‘All it would take is one little kiss.’

Miranda coughed out a laugh, but even to her ears it sounded unconvincing. ‘Like that’s ever going to happen.’

He was suddenly close. Way too close. His broad fingertip was suddenly on the underside of her chin without her knowing how it had got there. All she registered was the warm, branding feeling of it resting there, holding her captive along with the mesmerising force of his bottomless dark gaze.

‘Is that a dare, Sleeping Beauty?’ he said in a silky tone.

Miranda felt his words slither down her spine like an unfurling satin ribbon running away from its spool. Her knees threatened to give way. Her belly quivered with a host of needs she couldn’t even name. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his coal-black gaze. It was drawing her in like a magnet did a tiny iron filing.

But finally a vestige of pride came to her rescue.

Miranda dipped out from under his fingertip and rubbed at her chin as she sent him a warning glare. ‘Don’t play games with me, Leandro.’

The Ravensdale Scandals

Scandal is this family’s middle name!

With notoriously famous parents, the Ravensdale children grew up in the limelight. But nothing could have prepared them for this latest scandal … the revelation of a Ravensdale love-child!

London’s most eligible siblings find themselves in the eye of their own paparazzi storm. They’re determined to fight back—they just never factored in falling in love too …!

Find out what happens in Julius Ravensdale’s story

Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive December 2015

Miranda Ravensdale’s story

Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress January 2016

And watch for Jake and Katherine’s Ravensdale Scandals … coming soon!

Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An avid romance reader, MELANIE MILBURNE loves writing the books that gave her so much joy as she was busy getting married to her own hero and raising a family. Now a USA TODAY bestselling author, she has won several awards—including The Australian Readers’ Association most popular category/ series romance in 2008 and the prestigious Romance Writers of Australia R*BY award in 2011.

She loves to hear from readers!

MelanieMilburne.com.au Facebook.com/Melanie.Milburne Twitter @MelanieMilburn1

To Holly Marks.

Thank you for being such a wonderful fan.

Your lovely comments on Facebook have lifted me so many times.

This one is for you with much love and appreciation.

xxxx

Contents

Cover

Introduction

The Ravensdale Scandals

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

MIRANDA WOULDN’T HAVE seen him if she hadn’t been hiding from the paparazzi. Not that a fake potted plant was a great hiding place or anything, she thought. She peeped through the branches of the ornamental ficus to see Leandro Allegretti crossing the busy street outside the coffee shop she was sheltering in. He didn’t seem aware of the fact it was spitting with rain or that the intersection was clotted with traffic and bustling with pedestrians. It was as if a transparent cube was around him. He was impervious to the chatter and clatter outside.

She would have recognised him anywhere. He had a regal, untouchable air about him that made him stand out in a crowd. Even the way he was dressed set him apart—not that there weren’t other suited men in the crowd, but the way he wore the sharply tailored charcoal-grey suit teamed with a snowy white shirt and a black-and-silver striped tie somehow made him look different. More civilised. More dignified.

Or maybe it was because of his signature frown.

Had she ever seen him without that frown? Miranda wondered. Her older twin brothers, Julius and Jake, had been boarding school buddies with Leandro. He had spent occasional weekends or school holidays and even university breaks at the Ravensdale family home, Ravensdene, in Buckinghamshire. Being a decade younger, she’d spent most of her childhood being a little intimidated by Leandro’s taciturn presence. He was the epitome of the strong, silent type—a man of few words and even fewer facial expressions. She couldn’t read his expression at the best of times. It was hard to tell if he was frowning in disapproval or simply in deep concentration.

He came into the coffee shop and Miranda watched as every female head turned his way. His French-Italian heritage had served him well in the looks department. Imposingly tall with jet-black hair, olive skin and brown eyes three or four shades darker than hers.

But if Leandro was aware of his impact on the female gaze he gave no sign of it. It was one of the things she secretly most liked about him. He didn’t trade on his appearance. He seemed largely unaware of how knee-wobblingly gorgeous he looked. It was as if it was irrelevant to him. Unlike her brother Jake, who knew he was considered arm candy and exploited it for all he could.

Leandro stood at the counter and ordered a long black coffee to take away from the young, blushing attendant, and then politely stood back to wait for it, taking out his phone to check his messages or emails.

Miranda covertly studied his tall, athletic figure with its strongly corded muscles honed from long hours of endurance exercise. The broad shoulders, the strong back, the lean hips, taut buttocks and the long legs. She had seen him many a time down at Ravensdene, a solitary figure running across the fields of the estate in all sorts of weather, or swimming endless laps of the pool in summer.

Leandro took to exercise with an intense, single-minded concentration that made her wonder if he was doing it for the health benefits or for some other reason known only to himself. But, whatever reason it was that motivated him, it clearly worked to his benefit. He had the sort of body to stop female hearts. She couldn’t stop looking at him, drinking in the male perfection of his frame, her mind traitorously wondering how delicious he would look in a tangle of sheets after marathon sex. Did he have a current lover? Miranda hadn’t heard much about his love life lately, but she’d heard his father had died a couple of months ago. She assumed he’d been keeping a low profile since.

* * *

The young attendant handed Leandro his coffee and as he turned to leave his eyes met Miranda’s through the craggy branches of the pot plant. She saw the flash of recognition go through his gaze but he didn’t smile in welcome. His lips didn’t even twitch upwards. But then, she couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile. Or, at least, not at her. The closest he came to it was a sort of twist of his lips that could easily be mistaken for cynicism rather than amusement.

‘Miranda?’ he said.

She lifted her hand in a little fingertip wave, trying not to draw too much attention to herself in case anyone lurking nearby with a smart phone recognised her. ‘Hi.’

He came over to her table screened behind the pot plant. She had to crane her neck to meet his frowning gaze. She always felt like a pixie standing in front of a giant when she was around him. He was an inch shorter than her six-foot-four brothers but for some reason he’d always seemed taller.

‘Are the press still hassling you?’ he asked, still frowning.

Of course, Leandro had heard about her father’s scandal, Miranda thought. It was the topic on everyone’s lips. It was splashed over every newsfeed or online blog. Could it get any more embarrassing? Was there anyone in London—the entire world—who didn’t know her father had sired a love child twenty-three years ago? As London theatre royalty, her parents were known for drawing attention to themselves. But this scandal of her father’s was the biggest and most mortifying so far. Miranda’s mother, Elisabetta Albertini, had cancelled her season on Broadway and was threatening divorce. Her father, Richard Ravensdale, was trying to get his love child into the bosom of the family but so far with zero success. Apparently Katherine Winwood had failed to be charmed by her long-lost biological father and was doing everything she could to avoid him and her half-siblings.

Which was fine by Miranda. Just fine, especially since Kat was so beautiful that everyone was calling Miranda ‘the ugly sister’. Argh!

‘Just a little,’ Miranda said with a pained smile. ‘But enough about all that. I’m so sorry about your father. I didn’t know about him passing otherwise I would’ve come to the funeral.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But it was a private affair.’

