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‘We’re here to discuss the child’s future,’ Charles Bennett informed her.
At that news her heart dropped to the soles of her canvas-clad feet and her head swivelled, eyes flying wide as she involuntarily looked back at Luciano. Looked and instantly saw what she had refused to recognise seconds earlier, finally making the terrifying connection that set a large question mark over her hopes and dreams for Nicky. Nicky was like a miniature carbon copy of Luciano Vitale. Luciano wore his hair a little longer than was conventional. It fell below his collar in glossy blue-black curls that flared luxuriantly across his skull. He had a straight nose, spectacular high cheekbones, winged brows and deep-set eyes the colour of tawny tiger’s eye stones—eyes as hard and unyielding as any crystal.
Stray recollections of her late sister’s remarks on the topic of Nicky’s father echoed in the back of her head.
‘If he met me, he would want me... Men always do,’ Julie had trilled excitedly. ‘He’s exactly the sort of man I want to marry—rich and good-looking and madly successful. I’d make the perfect wife for a man like him.’
And, of course, Luciano Vitale wouldn’t be too impressed right now when, instead of the slim, fashionable Julie, he got the fatter, plainer twin, a little voice whispered in Jemima’s shaken head. Was that why he was staring? But he didn’t know that she was Julie’s sister and he had never even met her sister. As far as she was aware he did not even know that Julie had an identical twin nor was he likely to know that Julie had stolen Jemima’s identity. Did he even know that her sister was dead?
Jemima assumed not. Had he known, surely that would have fuelled the lawyer’s first words because Julie’s death now changed everything. A cold little shiver shimmied down Jemima’s spine at that awareness. As Nicky’s mother, Julie had had rights to her son even if those rights could be disputed in court. As Nicky’s aunt, Jemima had virtually no rights at all. The only thing that blurred those boundaries was the fact that Julie had given birth in her twin’s name and it was Jemima’s name on Nicky’s birth certificate and not his real birth mother’s. It was a legal tangle that would have to be sorted out some day.
But not on this particular day, Jemima decided abruptly as she collided with Luciano’s chilling dark eyes, which were regarding her with as much emotion and empathy as a lab specimen might have inspired. Nicky’s father was angry, distrustful and ready to make snap judgements and decisions, she reckoned fearfully. He was not visiting in a spirit of goodwill and why indeed would he? Julie had given birth to his child and had then run away with that child, leaving behind an unabashed demand for more money.
Jemima tilted her chin up as if she were neither aware of nor bothered by Luciano’s scrutiny and concentrated on the lawyer instead. The tension in the atmosphere was making her tummy perform nauseous somersaults and suffocating her vocal cords. She knew that she needed to get a grip on herself and do it fast because she had no idea of what was about to happen and for Nicky’s sake she had to be able to react fast and appropriately. It disturbed her, though, that one major decision had somehow already been made and that was her willingness to pretend to be Julie for as long as she could pretend while she assessed Nicky’s father as a potential parent. If she admitted who she really was, her nephew could be immediately removed from her care and her heart almost stopped at the mere thought of that happening. For that reason alone she would lie...she would pretend...even if it went against all her principles.
Luciano was very still, his entire attention engaged by the strange behaviour of the woman in front of him. Women did not stick out their chins and ignore Luciano when they were lucky enough to gain his attention. They smiled at him, flirted, treated him to little upward glances calculated to appeal. They never ever blanked him. Yet Jemima Barber was blanking him.
‘I want DNA testing carried out on the child so that I know whether or not he is mine.’ Luciano spoke up for the first time, startling her. His dark, deep accented drawl trailed along her skin like a fur caress and awakened goosebumps.
As the ramifications of what he had said sank in Jemima went rigid at the insult to her sister’s memory. ‘How dare you?’ she shot back at him angrily, her temper rising and spilling out without warning and shaking her with its intensity.
His perfectly modelled mouth took on a derisive slant. ‘I dare,’ he said levelly. ‘There must be no doubt that he is mine—’
‘In any case, mandatory DNA testing after the birth was a clause in the contract you signed,’ the lawyer chipped in. ‘Unfortunately you left the hospital before the test could be completed.’
