, who had backed herself into the corner of the room. The only sound to be heard was her ragged breathing.

He stepped slowly towards her.

She pressed herself more tightly into the corner of the room and hugged her arms across her seemingly ample chest, strikingly angled eyes ringing with fear at him. If she hadn’t broken into his property and made herself at home, he could feel sorry for her.

He guessed her to be in her early twenties, petite yet curvy, snub nose, plump lips, freckles covering a face that was either naturally pale or white from fright. The colour of her long, wet hair was impossible to judge. Whatever the colour, nothing could detract from the fact that this was one beautiful woman.

Under any other circumstance he would be tempted to let a whistle escape his lips.

Her long, swanlike neck moved but she didn’t speak. Those strange eyes did not leave his face.

He stopped a foot away from her and asked in English, ‘Who are you?’

Her lips tightened and she hugged herself even harder, giving a quick shake of her head.

‘Why are you here?’

But still she didn’t speak. If he hadn’t caught the obscenities she’d screeched when she’d exploded out of the bathroom, he could believe she was mute.

If she hadn’t broken into his property, he would feel bad for her obvious fright.

‘You know this is private property? Sì?’ he tried again, speaking slowly. Dante’s English was fluent but his accent thick. ‘This cottage is empty but it belongs to me.’

The strange yet beautiful eyes suddenly narrowed and in that slight movement he realised fear wasn’t the primary emotion being thrown at him, it was loathing.

‘My backside does it belong to you.’ She straightened. Her strong accent registered in his brain as Irish. ‘This cottage is part of your father’s estate and should be shared with your sister.’

Anger swelled in him.

So that was what this was all about? Another charlatan pretending to be Salvatore Moncada’s secret love-child in the hope of grabbing a portion of Dante’s inheritance. What did this make? Eight or nine fraudsters since his father’s death three months ago? Or was this someone Dante’s lawyer had already sent packing but thought they would chance their luck one more time and try and convince Salvatore’s legitimate child herself?

As a means of getting his attention this woman had played a master stroke.

What a shame for her that it would end in her arrest and deportation.

‘If I had a secret sister I’m sure I would be open to sharing a portion of my father’s estate with her, but—’

‘There’s no if about it,’ she interrupted. ‘You do have a sister and I have the proof with me.’

Something in her tone cut the retort from his tongue.

Dante stared even harder at the beautiful face before him as his veins slowly turned to ice.

Did this truculently sexy woman really believe she was his...sister?

* * *

So this was Dante?

Aislin had seen many pictures of the cruel Sicilian intent on denying her sister what was morally hers but nothing could have prepared her for the sculptured reality stood before her.

In the flesh he was much taller than she’d expected, his hair thicker and darker. He had a lean, wiry muscularity she hadn’t expected either. Nor had the pictures done justice to the rest of him. His thick, dark beard couldn’t hide the chiselled jawline or downplay the firm, sensuous lips resting below a straight nose that could have been carved by a professional sculptor. Thick black brows rested above green eyes that could only be described as beautiful, and those eyes were staring at her with a combination of disgust and disbelief.

It hadn’t escaped her attention that Dante was a good-looking man but she had not been prepared in the slightest for the raw sexiness that oozed from him.

His black shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and, while she kept her gaze fixed on his eyes, she’d glimpsed the dark hair poking through at the base of his throat.

Dante Moncada was the sexiest, most handsome man she had ever set eyes on and it thrilled with the same intensity that it repelled.

Despite the warmth she’d managed to inject into the walls from the log fire, a shiver ran up her spine, and she drew her towelling robe more tightly around her, wishing she could glue it to her body. It fell to her ankles but, with that green stare on her, she might as well have forgone it. She felt naked.

Beneath it she was naked.

It had been two days since she’d broken into this cottage. Two days she’d been living here, waiting for her presence to be noted and for the certain confrontation with this man to take place. But, seriously, did it have to occur the minute she stepped out of the shower?

So much for the cool, calm, no-nonsense first impression she’d hoped to make. In her head she’d created a scene where he stormed into the cottage and found her sitting serenely at the table studying, preferably wearing her reading glasses. Whenever Aislin wore those glasses, men tended to speak to her as if she had more than a single brain cell floating in her head.

Hearing the creak of the floorboards as Dante and his two goons had climbed the stairs had terrified her. She’d been instantly aware of the vulnerability of her position, thrown her still-wet body into the robe and wrenched the showerhead off as her only means of defence.

Dante must think he was dealing with a wailing banshee, an impression it was essential she correct immediately.

He took a step back, his left brow rising up and down. ‘You believe you are my sister?’

She jutted her chin out to hide her discomfort at her nakedness beneath the robe. ‘If you will be good enough to let me get dressed, I will explain everything. The kitchen is stocked with coffee.’

He gave a grunt of surprised laughter. ‘You break into my home and want me to make you a drink?’

‘I’m asking you to give me some privacy so I can make myself decent before we start arguing about the inheritance you are trying to keep for your greedy self. I’m simply pointing out that there is coffee if you wish to have one while you wait, and that I take mine with milk and one sugar.’

The green eyes flickered over her, taking in every inch of her body, before he blinked, gave the slightest of shudders and took another step back.

‘I will leave you to dress,’ he said curtly.

