The consequence he must claim!

Eloise Dean was an innocent in every way, until she met Vito Viscari! The charismatic Italian tycoon swept her off her feet and into his bed, promising her unimaginable pleasure. But as she reveled in his seduction, Eloise had no idea he could never be hers...

Duty to another forced Vito to end his and Eloise’s scorching nights together, but he cannot put her from his mind. Months later, desire drives him back into her arms. Only then does he discover the shocking truth: Eloise is carrying his heir. Vito sees just one way forward—to legitimize his love-child with a vow!

‘So,’ Vito was saying, and his Italian accent was doing wonderful things to her, as well as what his warm, admiring eyes were doing, ‘am I to call you only bella signorina? Though if I do,’ he murmured, his lashes sweeping over his eyes as his gaze dipped to meet hers, ‘it would be nothing but the truth. Bellissima signorina…’

She took a breath. The air seemed to have too much oxygen in it suddenly. ‘It’s Eloise,’ she said. ‘Eloise Dean.’

He smiled again, warm and intimate, and she felt breathless.

‘Come,’ he said, and there was that low husk in his voice again, ‘lean on me, Signorina Eloise Dean. I’ll take care of you.’

She gazed up at him. He seemed very tall, she realised. And absolutely devastating… Her breath caught, her lips parting softly, and her eyes were wide as she just stared up at him, drinking him in.

The sculpted mouth quirked again. Long lashes swept down over deep, dark eyes.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll take care of you…’

From Mistress to Wife

From the bedroom—to the altar!

Eloise and Carla have never expected irresistible passion—until they meet the powerful alpha billionaires who will steal their innocence. But nights of passion can have unexpected consequences…

When Eloise Dean falls at Vito Viscari’s feet, they are both overcome with a desire they can neither resist or deny!

Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child

Available now

Carla Charteris knows falling for the enigmatic Count of Mantegna will only bring heartache, but what will happen when temptation proves irresistible?

Carrying His Scandalous Heir

Coming soon

You won’t want to miss this passionately sexy duet from Julia James!

Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters... What more could lovers want?’

Books by Julia James

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

A Cinderella for the Greek

A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

Captivated by the Greek

The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

Painted the Other Woman

The Dark Side of Desire

From Dirt to Diamonds

Forbidden or For Bedding?

Penniless and Purchased

The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain

Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife

Visit the Author Profile page at

millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

For Pippa—thank you for all your hard work!!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Mistress to Wife

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE SONOROUS MUSIC SWELLED, lifting upwards to one last crescendo before falling silent. The hushed murmurings of the congregation stilled as the priest raised his hands and began to speak the words of the ancient sacrament in the age-old ceremony.

Inside his breast Vito could feel his heart beating strongly. Emotion filled him, and he turned his head towards the woman now standing at his side.

Gowned in white, her face veiled, his bride waited for him. Waited for him to say the words that would unite them in marriage...

* * *

Eloise sipped her champagne, her eyes drifting around the gilded salon privée of the hotel, one of the most famous on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on the Cote D’Azur in the South of France.

The salon was crowded with women in jewels and evening gowns, men sleek in tuxedos. But Eloise knew with absolute conviction that no other man present could possibly compare with the man she was with. For he was, quite simply, the most devastatingly handsome male she had ever seen in her life, and her pulse quickened every time she looked at him. As she did now.

Her eyes returned to his tall, distinctive form, so superbly sheathed in a hand-tailored tux, his sculpted Roman profile and the sable hair that moulded his well-shaped head. Her gaze caressed the smooth, tanned skin, taut over high cheekbones and chiselled jawline, the ready smile of his mobile mouth as he chatted in French—which he spoke as well as he did English and his native Italian—to the others in their little group. She felt her stomach give its familiar little skip.

Is this really me, being here like this? Or am I dreaming it?

Sometimes she thought it must be the latter, for the past weeks had been a headlong, heady whirl in the arms of the man at her side now, at whose feet she had, quite literally, fallen.

Memory, warm and vivid, leapt in her consciousness...

She had been hurrying along the airport concourse towards her departure gate, where her flight was already closing. It was her first holiday for ages, snatched before she knuckled down to look for a new placement as a nanny. Her most recent post had come to an end when the twins she’d been looking after had started school.

They would miss her for a bit, but they would soon adjust to her absence, Eloise thought—just as she herself had coped with a succession of nannies and au pairs in her own childhood. Her mother had not just been a mother with a busy job, but one supremely lacking in maternal feelings, and Eloise had long had to acknowledge this—just as she’d had to acknowledge that, because she’d been born a girl, her father—faced with her mother’s adamant refusal to have any more children—had abandoned them both to seek a new wife who would give him the sons he craved.

Eloise’s mouth tightened in a familiar fashion at the thought of her father rejecting her for his new family, playing no further part in her childhood.

Is that why I became a nanny? Eloise sometimes wondered. To give warmth and affection to children who don’t see much of their parents? Like me?

She certainly loved her job—even though her mother had never been able to understand it. Just as she couldn’t understand why her daughter would have preferred her father to stay in her life. Her mother’s views were simple—and stark.

‘Fathers aren’t in the least necessary, Eloise. Women are perfectly capable of single motherhood! And it’s just as well. Men let you down—far better never to depend on them. Far better to raise a child on your own!’

Eloise had refrained from pointing out that actually she had been raised by nannies, not by her mother...

But I’m not going to be like that—and I won’t pick a man who’ll desert me, either!

No, her life would be very different from her mother’s—she was determined on it. She would prove her mother completely wrong. She would fall deeply in love with a wonderful man who would never leave her, never let her down, never abandon her for another woman, and never reject their children, whom they would raise together in loving devotion.

Just who that man would be, she had no idea. Oh, at twenty-six she’d had her share of boyfriends—she knew without vanity that her blonde good-looks had always drawn male attention—but none had touched her emotionally. Not yet...

But I’ll find him, I know I will! The man I’m dreaming of! The man I’m going to fall in love with! It will happen one day.

But as she’d raced onward to the closing gate that day, she had been fine with being footloose and fancy-free, ready for a good holiday, travelling as lightly and comfortably as she could, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and casual jacket, and well-worn pumps.

The shoes must have been a tad too well worn, for suddenly, without warning, she’d skidded, her foot shooting sideways. She had gone careering down in a heap on the hard floor, her pull-along cabin bag slewing in the other direction, slamming into the legs of another passenger. She’d heard a short, sharp expletive in a foreign language, but had paid it no attention. Pain had been shooting up her sprawled legs, and she’d given a cry.

‘Are you all right?’

The accented voice had had a low, attractive husk to it. But as Eloise had lifted her head, still feeling the sting of pain from her fall, her line of sight had impacted with a crouched pair of very male trouser legs, the fine light grey material straining over hard-muscled thighs.

She’d lifted her gaze further up. And the breath had just stopped in her throat. She’d stared. She’d been able to do nothing else.

