About the Authors

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

USA TODAY bestselling author NATALIE ANDERSON writes emotional contemporary romance full of sparkling banter, sizzling heat and uplifting endings—perfect for readers who love to escape with empowered heroines and arrogant alphas who are too sexy for their own good. When not writing you’ll find her wrangling her four children, three cats, two goldish and one dog…and snuggled in a heap on the sofa with her husband at the end of the day. Follow her at natalie-anderson.com.

Also by Michelle Smart

The Sicilian’s Bought Cinderella

Cinderella Seductions miniseries

A Cinderella to Secure His Heir

The Greek’s Pregnant Cinderella

Passion in Paradise collection

A Passionate Reunion in Fiji

Rings of Vengeance miniseries

Billionaire’s Bride for Revenge

Marriage Made in Blackmail

Billionaire’s Baby of Redemption

Also by Natalie Anderson

The Forgotten Gallo Bride

Claiming His Convenient Fiancée

Princess’s Pregnancy Secret

The King’s Captive Virgin

Awakening His Innocent Cinderella

Pregnant by the Commanding Greek

The Innocent’s Emergency Wedding

The Throne of San Felipe miniseries

The Secret That Shocked De Santis

The Mistress That Tamed De Santis

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Sicilian Baby Revelation

Michelle Smart

The Greek’s One-Night Heir

Natalie Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90011-3

HER SICILIAN BABY REVELATION & THE GREEK’S ONE-NIGHT HEIR

Her Sicilian Baby Revelation © 2020 Michelle Smart The Greek’s One-Night Heir © 2020 Natalie Anderson

Published in Great Britain 2020

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

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

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

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

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Her Sicilian Baby Revelation

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

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

EPILOGUE

The Greek’s One-Night Heir

Back Cover Text

Dedication

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

About the Publisher

Her Sicilian Baby Revelation

Michelle Smart

Their passion: unrivaled

Her revelation: unforgettable!

Orla O’Reilly knew the father of her precious three-year-old son must be out there somewhere. But after a car accident left her with amnesia, she’s unable to recall his name. Until Tonino arrives at her sister’s wedding, and suddenly it comes flooding back. Their connection…and his betrayal…

Billionaire Tonino is astounded by Orla’s return. The memory of their short but intense affair has never left him. But convincing Orla that he has the right to his child—and her heart—will be far from easy…

This book is dedicated to my munchkin, Zak xxx

PROLOGUE

ORLA O’REILLY BLEW her nose and swallowed back a breath, trying her hardest to stop fresh tears falling down her sodden cheeks. She didn’t want people to see her like this.

She’d flown to Sicily ten days ago on a mission to meet the man her mother had always unkindly referred to as ‘Orla’s sperm donor’. Only now did she understand her mother had actually been diplomatic.

Her father, who’d returned from his travels that morning, had refused to see her. He had no curiosity about his twenty-three-year-old daughter. No curiosity at all.

She hadn’t expected a grand reunion or anything but his outright rejection…

It hurt. Really, really hurt. Now all she wanted was Tonino’s strong arms holding her tightly and his breath whispering into her hair that everything would be okay.

At least something good had come from her time in Sicily. She’d met the man of her dreams.

Ten days ago she’d taken one look at her room in the budget hotel she’d checked into and gone back to the reception. Orla was not one for complaining but the state of it would have driven a saint to boiling point. The bed sheets were stained and crumpled, the carpet sticky under her feet and the bathroom…well, the less said about that, the better.

She’d stood at that reception desk for exactly six minutes before a tall, imposing figure had appeared from a door marked Privato and Orla had found herself face-to-face with the sexiest man she’d ever set eyes on.

Until that first sight of Tonino, she’d never understood what it meant to meet someone and feel as if you’d been struck by lightning.

When she’d returned to the hotel much later that day, her first attempt to meet her father scuppered due to him being abroad, she’d found her room hadn’t just been cleaned but sanitised. New furniture and furnishings had been installed, including a brand-new carpet. Her melancholy mood had lifted when the gorgeous hotel manager had knocked on the door and asked if she would like to meet for coffee in the morning.

What had followed had been the most wonderful week and a half of her life, right until two hours ago when she’d returned to her father’s home for her second attempt. All those glorious hours with Tonino had infused her with a sense of optimism. She had become certain that her first meeting with her father would be the stuff of Hollywood; all tight embraces and schmaltzy words.

It had taken her father exactly eight minutes to break her heart, the length of time his housekeeper had made Orla wait alone on the doorstep before she’d returned with the ‘regretful’ news that he didn’t want to meet her.

She must try not to think about her father. Keep her focus on Tonino.

That was what she needed to keep the tears at bay. To think of the man who’d brought her to life and stolen her heart.

She wished she’d told him about her father. She wished she’d had the courage to be upfront about her real reason for being in Sicily but it was such a shameful thing to admit, that she was the secret love child of one of Sicily’s most notorious playboys; a child created through infidelity.

All her life she’d shied away from meaningful friendships and relationships. The only people she’d ever trusted were her sister, Aislin, and her grandparents. Her grandparents had both since died so that left Aislin.

And then she’d met Tonino.

She was ready to tell him now. He would understand. He would comfort her. He would be the rock she’d always dreamed of having but had never believed could exist.

Tonino had left her in bed that morning with a lingering kiss. He’d stroked her cheek and promised that that night they would talk. The expression in his eyes and the tone of his voice had told her this would be of a serious nature. As hard as she tried to temper the wild emotions raging through her veins, not even her father’s rejection could completely stamp them out. A future was dangling before her. For the first time in her life, Orla felt that her future could mean more than a career. It could involve…love…

The taxi driver pulled up outside her hotel behind a sparkling stretch limousine that stuck out like a sore thumb in this run-down area. Orla wearily slipped out, intent only on getting to her room and soaking in the bath while she waited for Tonino to return from his business trip in Tuscany. This was the first time they’d been apart for more than a few hours. How lucky was she to have found the man of her dreams just as he was due to take his annual leave, giving them all that time together!

‘Permesso.’

A ravishing stick-thin blonde with eyes like a cat’s blocked Orla’s path to the hotel’s elevator.

Orla held her hands up and tried to move around her, but the woman mimicked her moves, blocking her efforts.

‘Can I help you?’ The richness of the woman’s clothes and the expert precision of her hair and make-up made Orla think she must be the possessor of the limousine.

The woman raised an immaculately plucked eyebrow. ‘English?’

‘Irish.’

‘You give me two minutes.’

‘Err…’ Annoyed, Orla was about to push her way around the woman when the four fatal words were uttered.

‘Is about Tonino Valente.’

Prickles raced up Orla’s spine. Her abdomen clenched. ‘What about him?’

The woman raised her left hand and pointed at her wedding finger. A huge diamond ring lay snugly on it. ‘I am Sophia. Tonino’s fiancée.’

Twenty minutes later and the two women were in Orla’s hotel room. Sophia perched delicately on the small armchair while Orla sat on the floor feeling as if she’d been punched by a heavyweight with lead in his gloves. Spread on the carpet around her were photographs of Tonino and Sophia. Many photos. There were also press clippings and glossy magazines. Orla didn’t understand Sicilian but some of the words in the article needed no translation. Tonino and Sophia’s engagement party two months ago had been deemed newsworthy.

‘I sorry to tell you this,’ Sophia said in a tone that suggested she was loving every minute of it. ‘Tonino has made fool of you. He has lied to you. You are fun to him. Sì?’

‘I’ve been a bit of fun?’ Orla whispered. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Sì. That why I here. I warn you. Tonino loves me. We are to marry.’

Orla was unaware that tears were leaking down her face, and too numb to care that there was a warning in the Sicilian woman’s tone as well as in her actual words.

This must be what he’d wanted to talk to her about that night.

Fool that she was, she’d believed he wanted to discuss a future for them.

Her hand shook as she picked up the glossy magazine containing a twenty-page spread of their engagement party.

How could an ordinary hotel manager attract such a wealthy, high-maintenance woman like this? And why would an ordinary hotel manager be the recipient of the kind of press attention usually reserved for the rich and famous?

Fearing she could be sick, she groped for her phone and keyed Tonino Valente’s name into the search engine.

Ten minutes later she was still reading and searching but it was as if someone had taken possession of her body and was reading the damning evidence for her.

She felt light-headed. Boneless.

Tonino had lied about more than his marital status.

He wasn’t the manager of the hotel as he’d led her to believe. He was the owner. This hotel was just a small cog in a vast empire.

Tonino Valente was the sole owner of Valente Holdings, a chain of mostly hugely expensive hotels across Europe that catered for the filthy rich. Tonino, who was also an enthusiastic investor in start-up businesses, was filthy rich in his own right.

The man she’d opened her heart for, who she’d dared believe she could have a future with, was a cheat and a liar. The worst kind of liar. A rich, powerful liar. His grandfather was one of Sicily’s top judges. His mother was one of Sicily’s leading criminal lawyers. His father was a leading Sicilian politician.

Her Internet search revealed that the immaculately beautiful woman in the obscenely expensive outfit sitting on Orla’s hotel-room armchair was Sophia Messina. The Messinas were a Sicilian family as wealthy and powerful as the Valentes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, meeting Sophia’s cold, unflinching eyes. ‘I knew nothing about you.’

‘Now you know…you go?’ It was framed as a question, but the underlying threat hung between them.

Orla didn’t need the threat.

‘Yes.’ Breathing heavily to quell the rising nausea, she stumbled over to the wardrobe. ‘Yes. I go.’

CHAPTER ONE

Four years later

‘WILL YOU KEEP still a minute?’ Orla rebuked with a shake of her head. How was she supposed to fasten her sister’s wedding dress if she didn’t stop jigging on the spot?

‘I’m trying,’ Aislin protested.

‘Try harder. These clasps are fiddly. Breathe in.’

Aislin gave a theatrical intake of breath.

Using all her limited strength, Orla hooked the second tiny clasp. Excellent. Only another fifteen of the blasted things to go. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to wear a bra?’

‘It’s a strapless dress.’

‘Then wear a strapless bra. What will you do if the dress falls down and your boobs start wobbling for all of Sicily’s high society to admire?’ If there was one thing Orla was envious of, it was her sister’s magnificent bosom. Orla barely had a handful to waste.

‘It’s a bespoke dress. It’s not going to fall down.’

She hooked the third clasp. ‘I don’t get why you won’t let the designer hoist you into it.’

‘She’s around if we need her.’

‘But she’s used to doing this. Her fingers work. My fingers are useless.’ Fourth hook clasped, Orla blew out a puff of air from the exertion.

‘Untwist your knickers and chill. Anyone would think you were the one getting married.’

‘Aren’t you the slightest bit nervous?’

‘Nope.’ Through the reflection of the full-length mirror, Orla saw the beaming smile spread over her sister’s face. And well she should smile. Not only was Aislin marrying the love of her life, but she’d discovered a month ago that she was pregnant.

That the man Orla’s sister was marrying happened to be Orla’s half-brother—Orla and Aislin had different fathers—was, to her mind, only further cause for celebration.

She just wished they were marrying in Ireland, not here in Sicily. She was certain the deterioration in her coordination was down to the knots of dread in her stomach. Or were they knots of excitement?

All she knew for certain was that the beats of her heart had steadily increased in tempo and density in the weeks leading up to the wedding and now that she was finally in Sicily, there was an anticipation…or dread…that something was going to happen.

It was close to four years since Orla had been in Sicily on her futile mission to meet her father. A serious car accident six months after her return to Ireland had left her with major memory problems. Time had healed most of the holes in her memory but the period from Sicily to the accident itself remained stubbornly locked away.

She knew her wish to meet her father had gone unfulfilled only because Aislin had told her so and because every time Orla thought of Salvatore Moncada she wanted to cry. She’d shed a bucket of tears when she’d learned he’d died a year ago but even during that mammoth crying session was the feeling that she was crying for more than the father she’d never met.

She comforted herself that she’d gained a brother, Salvatore’s son, Dante. He was technically a half-brother, as Aislin was technically her half-sister, but Orla had never been able to see it like that. You didn’t love someone in halves. You either loved them or you didn’t. Aislin was only three years younger than her so she had no memories of life without her. Aislin was her sister and they would fight to the death to protect each other.

Dante, who Aislin had found for Orla and fallen in love with for herself, had only been in their lives for four months but it felt as if he’d been a part of it for ever.

Aislin’s phone buzzed. ‘Can you get that?’