He closed the door behind him.

Aislin took a moment to force huge lungfuls of oxygen down her throat but Dante’s departure seemed to have taken all the air with him. All that was left were the remnants of his cologne that even her non-perfumer self could tell with one sniff was expensive. Expensive and...sexy, just like the man it adhered to.

Knowing she needed to calm her thoughts or Dante would eat her alive, she pulled a pair of jeans, a silver jumper and underwear out of the wardrobe and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She dressed quickly, ran her fingers through her damp hair then took one last fortifying breath before leaving the room to find Dante.

This confrontation was one she had prepared for. In theory, she had prepared for all eventualities, even if those eventualities had been cobbled together in a rush when they had learned Dante had sold the hundred acres in Florence and pocketed the proceeds into his already bulging bank account.

All she had to do was hold her nerve against this physically imposing man. His looks and scent did not count for jack. This man, a billionaire in his own right, had ridden roughshod over her sister’s efforts to claim a share of their father’s estate.

The stairs led into the cosy open-plan living area, where she found him sat on one of the sagging sofas, flicking through one of her university books. Two steaming mugs of coffee were laid on the table before him. His Goliath-proportioned sidekicks were nowhere to be seen.

His eyes narrowed at her approach and he waited in silence until she had sat herself in the farthest spot from him she could find.

He jabbed a finger onto the opened page of the textbook, the place where she had marked her name, as she had done since her school days. ‘Tell me about yourself, Aislin O’Reilly.’

He pronounced her name ‘Ass-lin’, which under normal circumstances would have made her laugh.

She shook her head. For some reason her tongue struggled to work around this man.

He slammed the book on the table, making her jump. ‘You claim to be my sister, so tell me about yourself. Show me your proof.’

She crossed her legs and met the intense green stare head-on. ‘I’m not your sister. My sister, Orla, is your sister. I’m here as her representative.’

His brow furrowed. She could see him trying to work out what that made them in relation to each other.

‘Orla and I have the same mother,’ she supplied. ‘You and Orla have the same father.’

Dante’s lungs loosened at the confirmation that this intruder was not of his blood. The mere sway of her hips as she’d walked down the stairs had sent his senses springing to life. Dante was not particularly fussy when it came to women. He liked them in all shapes and sizes but to think he could find someone who was possibly his own sister desirable would have been enough to drive him straight to the nearest therapist.

‘Where is the proof of this, Aislin?’

The lighting in the cottage against the darkly painted walls left much to be desired but now she sat close enough for him to see that the colour of the eyes ringing their loathing at him was grey. The black outer rim of the eyeballs contrasted starkly, making the grey appear translucent. Along with the angled tilt of her eyes, it gave the most extraordinary effect.

‘It’s Aislin,’ she corrected, pronouncing it ‘Ashling’.

‘Ashling.’ He practised it aloud. ‘Aislin... An unusual name.’

The striking eyes held his without blinking. ‘Not in Ireland it isn’t.’

He shrugged. As unusual and interesting as her name was, there were far more important things to discuss. ‘You say you have proof that... Orla? Is that her name?’

She nodded.

‘That Orla is my sister. Let me see that proof.’

She got to her feet and walked to the small kitchen area, the curve of her bottom in her tight jeans a momentary distraction. From a small bag on the counter she took out an envelope and opened it on her walk back to him.

Pulling a sheet of paper out of the envelope, she handed it to him with a curt, ‘Orla’s birth certificate.’

Dante took the sheet from her with blood roaring in his ears. Slowly, he unfolded it.

He blinked a number of times to clear the filmy fog that had developed in his eyes.

The birth certificate was dated twenty-seven years ago. On the box labelled ‘father’ were the words Salvatore Moncada.

He rubbed his temples.

This didn’t prove anything. This could be a forgery. Or, more likely, Aislin and Orla’s mother—he scanned the certificate again and found Sinead O’Reilly named as the mother—had lied.

From the envelope still in her hand, Aislin plucked out a photograph and held it out to him.

He didn’t want to look at it.

He had to look at it.

The photo was a headshot of two people, a young woman and a toddler boy.

A violent swell clenched and retracted in his stomach.

Both subjects in the photo had thick, dark-brown hair, the exact shade of Dante’s.

The woman had green eyes the exact shade of Dante’s.




CHAPTER TWO (#uf83b6f95-f512-5aa9-b7c9-d035f7648afd)


AISLIN TOOK IN the ashen hue Dante’s olive skin had turned and experienced a stab of sympathy to witness the penny drop in that arrogant head.

She placed the envelope on the table and grabbed the coffee he’d made for her, unable to understand why her hands shook. It felt as if her entire insides were shaking, tiny vibrations quivering through her bones and veins.

She told herself it was because of the situation, her body preparing itself for the biggest fight it had ever undertaken. It was nothing to do with Dante himself.

The value of this cottage and its land were peanuts for a man of Dante’s wealth but for her sister it meant the world. It would enable her to buy a home that Finn could live in with the freedom to be as normal a child as his condition allowed. That was all Orla wanted—a decent home in which to raise her son.

Aislin loved her nephew with her whole heart. Finn was her heart. For months she’d sat by his side as he’d lain in that awful incubator in the neonatal intensive care nursery, willing his tiny body to grow, for his lungs to work on their own; praying that one day he would be strong enough to go home...to survive.