A pair of dark, deep eyes fringed with inky lashes had looked at her with an expression of concern. ‘Are you hurt?’

She’d tried to speak, but her mouth had suddenly been completely dry.

‘I...’ she croaked. ‘I’m...fine.’

She started to get up, but a pair of strong hands was lifting her to her feet with a strength that made her seem completely weightless. But then, gravity seemed to have disappeared already. She had the strangest feeling that she was floating two inches off the ground.

People were walking and hurrying and talking all around them, but it was as though they didn’t exist. She just went on staring helplessly at the man she had knocked into.

‘Are you sure you are all right? Would you like me to summon medical assistance?’

There was still the same warm concern in his voice, but it had a hint of humour in it, too, as though he were well aware of how she was staring.

And why...

A slanting smile sifted across his face. Eloise felt her insides go hollow. The thickly lashed dark eyes washed over her, and the hollowness increased a thousandfold.

‘I believe this is your bag,’ he said, and stooped to rescue her carry-on.

‘Thank you...’ Eloise answered faintly.

‘My pleasure.’

He smiled again. He didn’t seem to mind that she was still gazing at him, drinking in his dark, expressive eyes, his sable hair, the sculpted mouth with its slanting smile, the cheekbones that seemed to be cut from the finest marble.

She swallowed. Something was happening and she was reeling from it. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with having just tumbled down at his feet, or her luggage slamming into his legs.

Realisation hit. ‘Are you all right?’ she exclaimed, contrition filling her voice. ‘My bag thumped right into you!’

He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Niente—it was nothing,’ he assured her.

With the fragment of her brain that was still functioning Eloise registered that he spoke in Italian—then simultaneously registered that his gaze was as focused on her as hers was on him. She saw his eyes narrow minutely, as though studying her in great detail. Studying her and finding that she was entirely to his liking...

She felt colour run up into her cheeks, and as it did so she saw a glint spark in his gorgeous dark eyes. It was a subtle message between them that only heightened her colour and made her suddenly, piercingly, aware of her body and its reaction to being looked at with such intensity.

Oh, my God, what is happening?

Because never, never had she felt such an immediate overpowering response to a man. She gave a silent gulp of awareness. He was speaking again, and she dragged her fragmenting mind to order.

‘Tell me, which gate are you heading for?’

Belatedly Eloise recalled what had been uppermost in her head until a few moments ago. Her eyes shot to the display by the gate further down the concourse, which now read, ‘Flight Closed’.

‘Oh, no!’ she said with a wail. ‘I’ve missed my flight!’

‘Where were you travelling to?’ he asked her.

‘Paris...’ she answered distractedly.

Something flickered in the man’s eyes. Then, in a smooth voice, he said, ‘What an extraordinary coincidence. I’m on my way to Paris myself.’

Was there the slightest hesitation in his voice as he named his destination? She had no time to think as he continued to speak.

‘Since it was my fault you missed your flight, you must allow me to take you there myself.’

She stared, her mouth opening and then closing like a fish. A fish that was being scooped up, effortlessly, by someone who was—and the fact came to her belatedly—a very, very accomplished fisherman.

‘I couldn’t possibly—’ she began.

The dark, beautifully arched eyebrows above the dark, deep eyes rose. ‘Why not?’ he said.

‘Because—’ She stopped.

‘Because we don’t know each other?’ he challenged, again with that querying lift of his brows. Then his slanting smile slashed across his features. ‘But that is easily remedied.’

His mouth quirked, making her stomach give a little flip.

‘My name is Vito Viscari, and I am entirely at your service, signorina—having caused you to miss your flight.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Eloise protested. ‘I did. I skidded. Crashed my bag into you.’

He lifted his free hand dismissively. ‘We have already agreed that that is of no account,’ he said airily. ‘But what is of account is finding a medic to check your foot. There’s plenty of time before our Paris flight leaves.’

Eloise looked at him dazedly. ‘But I can’t just swap flights—my ticket won’t let me.’

The amused look came again. ‘But mine will. Do not worry.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘I have frequent flyer miles to use up. If I don’t use them they’ll be wasted.’

Eloise looked at him. Whatever else there was about him, he was not someone who looked as if he gave the slightest consideration to something as money-saving as air miles. Everything about him, she registered, from the tailored suit that fitted his lean body like a hand-made glove, to the gleaming black hand-stitched shoes and the monogrammed leather briefcase he was carrying told her that.

But he was talking again as he helped her forward. Looking down at her with that warm, admiring look in his eyes that made her forget everything except the quickening of her pulse, the heady airiness in her head.

‘So,’ he was saying, and his Italian accent was doing wonderful things to her, as well as the effect his warm, admiring eyes was having on her, ‘am I to call you only bella signorina? Though if I do,’ he murmured, his lashes sweeping over his eyes as his gaze dipped to meet hers, ‘it would be nothing but the truth. Bellissima signorina...’

She took a breath. The air seemed to have too much oxygen in it suddenly. ‘It’s Eloise,’ she said. ‘Eloise Dean.’

He smiled again, warm and intimate, and she felt breathless.

‘Come,’ he said again, and there was that low husk in his voice again, ‘lean on me, Signorina Eloise Dean. I’ll take care of you.’

She gazed up at him. He seemed very tall, she realised. And absolutely devastating...

Her breath caught, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide as she just stared up at him, drinking him in. The sculpted mouth quirked again. Long lashes swept down over deep dark eyes.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll take care of you...’

* * *

And Vito Viscari had done just that ever since. It had only been much later that Eloise had learnt that Vito hadn’t been travelling to Paris at all. He’d been heading for Brussels. He’d swapped his destination to Paris for one reason and one reason only, he’d openly admitted to her, with a caressing, bone-melting smile. To woo her. And win her.

And he had succeeded. Succeeded quite effortlessly.

She hadn’t put up even a token reluctance at being wooed and won by Vito Viscari. In fact, Eloise thought with rueful admission, she had participated in the process with every sign that being whisked away to Paris and romanced in the most romantic city in the world by the most gorgeous, devastating man she had ever met was in the nature of a dream come true!

And it still felt that way all these weeks later. Weeks that had passed in a complete haze, her feet hardly touching the ground, as Vito had whisked her across Europe from one luxurious hotel to another—each and every one a Viscari Hotel, one of the world’s great hotel chains, owned by his family.

He had told her he was making an inspection of all his European hotels, of which it seemed there were a great many, situated in Europe’s most beautiful, vibrant and historic cities from Lisbon to St Petersburg. And as Eloise had travelled with him, cocooned in a haze of romantic bliss, all thoughts of returning to the UK to start work again had begun to fade. How could she think of giving up Vito? Being with him was as intoxicating as champagne.

Yes, but even champagne runs out in the end—and in the end we always wake from our dreams...

That was what she had to make herself remember.