‘Okay, but don’t move. If the clasps pop open I’m not redoing them.’ She still had a dozen of the ruddy things left to hook together.

She strode to the suite’s dressing table, grabbed the phone, handed it to Aislin and then got back to work on the dress.

‘It’s a message from our dear mother.’ Aislin spoke in an unnaturally high voice.

A shiver ran up Orla’s spine and her fingers fumbled on the delicate clasp she’d only just gripped hold of. ‘What does she want?’

‘To wish me luck.’

She snorted. ‘How big of her.’

‘Now, now, don’t be like that. You know it isn’t easy to jump on a plane to be there for your youngest daughter’s wedding.’

‘True. It’s not as if her daughter’s fiancé is a billionaire who’d offered to pay for a private jet to fly her over or anything.’

‘And it’s not as if she hasn’t seen her daughters in, what? Seven years?’

‘Or never met her only grandchild.’ Finn, Orla’s precious three-year-old son, her miracle of life, currently napping in one of the suite’s bedrooms under the watchful gaze of a nurse, had never set eyes on his grandmother.

She met Aislin’s stare through the reflection of the mirror and they burst into peals of laughter.

The sisters had long ago learned that the best way to keep the anger and pain of their mother’s actions at bay was to laugh and treat it all as one big joke. If they didn’t laugh there was a good chance they would never stop crying.

‘I suppose you should be grateful she remembered,’ Orla pointed out dryly.

‘I’m brimming with gratitude.’

She sniggered before confiding, ‘I’m dreading meeting Dante’s mother.’ Orla’s conception had been the catalyst for Dante’s parents’ divorce twenty-seven years ago.

‘Don’t be. I told you, she has no animosity towards you.’

‘But she sounds terrifying.’

‘She’s hilarious. When Dante told her she was going to be a grandmother the first thing she said was that she didn’t want to be known as Nonna.’

‘What will she be called?’ Another two clasps were hooked in quick succession.

Aislin cackled wickedly. ‘Nonna!’

‘Is she here yet?’ ‘Here’ being the magnificent luxury hotel nestled on a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea that Dante had hired the entirety of for the weekend.

‘She’s going straight to the cathedral with Giuseppe.’ Giuseppe was Dante’s latest stepfather, Immacolata’s sixth husband. ‘Now stop whittling.’

Before Orla could make a cutting retort, there was a knock on the door. A moment later a member of the hotel’s staff walked into the suite carrying a huge bouquet of flowers in a vase.

‘Compliments of the owner,’ he said in careful English.

‘How lovely.’ Aislin clapped her hands in delight. ‘Please, put them on the windowsill and, please, thank Mr Valente for me.’

Valente?

For no reason she could imagine, the hairs on the nape of Orla’s neck lifted and her gaze flew to the door that concealed her napping child.

When they were alone again, Aislin met Orla’s eyes again in the reflection of the mirror. ‘Have you met the owner of the hotel yet?’

Now the hairs on her arms lifted too.

‘Should I have?’ she asked nonchalantly, even as she ground her bare feet into the soft, thick carpet and ice raced up her spine.

Orla had arrived the day before but Finn had been exhausted from the journey, so they’d dined in the suite together rather than join the other early arrivals for the evening meal. By the time Aislin had joined them, both she and Finn had been fast asleep. Her sister had crawled into the bed with her, just as she’d done throughout their childhood. It had been a bittersweet moment for Orla, waking to find her sister asleep beside her. Her baby sister would never share her bed again.

Aislin shrugged but there was a shrewdness in the reflecting stare that sent the ice already in Orla’s spine spreading through her limbs. ‘Tonino’s one of Dante’s ushers—they’re old friends. Their fathers were friends too.’

Orla’s fingers tightened reflexively. Her chest tightened. The room began to swim around her…

‘Ouch!’

Aislin’s squeal pulled her sharply back into focus and Orla suddenly became aware that her nails were digging into her sister’s back. She whipped her hand away…and pulled the clasp she’d had hold of away with it.

Tonino Valente stood by the huge entrance doors and waited for the last guests to file into the baroque cathedral.

The groom, Dante, was at the altar mopping his brow with a handkerchief.

He could laugh to see his old friend acting like this, but propriety forced him to bite his cheeks and smother it.

Who would have thought Dante Moncada, the biggest player of them all, would be standing at the altar sweating with nerves as he awaited his bride? Out of their gang, which decades before had ridden round Palermo on scooters desperately trying to look cool and impress the girls, Dante had always been the one who’d vowed never to settle down. Tonino had been the only one to assume he would one day marry and yet here he was, the last bachelor of their gang left on the shelf.

He’d almost married once. He’d even gone as far as to book this same cathedral before fate had stepped in in the form of an Irish temptress and turned his life inside out with one locking of eyes.

Strangely, Dante was himself marrying an Irishwoman. Tonino had only met her the once, fleetingly, a stunning redhead who had transformed his old friend into a smitten lovesick fool.

What was it with Irishwomen, he ruminated, that they could turn a Sicilian man’s head so completely?

His own Irishwoman… Well, that had been an extremely short romance. But intense. Incredibly intense. And then she’d left without saying goodbye. Not a word. Just packed her bags and left. When he’d called, he’d found himself unable to get through—she’d blocked his number.

Her cruelty in the manner she’d ended things had been breathtaking.

He could hardly believe that four years on he still thought about her.

A commotion outside the entrance had him striding outside to help a young couple struggling to manoeuvre a wheelchair-cum-pushchair that had a small child in it up the cathedral steps.

‘You’re with the bride?’ he asked in Sicilian then repeated in English once they were inside and out of the late-afternoon heat. The ushers had all been warned the bride’s nephew had mobility issues. A special place at the front of the cathedral had been set aside for him so he could have an unrestricted view of the ceremony. An usher would be required to wait with the child until the bridal party arrived and his mother, the chief bridesmaid, could take over. Tonino guessed the job had become his.

‘We are,’ the young woman confirmed proudly, her Irish accent strong. ‘I’m Aislin’s cousin Carmel, and this is my husband Danny. This young man here is Finn.’

‘He’s Aislin’s nephew?’ he clarified, just in case there was another wheelchair-bound small boy coming.

‘Yes. Aislin and the others left the hotel right behind us so will be here any minute.’

Figuring he should introduce himself so as not to scare the child, he got down on his haunches and looked at him.

Dressed in a miniature suit that matched the groom’s, the boy couldn’t be much older than a toddler. He had a shock of thick black hair and equally dark eyes…

There was something about his eyes that made the words Tonino was about to say stick in his throat.

After a drawn-out beat, he conjured a smile. ‘Hello, Finn. I’m Tonino. I’m going to take you to the front of the cathedral to wait for your mummy.’

He was rewarded with a wide smile that displayed a row of tiny white teeth.

Straightening, Tonino took the handles of what was clearly a specially made wheelchair and pushed the child down the wide aisle to his designated space. Finn immediately spotted Dante at the altar and flung his arms out as if reaching for him.

Dante grinned and hurried over to crouch on his haunches before him just as Tonino had done. Finn’s skinny arms wrapped around his uncle’s neck. ‘Carry,’ Finn demanded in a strong Irish accent.

‘Soon,’ Dante promised. ‘I need to marry Aunty Aislin first.’

‘Then carry?’

‘You bet. Now be a good boy and wait for your mummy. Tonino will look after you until she gets here.’ Dante kissed his nephew’s cheek and ruffled his hair then made his way back to his place at the altar.

Tonino was used to small children. His brother had two, his sister had just given birth to her third. Mobility issues aside, there was nothing about this child that should capture his attention and yet… There was something about him…something familiar. Something that made his skin prickle and his heart pound.

‘How old are you, Finn?’ he asked through a throat that had run dry.

The little brow creased before he held three fingers up.

‘You’re three?’ he clarified sceptically. The boy was tiny.

A nod.

‘You’re almost a man.’

The tiny white teeth flashed at him again.

An audible change amongst the congregation caught their attention. The little boy craned to look around him. ‘Mummy!’

The bridal party had arrived.

The beautiful bride made her way down the aisle arm in arm with her proud father, identical beams on their faces. Behind them, holding the long train of the bride’s dress, were two adorable little girls walking either side of a slender brunette in a long, ancient-Greek-style dusky rose bridesmaid dress. Her face was turned to the child on her left and so hidden from Tonino’s sight.

‘Mummy!’ Finn called out again, this time loud enough for the whole congregation to hear.

The pounding in Tonino’s chest ramped up in speed.

And then he caught full view of the brunette’s face and his heart stopped beating altogether.

Orla held on to the train of Aislin’s dress as if it were life support. She could do nothing to stop her legs trembling.

Tonino Valente. The name she’d spent three years desperately trying to remember. Aislin had uttered his name and in that instant a light had switched on in Orla’s brain. If she hadn’t ripped the tiny clasp from Aislin’s dress she might very well have fainted, but the panic over ruining the hundred-thousand-euro dress had been equal to the shock of recognition at Tonino’s name.

The flurry of activity that had followed, the hunt for the designer, who’d eventually been found in the hotel bar and who’d given Orla more evil eyes during the fixing of the clasp than she’d previously received in her lifetime, the arrival of Sabine’s daughters—Orla’s fellow bridesmaids—and the arrival of Aislin’s father… Suddenly the suite had been crammed with people and she’d been forced to get a grip of herself.

This was the biggest day of her sister’s life. Aislin had put her life on hold for three years for Orla and Finn. Orla would never have been able to bear the scars that marked her body inside and out without her sister’s steadfast support. More than support. Aislin had raised Finn for the first eighteen months of his life, been the first to realise he wasn’t developing as he should, the one there every single day of Orla’s rehabilitation.

And now it was Orla’s turn to support her sister; her protector, her best friend, her guardian angel made flesh. This was Aislin’s day.

Sick dread continued its steady drum as they moved closer to the altar and she had to use all her concentration to keep the train of Aislin’s dress stretched out and keep control of the little bridesmaids by her side, both of whom were merrily waving at the packed congregation as if they were royalty. She hardly dared look away from them in case she found the dark brown stare that had haunted her dreams.

Could it really be him?

It had been almost four years. All they’d shared was one night. Or was it two? Or three? Or more? She wished she could remember but her memory had as many holes in it as a lump of Swiss cheese. Many of the holes had closed with time and the lost memories had returned but everything to do with Tonino and her time in Sicily remained blurry snapshots. She knew they’d met at the hotel she’d checked into during her fruitless attempt to meet her father, but that had been her only concrete remembrance…apart from his face. She remembered that handsome face vividly. Every time she’d pictured it, she’d had to suck in a breath of air to counteract the lance of pain that had accompanied it and blink away tears she’d had no clue from whence they had come.

‘Mummy!’

Her son’s voice broke through the fog of fear in her head.

Stretching her cheeks into a smile, she finally had a clear view past her sister to the spot at the left of the altar where she’d been promised she and Finn would sit.

The smile froze, half formed.

A tall, dark, utterly gorgeous man sat beside Finn. His black stare was fixed directly on her.

Her stomach plummeted. Thick heat pulsed and swirled through her head, dizzying her.

She had no recollection of Aislin’s father handing the bride to the groom, no recollection of the two small bridesmaids leaving her side, no recollection of her feet taking her to her son. All she remembered from taking those steps was the blazing heat that suffused her entire body and the feeling that she could fall into a dead faint from the shock.

The man watching over her son until she could take her place beside him was Tonino. Finn’s father.

CHAPTER TWO

THE WEDDING CEREMONY passed Tonino by. He rose and sat when directed, joined in with the hymns, recited the prayers at the appropriate times but it was all noise. He could not switch his attention away from Orla. Or her child.

The child who looked the image of his own childhood photographs.

His eyes flew from mother to child, child to mother, his gaze unable to settle any more than his ragged heartbeats could.

The pounding in his head was too strong for coherent thoughts. He couldn’t breathe properly. He’d only been capable of snatching drags of air into his lungs since he’d seen Orla’s face.

He’d risen from the seat he’d been saving for her and they’d stepped around each other, eyes locked, like two moons orbiting an invisible sun. For the first time in his thirty-four years he’d been struck speechless.

Her green eyes had been wide. Frightened. Her face had been white.

That was the last time their gazes connected.

Not once throughout the ceremony did Orla look at him. While his stare remained resolutely upon her and her child, her attention, when not taken by her son, stayed on the bride and groom.

Gradually, anger and incredulity rose inside him and pushed out the shock. Coherent thinking returned. His wits sharpened.