The little fighter had survived, but not without complications. His entire life would be a fight and Aislin was prepared to do whatever necessary to make that fight more bearable.

Dante’s lawyer had blocked her sister’s every attempt for recognition. Aislin had flown to Sicily determined to confront Dante in person but, again, had been blocked. The security around him was too tight for her to get a foot through it. Breaking into this cottage had been the last desperate resort.

After a length of time had passed that seemed to be stretched by elastic, Dante finally looked up from the photo.

Her heart made the strangest clenching motion when his green eyes locked onto hers. There was a hardness in his stare.

‘I have never heard of this woman. My father had many lovers. Many men and women have come forward since his death claiming to be his secret love-child. You give me a photograph and claim it is my sister...’

His thick Sicilian accent soaked into her skin as if her pores were breathing it in.

‘I am claiming nothing—she is your sister. You can see the resemblance.’

He gave a tutting sound that was pure Sicilian. ‘A convenient resemblance.’

‘There is nothing convenient about it!’ she retorted hotly, and would have added more had he not raised a palm up.

‘If she is my sister, why did she wait until after my father’s death to reveal herself?’

‘She didn’t need to reveal herself. Your father paid maintenance for her upbringing until she was eighteen.’

He sagged slightly at this revelation but it was the briefest of movements, his composure regained in a breath. ‘That is something I can discover the truth of for myself.’

‘It is the truth and, if you hadn’t stonewalled her every attempt to speak to you, you would have all the facts at your fingertips.’

‘My father acknowledged one child. Me. There was no talk of a secret sister, no death-bed confession.’

‘That’s not Orla’s fault.’

‘Would she still claim to be my sister if I were to tell you there is nothing left of his estate?’

‘That’s because you’ve sold it all off!’

The look he cast her was full of fake pity. ‘My father was a gambling addict. He sold everything he could to fund his debts.’

‘I’ve seen the list of assets.’ That was the only thing Orla’s useless lawyer had been able to get from Dante’s terrifyingly efficient one. ‘He was worth millions. Orla isn’t being greedy. All she wants is a small share of it. Morally, she’s entitled to that, even if you and your lawyer don’t agree. I’m prepared to stage a sit-in in this cottage until you either sign it over to her or pay her off.’

Before Dante could laugh at Aislin’s nerve, a lock of hair fell onto his forehead and over his eyes. He brushed it back. He needed to get it cut, another thing to add to his ever-long list of things to do.

‘The law is on my side. Do you really believe that moving into this cottage—illegally—will get you anywhere?’

Her eyes spat fury at him. ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’

‘Maybe in Ireland. But this is Sicily. My country. My property. My land. I can snap my fingers and have you removed from this cottage and expelled from the country.’

‘Try it.’ She jumped back to her feet and snatched the envelope off the table to pull yet another sheet of paper out of it. ‘Try it and I will make sure every media outlet knows what you’ve done. This is not your land, it’s part of your father’s estate. All Orla wants is what she’s entitled to, and this is the authority for me to handle things on her behalf.’

Dante ignored the letter, although he took note of the pretty hand holding it and the buffed, shapely nails. Then he slowly let his gaze drift upwards, over the curvy hips, the slender waist and the large breasts caressed lovingly in a soft, silver sweater. Simple clothing draped over an outstanding body. As her fragrance snaked its way back into his senses, he experienced a thickening in his loins. Disconcerted with this involuntary reaction to this woman, and at this moment in time, he reached for his coffee.

Dante freely admitted his libido was strong but the last time he’d experienced an inappropriate erection like this had been in a maths lesson almost two decades ago when his teacher had leaned over his desk to help him and her top had gaped open, exposing her cleavage.

He made a point of taking a large sip of the coffee, dragging his focus to the matter at hand. For instant coffee, it wasn’t too bad, its heat a welcome respite from the cold that had settled in his spine.

The resemblance between himself and the woman in the photograph was astounding.

‘Has your sister ever lived in Sicily?’

The neat, pretty eyebrows drew together. ‘No.’

‘Say for argument’s sake that your assessment is correct and that my father really was worth millions when he died, what makes you think Orla would be entitled to anything? My father named me as his sole heir. She was not recognised as his child. You have to appreciate that my lawyer and I have been through this many times already.’

When the first fraudster had tried their hand at claiming on the estate, Dante and his lawyer had discussed all the legalities on the off-chance the fraudster was telling the truth.

‘It might have been different if she had lived in my country at any point in her life. I suggest she pays a visit to a Sicilian lawyer and hears for herself that she has no rights.’ He laughed, although humour was the last thing he felt right then. ‘There is nothing for her to have. That list you have is old and dates from my grandfather’s death. My father sold most of the assets on it. The family home never belonged to him and nor did the land in Florence—my grandparents put them in a trust for me to stop my father selling them to feed his gambling addiction.’

That hadn’t stopped one of the fraudsters taking out an injunction to prevent Dante selling those assets, an injunction his lawyer had overturned in ten days. That fraudster was currently rotting in a Sicilian prison, awaiting trial for fraud.

‘This cottage is all he had left and it is not for sale.’ As dilapidated as the cottage was, Dante would never sell it. He wasn’t a man for sentimentality but this was the one place where his childhood memories were only positive. His mother had loathed the cottage and thus it remained untainted by her long-ago desertion.