Now, as she stood beside him in this glittering environment of luxury hotels and high society, she could hear that voice inside her head. For, however intoxicatingly romantic it had been to waft across Europe in Vito’s arms, feeling herself headily on the brink of something she had never before felt for a man, there were still questions she could not blind herself to.

Can I trust my own feelings? How real are they? And what does he feel for me?

Oh, he desired her—there was no doubt about that, no doubt at all! But was that all he felt? Certainly now, as he glanced down at her, she saw the warm glint in his eyes and knew that desire was real, burningly real—in her, as well as in him. Desire such as she’d never felt before for a man.

‘Eloise?’

Vito’s voice, his soft, oh-so-sexy Italian accent that always made her breath catch, set aside her thoughts.

‘They’re serving supper—let’s go through.’

Together they walked into the adjoining salon, where a lavish buffet supper had been laid out. A woman glided up to Vito—a few years older than Eloise, more Vito’s age, immaculately gowned in a clinging designer number in blonde satin that matched the pale blonde of her hair. It was their hostess, holding this evening party at the Viscari Nice to which, of course, Vito had been invited.

It had not taken Eloise long to realise that Vito moved in high society circles—not just in Rome, but in all the sophisticated, cosmopolitan places where rich people gathered. His looks, his wealth, his background all made him a favourite—as did his bachelor status. That last, she was only too aware, drew women to him like moths to a flame. Including, so it seemed, their hostess tonight.

‘Vito—cherie! How lovely that you’re here for my little party! I must drag you away some time to talk over old times together!’

The woman’s wide smile passed from Vito to flicker over Eloise. The pale blue eyes glittered with a hint of frost.

‘So, you are our gorgeous Vito’s latest, are you? How he loves beautiful blondes!’

She gave a tinkling laugh, and glided off.

Vito looked down at Eloise, a rueful expression in his eyes. ‘Mi dispiace,’ he said. ‘Stephanie was quite some time ago—long gone, I promise you!’

Eloise smiled forgivingly. It didn’t bother her, and nor did any of the attention that other women lavished on Vito. Oh, he was charming and polite to all of them, but Eloise knew that the sensual glint of desire in his eyes was for her and her alone.

But will it last? Being the woman in Vito’s life?

An invisible tremor went through her. One day would she be the next Stephanie? The next beautiful blonde ex?

Or was something else growing between them? Something that would mean much more to both of them? Could there be?

Again, the questions hovered in her mind. Seeking answers that it was too soon for her to give. Reminding her of the need for caution where her heart was concerned.

Hadn’t her mother fallen head over heels in love, committed herself in marriage on a whirlwind of romance, only to find out too late how deeply incompatible she and her husband were on matters that were of profound importance to them both? A discovery that had torn them apart and lost their daughter her father.

I mustn’t make the same mistake. It would be so easy to tell myself I’m in love with Vito! Especially when I’m living this kind of dream existence...one gorgeous hotel after another!

But his European tour would be completed soon, for it was all part of Vito making his mark in his new role as head of Viscari Hotels. It was a role he’d been jettisoned into at the young age of only thirty-one, after the unexpected death of his father.

‘I’ve had to step into large shoes,’ he’d told Eloise, his face shadowed. ‘I’m the only Viscari left—the only one to carry on the legacy. It all rests on me now. I can’t let my father down.’

Had there been a tension in his voice that was more than grief for his lost father? But all he had gone on to say was how Viscari Hotels had been founded by his great-grandfather, the redoubtable Ettore Viscari, at the end of the nineteenth century, during the heyday of luxury hotels. He had then passed it on to his son, and thence to his two grandsons—Vito’s father, Enrico, and Vito’s childless uncle Guido.

It had been Guido who’d overseen a major expansion of the chain across the globe, as more and more international locations had become fashionable destinations for the rich clientele the hotels catered to.

Now, as the fourth generation of the Viscari family, it was clear to Eloise, that Vito was pressingly conscious of the legacy he had been left to run, and of the demands it made on him—including much of his social life, as it was this evening and all the evenings since she’d been with him.

‘All this socialising with people who are or who will be guests at the hotels is unavoidable,’ he said now. ‘But, however wearing it gets, I can never let it show.’ The shadows had left Vito’s face. ‘Your being with me makes it so much less onerous!’

It lifted her heart to hear him say such things, and she felt a familiar little thrill go through her—a thrill that was accentuated when, as he helped her to a plate of delicious food, she saw a telltale glint in Vito’s dark, lustrous eyes.

Soon—oh, very soon—he would murmur his farewells to their hostess for the evening, take his leave of the other guests smoothly, courteously, and then whisk Eloise away to his suite to have her entirely to himself! To indulge in a night of exquisite, sensual bliss...

A tremor of anticipation went through her. Making love with Vito was like nothing she had ever known! His skilled, sensitive touch could bring her to an ecstasy that left her breathless, took her soaring into a stratosphere she had never known existed—and that seemed to sweep away all her questions and wariness about her headlong romance with him.

As she lay in his arms later, her heart beating like a wild bird, she felt emotion pour through her. Felt full of longing...

Oh, Vito—be the one for me! Be the one man for me!

It was so easy—so dangerously easy—to believe that he was that one man she could love.

But dare I believe it? Dare I?

She could not answer—only knew in those moments that above all else she longed to dare. Longed to believe he was the man for her. Longed to let herself love him.

CHAPTER TWO

VITO EASED THE throttle and settled down into a cruising speed along the autostrada. They’d just passed the Franco-Italian border at Mentone and were heading to his next stop, the Viscari San Remo, along the Riviera dei Fiori.

It had been a crowded morning, meeting with his managers at the Monte Carlo Viscari, outlining his strategy, addressing their specific issues, taking in their input and feedback. That had been followed by a working lunch, and only now, in mid-afternoon, were they travelling on. Heading back into Italy.

He was filled with mixed emotions. It was good to be back in his homeland after weeks out of the country, that was for certain, and yet he was all too aware that his extensive European tour—necessary though it had been—had been something he’d welcomed for quite different reasons than simply to make his mark as the new head of the company with his management teams.

It had got him out of Rome. Given him a lengthy break away from the city and the complications that it contained. Complications he could well do without.

Automatically, his mouth tightened. Those complications still awaited him, and in a couple of days they would be in the forefront of his life again. Somehow he would have to deal with them.

But not yet.

Deliberately, he shook them from his thoughts. No need to spoil these last few carefree days—not when he had Eloise at his side.

Eloise! He turned to glance at her, and as his eyes lit briefly on her beautiful profile he felt his spirits lighten. How totally and absolutely glad he was to have followed through on that first overpowering instinct that had speared him as he’d raised her to her feet from the concourse at Heathrow airport.

Of course it had been her glowing blonde beauty that had first captivated him—how could he possibly have resisted such a gift! He’d always had a passion for blondes, ever since he’d been a teenager, first discovering the enticements of the opposite sex, and as he’d looked down at the gorgeous, long-legged, golden-haired beauty who’d been gazing up at him with celestial blue eyes out of a face that was as gorgeous as the rest of her, he’d been instantly smitten.