He began to see more clearly too. And what he saw proved that, despite having had a child, Orla hadn’t changed at all.

She was still beautiful. Slender and elegant. The long, thick dark hair he’d last seen spread over his pillow when he’d kissed her goodbye was coiled into a chic knot on the nape of her neck. The elfin features he’d once thought belonged on the pages of a fairy-tale book had been expertly made-up, smoky eye shadow emphasising the stunning large green eyes he’d once gazed into while buried deep inside her. The long-sleeved dress she wore was far less revealing than usual bridesmaid dresses, the dusky pink silk wrapping around her body to kiss her gentle curves but displaying minimal flesh.

Her beauty had captivated him from the first look.

That first look had been pure chance. A member of his public relations team had found a litany of complaints about one of his Palermo hotels online. Tonino had rearranged his itinerary and headed straight there. The Palermo hotel in question had been part of his uncle’s struggling chain until Tonino had stepped in to save it and save his uncle’s reputation from the shame of bankruptcy. Where Tonino specialised in converting old castles, monasteries, chateaux and the like into luxury spa and golf resorts for the wealthy, his uncle’s hotel chain had been aimed firmly at holidaymakers on a budget.

Tonino had been raised in a wealthy family but his core group of childhood friends had come from diverse economic backgrounds. Gio, the friend Dante had chosen as his best man, came from an exceptionally poor background. In their school days, holidays for Gio’s family had been the result of months of overtime, scrimping and saving. The cost of their holiday had been pocket change compared to the sums spent by visitors to Tonino’s own hotels but in comparison had cost them far more and had meant a hell of a lot more as a result. He always thought of Gio when inspecting his lower-ranked hotels. Why should guests be forced to accept shoddy service, cold food and an unclean swimming pool just because they were poor? It was this exact same argument he’d had with his hotel manager right before he’d fired him. He’d left the meeting room, furious at the fired manager and furious with himself for allowing the situation to get this far. A solitary woman had been waiting at the unattended reception desk.

That woman had been Orla.

His reaction to her had been like a knockout punch to his guts. He’d never had such an immediate reaction to a woman before and it had been the final clarion call needed to know he couldn’t marry Sophia. That reaction had been the unwitting trigger for the rift that still existed between Tonino and his parents. That knockout initial reaction had changed the course of his life.

Orla was thankful for the bossy photographer. He clearly saw himself as an artiste and spent ages framing each shot in the cathedral’s picturesque grounds. This allowed her to hide in plain sight with her family, safe amid their huge numbers. That she had barely spoken to any of them in the last three years was neither here nor there. She felt no animosity towards them. They simply picked up where they’d left off, catching up on their lives in snatches of conversation.

Snatches of conversation were all she could manage. Everything inside her had become so tight it was a struggle to get any words out.

One of the small bridesmaids had taken a shine to Finn and stuck to his side, gabbling away to him in her own language. Finn didn’t have much in the way of a vocabulary but the rapture on his face only proved that language was inconsequential.

Too scared to look at Tonino, Orla kept her gaze far from him but still felt the heat of his stare upon her. It had been hard enough feeling it every second of the wedding ceremony but outside, his solid form a good head taller than most of the other guests, she felt his attention like a malevolent spectre haunting her. She sensed his loathing, which only added to the cold needles digging into her skin.

What had she done to provoke such animosity?

Deep in her bones she knew the moment opportunity presented itself, he would pounce. She had to be ready for it. She had to remember.

Frustration at her Swiss cheese memory made her want to scream.

She’d been waiting for her baby to be born before telling the father. That was something she knew only because Aislin had told her so. Aislin had been unable to tell her the father’s name or Orla’s reasons for waiting until after the birth to tell him because Orla had never disclosed it to her.

Why was that? Orla never kept secrets from her sister so why would she have kept something of such importance to herself?

There were so many things she’d spent three years trying to understand about her own thoughts and actions during the pregnancy, desperately trying to remember, even undergoing hypnosis to unlock the crucial hidden memories.

The most crucial memory of all, the identity of Finn’s father, had now been unlocked but there was still a heap of others to bring to light.

As soon as the photos were done and the bride and groom had ridden off to the hotel on their horse-drawn carriage, Orla latched onto Aislin’s friend Sabine and used her as a shield while she wheeled Finn to their waiting car.

She unstrapped him and carefully lifted him into her arms. He was small for his age and light in weight but it wouldn’t be long before her still-weak muscles would struggle to carry him any distance. She would carry him for as long as she could physically manage. She’d missed out on so much of his short life, days and nights spent aching to hold her baby, days and nights spent hating the body that had entrapped her in a living hell, fighting with every breath to get herself well enough that she could at least live under the same roof as her child.

Once Finn was secured in his car seat, she hurried to the other side and slid in beside him.

Only when the driver pulled away did she turn her head to look out of the window.

Tonino was staring straight at her, not a flicker of emotion on his handsome face.

Mercifully sat at the top table, Orla watched the seven-course wedding meal unfold around her in the hotel’s enormous ballroom decoratively adorned with balloons and glitter. She had been seated on the top table beside Aislin’s father, the man who’d been Orla’s stepfather from the age of three for the grand total of two years. Aislin had so many of Dennis O’Reilly’s characteristics that being in his company was usually a joy. A humble man who’d been treated atrociously by their mother, he’d always treated Orla with great kindness on the occasions she’d seen him after the divorce.

Today though, she couldn’t relax long enough to find the usual enjoyment she would have found being next to him.

This was hands down the most luxuriant and glamorous wedding she’d ever attended. The food was the most delicious she’d ever eaten, the wine in her glass the nicest she’d ever sipped; even the water had a purity to it she’d never tasted before. She could take no pleasure from any of it.

To her misfortune, Tonino had been placed to the left of the top table, facing her. Every time she glanced in his direction, she found his cold stare on her. It never failed to send a shiver up her spine.

Something different raced up her spine whenever she caught sight of the stunningly beautiful blonde woman with eyes like a cat seated to the right of the top table. Orla was certain she wasn’t imagining the death stares being thrown by her, which were far more potent than the daggers she’d received from Aislin’s wedding-dress designer.

She knew this woman. But from where? And why did she want to hide under the table to escape her?

Her torrid thoughts were interrupted when Dennis got to his feet, tapped his glass for attention, and pulled out a sheet of paper.

Much merriment ensued. Even Orla found her lips pulling into an unforced smile to see the Sicilian guests’ bemusement. Dennis’s accent was so thick and he spoke so quickly they probably struggled to understand him. The Irish contingent understood him perfectly and heckled liberally. Only one brave strapping teenager dared heckle Dante when it was his turn to speak, though, and was rewarded with a slap from his pint-sized mother, which had Sicilians and Irish alike laughing.

After the speeches were done and copious toasts had been made, there was an hour of free time. Many of the guests disappeared to their rooms to change for the evening party. Most of Tonino’s table stood too, but the tiny easing in Orla’s chest at the fact that he might leave the ballroom tightened again when, eyes locked, he strode towards her.

Fear scratched at her throat. She wasn’t ready for this. She needed to make sense of the unfolding memories before the confrontation that had to happen occurred.

Fate stepped in in the form of Dante’s glamorous mother, Immacolata, who Aislin had been right in saying held no animosity towards Orla. Immacolata pounced on Tonino when he was barely three feet from the table.

Snatching the opportunity to escape, Orla hurried to her feet and took hold of Finn’s wheelchair. I’m taking him to the suite, she mouthed to Aislin.

Are you okay? Aislin mouthed back.

She nodded vigorously. ‘I need to get his walker.’

Luck shone on her again when a handful of her cousins’ small children bounded over and loudly insisted on accompanying them.

Guarded by an army of children barely out of nappies—the bridesmaids tagged along too—Orla took Finn to their suite.

Leaving Finn’s nurse to keep order over the sugar-loaded kids, she stepped out onto the balcony alone. Familiar scents filled her airwaves and, slowly, the vertigo-like feeling that had cloaked her since she’d heard Tonino’s name that morning lifted.

She gazed out at the Tyrrhenian Sea darkening under the setting sun. The Sicilian aromas weren’t the only things stabbing at her memories.

She craned to her left and squinted, trying to spot the run-down beachside hotel she’d stayed in when she’d met Tonino…

Whether it was seeing Tonino again or being back in Sicily she couldn’t say, but the locked-away memories that had eluded her since she’d woken in hospital were slowly taking substance in her mind, but it was all still a jumble.

Sophia!

That was the cat’s-eyed, dangerous-looking woman’s name. Sophia. She’d confronted Orla…but about what?

Stupid brain, work!

A squeal of laughter from the suite shook her from the reforming jumble of memories. The evening reception was about to start. She had to be there.

She got her army of children together and, the nurse carrying Finn’s walker, they trooped out of the suite and down the corridor.

Into the lift they all piled. Seconds later they reached the ground floor, the doors opened and the excitable kids burst out like a spray of rubber bullets.

Orla’s brief amusement died when she noticed the imposing figure propped against the wall.

Tonino pulled himself away from the wall he’d stood against while waiting for Orla to reappear. All the hotel’s stairs and elevators exited at this corridor. She could not escape without him seeing her.

Or her seeing him.

When she appeared, the little colour she had on her milky-white complexion drained away.

Let her feel fearful. Let her take in her surroundings and know there was no escape from him, not here in his own hotel where he had staff posted on every exit into the grounds, ready to notify him should she decide to escape further than her suite.

He stood right in front of her, but it was not his deceitful ex-lover he addressed.

Crouching down, he held out a hand to the child he strongly suspected was his own, and not only because of the uncanny resemblance between them.

Orla had been a virgin. He remembered the flame of colour that had stained her cheeks when she’d told him that and had to fight back the memory snaking through his blood of the first time he’d made love to her.

‘Hello, Finn. Are you having a good time?’

Finn nodded vigorously. He strained forwards but the straps of his wheelchair stopped him leaning too far.

‘And do you like your suite?’

He was rewarded with a blank stare.

‘Your room,’ Tonino clarified. ‘Do you like your room?’

Another vigorous nod.

‘You’re sharing it with your mummy?’

A less vigorous nod.

‘What about your daddy? Is he sharing it too?’ Having checked the room and suite allocation, he already knew the answer to this, but he wanted to see Finn’s reaction to the word ‘daddy’. Dante had been uncharacteristically evasive on the subject of Finn’s parentage when he’d tried to quiz him a short while ago. Tonino understood. Orla was Dante’s newfound sister. He had a sister himself. Blood protected blood. It had been Aislin’s reaction to his questions that had been the biggest giveaway. She’d reminded him of a cornered rabbit.

The blank stare returned.

A little voice piped up, the Irish brogue strong. ‘Finn doesn’t have a daddy.’

Tonino raised his head to look at Orla. She was clasping the handles of the wheelchair so tightly her knuckles had whitened.

The expression on her face along with the child’s unwitting answer was all the confirmation he needed.

Her green eyes held his, wide and pleading, before she gave a slight shake of her head and mouthed, Later. Please, and expertly pushed the wheelchair around him and aimed it towards the ballroom at a speed that would suggest she was being chased by a pack of rabid dogs.

Suddenly feeling in need of a large drink, he let her go.

The ballroom had been transformed into an even glitzier spectacle by the time Orla hurried through its doors. The main lights had dimmed so the only illumination came from the glittering chandeliers. The DJ had started playing music but the dance floor was empty.

The fear gripping her heart tightened when she saw her sister’s face.

‘Tonino Valente was asking questions about Finn’s father,’ Aislin whispered when she reached her.

Terrified she was going to cry, Orla blinked frantically.

Sympathy and understanding washed over her sister’s face. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

All she could do was nod.

‘He knows?’

Pulling her lips in tightly, she nodded again. Tonino had taken one look at Finn and recognised him as his own.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’ For three years she’d waited for the memories to return, assuming that, once she had them back, she would enlist her sister’s help and set off to find Finn’s father. She would have had time to prepare herself.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined a scenario like this.

Behind Aislin, Dante approached them.

His presence brought some much-needed sanity to Orla’s frazzled nerves.

Whatever happened, she mustn’t lose sight that this was their big day. If Aislin so much as suspected the fear in Orla’s heart then everything would be ruined. She wouldn’t hesitate to cancel the party or the honeymoon.

Flinging her arms around her, Orla held her sister tightly. ‘I need to settle my nerves but I’m going to be fine. I promise. Now stop worrying about me and enjoy your party.’

On cue, the DJ called for the bride and groom to take to the dance floor.

