Romeo’s grip tightened and one finger caught her chin and raised her face to his spear-sharp gaze. Her stomach knotted at the savage determination on his face.

She shook her head, her insides growing colder by the second. “But you can’t guarantee that, can you? Or you wouldn’t be here with six bodyguards in tow.”

“There’s one way to ensure your safety,” he said, his gaze raking her face as if he wanted to pull the answer from her even before he’d asked the question.

“What’s that?” she murmured.

“You will marry me. Then you and our son will know the protection of my name.”

Secret Heirs of Billionaires

There are some things money can’t buy …

Living life at lightning pace, these magnates are no strangers to stakes at their highest. It seems they’ve got it all … That is until they find out that there’s an unplanned item to add to their list of accomplishments!

Achieved:

1. Successful business empire

2. Beautiful women in their bed

3. An heir to bear their name…?

Though every billionaire needs to leave his legacy in safe hands, discovering a secret heir shakes up his carefully orchestrated plan in more ways than one!

Uncover their secrets in:

Unwrapping the Castelli Secret by Caitlin Crews Brunetti’s Secret Son by Maya Blake

Look out for more stories in

The Secret Heirs of Billionaires series in 2016!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Brunetti’s Secret Son
Maya Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAYA BLAKE’S hopes of becoming a writer were born when she picked up her first romance aged thirteen. Little did she know her dream would come true! Does she still pinch herself every now and then, to make sure it’s not a dream? Yes, she does!

Feel free to pinch her too, via Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads! Happy reading!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Secret Heirs of Billionaires

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE HIDEOUS MANSION was just as he’d recalled in his nightmares, the gaudy orange exterior clashing wildly with the massive blue shutters. The only thing that didn’t quite gel with the picture before him was the blaze of the sun glinting off the grotesquely opulent marble statues guarding the entry gates.

Romeo Brunetti’s last memory of this place had been in the chilling rain, his threadbare clothes sticking to his skin as he’d huddled in the bushes outside the gates. A part of him had prayed he wouldn’t be discovered, the other more than a tiny bit hopeful that discovery would mean the end to all the suffering, the hunger, the harrowing pain of rejection that ate his thirteen-year-old body alive from morning to night. Back then he would’ve welcomed the beating his reluctant rescuer had received for daring to return Romeo to this place. Because the beating would have ended in oblivion, and the bitterness coursing through his veins like acid would have been no more.

Unfortunately, the fates had decreed otherwise. He’d hidden in the bushes, cold and near catatonic, until the ever-present hunger had forced him to move.

Romeo stared up at the spears clutched in the hands of the statues, recalling his father’s loud-bellied boast of them being made of solid gold.

The man who’d called him a bastard and a waste of space to his face. Right before he’d instructed his minion to throw him out and make sure he never returned. That he didn’t care whether the spawn of the whore he’d rutted with in an alleyway in Palermo lived or died, as long as he, Agostino Fattore, the head of the ruling crime family, didn’t have to see the boy’s face again.

No...not his father.

The man didn’t deserve that title.

Romeo’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of his Ferrari and he wondered for the thousandth time why he’d bothered to come to this place. Why he’d let a letter he’d shredded in a fit of cold rage seconds after reading it compel him into going back on the oath he’d made to himself over two decades ago. He looked over to the right where the towering outer wall to the late Agostino Fattore’s estate rose into the sky, and sure enough, the bush was exactly as he remembered it, its leafy branches spread out, offering the same false sanctuary.

For a wild moment, Romeo fought the strong urge to lunge out of the car and rip the bush out of the earth with his bare hands, tear every leaf and branch to shreds. Tightening his jaw, he finally lowered his window and punched in the code his memory had cynically retained.

As the gates creaked open, he questioned again why he was doing this. So what if the letter had hinted at something else? What could the man whose rejection had been brutally cold and complete have to offer him in death that he’d failed so abjectly to offer in life?

Because he needed answers.

He needed to know that the blood running through his veins didn’t have an unknown stranglehold over him that would turn his life upside down when he least expected it.

That the two times in his life when he’d lost control to the point of not recognising himself would be the only times he would feel savagely unmoored.

No one but Romeo knew how much he regretted wasting the four years of his life after the bitter night he’d been here last, looking for acceptance anywhere and any way he could find it. More than hating the man whose blood ran through his veins, Romeo hated the years he’d spent trying to find a replacement for Agostino Fattore.

Giving himself permission to close his heart off at seventeen had been the best decision he’d ever made.

So why are you here? You’re nothing like him.

He needed to be sure. Agostino might no longer be alive, but he needed to look into the heart of Fattore’s legacy and reassure himself that the lost little boy who’d thought his world would end because of another’s rejection was obliterated completely.

Impatient with himself for prevaricating, Romeo smashed his foot on the accelerator and grunted in satisfaction as the tyres squealed on the asphalt road leading to the courtyard. Unfolding himself from the driver’s seat, he stalked up to the iron-studded double doors and slammed them open.

Striding into the chequer-tiled hallway, he glared at the giant antique chandelier above his head. If he had cared whether this house stood or fell, that monstrosity would have been the first thing in the incinerator. But he wasn’t here to ponder the ugly tastes of a dead man. He was here to finally slay ghosts.

Ghosts that had lingered at the back of his consciousness since he was a child but that had been resurrected one night five years ago, in the arms of a woman who’d made him lose control.

He turned as slow feet shuffled in his direction, followed by firmer footholds that drew a grim smile from Romeo. So, the old order hadn’t changed. Or maybe the strength of Romeo’s anger had somehow transmitted to Fattore’s former second in command, prompting the old man who approached to seek the protection of his bodyguards.

Lorenzo Carmine threw out his hands in greeting, but Romeo glimpsed the wariness in the old man’s eyes. ‘Welcome, mio figlio. Come, I have lunch waiting for us.’

Romeo tensed. ‘I’m not your son and this meeting will not last beyond five minutes, so I suggest you tell me what you withheld in your letter right now and stop wasting my time.’ He didn’t bother to hide the sneer in his voice.

Lorenzo’s pale grey eyes flared with a temper Romeo had witnessed the last time he was here. But along with it came the recognition that Romeo was no longer a frightened little boy incapable of defending himself. Slowly, his expression altered into a placid smile.

‘You have to pardon me. My constitution requires that I strictly regulate my mealtimes or I suffer for it.’

Romeo turned towards the door, again regretting his decision to come here. He was wasting his time looking for answers in stone and concrete. He was wasting his time, full stop.

‘Then by all means go and look after your constitution. Enjoy the rest of your days and don’t bother contacting me again.’ He stepped towards the door, a note of relief spiking through him at the thought of leaving this place.

‘Your father left something for you. Something you will want to see.’

Romeo stopped. ‘He was not my father and there’s nothing he possesses in this life or the next that could possibly interest me.’

Lorenzo sighed. ‘And yet you came all this way at my request. Or was it just to stick out your middle finger at an old man?’

Romeo’s jaw clenched, hating that the question he’d been asking himself fell from the lips of a man who’d spent his whole life being nothing but a vicious thug. ‘Just spit it out, Carmine,’ he gritted out.

Lorenzo glanced at the nearer bodyguard and nodded. The beefy minder headed down the long hallway and disappeared.

‘For the sake of my friend, your father, the Almighty rest his soul, I will go against my doctor’s wishes.’ The remaining guard fell into step behind Lorenzo, who indicated a room to their left.

From memory, Romeo knew it was the holding room for visitors, a garishly decorated antechamber that led to the receiving room, where his father had loved to hold court.

The old man shuffled to a throne-like armchair and sank heavily into it. Romeo chose to remain standing and curbed the need to pace like a caged animal.

Although he’d come through the desolation of his ragged past, he didn’t care for the brutal reminders everywhere he looked. The corner of this room was where he’d crouched when his father’s loud lambasting of a minion had led to gunshots and horrific screams the first time he’d been brought here. The gilt-framed sofa was where his father had forced him to sit and watch as he’d instructed his lieutenants to beat Paolo Giordano into a pulp.