The immediate desire he’d felt for her then had been richly fulfilled in Paris, and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to continue his European tour with her at his side. With every new destination he’d reaffirmed how right he’d been. For it was clear to him that it was not merely Eloise’s stunning looks that were so captivating. Unlike so many of his previous inamoratas—the elegant Stephanie in Nice, for example—Eloise was possessed of a sweetness of nature he had not encountered before. She was never capricious, never demanding, never out of temper. Her sunny mood seemed constant, and she was always willing and complaisant, easy-going and smiling, happy to do whatever he wanted to do.

He had never known another woman like her.

His eyes went back to the road ahead. There was a slight question in his expression now. In a couple of days they’d be in Rome.

Will we still be together?

Or would it be time to end their affair? In his many previous love affairs it had always been he who’d moved on, bidding his lover a graceful farewell before waiting for the next beautiful blonde to cross his path and catch his interest. He’d enjoyed every affair, had been faithful and attentive during the course of each one, but when he’d ended them he’d had no regrets about knowing it had run its course.

A frown shadowed his eyes. Would it always be like that? One easy affair after another? Until—

Until what? What is it that I want?

It wasn’t a question he’d ever posed to himself so insistently. Yet he knew the answer to it all the same. Maybe he’d always known it.

I want to find a woman I can love as deeply as my father loved my mother!

That, he knew, was what had always been his goal. But was it attainable?

Maybe that’s why I play the field—because I don’t want to be disappointed in love. I fear the impossibility of making a marriage that was as happy as my parents’ marriage.

A shaft of sadness went through him. Yes, his parents had been supremely happy together, and he, their only child, had had the benefit of it—had been adored by both of them. Now there was a rueful expression in his eyes. Maybe even a little spoilt.

But Vito knew that knowing he was the apple of his parents’ eyes had also made him supremely conscious of his sense of responsibility towards them—to be worthy of their devoted love for him. That shaft of sadness came again...and something more. Since his father’s untimely death life had not been easy—not for his stricken mother. Her widowing had been cruel indeed, and Vito knew that the haunted look of grief in her eyes would never leave her.

But maybe when I marry—give her a grandchild? Then she might be happy again!

Who would be his bride, though? Again, his eyes flickered to Eloise, his expression questioning.

What is she to me—and what do I want her to be? Could she truly be the woman who will come to mean everything to me?

He did not know and could not tell. Not yet. Not until they reached Rome and there was an end to this constant travelling. For now, he would just continue to enjoy their time together.

‘Did you know,’ he said smiling, ‘that San Remo is renowned for its flower market? And that every year the city sends its finest blooms to Vienna, to adorn the annual New Year’s Day concert?’

‘How lovely!’ Eloise’s smile was as warm as ever. ‘I’ve always adored watching that concert on TV. All those Strauss waltzes! And I’ll never forget the night we spent in Vienna!’ Her smile widened. ‘Tell me more about San Remo,’ she invited.

With her cerulean blue eyes fixed smilingly upon him, Vito was only too happy to oblige.

* * *

Their stay in San Remo was fleeting, and soon they were driving on towards Genoa, before turning south towards Portofino, and then the pretty villages of the Cinque Terre and the Tuscan coastline. Rome was only a day away now.

As they neared the city Eloise could feel her mood changing. These last few days with Vito it seemed her ardency in his passionate embrace had been even more intense than ever. She had clung to him as if she would never let him go.

But I don’t want to let him go! I don’t want this to end. I want to stay with him.

That was the emotion that was distilling within her as every passing kilometre brought them nearer to Rome. And when they finally entered the city, as she watched Vito tangling with its infamous traffic with long familiarity, she could feel that emotion intensifying.

Will he take me to his apartment? she wondered, as they drove into the Centro Storico, where all Rome’s most famous landmarks and sights were.

But she realised they were pulling up outside the Viscari Roma—the original Viscari Hotel. Vito was telling her about its history, and she could hear the pride in his voice as he did so—could see how eagerly he was greeted as they made their way towards an elevator that whisked them up to what had originally been the attics, now redesigned as a penthouse suite.

Eloise let Vito lead her out on to a little roof terrace, gazing out at the city beyond.

‘Roma!’ He sighed, sliding an arm around her waist and pointing out the famous landmarks that could be glimpsed, and the outline of the fabled seven hills—they looked low, to Eloise’s eyes, but she marked them fondly all the same, for they were dear to Vito.

And he is dear to me.

The thought was clear in her head, catching at her consciousness. Making her lean into him even more, wrap her arm around his strong, lean waist. He turned to her, gazing down at her, and in his dark, long-lashed eyes Eloise saw desire, felt her own body respond as his mouth swooped to graze her tender lips, parting to his.

It did not take them long to make their way indoors again and take full advantage of the privacy and luxury of the penthouse’s master bedroom.

‘Welcome to Rome, my sweetest Eloise,’ was Vito’s soft murmur as he swept her away.

And all thoughts as to why Vito had brought her to yet another hotel instead of his own apartment, even though he was in his home city, fled from her utterly in the heady passion of his lovemaking.

* * *

Vito frowned, setting down the phone abruptly and swinging restlessly and with displeasure in the leather chair at his desk in his office. Accidenti, this was not what he wanted! Yet his mother had been adamant.

‘You absolutely have to be there tonight,’ she’d said, her tones strained.

But attending the function as his mother was insisting was the last thing he wanted to do—let alone on his first evening back in Rome after so long an absence. What he wanted to do—the way he wanted to spend the evening—was quite different!

To show Eloise Rome by night...

His expression softened. Eloise! Just thinking about her cheered his mood—a mood that had been tightening all day as he’d caught up on corporate affairs here at his head office. He’d wanted the evening off, to spend with Eloise, but now he’d be on show as the head of the Viscari family, no longer only the heir apparent while his uncle and father ran the business between them. Now everything rested only on him—the whole future of Viscari Hotels.

A bleak, painful look showed in Vito’s eyes. He leant back in his chair. His father’s chair. Four generations had preceded him. And they had created and held on to the legacy that now rested upon his shoulders and his alone.

Except... His eyes darkened now. That legacy was not his alone...

Vito’s hands gripped the arms of his chair. What had possessed his uncle Guido to leave his half of the Viscari shares not to his nephew—as had been the long-held understanding in the family, given Guido’s lack of children of his own—but to his widow? That disastrous decision had, Vito knew, contributed to his father’s heart condition, hastening his premature end fifteen months ago, when he’d been frustrated in his attempts to buy back Guido’s shares from his widow Marlene.

Vito knew his parents had always considered her a social-climbing interloper into the Viscari family, hungry for power and influence. And that was why, Vito surmised, Marlene was adamantly refusing to sell her inherited shares, despite the handsome premium offered to her.