‘So, how are things with you?’ she said. ‘I heard you did some work for Julius in Argentina. Great news about his engagement, isn’t it? I met his fiancée, Holly, last night. She’s lovely.’ Miranda always found it difficult to make conversation with Leandro. He wasn’t the small talk type. When she was around him she had a tendency to babble or ramble to fill any silence with the first thing that came into her head. She knew it made her seem a little vacuous, but he was so tight-lipped, what else was she to do? She felt like a tennis-ball machine loping balls at him but without him returning any.

Fortunately this time he did.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Great news.’

‘It was a big surprise, wasn’t it?’ Miranda said. ‘I didn’t even know he was dating anyone. I can’t believe my big brother is getting married. Seriously, Julius is such a dark horse, he’s practically invisible. But Holly is absolutely perfect for him. I’m so happy for them. Jasmine Connolly is going to design the wedding dress. We’re both going to be bridesmaids, as Holly doesn’t have any sisters or close friends. I don’t know why she doesn’t have loads of friends because she’s such a sweetheart. Jaz thinks so too. You remember Jaz, don’t you? The gardener’s daughter who grew up with me at Ravensdene? We went to school together. She’s got her own bridal shop now and—’

‘Can I ask a favour?’

Miranda blinked. A favour? What sort of favour? What was he going to say? Shut up? Stop gabbling like a fool? Stop blushing like a gauche twelve-year-old schoolgirl? ‘Sure.’

His deep brown gaze was centred on hers, his dark brows still knitted together. ‘Will you do a job for me?’

Her heart gave a funny little skip. ‘Wh-what sort of job?’ Stuttering was another thing she did when she was around him. What was it about this man that turned her into a gibbering idiot? It was ridiculous. She had known him all her life. He was like a brother to her...well, sort of. Leandro had always been on the fringe of her consciousness as the Ideal Man. Not that she ever allowed herself to indulge in such thoughts. Not fully. But they were there, like uninvited guests at a cocktail party, every now and again moving forward to sneak a canapé or a drink before melting back against the back wall of her mind.

‘My father left me his art collection in his will,’ Leandro said. ‘I need someone to catalogue it before I can sell it; plus there are a couple of paintings that might need restoring. I’ll pay you, of course.’

Miranda found it odd he hadn’t told anyone his father had died until after the funeral was over. She wondered why he hadn’t told her brothers, particularly Julius, who was the more serious and steady twin. Julius would have supported Leandro, gone to the funeral with him and stood by him if he’d needed back up.

She pictured Leandro standing alone at that funeral. Why had he gone solo? Funerals were horrible enough. The final goodbye was always horrifically painful but to face it alone would be unimaginable. Even if he hadn’t been close to his father there would still be grief for what he had missed out on, not to mention the heart-wrenching realisation it was now too late to fix it.

When her childhood sweetheart Mark Redbank had died of leukaemia, her family and his had surrounded her. Supported her. Comforted her. Even Leandro had turned up at the funeral—she remembered seeing his tall, silent dark-haired figure at the back of the church. It had touched her that he’d made the time when he’d hardly known Mark. He had only met him a handful of times.

Miranda had heard via her brothers that Leandro had a complicated back story. They hadn’t told her much, only that his parents had divorced when he was eight years old and his mother had taken him to England, where he’d been promptly put into boarding school with Miranda’s twin brothers after his mother had remarried and begun a new family. He had been a studious child, excelling both academically and on the sporting field. He had taken that hard work ethic into his career as a forensic accountant. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Did your mother go to the funeral?’ Miranda asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t spoken since the divorce.’

Miranda wondered if his father’s funeral would have brought back painful memories of his estranged relationship with him. No son wanted to be rejected by his father. But apparently Vittorio Allegretti hadn’t wanted custody after the divorce. He had handed over Leandro as a small boy and only saw him on the rare occasion he’d been in London on business. She had heard via her brothers that eventually Leandro had stopped meeting his father because Vittorio had a tendency to drink to the point of abusing others and/or passing out. There had even been one occasion where the police had had to be called due to a bar-room scuffle Leandro’s father had started. It didn’t surprise her Leandro had kept his distance. With his quiet and reserved nature he wasn’t the sort of man to draw unnecessary attention to himself.

But there was so much more she didn’t know about him. She knew he was a forensic accountant—a brilliant one. He had his own consultancy in London and travelled all over the globe uncovering major fraud in the corporate and private sectors. He often worked with Jake with his business analysis company and he had recently helped Julius in exposing Holly’s ghastly stepfather’s underworld drug and money-laundering operations.

Leandro Allegretti was the go-to man for uncovering secrets and yet Miranda had always sensed he had one or two of his own.

‘So this job...’ she began. ‘Where’s the collection?’

‘In Nice,’ he said. ‘My father ran an art and antiques business in the French Riviera. This is his private collection. He sold off everything else when he was first diagnosed with terminal cancer.’

‘And you want to...to get rid of it?’ Miranda asked, frowning at the thought of him selling everything of his father’s. In spite of their tricky relationship, didn’t he want a memento? ‘All of it?’

The line of his mouth was flat. Hardened. Whitened. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have to pack up the villa and sell that too.’

‘Why not use someone locally?’ Miranda knew she was well regarded in her job as an art restorer even though she was at the early stages of her career. But she wouldn’t be able to do much on site. Art restoration was more science now than art. Sophisticated techniques using x-rays, infrared technology and Raman spectroscopy meant most restoration work was done in the protective environment of an established gallery. Leandro could afford the best in the world. Why ask her?

‘I thought you might like a chance to escape the hoo-hah here,’ Leandro said. ‘Can you take a couple of weeks’ leave from the gallery?’

Miranda had already been thinking about getting out of London for some breathing space. It had been hell on wheels with her father’s dirty linen being flapped in her face. She couldn’t go anywhere without being assailed by press. Everyone wanted to know what she thought of her father’s scandal. Had she met her half-sister? Was she planning to? Were her parents divorcing for the second time? It was relentless. Along with the press attention, she had also been subjected to her mother’s bitter tirades about her father, and her father’s insistence she make contact with her half-sister and play happy families.

Like that was going to happen.

This would be a perfect opportunity to escape. Besides, October on the Côte d’Azur would be preferable to the capricious weather London was currently dishing up. ‘How soon do you want me?’ she said, blushing when she realised her unintentional double entendre. ‘I mean, I can probably get away from work by the end of next week. Is that okay?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I don’t collect the keys to the villa until then anyway. I’ll book your flight and email you the details. Do you have a preference for a hotel?’

‘Where will you be staying?’

‘At my father’s villa.’

Miranda thought about the expense of staying at a hotel, not that Leandro couldn’t afford it. He would put her in five-star accommodation if she asked for it. But staying in a hotel put her at risk of being found by the press. If she stayed with Leandro at his father’s villa she could work on the collection without that looming threat.

Besides, it would be an opportunity to see a little of the man behind the perpetual frown.

‘Is there room for me at your father’s place?’

Leandro’s frown deepened until two vertical lines formed between his bottomless brown eyes. ‘You don’t want to stay in a hotel?’

Miranda snagged her lip with her teeth, warm colour crawling further over her cheeks until her whole face felt on fire. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude if you’ve got someone else staying...’