He didn’t especially care for the reminder that it was possibly because of Fattore’s blood running through his veins that he’d almost taken the same violent path when, tired of living on the streets, he’d almost joined a terror-loving gang feared for their ruthlessness.

Sì, he should’ve stayed far away, in the warmth of his newest and most lavish by-invitation-only Caribbean resort.

His eyes narrowed as the second bodyguard returned with a large ornately carved antique box and handed it to Lorenzo. ‘It’s a good thing your father chose to keep an eye on you, wasn’t it?’ Lorenzo said.

‘Scusi?’ Romeo rasped in astonishment.

Lorenzo waved his hand. ‘Your mother, the Almighty rest her unfortunate soul, attempted to do her best, but we all knew she didn’t have what it took, eh?’

Romeo barely stopped his lips from curling. The subject of his mother was one he’d sealed under strict lock and key, then thrown into a vault the night he’d buried her five years ago.

The same night he’d let his guard down spectacularly with a woman whose face continued to haunt him when he least expected it. A woman who had, for the first time in a long time, made him want to feel the warmth of human emotion.

A tremor went through him at the memory, its deep and disturbing effect as potent, if not more so, than it’d been that night when he’d realised that his emotions weren’t as clinical and icy as he’d imagined them to be.

He shut down that line of thought.

Maisie O’Connell had had no place in his life then, save as a means of achieving a few hours of oblivion, and she most certainly didn’t have one now, in this cursed place. Like the bush outside this miscreation of a mansion, she represented a time in his life he wanted banished for all time.

Because it makes you uncomfortable...vulnerable even?

Basta!

‘You seem to be under the misapprehension that I’ll indulge you in fond trips down potholed memory lanes. Be assured that I will not. If I remember correctly, you helped to throw me out of the gates when I was a child. Your exact words, presumably passed down from my father, were—I see you again, you leave in a body bag.’

Lorenzo shrugged. ‘Those were hot-headed days. Look at you now. You’ve done very well for yourself despite your less than salubrious beginning.’ A touch of malice flared in his eyes. ‘None of us imagined a boy conceived in the gutter would rise to such esteem.’

Romeo shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t do the unthinkable and strangle the old man where he sat. ‘Then I guess it’s a good thing I was intelligent enough to realise early on that whether you were born in the gutter or with a dozen golden spoons clutched in your fist, our lives are what we make them. Otherwise, who knows where I’d be today? In a mental institution, perhaps? Bemoaning my fate while rocking back and forth in a straitjacket?’

The old man laughed, or he attempted to. When the sound veered into a bone-jarring coughing spell, his bodyguards exchanged wary glances before one stepped forward with a glass of water.

Lorenzo’s violent refusal of help had the guard springing back into his designated position. When the coughing fit passed, Lorenzo opened the box and took out several papers.

‘You were never going to go down without a fight. I saw that in you even when you were a boy. But you’ll do well to remember where that intelligence comes from.’

‘Are you really suggesting that I owe what I’ve made of myself to you or the pathetic band of thugs you call a family?’ he asked, incredulous.

Lorenzo waved him away. ‘We’ll discuss what you owe in a bit. Your father meant to do this before he was tragically taken from us,’ he muttered.

Romeo curbed the need to voice his suspicions that his father’s departure from this life hadn’t been tragic at all; that the boat explosion that had taken his life and those of his wife and the two half-sisters Romeo had never been allowed to meet hadn’t been accidental, but the target of a carefully orchestrated assassination.

Instead, he watched Lorenzo pull out document after document and lay them on the desk.

‘The first order of business is this house. It’s yours free and clear from any financial obligations. All the lawyers need is your signature to take possession. It comes with the collection of cars, the horses and the three hundred acres of land, of course.’

Astonishment rendered Romeo speechless.

‘Then there are the businesses. They’re not doing as well as we’d hoped, and certainly not as well as your own businesses are doing. The Carmelo famiglia mistakenly believe this is an excuse for them to start making moves on Fattore business, but I suspect that will all turn around once our business has been brought under the umbrella of your company, Brunetti International—’

Romeo laughed. ‘You must be out of your mind if you think I want any part of this blood-soaked legacy. I’d rather return to the gutter than claim a single brick of this house, or associate myself in any way with the Fattore name and everything it stands for.’

‘You may despise the Fattore name, but do you think Brunetti, son of a two-bit whore has a better ring?’ Lorenzo sneered.

It didn’t, but in the bleak, terrible hellhole of his childhood it had been the better of two evils. Especially since that greater evil had warned him never to use the name Fattore.

‘This is your legacy, no matter how much you try to deny it,’ Lorenzo insisted.

‘You can sit there and rewrite history until the walls crumble around you,’ Romeo enunciated with a burning intensity he suspected would erupt the longer he spent in this house. ‘But your five minutes have come and gone, old man. And this meeting is well and truly over. Any problems you have with your extortion business and territorial wars with the Carmelo family are yours to deal with.’

He made it to the door before Lorenzo spoke.

‘Your father suspected that when the time came you would prove intransigent. So he asked me to give you this.’

For the second time, Romeo froze, his instincts screeching at him to keep walking, but his brain warning that to do as he so desperately wanted would be unwise.

Lorenzo held out a large manila envelope, which he slid across the desk with a smug look.

‘I told you I’m not interested in anything bearing the Fattore name. Whatever is in that envelope—’

‘Is of a more...personal nature and will interest you, mio figlio. I’m confident of it.’

Romeo abandoned the need to remind the old man not to call him son. Lorenzo was enjoying needling him a little too much, and Romeo was fast reaching boiling point.

Striding across the room, he snatched up the envelope and ripped it open. The first picture punched him in the gut, expelling a harsh breath. It showed him standing at his mother’s graveside, the only attendee besides the priest, as Ariana Brunetti was laid to rest.

He flung the picture on the desk, his mouth twisting as the next picture showed him in funereal black, sitting at his hotel bar, staring into a glass of cognac.

‘So Fattore had me followed for an afternoon five years ago. Perhaps he would’ve better profited using that time to tend his businesses.’

Lorenzo tented his fingers. ‘Keep going. The best is yet to come.’

Dark premonition crawled up Romeo’s spine as he flipped to the next photo. It showed him walking out of his hotel and down the street that led to the trendy cafés near the waterfront.

He froze at the next picture and stared at the image of himself. And her.

Maisie O’Connell—the woman with the angelic face and the tempting, sinful body. The combination, although enthralling enough, wasn’t what had made her linger in his mind long after he’d moved on to other women, and other experiences.

Something had happened with her in that hotel room, above and beyond mind-obliterating sex. He’d walked away from her feeling broken, fighting a yearning that had terrified him for a long time, until he’d finally forced it back under control.

He had no intention of resurrecting those brief, unsettling hours. He was in control of his life. In control of the fleeting moments of emotion he allowed himself these days.

He threw down the pictures, not caring when they fanned out in a careless arc on the desk. Eyes narrowed at Lorenzo, he snapped, ‘It’s almost laughable that you think documenting my sex life would cause me anything but acute irritation. Irritation that might just push me into having this house torn to the ground and the whole estate turned into a car park.’

The old man reached across, shuffled through the pictures, then sat back again.

Exhaling, Romeo looked down and saw more pictures of the woman he’d shared his most memorable one-night stand with. But these were different. Taken in another country, judging from the street signs. Dublin, most likely, where Maisie had said she was from during one of the brief times they’d conversed in that electric night they’d spent together.

Still caught up in riotous emotions, he nudged the picture impatiently with his fingernail.

Maisie O’Connell, striding down a busy street in a business suit and high heels, her thick, glorious hair caught up in an elaborate bun. A vision far removed from the sexy little sundress and flip-flops she’d been wearing the first time Romeo had seen her outside a waterfront café in Palermo. Her hair had been loose then, hanging to her waist in a ripple of dark fire.

Romeo unveiled the next picture.

Maisie, hailing a taxi outside a clinic, her features slightly pale and drawn, her normally bright blue eyes dark with worry.