‘Go,’ Orla urged, kissing Aislin’s cheek. She was rewarded with a kiss in return.

While Dante led Aislin onto the dance floor, Orla took Finn out of his wheelchair and put him in his walker, a wonderful device Dante had bought for him that kept him secure and allowed him to use his legs to get himself about. She had to be careful with the amount of time he used it as he tired easily, but she knew he would want to get on the dance floor with the other children.

As soon as he was in it he started bouncing with glee. His ‘girlfriend’ the bridesmaid shot over to admire him in it.

Orla went with them to the edge of the dance floor with the other guests.

Tears she’d been holding back filled her eyes again to see the love shining between the two people she loved so much. She didn’t need to pray for their love to be eternal. Aislin and Dante were made for each other.

As the dance came to an end an arm brushed against hers. Her skin tingled.

A spicy scent filled her nostrils. Her pulses surged. Her lungs tightened. A memory of pressing her nose into a strong neck and inhaling this scent flashed through her.

‘I give them six months.’

She didn’t dare look at him. Somehow she managed to croak, ‘What?’

‘Their marriage. If Aislin has your blood in her veins then it won’t be long before her mask slips and Dante realises that beneath the pretty surface lies a black, deceitful heart.’ A huge hand closed on her wrist. ‘Dance with me.’

She thought her knees were about to collapse beneath her.

‘Dance with me or I make a scene. Do you want to be responsible for ruining your brother and sister’s special day?’

He gave her no further chance to answer. Before she knew it, Orla was being smoothly manhandled onto the dance floor and pulled against the hulking body of the only man she’d ever been intimate with.

CHAPTER THREE

DANCING WITH ORLA was like dancing with a lump of aged clay. Her arms hung limply by her sides; her movements stiff and resistant.

Taking her hands firmly and placing them on his waist, Tonino dipped his head to whisper into her ear. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

Somehow she managed to stiffen even further.

A loose strand of her hair brushed against his nose and suddenly he became aware of his sinews tightening and his veins thickening as her scent worked its magic in his senses.

Her magic had once thrilled him. Initially shy, she’d soon revealed herself to be sweet and funny, a woman who wore her intelligence lightly, unaware of her inherent sensual nature until he’d brought it out of her. That was what had made her abrupt disappearance so hard to comprehend. He could have understood if she’d been prickly and had the bitchy streak so many of the women in his world wore like a badge of honour, but she’d been nothing like them.

He could never have imagined she would turn out to be worse than all of them put together.

Disgust that he could still feel such a visceral response to her had him stepping back so their bodies no longer touched.

‘Orla, you have hidden my son from me for three years,’ he said tightly, loathing that he could feel anything other than loathing for this treacherous woman. ‘If you want me to keep hold of my temper and not make a scene, I suggest you answer my question. Were you ever going to tell me I have a child?’

A contortion of emotions crashed over her face. Frightened green eyes flickered. Soft, plump lips tightened.

Tonino’s self-loathing increased at the vivid remembrance of how good it had felt to have those soft lips crushed against his.

Never had he hated anyone as much as he hated Orla right then. That he could still desire her after everything she’d done stretched credulity to a whole new dimension.

He spun her round in his arms so she faced the socialising guests rather than the DJ. Ignoring the malevolent stares being thrown his way by Sophia and the rest of the Messinas, he said, ‘You see the table I was on?’

She gave a tiny nod.

‘That is my family. They have spent the day celebrating your brother and sister’s marriage. My parents are here, my brother and his family, my brother-in-law and my sister’s children… They have all seen Finn, unaware he is their blood.’

Tonino might still feel the residue of anger over the furious arguments that had erupted between him and his parents when he’d ended his engagement to Sophia, but his parents adored their grandchildren. Nothing made them happier than news of another family pregnancy. Babies were celebrated as gifts from God.

‘You have deprived them of a grandson, nephew and cousin. You have deprived Finn of his Sicilian family and heritage.’

The anger in Tonino’s carefully delivered words chilled Orla’s heart. Her brain kept alternating between hot and cold, a vapid mess of confusion, fear and guilt. Being held so close to him only made matters worse. Her heart pounded so hard there was danger it could beat itself out of her constricted chest. Every time she managed to take a breath his spicy scent dived into her airwaves. It shocked and terrified her that her nose seemed to want to bury itself into his neck and breathe his scent in properly, just as it had done all those years ago. It terrified her even more that her hands wanted to wrap fully around his waist and her body strained to press closer against his hard torso.

Being held in his arms had flooded her with more memories.

She remembered taking one look at him and her insides and brain melting into hot goo.

She remembered lying naked in his arms, half awake as the morning sun filtered into the bedroom, and thinking she had never been so happy.

And she remembered learning that everything he’d told her about himself had been a lie.

Orla stared at Tonino’s family, her stomach churning violently. These impossibly glamorous, impossibly wealthy, impossibly powerful people were her baby’s family. How would they react when they learned of Finn? She knew it was her broken brain’s fault that they were not a part of Finn’s life but, even as she breathed relief to remember her intentions had always been to tell Tonino about their child, she still felt wretched for them. All she’d wanted was to get through the pregnancy, have her baby on Irish soil and then seek legal help before telling him…

Suddenly finding herself meeting Sophia’s coldly furious stare, she hastily looked away, straight into Tonino’s equally cold and furious stare.

The churning in her stomach increased as she found herself gazing at the handsome face she remembered sighing with pleasure to wake beside.

He was just so…masculine. Thick, dark stubble was already breaking out over his chiselled jawline and perfectly complemented the thick, dark hair he wore short at the sides and longer at the top. But, for all his sculptural perfection, it was his eyes she’d always found the most arresting. They were like the darkest melted chocolate. They had made her melt.

Their son had his eyes.

Wrenching her stare from Tonino, she found her son bouncing happily in his walker and took a deep breath.

From the moment the pregnancy had been confirmed, her child’s welfare had been the focus of her life. When she’d woken from the coma with all memories of the previous six months lost, she’d known, even while everything else had been a blank, that she’d been carrying a child. She would fight to the last breath to keep him safe.

Suddenly desperate to hold Finn in her arms, she dropped her light touch against Tonino’s waist and took a step back. ‘Please, I don’t want a scene but this is not the time or place for this conversation.’

His features darkened. He snatched at her wrist before she could take another step away from him. ‘Then let’s go somewhere private—this is a conversation we should have had four years ago. You have kept my son in the dark about me for long enough. Finn doesn’t have a daddy? He damn well does and he deserves to know it.’

‘I agree but take a look at him. Look,’ she insisted when his now blazing eyes stayed locked on hers. ‘You must see he’s not a well boy. He’s looked forward to this day for ages and looked forward to dancing and playing with other children. Let him enjoy the party for another hour and then I’ll put him to bed. Give him time to fall asleep and then come to my suite. Please? We can talk then.’

He turned his head to the direction of their son. His chest rose and fell heavily.

Eventually he inclined his head sharply, dropped his loose hold on her wrist and faced her again. ‘Two hours, Orla, and then I come to your suite.’ He bowed his head to whisper in her ear, ‘And if you have thoughts of running away, know I have put measures in place to prevent it. You will never escape from me again.’

The nurse helped Orla get Finn into his pyjamas and put him to bed before Orla told her to go and join the party for a few hours.

Alone, she stripped off her bridesmaid dress, avoiding the reflection of her bare figure in the mirror. Her scars were itching but she didn’t dare apply the topical lotion her doctor had prescribed for it, not when the knock on the suite door could come at any moment. Instead, she dressed hastily, donning a pair of checked trousers and a long-sleeved black top.

When Tonino came she wanted to be ready.

Could she ever be ready for this?

She’d spent three years trying desperately to remember who Finn’s father was and unearth the memories of their time together. Now that many of them had popped out of the box they’d been contained in, part of her wished she could shove them back in and nail the lid back down while, contrarily, her search for the still-hidden memories became more frantic.

Much of the time they’d shared together had come back to her, but she still didn’t remember what had happened with her father. Her return to Ireland was still a blur too.

When the loud rap on her suite’s door finally came, it took more effort than she could believe to drag her legs to it.

Tonino loomed at the threshold looking exactly as she imagined a vampire would in the moments before it swooped to strike its helpless victim.

A vampire should not send her pulses soaring with just one look. That was dangerous by any stretch of the imagination.

Without a word being exchanged, he stepped into the suite and closed the door. Folding his arms across his broad chest, he slowly looked her up and down.

The intensity of his scrutiny sent something thick and warm trickling through her feverish veins. Shaken, Orla hastily sat herself on one of the suite’s plush sofas.

She didn’t want to look at him but found herself helpless to do anything else. Tonino had such presence, a magnetic energy he carried with him. All the words she’d prepared stuck on her tongue as she gazed into the dark brown eyes of the man who’d swept her off her feet and then broken her heart in the space of ten days. That same broken heart thundered in her chest. Its thuds pounded in her head. Her thoughts, like her words and memories, were a messed-up jumble.

She had no idea how to play this. The man she’d had the time of her life with had been a lie, but he was still Finn’s father. He might have all the wealth and power, but he was still Finn’s father. When all was said and done, that was the one inescapable fact. Finn deserved to know his father and Tonino deserved to know his son.

After a long period of charged silence, he dragged his fingers through his hair and headed to the minibar. ‘I don’t know about you but I need a drink. Do you still drink gin?’

Startled that he remembered something so innocuous, she shook her head.

He arched an eyebrow then opened the bar door and pulled out a bottle of red wine.

He took a corkscrew from a drawer and opened the bottle effortlessly. ‘Will you have one?’

This time she managed to croak, ‘No, thank you.’

Since the accident, Orla had lost all tolerance for alcohol, which was a great shame. Before the pregnancy, she’d loved nothing more than going out with her friends, drinking way too much and dancing until the sun came up. She’d been free. No responsibilities, no pain, no dependency on anyone else. No one dependent on her.

Those days belonged to another woman.

He poured himself a hefty glass, swirled the red liquid, put the rim under his nose then took a sip. It must have pleased his palate for he then took a much larger sip.

Tonino, she suddenly remembered, loved good wine.

When his eyes locked on to hers, a shiver ran down her spine. He looked murderously cold.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she suggested quietly.

Tonino, propped against the bar, took another drink as he looked at Orla, dwarfed by the sofa she’d sat herself on, fingers twisting together. She reminded him of a newborn deer that had come face-to-face with its first predator.

‘I’m fine where I am,’ he answered.

She raised a shoulder and breathed in through her nose. ‘Then would you mind not glowering at me?’

That voice…

Orla was the only woman who’d turned him on with nothing but her voice. The husky timbre and lyrical brogue were pure alchemy to the senses. It coiled through his veins like the finest of wines and came dangerously close to muffling out her actual words.

‘Glowering?’ It was an unfamiliar word.

Her lips curled into a brief smile. ‘You know—looking like you want to rip my head from my neck. It’s making me feel all itchy.’

‘You’re safe,’ he answered sardonically. ‘If I rip your head off I’ll never get any answers from you. Enough stalling. Tell me what’s wrong with my son and tell me why you have kept him a secret from me for all these years.’

She dipped her head forwards and put her face in her hands. Her fingers dragged through her thick mane of wavy dark hair, which she’d released from its knot. It was every bit as luscious as he remembered and he suddenly experienced the deepest urge to kneel before her and cradle her face in his hands, stroke the soft skin and run his fingers through the thick mane as he’d done so many times before.

When she looked back up to meet his stare, everything inside him clenched.

‘Are you sure you won’t sit down?’ she said softly. ‘This could take a while.’

Gritting his teeth tightly, he stared at her. Or glowered, as she called it. He would not allow her soft femininity to weaken him. His height was one of the natural advantages nature had given him, his strength accomplished by his own hard work. If him remaining standing made Orla feel disadvantaged, then great. He saw no reason to put her at ease. On the contrary.

She chewed her bottom lip then sighed. ‘I always wanted to tell you.’

He snorted.

‘Please, just listen. Finn’s condition and the reason I never told you about him are related. I had a car accident when I was six months pregnant that left my memory shot to pieces. I couldn’t tell you about Finn because I’d forgotten who you were.’

Her excuse was so outrageous he tightened his grip on the wine glass to stop himself throwing it against the wall. ‘Dio mio, you have got some nerve, lady. You’re claiming you had amnesia?’

‘Yes. But it’s not a claim. It’s the truth.’

‘And when did your memories return?’