The reminder of the contract that Julie had signed in Jemima’s name doused Jemima’s anger and covered her with a sudden surge of shame instead. She was about to lie. She was about to pretend that she was her sister when she was not and the knowledge cut her deep because, in the normal way of things, Jemima was an honest and straightforward person who detested lies and deception. Her desire to look out for Nicky’s needs, she registered unhappily, had put her on a slippery slope at odds with her conscience. She should be telling the truth, no matter how unpleasant or dangerous it was, she thought wretchedly. Two wrongs did not make a right. This man was Nicky’s father. But could she simply stand back and watch Luciano Vitale take her baby nephew away from her?
She knew she could not. There had to be safeguards. Nicky was defenceless. It was Jemima’s job to carefully consider his future and ensure that his needs were met. But she had to be unselfish about that process too, she reminded herself doggedly, even if the final result hurt, even if it meant standing back and losing the child she loved.
‘DNA testing,’ Luciano repeated, wondering if his worst fears were being borne out by her pallor and clear apprehension. Maybe the child wasn’t his. If that were the case, it was better that he found that out sooner rather than later. ‘The technician can visit the child here. It is a simple procedure done with a mouth swab and the results will be known within forty-eight hours.’
‘Yes,’ Jemima muttered, dry-mouthed, nerves rattling through her like express trains as yet another fear presented itself to her.
All bets were off if he intended to have her tested for DNA. Did twins have the same DNA? She had no idea and worried that she would be exposed as an imposter. She lowered her feathery lashes. Well, she would just have to wait and see what happened. She was not in a position to do anything else. Arguing against the need for such testing would only muddy the waters. It wouldn’t achieve anything. It would only increase the animosity and uncertainty about her nephew’s future.
‘So, you will agree to this?’ Luciano said softly.
Involuntarily, Jemima glanced at him and connected with liquid dark eyes surrounded by black velvet lashes as lush as his son’s. Her heart went bang-bang-bang inside her and she felt incredibly dizzy, as if she stood on the edge of an abyss gazing down at a perilous drop. Something tugged and tightened low in her pelvis and she was unexpectedly alarmingly aware of her body as if her prickling skin had suddenly become too tender to bear the weight of her clothes. ‘Yes...’
‘In fact you will agree to all my demands,’ Luciano told her without skipping a beat while he silently marvelled at the translucent perfection of her pale blue eyes. ‘Because you are not stupid and it would be very stupid to refuse me anything that I want.’
Brows pleating, Charles Bennett turned to study his client in astonishment and then his attention skimmed back to the young blonde woman staring back at Luciano as if he had cast a magic spell over her.
CHAPTER TWO
‘AND WHY WOULD you think that?’ Jemima fired back in sudden bewilderment, shaking her head as though to clear it.
‘Because I hold pole position,’ Luciano informed her with chilling assurance. ‘I have security-camera footage of you stealing credit cards and using one of them in an act of fraud. If I should choose to pass that evidence to the police, I—’
‘You’re threatening me!’ Jemima interrupted in shock.
Stolen credit cards? Was he serious? Was it possible that Julie had sunk that low while she was working in London? Jemima did recall wondering how her sister was contriving to stay at a fancy hotel. She had asked and Julie had winced as though such a financial enquiry were incredibly rude and had sulkily refused to explain.
‘My client is not threatening you,’ Charles Bennett interposed flatly. ‘He is simply telling you that he has footage of the theft.’
But Jemima had turned pale as death and did not dare look in Luciano’s direction again. Proof of theft? My goodness, he could have her arrested right here and now! Forcibly parted from Nicky! Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she struggled to think.
‘So you will agree to the DNA testing?’ Luciano queried once more.
‘Yes,’ she agreed shakily.
‘We will endeavour to be civilised about this matter.’
In receipt of that unpersuasive statement, Jemima’s palm tingled. Never in her life had she wanted so badly to slap someone for lying. But that richly confident, patronising assurance from Luciano Vitale sent violent vibes of antagonism coursing through her and, daringly, she turned her head to look at him again. It was a grave mistake. As she fell into the hypnotic darkness of his gaze shock gripped her, tensing every muscle with sudden bone-deep fear for in Luciano she sensed a propensity for violence that made a mockery of her own softer nature. He was a man of extremes, of dangerous emotions and dangerous drives, and for a split second it was all there in his extraordinarily compelling eyes like a high-voltage electrical pulse zapping her with a stinging warning to back off or take the consequences. Seemingly he hid the disturbing reality of his true nature behind a chillingly polite mask.
