‘And what about us? Where are we supposed to go?’ Belle demanded heatedly, her temper rising. ‘It takes time to relocate.’

‘You’ll have at least a month to find somewhere else.’ Cristo fielded her questions without perceptible sympathy while he watched the breeze push the soft clinging cotton of her top against her breasts. He clenched his teeth together, willing back his arousal.

‘That’s not very long. Five children take up a lot of space … they’re your brothers and sisters too, so you should care about what happens to them!’ Belle launched back at him in furious condemnation.

‘Which is why I’m here to suggest that we get married and make a home for them together,’ Cristo countered.

‘Married?’ Belle repeated, aghast, wondering if she’d missed a line or two in the conversation. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You said that you wanted your siblings to enjoy the Ravelli name and lifestyle. I can only make that happen by marrying you and adopting them.’

A stray shard of sunlight broke through the clouds to slant across his lean, strong face. All over again Belle studied him in wonder, because he had the smouldering dark beauty of a fallen angel. His brilliant dark eyes were nothing short of stunning below the thick screen of his lashes, and suddenly she felt breathless.

THE LEGACIES OF POWERFUL MEN

Three tenets to live by: money, power and the ruthless pursuit of passion!

Cristo Ravelli, Nik Christakis and Zarif Al Rastani know better than most the double-edged sword of their inheritance. Watching their father move from one wife to another, leaving their mothers devastated in his wake, has hardened each of these men against the lure of love.

But, despite their best efforts to live by the principles of money, power and passion, they find themselves entangled with three women who challenge the one thing they’ve protected all these years …

Their hearts!

Read Cristo’s story in:

RAVELLI’S DEFIANT BRIDE June 2014

Read Nik’s story in:

CHRISTAKIS’S REBELLIOUS WIFE July 2014

Read Zarif’s story in:

ZARIF’S CONVENIENT QUEEN August 2014

Ravelli’s

Defiant Bride

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE DIMITRAKOS PROPOSITION

CHALLENGING DANTE (A Bride for a Billionaire) THE BILLIONAIRE’S TROPHY (A Bride for a Billionaire) THE SHEIKH’S PRIZE (A Bride for a Billionaire)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Michael and thirty-five happy years.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

CRISTO RAVELLI SURVEYED the family lawyer in disbelief. ‘Is this an April fool joke falling out of season?’ he enquired with a frown.

Robert Ludlow, senior partner of Ludlow and Ludlow, did not react with amusement. Cristo, a leading investment banker specialising in venture capital, and richer than Croesus, was not a man to be teased. Indeed, if he had a sense of humour Robert had yet to see it. Cristo, unlike his late and most probably unlamented father, Gaetano Ravelli, took life very seriously.

‘I’m afraid it’s not a joke,’ Robert confirmed. ‘Your father had five children with a woman in Ireland—’

Cristo was stunned by the concept. ‘You mean, all those years he went on his fishing trips to his Irish estate—?’

‘I’m afraid so. I believe the eldest child is fifteen years old—’

‘Fifteen? But that means...’ Cristo compressed his wide sensual mouth, dark eyes flaring with anger, before he could make an indiscreet comment unsuited to the ears of anyone but his brothers. He wondered why he was even surprised by yet another revelation of his father’s notorious womanising. After all, throughout his irresponsible life Gaetano had left a trail of distraught and angry ex-wives and three legitimate sons in his wake, so why shouldn’t there have been a less regular relationship also embellished with children?

Cristo, of course, could not answer that question because he would never ever have risked having an illegitimate child and was shaken that his father could have done so five times over. Particularly when he had never bothered to take the slightest interest in the sons he already had. Cristo’s adult brothers, Nik and Zarif, would be equally astonished and appalled, but Cristo knew that the problem would fall heaviest on his own shoulders. Nik’s marriage breakdown had hit him hard and his own part in that debacle still gave Cristo sleepless nights. As for their youngest sibling, as the new ruler of a country in the Middle East Zarif scarcely deserved the huge public scandal that Gaetano’s immoral doings could unleash if the easily shocked media there got hold of the story.

‘Fifteen years old,’ Cristo mused, reflecting that Zarif’s mother had evidently been betrayed throughout her entire marriage to his father without even being aware of the fact. That was not a reality that Zarif would want put out on public parade. ‘I apologise for my reaction, Robert. This development comes as a considerable shock. The mother of the children—what do you know about her?’

Robert raised a greying brow. ‘I contacted Daniel Petrie, the land agent of the Irish estate, and made enquiries. He said that as far as the village is concerned the woman, Mary Brophy, has long been seen as something of a disgrace and an embarrassment,’ he framed almost apologetically.

‘But if she was the local whore she would’ve been right down Gaetano’s street,’ Cristo breathed before he could bite back that injudicious opinion, his lean, darkly handsome face grim, but it was no secret to Gaetano’s family that he had infinitely preferred bold and promiscuous women to clean-living ones. ‘What provision did my father make for this horde of children?’

‘That’s why I decided to finally bring this matter to your attention.’ Robert cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘As you will be aware, Gaetano made no mention of either the woman or the children in his will.’

‘Are you telling me that my father made no provision for these dependants?’ Cristo prompted incredulously. ‘He had five children with this...this woman over the course of many years and yet he settled no money on them?’

‘Not so much as a penny piece on any of them...ever,’ Robert confirmed uncomfortably. ‘I thought he might have made some private arrangement to take care of them but apparently not as I have received an enquiry concerning school fees from the woman. As you know, your father always thought in terms of the present, not the future, and I imagine he assumed that he would be alive well into his eighties.’

‘Instead of which he died at sixty-two years old, as foolish as ever, and tipped this mess into my lap,’ Cristo ground out, losing all patience the more he learned of the situation. ‘I’ll have to look into this matter personally. I don’t want the newspapers getting hold of the story—’

‘Naturally not,’ Robert agreed. ‘It’s a given that the media enjoy telling tales about men with multiple wives and mistresses.’

Well aware of that fact, Cristo clenched his even white teeth, dark eyes flaming pure gold with rage at the prospect. His father had been enough of an embarrassment while alive. He was infuriated by the idea that Gaetano might prove even more of an embarrassment after his death.

‘It will be my hope that the children can be put up for adoption and this whole distasteful business quietly buried,’ Cristo confided smooth as glass.

For some reason, he noted that Robert looked a little disconcerted by that idea and then the older man swiftly composed his face into blandness. ‘You think the mother will agree to that?’

‘If she’s the usual type of woman my father favoured, she’ll be glad to do as I ask for the right...compensation.’ Cristo selected the word with suggestive cool.

Robert understood his meaning and tried and failed to imagine a scenario in which for the right price a woman would be willing to surrender her children for adoption. He had no doubt that Cristo had cause to know exactly what he was talking about and he was suddenly grateful not to be living a life that had made him that cynical about human nature and greed. But then, having handled Gaetano’s financial dealings for years, he knew that Cristo came from a dysfunctional background and would be challenged to recognise the depth of love and loyalty that many adults cherished for their offspring.