Who was his someone else?

Who was his latest lover? She knew he had them from time to time. She had seen pictures of him at charity events. She had even met one or two over the years when he had brought a partner to one of the legendary parties her parents had put on at Ravensdene for New Year’s Eve. Tall, impossibly beautiful, elegant, eloquent types who didn’t blush and stumble over their words and make silly fools of themselves. He wasn’t as out there as her playboy brother Jake. Leandro was more like Julius in that he liked to keep his private life out of the public domain.

‘I haven’t got anyone staying,’ he said.

He hadn’t got anyone staying? Or he hadn’t got anyone?

And why was she even thinking about his love life? It wasn’t as if she was interested in him. She was interested in no one. Not since Mark had died. She ignored attractive men. She quickly brushed off any men who flirted with her or tried to charm her. Not that Leandro was super-charming or anything. He was polite but distant. Aloof. And as for flirting...well, if he could learn to smile now and again it might help.

Miranda wasn’t sure why she was pushing so hard for an invitation. Maybe it was because she had never spent any time with him without other people around. Maybe it was because he had recently lost his father and she wanted to know why he hadn’t told anyone before the funeral. Maybe it was because she wanted to see where he had spent the first eight years of his life before he had moved to England. What had he been like as a child? Had he been playful and fun-loving, like most kids, or had he been as serious and inexpressive as he was now? ‘So would it be okay to stay with you?’ she said. ‘I won’t get in your way.’

He looked at her in that frowning manner he had. Deep thought or disapproval? She could never quite tell. ‘There isn’t a housekeeper there.’

‘I can cook,’ she said. ‘And I can help you tidy things up before you sell the place. It’ll be fun.’

A small silence ticked past.

Miranda got the feeling he was mulling it over. Weighing it up in his mind. Doing a risk assessment.

He finally drew in a breath and then slowly released it. ‘Fine. I’ll email you those flights.’

She rose from the table and began to shrug on her coat, tugging her hair free from the collar. ‘Do you mind if I walk out with you? There was a pap crew tailing me earlier. I ducked in here to escape them. It’d be nice to get back to work without being jostled.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’m heading that way anyway.’

* * *

Leandro walked beside Miranda on the way back to the gallery. He was always struck by how tiny she was. Built like a ballerina with fine limbs and an elfin face, with big tawny-brown eyes and auburn hair, yet her skin was without a single freckle—it was as white and pure as Devon cream. She had an ethereal beauty about her. She reminded him of a fairy-tale character—an innocent waif lost in the middle of a crazy out-of-control world.

Seeing her hiding in that café had tripped a switch inside his head. It was like he’d had a brain snap. He hadn’t thought it through but it seemed...right somehow. She needed a bolthole and he needed someone to help him sort out the mess his father had left behind. Maybe it would’ve been better to commission someone local. Maybe he could have sold the lot without proper valuation. Hell, he didn’t really know why he had asked her, except he knew she was having a tough time of it with her father’s love-child scandal still doing the rounds.

That and the fact he couldn’t bear the thought of being in that villa on his own with only the ghosts of the past to haunt him. He hadn’t been back since the day he’d left when he was eight years old.

It wasn’t like him to act so impulsively but seeing Miranda hiding behind that pot plant had made him realise how stressed she was about her father’s latest peccadillo. He had heard from her brothers the press had camped outside her flat for the last month. She hadn’t been able to take a step without a camera or a microphone being shoved in her face. Being the daughter of famous celebrities came with a heavy price tag. Or, at least, it did for her.

Leandro had always felt a little sorry for Miranda. She was constantly compared to her flamboyant and glamorous mother and found lacking. Now she was being compared to her half-sister. Kat Winwood was stunning. No two ways about that. Kat was the billboard-beautiful type. Kat would stop traffic. Air traffic. Miranda’s beauty was quiet, the sort of beauty that grew on you. And she was shy in an endearingly old-fashioned way. He didn’t know too many women who blushed as easily as her. She never flirted. And she never dated. Not since she had lost her first and only boyfriend to leukaemia when she was sixteen. Leandro couldn’t help admiring her loyalty, even if he privately thought she was throwing her life away.

But who was he to judge?

He hadn’t got any plans for happy-ever-after either.

Miranda was the best person to advise him on his father’s collection. Of course she was. She was reliable and sensible. She was competent and efficient and she had an excellent eye. She had helped her brother Julius buy some great pieces at various auctions. She could spot a fraud at twenty paces. It would only take a week or two to sort out the collection and he would be doing her a favour in the process.

But there was one thing she didn’t know about him.

He hadn’t even told Julius or Jake about Rosie.

It was why he had gone to his father’s funeral alone. Going back to Nice had been like ripping open a wound.

There’d been numerous times when he could have mentioned it. He could have told his two closest friends the tragic secret he carried like a shackle around his heart. But instead he had let everyone think he was an only child. Every time he thought of his baby sister his chest would seize. The thought of her little chubby face with its dimpled, sunny smile would bring his guilt crashing down on him like a guillotine.

For all these years he had said nothing. To anyone. He had left that part of his life—his former life, his childhood—back in France. His life was divided into two sections: France and England. Before and After. Sometimes that ‘before’ life felt like a bad dream—a horrible, blood-chilling nightmare. But then he would wake up and realise with a sickening twist of his gut that it was true. Inescapably, heartbreakingly true. It didn’t matter where he lived. How far he travelled. How hard he worked to block the memories. The guilt came with him. It sat on his shoulder during the day. It poked him awake at night. It drove vicious needles through his skull until he was blind with pain.

Speaking about his family was torture for him. Pure, unadulterated torture. He hated even thinking about it. He didn’t have a family.

His family had been blown apart twenty-seven years ago and he had been the one to do it.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU’RE GOING TO FRANCE?’ Jasmine Connelly said, eyes wide with sparkling intrigue. ‘With Leandro Allegretti?’

Miranda had dropped into Jasmine’s bridal boutique in Mayfair for a quick catch-up before she flew out the following day. Jaz was sewing Swarovski crystals onto a gorgeous wedding dress, the sort of dress for every girl who dreamed of being a princess. Miranda had pictured a dress just like it back in the day when her life had been going according to plan. Now every time she saw a wedding dress she felt sad.

‘Not going with him as such,’ she said, absently fingering the fabric of the wedding gown on the mannequin. ‘I’m meeting him over there to help him sort out his father’s art collection.’

‘When do you go?’

‘Tomorrow... For a couple of weeks.’

‘Should be interesting,’ Jaz said with a smile in her voice.

Miranda looked at her with a frown. ‘Why do you say that?’

Jaz gave her a worldly look. ‘Come, now. Don’t you ever notice the way he looks at you?’

Miranda felt something unhitch in her chest. ‘He never looks at me. He barely even says a word to me. This is the first time we’ve exchanged more than a couple of sentences.’

‘Clues, my dear Watson,’ Jaz said with a cheeky smile. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one’s watching. I reckon if it weren’t for his relationship with your family he would act on it. You’d better pack some decent underwear just in case he changes his mind.’