His eyes hardened to pinpoints. It was the same reason that lay behind Marlene’s most persistent and ludicrous fixation.

When she had married Guido, ten years ago, she had arrived from England with her teenage daughter Carla in tow, and ever since Guido’s death one obsession had dominated her. One way for her to cement her position in the Viscari family permanently.

Dream on, thought Vito, his mouth thinning. Marlene could have all the dreams she liked, but she would never achieve her ambition—her ludicrous, fantasy-driven ambition.

Vito was adamant. She was never, however much she wanted it, going to get him to marry her daughter.

* * *

As Vito walked into their suite at the Viscari Roma Eloise’s eyes lit up. She got off the sofa and hurried to him to kiss him.

‘Miss me?’ asked Vito, smiling, throwing himself down on the sofa, loosening his tie and slipping open his top button with relief.

Dio, it was good to see Eloise again, even after the space of only a few hours, and he felt his spirits lift, shifting the pressure that had settled over him after his mother’s phone call.

‘Beer?’ Eloise asked, crossing to the built-in bar.

‘Definitely,’ Vito said gratefully. ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked appreciatively, taking a first cold, reviving mouthful.

‘Fetch your own beer!’ She laughed, nestling into him as he lifted his free arm to draw her against him more closely.

He laughed in return, a carefree sound, stretching out his long legs in front of him. At his side Eloise relaxed into him and his arm around her tightened. The soft expression in her beautiful blue eyes was a balm to his troubled thoughts of the evening’s ordeal ahead and what lay beyond.

I have to settle the business of Guido’s shareholding. I have to get Marlene to agree to a price and get those shares into my ownership.

Into his head came an image, a memory that haunted him—would always haunt him. A voice imploring him, pleading with him. ‘Pay whatever it costs you!’

Emotion clutched at him like a knife thrust into his side. His eyes shadowed painfully.

He took another mouthful of beer, wanting a distraction from his anguished memories.

‘Is everything all right?’

Eloise’s soft voice had a note of concern in it, and she was gazing at him questioningly.

I wish I could take her with me tonight!

The function was to be at Guido’s opulent villa, to mark the presentation of some of the Viscari artworks to a gallery—an occasion that, as Vito knew only too well, would see Marlene queening it over his mother with relish. His mother would be seething silently, and would make waspish comments about her despised sister-in-law.

Having Eloise at his side would make it more endurable. Vito’s eyes glinted sharply. And it would also make it obvious to Marlene that there was no chance he would have the slightest romantic interest in her daughter!

Oh, he and Carla got on well enough—despite the friction between their mothers—and she was highly attractive in her own dramatically brunette way, but she had her own romances and his taste was for blondes. Beautiful, long-legged blondes, with golden hair and blue, blue eyes.

His gaze washed over Eloise’s face now. He felt a strange emotion go through him. One he had never felt before and could give no name to. For a moment he wished he had not brought her here to the Viscari Roma, but taken her straight to his own apartment. But would that have been wise? Would it have given her a message he was not yet sure about?

Or am I sure—but not yet admitting it?

That was what caused him to hesitate. And there was another reason, too, for not having taken Eloise directly to his own apartment. His mother would leap to conclusions—conclusions he was not yet ready to draw.

We need time, Eloise and I—time to discover what we truly mean to each other.

Besides, tonight’s function would be riven with tensions, and the last thing he wanted was to expose Eloise to the discord twisting through the Viscari family over the matter of Guido’s shareholding.

Let me get Guido’s shares back first, and then I can focus properly on Eloise—find out what I feel for her and she feels for me.

So for now he only made a rasping noise in his throat as he answered her question. ‘There’s a family function I’ve got to go to tonight that I can’t get out of,’ he said. ‘It’s a total pain, but there it is. I’d far rather spend the evening with you. I’d planned on showing off Rome to you.’ He made himself smile. ‘Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps...’ He gave a sigh. ‘Well, it will have to wait till tomorrow night, that’s all.’

He swallowed down the rest of his beer and set the empty glass down on the coffee table, absently patting her hand before disengaging himself from her and getting to his feet.

‘OK, I’m recharged now. Time to shower and get into the old tuxedo.’

He rubbed his jaw absently. He’d need to shave too. He glanced at the slim gold watch around his wrist as he lowered his hand. Hmm...maybe there was just time for something more enjoyable than a shower and a shave right now...

He held down a hand to Eloise, who was looking up at him, a slightly blank expression on her face. It dawned on him that this was the first time since he’d swept her off to Paris that they wouldn’t spend the evening together. His blood quickened. Well, all the more reason for making the most of this brief time before he had to tear himself away and go and do his familial duty—try yet again to sort out the problem of his uncle’s shares. But he didn’t want to think of that—not right now. Not when he had this precious time with Eloise.

She took his hand and he drew her up to him, using his other hand to spear into the lush tresses of her unbound hair, cradle the nape of her neck and draw her sweet, honeyed lips to his...

She responded immediately, the way she always did when he kissed her. He felt the fire glow within him...within her. He murmured to her in a low, throaty voice as he let her mouth go, only to guide her towards the bedroom...the waiting bed. Desire kindled, quickened...consumed him.

Eloise! The woman he wanted...

It was the last conscious thought he possessed for quite some time thereafter...

CHAPTER THREE

‘WELL, I THINK that all went off exceedingly well!’ Marlene Viscari’s voice was rich with satisfaction as she bestowed a gracious smile upon Vito and his mother, who was standing beside him as she had been all evening, with a fixed expression on her face.

His mother was not the only one with a fixed expression. Carla Charteris, Marlene’s daughter, was wearing one too. Vito hadn’t seen her for some time, and the last he’d heard of her was that she was in the throes of a torrid romance with Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna, no less. Presumably, he thought, Carla was as eager to get back to him as he was eager to get back to Eloise.

Marlene was speaking again, graciously inviting him and his mother to stay for coffee now that their guests had departed.

‘We have so much to discuss,’ she said. ‘Now that you are back from your little jaunt, Vito!’

Her attempt at lightness and her referring to his essential business tour as a ‘jaunt’ grated on him—just as everything about her did.

But a moment later his every brain cell went on high alert.

Marlene sailed on. ‘And we really do need to settle all this business about the allocation of the shares, do we not?’

Vito tensed, his eyes like gimlets. What was Marlene up to? He’d been keeping checks on any movement in the markets, listening to the rumour mills around the hotel industry in case Marlene was making any moves to dispose of her shareholding in any way other than by selling to him, but there’d been no sign of any suspicious activity at all.

Not even from Nic Falcone, who had made no secret of being more than keen to take any bites going from Viscari Hotels to feed his ambitious plans for his own start-up hotel chain. Vito had been keeping very close tabs on that particular rival!

But surely even Marlene wouldn’t be so disloyal to the family she’d married into as to contemplate such a betrayal of her late husband’s trust? Nevertheless, he could not afford to ignore her blatant hint just now.