‘Yes, we must try to be civilised,’ she heard herself say obediently while she shrank from the terrifying surge of ESP that had enveloped her in an adrenaline-charged panic mere seconds earlier.
‘I can be reasonable,’ Luciano declared, smooth as polished glass. ‘But I will do nothing that could put me on the wrong side of British law. Be clear on that score.’
‘Of course,’ she conceded, wondering why she didn’t feel reassured by that moral statement.
He wanted to stay on the right side of the law. She quite understood that. Only, where did that leave her? Julie had committed her crimes in Jemima’s name and the only way for Jemima to clear her name was to own up to her sister’s identity theft. Unfortunately doing that would also mean that she lost the right to care for Nicky. How could she bear that loss? How could she risk it? All she could do in the short-term, she thought in a panic, was fake being Julie until she was confronted by the police. At that point she would have to come clean because she would have no other choice.
Luciano studied his quarry, his gaze instinctively lingering on her ripe mouth and the porcelain smoothness of the upper slopes of her full breasts. He was a man and he supposed it was natural for him to notice her body, but the pulse of response at his groin and the sudden tightening there infuriated him. He turned away dismissively, broad shoulders rigid below his exquisitely tailored charcoal-grey suit jacket.
‘The technician will call to take the sample this afternoon,’ he delivered.
‘You’re not wasting any time,’ Jemima remarked gingerly.
Luciano swung back, eyes narrowed and cutting as black razors. ‘You have already wasted a great deal of my time,’ he told her with brutal bluntness.
Jemima clenched her teeth together and glanced at his companion, whose discomfiture was unhidden. There was civilised and civilised, she guessed, and Luciano Vitale had no intention of treating someone like her with kid gloves. It was clear that he saw her as inferior in every way. She would have to toughen up, she told herself urgently, toughen up to handle someone who disliked and distrusted her without showing weakness. Weakness, she sensed, he would use against her.
Shell-shocked as Jemima was by Luciano’s visit, once he had left she followed her usual routine with Nicky. She had looked forward to spending the long summer holidays with the little boy before she had to make childcare arrangements to enable her to return to work at the start of the new term. Now she was wondering if she would lose custody of him before then. She was down on the floor playing with Nicky when the doorbell went again.
It was the technician from the DNA-testing facility. The woman extended a consent form on a board for her to sign and then asked her to hold Nicky. The swab was done in seconds and Jemima waited for the technician to use the same procedure on her but instead she packaged the swab and departed, her job evidently complete. Heaving a sigh of relief that she herself had not been asked to give a sample, Jemima was in no mood for further company and she suppressed a weary groan when yet another caller turned up at the door.
Her face stiffened when she recognised her ex-boyfriend. Yes, she was still friends with Steven because her parents liked him and she had had to deal with the awkwardness of continuing meetings whether she liked it or not. Steven was a big mover and shaker in the church she attended and ran a young evangelical group to great acclaim.
‘May I come in?’ Steven pressed when the polite small talk about her parents’ little holiday had dried up and she was rather hoping he would take the hint and leave.
‘Nicky’s still up,’ Jemima warned him.
‘How’s the little chap doing?’ Steven enquired with his widest, fakest smile.
‘Well, his father may have turned up,’ Jemima heard herself say without meaning to. That she had admitted that much to Steven was evidence of how much emotional turmoil she was in because once she had realised how much he disapproved of her taking responsibility for Julie’s son she had stopped confiding in the tall blond man.
Steven took a seat with the casual informality of a regular visitor. A handsome dentist with a lucrative line in private patients, her ex was well liked by all. Jemima, however, was rather less keen. She had believed she loved Steven for years and had fully expected to marry him before Julie came into their lives.
‘Yes, he’s good-looking and he could give me some fun but he’s your boyfriend. I’m not poaching him,’ Julie had told her squarely.