Miranda pointedly ignored her friend’s teasing comment as she trailed her hand through the voluminous veil hanging beside the dress. ‘Do you know much about his private life?’

Jaz stopped sewing to look at her with twinkling grey-blue eyes. ‘So you are interested. Yay! I thought the day would never come.’

Miranda frowned. ‘I know what you’re thinking but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not the least bit interested in him or anyone. I just wondered if he had a current girlfriend, that’s all.’

‘Not that I’ve heard of, but you know how close he keeps his cards,’ Jaz said. ‘He could have a string of women on the go. He is, after all, one of Jake’s mates.’

Every time Jaz said Jake’s name her mouth got a snarly, contemptuous look. The enmity between them was ongoing. It had started when Jaz was sixteen at one of Miranda’s parents’ legendary New Year’s Eve parties. Jaz refused to be drawn on what had actually happened in Jake’s bedroom that night. Jake too kept tight-lipped. But it was common knowledge he despised Jaz and made every effort to avoid her if he could.

Miranda glanced at the glittering diamond on her friend’s ring finger. It was Jaz’s third engagement and, while Miranda didn’t exactly dislike Jaz’s latest fiancé, Myles, she didn’t think he was ‘The One’ for her. Not that she could ever say that to Jaz. Jaz didn’t take too kindly to being told what she didn’t want to hear. Miranda had had the same misgivings over Fiancés One and Two. She just had to hope and trust her headstrong and stubborn friend would realise how she was short-changing herself before the wedding actually took place.

Jaz stood back and cast a critical eye over her handiwork. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Miranda said with a sigh.

‘Yeah, well, I’m going cross-eyed with all these crystals,’ Jaz said. ‘I’ve got to get it done so I can start on Holly’s. She’s awfully nice, isn’t she?’

‘Gorgeous,’ Miranda said. ‘It’s amazing, seeing Julius so happy. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure he was ever going to fall in love. They’re total opposites and yet they’re so perfect for each other.’

Jaz looked at her with her head on one side, that teasing glint back in her gaze. ‘Is that a note of wistfulness I can hear?’

Miranda rearranged her features. ‘I’d better get going.’ She grabbed her tote bag, slung it over her shoulder and leaned in to kiss Jaz on the cheek. ‘See you when I get back.’

* * *

When Miranda landed in Nice she saw Leandro waiting for her in the terminal. He was dressed more casually this time but if anything it made him look even more heart-stoppingly attractive. The dark blue denim jeans clung to his leanly muscled legs. The rolled back sleeves of his light blue shirt highlighted his deep tan and emphasised the masculinity of the dark hair liberally sprinkled over his strong forearms. He was cleanly shaven but she could see where he had nicked himself on the left side of his jaw. For some reason, it humanised him. He was always so well put together, so in control. Was being back in his childhood home unsettling for him? Upsetting? What emotions were going on behind the dark screen of his eyes?

As he caught her eye a flutter of awareness rippled deep and low in her belly. Would he kiss her in greeting? She couldn’t remember him ever touching her. Not even by accident. Even when he’d walked her back to the gallery last week he had kept his distance. There had been no shoulder brushing. Not that she even reached his shoulders. She was five-foot-five to his six-foot-three.

Miranda smiled shyly as he came towards her. ‘Hi.’

‘Hello.’ Was it her imagination or was his voice deeper and huskier than normal? The sound of it moved over her skin as if he had reached out and stroked her. But he kept a polite distance, although she couldn’t help noticing his gaze slipped to her mouth for the briefest moment. ‘How was your flight?’ he said.

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘But you didn’t have to put me in first class. I was happy to fly coach.’

He took her carry-on bag from her, somehow without touching her fingers as he did so. ‘I didn’t want anyone bothering you,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing worse than being a captive audience to someone’s life story.’

Miranda gave a light laugh. ‘True.’

She followed him out to the car park where he opened the door of the hire car for her. She couldn’t fault his manners, but then, he had always been a gentleman. She had never known him to be anything but polite and considerate. She wondered if this was difficult for him, coming back to France to his early childhood home. What memories did it stir for him? Did it make him wish he had been closer to his father? Did it stir up regrets that now it was too late?

She glanced at him as they left the car park and joined the traffic on the Promenade des Anglais that followed the brilliant blue of the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. He was frowning as usual; even his hands on the steering wheel were clenched. She could see the tanned flesh straining over his knuckles. The line of his jaw was grim. Everything about him was tense, wound up like a spring. It looked like he was in physical pain.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

He looked at her briefly, moving his lips in a grimace-like smile that didn’t reveal his teeth. ‘I’m fine.’

Miranda didn’t buy it for a second. ‘Have you got one of your headaches?’ She had seen him once at Ravensdene when he had come down with a migraine. He was always so strong and fit that to see him rendered helpless with such pain and sickness had been an awful shock. The doctor had had to be called to give him a strong painkiller injection. Jake had driven him back to London the next day, as he had still been too ill to drive himself.

‘Just a tension headache,’ he said. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘When did you arrive?’

‘Yesterday,’ he said. ‘I had a job to finish in Stockholm.’

‘I expect it must be difficult coming back,’ Miranda said, still watching him. ‘Emotional for you, I mean. Did you ever come back after your parents divorced?’

‘No.’

She frowned. ‘Not even to visit your father?’

His hands tightened another notch on the steering wheel. ‘We didn’t have that sort of relationship.’

Miranda wondered how his father could have been so cold and distant. How could a man turn his back on his son—his only child—just because his marriage had broken up? Surely the bond of parenthood was much stronger than that? Her parents had gone through a bitter divorce before she’d been born and, while they hadn’t been around much due to their theatre commitments, as far as she could tell Julius and Jake had never doubted they were loved.

‘Your father doesn’t sound like a very nice person,’ she said. ‘Was he always a drinker? I’m sorry. Maybe you don’t want to talk about it. It’s just, Julius told me you didn’t like it when your father came to London to see you. He said your dad embarrassed you by getting horribly drunk.’

Leandro’s gaze was focussed on the clogging traffic ahead but she could see the way his jaw was locked down, as if tightened by a clamp. ‘He didn’t always drink that heavily.’

‘What made him start? The divorce?’

He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘It certainly didn’t help.’

Miranda wondered about the dynamics of his parents’ relationship and how each of them had handled the breakdown of their marriage. Some men found the loss of a relationship far more devastating than others. Some sank into depression, others quickly re-partnered to avoid being alone. The news was regularly full of horrid stories of men getting back at their ex-wives after a broken relationship—cruel and vindictive attempts to get revenge, sometimes involving the children, with tragic results. ‘Did he ever remarry?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Did he have other partners?’

‘Occasionally, but not for long,’ Leandro said. ‘He was difficult to live with. There were few women who would put up with him.’

‘So it was his fault your mother left him?’ Miranda asked. ‘Because he was so difficult to live with?’

He didn’t answer for so long she thought he hadn’t heard her over the noise of the traffic outside. ‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘That was my fault.’

Miranda looked at him in shock. ‘You? Why would you think that? That’s ridiculous. You were only eight years old. Why on earth would you blame yourself?’