‘The ones about you returned today… Well, some of them have…’

‘Very convenient,’ he mocked, topping up his glass with more wine. ‘You’ve had hours to come up with a convincing excuse and this is the best you can do? Amnesia?’

‘I understand it sounds far-fetched but it’s the truth. I’ve spent over three years trying to remember you. All I remembered with any clarity until today was your face. Everything else was hazy images. I knew we’d met here in Sicily but that was a deep-rooted knowledge, like knowing my own name—’

‘You expect me to believe this?’ he interrupted impatiently.

‘It’s the truth and it’s a provable truth.’

‘Really?’ he sneered. ‘The only thing provable is that you’re a liar.’

‘I am not.’

‘You booked into my hotel under a false name.’

Confusion creased her beautiful face. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Four years ago you booked into my hotel under the name of Orla McCarthy. Here, you are booked in under the name of Orla O’Reilly.’

Around a month after she’d done her disappearing act, Tonino had drunk too much wine and decided to search her name on the Internet. The few articles he’d found with the name Orla McCarthy in them had not been about her.

Now he understood why Orla had bucked the trend and left no digital footprint. She’d given him a false name.

The woman he’d experienced the deepest connection of his life with, the woman who’d been the unwitting catalyst of the ongoing rift with his family, the woman who’d had no idea of who he was yet had still treated him like a prince…

That woman had lied about her name. She’d kept his child a secret from him.

He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t fighting an urge to throw her out of the suite window into the sea below but was instead fighting the powerful urge to drag her into his arms and kiss her until he’d drawn all the breath from her lungs.

He couldn’t understand how he could look at her deceitful face and feel all his internal organs swelling and compressing his lungs. These were reactions her cruel duplicity should have killed stone dead.

‘When I booked into your hotel four years ago I had to hand my passport over so I used my legal name, which is McCarthy,’ she explained wearily.

‘Then why are you here now as O’Reilly? Was it to throw me off the scent? Did you think I wouldn’t recognise you?’

She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. ‘I genuinely do not know what you’re implying.’

‘There is nothing genuine about you,’ he said roughly. ‘You knew you would see me today. Your brother and I are old friends. You’re staying in my hotel. The wedding reception’s in my hotel.’ He squeezed the back of his neck. ‘You took a huge risk in coming here and an even bigger risk bringing Finn with you.’

‘I wasn’t going to come without him,’ she protested hotly. ‘Dante never mentioned your name. If he had I would have remembered you sooner, but he didn’t. Aislin organised the wedding—she made the booking and checked me in. Aislin has her father’s surname because our mother married him. Our mum registered me as Orla O’Reilly when I started school, so I had the same surname as them. Most people know me as Orla O’Reilly.’

‘Why didn’t you change it legally?’

‘That would have been up to my mother and she couldn’t be bothered.’

He grimaced and took another large drink of his wine, angry with himself for diverting from the only subject that should matter to him. His son. ‘What name have you given Finn?’

‘My legal name. McCarthy.’

‘Why doesn’t he have my name?’

‘Because I’d forgotten it,’ she answered through gritted teeth.

Anger swelled like a cobra poising to strike. ‘Then who the hell is named as his father?’

‘No one.’

‘Now I know you’re lying,’ he snarled. He’d interrupted his lawyer’s evening meal to demand he look into the legalities of Irish paternity for him. ‘It is illegal not to name the father on an Irish birth certificate.’

She rubbed her eyes again then fixed them on him with a sigh that sounded more exasperated than defeated. ‘It isn’t if there’s a compelling reason.’

‘And what compelling reason did you give?’ he demanded. ‘Your amnesia?’

‘Keep your voice down or you’ll wake Finn.’ For the first time since he’d entered her suite, a fierceness entered her tone.

He hadn’t realised he was shouting.

But, Dio, it was taking all his strength not to grab her by the shoulders and shake all the lies out of her until only the truth remained. What kind of a fool did she take him for? Did she seriously think she could play the amnesia line and that he would fall for it? What did she think? That they were players in one of those over-acted soap operas his grandmother watched?

Green eyes, wide and wary but unflinching, stayed on him. ‘Aislin registered Finn’s birth. I’d never told her who the father was so she couldn’t name you—’

‘You denied my existence?’ he roared.

‘Keep your voice down,’ she snapped. ‘I’m trying to be sympathetic but you’re not making it easy when you keep interrupting me with all your stupid assumptions. Everything I am telling you is provable—you do not have to take my word for it.’

‘Good because I will never take you at your word for anything.’

‘Good because now you know how I feel about you.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘That you are in no position to act all holier than thou when you consider all the lies you told me.’

Her assertion was almost as outrageous as her lies about having amnesia. ‘You dare try to deflect?’

‘Deflection? Okay, then, explain this to me, buster. Why did you tell me you were the hotel manager and not the owner?’

‘I never told you anything. You assumed it.’ He would not feel guilty about this. He’d intended to tell her the truth about who he was the day she’d run away from Sicily.

Tired eyes blazed with the same anger as coursed through his veins. ‘You let me assume. I only found out who you really were the day I left Sicily when your fiancée paid me a little visit.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Sophia,’ she spat. ‘The fiancée you forgot to tell me about. She tracked me down when you were in Tuscany.’

Tonino swirled the wine in his glass and stared hard at her, a rancid feeling forming in his guts. Sophia had taken the ending of their engagement as badly as his parents had taken it. He’d shielded Orla from the fallout. Shielding her had been bliss; the pair of them cocooned in his smallest and plainest apartment, just the two of them, the rest of the world locked out. ‘What did she want?’

Orla’s skin chilled and a throb pounded in her head to remember the encounter that had broken her heart. ‘To tell me you belonged to her and warn me off you. What else?’

He nodded in a thoughtful way, but the blackness of his eyes revealed something very different. ‘Let me be clear on this—you are telling me that Sophia Messina, the daughter of one of Sicily’s oldest families, tracked you down and warned you off me?’

‘That’s exactly what happened.’

‘She threatened you?’

‘Not in words but her meaning was very clear. She knew you’d been cheating on her with me. I can’t say I liked the threats she made but I understood where her anger came from. No one likes to be made a fool of.’

He’d made a fool of her and Sophia both. The other woman’s threats had been almost as sickening as the proof she’d put before her. So sickening had Orla found it that the minute Sophia had left her room, she’d vomited.

She half feared she could vomit now, from both the memories and the growing ache in her head.

‘I ended my engagement with Sophia the day I met you,’ he stated flatly. ‘If you had stuck around and asked, I would have set you straight. Sophia was playing games with you.’

‘You expect me to believe that when all the evidence points otherwise and when we both know you’re loose with what truth means?’

He let out a Sicilian word she instinctively knew was a curse but, on a roll, she ignored it.

‘You let me believe you were a hotel manager. That was a lie. Everything you told me about yourself was a stinking fat lie. Can you blame me for being scared when I learned I was pregnant? All I knew for sure was that you were a liar and a powerful one at that. I refused to tell anyone about you because I was frightened and ashamed and an emotional wreck, and all I could focus on was delivering my baby safely into the world. I was going to tell you about him after he was born but then I had the accident and it changed everything. I couldn’t amend Finn’s birth certificate after I left hospital because I couldn’t remember your name.’

When Orla had finished her venomously delivered rebuke, the only sounds in the suite were their ragged breaths. The poison swirling between them was thick enough to taste.

Something else swirled between them too in that small stretch of silence, something that glittered behind Tonino’s dark, furious eyes. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could see the angry pulse throbbing on it.

When he finally spoke, every word was elucidated with deliberate slowness. ‘Do you know what I think? I think you have backed yourself into a corner and that every word coming from your pretty little mouth is an excuse to justify what you know is inexcusable. You hoped to get through the day without me noticing or recognising you and hoped you could get through it without me seeing Finn and recognising my own son. You have cruelly and maliciously kept him from me and, for that, you will pay, and pay by having him cruelly and maliciously kept from you.’

CHAPTER FOUR

TONINO’S THREAT RANG loudly in Orla’s ears then became a siren when he slammed his glass on the bar and strolled towards the bedroom door.

‘What are you doing?’ she beseeched, trying her hardest not to panic.

‘I’m going to see my son.’

He can’t take him from you, she reminded herself. At this moment, he has no legal rights. Don’t panic. Keep calm.

She took a long breath. ‘You’re going to storm into a three-year-old boy’s room and wake him from his sleep?’

The hateful expression he threw at her wounded as deeply as his threats. He placed his hand on the door knob. ‘Do not make me out to be the bad guy in this. I want to see my son.’

‘If you go in there you will wake him and you will frighten him.’

His jaw clenched. Seizing this brief moment of indecision, Orla pointed at her phone, which she’d placed on the coffee table. ‘You can see him through my phone—look, I’m monitoring him as we speak.’

Now his expression became cynical. ‘You watch him sleep?’

‘I am tonight. He has epilepsy.’

Lines creased his forehead. A beat passed before he said, ‘Epilessia…? Fits?’

She nodded. She must keep calm. Placing a hand to her chest in an attempt to temper her clattering heartbeat, she fought to keep her tone even. ‘He has seizures—fits. He’s on medication for it, which has helped a lot, but he’s had an exciting day and I don’t want to risk leaving him unmonitored. Normally the nurse would monitor him but I told her to join the party so we could have some privacy.’

She did not drop her gaze from his cynical, suspicious one and allowed herself only a small breath of relief when he abandoned the door. Then she found she had no breath left to exhale for Tonino had walked over and sat his powerful body beside her.

Her poor clattering heart accelerated into overdrive.

He picked the phone up and studied the live feed on it. After a long pause, he said, ‘His…epilessia…is it linked to his mobility problems?’

‘Yes.’ Orla suddenly found her attention distracted by the fingers holding her phone. Those same fingers had once caressed her naked skin…

Heat pumped dizzyingly through her head and she quickly dropped her gaze to the floor only to find Tonino’s buffed shoes in her eyeline. He had the biggest feet of any man she’d ever met, and tingles laced her spine and spread to a far more intimate area to suddenly remember another part of his anatomy in proportion to those feet…

‘He has cerebral palsy,’ she hastily added, keeping her eyes fixed on the carpet so he wouldn’t see the flame of colour radiating from her cheeks. How could she feel such things for a man who’d just threatened her with her own child? What was wrong with her? ‘Lots of children with it have epilepsy.’

A long time passed where all he did was stare at the screen of the phone. Orla used that time to concentrate on breathing. She was exhausted. The day had been long and emotionally draining. Her feelings for Tonino were bound to be all over the place. His emotions were bound to be all over the place too. She must remember that threats made in anger were rarely carried out once tempers had cooled.

‘What is cerebral…?’

‘Palsy,’ she finished for him when he struggled to say it. ‘It’s a condition caused by brain damage that basically affects the muscles.’

He turned his head to look at her. ‘My son has brain damage?’

The flash of distress she witnessed in the dark eyes sent a pang through her heart. Her voice softened. ‘Think of it as a brain development issue. Thankfully it doesn’t seem that his mental faculties have been affected; I mean, he can speak and make himself understood, but time will tell on that part.’ Learning difficulties were common for children with cerebral palsy and something Orla was prepared for. If it turned out that Finn did indeed have them then he would have all the help and support he needed.

‘What caused it?’

‘The trauma of his birth. He was born three months early—’

A loud incessant knocking on the door interrupted their talk.

‘I’d better get that,’ she muttered. She hauled herself to her feet and forced her aching legs to take her to the door. She would not let Tonino see how badly she was struggling right then; would not give him any further ammunition to use against her.

She was not in the least surprised to find Aislin there.

Her sister didn’t even attempt to make an excuse for abandoning her own wedding reception, looking straight over Orla’s shoulder into the suite, her nose wrinkling when she caught sight of Tonino. ‘Everything okay in here?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Orla assured her.

Aislin’s eyes narrowed as she eyeballed Tonino again before turning her attention back to her sister and saying loudly, ‘You look upset.’

Orla gave a rueful shrug. ‘This isn’t the easiest conversation I’ve ever had.’

‘I’ll bet. Shall I stay?’

The temptation to drag Aislin inside was strong. ‘Don’t be silly. Go back to your party.’

‘I saw Finn’s nurse on the dance floor. Are you not coming back down?’

‘I’m sorry, Ash, but I’m shattered.’ And that was the truth. Orla felt wiped out, physically and emotionally.

‘Okay. I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Her voice rose again. ‘I’ll keep my phone on me. Call if you need me.’

‘I will,’ Orla lied. She would rather call their mother for help than ruin Aislin’s big day more than she already had.

