Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Ruthless Demands: The Sicilian’s Stolen Son / The Greek Demands His Heir / The Greek Commands His Mistress

Later that same day, Ellie stood by grinning while Jemima patiently stood and obediently posed while all her measurements were taken and carefully noted down by the middle-aged female tailor and her assistant who had also called at Luciano’s request.

‘So, he’s planning for you to wear a nanny uniform?’ Ellie remarked teasingly after the women had departed.

Jemima pulled a face. ‘Obviously,’ she pointed out ruefully, far from looking forward to the prospect of being dressed in some starchy formal outfit in the Sicilian heat.

‘I suppose it’s one good way of ensuring that you don’t forget that you’re one of the workers rather than a guest... I mean, it could be a bit awkward with you supposedly being Nicky’s mother,’ her friend opined with a wince. ‘When are you planning to tell Luciano that you’re Julie’s sister?’

Jemima grimaced. ‘Probably not until I’m leaving Sicily, which will be the end of August at the latest because term starts the following week and I’ll be starting teaching again,’ she reminded the other woman. ‘It would be a bit of a risk admitting my true identity any sooner than that because Luciano could just ask me to leave immediately but by late August it’s hardly going to matter to him.’

‘Stop beating yourself up about it. You’re not doing anyone any harm—’

‘It’s not that simple, Ellie. Every time I’m with Luciano I’m lying to him,’ Jemima pointed out heavily, wishing she had found it possible to confide in Ellie about how much more complicated her relationship with Luciano had recently become. The problem was that she was too ashamed to admit that their strained relationship had suddenly—inexplicably, to her—dived into the kind of intimacy she had always held back from.

Only three days had passed since that day in London and she still lay in her bed at night unable to quite accept that she had fooled around with Luciano to the extent that she had forgotten not only the tenets that she had been raised by, but also everything she could not afford to forget about her current predicament. She was acting as Julie, not herself, and, although she was convinced that her late sister would also have succumbed to the advances of a gorgeous billionaire, she knew she couldn’t grasp at that as an excuse for her behaviour. In reality she had lost control and had allowed herself to be swept away on a roller coaster of sexual sensation new to her. She had acted like a giddy teenager rather than a grown-up, had lived in the moment, had rejoiced in the moment without any thought of what it would be like to meet Luciano again or to work for him in an official capacity.

‘You’re lying solely for Nicky’s benefit,’ Ellie told her with loyal reassurance. ‘And by going to Sicily with Nicky you’re making all these changes easier for him—’

Jemima gave her friend an anxious look. ‘So you think I’m doing the right thing?’

‘I always thought that the best solution for Nicky was to be with the father who arranged for him to be born. He’s a lovely child, I can see that, but he’s not your child. I hate to agree with Steven about anything but I do want you to get your own life back,’ her friend told her ruefully. ‘Be young, free and single again. You deserve that. Nicky was Julie’s mistake.’

Jemima compressed her lips and said nothing. She could not think of Nicky’s bright, loving existence as a mistake on any terms and being single and free had proved a less fun-filled experience for her than she had been led to expect. Nicky was part of her life now and she loved him. She had not carried her nephew through a pregnancy but the little boy felt as much a part of her as though she had. She knew that walking away from him was going to hurt her a lot, but, if that was truly what was best for Nicky in the long run, she would have to learn to live with that.

The next morning, Jemima, Nicky and their luggage were collected by a limousine accompanied by a car full of bodyguards. The trip to the airport was accomplished in record time and even boarding the private jet awaiting them was a fairly smooth and speedy experience. Jemima was surprised that Luciano was not on board and that, indeed, she and Nicky appeared to be the only passengers aside of the security staff, who took seats at the rear of the plane. The cabin crew made a big fuss of Nicky and were unceasingly attentive.

Luciano boarded in Paris, where he’d had a meeting, and the first thing he noticed was Jemima, curled up fast asleep in a reclining seat with Nicky out for the count beside her in his fancy travelling seat. Her mane of hair was braided when he wanted to see it loose again...even though he knew much of that hair was fake? He shook off that awkward question and scanned the worn jeans and casual washed-out top she sported with a frown of incomprehension forming between his dark brows. Why had she not yet made the effort to dress up for him...even once? No woman had ever been so sure of her hold on Luciano’s interest that she would show up garbed almost as poorly as a homeless person! Or was this deliberate dressing down and this avoidance of glamour merely Jemima’s highly effective way of ensuring that he bought her a new wardrobe?