Cristo, already stressed from his recent business trip to Switzerland, squared his broad shoulders and lifted his phone to tell his PA, Emily, to book him on a flight to Dublin. He would get this repugnant business sorted out straight away and then get straight back to work.

* * *

‘I hate them!’ Belle vented in a helpless outburst, her lovely face full of angry passion. ‘I hate every Ravelli alive!’

‘Then you would also have to hate your own brothers and sisters,’ her grandmother reminded her wryly. ‘And you know that’s not how you feel—’

With difficulty, Belle mastered her hot temper and studied her grandmother apologetically. Isa was a small supple woman with iron-grey hair and level green eyes the same shade as Belle’s. ‘That wretched lawyer hasn’t even replied to Mum’s letter about the school fees yet. I hate the whole lot of them for making us beg for what should be the children’s by right!’

‘It’s unpleasant,’ Isa Kelly conceded ruefully. ‘But what we have to remember is that the person responsible for this whole horrible situation is Gaetano Ravelli—’

‘I’m never going to forget that!’ her granddaughter swore vehemently, leaping upright in frustration to pace over to the window that overlooked the tiny back garden.

And that was certainly the truth. Belle had been remorselessly bullied at school because of her mother’s relationship with Gaetano Ravelli and the children she had had with him. A lot of people had taken exception to the spectacle of a woman carrying on a long-running, fertile affair with a married man. Her mother, Mary, had been labelled a slut and, as a sensitive adolescent, Belle had been forced to carry the shadow of that humiliating label alongside her parent.

‘He’s gone now,’ Isa reminded her unnecessarily. ‘And so, more sadly, is your mother.’

A familiar ache stirred below Belle’s breastbone for the loss of that warm, loving presence in her family home and her angry face softened in expression. It was only a month since her mother had died from a heart attack and Belle was still not over the shock of her sudden passing. Mary had been a smiling, laughing woman in her early forties, who had rarely been ill. Yet she’d had a weak heart, and had apparently been warned by the doctor not to risk another pregnancy after the twins’ difficult birth. But when had Mary Brophy ever listened to common sense? Belle asked herself painfully. Mary had gone her own sweet way regardless of the costs, choosing passion over commitment and the birth of a sixth child triumphing over what might have been years of quiet cautious living.

Whatever anyone had said about Mary Brophy—and there had been all too many local people with a moral axe to grind about her long-term affair with Gaetano—Mary had been a hardworking, kind person, who had never had a bad word to say about anyone and had always been the first to offer help when a neighbour was in trouble. Over the years some of her mother’s most vociferous critics had ended up becoming her friends when they finally appreciated her gentle nature. But Belle had never been like the mother she had seen as oppressed: she had loved her mother and hated Gaetano Ravelli for his lying, manipulative selfishness and tight-fisted ways.

As if sensing the tension in the air, Tag whined at her feet and she stretched down a hand to soothe the family dog, a small black and white Jack Russell whose big brown adoring eyes were pinned to her. Straightening again, her colourful hair spilling across her slim shoulders, Belle pushed a straying corkscrew curl from her Titian mane out of her strained eyes and wondered when she would find the time to get it trimmed and how on earth she would ever pay for it when money was required for far more basic necessities.

At least the Lodge at the foot of the drive winding up to Mayhill House was theirs, signed over by Gaetano years earlier to give her mother a false sense of security. But how much use was a roof over their heads when Belle still couldn’t pay the bills? Even so, homelessness would have been far worse, she acknowledged ruefully, her generous mouth softening. In any case, in all likelihood she would have to sell the Lodge and find them somewhere cheaper and smaller to live. Unfortunately she was going to have to fight and fight hard for the children to receive what was rightfully theirs. Illegitimate or not, her siblings had a legal claim to a share of their late father’s estate and it was her job to take on that battle for them.

‘You must let me take charge of the children now,’ Isa told her eldest granddaughter firmly. ‘Mary was my daughter and she made mistakes. I don’t want to stand by watching you pay the price for them—’

‘The kids would be too much for you,’ Belle protested, for her grandmother might be hale and hearty but she was seventy years old and Belle thought it would be very wrong to allow her to take on such a burden.

‘You attended a university miles from here to escape the situation your mother had created and you planned to go to London to work as soon as you graduated,’ Isa reminded her stubbornly.

‘That’s the thing about life...it changes without warning you,’ Belle fielded wryly. ‘The children have lost both parents in the space of two months and they’re very insecure. The last thing they need right now is for me to vanish as well.’

‘Bruno and Donetta both go to boarding school, so they’re out of the equation aside of holiday time,’ the older woman reasoned, reluctant to cede the argument. ‘The twins are at primary school. Only Franco is at home and he’s two so he’ll soon be off to school as well—’

Shortly after her mother’s death, Belle had thought much along the same lines and had felt horribly guilty to admit, even to herself, that she felt trapped by the existence of her little brothers and sisters and their need for constant loving care. Her grandmother, Isa, had made her generous offer and Belle had kept it in reserve in the back of her mind, believing that it could be a real possibility. But that was before she got into the daily grind of seeing to her siblings’ needs and finally appreciated the amount of sheer hard graft required and that any prospect of her grandmother taking charge was a selfish fantasy. It would be too big a burden for Isa to take on when some days it was even too much for Belle at the age of twenty-three.

Someone rapped loudly on the back door, making both women jump in surprise. Frowning, Belle opened the door and then relaxed when she saw an old friend waiting on the step. Mark Petrie and Belle had gone to school together where Mark had been one of her few true friends.

‘Come in,’ she invited the slimly built dark-haired man clad in casual jeans. ‘Have a seat. Coffee?’

‘Thanks.’

‘How are you doing, Mark?’ Isa asked with a welcoming smile.

‘I’m doing great. It’s Belle I’m worried about,’ Mark admitted heavily, throwing Isa’s granddaughter a look of unvarnished male admiration. ‘Look, I’ll just spit it right out. I heard my father talking on the phone this morning and he must’ve been talking to someone from Gaetano Ravelli’s family. I think it was the eldest one, Cristo—’

Tensing at the sound of that familiar name, Belle settled a mug of coffee down on the table for Mark. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Cristo is the executor of Gaetano’s estate and my father was being asked about your mother and, of course, he doesn’t even know Mary’s dead yet. Nobody’s bothered to tell him that she passed while he and Mum were staying with my uncle in Australia—’

‘Well, your father and my mother weren’t exactly bosom pals,’ Belle reminded Mark bluntly. There had been a lot of bad blood over the years between the land agent, Daniel Petrie, and Mayhill’s housekeeper, Mary Brophy. ‘So why would anyone mention it to him?’

Cristo Ravelli, Belle was thinking resentfully. The stuffed-shirt banker and outrageously good-looking eldest son, who never ever smiled. Over the years she had often researched Gaetano’s tangled love life on the Internet, initially out of curiosity but then more often to learn the answers to the questions that her poor trusting mother had never dared to ask. She knew about the wives, the sons and the scandalous affairs and had soon recognised that Gaetano was a deceitful, destructive Svengali with the female sex, who left nothing but wreckage and regrets in his wake. Furthermore, as Gaetano had only ever married rich women, her poor misguided mother had never had a prayer of getting him to the altar.