‘I’ll see you at breakfast?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Good.’ Then, looking over Orla’s shoulder to stare at Tonino one more time, Aislin smiled brightly and said, ‘If you harm a hair on my sister’s head, I’ll kill you. Got it?’

Orla found herself biting back a laugh of hysteria at the shock on Tonino’s face.

‘Did your sister just threaten me?’ he asked when Orla sat back down, this time on an armchair away from him. She was finding it hard enough to concentrate properly without Tonino’s scent and body heat addling her brain further.

‘Yep.’ The only downside with the armchair was that she was forced to look at him. Looking at him definitely addled her brain because it quickly became a struggle to stop herself from looking at him. To stop herself staring at him.

Her eyes yearned to stare. They wanted to soak in every perfect feature on the face she had come so close to believing she could trust with her heart.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘She’s very protective of me. She didn’t mean it. She wouldn’t actually kill you. Probably just castrate you or something.’

She couldn’t hold back the burst of laughter when Tonino reflexively crossed his legs and nor could she stop the laughter turning into tears.

This was all too much. Seeing Tonino again, remembering what they’d shared, how it had ended, his loathing of her, his refusal to listen, his threats… It had been a long, emotional roller coaster of a day and now her body was telling her enough was enough.

Tonino watched the tears fall down Orla’s beautiful face with a healthy dose of cynicism. When they’d been lovers he would never have imagined her capable of using feminine wiles to save her own skin. He’d believed her to be too genuine for those kinds of games—for any kind of game.

What would she do if he pulled her into his arms for fake comfort? Would she cling to him and produce a few more crocodile tears to soak into his shirt? Would she tilt her head and stare at him with those beguiling eyes, silently pleading with him to kiss her?

And what would he do if that course of action became reality?

The burn in his loins gave him the answer.

Every breath he’d taken in this suite had filled his lungs with Orla’s scent. He was literally breathing her in, and every atom of his body responded to it.

Furious that his attraction for this duplicitous woman still blazed with such luminescence, he jumped back to his feet and helped himself to more wine.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not usually a cry-baby. I’m just finding it difficult to get my head around everything.’

‘You’re finding it difficult?’ he sneered. ‘How the hell do you think I feel?’

‘I can guess.’

‘I don’t need your fake empathy.’ He took a large swallow of wine with a grimace. ‘I have discovered that I’m a father and that the mother of my child kept him a secret from me for three years and now I have to deal with threats from my oldest friend’s new wife who is also my son’s aunt. I didn’t even know you had a sister.’ And neither had he known she was Salvatore Moncada’s secret daughter. Until that day, he’d had no idea Dante’s recently discovered sister was the lover who’d run away from him.

While outwardly open about who she was, Orla had actually kept her cards very close to her chest. He’d known she’d studied for a degree in zoology—he’d never met anyone who’d studied that subject before so it had stuck in his mind—and that she’d travelled to Sicily in the downtime between ending her graduate job as a veterinary technician and starting her dream job on an Irish conservation project, but it wasn’t until she’d disappeared that he’d realised he knew nothing of importance about her.

‘Well, I didn’t know you had a fiancée so that makes us even,’ she fired back.

‘I didn’t have a fiancée. I ended it with Sophia the day I met you.’

‘You would say that.’ Orla squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. Her head was now pounding. ‘Even if I accepted that you’re telling me the truth on this…’

A memory flashed in her mind of sitting on her bed at home, palm flat against her still-flat belly, masochistically searching Tonino’s name for the hundredth time and seeing the press report that his engagement to Sophia was over.

How long after she’d returned to Ireland had she read that report? A couple of weeks? The report had made clear that Tonino had ended the engagement.

She could scream. Even if he were speaking the truth about when he ended it, he’d still lied about everything else.

Rubbing her temples even harder, trying not to wince at the pain shooting through her head every time she spoke, she said, ‘Whose apartment did you take me to?’ She remembered more than waking in his bed now. She remembered the apartment itself.

‘Mine.’

‘Codswallop. Don’t forget my brother is a billionaire like yourself—that was not a billionaire’s apartment.’

‘It was the first apartment I bought with my own money when I was twenty. I use it when I want privacy…’

His words rang loud in her head, adding to the growing agony, but pushing at her mind were flashes of what he’d wanted privacy with her for. Those particular memories were still nothing but shimmers yet powerful enough to send a bolt of heat down low in her abdomen.

Once she had craved this man’s touch. She’d craved everything about him.

She’d made love to him and created a life with him.

‘And as for your brother,’ he continued, ‘you never told me you were Dante’s sister and Salvatore Moncada’s daughter. You accuse me of hiding things…’ He downed his wine and blew out a long puff of air. ‘We are losing focus. We are here, now, for one reason only and that is for my son. He is the only thing that matters.’

If he referred to Finn as ‘his son’ again she would swing for him. Well, she would if she had the energy, but she could feel it draining from her body. Since the accident Orla had suffered from frequent, often debilitating headaches and this one was turning into a whopper. No doubt stress and exhaustion had conspired together and she wanted Tonino gone before he witnessed it go into full bloom.

When she answered, it took all her remaining strength not to let the pain in her head infect her voice. ‘At least we can agree on that. Look, Tonino, can we call it a night? Finn’s an early riser and I really need to get some sleep before he wakes up. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will put us both in a better frame of mind and we can talk again in the morning about where we go from here.’

For a long time he didn’t speak, just stared at her, his jaw clenched, firm lips tightly pursed, a pulse throbbing in his temple. ‘Where we go is simple. We tell Finn I am his father and that from now on I am a permanent part of his life.’

‘Fine.’ At that point she would have agreed to anything to be rid of him. It felt as if she had a big bass drum bashing in her head.

The smile he gave chilled her to the bone. ‘And, dolcezza, to be clear, if you attempt to leave my hotel with my son before the morning, I will have no hesitation in launching a full custody battle—and it’s a battle I will win.’

He let himself out of the suite without a backwards glance.

Tonino took a long breath, arranged his features into what he hoped was a non-threatening expression and then knocked on Orla’s door.

He’d done much thinking since leaving her suite, and as the hours had passed the rage inside him had subsided. His behaviour, he recognised, had not been much better than the behaviour he’d accused Orla of, albeit a different kind of abhorrence. For his son’s sake, he needed to build bridges.

The door opened just as he raised his knuckles to knock on it a second time.

Orla looked at him as if he were something a stray cat had dragged in. ‘What time do you call this?’

He took a beat to soak in the thick dark hair, all tousled and spilling over the thin pink robe wrapped around her slender form, and felt a thickening in his loins as he was taken back four years to their first morning together. They’d taken a shower and afterwards he’d expected her to lock herself in the bathroom to paint her face on as all his previous lovers had done. That she hadn’t, that she’d been so comfortable in her skin and so comfortable with him not to feel the need to cover it, had evoked the strangest of feelings in him. Even today he couldn’t explain what that feeling was, but he felt it again now as he stared at the pink, plump lips that had fascinated him as much as everything else about her had.

He’d wanted Orla with a needy desperation he’d never felt before or since. He could hardly believe those feelings were still alive in his veins.

Breathing through his mouth to protect his lungs from filling with her scent, Tonino stepped past her into the suite. ‘You said Finn’s an early riser. He must take after me.’ Not that Tonino had had any sleep that night. How could he when he was still trying to comprehend what he’d discovered yesterday?

Forget that every component of his body was heightened for Orla, he was here for one reason only. His son.

‘Tonino, it’s six thirty.’

‘I know.’ He looked around the living area of the suite. ‘Where is he?’

‘His nurse has taken him for a walk around the gardens.’

‘This early?’

‘He’s been awake for over an hour.’

If he’d known that he would have come earlier instead of pacing his own suite impatiently. ‘When will he be back?’

‘I don’t know. It depends if there’s anything out there that captures his interest.’

‘He likes being outside?’ There was so much to discover about his son. A whole three years’ worth of living to be discovered, including his birth date.

‘He loves it.’ Orla padded over to the window and perched herself on the ledge. She cast a quick glance at Tonino before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and looking out at the early-morning view. ‘Unfortunately Ireland’s reputation for rain is based on fact—we’re not known as the Emerald Isle for nothing—so sunny days are to be cherished.’

‘Marry me and he can have sunshine every day.’

She turned her gaze back to him sharply. ‘What?’

Tonino sat himself down on an armchair and looked straight at her. ‘I have been doing much thinking. I want Finn in my life permanently and the best way I can see to facilitate this is for you to marry me.’

CHAPTER FIVE

ORLA WAS GLAD she was sitting down. There was a good chance she would have fallen over in shock if she’d still been on her feet. ‘Are you drunk?’

He didn’t look drunk. His hair was damp and even sitting far from him on the windowsill she could smell the heady scent of freshly showered Tonino. She was certain that if she’d been placed in a room blindfolded and made to smell his scent, that alone would have been enough to unlock her memories of him.

He hadn’t shaved but still looked razor-sharp, dark eyes clear and focused intently on her. The wedding suit he’d worn the day before had been replaced with charcoal chinos and a crisp navy shirt that fitted and enhanced his tall, muscular frame perfectly.

God help her but the man was a bigger sex bomb than her broken brain had remembered.

The four years that had passed since they’d conceived Finn had not been kind to Orla. The youthful body she’d taken for granted was now marked and scarred, unrecognisable from the body Tonino must remember. She’d never considered herself vain until she’d stood naked before a mirror for the first time after the accident and burst into tears at what had reflected back at her.

Where the time that had passed since Finn’s conception had been cruel to her, for Tonino it had been kind. Incredibly kind. Adonis himself would look at Tonino and weep at the unfairness.

It had been Orla’s suggestion that the nurse take Finn for a walk. She’d guessed Tonino would turn up early—although not this early—and had wanted to be ready for him. She’d wanted to be showered and dressed and armoured behind make-up. Instead he’d arrived at the same moment she’d been about to step into the bathroom for her shower and found her looking like a scruffy cat lady. She hadn’t even brushed her hair. She’d bet good money that he’d done it deliberately to catch her off guard.

She knew she shouldn’t care what she looked like in front of him but she did. Right then, her pride was all she had left.

Her shoddy appearance was just one more disadvantage she had against him and she could feel the heat of colour splash her face under the weight of his blatant scrutiny. At least her headache had gone so that was one small mercy.

‘Marriage makes excellent sense,’ he said with all the confidence of a man used to his words being heeded as if he really were Adonis.

Her stomach twisted violently. She empathised with him, she really did, but did he have to be so entitled and overbearing? And did her heart have to beat so hard and her skin thrum just to share the same air as him?

Speaking through gritted teeth, she said, ‘You’ve known about Finn’s existence for five minutes and you’ve spent most of that time threatening me and calling me a liar and now you want to marry me? Are you sure you’re not drunk?’

His eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘I want my son to have my name and to be recognised as his father.’

‘You can have that without marriage.’

‘My son deserves…’

The turmoil that had been with her all the previous day and had still been there the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning reached its peak. ‘Will you stop with all this “my son” malarkey?’ she suddenly exploded. ‘You know nothing about Finn and for you to keep referring to him as yours is doing my head in!’

He straightened, his face twisting with contempt. ‘If you hadn’t selfishly kept him to yourself, I would already know everything about him. I am his father, Orla, and I will damned well be a part of his life and take on all the responsibility being his father entails.’

Her temper evaporated to be replaced by shame at her outburst. Bowing her head, she covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply, in and out, in and out, trying desperately to hold back the threatening tears. Only when she was certain that she could speak without opening the floodgates did she look at him again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I know you’re his father. I know you have every right to be a part of his life but it’s really hard to listen to all your threats and demands when you have no idea what our lives have been like and the struggles we’ve had to deal with. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect me to roll over and go with it. You need to earn your right to be Finn’s father.’

Just as she’d had to earn the right to be Finn’s mother.

When Orla had finally been allowed home from the rehabilitation centre, Finn had been eighteen months old and, although too young to understand the concept of parenthood, he’d regarded Aislin as his mother. She would never admit it to Aislin or anyone but seeing her own child naturally gravitate to her sister had been unbearable. It had taken a good year before Finn had turned to Orla when he needed help or comfort.

Tonino’s eyes narrowed. The weight of his scrutiny increased but she detected a softening in his stance. ‘Then stop fighting me and do what’s best for Finn.’

‘That’s all I’ve ever done.’

‘Then marry me.’