He turned back to his mother. ‘Mamma—I’ll see you to your car, then stay for coffee with Marlene.’

He exchanged significant eye contact with her and she nodded, casting a sharp look at her sister-in-law, who had a look about her of a cat about to engage with a bowl of cream.

Her expression had changed when he returned to the salon. Marlene was sitting down, Carla standing behind her, and the fixed look on her face was stonier now, so much so that he wondered at it. Was something wrong with Carla?

But it was her mother he must attend to right now. He would hear her out. Too much depended on her. The whole future of Viscari Hotels—the legacy he was dedicated to protecting—rested on his shoulders. Even though the legacy was now fatefully split between himself and Marlene Viscari—who was entirely free to dispose of it however she wanted.

Unless he could find a way to stop her. And he had to—somehow he had to!

Into Vito’s head sprang the vision he hated to allow in—the vision that sent anguish spearing through him like the point of a blade. His father, stricken after his heart attack, lying in a hospital bed in the last few minutes of his life, his hand clutching at Vito while Vito’s mother collapsed, sobbing, at his side.

‘You’ve got to get those shares back—Vito, you must...you must! Whatever it takes—whatever it takes get them back! Pay whatever price she demands. Whatever it costs you! Promise me—promise me!’

And he had promised. What else could he have done with his dying father begging him so? Binding him with an unbreakable obligation.

Unbreakable.

The word sounded in his head now as he heard Marlene out. She was taking her time in getting to the point, asking him about his tour as they drank their coffee, but eventually she set down her cup and glanced briefly at her stony-faced daughter—who had left her coffee untouched, Vito noticed.

‘And now,’ began Marlene, setting her gaze upon Vito, ‘we must look to the future, must we not? The matter of Guido’s shares—’

At last! thought Vito impatiently.

A benign smile was settling across Marlene’s well-preserved features...a smile that did not reach her eyes. And at her next words he froze.

‘My poor Guido entrusted his shares to me, and of course I must honour that trust. Which is why...’ her unsmiling eyes held Vito’s blandly ‘...I can think of no better way to resolve the issue than by a means long dear to my heart.’

She paused, and in that pause Vito felt his brain turn to ice.

‘What could be better than uniting the two shareholdings by uniting...’ she beamed, glancing from Vito to her daughter and back ‘...the two halves of our family? You two young people together!’

Disbelief paralysed Vito. What kind of farce was Marlene trying to play out? Urgently he threw a look at Carla, waiting for her to express the same rejection and revulsion that he was feeling. But, like a shockwave going through him, he registered that there was no such reaction from her. Instead she was turning a steely, unblinking gaze on him.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that’s an excellent idea.’

He stared, hearing the words fall from her tightly pressed lips.

Oh, hell! thought Vito.

* * *

Eloise tossed restlessly in bed. How long could that family function of Vito’s go on? It was way past midnight already. She’d spent a forlorn evening. Calling Room Service for a dinner she had only picked at, staring unseeingly at an English-language TV channel. Missing Vito. Feeling left behind.

Finally she had resorted to bed—but the huge king-sized mattress seemed empty without Vito’s lean, muscled form.

She tried to think positively. Maybe Vito was spending some time with his mother—after all, he hadn’t seen her for weeks now, while he’d been inspecting his hotels. It was natural for her to want to spend a little time with her son.

A thought struck her. Maybe Vito’s telling her about me!

But what would there be to tell? That elegant Frenchwoman in Nice—one of his exes as he’d admitted—had acidly called her Vito’s latest beautiful blonde.

Implying I’m just one in a long line... None of them meaning anything special to him.

But was she something special to Vito? And did she want to be?

I want to find out! I want time with him, a proper relationship with him. I want to find out what he means to me and me to him!

Living in Rome, being settled here, would surely show her that? She could get a daytime job as a nanny—maybe to an ex-pat family—while Vito took up the reins of running his family hotel business. She would learn Italian cooking—how to make fresh pasta, even!

She felt her imagination take over, seeing herself cooking dinner for Vito, being part of his everyday life. Eagerness leapt within her. Bringing with it a realisation of just how attractive to her that image was—and why.

It must mean he’s important to me—far more than just a passing romance! Mustn’t it?

She tossed and turned, knowing for certain only that she wanted Vito back with her tonight. That she missed his company.

She must have fallen asleep eventually, for the next thing she knew she was awake.

‘Vito...?’ she said, her voice warm with drowsy pleasure.

He was standing by the window of the bedroom, silhouetted against the pale curtains. He didn’t move for a moment, but went on looking down at her.

A thread of uneasy disquiet went through her. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

Vito felt her anxious gaze on him. Savage emotion seared through him. No, everything was not all right! It was the damnable, impossible opposite of all right!

His fists clenched in his pockets. In his head he heard Carla say, yet again, those fateful words.

‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’

Fury and disbelief had exploded within him. ‘You can’t possibly mean that!’

Carla hadn’t answered, had only tightened her mouth, while Marlene, with a little light laugh, had got to her feet.

‘My dear Vito,’ she’d said, relinquishing her daughter’s hand, which had promptly closed like a vice over the back of the chair instead, ‘you must know how much I would love to welcome you as my son-in-law! It is my long-held dream!’

The triumphant expression in her eyes had made Vito’s fury sharpen.

She’d scarcely left the room before he’d rounded on his step-cousin.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Carla?’ He hadn’t minced his words. ‘You’ve always stone-walled your mother in her insane obsession about us marrying—just as I have! And as for Guido’s shares... I’ve told you that I’m more than willing to pay a generous price for them—’

Carla’s voice had cut in tautly. ‘Well, the price is marriage to me, Vito.’

He’d shot right back at her, his voice icy. ‘Carla, I will not engage in your mother’s demeaning and quite frankly distasteful fantasy about the two of us marrying.’

Two spots of colour had flared in his step-cousin’s cheeks. ‘So you think it demeaning and distasteful to marry me?’

There had been an edge in her voice that had made Vito pause.

‘That isn’t what I said,’ he’d retorted.

He’d taken a breath—a heavy one—staring hard at her, his eyes narrowing.

‘Carla, what’s going on here? The last I heard you were running around with Cesare di Mondave—the two of you were all over each other!’

His eyes had rested on his step-cousin, taken in the sudden paling of her face, the flash of burning emotion in her violet eyes.

Slowly, words had fallen from him as realisation had dawned. ‘So that’s it—he’s finished with you, hasn’t he?’

The two spots of colour in her cheeks had flared again. ‘You are not the only one, Vito, who considers it “demeaning and distasteful” to marry me,’ she said tightly.

Immediately his expression had changed. ‘Oh, Carla, I’m sorry.’ His voice had been sympathetic—genuinely so. ‘Sorry because...well, to speak frankly, it was always going to end that way. The Conte di Mantegna can trace his bloodline back to the ancient Romans! He’s going to marry a woman who can do the same! He might have affairs beforehand, but he’ll never marry a woman who—’

Carla’s voice had sliced across his. ‘A woman, Vito, who is about to announce her engagement to another man!’