‘Then pay Orla off. Even if what you say is true, and your grandparents bypassed your father, surely she’s entitled to something? She knows she can’t expect things to be fifty-fifty between you but morally she’s entitled to something. She’ll be happy to settle for the value of this cottage.’

He shook his head in a display of sympathy. Her approach was pitch-perfect, reason matched with a seeming lack of greed. The perfect cover for an outrageous act of fraud.

Dante had almost convinced himself she spoke the truth but that was impossible. His father would never have kept such a secret from him.

He was quite sure his lawyer, one of the most feared legal brains across the Mediterranean, would have been taken in too. Aislin clearly had the brains to match her beauty. She was an incredible actress.

‘This cottage is worth no more than a hundred thousand euros,’ he said, ensuring his voice contained just the right amount of commiseration. ‘The land is worth about the same.’

‘That might not be a lot of money to you but to Orla it’s a fortune.’

‘If it’s worth so much to her then why is she not here? Why has she sent you to deal with it?’

‘Because right now she doesn’t want to leave Ireland. I’m portable—’

‘Did she not want to face me?’ The anger that had been simmering deep inside bubbled to the surface. ‘Or did my sister think sending a beautiful woman in her place would blind me? Is that why you’re here? To tempt me into giving this cottage to her?’

Her eyes widened, dark spots of angry colour forming again over the high cheekbones. ‘Your mind belongs in a sewer.’

‘I’m sure it does.’ He rose slowly to his feet. ‘You were showering when I came to the cottage. Was that deliberate? Were you keeping watch for me? Did my men being with me force you to change your plans? Did you realise then that you had taken on more than you could handle?’

He gave her no time to defend herself.

Stepping to where she had backed herself against the kitchen unit, he continued, ‘Admit it, this is all a bag of lies. What do they call it in English, when a person steals another’s image and passes it off as their own?’

The colour spread from her cheekbones to suffuse her entire face, the plump lips clamping tightly together as he stared down at her, daring her to tell the truth.

A sudden image came into his head of those plump lips parting for him...

Heat coiled through his loins again and he breathed deeply to drive it away, only to inhale another lungful of her beautiful scent.

Dante gritted his teeth and waved the photograph still in his hand at her. ‘How long did you search for the perfect image that you could use to pretend to be my long-lost sister?’

In one sharp but graceful movement, she snatched it from his hand and stabbed a finger at the toddler’s face.

‘Did you not even look at the boy Orla’s holding?’ she snarled. ‘That’s your nephew.’

‘Of course it is. What better than a beautiful child to pull on a man’s heartstrings and charm him into giving you money? I have to say, of all the hustlers who have tried to con me, you, dolcezza, are by far the best.’

Her foot moved. For a moment Dante thought she was going to kick him.

Instead she spun around, grabbed her handbag and pulled her phone out.

In seconds she had it unlocked and was thrusting it in his face.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ he asked drolly.

For someone who had to be a foot shorter than him, she raised herself magnificently. ‘The photos. There must be a hundred of Finn on it and a load of Orla too.’

The coldness in his veins made a sharp return.

‘Take the phone, damn you, and look!’ She grabbed hold of his hand and pressed the phone into it.

A jolt ran through him at the touch of her skin on his, a charge that flowed through them both and had their eyes locking together in mutual shock.

After a pause that went on a beat too long, she moved her hand and stepped to the side, away from him.

Aislin dropped her eyes to the floor and rubbed her hands together, trying to negate the charge flowing through her veins.

Her heart beat so hard its thrum echoed in her ears.

She had not expected that. It had been like those times when she touched something and received a surprise charge of static. But those charges had always been unpleasant, something only a masochist would enjoy. The charge she had felt when touching Dante had been...

Not unpleasant at all.

‘Please, look at it,’ she whispered, summoning the courage to look back at him.

Aislin was not the greatest photographer in the world, and generally managed to chop the top off heads or get a partial thumb over the lens or get a blurry finish. But, however terrible the pictures were in comparison to the one she’d printed off for him, they were documentary proof that she wasn’t lying; that she hadn’t catfished Orla’s identity; that her sister was Dante’s half-sister.

Biologically, Orla was Aislin’s half-sister too, but she had never thought of her as anything other than her whole sister. They’d been raised together, shared a room until Orla had left for university and been true sisters in every sense of the word. They’d protected each other, fought each other, played, loved and hated. No one could wind Aislin up better than Orla could and she knew it was the same for her sister.

Dante’s Adam’s apple moved a number of times before he slowly walked to the dining table and sat on the nearest chair, his focus solely on the photos of the two people she loved most in the world.

Her legs suddenly feeling weak too, she took the seat opposite him, close enough that she could hear him breathe, the deep breaths of someone whose life was in the process of being turned upside down.

Aislin knew that feeling. Orla’s accident, which had resulted in Finn’s premature birth, had turned their world upside down. Life as they knew it had come to a stop that day, three years ago.

She could not help but feel for Dante, trying to imagine what it would feel like to discover a family secret of this magnitude.

It must be shattering.