‘The point is, evidently Ravelli’s family have decided they want Gaetano’s children with Mary to be adopted—’

‘Adopted?’ Belle interrupted, openly astonished by that suggestion coming at her out of nowhere.

‘Obviously the man’s family want the whole affair hushed up,’ Mark opined with a grimace. ‘And what better way to stage a cover-up? It would keep the story out of the papers and tidy up all the loose ends—’

‘But they’re not loose ends—they’re children with a family and a home!’ Belle argued in dismay. ‘For goodness’ sake, they belong together!’

Uncomfortable in receipt of that emotional outburst, Mark cleared his throat. ‘Are you the children’s legal guardian?’

‘Well, who else is there?’ Belle asked defensively.

‘But it’s not down legally on paper anywhere that you’re their guardian, is it?’ Mark prompted ruefully as her clear green eyes lifted to his in sudden dismay. ‘I didn’t think so. You should go and see a solicitor about your situation as soon as you can and get your claim to the children recognised with all the red tape available...otherwise you might discover that Gaetano’s family have more legal say on the subject of what happens to them than you do.’

‘But that would be ridiculous!’ Belle objected. ‘Gaetano had nothing to do with the kids even when he was here.’

‘Not according to the law. He paid the older children’s school fees, signed the Lodge over to your mother,’ Mark reminded her with all the devotion to detail inherent in his law-student studies. ‘He may have been a lousy father in the flesh but he did take care of the necessities, which could conceivably give Gaetano’s sons a bigger say than you have in what happens to the children now.’

‘But Gaetano left all five of them out of his will,’ Belle pointed out, tilting her chin in challenge.

‘That doesn’t matter. The law is the law,’ Mark fielded. ‘Nobody can take their birthright away from them.’

‘Adoption...’ Eyes still stunned by that proposition, Belle sank heavily back down into her chair. ‘That’s a crazy idea. They couldn’t have tried this nonsense on if my mother were still alive!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Nobody could have said their mother didn’t have the right to say what should happen to them.’

‘If only Mary had lived long enough to deal with all this,’ Isa sighed in pained agreement. ‘But maybe, as the children’s granny, I’ll have a say?’

‘I doubt it,’ Mark interposed. ‘Until you moved in here after Mary’s death, the children had never lived with you.’

‘I could pretend to be Mum...’ Belle breathed abruptly.

‘Pretend?’ Isa’s head swivelled round to the younger woman in disbelief. ‘Don’t be silly, Belle.’

‘How am I being silly? Cristo Ravelli doesn’t know Mum is dead and if he thinks she’s still alive, he’s very unlikely to try and interfere in their living arrangements.’ Belle lifted her head high, convinced she was correct on that score.

‘There’s no way you could pretend to be a woman in her forties!’ Mark protested with an embarrassed laugh at the idea.

Belle was thinking hard. ‘But I don’t need to look like I’m in my forties...I only need to look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old son and, at the age women are having children these days, I could easily only be in my early thirties,’ she reasoned.

‘It would be insane to try and pull off a deception like that,’ her grandmother told her quellingly. ‘Cristo Ravelli would be sure to find out the truth.’

‘How? Who’s going to tell him? He’s a Ravelli—he’s not going to be wandering round asking the locals nosy questions. He would have no reason to question my identity. I’ll put my hair up, use a lot of make-up...that’ll help—’

‘Belle...I know you’re game for anything but it would be a massive deception to try and pull off,’ Mark said drily. ‘Think about what you’re saying.’

The kitchen door opened and a thumb-sucking toddler with a mop of black curls stumbled in. He steadied himself against Belle’s denim-clad thigh and then clambered up clumsily into his sister’s lap, taking his welcome for granted. ‘Sleepy,’ he told her, the words slurring. ‘Hug...’

Belle cradled her youngest half-sibling gently. Franco was very affectionate and he was quick to curve his warm, solid little body into hers. ‘I’ll take him upstairs for a nap,’ she whispered, rising upright again with difficulty because he was a heavy child.

Belle tucked Franco into his cot beside her bed and for a moment stood looking out of the rear window, which provided a picturesque view of Mayhill House, a gracious grey Georgian mansion set in acres of parkland against the backdrop of the ancient oak woods. Her mother had been a widow and Belle only eight years old when Mary had first started work as Gaetano Ravelli’s housekeeper.

Belle’s own father had been a violent drunk, renowned for his foul-mouthed harangues and propensity for getting into fights. One night he had stepped out in front of a car when under the influence and few had mourned his demise, least of all Belle, who had been terrified of her father’s vicious temper and brutal fists. Mother and daughter had believed they were embarking on a new and promising life when Mary became the Mayhill housekeeper. Sadly, however, Mary had fallen madly in love with her new boss and her reputation had been destroyed from the instant Belle’s eldest half-sibling, Bruno, had been born.

Someone like Cristo Ravelli, Belle reflected bitterly, could have absolutely no grasp of how other less fortunate mortals lived. Cristo was handsome, brilliant and obscenely successful. He had grown up in a golden cocoon of cash, the son of a very wealthy Italian princess who was renowned as a leading society hostess. His stepfather was a Hungarian banker, his home a Venetian palace and he had attended an exclusive school from which he had emerged literally weighed down with academic and athletic honours. It was hardly surprising that Cristo was a dazzling star of success in every corner of his life. After all, he didn’t know what it was to be humiliated, ignored or mocked and she’d bet he had never had to apologise for his parentage.

On the other hand Bruno had only been thirteen when Gaetano first accused his son of being gay because that was the only way Gaetano could interpret Bruno’s burning desire to be an artist. Belle’s little brother had been devastated by that destructive indictment from a father whom he had long been desperate to impress. His growing unhappiness at school where he was being bullied had resulted in a suicide attempt. Belle still got the shivers recalling it, having come so terrifyingly close to losing her little brother for ever. Bruno needed his family for support. Bruno, just like his siblings, needed love and commitment to grow into a contented, well-adjusted adult. There was nothing Belle would not have done to ensure that her siblings remained happy and together.

Having delivered his warning, Mark was taking his leave when she returned downstairs.

‘I’ll get supper on,’ Belle’s grandmother declared.

‘You’re not serious about trying to pretend to be Mary, are you?’ Mark pressed on the doorstep.

Belle straightened her slight shoulders. ‘If that’s what it takes to keep the family together, I’d do it in a heartbeat!’

* * *

The evening light was fast fading when Cristo’s car finally turned up the long driveway to Mayhill.

He had never visited Gaetano’s Irish bolt hole before because Gaetano had never invited any of his relatives to visit him there or, indeed, anywhere else. His father had never bothered to maintain relationships and the minute he was bored he had headed for pastures new and wiped the slate clean of past associations.