He gave her an unreadable glance before he took a left turn. ‘My father’s place is a few blocks up here. Have you ever been to Nice before?’

‘A couple of years ago—but don’t try and change the subject,’ she said. ‘Why do you blame yourself for your parents’ divorce?’

‘Don’t all kids blame themselves?’

Miranda thought about it for a moment. Her mother had said a number of times how having twins had put pressure on her relationship with her father. But then, Elisabetta wasn’t a naturally maternal type. She was happiest when the attention was on her, not on her children. Miranda had felt that keenly as she’d been growing up. All of her friends—apart from Jaz—were envious of her having a glamorous showbiz mother. And Elisabetta could act like a wonderful mother when it suited her.

It was the times when she didn’t that hurt Miranda the most.

But why did Leandro think he was responsible for his parents’ break-up? Had they told him that? Had they made him feel guilty? What sort of parents had they been to do something so reprehensible? How could they make a young child feel responsible for the breakdown of a marriage? That was the adults’ responsibility, not a child’s, and certainly not a young child’s.

But she didn’t pursue the conversation for at that point Leandro pulled into the driveway of a rundown-looking villa in the Belle Epoqué style. At first she thought he must have made a mistake, pulled into the wrong driveway or something. The place was like something out of a gothic noir film. The outside of the three-storey-high building was charcoal-grey with the stain of years of carbon monoxide pollution. The windows with the ragged curtains drawn were like closed eyes.

The villa was like a faded Hollywood star. Miranda could see the golden era of glamour in its lead-roofed cupolas on the corners and the ornamental ironwork and flamboyance of the stucco decorations that resembled a wedding cake.

But it had been sadly neglected. She knew many of the grand villas of the Belle Époque era along the Promenade des Anglais had not survived urban redevelopment. But the extravagance of the period was still apparent in this old beauty.

It made Miranda’s blood tick in her veins. What a gorgeous old place for Leandro to inherit. It was a piece of history. A relic from an enchanted time when the aristocracy had flaunted their wealth by hiring architects to design opulent villas with every imaginable embellishment: faux stonework, figureheads, frescos, friezes, decorative ironwork, ornamental stucco work, cupolas, painted effects, garlands and grotesques. The aristocracy had indulged their taste for the exotic, with Italian and Classic influences as well as Gothic, Eastern and Moorish.

And he was packing it up and selling it?

Miranda looked up at him as he opened her car door for her. ‘Leandro, it’s amazing! What a glorious building. It’s like a time capsule from the Art Nouveau period. This was your childhood home? Really?’

He clearly didn’t share her excitement for the building. His expression had that closed-off look about it, as shuttered as the windows of the villa they were about to enter. ‘It’s very run-down,’ he said.

‘Yes, but it can be brought back to life.’ Miranda beamed at him, clasping her hands in excitement. ‘I’m so glad you asked me to come. I can’t wait to see what’s inside.’

He stepped forward to unlock the door with the set of keys he was holding in his hand. ‘Dust and cobwebs mostly.’

Miranda’s gaze went to his tanned hand, that funny fluttery feeling passing over the floor of her belly as she watched the way his long, strong fingers turned the key in the lock. Who was the last woman he’d touched with those arrantly masculine but beautiful hands? Were his hands smooth or rough or something deliciously in between? She couldn’t stop herself from imagining those strong, capable hands exploring female flesh. Caressing a breast. Gliding down a smooth thigh. Touching the silken skin between her legs.

Her legs?

Miranda jerked back from her wayward thoughts as if a hand had grabbed and pulled on the back of her clothing. What was she doing thinking of him that way? She didn’t think of any man that way.

That way was over for her.

It had died with Mark. She owed it to his memory, to all he had meant to her and she to him.

Miranda could not allow herself to think of moving on with her life. Of having a life. A normal life. Her dreams of normal were gone.

Dead and buried.

Leandro glanced at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

Miranda felt her face flame. Why did she always act like a flustered schoolgirl when she was around him? She was an adult, for God’s sake. She had to act mature and sensible. Cool and in charge of her emotions and her traitorous needs. She could do that. Of course she could. ‘Erm...nothing.’

His frown created a deep crevasse between his brows. ‘Would you rather go to a hotel? There’s one a couple of blocks down. I could—’

‘No, of course not.’ She painted on a bright smile. ‘Don’t spoil it for me by insisting I stay at some plush hotel. This is right up my alley. I want to be in amongst the dust and cobwebs. Who knows what priceless treasures are hidden inside?’

Something moved at the back of his gaze, as quick as the twitch of a curtain. But then his expression went back to its default position. ‘Come this way,’ he said.

Miranda followed him into the villa, her heels echoing on the marbled floor of the grand foyer. It made her feel she was stepping into a vacuum, moving back in time. Thousands of dust motes rose in the air, the sunlight catching them where it was slanting in from the windows either side of the opulently carved and sweeping staircase.

As Leandro closed the door, the central chandelier tinkled above them as the draught of the outside air breathed against its glittering crystals.

Miranda felt a rush of goose bumps scamper over every inch of her flesh. She turned a full circle, taking in the bronze, marble and onyx statues positioned about the foyer. There were paintings on every wall, portraits and landscapes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; some looked even older. It was like stepping into a neglected museum. A thick layer of dust was over everything like a ghostly shroud.

‘Wow...’ she breathed in wonder.

Leandro merely looked bored. ‘I’ll show you to your room first. Then I’ll give you the guided tour.’

Miranda followed him upstairs, having to restrain herself from stopping in front of every painting or objet d’art on the way past. She caught tantalising glimpses of the second floor rooms through the open doors; most of the furniture was draped with dust sheets but even so she could see in times gone past the villa had been a showcase for grandeur and wealth. There were a couple of rooms with the doors closed. One she assumed was Leandro’s bedroom but she knew it wasn’t the master suite as they had passed it three doors back. Did he not want to occupy the room his father had slept in all those years?

Miranda felt another prickle of goose bumps.

Had his father perhaps died in there?

Thankfully the room Leandro had assigned her had been aired. The faded formal curtains had been pulled back and secured by the brass fittings and the window opened so fresh air could circulate. The breeze was playing with the gossamer-sheer fabric of the curtain in little billowy puffs and sighs.

‘I hope the bed’s comfortable,’ Leandro said as he placed her bag on a velvet-topped chest at the foot of the bed. ‘The linen is fresh. I bought some new stuff when I got here yesterday.’

Miranda glanced at him. ‘Did your father die at home?’

His brows came together. ‘Why do you ask?’

She gave a little shrug, absently rubbing her upper arms with her crossed-over hands. ‘Just wondering.’

He held her look for a beat before turning away, one of his hands scoring a pathway through the thickness of his hair. ‘He was found unconscious by a neighbour and died a few hours later in hospital.’

‘So you didn’t get to say goodbye to him?’

He made a sound of derision. ‘We said our goodbyes a long time ago.’

Miranda looked at the landscape of his face—the strong jaw, the tight mouth with its lines of tension running down each side and the shadowed eyes. ‘What happened between the two of you?’ she said.