Maisie, sitting on a park bench, her face turned up to the sun, her hand resting on her belly.

Her very distended belly.

Romeo swallowed hard and picked up the last picture, his body suspended in shock as he brought it up to his face.

Maisie, pushing a pram down a quiet Dublin street, her mouth tilted in a postcard-perfect picture of maternal bliss as she reached into the stroller.

‘Madre di Dio, what is the meaning of this?’ he breathed, his voice cold enough to chill the whole mausoleum of a mansion.

‘I will not insult your deductive powers by spelling it out for you,’ Lorenzo answered.

Romeo flung the photo down, but he could not look away from them. Spreading his fingers through the glossy images, he found further evidence of surveillance. Apparently his father had decided to stop following Romeo and focus instead on the woman he’d slept with on the day of his mother’s funeral. A woman whose goodness had threatened to seep into him, to threaten the foundations of his carefully barricaded emotions.

‘If these images are supposed to paint some sort of picture, then you’ve wasted your time. Sexually active individuals have brief encounters and go on to have relationships and families all the time. Or so I’m told.’

He’d never indulged in a relationship. In fact, he actively discouraged his lovers from even entertaining a glimmer of the idea. Romeo suppressed a grim smile. He knew his attitude to relationships had earned him the amusingly caustic label of Weekend Lover. Not that he cared. Hell, if it spelled out his intentions before he even asked a woman out, then all the better.

Affection was never on the table, the faintest idea of love strictly and actively forbidden. His interactions were about sex. Nothing more.

‘So you don’t care to know the time span during which these pictures were taken?’

‘Fattore must have had his own warped reason, I’m sure.’

Lorenzo continued to stare at him. ‘Then you won’t want to know that the woman gave her child an Italian name?’

Romeo snorted in disbelief. He hadn’t told Maisie his surname. He’d been very careful in that regard because he hadn’t wanted any association with either his mother or his father discovered, as tenuous as the connection could’ve been, seeing that he hadn’t set foot in Sicily in over fifteen years.

‘You two must have been desperate to clutch at so many straws. My suggestion to you would be to leave this woman alone to raise her child. She means nothing to me other than a brief dalliance. Whatever leverage you seek through her has no teeth.’

Lorenzo shook his balding grey head. ‘Once you have calmed down and learnt a little of our ways, you’ll realise that we don’t tend to leave stones unturned. Or facts unchecked. Your father certainly wouldn’t pin the future of his organisation, of his famiglia, on a whim. No, mio figlio, we checked and double-checked our facts. Three DNA tests by three different doctors confirmed it.’

‘How did you come by samples for these tests?’

‘Contrary to what you think of us, we’re not bumbling idiots. A strand of hair or a discarded juice cup is all we need, and quite easy to come by.’

The gross violation that deed would’ve entailed turned his stomach and primitive anger swelled through him. ‘You set your thugs loose on a little boy?’

‘He’s not just any little boy. Your woman gave birth exactly nine months after your encounter. And your son is very much a Fattore.’

CHAPTER TWO

MAISIE O’CONNELL FLIPPED the Closed sign to Open and enjoyed the tingle of excitement that never failed to come with that little action.

It had been a long, hard slog, but Maisie’s was finally ticking over very nicely, was making a steady profit, in fact. Putting her beloved restaurant in the hands of a professional chef while she’d taken the intensive course in gourmet Italian cooking had paid off. The added feature in one of Dublin’s top newspapers had given Maisie’s the extra boost that had seen her bookings go from half full to booked solid a month in advance.

Picking up the glass-topped menu stand, she pushed open the door and positioned it for maximum effect on the pavement.

As she turned to go back in, a stretch limo with blacked-out windows rolled by and stopped two doors down from where she’d paused. Maisie eyed the car. Although it wasn’t strange for luxury cars to pass through the quiet little village of Ranelagh, seeing as they were close to Dublin city centre, the presence of this car caused a different sort of tingle. Telling herself she was being too fanciful, she swiped a dishcloth over the surface of the menu stand and went back in. She checked on her kitchen and waitstaff of twelve, made sure preparations were under way for their first booking at midday, then went into her office.

She had roughly half an hour to get to grips with the restaurant’s accounts before she had to be back in the kitchen. As she sat down, her gaze fell on the picture propped up on her desk. The pulse of love that fired to her heart made her breath catch. Reaching out, she traced the contours of her son’s face, her own face breaking into a smile at the toothy, wide-eyed happiness reflected in his eyes.

Gianlucca. The reason for her existence. The reason the hard decisions she’d made five years ago had been worth every moment of heartache. Turning her back on the career she’d trained so hard for had not been easy. Certainly her parents had piled on enough guilt to make walking away feel like the betrayal they’d accused her of committing. Her own guilt for confirming their fears that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree was bone-deep and would probably always be. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant as her mother had at twenty-four but she refused to let the guilt prevent her from loving or caring for her child.

She’d known from a very young age that her parents, had they been given a choice, would’ve remained childless. As hard as it’d been, she’d tried to accept that not everyone was built to nurture a child. Her parents certainly had found raising her a challenge, one they hadn’t deemed as worthy as the academic careers they’d pursued relentlessly. She’d always known she came an indifferent second to her parents’ academic ambitions.

But she’d wanted Gianlucca the moment she’d found out he was growing inside her.

There had been nothing she wanted more than providing the very best for her son.

She had given him the very best.

The tiny niggle of ever-present guilt threatened to push its way through, but she smashed it down. She’d done everything she could when she’d found out she was pregnant. Even going against her parents’ intense disapproval to make that daunting trip back to Sicily. She’d tried.

Yes, but did you try hard enough?

She dropped her hand from the picture and resolutely opened the account books. Indulging in might have beens wouldn’t get the chequebook balanced or the staff paid. She was content enough. More important, her son was happy.

Her gaze drifted back to the almost-four-year-old face that was already taking the shape of the man he would one day be. To the deep hazel-gold eyes that looked so much like his father’s. Eyes that could sometimes make her believe he could see straight into her soul, just as the older pair had done to her that long afternoon and longer night in Palermo five years ago.

Romeo.

A portentous name if there ever was one. While her life hadn’t ended in fatal tragedy like the famous story, meeting Romeo had significantly altered it, her son being the only bright thing that had emerged from encountering that dangerously sexy, but deeply enigmatic Italian with eyes that had reflected enough conflict to last him several lifetimes.

Enough.

She switched on her computer and had just activated the payroll system when a knock sounded on her door.

‘Come in.’

Lacey, her young reservations manager, poked her head around the door, her eyes wide and brimming with interest. ‘There’s someone here to see you,’ she stage-whispered.

Maisie suppressed a smile. Her young employee had a flair for the dramatic and saw conspiracies and high drama in the simplest situations.

‘If it’s someone else looking for a job, please tell them I’m not hiring anyone. Not till the summer season really kicks off...’ She stopped speaking as Lacey shook her head frantically.

‘I don’t think he’s looking for a job. Actually, no offence, Maisie, but he looks like he could buy this place a hundred times over.’ Her eyes widened and she blushed, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry, but he looks really, really rich, and really, really, intense.’ Lacey’s eyes boggled some more. ‘And he came in a limo,’ she whispered again, looking over her shoulder into the restaurant.

The tingling Maisie had experienced earlier returned full force. ‘Did he give you a name?’

‘No, he just asked if you were in and ordered me to come and get you.’ Lacey glanced furtively over her shoulder again, as if expecting their visitor to materialise behind her. ‘He’s very...full-on.’

Recalling her own line of thoughts moments ago and the intensity of Romeo’s personality, she shivered. Shaking it off, Maisie stood up and brushed her hands down the practical black skirt and pink shirt she’d chosen to wear today.

She’d left all that dangerous intensity back in Palermo. Or it had left her, seeing as she’d woken up alone the morning after, with only rumpled sheets and the trace of her lover’s scent on the pillow as evidence that she hadn’t imagined the whole encounter.

She was in Ranelagh, the serene village she’d chosen to build a life for herself and her son in, not the sultry decadence of Palermo and its dangerous residents.