A woman with a little dog running at her heels was walking across the sweeping front lawn. Cristo frowned; he didn’t like trespassers. But a split second later he was staring, watching that cloud of colourful curls float back from a stunning heart-shaped face, noting the way her loose top blew back to frame her lush full breasts and a sliver of pale flat stomach, exposing the denim shorts that hugged her derriere and accentuated her long, long shapely legs. She took his breath away and the pulse at his groin reacted with rampant enthusiasm. He gritted his teeth, trying to recall when he had last been with a woman, and when he couldn’t blamed that oversight for his sudden arousal. In reality, Cristo always chose work over sex for work challenged and energised him while he regarded sex as a purely stress-relieving exercise.

He unlocked the massive wooden front door and stepped over the top of a pile of untouched post into a large black-and-white-tiled hall. His protection team composed of Rafe and John moved past him. ‘We’ll check the house.’

A fine layer of dust coated the furniture within view and Cristo was not surprised when Rafe confirmed that the house was vacant. But then, what exactly had he expected? Mary Brophy and her five children occupying the property? Yes, that was exactly what he had expected and why he had used his keys to emphasise the fact that he had the right of entry. He strode through the silent rooms, eventually ending up in the kitchen with its empty fridge standing wide open, backed by the sound of a dripping tap. His handsome mouth curved down as he noted the phone on the wall. One of the buttons was labelled ‘housekeeping’. Lifting the phone, he stabbed the button with exasperated force.

‘Yes?’ a disembodied female voice responded when he had almost given up hope of his call being answered.

‘It’s Cristo Ravelli. I’m at the house. Why hasn’t it been prepared for my arrival?’ he demanded imperiously.

At the other end of the phone, Belle went on all systems alert at the vibrating tone of impatience in that dark, deep accented drawl and her green eyes suddenly glinted as dangerously as emeralds in firelight. ‘Do you think maybe that could be because the housekeeper’s wages were stopped the same day Mr Ravelli crashed his helicopter?’

Cristo was not accustomed to smart-mouthed replies and his wide sensual mouth hardened. ‘I didn’t make that instruction.’

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Regrettably nobody works for free,’ Belle told him drily.

Cristo bit back a curse. He was tired and hungry and in no mood for a war of words. ‘I gather you’re the housekeeper?’

It was the moment of truth, Belle registered, and for a split second she hesitated. An image of her siblings rehomed in an orphanage on the slippery slope to a foster home gripped her tummy and provoked nausea. ‘Er...yes,’ she pronounced tightly.

‘Then get yourself up to the house and do your job. I can assure you that you will be well paid for your time,’ Cristo informed her grittily. ‘I need food and bedding—’

‘There’s several shops in the village. You must’ve driven past them to get to the house,’ Belle protested.

‘I’m happy to pay you to take care of those tasks for me,’ Cristo fielded smoothly before returning the phone to the wall and wondering if it had been wise to recall an insolent housekeeper to her former duties. Reminding himself that he only planned to stay a couple of days before arranging to have the house sold, he dismissed the matter from mind. The housekeeper, he reflected, would be a useful source of local knowledge to have on hand.

Following that call, Belle was in an infinitely more excitable state. After all, it was now or never. She couldn’t introduce herself as Mary’s daughter and then change her mind. Either she pretended to be her mother or she went up to Mayhill and told Cristo Ravelli that his father’s former housekeeper/lover was dead. But when she thought of the influence she could potentially wield for the children’s benefit by acting as their mother, her doubts fell away and she hurried upstairs, frantically wondering how she could best make herself look more mature.

The first thing she did was take off her shorts and top. Rustling through her wardrobe, she found a short stretchy skirt and a long-sleeved tee. Her mother had never ever worn flat heels or jeans and Belle owned only one skirt. Clinging to those Mary Brophy habits as if they might prove to be a good-luck talisman, Belle pulled out a pair of high heels and hurriedly got dressed. That achieved, she went into the bathroom, pushed her hair back from her face and grimaced at her porcelain-pale complexion, which she had often suspected made her look even younger than her years. Surely if she put her hair up and went heavy on the make-up it would make her look older? Brows pleating, she recalled the smoky eye treatment that a friend had persuaded her to try on a night out and she dug deep into her make-up bag for the necessary tools.

She stroked on the different shadows with a liberal hand, blurred the edges with an anxious fingertip and added heaps of eyeliner. Well, she certainly looked different, she acknowledged uneasily, layering on the mascara before adding blush to her cheeks and outlining her mouth with bright pink gloss.

‘I was about to call you down for supper...’ Isa Kelly froze in the tiny hall to watch her granddaughter come downstairs. ‘Where on earth are you going got up like that?’

Belle stiffened. ‘Why? Do I look odd?’

‘Well, if you bent over you could probably treat me to a view of your underwear,’ Isa commented disapprovingly.

An awkward silence fell, interrupted within seconds by the noisy sound of the back door opening and closing. Children’s voices raised in shrill argument broke the silence and a dark-haired boy and girl of eight years of age hurtled into the hall still engaged in hurling insults.

‘If you don’t stop fighting, it will be early to bed tonight,’ Belle warned the twins, Pietro and Lucia.

The twins closed their mouths, ducked their tousled heads and surged up the stairs past their eldest sister.

‘You can tell me now why you’re wearing a skirt,’ Isa pressed Belle.

‘Cristo Ravelli phoned...in need of a housekeeper.’ Belle quickly explained what had transpired on the phone. ‘I need to look at least ten years older.’

As Belle spoke, Isa studied the younger woman in consternation. ‘You can’t possibly pretend to be Mary... It’s an insane idea. You’ll never get away with it.’

Belle lifted her chin. ‘But it’s worth a try if it means that Cristo Ravelli has to listen to what I have to say. He obviously knows nothing about Mum. I don’t think he even realises that she was his father’s housekeeper.’

‘I doubt if he’s that ignorant,’ Isa opined thoughtfully. ‘It could be a shrewd move. Naturally he’s going to want to meet the children’s mother as soon as possible. But I don’t want you going up there to run after the man, doing his shopping and cooking and making up his bed, especially dressed like that!’

‘What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?’

‘It might give the man the wrong idea.’

‘I seriously doubt that,’ Belle responded, smoothing her stretchy skirt carefully down over her slim hips. ‘As far as I’m aware he’s not sex-mad like his father.’

Isa compressed her lips. ‘That kind of comment is so disrespectful, Belle.’

‘It’s a fact, not a nasty rumour.’

‘Gaetano was the children’s father. He may not have been much of a father but you still shouldn’t talk about him like that where you could be overheard,’ her grandmother rebuked her firmly.

Aware that the older woman was making a fair point, Belle reddened with discomfiture. ‘May I borrow your car, Gran?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Belatedly aware that Belle had successfully sidetracked her concern about the deception she was preparing to spring on Cristo Ravelli, Isa planted a staying hand on the front door before Belle could open it. ‘Think about what you’re about to do, Belle. Once you try to deceive this man, there’s no going back and he’ll have every right to be very angry with us all when he discovers the truth...as eventually he must,’ she reasoned anxiously.