His eyes moved away from hers. ‘I’ll leave you to unpack. The bathroom is through there. I’ll be downstairs in the study.’

‘Leandro?’

He stopped at the door and she heard him release a ‘what now?’ breath before he turned to look at her with dark eyes that flashed with unmistakable irritation. ‘You’re not here to give me grief counselling, okay?’

Miranda opened her eyes a little wider at his acerbic tone. She had never seen him even mildly angry before. He was always so emotionless, so neutral and blank...apart from that frown, of course. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

He scrubbed his hand over his face as he let out another whoosh of air. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a weighted tone. ‘That was uncalled for.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I realise this is a difficult time for you.’

His mouth twisted but it was nowhere near a smile, not even a quarter of one. ‘Let me know if you need anything. I’m not used to catering for guests. I might’ve overlooked something.’

‘Don’t you have visitors come and stay with you at your place in London?’ Miranda said.

His eyes were as unfathomable as ever as they held hers. ‘Women, you mean?’

Miranda felt another blush storm into her cheeks. Why on earth was she was discussing his sex life with him? It was crossing a boundary she had never crossed before. She’d thought about him with other women. Many times. How could she not? She’d seen the way other women looked at him. The way their eyes flared in interest. The way they licked their lips and fluttered their eyelashes, or moved or preened their bodies so he would take notice. She had been witnessing his effect on women for as long as she could remember. He wasn’t just eye candy. He was an eye banquet. He was intelligent, sophisticated, cultured and wealthy to boot. Alpha, but without the arrogance. He was everything a woman would want in a sexual partner. He was the stuff of fantasies. Hot, erotic fantasies she never allowed herself to have. What did it matter to her what he did or who he did it with?

She didn’t want to know.

Well, maybe just a little.

‘You do have them occasionally, don’t you?’ Miranda said.

One of his dark brows rose in a quizzical arc. ‘Have them?’

She held his look but it took an enormous effort. Her cheeks were on fire. Hot enough to sear a steak. He was teasing her. She could see a tiny glint in the dark chocolate of his eyes. Even one corner of his mouth had lifted a fraction. He was making her out to be a prude who couldn’t talk about sex openly. Why did everyone automatically assume because she was celibate she was uptight about all things sexual? That she was some old-world throwback who couldn’t handle modernity? ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about so stop trying to embarrass me.’

His eyes didn’t waver from hers. ‘I’m not a monk.’

Miranda couldn’t stop her mind running off with that information. Picturing him with women. Being very un-monk-like with them. Touching them, kissing them, making love to them. She imagined his body naked—the toned, tanned and taut perfection of him in the throes of animal passion.

She could feel her own body stirring in excitement, her pulse kicking up its pace, her blood pulsing with the primitive drumbeat of lust, her inner core contracting with a delicious clench of desire. She quickly moistened her lips with the point of her tongue, an electric jolt of awareness zapping her as she saw his dark-as-night gaze follow every micro-millimetre of its pathway across her mouth.

The subtle change in atmosphere made the air suddenly super-charged. She could feel the voltage crackling in the silence like a singing wire.

He was standing at least two metres away and yet she felt as if he had touched her. Her lips buzzed and fizzed. Throbbed. Ached. Would he kiss soft and slow or hard and fast? Would his stubble scrape or graze her? What would he taste of? Salty or sweet? Good quality coffee or top-shelf wine? Testosterone-rich man in his prime?

Miranda became aware of her body shifting. Stirring. Sensing. It felt like every cell was unfurling from a tightly wound ball. Her body stretched its cramped limbs like a long-confined creature. Her frozen blood thawed, warmed, heated. Sizzled.

Needs she had long ignored pulsed. Each little ripple of want in her inner core reminded her: she was a woman. He was a man. They were alone in a big, run-down old house with no one as buffer. No older brothers. No servants. No distractions.

No chaperone.

‘I hope it won’t cramp your style, having me here,’ Miranda said with what she hoped was suitably cool poise.

There was little to read on Leandro’s face except for the kindling heat in his gaze as it continued to hold hers. ‘So you wouldn’t mind if I brought someone home with me?’

Oh, dear God, would he? Would he bring someone back here? Would she have to watch some gorgeous woman drape herself all over him? Would she have to watch as they simpered up at him? Flirted and fussed over him? Would she have to go to bed knowing that, only a few thin walls and doors away, he was doing all sorts of wickedly sensual, un-monk-like things with someone else?

Miranda lifted her chin. ‘Just because I’ve sworn a vow of celibacy doesn’t mean I expect those around me to follow my example.’

He studied her for an infinitesimal moment, his eyes going back and forth between each of hers in an assessing manner that was distinctly unnerving. Why was he looking at her like that? What was he seeing? Did he sense her body’s reaction to his? She was doing her level best to conceal the effect he had on her but she knew most body language was unconscious. She had already licked her lips three times. Three times!

‘Do you think Mark would’ve sacrificed his life like you’re doing if the tables were turned?’ he said at last.

Miranda pursed her lips. At least it would stop her licking them, she thought. She knew exactly where this was going. Her brothers were always banging on about it. Jaz, too, would offer her opinion on how she was missing out on the best years of her life, yadda-yadda-yadda.

‘I’ll make a deal with you, Leandro,’ she said, eyeballing him. ‘I won’t tell you how to live your life if you don’t tell me how to live mine.’

His mouth took on a rueful slant. ‘Put those kitten claws away, cara,’ he said. ‘I don’t need any more enemies.’

He had never used a term of endearment when addressing her before. The way he said it, with that hint of an Italian accent all those years living in England hadn’t quite removed, made her spine tingle. But why was he addressing her like that other than to tease her? To mock her?

Miranda threw him a reproachful look. ‘Don’t patronise me. I’m an adult. I know my own mind.’

‘But you were just a kid back then,’ he said. ‘If he’d lived you would’ve broken up within a couple of months, if not weeks. It’s what teenagers do.’

‘That’s not true,’ Miranda said. ‘We’d been friends since we were little kids. We were in love. We were soul mates. We planned to spend the rest of our lives together.’

He shook his head at her as if she was talking utter nonsense. ‘Do you really believe that? Come on. Really?’

Miranda aligned her spine. Straightened her shoulders. Steeled her resolve to deflect any criticism of her decision to remain committed to the promises she had made to Mark. She and Mark had become close friends during early childhood when they had gone to the same small village school before she’d been sent to boarding school with Jaz. They’d officially started dating at fourteen. Her friendship with Mark had been longer than that with Jaz who had come to Ravensdene when she was eight.

Along with Mark’s steady friendship, his stable home life had been a huge draw and comfort for Miranda. His parents were so normal compared to hers. There’d been no high-flying parties with Hollywood superstars and theatre royalty coming and going all hours of the day and night. In the Redbank household there’d been no tempestuous outbursts with door-slamming and insults hurled, and no passionate making up that would only last a week or two before the cycle would begin again.

Mark’s parents, James and Susanne, were supportive and nurturing of each other and Mark and had always made Miranda feel like a part of the family. They actually took the time to listen to any problems she had. They were never too busy. They didn’t judge or dismiss her or even tell her what to do. They listened.