No danger or intensity whatsoever welcome here.

‘Okay, Lacey. I’ll take care of it.’ Lacey’s head bobbed before she disappeared from the doorway.

Sucking in a breath and telling herself she was being silly to feel so apprehensive, Maisie stepped out from behind her desk. In her short but successful stint as a criminal lawyer, she’d faced her share of unsavoury and even dangerous characters.

Whatever unknown quantity faced her out there in her beloved restaurant, she could face it.

Maisie knew just how wrong she was even before the tall, broad-shouldered figure clad from head to toe in black turned around from his brooding inspection of his surroundings.

Outwardly, her body froze a few steps into the restaurant. But inside, her heart kicked into her stomach. Hard.

‘Romeo.’

She realised she’d said the name rattling through her brain aloud when he turned slowly and pinned her with those brooding hazel-gold eyes. That impossibly rugged jaw she’d thought she’d blown out of all proportion tightened as his gaze raked her from head to toe and back again. His prominent, cut-glass cheekbones were more pronounced than she remembered and his hair was longer, wavier than it had been five years ago. But the man who stood a dozen paces away was no less dynamic, no less captivating than the man who’d sat across from her in the café that memorable day.

If anything, he commanded a more overpowering presence. Perhaps it was because they were so far away from the place they’d first met, or because her mind was turning itself inside out to decipher exactly why he was here. All the same she found herself bunching a fist against her heart as if that would stop its fierce pounding.

‘I’m not certain whether to celebrate this moment or to condemn it,’ he rasped in a tense, dark voice.

‘How did you... How did you find me?’

One eyebrow spiked upwards. ‘That is what you wish to know? How did I find you? Were you attempting to stay hidden, perhaps?’ he enquired silkily.

‘What?’ Her brain grew fuzzier, her heart racing even faster at the ice in his tone. ‘I’m not hiding. Why would I want to hide from anyone?’

He approached slowly, his eyes not leaving her face, nor his hands the deep pockets of his overcoat. Even though it was early June, the weather remained cool enough to require a coat, and he wore his as a dark lord wore a cape, with a flourish that demanded attention. ‘We haven’t seen each other in five years and your first request is to know how I found you. Pardon me if I find that curious.’

‘What would you have me say?’ She licked lips gone dry as he took another step closer until she had to crane her neck to see his eyes.

Mesmeric, hypnotising eyes.

So like his son’s.

The blood drained from her face and thinking became difficult. She’d imagined this scene countless times. Had imagined how she would say the words. How he would take it. How she would protect her son from even the slightest hint of rejection, the way she’d done when her parents had transmitted that same indifference they’d shown Maisie all her life to her beloved son.

But words wouldn’t form in her brain. So she stared at him, her thoughts twisting and turning.

‘Hello, perhaps? Or, how have you been, Romeo?’

She caught his chillingly mocking tone and stiffened.

‘Why would I? I seem to recall waking up to find myself alone in a hotel suite rented by an anonymous stranger. You didn’t bother to say goodbye then, so why should I bother to say hello now?’ she replied.

His nostrils flared then and a memory struck through her jumbled thoughts. They’d been caught up in one of the few short bursts of conversation in his suite. She’d unwittingly let slip the fraught state of her relationship with her parents, how lonely and inconvenient she felt to them, as if she were an unwanted visitor sharing a house with them.

His nostrils had flared then, too, as he’d admonished her to be grateful she had parents at all—strangers or otherwise. That observation had rendered her silent and a little ashamed, not because she’d hated being chastised, but because she’d seen the naked agony in his eyes when he’d said that. As if the subject of parents was one that terrorised him.

Maisie pushed the memory away and struggled to stay calm when he finally released her from his stare and looked around.

‘What do you do here when you’re not dabbling in being a restaurateur?’ he asked.

She bristled. ‘I’m not dabbling. I own this restaurant. It’s my career.’

‘Really? I thought you were a high-powered lawyer.’

She frowned. Had she told him that in Palermo? Back then she’d been newly qualified and working on exciting cases. Back then her parents had finally, grudgingly, accepted her career choice. She would even go as far as to consider that for the first time in her life she’d achieved something they were proud of, even if they hadn’t quite been able to show it in the warm, loving way she’d seen her friends’ parents exhibit.

Of course, they hadn’t been thrilled that she’d announced soon after that she was taking a whole month off to travel Europe.

Despite her having the full support of her bosses to take the time off, her parents had advised her against the trip. Their utter conviction that stepping off the career ladder, even briefly, would ruin her life had finally confirmed how much they rued bringing a child, bringing her, into their lives.

And once she’d returned and told them she was pregnant...

Her heart caught at their bitter disappointment when she’d finally revealed her news. Roberta O’Connell hadn’t needed to spell out that she thought Maisie had ruined her life for ever. It’d been clear to see. And knowing that by definition they thought having her had been a mistake had been an ache she hadn’t been able to dispel.

Maisie shook her head to dispel the memory. ‘No, not any longer. I gave up practising four years ago,’ she answered Romeo.

He frowned. ‘Why would you give up the job you trained so hard for?’

So she had told him more than she thought. Because how else would he know? And why was he questioning her like this, probing her for answers he already knew? Was he trying to trip her up somehow?

She swallowed. ‘My priorities changed,’ she replied crisply and stepped back. ‘Now if you were just passing through and stopped to catch up, I really must get on. My first customers will be here shortly and I need to make sure the kitchen’s ready to start the day.’

‘You think I came all this way simply to catch up?’ He looked around again, as if searching for something. Or someone.

Apprehension flowed like excess adrenaline through her blood, making her dizzy for a moment.

Romeo couldn’t know about Gianlucca. Because she’d searched for him to no avail. No one else knew who the father of her child was. The only people who she would’ve confessed Romeo’s identity to—her parents—hadn’t wanted to know after she’d confessed to the one-night stand. Which was just as well because Maisie wouldn’t have liked to confess that she hadn’t known the surname of the man who’d impregnated her.

Maisie had a hard time accepting the fact that the only time her mother had initiated a heart-to-heart conversation had been to tell her to abandon her child’s welfare to childminders and nannies. That her son, once he was born, should be left to others to raise, so Maisie could focus fully and solely on her career. There’d even been an offer of a fully paid boarding school once he was a toddler! Despite her knowing her parents’ views on hands-on parenting, it’d still been harrowing to hear her mother’s words, to know that had her parents had the choice when she was born, they’d have abandoned her to the same fate.

‘I really don’t know what you’re doing here. But like I said, I need to be getting on—’

She gasped when he caught her upper arms in a firm, implacable hold.

‘Where is he, Maisie? Where is my son?’ he demanded, his voice a cold, deadly blade.

Several things happened at once. The door to the kitchen burst open and Lacey rushed through, just as the front door swung inward and a party of four walked in. The scene stopped in almost comical freeze-frame. No one moved except for Romeo, whose eyes narrowed as they went from the door to Lacey and then to Maisie’s face.

When shock continued to hold her tongue prisoner, Romeo’s lips compressed. Glancing at Lacey’s name badge, he jerked his head imperiously. ‘Lacey, you’re in charge of reservations, yes?’

Lacey nodded, her wide-eyed look returning full force.

‘Then see to the customers, per favore. Your boss and I will be in her office.’

Romeo marched her into the small room and shut the door behind him with a precise movement that suggested he was suppressing the need to slam it. Maisie was conquering equally intense emotions.

She put the width of her desk between them, then glared at him.

‘I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t walk in here and start bossing my employees about—’

‘Deflecting won’t help this situation. You know why I’m here. So let’s dispense with trivialities. Tell me where he is.’ That last remark was said with icy brevity that hammered a warning straight to her blood.

‘Why?’ she fired back, potent fear beginning to crawl up her spine.

Astonishment lit through his golden eyes. ‘Why? Are you completely insane? Because I want to see him.’