But Jemima hadn’t wanted to keep Steven by default and once she’d realised how infatuated he was with her twin she had set him free. Of course, as a couple, Steven and Julie hadn’t suited, as Jemima had suspected at the outset. Her sister and her ex had enjoyed a short-lived fling, nothing more, and Jemima genuinely did not hold Steven’s defection against him. How could she possibly blame him for having found her colourful, lively sister more attractive? No, what annoyed Jemima about Steven was that he was smugly convinced that he could talk his way back into Jemima’s affections now that Julie was gone. Steven had no sensitivity whatsoever.
‘His father?’ Steven echoed on a rising note of interest. ‘Tell me more.’
Jemima told him about her visitors but withheld the information about the stolen credit cards and the underlying threat, reluctant to give Steven another opportunity to trash her sister’s memory.
‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in weeks!’ Steven exclaimed, his bright blue eyes lingering intently on her flushed face. ‘I admire your affection for Nicky but keeping him isn’t practical in your circumstances.’
‘Sometimes feelings aren’t practical,’ Jemima countered quietly.
Steven gave her an earnest appraisal. ‘You know how I feel about you, Jem. How long is it going to take for you to forgive me? I was foolish. I made a mistake. But I learned from it.’
‘If you had really loved me, you wouldn’t have wanted Julie—’
‘It’s different for men. We are more base creatures,’ Steven told her sanctimoniously.
Jemima gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It amazed her that she had failed to appreciate how sexist and judgemental Steven could be. ‘I’ve moved on now. I’m fond of you but I’m afraid that’s all.’
‘Tell me about Nicky’s father,’ Steven urged irritably.
‘I only know his name, nothing else...’
Steven started looking up Luciano Vitale on his tablet and fired a welter of facts at her.
Luciano was an only child, the son of an infamous Mafia don. Jemima did roll her eyes at that information. He was filthy rich, which wasn’t a surprise, but much that followed did take her aback. In his early twenties Luciano had married a famous Italian movie star and had a daughter with her before tragically losing both wife and child in a helicopter crash three years earlier. Jemima was shocked, very shocked by that particular piece of news.
‘So there you have it...that’s why he wants a kid...his daughter died!’ Steven pointed out with satisfaction. ‘How can you doubt that the man will make a good parent?’
‘He’s still single. How much actual parenting is he planning to do?’ Jemima traded stubbornly. ‘And maybe Nicky’s supposed to be a replacement but he’s not a girl, he’s a boy and a child in his own right—’
Steven pontificated at length about the immorality of the surrogacy agreement and how it went against all natural laws. Jemima said nothing because she was too busy looking at photographic images of the exquisite blonde, Gigi Nocella, Luciano’s late wife and the mother of his firstborn. Luciano had matched Gigi, she reflected abstractedly, two beautiful people combined to make a perfect couple. He had already lost a child, she thought helplessly, and she was filled with guilt at her own reluctance to hand over Nicky. Who was she to interfere? Who was she to think she knew everything when she was already painfully aware that her sister had made so many bad choices in life?
‘Vitale needs to know what Julie did to you and your family,’ Steven said harshly. ‘After all, if he’d kept better tabs on her, Julie would never have come here and caused so much grief.’
‘That’s very much a matter of opinion, Steven,’ Jemima said stiffly and, deciding that she had been sufficiently hospitable, she stood up in the hope of hastening his departure.
‘You’re not thinking this through, Jem,’ he told her in exasperation. ‘Nicky’s not your child and you shouldn’t be behaving as if he is. If you pass him on to his father...’
‘Like a parcel?’
‘He belongs with his father,’ Steven argued vehemently. ‘Don’t think that I don’t appreciate that that child is preventing us from getting back together again!’
‘Only in your imagination—’
‘You know how I feel about you keeping Nicky. Why are you trying to do more for the kid than his own mother was prepared to do? Let’s be honest, Julie was a lousy mother and not the nicest—’
‘Stop right there!’ Hot-cheeked, Jemima wrenched open the front door with vigour. ‘I’ll tell Mum and Dad that you called in when I phone them later.’