Leandro had no right to doubt her convictions. No right to criticise her choices. She had made up her mind and nothing he or anyone could say or do would make her veer from the course her conscience had taken. ‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘I believe it with all my heart.’

The humming silence tiptoed from each corner of the room.

Leandro kept looking at her in that measuring way. Unsettling her. Making her think of things she had no right to be thinking. Erotic things. Forbidden things. Like how his mouth would feel against hers. How his hands would feel against her flesh. How their bodies would fit together—her slight curves against his toned male hardness. How it would feel to glide her mouth along his stubbly jaw, to press her lips to his and open her mouth to the searching thrust of his tongue.

She had never had such a rush of wicked thoughts before. They were running amok, making a mockery of her convictions. Making her aware of the needs she had for so long pretended weren’t there. Needs that were moving within that dark, secret place in her body. The way he was looking at her made her ache with unspent passion. She tried to control every micro-expression on her face. Stood as still as one of his father’s cold, lifeless statues downstairs.

But, as if he had seen enough to satisfy him, he finally broke the silence. ‘I’ll be in the study downstairs. We’ll eat out once you’ve unpacked. Give me a shout once you’re done.’

Miranda blinked. Dining out? With him? In public? People would assume they were dating. What if someone took a photo and it got back to Mark’s parents? Even though they had said—along with everyone else—she should get on with her life, she knew they would find it heartbreakingly difficult to watch her do so. How could they not? Everything she did with someone else would make their loss all the more painful. Mark had been their only son. Their only child. The dreams and hopes they’d had for him had died with him. The milestones of life: dating, engagement, marriage and children would be salt ground into an open wound.

She couldn’t do it to them.

‘You don’t want me to fix something for us here?’ Miranda said.

Leandro gave a soft sound that could have been his version of a laugh. ‘You’re getting your fairy tales mixed up,’ he said. ‘You’re Sleeping Beauty, not Cinderella.’

Miranda felt a wick of anger light up inside her. What right did he have to mock her choice to remain loyal to Mark’s memory? ‘Is this why you’ve asked me here? So you can make fun of me?’

‘I’m not making fun of you.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

His gaze dipped to her mouth for a nanosecond before meshing with hers once more. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

Miranda frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

He came over to where she was standing. He stopped within a foot of her but even so she could feel the magnetic pull of his body as she lifted her gaze to his. She had never been this close to him. Not front to front. Almost toe to toe.

Her breathing halted as he placed a gentle but firm fingertip to the underside of her chin, lifting her face so her eyes had no possible way of escaping the mesmerising power of his. She could feel the slow burn of his touch, each individual whorl of his blunt fingertip like an electrode against her skin. She could smell the woodsy and citrus fragrance of his aftershave—not heady or overpowering, but subtle, with tantalising grace notes of lemon and lime.

She could see the dark pinpricks of his regrowth along his jaw, a heady reminder of the potency of his male hormones charging through his body. She could feel her own hormones doing cartwheels.

Her tongue sneaked out before she could stop it, leaving a layer of much-needed moisture over her lips. His gaze honed in on her mouth, his eyelashes at half-mast over his dark-as-pitch eyes.

Something fell off a high shelf in her stomach as his thumb brushed over her lower lip. The grazing movement of his thumb against the sensitive skin of her mouth made every nerve sit up and take notice. She could feel them twirling, pirouetting, in a frenzy of traitorous excitement.

His large, warm hand gently slid along the curve of her cheek, cupping one side of her face, some of her hair falling against the back of his hand like a silk curtain.

Had anyone ever held her like this? Tenderly cradled her face as if it were something delicate and priceless? The warmth of his palm seared her flesh, making her ache for him to cup not just her face but her breasts, to feel his firm male skin against her softer one.

‘I shouldn’t have brought you here,’ he said in a deep, gravelly tone that sent another shockwave across the base of her belly.

A hummingbird was trapped inside the cavity of Miranda’s chest, fluttering frantically inside each of the four chambers of her heart. ‘Why?’ Her voice was barely much more than a squeak.

He moved his thumb in a back-and-forth motion over her cheek, his inscrutable eyes holding her prisoner. ‘There are things you don’t know about me.’

Miranda swallowed. What didn’t she know? Did he have bodies buried in the cellar? Leather whips and chains and handcuffs? A red room? ‘Wh-what things?’

‘Not the things you’re thinking.’

‘I’m not thinking those things.’

He smiled a crooked half-smile that had mockery at its core. ‘Sweet, innocent, Miranda,’ he said. ‘The little girl in a woman’s body who refuses to grow up.’

Miranda stepped out of his hold, rubbing at her cheek in a pointed manner. ‘I thought I was here to look at your father’s art collection. I’m sorry if that seems terribly naïve of me but I’ve never had any reason not to trust you before now.’

‘You can trust me.’

She chanced a look at him again. His expression had lost its mocking edge. If anything he looked...sad. She could see the pained lines across his forehead, the shadows in his eyes, the grim set to his mouth. ‘Why am I here, Leandro?’ Somehow her voice had come out whispery instead of strident and firm.

He let out a long breath. ‘Because when I saw you in London I... I don’t know what I thought. I saw you cowering behind that pot plant and—’

‘I wasn’t cowering,’ Miranda put in indignantly. ‘I was hiding.’

‘I felt sorry for you.’

The silence echoed for a moment with his bald statement.

Miranda drew in a tight breath. ‘So you rescued me by pretending to need me to sort out your father’s collection. Is there even a collection?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then maybe you’d better show it to me.’

‘Come this way.’

Miranda followed him out of the suite and back downstairs to a room next door to the larger of the two sitting rooms. Leandro opened the door and gestured for her to go in. She stepped past him in the doorway, acutely conscious of the way his shirt sleeve brushed against her arm. Every nerve stood up and took notice. Every fine hair tingled at the roots. It was like his body was emitting waves of electricity and she had only to step over an invisible boundary to feel the full force of it.

The atmosphere inside the room was airless and musty, as if it had been closed up a long time. It was packed with canvasses, on the walls, and others wrapped and stacked in leaning piles against the shrouded furniture.

Miranda sent her gaze over the paintings on the walls, examining each one with her trained apprentice’s eye. Even without her qualifications and experience she’d have been able to see this was a collection of enormous value. One of the landscapes was certainly a Gainsborough, or if not a very credible imitation. What other treasures were hidden underneath those wrapped canvasses?

Miranda turned to look at Leandro. ‘This is amazing. But I’m not sure I’m experienced enough to handle such a large collection. We’d need to ship the pieces back to London for proper valuation. It’s too much for one person to deal with. Some of these pieces could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, maybe even millions. You might want to keep some as an investment. Sell them in a few years so you can—’

‘I don’t want them.’

She frowned at his implacable tone. ‘But that’s crazy, Leandro. You could have your own collection. You could have it on show at a private museum. It would be—’

‘I have no interest in making money out of my father’s collection,’ he said. ‘Just do what you have to do. I’ll pay for any shipment costs but that’s as far as I’m prepared to go.’