Her own dad had fathered two more children after his split with her mum but there had been no deception about it, just an awareness that he’d created a new family unit that Aislin was a part of, if somewhat removed from. Her mother, for all her many faults, was no liar. Sometimes Aislin had wished her mum was a liar. It would have saved a lot of angst and heartbreak.

‘I’m not a hustler,’ she said softly after a good two minutes that felt more like two hours had passed, the only sound Dante’s breaths and the swipe of his thumb against the screen of her phone. ‘Orla is as much your sister as she is mine and Finn is as much your nephew too. I know she’ll be happy to take a DNA test if you think it necessary.’

More silence fell until he came to a photo that made him peer more closely. Then he turned the phone to her. ‘Why is he in hospital? What are those things on his head?’

She looked at her darling nephew, smiling in his hospital bed. ‘That was taken six months ago when he went for an EEG.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It measures brainwaves. He was born prematurely and has cerebral palsy. One of the side effects of that, which he has since been diagnosed with, is severe epilepsy. It’s the reason Orla didn’t come to Sicily herself—she’s terrified to leave him. Finn’s condition is the reason she wants a share of the inheritance. She honestly is not being greedy. She just wants a home he can be safe in.’ She was silent for a moment before adding, ‘That’s all I want for him too. I’m sorry for breaking into your cottage. Honestly, I’m not normally one for criminal behaviour, but we’re desperate. Please, Dante, Finn is your nephew. We need your help.’

Dante expelled a long breath and put the phone on the table, then dropped his pounding head and kneaded his fingers into the back of his skull.

He felt sick.

If the evidence was to be believed—and, no matter how hard he strove to find a new angle to disprove it, the evidence appeared compelling—he had a sister and a nephew. A sick nephew.

Another wave of nausea ripped through him.

His father had lied to him.

He thought back to Orla’s date of birth. He would have been seven when she’d been born. His mother had divorced his father when he was seven.

Did his mother know he had a sister? Had she conspired to keep it secret too?

So many thoughts crowded in his head but stronger than all of them was the image of the tiny boy, his nephew, lying on that hospital bed, hooked to a machine via a dozen tubes stuck to his head.

‘How old is he?’

‘A month shy of three.’

He didn’t want to hear the sympathy now ringing from the soft Irish brogue. He could feel it too, radiating from her.

This woman felt sorry for him?

She didn’t know him. All they shared was a sister. And a sick nephew.

He muttered a curse.

He raised his head and looked Aislin square in the eye.

Yes, there was compassion in the reflected stare, but also a healthy wariness.

He steepled his fingers across the bridge of his nose and thought hard, pushing aside the emotions crowding him, sharpening his wits and clearing his mind.

He had a business deal to salvage with the D’Amores before he could begin to think about this, never mind deal with it. The clock was ticking. Five days to salvage the biggest deal of his life. Unless he could convince Riccardo that his own playboy days were behind him and prove his parents’ faults were not his, then the deal for the exclusivity agreement would be lost for good. On Monday Riccardo intended to sign it with Dante’s biggest rival.

One lesson he had learned at a young age was that nothing must come before business. His father had allowed emotions and addiction to take first place and had lost everything for it.

Yet still that image of the boy, his nephew, stayed lodged in the forefront of his mind, and as he stared into the grey eyes of this woman who had just told him his entire life had been a lie, the kernel of an idea flared.

He swept his eyes again over the curvy body and imagined it dressed in expensive couture, and the hair whose colour he still couldn’t determine beautifully styled.

Aislin was a stranger in his country. No one knew her. She was clearly intelligent. And she was beautiful enough that no one would think twice to see her on his arm.

Despite her beauty, she was far removed from the women he normally dated...

‘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.’




CHAPTER THREE (#uf83b6f95-f512-5aa9-b7c9-d035f7648afd)


‘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 have a few days to get to know each other and work on putting on a convincing act.’

‘And if I say no?’

He shrugged. ‘If you say no, then no million euros.’

‘What about the hundred thousand you said you would give Orla?’

‘That is a separate matter and dependent on the DNA test. Your decision will not affect that.’

‘Do you promise?’ She knew it was a childish way of asking but she didn’t care. A hundred thousand euros was too great a sum to play games with.

But a million euros... That was a figure she could scarcely comprehend. That was life-changing.

His handsome features fell into seriousness. He inclined his head before rising to his feet. ‘Whatever you decide, and whatever the outcome, that money for Orla will remain separate from it. You have my word.’

She didn’t have the faintest idea why but she believed him.

Dante greeted the housekeeper, who made an almost convincing job of not acting surprised to see him and at such a late hour, and strolled through his old family home as he had done a thousand times before.

This was the sprawling seafront villa he’d grown up in, just as his father had. A decade ago, to prevent the villa being used as collateral against his son’s gambling debts, his grandfather had signed it over to Dante.

Although the villa had been technically his for all these years, as far as he’d been concerned it had remained his father’s to do with as he pleased...apart from sell it.

With his father dead, he still didn’t know what to do with it. Unspoken had been his grandfather’s wish that one day Dante would settle down, marry, start a family and raise them in this home.

Dante liked city life. He liked being single. What good was marriage for? All he had ever seen of it was bitterness, greed and spite. His grandparents had been married for forty-eight years until his grandmother’s death. If they were a template for the longevity of marriage, they could forget it. His grandfather had spent the three years from her death until his own celebrating being rid of her. Dante had been quite sure his grandfather’s shaking shoulders at her funeral had been through laughter rather than tears.