‘Cristo is a Ravelli, Gran...shrewd, tricky and unscrupulous. I need an advantage to deal with him and the only way I can get that advantage is by pretending to be Mum.’

CHAPTER TWO

BELLE DROVE DOWN to the garage shop in the village to stock up on basic necessities for the Mayhill kitchen and was taken aback by the cost of the exercise.

Cristo Ravelli was expecting her to cook but she couldn’t cook, at least not anything that required more than a microwave and a tin opener. She pondered her dilemma and decided on an omelette, salad and garlic bread. Surely even she could manage a meal that basic? She had often watched her mother and her grandmother making omelettes. Bruno was also a dab hand in the kitchen. They always ate well when he was home at weekends.

Tense as a steel girder, she drove round to the back of the house, noting that the lights weren’t on. The back door was still locked and with a groan she lugged her carrier bags round to the front, mounted the steps and pressed the doorbell.

Cristo was on the phone when the bell echoed through the hall. Brows drawing together, he went to answer the door, stepping back in surprise when a slender redhead in sky-high heels tramped in past him. The housekeeper? Not his idea of a housekeeper, he conceded, swiftly concluding his call, his brilliant dark eyes flaring over one of the shapeliest bodies he had ever seen and very probably the best ever legs. Legs that put him in mind of the girl he had seen walking across the lawn, his gaze rising to the woman’s face to note the huge anxious green eyes lost in the heavy make-up and the ripe full mouth. She was not his type, no way was she his type, too obvious, too loud, hair too red. Indeed Cristo knew to his cost that he was most attracted to tiny ice-cool blondes with big blue eyes. His conscience sliced through that thought instantaneously, reminding him that that particular image was forbidden for very good reasons. Lush black lashes shielding his grim and guilty gaze, he rested his attention quite deliberately on the redhead’s remarkable breasts. Now, those were truly a work of art like her legs, he conceded abstractedly.

Sadly accustomed to the effect her full bosom tended to have on the male sex, Belle studied Cristo Ravelli at her leisure. By any estimate, he was drop-dead gorgeous. He had luxuriant black hair closely cropped to his arrogant head, spectacular bone structure and quite stunning dark-as-charcoal eyes enhanced by absurdly long sooty lashes. A light shadow of stubble roughened his olive-skinned jaw line, adding to an already overpoweringly masculine presence.

Her pupils dilated, her heart began hammering an upbeat tempo and her tummy performed acrobatics. It was nerves, she told herself, nerves and adrenalin reacting to the challenge of the deception she was embarking on. It didn’t help that Cristo was also extremely tall, actually tall enough to make her feel small even though she was an easy five feet eight inches in height and stood even higher in heels. His shoulders were broad below the tailored jacket of his no doubt expensive business suit, his chest wide, his lean hips tapering down to legs that were very long and powerful.

‘I’ll take these down to the kitchen and start cooking,’ Belle told him, raising her arms to display the bulging carrier bags.

Her rounded breasts shimmied below the fine jersey top and Cristo’s mouth ran dry. ‘You’re my father’s housekeeper?’ he prompted because she was not at all what he had expected, having dimly imagined some feisty but sensible countrywoman of indeterminate age.

Abandoning her attempt to walk right by him, Belle set the bags on the floor at her feet and lifted her head high. ‘I’m Mary Brophy,’ she announced, thrusting up her chin in challenge.

Both disconcertion and disbelief assailed Cristo and his dark deep-set eyes narrowed to increase their searching intensity as he scrutinised her. ‘You were my father’s...mistress?’ he asked.

Nausea stirred in her tummy at that label but she could think of no more accurate description for the compromising position her late mother had occupied in Gaetano’s life and colour fired her cheeks. ‘Yes.’

A split second earlier, Cristo had been mentally undressing her and that awareness now revolted him as the ultimate in inappropriate activities now that he knew who she was. This was the woman who had occupied his father’s bed for at least fifteen years, earning a longevity that no other women had contrived to match in Gaetano’s easily bored existence. And looking at her, suddenly Cristo was not surprised by that fact because self-evidently this woman worked at her appearance. Even after giving birth to five children she still had the slender waist of a young girl and, below the make-up she seemed to trowel on as thick as paste, her fine pale skin was unlined and still taut. She was too young, way too young-looking though to match the woman he had expected to meet, he decided, his ebony brows pleating in perplexity.

‘You were also Gaetano’s housekeeper?’ Cristo questioned.

‘Yes.’ With determination, Belle bent down to lift the bags again. ‘Omelette and salad all right for you?’ she asked, heading for the kitchen at speed.

A very decorative housekeeper, Cristo thought numbly, still quite unable to picture her as the mother of five children. Five!

‘You must have been very young when you met my father,’ Cristo commented from the kitchen doorway.

Belle stiffened as she piled the perishable food into the fridge. ‘Not that young,’ she fielded, wanting to tell him to mind his own business but reluctant to cause offence. After all, she needed his support to secure a decent future for her siblings. Although what realistic chance did she have of gaining it? At worst, Cristo Ravelli might despise and resent his father’s illegitimate children, and at best, he might be simply indifferent to them. Adoption, for goodness’ sake, she reflected in lingering disbelief. How many people would even dare to suggest such an option?

‘I assumed you would be living here in the house,’ Cristo remarked, his attention clinging of its own volition to the amount of slender thigh on view as she crouched down to pack the fridge.

‘I only...er...lived in when Gaetano was here,’ Belle said awkwardly.

‘And the rest of the time?’ Cristo enquired, because as far as he knew his father had only come to Ireland three or four times a year and had never stayed for longer than a couple of weeks at most.

‘I live in the lodge at the gates,’ Belle admitted grudgingly, straightening to set out lettuce and eggs on the granite work counter.

Cristo gritted his teeth at the news because she and her children would have to vacate the lodge house before he could put Mayhill on the market. Of course he would have to pay her for the inconvenience of finding another home. Her hair shone bright as a beacon below the lights, displaying varying shades of gold, auburn and copper, tiny curls of hair adorning the nape of her long, elegant neck. She had very curly hair, the sort of hair he had once seen on a rag doll, he mused absently, irritated by the random nature of the thought. He studied the smooth line of her jaw and the full lush softness of her bold red-painted mouth with a persistent sense of incredulity. She had to be a lot older than she looked to be the parent of a teenager, although perhaps he was being naïve. It was perfectly possible that Mary Brophy looked so amazingly youthful because his father had paid for her to have plastic surgery.

Belle unwrapped the garlic bread and shoved it on an oven tray to cook. She wished he would go away. Standing there, all looming six feet four inches or so of him, he made her feel nervous and clumsy. She had to search through cupboards to find the utensils she wanted because she had rarely visited Mayhill since childhood. Indeed she had avoided it on principle whenever Gaetano was in residence. Her green eyes darkened as she recalled the way she and her ever-growing band of siblings would go and stay with her grandmother in the village even before Gaetano arrived, leaving her mother free to make her preparations for his arrival. Mary had always, always put Gaetano Ravelli first.