There had been viciousness in her tone—clear and knifing.

‘And marrying me is the only way you’re going to get those shares back!’

She’d stormed off, leaving him to feel the pitiless jaws of Marlene’s steel trap biting around his guts. Jaws he still felt now as he stood looking down at Eloise.

Eloise! She could blot out for him the trap that had been sprung.

He lowered himself down upon the bed, sweeping her up into his arms. Her soft, slender body was like swansdown in his embrace, her hair like silk, her skin as soft as velvet. He crushed her to him and she murmured to him. Words that were like balm to his stormy soul.

This was where he wanted to be! Here, with Eloise.

He hugged her again, and as he did so he could feel her breasts peaking against the fine lawn of his dress shirt, feel their crests grazing him...arousing him. His mouth nuzzled into the silken hair, seeking the satin skin beneath, and he glided his lips over her throat, her jaw, soon reaching their goal—the soft, parting lips that sought him, too, clinging to him.

He heard her give the soft little moan that he knew so well was a presage of her growing response to him. He gloried in it...revelled in it. He deepened the kiss, his hands going to his shirt buttons to free him from all this unnecessary clothing. Free him from the jaws of the trap that had been sprung on him. Free him to find what he sought most.

Eloise in his arms and he in hers, her body welcoming his, her mouth clinging to his, her breasts swelling against him, her thighs parting for him, taking him into her, taking him to the only place he wanted to be—the place only she could take him.

The rest of the world melted away like honey on a heated spoon—melted and flowed and became only and entirely what he was feeling now, what he was doing now. Because there was nothing else. Nothing else mattered and nothing else existed—only this, only now...

Only Eloise.

And when the fire had consumed him, consumed them both, and after a long, long burning died away, leaving only the warm, sweet glow that was their tangled limbs, their clinging bodies, only then did the words form in his head.

I’m not losing this!

* * *

‘Is everything all right?’

Eloise’s voice was rich with concern. She’d asked Vito that question last night but he hadn’t answered, only swept her away to the sensual paradise he always took her to, blotting everything out except the bliss of his possession. Blotting out the unease and disquiet that had nipped at her when he’d come into their bedroom, gazing almost sightlessly down at her with his tense stance, his closed face...shutting her out.

That same unease came again now, as they breakfasted out on the roof terrace of their suite. There was an air of abstraction about Vito, despite his sunny airy smiles and words.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Vito assured her, making his tone as convincing as he could. He would not trouble Eloise with his troubles.

But even as his gaze lingered on her another woman intruded into his vision. Carla, lashing out in the pain of rejection by her lover, who had spurned her in order to marry a woman from his own aristocratic background, driven to make that outrageous ultimatum to save her own stricken pride.

It was the only way to get Guido’s shares back.

Frustration seethed in him—and more than frustration. Grief—tearing, abject grief.

Again he recalled his last memory of his father—begging him with his dying breath to get back the shares that would safeguard Viscari Hotels, protect the legacy that was Vito’s duty to pass on to his own son, to the next generation.

And the memory of his own grief-stricken voice, making that promise to his father—the last words his father would hear him say before sinking into unconsciousness and death...

How can I betray that promise? Betray what he begged me to do in the last moments of his life?

Emotion knifed him like a blade in his heart. How could he betray his father? Break the promise he’d made that nightmare day?

‘Vito?’

Eloise’s voice invaded his consciousness, made him refocus on her. He put a smile on his face, though it was an effort. But for Eloise he would make that effort.

I don’t want her affected by any of this—it’s too grim, too damn awful!

No, he wanted her protected—insulated. Until he was free of this hideous nightmare closing in on him.

When it’s all over—when I’ve got those shares back—then...

Then he would be free to do what he wanted—focus on Eloise, on discovering just what she meant to him.

Discovering whether she’s the one woman for me.

But there was no chance of that yet—not until he’d found a way to smash his way out of the trap that Marlene had sprung on him to fulfil his deathbed promise to his dying father.

‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to hide the effort it cost him, ‘I’m planning my work day already. Speaking of which—I really have to make a move and head to the office.’

He smiled at Eloise apologetically, scrunching up his napkin and getting to his feet, downing his coffee as he did so. Leaving her was the last thing he wanted to do. But he had to get to his desk. Find a way—somehow!—to extricate himself from Marlene’s trap.

As she watched him leave Eloise’s eyes were troubled.

Is he finishing with me? Is that why he’s being like this? Evasive?

The questions were in her head before she could stop them. Bringing with them a painful clench of her stomach. A painful self-knowledge. A painful truth.

I don’t want my time with Vito to end.

* * *

Vito sat at his desk—the desk his father had once sat behind. The pressure in his head tightened. He heard Carla’s shrill, vicious voice—‘Marrying me is the only way you’ll get those shares back!’

Forcibly, he fought down his anger. Maybe in the morning light his step-cousin would realise how impossible—how insane—her demand was. Maybe Cesare di Mondave would rush back to her and ask her to marry him.

The brief flare of hope died instantly. He didn’t know Cesare well, but he knew enough of him to be sure that il Conte would have some aristocratic female lined up somewhere in the background as his eventual bride-to-be, once he’d done playing the field with sultry, voluptuous types like Carla Charteris.

A pang of sympathy for her shot through him, despite the ugliness of the scene last night. If Carla really had fallen hard for Cesare di Mondave, however unwise that had been, he could only pity her. Losing someone you’d fallen in love with would hurt badly...

Not that he’d ever been in love himself.

Without conscious thought, he found Eloise’s beautiful image in his head. Eloise, who had literally fallen at his feet and whom he had lifted up into his arms—his life. Emotion surged within him. Whatever it was he felt about Eloise, one thing he knew with absolute, total certainty. He did not want to part with her—not yet! No way was his romance with her played out.

But until he had sorted out the unholy mess of Guido’s shares he was not free to think of Eloise. He felt his teeth grinding. Here he was, one day back in Rome, and Marlene thought she could corral him with her ludicrously offensive scheming. His expression sharpened. She had made no such move while he’d been making his tour of the European hotels.

So why don’t I just take off again? If I’m not in Rome, she and Carla will be stymied.

So where to go? Somewhere far away... The Caribbean would be ideal! The latest addition to the Viscari Hotels portfolio was taking shape on the exclusive island of Ste Cecile—he could combine a site visit with whisking Eloise away from this impossible situation here in Rome!

Mood lifting, Vito reached for the phone, wanting to tell her immediately. It rang as he touched it and he snatched it up impatiently, eager to get rid of whoever was phoning him.

It was his director of finance.

‘What is it?’ he asked, trying to hide his impatience.