At the far end of the villa was his father’s study. In the days after his death, Dante had holed himself in there, finding comfort in the room that had been quintessentially his father.

He pushed the door open and inhaled the familiar, if now fading, scent of bourbon and cigars.

This was the room Dante had sneaked into as a small boy, the desk he would hide under until his father appeared and he would jump out at him, and his father would pretend to shout in fright every single time.

He sat on the chair his father had called his own, the chair on which his father had sat Dante on his lap, held him tightly and told him his mother had left and that it would be just the two of them from now on.

This was the room his father had given Dante his first drink of bourbon in, the room in which he’d relayed the deaths of family members, the room where he’d confessed his dire financial situation and begged his only son for a loan to pay off his gambling debts. The latter had taken place so many times Dante had lost count.

A lifetime of memories, good and bad, flooded him and it took a few minutes for him to gather himself together and for the fresh wave of grief to pass.

He opened his father’s laptop. When he’d opened it the first time after his father’s death he’d guessed the password correctly—Dante’s name and date of birth. That had been a bittersweet moment.

Keying the password in this time, all he tasted was bitterness.

Had his father really kept a sister secret from him for all these years?

Aislin claimed his father had paid maintenance for Orla. If there was evidence of it, it would be on here somewhere.

He had a sister. His gut told him that and he did not doubt the DNA test would prove a match.

But had his father known or had Sinead O’Reilly kept Orla’s existence a secret from him and lied to her daughters about maintenance being paid?

Dante sent a silent prayer that Sinead was a liar and logged onto his father’s saved bank statements.

Damn it, they only went back eight years.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. Where would the paper statements be from the years before that? His father had been a terrible hoarder so they would be here somewhere...

The filing cabinet, of course.

An hour later and he was sat on the carpeted floor, paperwork strewn around him. In his hand was the evidence he’d been seeking but praying he wouldn’t find.

Until nine years ago, coincidentally the year Orla had turned eighteen, his father had paid the sum of two thousand euros every month to a bank account in Ireland.

* * *

Aislin hovered by the front window of the cottage, peering out intermittently while she waited for Dante.

Nerves in the form of butterflies rampaged in her belly.

Her bags were packed and waiting by the front door. She’d spent most of the night fighting the urge to flee to the airport.

A hundred thousand euros was a substantial amount of money but a million was life-changing. Orla could buy a home, modify it to cater to all Finn’s needs and have change to spare at the end of it. She could take him on holiday. She could buy him a high-tech wheelchair. She could buy a car.

So Aislin had stayed in the cold cottage, hardly sleeping, her mind whirling like a dervish, trying to understand why her instinct was to run.

A million euros to attend a wedding! All her family’s problems solved in one weekend!

Restless, she paced the living area.

She’d been prepared to break into the cottage and stage a sit-in in defiance of a powerful billionaire; had been prepared to stay there for as long as it took for him to develop a conscience.

She had not expected it to develop so quickly or easily.

His agreement to give Orla half the value of the cottage and its land had proven his conscience. That he was insisting on a DNA test was not surprising and not something she could blame him for. Dante was no fool. No one who reached the heights in business he had got there by taking people at face value.

She had expected an arrogant monster and found, instead, an arrogant man who could be compelled to listen to reason.

So why was she so resistant to spending a few days with him when the reward for doing so was so great?

A loud rap on the front door made her jump and, when Dante strode through the front door, her heart jumped too, right into her throat.

She’d opened the shutters earlier and spring sunlight poured into the cottage. Dante seemed to glow with it.

Dressed in a navy shirt, snug black jeans and an obviously expensive straight leather jacket, his handsome features were more pronounced than they’d been the evening before, the texture of his dark hair thicker and smoother, the green eyes that found hers brighter.

But there was something unkempt about his appearance too. He looked like a man who had spent the night at the bottom of a bottle of rum rather than in a bed. The effect only made him sexier. A pulse set off deep inside her, warmth gathering low in the most intimate of places...

Her reason for resistance suddenly became obvious.

This wasn’t mere appreciation of a handsome, sexy man. She was attracted to him.

Aislin was attracted to Dante Moncada. Properly, heart-beatingly, swoon-makingly attracted.

‘You are still here,’ he stated as he closed the door.

‘Well spotted, Einstein.’

Okay, so she was attracted to him. That was nothing to panic about. It didn’t mean her brain cells had to become goo around him. She had overcome much worse than an unwelcome attraction to a gorgeous man before. If there was one thing Aislin had it was an abundance of self-control. How else could she have sat through all those awful meetings with the patronising social workers and other officials who’d all seemed determined to deny her the right to be Finn’s legal guardian, while Orla had recovered from her horrific injuries, and not have punched any of them?

The slightest spark emerged in the green of his bloodshot eyes. ‘Einstein would have killed for my IQ.’

Her lips twitched to break into a smile. ‘And your modesty, I’m sure.’

He grinned. ‘Am I to assume you’re going to accept my offer?’

‘A million euros to act as your arm candy for a few days? Yep, I can do that.’ She could deal with attraction. Deal with it by ignoring it and keeping her wits sharp. ‘But, before I accept your deal, I should point out that no one is going to believe we’re engaged. You’ve only just dumped your last girlfriend.’