‘Again, why?’ A cloud descended on his face and Maisie held up her hand when he opened his mouth, no doubt to once again question her sanity. ‘Let’s stop for a moment and think about this rationally. We had a one-night stand.’ She couldn’t help the high colour that rushed into her face at the so very telling term. ‘After which you walked away without so much as a thank-you-ma’am note. You used me, then disappeared into the night. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. Fast-forward five years later, you walk in the door and demand to see my son.’ Maisie raised her hand and ticked off her fingers. ‘I don’t know your background. I don’t know whether that aura of danger about you is just for show or the real thing. Hell, I don’t even know your last name. And you think I should just expose you to my child?’

Several emotions flitted across his face—astonishment, anger, a touch of vulnerability that set her nape tingling, then grudging respect before settling into implacable determination.

He stared at her for a time, before he exhaled sharply. ‘If the child is mine—’

She laughed in disbelief. ‘Let me get this straight. You came here without even being sure that the child you’re so desperate to see is yours?’

He folded his arms across his massive chest, the movement bunching his shoulders into even wider relief. Maisie became acutely aware of the room shrinking, and the very air being sucked up by his overwhelming presence. ‘Since I’ve never met him, I cannot be one hundred per cent sure that he’s mine, hence the request to see him. A man in my position has to verify allegations of fatherhood.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Allegations? Plural? Are you saying this isn’t the first time you’ve left a woman in a hotel room and found out there have been consequences to your actions?’ Maisie wasn’t sure why that stung so much. Had she imagined herself somehow unique? That a man who looked like him, kissed and made love as he had, would have limited the experience to her and only her? ‘And what do you mean, a man in your position?’

Her barrage of questions caused his eyes to narrow further. ‘You don’t know who I am?’

‘Would I be asking if I did?’ she threw back. ‘If you want any semblance of cooperation from me, I demand to know your full name.’

His jaw flexed. ‘My name is Romeo Brunetti.’ The way he said it, the way he waited, as if the pronouncement should be accompanied by a round of trumpets and the clash of cymbals, set her spine tingling. When she didn’t speak, a curious light entered his eyes. ‘That means nothing to you?’

She shrugged. ‘Should it?’

He continued to stare at her for another minute, before he shook his head and started to pace the small space in front of her desk. ‘Not at all. So now we have our long-overdue introductions out of the way.’

Maisie cleared her throat. ‘Mr Brunetti, I—’ She froze as he let out a stunned breath.

Her gaze flew to his face to find his gaze transfixed on the photo on her desk. ‘Is this... Is this him?’ he asked in a tight, ragged whisper.

When she nodded, he reached forward in a jerky movement, then stopped. Apprehension slid over his face. He fisted and then flexed his hand, before he slowly plucked up the frame. In another person, she would’ve been certain he was borderline terrified of a mere picture.

Terrified or dreading?

The reminder of the cold indifference her parents had felt about their grandson, about her, made her itch to snatch the photo from him, protect her son’s image the way she fought every day to keep him from the rejection she’d been forced to live with her whole life.

She glanced at the picture clutched in Romeo’s large hand.

It had been taken at Ranelagh Gardens on the first day of spring. Dressed in a smart shirt, jeans and bright blue woollen jumper, Gianlucca had looked a perfect picture of health and happiness, and Maisie hadn’t been able to resist capturing his image.

She watched now as Romeo brought the picture up close to his face, his features drawn tight, his breathing slow and controlled. After almost a minute of staring at the photo without a hint of emotion, he raised his hand and brushed his fingers over Gianlucca’s cheek, almost in direct imitation of what Maisie herself had done a mere half hour ago.

‘Mio figlio,’ he murmured.

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Maisie replied in a matching whisper.

He blinked and sucked in a deep, chest-filling breath. ‘My son. It means my son.’ He looked up, his gaze deeply accusing. ‘He’s my son. And you kept him from me,’ he snarled, his voice still not quite as steady as it’d been moments ago.

Maisie stumbled backwards, bumping into the chair behind her. ‘I did nothing of the kind. And if you stopped to think about it for a moment, you’d realise how ridiculous that allegation is.’

He shoved a hand through his thick dark hair, dislodging any semblance of order it’d been in. He began to pace again, the photo clutched in his large hand. ‘How old is he?’ he demanded when he paused for a moment.

‘He’s four in three weeks.’

He resumed pacing in tight circles. ‘Four years... Dio mio, four years I’ve been in the dark,’ he muttered to himself, slashing his hand through his hair again.

‘How exactly were you enlightened?’ It was a question he hadn’t yet addressed.

He froze, as if her question had thrown him. ‘We’ll get to that in a moment. First, please tell me his name and where he is.’

The urgency in his voice bled through to Maisie. She wanted to refuse. Wanted to rewind time and have this meeting not happen. Not because being given the chance to reveal her son’s existence to his father wasn’t what she wanted.

From the moment she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d known she would give her child every opportunity to know his father. She’d gone to Palermo during her first trimester with that exact reason in mind and had given up after two weeks with no success in tracing Romeo.

No, the reason Maisie wanted to rewind time and take a different course was because she knew, deep in her bones, that Romeo’s presence wasn’t just about wanting to get to know his son. There was a quiet hint of danger about him that set her fear radar alight. And he hadn’t yet shown her that the prospect of a son filled him with joy. All he’d done so far was put an alpha claim on a child he didn’t know.

A child she would lay her life down to protect.

‘Why are you really here?’

His brows clamped together. ‘I believe we’ve tackled that particular question.’

She shook her head. Something was seriously, desperately wrong. Something to do with her precious son.

‘No, we haven’t. And I absolutely refuse to tell you anything about him until you tell me what’s going on.’

CHAPTER THREE

ROMEO STARED DOWN at the picture one more time, his heart turning over as eyes the exact shade as his own stared back at him. The child...his son...was laughing, pure joy radiating from his face as he posed, chubby arms outstretched, for the camera. A deep shudder rattled up from his toes, engulfing him in a sense of peculiar bewilderment. And fear. Bone-deep fear.

He couldn’t be a father. Not him, with the upbringing he’d had, the twisted, harrowing paths his life had taken before he’d wrestled control of it. He wasn’t equipped to care for a dog, never mind a child. And with the blood flowing through his veins...the blood of a thug and a vicious criminal...

Dio mio.

Lorenzo hadn’t been lying after all. A single wave of impotent rage blanketed him to know that the two men he despised most had known of the existence of the boy before he did. And while a part of him knew levelling accusations of subterfuge on the woman standing before him was unfair, Romeo couldn’t help but feel bitter resentment for being kept in the dark, even while he continued to flounder at the reality stabbing him in the chest.

He pushed the emotion aside and concentrated on the reality he could deal with—her continued denial of access. Because whether he was equipped to handle the prospect of fatherhood or not, she was at this moment behaving like an irrational person...a mother bear—a concept acutely alien to him.

Inhaling deep to keep his emotions under control, he rubbed his thumb over the face of his son. ‘I have only just discovered I have a child.’ He stopped when she raised her eyebrow again to remind him of her unanswered question. ‘Through...business associates who wished to get my attention—’

She shook her head, her long ponytail swinging. ‘What on earth does that mean? Why would business associates want to use your child to get your attention?’ High colour had flown into her cheeks, reminding him of another time, another place when her emotions had run equally passionate. ‘What type of business are you involved in?’ she voiced suspiciously.

So she didn’t know who he was. Something vaguely resembling relief speared through him. When his business partnership with Zaccheo Giordano had become public knowledge five years ago, his world had exploded with fawning acolytes and women falling over themselves to get his attention. That attention had increased a hundredfold when he’d opened his first super-luxury resort off the coast of Tahiti, a feat he’d repeated soon after with five more, seeing him skyrocket onto the World’s Richest list.

It was curiously refreshing not to have to deal with the instant personality change that accompanied recognition of his name. But not refreshing enough to know his response had triggered suspicion that could keep him from his reason for being here. Even though her instinct might yet prove correct.

He needed to frame his words carefully.

‘You have nothing to fear from me.’ He’d managed to lock down his control after that gut punch he’d received on seeing her again. From here on in, he would be operating from a place of cold, hard intelligence.