She closed the door again with the suggestion of a slam and groaned out loud in frustration. But grateful as she was to see Steven leave, he had left her with food for thought. She played with Nicky in the bath and stared down at his damp curly head with tears swimming in her eyes. He wasn’t her child and all the wishing in the world couldn’t change that...or bring Julie back. Luciano Vitale had lost a much-loved daughter. She must have been loved, for that could be the only reason her father had gone to such lengths to have another child. Jemima wrapped Nicky’s wet, squirming figure into a towel and hugged him close.
Luciano had searched for eight months to find his child. He wanted Nicky. She had to stop being so selfish. She had to take a step back. Was she prejudiced against Luciano because he had chosen a surrogacy arrangement to father a second child? She was conservative and conventional and she supposed she was a little bit disposed to prejudice in that line. The admission shamed her. How could she have accepted Julie and Nicky but retained her bias against Nicky’s father? Of course, what if Luciano Vitale wasn’t Nicky’s father?
Two days later, however, she received the results of the DNA testing, which declared that her nephew was Luciano’s flesh and blood, and she had barely settled the document down when the landline rang.
‘Luciano Vitale...’ Her caller imparted his identity with a warning edge of harshness. ‘I would like to meet my son this evening.’
Jemima reminded herself that there was no room for her personal feelings in her dealings with Luciano and she breathed in deep. ‘Yes, Mr Vitale. What time suits you?’
They negotiated politely for an earlier time than he first suggested because Jemima knew that the later he arrived, the more tired and cross Nicky would be. And she wanted the first meeting between father and son to go well because it would be downright mean and malicious to hope otherwise. The small living room was spick and span by the time she had finished cleaning, but Nicky was teething again and cried pathetically when she tried to put him down for his afternoon nap. Ellie had been texting her constantly with queries since she had told her friend about Luciano and was reacting to his proposed visit with as much excitement as a famous rock star might have invoked.
‘Are you sure I can’t come round and sort of hover on the doorstep?’ Ellie pleaded on the phone. ‘I’m gasping to see the guy in the flesh. He looks hotter than the fires of hell!’
‘It’s not the right moment, Ellie. He has a right to his privacy.’
‘Not looking like a walking, talking female temptation, he hasn’t!’
‘He may look good in photos but he’s not the warm, approachable type,’ Jemima reminded her friend.
‘Well, why would he be? He thinks you’re Julie and Julie ripped him off! When are you planning to tell him the truth?’
‘When I find the right moment. Not tonight because in the mood he’s probably going to be in he’s likely to just scoop up Nicky and walk straight out of here with him,’ Jemima admitted with a grimace.
‘Whether Luciano Vitale knows it or not, he owes you,’ Ellie said loyally. ‘Julie couldn’t cope with Nicky and you’ve been caring for him since he was only a week old. Your parents will miss him terribly, though, when he goes.’
When he goes, Jemima repeated inwardly, her heart sinking as she was finally forced to face that certainty. Nicky was about to be taken away from her and there was not one blasted thing she could do about it. She was not Nicky’s closest relative, Luciano was.
Jemima was very tense while she waited for her visitor. Nicky looked adorable in a little blue playsuit but he was teething and in a touchy temperamental mood in which he could travel from smiles to tears in the space of seconds.
Jemima heard the cars arrive and rushed to the window. The equivalent of a cavalcade had drawn up outside on the street, a collection of vehicles composed of a black limousine and several Mercedes cars, all with tinted windows. As she watched several men emerged from the accompanying cars and fanned out across the street while clearly taking direction from ear devices. All the men wore formal suits and sunglasses and emanated an aggressive take-charge vibe. Finally the rear door of the limo was opened and Luciano slid out, instantly casting everyone around him in the shade. He wore well-washed jeans and a long-sleeved black sweater...and still, he took her breath away.
The well-cut denim outlined long, powerful thighs and lean hips, while the dark sweater somehow enhanced his blue-black hair and olive skin. Her mouth ran dry while she stared and smoothed damp palms down over her own, more ordinary jeans, wishing she had the same sleek, fashionable edge he exuded with infuriating ease. As she began to back away from the window a movement behind him attracted her attention and she stared as a slim blonde woman climbed out of the car. Instantly, Luciano turned to speak to the woman and a moment later she got back into the car, evidently having thought better of accompanying him. Who was she? His girlfriend?