He winked, sank onto the sofa and stretched his legs out. His legs were so long his feet slid under the coffee table. ‘Anyone who knows me knows I’m a fast mover.’

‘That’s nothing to be proud of,’ she said tartly.

‘Trust me, I know when to go slow.’

Heated colour spread like wildfire over her cheeks. ‘I won’t accept any funny business.’

She needed to make that very clear. Just because her body reacted so strongly to him did not mean she had any intention of allowing anything to happen between them. She would not be one of those over-caffeinated bobbing meerkats.

Dante could curse himself. He hadn’t meant to make innuendoes but the opportunity had presented itself in irresistible fashion. ‘You are speaking of sex?’

Her face now flamed so brightly it was quite possible it could explode.

‘You have nothing to fear. This arrangement is strictly business. The bride and groom both come from religious families and will put us in separate rooms for the sake of appearances.’

After a terrible night when his brain had refused to shut down, even after he’d thrown the best part of a bottle of bourbon down his neck to assist it, he’d come to the conclusion that this deal had to be platonic. In any other circumstance he would go all-out to seduce Aislin but seduction would add too many complications. He needed to keep his head focused on salvaging the business deal, and that was before he added the small detail of Aislin being the sister of his father’s secret love-child.

If he didn’t believe she was the perfect woman to make Riccardo D’Amore believe him to be a changed man he would have called the whole thing off. But she was perfect. Not only was she not of their world but she had a working brain in her beautiful head and a firm commitment to family Riccardo would adore.

All Dante had to do was keep his hands off her, which he had a great feeling would be easier said than done.

Promises made in the twilight hours were much harder to keep in daylight when her scent coiled around his senses. In the daylight, Aislin was more than beautiful, her beauty enhanced now her hair was dry and its vibrant colour there for him to glory in, a deep russet that reminded him of fallen autumn leaves. It made him think of a fox, which he thought an apt word to describe her. She’d stolen into his cottage like a fox. An exquisite fox.

Today she’d dressed in black leggings, an oversized khaki jumper fraying on the left sleeve and scuffed black ankle boots. These were clothes designed for comfort, obviously old and worn, yet he found them as sexy as if she were wearing a tight cocktail dress with all her currently hidden cleavage on show.

She rubbed her hands over her arms, inadvertently pushing against those same breasts he’d just been imagining. ‘As long as we’re clear on things being platonic then that’s grand.’

‘Is there anything else you want to bring up? Because we need to get going.’

Those strange eyes were back on him again, penetrating like lasers. It was the strangest of feelings; unnerving yet weirdly erotic. ‘I want half the money now.’

‘No.’

‘I need a guarantee. A form of surety. I don’t want to spend a weekend pretending to like you only to have you then refuse to hand the money over.’

‘You don’t like me?’

‘How do I know if I like you? I don’t know you, certainly not well enough to trust you.’

Her lack of sycophancy was refreshing. She was direct, her mouth as unfiltered as her inherent sexiness. ‘Ten thousand.’

‘That’s peanuts.’

‘How much money do you have in your bank account?’

‘The dust of a bag of peanuts.’

He bit back a laugh at her phrasing and spread his hands in a ‘there you are’ gesture.

She fixed him with a stare that made him think she would make an excellent teacher. It was a look that would shut a classroom full of screaming kids up.

He shook his head and gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Va bene. I can be reasonable. Fifty thousand up front, in cash or transferred into a bank account of your choice, the remainder on Sunday evening. Deal?’

Her exquisitely beautiful face took on the expression of someone sucking an extra-sour lemon. Then she jerked her head into a nod. ‘Yes. Deal.’

He rubbed his hands together and got to his feet. ‘Eccellente. Let’s get going.’

‘Transfer the money and then we can go.’

‘You don’t want it in cash?’

‘I’d prefer it transferred.’

He sighed and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. ‘Name of the account?’

‘Miss Orla O’Reilly.’

He looked up briefly with a frown. ‘You don’t want it in your own account?’

‘The money’s not for me. It’s for our sister and nephew. Orla’s skint and the money you’re going to give her once you’ve had the DNA test could take weeks to come through.’

‘You’re not going to keep any of the million for yourself?’

‘I’ll get her to buy me a pizza from it.’

Was she for real? ‘Are you looking for a sainthood?’

She threw her schoolteacher stare at him again.

He shrugged. If she wanted to let the entire million slip through her fingers, that was her loss. ‘The account details?’

She recited them to him.

He looked up from his phone again. ‘You know your sister’s bank details by heart?’

‘She was in a bad car accident three years ago that left her in a coma. I took care of all her finances and stuff while she was in hospital and recovering from her injuries.’

‘Is that why her son was born prematurely?’

A dimness filtered over the grey eyes. She nodded.

Why this information should make his finger hover over the sum he was about to transfer, he did not know. This time yesterday he hadn’t even known of Orla’s existence.

Had his father known she’d been injured?

Had his father known he had a grandchild?

A fresh barb sliced through him at the reminder of the secrets and lies his father had kept from him for twenty-seven years.