She shook her head again. ‘Sorry, that’s not good enough. You’ll have to do better than that.’ Her gaze went to the picture frame he held on to, a fierce light of protection and possession burning in her striking blue eyes. ‘Tell me the exact nature of your business or this conversation ends now.’

Romeo almost laughed. She was seriously deluded if she thought her heated threats would in any way dissuade him from seeing his son, from verifying for himself that the child truly belonged to him.

‘I’m the CEO and owner of Brunetti International,’ he replied.

She frowned for a moment, then her features morphed into astonishment. ‘Brunetti...those resorts you need to sell an organ or a limb before you can afford a night there?’

He made a dismissive gesture. ‘We cater to people from all walks of life.’

She snorted. ‘As long as they’ve sold their grandmothers to be able to afford your billionaire rates.’

Romeo pursed his lips. His wealth wasn’t the subject under discussion here.

The fact that she seemed to be a rare species, a mother who stood like a lioness in protection of her child, a child whom he’d yet to be certain without a shadow of a doubt shared his DNA, should take precedence.

‘You know who I am now. You’ll also know from your previous career that information can be discovered if one digs deep enough. My business associates dug deep enough and they found you and my son.’

‘My son.’

The sudden urge to snarl our child took him by surprise. He stared down at the picture, clutching at the fraying edges of his control when he began to feel off balance again. ‘Per favore. Please. Tell me his name.’

Her gaze went to the picture and her features softened immediately.

The look was one he’d witnessed before, in that hotel room five years ago. It was a look that had set so many alarm bells ringing inside his head that he’d withdrawn swiftly and decisively from it. He looked away because just as he’d had no room to accommodate feelings then, he had no room for them now.

‘His name is Gianlucca. Gianlucca O’Connell.’

An irrational surge of displeasure threatened to floor him. ‘O’Connell?’

Again that challenging arch of her eyebrow. Back in Palermo he’d seen her passion, her fire, but that had been directed to the bedroom, and what they’d done to each other in bed. Seeing it in a different light didn’t make it any less sexy. Yet the punch of heat to his libido took him by surprise. He’d grown so jaded by the overabundance of willing women that lately he’d lost interest in the chase. For the past three months, work had become his mistress, the only thing that fired his blood in any meaningful way.

‘That is my name. Or did you expect me to call him Gianlucca Romeo?’

He gritted his teeth. ‘Did you even make an effort to find me when you knew you carried my child?’

A look crossed her face, a mixture of pride and anger, and she raised her chin. ‘Did you want to be found?’ she fired back.

Knowing how well he’d covered his tracks, a wave of heat crawled up his neck. He’d succeeded more than in his wildest dreams. He’d walked away, having effectively smashed down any residual feelings of rejection, or the idea that he could be worthy of something more than the brain and brawn that had seen him through his harrowing childhood into the man he was today.

The hours of imagined softness, of imagined affection, had been an illusion brought on by his mother’s passing. An illusion he’d almost given in to. An emotion he’d vowed then never to entertain even the merest hint of again.

‘We’ll address the subject of his surname at another time. But now we’ve established who I am, I’d like to know more about him. Please,’ he added when her stance remained intransigent.

‘All I know is your surname. I don’t even know how old you are, never mind what sort of man you are.’

Romeo rounded the desk and watched her back away, but looking into her eyes he saw no sign of fear. Only stubbornness. Satisfied that she didn’t fear him, he moved closer, watched her pupils dilate as a different sort of chemistry filled the air. Her sudden erratic breathing told him everything he needed to know.

‘I’m thirty-five. And five years ago, you gave yourself to me without knowing anything more about me besides my first name.’ He watched a blush wash up her throat into her face with more than a little fascination. ‘You were in a foreign place, with a strange man, and yet you trusted your instinct enough to enter my hotel suite and stay for a whole night. And right now, even though your heart is racing, you don’t fear me. Or you would’ve screamed for help by now.’ He reached out and touched the pulse beating at her throat. Her soft, silky skin glided beneath his fingertips and blazing heat lanced his groin again. Curbing the feeling, he dropped his hand and stepped back. ‘I don’t mean you or the boy harm. I just wish to see him. I deal in facts and figures. I need visual evidence that he exists, and as accommodating as I’m willing to be, I won’t be giving you a choice in the matter.’

She swallowed, her eyes boldly meeting and staying on his. ‘Just so you know, I don’t respond well to threats.’

‘It wasn’t a threat, gattina.’ They both froze at the term that had unwittingly dropped from his lips. From the look on her face, Romeo knew she was remembering the first time he’d said it. Her nails had been embedded in his back, her claws transmitting the depth of her arousal as he’d sunk deep inside her. His little wildcat had been as crazy for him as he’d been for her. But that was then, a moment in time never to be repeated. ‘I’m merely stating a fact.’

She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped as voices filled the restaurant. ‘I have to go. This is our busiest afternoon slot. I can’t leave Lacey on her own.’

Romeo told himself to be calm. ‘I need an answer, Maisie.’

She stared at him for a long moment before her gaze dropped to the picture he held. She looked as if she wanted to snatch it from him but he held on tight. She finally looked back up. ‘He goes to playgroup from eleven to three o’clock. I take him to the park afterwards if the weather’s good.’

‘Did you have plans to do that today?’

She slowly nodded. ‘Yes.’

Blood rushed into his ears, nearly deafening him. He forced himself to think, to plot the best way he knew how. Because rushing blood and racing hearts were for fools. Fools who let emotion rule their existence.

‘What park?’ he rasped.

‘Ranelagh Gardens. It’s—’

‘I will find it.’

She paled and her hands flew out in a bracing stance. ‘You can’t... Don’t you think we need to discuss this a little more?’

Romeo carefully set down the picture, then took out his phone and captured an image of it. He stared down at his son’s face on his phone screen, and the decision concreted in his mind. ‘No, Maisie. There’s nothing more to discuss. If he’s mine, truly mine, then I intend to claim him.’

* * *

Maisie slowly sank into the chair after Romeo made a dramatic exit, taking all the oxygen and bristling vitality of the day with him. She raised her hand to her face and realised her fingers were shaking. Whether it was from the shock of seeing him again after convincing herself she would never set eyes on him again, or the indomitability of that last statement, she wasn’t certain.

She sat there, her hand on her clammy forehead, her gaze in the middle distance as she played back every word, every gesture, on a loop in her mind.

The sound of laughter finally broke through her racing thoughts. She really needed to walk the floor, make sure her customers were all right. But she found herself clicking on her laptop, typing in his name on her search engine.

The images that confronted her made her breath catch all over again. Whereas she hadn’t given herself permission to linger on anywhere but Romeo’s face while they’d been in her office, she leaned in close and perused each image. And there were plenty, it seemed. Pictures of him dressed in impeccable handmade suits, posing for a profile piece in some glossy business magazine; pictures of him opening his world-renowned resorts in Dubai and Bali; and many, many pictures of him with different women, all drop-dead gorgeous, all smiling at him as if he was their world, their every dream come true.

But the ones that caught Maisie’s attention, the ones that made her heart lurch wildly, were of Romeo on a yacht with another man—the caption named him as Zaccheo Giordano—and a woman with two children. The children were Gianlucca’s age, possibly a little older, and the pictures were a little grainy, most likely taken with a telephoto lens from a long distance.

He sat apart from the family, his expression as remote as an arctic floe. That lone-wolf look, the one that said approach with caution, froze her heart as she saw it replicated in each rigid, brooding picture that followed. Even when he smiled at the children, there was a distance that spoke of his unease.

Trembling, Maisie sat back from the desk, the large part of her that had been agitated at the thought of agreeing to a meeting between Romeo and her son escalating to alarming proportions.

She might not know how he felt about children generally, but if the pictures could be believed, Romeo Brunetti wasn’t the warm and cuddly type.

Maisie gulped in the breath she hadn’t been able to fully access while Romeo had been in the room and tried to think rationally. She’d tried to find Romeo five years ago to tell him that they’d created a child together. It was true that at the time she’d been reeling from her parents’ further disappointment in her, and in hindsight she’d probably been seeking some sort of connection with her life suddenly in chaotic free fall. But even then, deep down, she’d known she couldn’t keep the news to herself or abandon her baby to the care of strangers as her parents had wanted.