Her heart beating fast, Orla found herself scrutinising Tonino with the same intensity he scrutinised her, trying hard to look past the breathtakingly gorgeous features for what was going on in his head. Unfortunately, the mind-reading powers she’d always hoped to one day achieve were as elusive as ever. ‘Marriage is not the answer. An unhappy marriage does nothing but produce unhappy children. Finn’s a happy child who’s suffered enough disruption in his life.’

‘There is no reason we could not be happy.’ Eyes remaining fixed on her, he reclined back in his seat. ‘We were good together once.’

‘We were together for barely ten days.’ She would not cause another argument by pointing out that in that time he’d actively let her believe a lie. ‘We don’t know each other.’

‘We know the most important thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Our compatibility.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You and me…’ He hooked an ankle on a muscular thigh. Something glimmered in his eyes that sent Orla’s pulses surging. His voice lowered to an appreciative murmur. ‘I remember us as being extremely compatible.’

Something deep inside her heated and throbbed with such force that whatever she’d been about to say stuck on her tongue. Gazing into his eyes was like looking into a chocolate pool swirling with brilliance, and the tight pulsations heating her core spread through her veins and danced onto her skin, every nerve ending in her body stirring, every atom screaming loudly its agreement at his words.

Suddenly fearful of being hypnotised by the whirling depths, Orla wrenched her gaze from him and stared back out of the window, trying her hardest to breathe normally.

She’d prepared herself for more threats and arguments. She had not been prepared for a proposal or caressing words. Given the sticky turmoil raging through her, she thought she preferred the threats and arguments.

Even with her back turned from him, she could feel the heat of his stare penetrating her skin.

Folding her arms across her chest, she rubbed her feeble biceps and closed her eyes.

She remembered waking in Tonino’s arms the morning after their first night together, dazed but replete. She remembered the sensation that had flooded her veins and heated her skin at his touch.

But the actual memories of them being intimate together remained locked away. She hoped they never returned. She didn’t think she could bear to remember how she had given herself to a man who’d only been using her for his own fun.

Dragging more air into her lungs, she cleared her throat. ‘I don’t want to marry you, period. It would be a disaster.’

Tonino had known getting Orla’s agreement for marriage would be a long shot but once the idea had come to him, he’d recognised it as the answer to all their problems. Marriage would solve everything in a neat, orderly fashion. How could he be an effective father if he lived in a different country from his child?

He would have to work on her and make her see that it would be in Finn’s best interest for them all to live under the same roof. Given a little time to dismantle the barriers between them, Orla would come around to his way of thinking. The chemistry that had drawn them together four years ago still burned. He felt its scorch with every word and look exchanged between them. And she felt it too. Every time she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ears he was reminded of all the times she’d done that before and all the other little gestures he recognised as uniquely Orla.

She’d been a breath of fresh air in a world he’d never recognised as cynical until she’d entered it and liberated him. For ten magnificent days he had lived for the moment with the first woman he’d been intimate with who had no idea who he really was. Her every response had been organic. She’d been a virgin but making love to her for the first time…it had felt as if it were his first time too.

Their chemistry was the one thing he didn’t need a lie detector for. The urge to touch her breathed through his skin and it took all his strength to keep his focus on the job at hand.

‘If you won’t marry me then I will come to Ireland with you and have my name added to Finn’s birth certificate.’ He would not accept anything less than being a true father to his son.

Her body immediately struck a defensive pose. ‘That can wait.’

‘No, dolcezza, it cannot.’ Getting to his feet, he joined her at the window. She must have sensed his closeness for her back stiffened and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

How many nights had he dreamt of that simple non-seductive gesture?

Orla was the only lover whose scent he could remember simply by closing his eyes. Close his eyes and he could remember the feel of her skin beneath his fingers.

Close his eyes and he could remember the bewilderment to find her gone.

He would close his eyes no more. With Orla, he needed to keep his eyes open and his wits sharpened. Whatever happened from this moment, he would never let her disappear again.

‘I understand why I’ve not been named on it but it has to be done.’ He couldn’t force her to marry him—more was the pity—but he would do whatever was necessary to close off her options to flee.

Her head turned sharply to face him again. Tonino hadn’t realised quite how close to her he’d positioned himself until he saw the sprinkling of freckles across her pretty nose.

‘You understand…?’ She swallowed. ‘You believe me?’

‘I spoke to Dante after I left you last night,’ he admitted. ‘He confirmed your story about the accident and your memory problems.’

Dante’s confirmation had left him with a myriad emotions. There had been definite relief—Tonino’s instincts all those years ago that Orla was of a different mould from the unscrupulous, duplicitous bitches who lived in his world had not been as off the mark as he’d come to believe—but there had been something else there too, something that had made him feel as if acid had been poured into his guts.

Orla’s chest rose sharply then loosened slowly. She pressed her head against the window with a sigh. ‘I suppose it’s understandable you wouldn’t take my word on it.’

‘It doesn’t change how I feel about you not telling me about the pregnancy,’ he warned roughly. He doubted he would ever forgive her for that. ‘However, I feel it is in Finn’s best interest that I put that issue behind me.’

She gave a short bark of shaky laughter. ‘Your magnanimity does you much justice.’

Eyeing her carefully, he rested his hands on the windowsill either side of her thighs, effectively trapping her. ‘Are you being funny?’

Fresh colour heightened her cheeks. ‘I’m wondering where the proof is that you ended your engagement to Sophia before you took me to bed.’

‘I am not a cheat. I have never been unfaithful.’

‘I’m supposed to take your word on this?’

‘Sì. In my world, honour is everything. A man who cannot be taken at his word is no man at all.’

‘Now you’re being the funny one. Seriously? A man of your word? When you let me believe you were a humble hotel manager rather than a gazillionaire hotel owner?’

‘I never lied to you, Orla. Not in words.’

‘Well, that makes everything all right, then!’ She smiled brightly but her breaths had shallowed. He moved his face closer to hear her next words. ‘You didn’t lie to me with words. Grand. You’re only prepared to believe me about my amnesia because Dante’s backed me up, but I’m supposed to take you at your word on everything simply because you say so. Can you not see why that makes me uncomfortable having you named as Finn’s father on his birth certificate?’

A man could drown in the emerald-green pool swirling before him. Orla’s robe had parted at her waist, exposing her smooth legs. His blood thickened to see her thighs covered only by a pair of pyjama shorts.

‘All I want is to be a father to him.’ Dio, his voice was hardly above a whisper either. ‘Having legal recognition is important to me. I don’t want to be forced into taking legal action to get it.’

She swallowed a number of times then croaked, ‘That sounds like a threat.’

He clenched his tingling fingers into fists. If he extended either thumb he would be touching those delectable thighs. They were as close as they’d been on the dance floor and yet not a single part of their bodies touched.

Now he was the one to swallow, ridding himself of the moisture that had filled his mouth. ‘A threat I have no wish to act on.’

Last night, when he’d been full of anger, all he could think about were his rights and the fact that she had so cruelly kept him from his son. While his anger was still there—her insistence that she’d intended to tell him about the birth after the fact was something he doubted he’d ever believe—he could not escape the conclusion that she was correct that he didn’t know his son. And his son didn’t know him. Tonino and his mother’s relationship might be strained these days but as a child he’d worshipped the ground she’d walked on. To have been ripped from her arms would have destroyed him.

‘What do you intend to do with the legal recognition?’ she whispered.

His face inched closer to hers. ‘Be his father. Orla… I’m not going to launch a custody battle for him. All I want is to be involved.’

Her breaths quickened. ‘You’re not going to fight me?’

‘Our trust issues are a two-way thing we both need to work on but I give you my word that, provided you play fair with me, I will not take Finn away from you.’

‘That’s still a threat. What does play fair even mean?’

Their faces had got so close he could smell the faint mintiness of her toothpaste.

‘That you accept me as his father.’

A glazed quality washed over her eyes. Her face tilted, her voice dropping to a murmur. ‘I do accept you as his father.’

‘Then let us start again.’ His lips buzzed and the tingles on his skin deepened as their mouths drew closer still. ‘Put the past behind us for Finn’s sake and look to the future…’

Right at the moment their lips brushed together, the door to Orla’s suite opened and the nurse pushed Finn in.

‘Have you not had your shower…? Oh!’

A bullet ricocheting through the suite could not have parted them more effectively.

Cheeks the colour of beetroot, Orla jumped off the windowsill and hurried to Finn, frantically tucking strands of hair behind both ears. ‘Could you do me a favour, please, Rachel, and leave us alone for ten minutes?’

The nurse looked knowingly at Tonino. ‘Sure.’

The two Irishwomen’s conversation followed by the nurse’s abrupt departure from the suite were mere noise in Tonino’s head. The desire that had come so close to taking control of him had reversed as he stared at the tiny boy strapped in his wheelchair. Unlike the curious nurse, his innocence meant he had no idea his arrival had interrupted anything.

Orla knelt in front of him and carefully lifted him out. She carried him over to the sofa and placed him on her lap. ‘Finn, do you remember me telling you that you had a daddy but that mummy lost him?’

Tonino gave her credit for infusing strength into her voice.

The little head nodded.

‘And do you remember me telling you that one day we would find him?’

She’d told him that…?

Finn nodded again.

‘Well… I’ve found him.’

The dark brown eyes that were so like his own found his.

Tonino held his breath.

‘Finn,’ Orla continued. ‘This man… Tonino…is your daddy.’

There was a long moment of silence where father and son did nothing but stare at each other. Finn’s expression was one of frank curiosity.

Tonino waited with bated breath for his son to speak, waited for the little arms to open up and demand a carry as he’d done for his uncle in the cathedral.

He should have known better. Instead of the grand reunion he’d spent the night imagining, his son looked back at his mother and said, ‘Play blocks now?’

CHAPTER SIX

ORLA HAD NO idea how she’d allowed herself to be steamrollered into flying back to Ireland with Tonino on his private jet. The only fleeting satisfaction she’d found that day had been when she’d entered the jet’s opulent cabin and stared into his eyes to airily say, ‘Oh, it’s just like Dante’s plane.’

Saying that had been a sharp but welcome reminder that Tonino might come from an immensely powerful and wealthy family, but that her brother was also immensely rich and powerful. It was a reminder to herself as well as Tonino.

Having a brother was such a new aspect of her life that all too often she forgot that she had him in her corner as much as she had Aislin.

Four years ago, when she’d learned she was pregnant, Dante hadn’t known of Orla’s existence. She could never have turned to him for help back then. Now, if Tonino did try to pull a fast one and launch a custody battle, she wouldn’t have to face it alone or without the means to fight back legally and financially.

Even if she didn’t have Dante, she felt differently now than she had four years ago. Back then, she’d been a frightened wreck. If the accident had done nothing else, it had toughened her up.

She had a feeling she would need every ounce of her newfound strength to keep Tonino at arm’s length.

They had been moments from kissing.

Kissing!

Her lips still tingled in anticipation of the kiss that had never come. Tonino had caught her in a moment of weakness, she told herself stubbornly. It had been early. Her headache had gone but she hadn’t had nearly as much sleep as she needed, leaving her tired, which in itself had weakened her.

That her insides still felt like melted goo could also be explained. She didn’t know how to explain it but there must be a rational reason for it somewhere.

As Finn and his nurse were flying home with them, conversation between Orla and Tonino was mercifully limited to pleasantries. Conversation between Tonino and the nurse was a different matter. While Orla read Finn a story, Tonino quietly peppered Rachel with questions about Finn’s condition. There was no godly reason why this should irk Orla so much, but it did. Watching the nurse flick her hair as she answered him irked her even more. When Rachel giggled at a comment Tonino made, Orla tightened her grip on the book to prevent herself from throwing it at the pair of them.

Her silent irritation continued for the duration of the flight. Only when they were back on Irish soil and she breathed the familiar air did she manage to regain some of her usual calm.

She was on home territory now. This was her turf and the drive to her home in Dublin was short.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said with as much politeness as she could muster when his driver pulled up. ‘What time shall I expect you in the morning?’

He arched a brow. ‘Are you not going to invite me in?’

Oh, how badly she wanted to give him a blunt, ‘No,’ but knew how ungracious that would seem. She tried to put herself in his shoes. She would want to see the home her child lived in if she were wearing them.

‘If I must,’ she answered, immediately feeling horrible for her churlish response. The horrible feeling lasted less than a second for Rachel visibly brightened.

‘You can stay for a coffee,’ Orla added, then immediately panicked as she thought of the jar of instant that had moved to Dublin with her from Kerry and had to be at least a year old.