Dante stared at the beautiful redhead, knowing he had to keep his focus on the primary reason for keeping her in Sicily and paying her such a substantial amount of money. Aislin was the key to convincing Riccardo D’Amore that he was not the sum of his parents’ parts. Just because they shared a sister did not mean he could allow himself to be sidetracked. Orla’s accident was history...

But the after-effects lived on in her son. His nephew.

They were nothing to do with him, he told himself grimly. They were strangers to him and would remain that way. A shared bloodline did not make them family and, even if it did, Dante had had enough of family.

He’d loved his mother with all his boyish heart and she’d abandoned him. He’d been close to his grandparents but their constant sniping and bad-mouthing of each other, and their respective expectations that he would take sides, had been a drain. His extended family were just as bad. He’d adored his father. Salvatore had been a fantastic if unconventional father when Dante had been small, father and son always there for each other through all the ups and downs life had thrown at them; and now he’d learned that beneath that closeness had been the most monstrous of secrets.

His father had been a gambler and a playboy but Dante would have trusted him with his life.

Turned out his father had been the greatest liar of them all.

Why embrace a sister when every other member of his bloodline had lied, abandoned or emotionally abused him?

No more. He was better on his own.

He hit the confirmation button then went through the additional security needed to transfer such a large sum. Anti-money-laundering regulations were the bane of the honest businessman’s life. ‘Done.’

He held the phone for her to see. ‘The money will credit your sister’s account by the end of the working day.’

She peered at it with a furrowed brow. ‘You transferred two hundred thousand?’

He nodded tersely. ‘I’ve upheld my end of the deal. Now we can go.’




CHAPTER FOUR (#uf83b6f95-f512-5aa9-b7c9-d035f7648afd)


AISLIN GAZED OUT of the car window. The drive from the cottage to Palermo had taken her from farmed fields and intense greenery to the bright lights of Sicily’s capital in only twenty minutes.

Thankfully Dante had sat in the front next to his driver, enabling her to relax into the journey and not spend the trip fighting her growing awareness of him.

The gleam she’d seen in his eyes a few times had made her think he might be aware of her in the same way, but his declaration that this was purely a business agreement had put paid to that notion.

Her limited experience with men meant her instincts could not be relied on. Growing up in a small village in Kerry, there had been a shortage of boys to play with. Secondary school had not been much better on the boy front. By the time she’d started university she’d been desperate for a boyfriend but on her first day had overheard a group of boys ranking the girls on the size of their breasts, their ‘spreadability’ and their looks. It had been enough to make her vomit and, from that point on, she’d kept males at a distance, willing to be friends but not anything more. Some girls might have been happy to be marked out of ten on their prowess but she was not one of them.

It was in the summer term of her second year that Patrick had taken an interest her. Far from immediately trying to dive into her knickers, he’d made an effort to woo her. He’d brought her flowers. He’d asked for her help with an assignment—without a boyfriend to distract her, Aislin had soon distinguished herself as a swot—and it had filled her silly little head with pride that the most popular lad in her year was interested in her.

Weeks later, they’d started dating. Words of love and respect were exchanged, words she’d believed. Six months on, Orla had been driving in a heavy storm when an approaching car had lost control and smashed head-on into hers. Patrick, resenting Aislin’s devotion to her comatose sister and prematurely born nephew, had wasted no time in hooking up with Aislin’s housemate, a girl she had considered a good friend.

She hadn’t dated anyone since. In all honesty, even if she’d wanted to, which she didn’t, there hadn’t been the space in her life to date.

Dante was the first man to occupy her thoughts in three years and, compared to his playboy antics, Patrick was a rank amateur.

She didn’t know if it made it better or worse that Dante didn’t fancy her. It shouldn’t matter at all.

This deal was strictly business.

She couldn’t work him out. One minute he was haggling over the upfront payment, driving down her demands, the next transferring four times the amount they had settled on.

So far, she hadn’t dared tell Orla about the deal, fearful of building her hopes up. She didn’t think Dante would be able to stop the payment but he was a powerful man. Beneath the affable exterior lay a darkness. She had no idea what he was capable of.

It had been dark when she’d landed four days ago, too dark for her to appreciate Palermo’s astounding beauty, especially as she’d been trying to navigate unfamiliar streets in a rental car and driving on a different side of the road than she was used to.

She’d almost forgotten about that rental car. Thankfully, Dante had given the keys to one of his goons with instructions to take it back to the airport.

Driving in daylight through Palermo was like stepping into the medieval past. Were it not for the busy narrow streets filled with people in modern dress, she could believe she’d slipped into a time vortex.

Expecting to be taken to a secluded palatial home guarded with Rottweilers and more goons of the armed variety, she was momentarily taken aback when Dante’s driver pulled up in a street that was only a little wider than the luxurious vehicle they were in, stopping beside a long terrace of five-storey apartments. The street was clean and pretty, the exterior walls painted cream, iron balconies beneath all the upper windows with hanging baskets of flowers creating colour, a few scooters parked close to the walls.

Dante craned his neck to talk to her. ‘We are here.’

‘This is your home?’

She pressed her face against the window for a better look, certain he was having a laugh at her expense. This was an ordinary residential street. Dante was a billionaire. Shouldn’t his main home—during the course of her research she’d discovered he owned a heap of opulent city apartments across Europe—be flashier?




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