So in a way, this meeting had always been on the cards, albeit to be scheduled at a time of her choosing and without so much...pulse-destroying drama.

Or being confronted with the evidence that made her mothering instincts screech with the possibility that the father of her child might want him for reasons other than to cement a love-at-first-sight bond that would last a lifetime.

She clicked back to the information page and was in the middle of Romeo’s worryingly brief biography when a knock announced Lacey’s entrance.

‘I need you, Maisie! A group of five just walked in. They don’t have a booking but I don’t think they’ll take no for an answer.’

Maisie suppressed a sigh and closed her laptop with a guilty sense of relief that she didn’t have to deal with Romeo’s last words just yet.

‘Okay, let’s go and see what we can do, shall we?’

She pinned a smile on her face that felt a mile from genuine and left her office. For the next three hours, she pushed the fast-approaching father-and-son meeting to the back of her mind and immersed herself in the smooth running of the lunchtime service.

* * *

The walk to Gianlucca’s nursery took less than ten minutes, but with her mind free of work issues, her heart began to race again at the impending meeting.

Every cell in her body urged her to snatch her son and take him far away.

But she’d never been the type to run, or bury her head in the sand.

She’d give Romeo the chance to spell out what he wished for, and if his parting remarks were anything to go by he would be demanding a presence in her son’s life. She would hear him out, but nothing would make her accommodate visitation with her son until she was absolutely sure he would be safe with Romeo.

Her heart lurched at the thought that she’d have to part from him for a few hours maybe once or twice a week. Maybe a full weekend when he grew older. Her breath shuddered out, and she shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself. For all she knew, Romeo would take one look at Lucca, satisfy himself that he was his and ring-fence himself with money-grubbing lawyers to prevent any imagined claims.

But then, if that was what he intended, would he have taken the time to seek them out?

Whatever happened, her priority would remain ensuring her son’s happiness. She stopped before the nursery door, unclenched her agitated fists and blinked eyes prickling with tears.

From the moment he’d been born, it’d been just the two of them. After the search for Romeo had proved futile, she’d settled into the idea that it would always be just the two of them.

The threat to that twosome made her insides quiver.

She brushed her tears away. By the time she was buzzed in, Maisie had composed herself.

‘Mummy!’ Gianlucca raced towards her, an effervescent bundle of energy that pulled a laugh from Maisie.

Enfolding him in her arms, she breathed his warm, toddler scent until he wriggled impatiently.

‘Are we going to the park to see the ducks?’ he asked eagerly, his striking hazel eyes—so like his father’s it was uncanny—widened expectantly.

‘Yes, I even brought some food for them,’ she replied and smiled wider when he whooped and dashed off towards the door.

She spotted the limo the moment they turned into the square. Black and ominous, it sat outside the north entrance in front of an equally ominous SUV, both engines idling. Beside the limo, two men dressed in black and wearing shades stood, their watchful stance evidence that they were bodyguards.

Maisie tried not to let her imagination careen out of control. Romeo Brunetti was a billionaire and she’d dealt with enough unscrupulous characters during her stint as a lawyer to know the rich were often targets for greedy, sometimes dangerous criminals.

All the same, she clutched Gianlucca’s hand tighter as they passed the car and entered the park. Gianlucca darted off for the duck pond, his favourite feature in the park, as soon as she handed him the bread she’d taken from the restaurant.

He was no more than a dozen paces away when a tingle danced on her nape. She glanced over her shoulder and watched Romeo enter the park, his gaze passing cursorily over her before it swung to Gianlucca.

Maisie’s heart lurched, then thundered at the emotions that washed over his face. Wonder. Shock. Anxiety. And a fierce possessiveness that sent a huge dart of alarm through her.

But the most important emotion—love—was missing.

It didn’t matter that it was perhaps irrational for her to demand it of him, but the absence of that powerful emotion terrified her.

Enough to galvanise her into action when he walked forward, reached her and carried on going.

‘Romeo!’ She caught his arm when she sensed his intention.

‘What?’ He paused, but his gaze didn’t waver from Gianlucca’s excited form.

‘Wait. Please,’ she whispered fiercely when he strained against her hold.

He whirled to her, his nostrils flaring as he fought to control himself. ‘Maisie.’ His tone held a note of barely leashed warning.

Swallowing, she stood her ground. ‘I know you want to meet him, but you can’t just barge in looking like...’ She stopped and bit her lip.

‘Looking like what?’

‘Like a charging bull on steroids. You’ll frighten him.’

His face hardened and he breathed deep before spiking a hand through his hair. After another long glance at Gianlucca, he faced her. ‘Bene, what do you suggest?’

Maisie reached into her bag. ‘Here, I brought one of these for you.’

He eyed her offering and his eyebrows shot up. ‘A bag of dried bread?’

‘He’s feeding the ducks. It’s his favourite thing to do. I thought you could...approach him that way.’

Romeo’s eyes darkened to a burnished gold. Slowly, he reached out and took the offering. ‘Grazie,’ he muttered with tight aloofness.

She held on when he started to turn away, silently admonishing herself for experiencing a tiny thrill of pleasure when his arm flexed beneath her fingers. ‘Also, I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell him who you are. We can have a longer discussion about where we go from here before anything happens.’

A dark look gleamed in his eyes, but he nodded. ‘If that is what you wish.’

‘It is.’

He nodded, then tensed as a trio of kids flew by on their way to the pond. ‘I agree, perhaps this isn’t the most appropriate venue for an introduction.’

A tight knot eased in Maisie’s stomach and she realised a part of her had feared Romeo would only want to see his son from afar and decide he didn’t want to know him. She had yet to decipher his true motives, but she would allow this brief meeting.

‘Thank you.’

He merely inclined his head before his gaze swung back to Gianlucca. Knowing she couldn’t postpone the meeting any longer, she fell into step beside Romeo.

Gianlucca threw the last of his bread into the waiting melee of ducks and swans and broke into a delighted laugh as they fought over the scraps. His laughter turned into a pout when the ducks swam off to greet the bread-throwing trio of kids. ‘Mummy, more bread!’ When Maisie remained silent, he turned and raced towards them. ‘Please?’ he added.

She glanced at Romeo and watched the frozen fascination on his face as Gianlucca reached them. She caught him before he barrelled into her and crouched in front of him. ‘Wait a moment, Lucca. There’s someone I want you to meet. This...this is Romeo Brunetti.’

Lucca tilted his head up and eyed the towering man before him. ‘Are you Mummy’s friend?’

Romeo’s head bobbed once. ‘Yes. Nice to meet you, Gianlucca.’

Gianlucca immediately slipped his hand into Romeo’s and pumped with all his might. A visible tremble went through Romeo’s body, and he made a strangled sound. Gianlucca heard it and stilled, his eyes darting from the giant man to his mother.

The overprotective mother in her wanted to scoop him up and cuddle him close, but Maisie forced herself to remain still. Her breath caught as Romeo sank into a crouch, still holding his son’s hand, his eyes glistening with questions.

‘I look forward to getting to know you, Gianlucca.’

Lucca nodded, then gasped as he saw what Romeo held in his other hand. ‘Did you come to feed the ducks, too?’

Romeo nodded. ‘Sì...yes,’ he amended and started to rise. His body bristled with a restlessness that made Maisie’s pulse jump. ‘That was my intention, but I’m not an expert, like you.’

‘It’s easy! Come on.’ He tugged at Romeo’s hand, his excitement at having another go at his favourite pastime vibrating through his little body.

Maisie stayed crouched, the residual apprehension clinging to her despite the sudden, throat-clogging tears. As meetings between father and son went, it had gone much easier than she could’ve hoped for. And yet, she couldn’t move from where she crouched. Because, she realised, through all the scenarios she’d played in her mind, she’d never really thought beyond this moment. Oh, she’d loftily imagined dictating visitation terms and having them readily agreed to, and then going about raising her son with minimal interference.