Belle remembered her mother’s excitement when Gaetano was due to arrive, the frantic exercising, hair appointments and shopping trips to ensure that Mary could look her very best for her lover. Belle had long since decided that she would rather die than want to please any man to that extent. Certainly Mary’s rather pathetic loyalty and devotion had not won her any prizes.

Belle prepared the salad quickly, heaping it into a bowl and then making up her mother’s favourite salad dressing as best she could because she couldn’t quite recall the proportions of the different ingredients. That achieved, she embarked on the omelette. Cristo had vanished by then and she heaved a sigh of relief as she walked through to set the table in the spacious dining room across the hall.

He had accepted that she was Mary Brophy without protest and why shouldn’t he? It meant nothing to him that her poor mother was gone. Mark’s father, the land agent Daniel Petrie, would eventually catch up on the local gossip and learn that the woman he had long despised was dead and buried. But Belle thought it was unlikely that Daniel would bother making an announcement of that fact to Cristo Ravelli as, not only would he feel foolish about having misinformed his employer, but he would also most likely assume that Cristo had already found out the truth. Soothing herself with such reflections, Belle returned to her cooking and struggled to control the gas burners because she was accustomed to cooking with electric.

* * *

Cristo surveyed his meal with an appetite that very quickly vanished. He prodded the omelette with a fork. It had the solid consistency of a rubber mattress but lacked the bounce. The salad had been drowned in a vat of oil. Even the garlic bread was charred although valiant attempts had been made to cut away the most burnt bits. He swallowed hard and pushed the plate away. She couldn’t cook, but presumably she and his father had dined out. Distaste suddenly filled Cristo and he stood up in a lithe movement, his lean strong face hard and taut. He didn’t want to be in Ireland. He didn’t want to deal with the wretched woman and the consequences of her sordid long-term affair with his father. But he knew that he didn’t have a choice. Mary Brophy and her children were not a problem he could afford to ignore. In any case, there was no one else to deal with the situation.

Belle was digging into the linen cupboard on the upper landing when she heard a noise behind her and whirled round to stare in dismay at the tall square-featured young man leaning back against the bannister. He was built like a solid brick wall.

‘So this is where the bedding is hidden,’ he remarked.

‘Who are you?’ Belle demanded nervously.

‘Rafe is one of my two bodyguards,’ Cristo interposed, strolling up onto the landing. ‘Rafe and John are staying here with me.’

‘John and I need bedding. We can take care of ourselves though,’ Rafe declared, stepping past her to peruse the tidy, labelled shelves just as she emerged clutching the linen she required for the master bedroom. Conscious of Cristo Ravelli’s stare, and feeling somewhat harassed, Belle walked stiffly down the corridor. Damn the man! Why was he watching her like that? Did she have two heads all of a sudden? And why hadn’t he told her he had companions? She hadn’t bought enough food and that thought reminded her that she had to get him to settle up with her for the shopping she had done on his behalf. Dropping the linen on the bed, she dug into her pocket for the till receipt and turned to offer it to him.

‘This is what you owe me,’ she told him.

Cristo dug out his wallet and extended a banknote while still engaged in frowning at the gilded furniture and mirrors and the fantastically draped red king-size bed. ‘Is this my father’s room?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll sleep somewhere else. The Victorian brothel design doesn’t appeal to me,’ he informed her curtly.

The décor was dark, fussy and horrible, Belle was willing to concede. She lifted the linen again and trudged across the corridor to one of the few guest rooms that enjoyed an en suite. Mayhill was badly in need of updating.

‘When I said that about the decoration, I didn’t intend to insult you,’ Cristo remarked, standing poised by the window, thinking that at this early stage it would be most unwise to offend her. He swore to himself that he would make no cheap cracks about her role as his father’s mistress, not least because it was becoming clear that it had not been a profitable position, he reflected wryly, which was hardly surprising when Gaetano had been renowned for his stinginess. Indeed in every one of his three divorces Gaetano had made money off his ex-wives in spite of the fact that in each case the women had been the injured parties. That Gaetano’s secret mistress had still been working as his housekeeper and wore cheap off-the-peg clothing should really not come as a surprise. For that reason he found it hard to believe that Gaetano had stumped up for plastic surgery to keep his mistress looking young but, of course, he reminded himself, it was perfectly possible that there had been no cosmetic enhancement. Mary Brophy could simply be, and probably was, a very lucky woman who looked much younger than her years.

‘I’m not offended. I wasn’t involved in choosing the furnishings here. About ten years ago, Gaetano hired an interior decorator,’ Belle explained, recalling how very hurt her mother had been not to be trusted with that responsibility by her lover. But then good taste had not been her mother’s strong point either. The Lodge rejoiced in every shade of pink known to man, pink having been Mary’s favourite colour.

Cristo watched Belle crush the pillows into pillow slips, her slender figure twisting this way and that, allowing him to notice her ripe, pouting curves at breast and hip from every angle. His wide sensual mouth slowly settled into a harder and harder line as he studied her delicate flushed profile, scanning her fine brows, her subtle little nose and full pink mouth. And his body reacted accordingly, stirring with forbidden interest until he angrily turned his back on her, castigating himself for viewing his father’s mistress as if she were some kind of sex object. But then he reminded himself that she was dressed to attract in an outfit and shoes that accentuated her long legs and shapely figure, and, when all was said and done, he was still a man with all that entailed and almost guaranteed to look.

Belle shot a sidewise glance at Cristo from below her lashes. His detachment, his air of command and superiority reminded her of his father, who had barely acknowledged Belle’s existence on the rare occasions when he had seen her. Suddenly she regretted agreeing to play housekeeper because no doubt as intended it made her feel inferior. Her soft mouth tightened as she shook out the duvet with unnecessary violence and then carried the towels into the bathroom. Unfortunately she carried the image of Cristo Ravelli with her, those penetrating eyes dark as sin, that sleek bred-in-the-bone sexiness that lent him such charismatic appeal. She could feel her nipples pushing hard against the scratchy surface of her lace bra, a tightening, sliding sensation of warmth between her thighs and she was deeply disturbed by her reaction. But there was no denying it: he appealed to her; he attracted her on the most basic level. Did that mean that at heart she was as foolish as her mother had once been about Gaetano?

‘I’d appreciate the opportunity to have a private word with you here tomorrow morning,’ Cristo murmured smoothly as she emerged again. ‘Shall we say at ten?’

Belle nodded agreement. ‘When will you want to meet the children?’ she prompted.

Cristo froze, his facial bones locking tight. ‘I don’t...wish to meet them, that is,’ he extended unapologetically, dark eyes cold as black ice.

Belle paled, uncertain of how to take that statement. Was his lack of interest good or bad news for her siblings? Did that mean that the adoption idea was just a silly rumour? She scrutinised his lean, handsome features with frowning green eyes, unnerved by his icy reserve and lack of humanity. Did he think nothing of the blood tie? A lot of people would just have agreed to meet the children for the sake of it, even if they weren’t particularly interested in them, but Cristo Ravelli had chosen to spurn even that polite pretence.