Miranda watched open-mouthed as he strode out of the room, the dust motes he’d disturbed hovering in the ringing silence.

CHAPTER THREE

LEANDRO WORKED THE floor of his father’s study like a lion trapped in a cat carrier. It had been a mistake to bring Miranda here. Here to the epicentre of his pain and anguish. He should have sold the collection without consulting anyone. What did it matter if those wretched paintings were valuable? They weren’t valuable to him. Making money out of his father’s legacy seemed immoral somehow to him. He didn’t understand why his father had left everything to him.

Over the last few years their relationship had deteriorated to perfunctory calls at Christmas or birthdays. Most of the time his father would be heavily inebriated, his words slurred, his memory skewed. It had been all Leandro could do to listen to his father’s drunken ramblings knowing he had been the one to cause the destruction of his father’s life. Surely his father had known how difficult this trip back here would be? Had he done it to twist the knife? To force him to face what he had spent the last two decades avoiding? Everything in this run-down villa represented the misery of his father’s life—a life spent drinking himself to oblivion so he could forget the tragedy of the past.

The tragedy Leandro had caused.

He looked out of the window that overlooked the garden at the back of the villa. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go out there yet. It had once been a spectacular affair with neatly trimmed hedges, flowering shrubs and borders filled with old-world roses whose heady scent would fill the air. It had been a magical place for he and his sister to scamper about and play hide and seek in amongst the cool, green shaded laneways of the hedges.

But now it was an overgrown mess of weeds, misshapen hedges and skeletal rose bushes with one or two half-hearted blooms. Parts of the garden were so overrun they couldn’t be seen properly from the house.

It reminded Leandro of his father’s life—sad, neglected, abused and abandoned. Wasted.

How could he have thought to bring Miranda here? How long before she discovered Rosie’s room? He couldn’t keep it locked up for ever. Stepping in there was like stepping back in time. It was painfully surreal. Everything was exactly the same as the day Rosie had disappeared from the beach. Every toy. Every doll. Every childish scribble she had ever done. Every messy and colourful finger-painting. Every article of clothing left in the wardrobe as if she were going to come back and use it. Even her hairbrush was on the dressing table with some of her silky dark-brown hairs still trapped in the bristles—a haunting reminder of the last time it had been used.

Even the striped towel they had been sitting on at the beach was there on the foot of the child-sized princess bed. The bed Rosie had been so proud of after moving out of her cot. Her ‘big-girl bed’, she’d called it. He still remembered her excited little face as she’d told him how she had chosen it with their mother while he’d been at school.

It was a lifetime ago.

Why had his father left the room intact for so long? Had he wanted Leandro to see it? Was that why he’d left him the villa and its contents? Knowing Leandro would have to come in and pack up every single item of Rosie’s? Why hadn’t his father seen to it himself or got someone impartial to do it? It had been twenty-seven years, for pity’s sake. There was no possibility of Rosie ever coming home. The police had been blunt with his parents once the first few months had passed with no leads, no evidence, no clues and no tip-offs.

Leandro had seen the statistics. Rosie had joined the thousands of people who went missing without trace. Every single day families across the globe were shattered by the disappearance of a loved one. They were left with the stomach-churning dread of wondering what had happened to their beloved family member. Praying they were still alive but deep down knowing such miracles were rare. Wondering if they had suffered or were still suffering. It was cruel torture not to know and yet just as bad speculating.

Leandro had spent every year of his life since wondering. Praying. Begging. Pleading with a God he no longer believed in—if he ever had. Rosie wasn’t coming back. She was gone and he was responsible.

The guilt he felt over Rosie’s disappearance was a band around his chest that would tighten every time he saw a toddler. Rosie had been with him on the pebbly beach when he was six and she was three. He could recall her cute little chubby-cheeked face and starfish dimpled hands with such clarity he felt like it was yesterday. For years he’d kept thinking the life he was living since was just a bad dream. That he would wake up and there would be Rosie with her sunny smile sitting on the striped towel next to him. But every time he would wake and he would feel that crushing hammer blow of guilt.

His mother had stepped a few feet away to an ice-cream vendor, leaving Leandro in charge. When she’d come back, Rosie had gone. Vanished. Snatched from where she had been sitting. The beach had been scoured. The water searched. The police had interviewed hundreds of beach-goers but there was no sign of Rosie. No one had seen anything suspicious. Leandro had only turned his back for a moment or two to look at a speedboat that was going past. When he’d turned around he’d seen his mother coming towards him with two ice-cream cones; her face had contorted in horror when she’d seen the empty space on the towel beside him.

He had never forgotten that look on his mother’s face. Every time he saw his mother he remembered it. It haunted him. Tortured him.

His parents’ marriage hadn’t been strong in the first place. Losing Rosie had gouged open cracks that were already there. The divorce had been bitter and painful two years after Rosie’s disappearance. His father hadn’t wanted custody of Leandro. He hadn’t even asked for visitation rights. His mother hadn’t wanted him either. But she must have known people would judge her harshly if she didn’t take him with her when she went back to her homeland, England. Mothers were meant to love their children.

But how could his mother love him when he was responsible for the loss of her adored baby girl?

Not that his mother ever blamed him. Not openly. Not in words. It was the looks that told him what she thought. His father’s too. Those looks said, why weren’t you watching her? As the years went on his father had begun to verbalise it. The blame would come pouring out after he’d been on one of his binges. But it was nothing Leandro hadn’t already heard echoing in his head. Day after day, week after week...for years now the same accusing voice would keep him awake at night. It would give him nightmares. He would wake with a jolt and remember the awful truth.

There wasn’t a day that went past that he didn’t think of his sister. Ever since that gut-wrenching day he would look for her in the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Hoping that whoever had taken her had not done so for nefarious reasons, but had taken her to fulfil a wish to have a child and had loved and cared for her since. He couldn’t bear to think of her coming to harm. He couldn’t bear to think of her lying cold in some grisly shallow grave, her little body bruised and broken. As the years had gone on he imagined her growing up. He looked for an older version of her. She would be thirty now.

In his good dreams she would be married with children of her own by now.

In his nightmares...

He closed the door on his torturous imaginings. For twenty-seven years he had lived with this incessant agony. The agony of not knowing. The agony of being responsible for losing her. The agony of knowing he had ruined his parents’ lives.

He could never forgive himself.

He didn’t even bother trying.

* * *

Miranda spent an hour looking over the collection, carefully uncovering the canvasses to get an idea of what she was dealing with. Apart from some of the obvious fakes, most of the collection would have to be shipped back to England for proper evaluation. The paintings needed to be x-rayed in order to establish how they were composed. Infrared imaging would then be used to see the original drawings and painting losses, and Raman spectroscopy would determine the identity of the varnish. It would take a team of experts far more qualified and experienced than her to bring all of these works to their former glory. But she couldn’t help feeling touched Leandro had asked her to be the first to run her eyes over the collection.

Why had he done that?

Had it simply been an impulsive thing, as he had intimated, or had he truly thought she was the best one to do it? Whatever his reasons, it was like being let in on a secret. He had opened a part of his life that no one else had had access to before.

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