But looking at Romeo as he gazed down at his son with an intense proprietary light in his eyes, Maisie realised she really had no clue what the future held. Her breath shuddered out as Romeo’s words once again flashed through her brain.

There’s nothing more to discuss. If he’s mine, truly mine, then I intend to claim him.

She slowly rose and looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, the two black-clad bodyguards prowled a short distance away. About to turn away, Maisie froze as she spotted two more by the south gate. Two more guarded the west side of the park.

Heart in her throat, she approached the duck pond, where Romeo was throwing a piece of bread under her son’s strict instruction.

His head swung towards her and his expression altered at whatever he read on her face. ‘Something wrong?’

‘I think I should be asking you that,’ she hissed so Gianlucca wouldn’t overhear, but she placed a protective hand on his tiny shoulder, ready to lay down her life for him if she needed to. ‘Do you want to tell me why you have six bodyguards watching this park?’ Her voice vibrated with the sudden fear and anger she couldn’t disguise.

His face hardened and the arm he’d raised to throw another bite into the pond slowly lowered to his side. ‘I think it’s time to continue this conversation elsewhere.’

CHAPTER FOUR

ROMEO WATCHED SEVERAL expressions chase over her face.

‘What does that mean?’ she asked, her blue eyes narrowing before she cast another alarmed glance at the burly men guarding the park.

He followed her apprehensive gaze and indicated sharply at his men when he saw that other parents were beginning to notice their presence. The men melted into the shadows, but the look didn’t dissipate from Maisie’s face. When her hand tightened imperceptibly on Gianlucca’s shoulder, Romeo’s insides tightened.

‘My hotel is ten minutes away. We’ll talk there.’ He tried not to let the irony of his statement cloud the occasion. He’d said similar words to her five years ago, an invitation that had ended with him reeling from the encounter.

That invitation had now brought him to this place, to his son. He had no doubt in his mind that the child was his. Just as he had no doubt that he would claim him, and protect him from whatever schemes Lorenzo had up his sleeves. Beyond that, he had no clue what his next move was. He didn’t doubt, though, that he would find a way to triumph. He’d dragged himself from the tough streets of Palermo to the man he was today. He didn’t intend to let anything stand in the way of what he desired.

He focused to find her shaking her head. ‘I can’t.’

Romeo’s eyes narrowed as a hitherto thought occurred to him. ‘You can’t? Why not?’ He realised then how careless he’d been. Because Lorenzo’s pictures had shown only Maisie with his son, Romeo had concluded that she was unattached. But those pictures were four years old. A lot could have happened in that time. She could’ve taken another lover, a man who had perhaps become important enough to see himself as Gianlucca’s father.

The very idea made him see red for one instant. ‘Is there someone in your life?’ He searched her fingers. They were ringless. But that didn’t mean anything these days. ‘A lover, perhaps?’ The word shot from his mouth like a bullet.

Her eyes widened and she glanced down at Gianlucca, but he was engrossed in feeding the last of the bread to the ducks. ‘I don’t have a lover or a husband, or whatever the au fait term is nowadays.’

Romeo attributed the relief that poured through him to not having to deal with another tangent in this already fraught, woefully ill-planned situation. ‘In that case there shouldn’t be a problem in discussing this further at my hotel.’

‘That wasn’t why I refused to come with you. I have a life to get on with, Romeo. And Lucca has a schedule that I try to keep to so his day isn’t disrupted, otherwise he gets cranky. I need to fix his dinner in half an hour and put him to bed so I can get back to the restaurant.’

He stiffened. ‘You go to work after he’s asleep?’

Her mouth compressed. ‘Not every night, but yes. I live above the restaurant and my assistant manager lives in the flat next door. She looks after him on the nights I work.’

‘That is unacceptable.’

Her eyes widened with outrage. ‘Excuse me?’ she hissed.

‘From now on you will not leave him in the care of strangers.’

Hurt indignation slid across her face. ‘If you knew me at all, you’d know leaving my son with some faceless stranger is the last thing I’d do! Bronagh isn’t a stranger. She’s my friend as well as my assistant. And how dare you tell me how to raise my son?’

He caught her shoulders and tugged her close so they wouldn’t be overheard. ‘He is our son,’ he rasped into her ear. ‘His safety and well-being have now become my concern as much as yours, gattina.’ The endearment slipped out again, but he deemed it appropriate, so he didn’t allow the tingle that accompanied the term to disturb him too much. ‘Put your claws away and let’s take him back to your flat. You’ll feed him and put him to bed and then we’ll talk, sì?’

He pulled back and looked down at her, noting her hectic colour and experiencing that same punch to his libido that had occurred earlier.

Dio, he needed this added complication like a bullet in the head.

He dropped his hand once she gave a grudging nod.

‘Lucca, it’s time to go,’ she called out.

‘One more minute!’ came his son’s belligerent reply.

A tight, reluctant smile curved Maisie’s lips, drawing Romeo’s attention to their pink plumpness. ‘He has zero concept of time and yet that’s his stock answer every time you try to get him away from something he loves doing.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he answered.

He glanced at his son and that sucker-punch feeling slammed into him again. It’d first happened when Gianlucca had slid his hand into his. Romeo had no term for it. But it was alive within him, and swelling by the minute.

Unthinking questions crowded his mind. Like when had Gianlucca taken his first step? What had been his first word?

What was his favourite thing to do besides feeding greedy ducks?

He stood, stock-still, as a plan began to formulate at the back of his mind. A plan that was uncharacteristically outlandish.

But wasn’t this whole situation outlandish in the extreme?

And hadn’t he learned that sometimes it was better to fight fire with fire?

The idea took firmer root, embedding itself as the only viable course available to him if he was to thwart the schemes of Lorenzo Carmine and Agostino Fattore.

The more Romeo thought about the plans the old men, in their bid to hang on to their fast-crumbling empire, had dared to lay out for him, the more rage threatened to overcome him. He’d tempered that rage with caution, not forgetting that a wounded animal was a dangerous animal. Fattore’s lieutenant might be old, and his power weakened, but Romeo knew that some power was better than no power to people like Lorenzo. And they would hang on to it by every ruthless means available.

Romeo didn’t intend to lower his guard where Lorenzo’s wily nature was concerned. His newly discovered son’s safety was paramount. But even if Lorenzo and the shadows of Romeo’s past hadn’t been hanging over him, he would still proceed with the plan now fully formed in his mind.

He followed Maisie as she approached and caught up Gianlucca’s hand. ‘Time to go, precious.’ The moment he started to protest, she continued, ‘Which do you prefer for your tea, fish fingers or spaghetti and meatballs?’

‘Spaghetti balls,’ the boy responded immediately, his mind adeptly steered in the direction of food, just as his mother had intended. He danced between them until they reached the gate.

Romeo noticed his men had slipped into the security SUV parked behind his limo and nodded at the driver who held the door open. He turned to help his son into the car and saw Maisie’s frown.

‘Do you happen to have a car seat in there?’ she asked.

Romeo cursed silently. ‘No.’

‘In that case, we’ll meet you back at the restaurant.’ She turned and started walking down the street.

He shut the door and fell into step beside her. ‘I’ll walk back with you.’

She opened her mouth to protest but stopped when he took his son’s hand. The feel of the small palm against his tilted Romeo’s world.

He hadn’t known or expected this reality-changing situation when he’d walked into that mansion in Palermo yesterday. But Romeo was nothing if not a quick study. His ability to harness a situation to his advantage had saved his life more times on the street than he could recount. He wasn’t in a fight-to-the-death match right now, but he still intended to emerge a winner.

* * *

Maisie’s first priority when she’d decorated her flat was homey comfort, with soft furnishings and pleasant colours to make the place a safe and snug home for her son. But as she opened the door and walked through the short hallway that connected to the living room she couldn’t help but see it through Romeo’s eyes. The carpet was a little worn, one cushion stained with Lucca’s hand paint. And suddenly, the yellow polka-dot curtains seemed a little too bright, like something a girlie

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