In acknowledging that, Belle felt sheer loathing suddenly leap through her in a fierce wave of antagonism because she was gutted on her siblings’ behalf by his detachment. Was he refusing to accept that the children were part of the Ravelli family? Obviously. Clearly, Mary Brophy’s children were not good enough to make the grade, just as Mary had never been good enough for Gaetano to marry. Bile scoured Belle’s throat as she sped downstairs to clean up the kitchen and go home. She hoped he wasn’t expecting her to come up and cook breakfast when she found the meal she had cooked thrown in its entirety into the bin. Her face burned but her chin came up. So, it hadn’t been one of her best efforts but in her opinion it had been as much as he deserved!

After spending half the summer with Mary over twenty years earlier, Gaetano had confided that he was unhappily unmarried and Mary’s hopes of a happy ending for her romance had risen high. But Gaetano had not asked his Arabic wife for a divorce or even a separation. Over the years the media had published several stories about his extramarital affairs. Her mother had refused to believe the stories, even after Belle had shown her revealing pictures on the Internet. Mary had always been very quick to make excuses in Gaetano’s defence.

‘He feels trapped and lonely in his marriage. It’s only a business arrangement. She was a friend for years before he married her and he doesn’t love her. He needed a hostess to entertain his business colleagues and she comes from an old-fashioned country where a woman needs a husband if she wants any freedom,’ Mary had reasoned. ‘I can’t hold his marriage against him, Belle. I’m not even an educated woman. I couldn’t do what his princess can do for him.’

Mary Brophy had been hopelessly infatuated with Gaetano Ravelli from the moment she first met him and she had allowed nothing to interfere with her rosy view of their relationship. Her grief in the wake of the helicopter crash that had taken Gaetano’s life had been all-consuming.

‘I know you don’t understand,’ she had said to Belle, ‘but Gaetano was the love of my life. I know he wasn’t interested in marrying me but nothing’s perfect. I wasn’t his match in money or background and I can’t blame him for that. When you love someone, Belle, you accept their flaws and he was too much of a snob to want to marry an ordinary woman like me.’

A woman like me, Belle recalled painfully. It was little wonder that Mary had suffered from low self-esteem. She had travelled from a shotgun wedding at the age of seventeen straight into an abusive marriage and had finally ended up as a married man’s mistress. Life had always been tough for her mother, but then, as Isa was prone to reminding Belle, Mary had always made the wrong choices when it came to the men in her life.

Isa was waiting up for Belle when she got back to the Lodge.

‘Well?’ her grandmother pressed. ‘Did he actually credit the idea that you were a woman in her forties?’

‘No, he assumed I must have got involved with his father when I was very young,’ Belle advanced with a dismissive toss of her head. ‘He did do a lot of staring, though. He’s invited me up to the house to talk to him tomorrow at ten, so presumably the kids’ future will be discussed then.’

The older woman released a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t like the way you’re going about this, Belle. Honesty is always the best policy.’

‘But I won’t be dealing with a nice, honest guy.’

‘You hated Gaetano. Don’t take it out on his son.’

Belle folded her lips at that unwelcome advice. ‘He doesn’t even want to meet the kids.’

Her grandmother shook her greying head, her unhappiness at that news palpable. ‘If only your mother had thought about what she was doing and how much the children would be resented by the rest of Gaetano’s family.’

* * *

Cristo had a troubled night of sleep. He dreamt that he was pursuing a woman with the longest legs possible across a misty landscape. Every time he got close she pulled away and laughed and her resistance made him want her more than ever, lust pounding through his veins like an explosive charge. But when he finally caught up with her, she was a different woman, pale blonde hair falling back from her piquant face to highlight big blue enquiring eyes and instantaneous recoil wakened him. He had broken out in a cold sweat, angry frustration and guilt slicing through him for the one woman he couldn’t enjoy having even in his dreams...Betsy, his brother Nik’s estranged wife. His jawline rigid, Cristo sprang out of bed and went for a shower.

His eyes closed tight shut below the refreshing blast of the power shower. He hadn’t meant to wreck his brother’s marriage. There had been no intent on his part to inflict damage, he reasoned painfully. Betsy had come to him for support, devastated by what she had learned from Zarif. But, unhappily, it had been Cristo who first gave Zarif the destructive news that had ruined Nik’s relationship with his wife. Cristo had broken his brother’s confidence and spoken out of turn, but he had never ever at any stage planned to harm Nik or hoped to steal Betsy from him.

For his own benefit, however, he listed the sins he had committed. He had thought that Nik didn’t deserve a woman like Betsy. He had stood by watching while his brother took his wife for granted and he had not warned him of what he was doing. With the basest disloyalty, he had cherished feelings for his brother’s wife. That was why Gaetano’s mess in Ireland was his mess to clean up, Cristo reflected grimly. Nik already had enough on his plate to deal with and Zarif was still suffering the fallout from the loose-tongued confession that had wrecked Nik’s marriage because ever since then the three brothers had barely spoken to each other.

* * *

‘Very mumsy,’ Isa pronounced the next morning with a raised brow when she saw what Belle was wearing. ‘Did that skirt belong to your mother?’

Belle paled. ‘Yes, I kept a couple of things just to remember Mum by. It’s a little big but it looks all right with the belt.’

‘Which is more than you can say about that flapping cardigan and the beads round your neck with that fussy blouse,’ Isa groaned disapprovingly. ‘You look like a young woman trying to look older.’

‘Yes but that’s because you know the truth. It’s daylight now and I need to make a better impression than I did last night,’ Belle pointed out anxiously.

‘Even daylight couldn’t penetrate the amount of make-up you’ve got on,’ her grandmother said drily. ‘But you’re right—it does age you.’

‘Look, I accept that Cristo is eventually going to find out the truth but I want that adoption idea off the table first,’ Belle told her.

‘Even at the cost of infuriating him?’ Isa asked. ‘Gaetano had a very low threshold for provocation.’

‘Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it.’

‘I can’t see how,’ Isa said bluntly. ‘You’re pretty much powerless up against his wealth and intellect.’

Belle trudged up the drive in her high heels, striving not to feel like someone got up in fancy dress. She was not powerless. Money wasn’t everything, nor was intellect. She was not stupid. She had a first-class degree in business and economics and she had the power of the unexpected on her side. He thought she was who she had said she was and, whether he knew it or not, that meant he would be fighting with one hand tied behind his back. Where her mother would have rolled over on command for a Ravelli and said thank you very much for the attention, Belle was programmed to fight dirty.