‘I’ve just had a phone call,’ came the reply, and Vito could immediately hear the note of clear alarm in his voice. ‘A financial journalist I know—asking for a comment on a rumour that’s just hitting the wires that Falcone is in discussion with Guido’s widow about her shareholding. What do you want me to say?’

Vito froze. The new hotel in the Caribbean, and his trip there with Eloise, went totally out of the window.

Fifteen minutes later, his face stark with anger, he was confronting his step-cousin in her apartment in the Centro Storico.

‘Carla, you can’t go on with this! It’s madness and you know it!’

Marlene was obviously flirting with Falcone to hasten her nephew’s consent to marry her daughter. Surely to God Carla could see how insane the idea was? They’d always got on well enough, and he’d kept an eye out for her when she’d arrived in Rome as an awkward teenager while she found her feet socially. And she was not responsible, after all, for her mother’s unpopular marriage to his uncle.

‘You haven’t the slightest interest in marrying me!’ he bit out.

‘Actually,’ she snapped back, her stony gaze flashing into bitter animation, ‘I do! I want everyone to see me marry Vito Viscari!’

‘What you want,’ Vito ground out, ‘is for Cesare to see you marry me—that’s all!’

‘Yes! And then he can go to hell—for ever!’ There was all the venom and all the fury of a woman scorned in her voice.

‘And after the wedding?’ Vito came back with angry sarcasm, determined to make her see reason. ‘When Cesare realises what he’s lost—then what? You’re stuck married to me!’

But her eyes only glittered manically. ‘I shall throw parties! Huge parties! And everyone will see how totally, blissfully happy I am!’

He gave a heavy, defeated sigh. For ‘everyone’ read ‘Cesare’ again.

He played his last card. Looked her straight in the eye. Expression totally serious. Spelled it out to her.

‘Carla, it’s impossible for me to marry you. I’m...involved with someone else—someone I met in England.’

There—he had said it. Stated it openly.

The words hung in his head, portentous. But all he got from his step-cousin was a harsh, derisive laugh.

‘What? Another of your endless parade of blondes?’ she countered. ‘Don’t trot that line out, Vito! I know you! Women come and go in your life like butterflies—they never mean anything to you!’ Her expression altered suddenly, twisting with pain. ‘Just as I never meant anything to Cesare—’

She broke off abruptly, her expression venomous again, but this time with a haunted, manic look in her eyes.

‘So—like I said—if you don’t want my mother to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone you’ll announce our engagement! Right away, Vito, right away!’

Her voice was rising, and he could hear the note of hysteria plain in it. If he went on any more she’d just threw a full-blown fit of hysterics.

For one long, angrily fulminating moment he went on glaring at her, her words knifing in his head. Then, without another word, he strode from her flat, fury burning in him.

His own words echoed in his head—I’m involved with someone else...

Eloise! Her beautiful, trusting face lifted to his.

I can’t do this to her.

Resolution speared in him. Whatever it took, there had to be a way—there had to be—of stalling Marlene, of extricating himself from her daughter’s desperate, drowning clutch that was trying to drag him down with her.

As he climbed into his waiting car his mobile rang and he glanced at it angrily. It was his mother, and he knew he had to answer it—knew, too, that he could not let her know what Marlene was doing now, touting Guido’s shares to his rival to force his hand.

But at his mother’s first panicked words, Vito knew it was too late for prevarication.

‘Vito! That woman has just phoned me! She’s threatened to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone if you don’t announce your engagement to Carla—so you’ve got to! You’ve just got to!’

‘Mamma,’ he said in a hollow voice, ‘you cannot mean that...’

There was a stifled cry down the line. ‘Vito, you made a vow to your father! He begged you with his dying breath! Don’t betray him, Vito—don’t betray your own father. You promised to get Guido’s shares back, and you can’t break that promise—you can’t!’

He swallowed. ‘Mamma, I cannot do what Marlene demands—’

‘You must! Vito, you must!’ There was desperation in her voice.

He closed his eyes. He could hear how distraught she was. He had to calm her down somehow, anyhow. ‘Mamma—listen. Listen. I will put out an announcement. OK?’

It wasn’t OK—it was total opposite of OK—but it would buy him something that, right now, was the most vital thing for him to get. Time—time to control this runaway situation. It would give him time to manoeuvre, to come up with a way out of this, time to think!

He heard the rush of emotion and relief in his mother’s voice. ‘Oh, thank goodness! I knew you would never, never break your promise to your father, my darling son!’

Automatically, his mind racing, Vito went into soothing mode, seeking to calm her—get her off the line so he could focus on how to neutralise Marlene, think through the implications of what he’d just agreed to.

It’s an announcement, that’s all—it’s not a wedding! That’s all Carla really wants—to shove her engagement to me into Cesare’s aristocratic face in order to save her own face. And I can go along with that—just for now. Until I can find a way to calm her down, get her onside so that the two of us can persuade Marlene to sell Guido’s shares directly to me without this farce of me marrying her daughter!

He sat back, his expression steeled. He was playing for time, that was all. He was staying Marlene’s hand, placating Carla, calming his distraught mother—finding a way out, a solution. A means to keep his promise to his dying father.

He headed back to his office. His first priority—after authorising that damn announcement—was to scotch those rumours about Falcone getting hold of any of the Viscari shares. He’d need to speak to his direct reports and his board members, to industry analysts, financial journalists... His mind raced down the list.

And, above all, he had to speak to Eloise.

You can’t announce your engagement to Carla and not explain the situation to Eloise!

He swore again. The need to get back to his office, do what had to be done there, was overwhelming. Rapidly, his mind raced. He could make the calls from his hotel suite, then talk to Eloise. Explain—

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

Another curse of burning frustration dropped from his lips.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER FOUR

ELOISE’S EXPRESSION OF delighted surprise at his arrival at their suite in mid-afternoon was a balm to Vito. As he caught her hands, lowering his mouth to her uplifted lips, he felt his spirits lift—as they always did when he saw her.

‘This is wonderful!’ she was exclaiming, her voice warm. ‘I didn’t expect you till this evening. I was about to go down to the pool. I’ve been out exploring this morning—I found the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain!’

Vito smiled, basking in the expression in her face, the open glow in her cerulean eyes. Oh, she might have to stay discreetly out of sight in Amalfi, but only for as short a time as he could manage.

I’ll explain what I’ve got to do, and why, and she will understand. I know she will!

He could trust her—he knew he could. Trust her to understand just what he was up against. He’d wanted to insulate her from all this mess around Guido’s shares, but now that he had no choice but to involve her he knew he could rely on her sympathy, her cooperation. On her patience in waiting for him finally to be free to focus only on her.

He drew back, making some comment about her morning’s expedition, then shrugged his jacket from him, loosening his tie and turning up his cuffs. Keeping his voice as deliberately casual as he could, he said, ‘I’ve got some phone calls to make, but while I do throw a few things together.’ He smiled, his gaze caressing. ‘We’re going to spend the weekend in Amalfi!’

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