‘This is a nice house,’ Tonino commented when he walked into the spacious entrance room. Set in a pretty, quiet, tree-lined street, Orla’s home was airy and open-plan, cluttered with toys and books but nonetheless clean. It had a homely feeling he warmed to immediately.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered.

Crouching down to Finn’s level, he touched the tiny hand lightly. ‘How would you like to show me your room?’

Finn immediately looked to his mother for guidance. She gave a short but reassuring nod. ‘You’ll have to carry him—he can’t do stairs, I’m afraid. His room’s the first on the left.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ the nurse offered.

‘I’m sure Finn and I can manage,’ he rebuffed pleasantly. His curiosity about the specifics of his son’s condition had driven him to ask the nurse in detail about it, which he felt certain had annoyed Orla and contributed to the foul mood she’d fallen into on the flight over. For his part, Tonino felt liberated. Leaving Sicily with his child and future wife—he had no doubt that Orla would come round to his way of thinking on marriage—had lifted his spirits immeasurably.

Tonino unstrapped his son and gently lifted him into his arms. He didn’t think he had ever held anything so precious and fragile and his heart bloomed to feel the tiny beating heart pressed against his chest. It bloomed even more when a skinny arm hooked around his neck.

Dark brown eyes that were a replica of his own stared at him solemnly. Tonino stared back, suddenly finding himself dumbstruck at the powerful emotions crashing through him.

Before he took the first stair, he looked at Orla and felt another crash of emotion punch through him.

Taking a deep breath, he carried his son upstairs and entered his bedroom.

It took a few moments before he could take another breath. Finn’s bedroom was everything a child’s room should be, with its dinosaur curtains, walls covered in dinosaur stickers and ceiling covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. A vast array of stuffed toys was crammed on shelves and in boxes, along with boxes of puzzles and games, boxes of building blocks, books…

But there was no escaping the bed with its bars, there to prevent Finn from rolling out, and no escaping the unobtrusive but recognisable cameras there to monitor him while he slept and no escaping the medical equipment Tonino would have to become familiar with.

There was no escaping that this was a room for a child with disabilities. His child. And, as Tonino took stock of it all, he made a vow to himself that he would do everything in his power to make his son’s life as comfortable and as happy as he could.

For the second time in a day Orla had no idea how she’d come to allow Tonino to steamroller her into something, this time finishing the day together eating a Chinese takeaway. Indeed, at one point she’d thought she’d got rid of him—he’d taken one sip of his coffee, wrinkled his nose and then excused himself, saying he would be back. When he hadn’t returned an hour later, she’d thought he’d checked into wherever he was staying and decided to stay put.

He’d returned while she was clearing up the mess made while feeding Finn his dinner, carrying a large box, which was revealed to be a coffee machine.

‘Where did you get that from?’ she’d asked in astonishment. ‘It’s Sunday. All the shops are closed.’

He’d had the audacity to wink at her before disappearing again, returning an hour later with the takeaway and a bottle of wine. ‘I thought you must be hungry too,’ he’d explained while making himself at home turning the oven on. ‘I saw you only cooked for Finn.’

‘I’ve not had a chance to go shopping,’ she’d replied defensively while turning off the grill and switching the actual oven on.

A memory of the two of them sharing a Chinese takeaway in his Palermo apartment had hit her. For some unfathomable reason, tears had blurred her vision.

While their food had kept warm in the oven, he’d helped her give Finn a bath and put him to bed. Having him there in the close confinement of the bathroom then the confinement of Finn’s bedroom had put her on edge. As hard as she’d tried only to concentrate on her son, she was acutely aware of every movement Tonino made.

It was only the shock of being in his orbit again and the shock of how close they’d come to kissing making her feel so edgy around him. That would lessen as she became accustomed to his presence in their lives. Sooner or later the tightness in her chest would lessen too and her heartbeat would find its natural rhythm when with him, rather than the erratic tempo it adopted every time she caught his eye or captured a whiff of his spicy cologne. He’d clearly meant what he’d said early that morning about them starting over. He’d spoken to her with only courtesy since. If he still felt anger towards her, he hid it well.

And now they were sitting at her dining table, Tonino clearly so ravenous he didn’t care that their food had lost much of its moisture, comfortably drinking his way through the wine while she stuck to water. Orla ate as much as she could manage but it was hard to swallow when her insides were so cramped, hard to work her fork from her hand to her mouth while fighting her gaze from staring at the hunk of a man devouring his food opposite her.

It was the first time they’d been alone since Finn had returned from his walk nearly thirteen hours ago. Since they’d nearly kissed. Without Finn or his nurse’s physical presence to distract her, Orla found her awareness of Tonino becoming more than a distraction, throwing her back four years when she’d spent ten days with her entire being consumed by this one man.

‘Do you feel better now?’ he asked after he’d demolished the leftovers.

‘What do you mean?’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Only that if looks could kill, the looks you were giving me on the plane over would have struck me dead.’

She had the grace to blush. Not looking at him, she muttered, ‘I just wanted to get home.’

He nodded musingly. ‘Of course. You were missing your home.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Have you lived here long?’

‘Four months.’ Orla, mortified that he’d picked up on her earlier bad mood, mustered something she hoped resembled a smile.

‘Dante bought it for you?’

‘Aislin bought it.’ She wasn’t about to explain that the money to purchase it had come via Dante paying her sister a million euros to pretend to be his fiancée for a weekend. Of course, Aislin and Dante had fallen in love over that weekend for real, but the lead-up to their falling in love was a private matter between the two of them. Having been the subject of gossip for the entirety of her life, it was not something Orla ever indulged in. ‘Dante paid for it to be made Finn-friendly.’

She finished her water and tried not to stare longingly at the remaining wine in the bottle. Alcohol, she was sure, would help her relax. Or, as was more likely, send her to sleep.

Relaxing in Tonino’s company was something that was going to take time. A lot of time.

Now that most of the memories of their time together had returned, she found herself replaying it. Much of it felt as vivid as if it had happened only days ago. She’d been relaxed with him then. She’d found an ease in his company she had never felt with anyone other than Aislin before. It had been as if a stranger she’d known for ever had walked into her life. A stranger who’d made her bones melt with nothing but a look.

It horrified her to find her bones still melted for him. Every time he reached for his glass and his muscles flexed beneath his shirt the baser part of her melted too. Every time she caught his eye her erratically thrumming heart would jolt. Her lips still tingled for the kiss that had never come.

‘You and Dante have only got to know each other recently, is that correct?’ he asked.

Lord help her but his voice melted her too.

She nodded. ‘I always knew about him, but he knew nothing of me. He had no idea he had a sister.’

‘Why didn’t you find him four years ago?’

‘I couldn’t go up to a stranger and say, Hello, I’m your long-lost sister, could I? It wouldn’t have been fair.’

He pulled a rueful face. ‘I suppose. So, tell me, was your real reason for being in Sicily to find your father?’

She gave another nod.

‘You’d never met him before?’

‘I wasn’t allowed.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged. ‘I was his dirty little secret.’

He winced at her descriptor. ‘What changed? What spurred you into seeking him?’

‘I became an adult.’ She smiled wryly. ‘For the first time ever, I had a couple of weeks ahead of me with nothing to do. I woke up one morning and thought to myself that it’s now or never.’

‘Did you meet him?’

‘No. He was abroad when I visited on my first day there. I tried again when you went to Tuscany but I don’t remember what happened.’

‘So you might have met him?’

She shook her head. ‘Aislin always told me I didn’t.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know it in my heart too. Every time I’ve thought of him since I’ve wanted to cry.’

Tonino stared at the downcast face with the lips pulled tightly together and his heart twisted. ‘Why didn’t you share this with me at the time? I could have helped you. My father and your father were old friends.’

‘How was I supposed to know that? You never told me who you really were.’ Her rebuke, although politely delivered, hit the mark.

‘We were lovers, Orla. You should have told me your real reason for being in my country.’

His mention of them having been lovers sent colour careering over her neck and cheeks. ‘Yes, well, you should have told me you actually owned the hotel rather than just managing it but there you are.’

‘There we are.’ He winced and mock saluted his agreement, admiring her quick, tart retort. The Orla sitting in front of him had a much sharper tongue than the Orla he remembered. ‘Two people who kept things close to their chests while still getting naked together.’

‘Don’t go there,’ she warned. The colour now flamed so brightly he could warm his hands on her face.

‘If we hadn’t gone there we would never have created Finn together.’ He downed the last of his wine and grinned.

She smiled sweetly, then, in a perfectly pitched saccharine voice, said, ‘And on that happy note, it’s time for you to leave.’

‘Are you kicking me out?’

‘There’s no food left and it’s late.’

‘Are you not worried I won’t have anywhere to stay?’

‘No. And you’re not staying here, if that’s what you’re trying to wrangle.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. But, please, let your mind rest easy—I have a place to stay.’

‘Good. Best you get going to it.’

‘Without an after-dinner coffee?’

‘Caffeine is the last thing I need.’

‘In that case I shall return early in the morning for it.’

‘If you turn up as early as you did this morning, the only thing you’ll get is a long wait on the doorstep.’

He got to his feet and gave another mock salute. ‘Until the morning.’

‘Are you still here?’

Grinning, Tonino let himself out. He’d reached his car when he heard the front door lock behind him.

‘You are possibly the most infuriating man in the world,’ Orla snapped when she opened the front door the next morning.

Tonino looked at his watch and gave an expression of such innocence that she had to bite her cheeks not to laugh out loud. ‘You told me not to come as early as I did yesterday.’

‘So you come half an hour later? Seriously? It’s seven o’clock.’

‘And you’re up and dressed and looking beautiful.’ She looked as fresh and as beautiful as the clear blue skies covering Dublin that morning. Dressed in a knee-length leaf-green jersey dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, her pretty green eyes enhanced with a touch of mascara, a brush of colour over the high cheekbones. Fresh, beautiful and damned irresistible.

One day soon, he vowed, Orla would open a door to him with a smile and greet him with a kiss rather than a scolding.

Late into the night he’d lain in his bed thinking back over their time together. The more he’d remembered, the more he’d come to understand why the few affairs he’d had since she’d disappeared had fizzled out with barely a whimper. Their affair had hung over him. It had shadowed him doggedly. Seducing Orla into marrying him would allow him to put the shadows to bed in more ways than one. He would have her in his bed and his child permanently in his life. The fact he would never be able to trust her was irrelevant. He didn’t need to trust her. He just needed to marry her, the final step that would prevent her ever disappearing from his life with his son again.

Finn was in his high chair at the dining table. He greeted Tonino with a smile and a wave.

‘I was just feeding Finn his breakfast. Why don’t you make yourself a coffee while we finish up?’ Orla strove to keep her tone polite but she could have cheerfully strangled Tonino. She wished she could say it was some sixth sense that he would turn up stupidly early again that had had her awake before Finn but it hadn’t been. It had been the dream of them, in bed together, that she’d wrenched herself out of that had accomplished that feat. She’d sat straight upright, heart pounding, burning and throbbing on the inside, not knowing if the dream had been a replay of something real or just her subconscious imagination, and dived straight into the shower to wash the burning feeling away.

She’d cleaned her skin, but her insides…

Mush. Her insides had been a hot, sticky mush the water couldn’t touch. They were still mush.

Her hands were shaking. She could barely hold the spoon to feed Finn.

‘Coffee?’ Tonino’s deep voice reverberated in her ear.

‘No. Thank you. Did you want something to eat?’ She ground her toes into the floor in a futile effort to stop her right knee shaking too. ‘There’s bread and cereal in the cupboard.’

Dark brown eyes met hers. ‘I had something before I left the hotel.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘At Bally House.’

‘The hotel?’

‘Sì.’

‘You lucky thing.’

‘You have been there?’

‘I wish,’ she said reverently. Bally House Hotel was once a medieval village with its own church and flour mill. A huge renovation undertaken a few years ago had transformed it into Ireland’s premier hotel, the destination of choice for A-list stars to marry in. ‘I tried to talk Aislin into getting married there but she wasn’t having any of it—she was set on marrying in Sicily.’

‘We can marry there.’

‘We’re not getting married.’

‘I am confident that one day soon you will come around to my way of thinking, dolcezza.’

‘And I am confident that you are full of misplaced ego. I will not marry you, end of subject.’

Mercifully, the nurse descended the stairs, cutting the conversation short.

Less mercifully, the look in Tonino’s eyes told her this was a subject he had no intention of dropping.

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