Cristo watched her approach from the window in the drawing room. No miniskirt in evidence today, but high-heeled court shoes with pointy toes embellished those award-winning legs. He gritted his even white teeth together, stamping out that inappropriate thought. So, she was an attractive woman. It was par for the course: his father’s lovers had always been beauties even while his wives were more of the plain variety. Gaetano had always rated wealth and class above looks. Cristo wondered how much money it would take to persuade the older woman into his way of thinking. He was a skilled negotiator and envisaged few problems because Mary Brophy had not been enriched in any way by her relationship with his father and was currently penniless. Furthermore she couldn’t be the brightest star in the firmament when she had given the wily older man five children he could never have wanted and kept on slogging away for him as a humble housekeeper.

Surprisingly a rare shard of pity stabbed Cristo at that acknowledgement, making him register that where Mary Brophy was concerned he didn’t want to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. He didn’t want to threaten or intimidate her into doing his bidding; he simply wanted a neat and tidy solution to a very messy and potentially embarrassing problem for all their sakes.

CHAPTER THREE

‘MR RAVELLI IS in the drawing room,’ Rafe informed her.

Breathing in deeply and slowly to maintain her calm front, Belle walked into the over-furnished room where the ornate drapes and blinds cut out much of the daylight. Cristo swung round to study her and instantly her every sense went on high alert, her backbone stiffening, her slim legs bracing, her soft pink lips parting as she dragged in a sudden extra shot of oxygen.

Cristo scanned her appearance, his nostrils flaring with sudden impatience. She was dressed in a frumpy skirt and cardigan that a maiden aunt might have worn and she had inexplicably teamed that look with the kind of bold make-up a streetwalker might have flaunted like a signpost. And he realised then that there was something he wasn’t seeing, something he wasn’t grasping about this woman, because so far her long-term affair with his father wasn’t adding up at all. Whatever else might have been said about Gaetano, he had been a connoisseur of women and a sophisticate and there was no way his father had returned again and again to Ireland in order to take advantage of the charms of the woman currently standing in front of him.

‘Mr Ravelli...’ she said breathily and she turned her head away to glance out of the window, her hair a sunburst of colour, her fine profile delineated against the light, soft, glossy mouth full and pouting peach pink, long lashes fluttering up on big eyes as green and verdant as Irish grass.

And Cristo ground his perfect white teeth together on the smoulderingly sexual pull of her in that instant, recognising that she had buckets of that inexpressible quality that reduced the male mind to mush and turned a man on hard and fast. For a split second, he wanted to snatch her up into his arms and crush every line of the remarkable body concealed by the unattractive clothing to his own while he discovered if that voluptuous mouth of hers tasted as impossibly good as it looked. His hands closed into fists of restraint while he fought off the erection threatening, struggling to think of something, anything, that would take his thoughts off her mouth and her breasts and her legs and, even worse, what lay between them. That she could be affecting him on such a level outraged his every principle.

Trying to avoid direct contact with those spectacular dark-as-night eyes of his, Belle could feel her colour heightening, awareness of him leaping and pounding through her in an uncontrollable surge. She stared at him, breathless, frozen like someone cornered by a wild animal, and all the time she was noticing things about him: the way his sleek ebony brows defined his eyes, the way the faint line of colour accentuated the hard masculine angle of his high cheekbones, the way the pared-down hollows below enhanced his wide, sensual mouth. Very, very good-looking but, yes, she had noticed that before, certainly didn’t need to keep on noticing it. The atmosphere thickened and the silence screamed at her nerves as every muscle in her body tightened defensively. It was as if there were nobody else in the world but them and what she was feeling: the insidious warmth blossoming in her pelvis, the sudden tightening discomfort of her nipples.

Lean, strong face rigid, Cristo expelled his breath in a sudden hiss and took a measured step back from her and away from such treacherous ruminations as to what she might taste like, what her skin would feel and smell like. He was appalled that she could drag such a strong physical reaction from him against his will, but even more annoyed that she could somehow cloud his usual crystal-clear clarity of thought.

‘Miss Brophy.’

‘It’s Mrs actually.’

Cristo frowned. ‘You’re married?’

‘I’ve been a widow for many years,’ Belle replied tightly, straying over to the window, partially turning her back to him while she fought to regain her mental focus. The deception she had entered on demanded her whole concentration. She was Mary Brophy, Gaetano’s former mistress and the mother of five of his children, she reminded herself doggedly.

‘I invited you here today to discuss your future and your children’s,’ Cristo delivered smoothly.

Lifted by that solid assurance, Belle’s spirits perked up. ‘Yes...Gaetano has left us in a pretty awkward position.’

‘Naturally, you’re referring to your financial situation. My father was most remiss in not making provision for you in the event of his death.’

‘Yes...but he did sign the house over to me,’ Belle pointed out, keen to sound like a loyal woman in Gaetano’s defence because she could not afford to let an ounce of her loathing for the man betray her true identity in his son’s presence.

Cristo went very still, allowing her to take in the faultless cut of the dark business suit he wore teamed with a bland white shirt and blue silk tie. His brows drew together in a frown. ‘Which house?’

‘The Lodge...he signed it over to me years ago to ensure that we would always have a home.’ Belle’s voice faltered slightly because he seemed so taken aback by the news, yet surely he should’ve known that already as the executor of the estate. ‘But bearing in mind the running costs and the children’s current needs I’ll probably be selling it now.’

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Cristo urged, striding out of the room into the one next door and pulling out his phone to call his father’s lawyer, Robert Ludlow. If she owned part of the property, he should’ve been informed of the fact.

Robert’s initial disconcertion over Cristo’s query trailed away as he trawled through Gaetano’s files and then emerged with the facts of a minor legal agreement drawn up about fifteen years earlier, which Robert’s elder brother had apparently handled shortly before his retirement. Robert was volubly apologetic for the oversight. Brought up to date, Cristo was triumphantly aware that he knew something Mary Brophy did not appear to know. Under no circumstances would she be selling the Lodge.

Conscious that Cristo Ravelli clearly had not known about the ownership of the Lodge, Belle paced and wondered anxiously why he had not been aware of the fact. She was trying not to recall the fact that the solicitor who had dealt with her mother’s estate had found no paperwork confirming the older woman’s ownership. He had brushed off the matter and said he would look into it, and at the time Belle had had so many other things on her plate that she hadn’t pursued it.

Cristo strolled back into the drawing room with the lithe, unconscious grace of a male who was confident that he was in the strongest position. ‘I’m afraid you don’t own the Lodge,’ he spelt out softly, his Italian accent edging his vowel sounds.

‘That’s not possible,’ Belle countered, her chin rising in challenge. ‘Your father told me it was mine—’

‘But for your lifetime only, after which it reverts back to the Mayhill estate,’ Cristo qualified smoothly.

Suddenly Belle felt as if the ground below her feet had opened to swallow her up. ‘That’s not what Gaetano led me to believe.’

‘My father had a way with words and may have wished you to believe that you owned the Lodge but, in fact, you only have the use of it.’

A shot of rage flamed through Belle like a lightning strike. That hateful, manipulative man whom her wretched mother had loved! How could he have misled her like that over something so important? Hot colour sprang into her cheeks as she parted her dry lips. ‘And this right to live there while...er I am alive, does it devolve to the children after my...er death?’ she prompted sickly.

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