Jemima wakened slowly, comfortably rested after having endured a final nervous, sleepless night in her parents’ home. Luciano now sat across the aisle. Drowsily she studied his perfect profile, thinking that no man should have lashes that long, that dark or that lush or a nose and a jaw that would not have disgraced a Greek god. Butterflies found wings in her stomach and fluttered. Luciano turned his handsome dark head and she encountered dark golden eyes as lustrous as melting honey. A little quiver ran through her like a tightening piece of elastic, unleashing far less innocent responses that made her squirm with self-consciousness.

‘We’ll be landing in thirty minutes.’

‘Right...er...I’ll go and freshen up,’ Jemima muttered, sliding out of her seat.

For a split second he gazed up at her, scanning the bloom of soft pink warming the porcelain complexion, which merely enhanced the ice-blue-diamond effect of her unusual eyes and the full softness of the lips he had already tasted. And his body reacted as instantly as a starving man facing a banquet, urgency and hunger combining in a mind-blowing storm of response. His strong jaw line clenching, Luciano gritted his even white teeth angrily and looked away, schooling himself to coldness again.

He didn’t like losing control. He had never liked losing control. He had often seen his father lose his head in temper and living through the experience unscathed had been a challenge for everyone around him. Luciano had little fear that he himself would erupt into mindless violence, but he was absolutely convinced that reactions like passion and anger twisted a man’s thinking processes and made bad decisions and human errors more likely. She would be in his bed this very night, he reminded himself soothingly. He would have what he wanted, what he increasingly felt he needed from her, and then this temporary insanity would be over and done with, decently laid to rest between the sheets. It astonished him, it even slightly unnerved him, that sexual desire could exercise that much power over him.

Jemima concentrated on the mechanics of feeding and changing Nicky while stubbornly denying herself the opportunity to look back in Luciano’s direction. He was gorgeous and he had to know he was gorgeous. After all, he saw himself every time he shaved, she thought wildly. But that was not an excuse to stare and blush and act all silly like an adolescent who didn’t know how to behave around a man. Absolutely not any sort of an excuse at all, Jemima reminded herself doggedly as she abstractedly admired how much Nicky’s glossy black curls resembled his father’s and resisted the urge to make another quite unnecessary visual comparison.

Suddenly the thought that she would be in Luciano’s vicinity for the rest of the summer was a daunting one. She could never act polite and indifferent in the company of such a dynamic and passionate male. He lit her up like a fire inside but she ought to be fighting that tooth and nail. She was lying to Luciano and he was Nicky’s father, which meant that there was no possibility of any normal relationship developing between them. Keeping her distance and resisting temptation were what she needed to do. Intellectually she knew that...but knowing and actually doing were two very different things, as she had already discovered. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, Luciano’s attraction yanked at her on every possible level...

CHAPTER FIVE (#u75afd505-af84-5d5f-a5c7-be3d0aba9fb8)

LUCIANO’S PHONE BUZZED into life after they landed, shooting out a string of text messages and missed calls, every one of which hailed from his British lawyer, Charles Bennett. His mouth quirking as he wondered what could possibly have prompted the relaxed Charles to such an uncharacteristic display of urgency, Luciano phoned the older man as soon as he stepped inside the airport.

‘I have the worst possible news for you. We’ve all been conned,’ Charles announced with rare drama the instant the call connected. ‘Jemima Barber is not the mother of your child—’

Luciano froze and waved an impatient hand at his bodyguards to silence their chatter while he listened. ‘That’s not possible,’ he declared.

‘I haven’t got all the details yet and I won’t waste your time with speculation but I believe that the mother of your child was one of an identical set of twins. She died when she was struck by a car a couple of months ago,’ the lawyer explained curtly.

Luciano was frowning darkly. ‘Which would mean—’

‘That at best our Jemima is an aunt to the boy and a con artist,’ Charles framed drily. ‘I have a top-flight set of investigators digging into this right now and I expect to have the whole story for you by this evening at the latest.’

‘How sure are you of these facts?’ Luciano prompted, watching Jemima detach his son’s clinging fingers from her hanging golden braid. Not Niccolò’s mother? How could that be? His brain, usually so fast to adapt to new scenarios, was for some reason still struggling to find solid ground in this shift of circumstances.

‘Take it from me—she’s definitely not the woman who gave birth to the boy. I now have that woman’s real name along with a copy of her death certificate. She called herself Julie Marshall. Matters are complicated by the fact that from the very beginning of your dealings with Julie, your son’s real mother was using Jemima Barber’s identity to hide behind.’

‘But why? You believe this was a conspiracy from the start?’

‘Who can tell? With one of them dead it’s doubtful that the full truth will ever be known,’ Charles pointed out cynically.

Rage began to shadow Luciano’s rational mind as the ramifications for his son began to filter into his thoughts. His son’s mother had deceived him and his staff from day one and now she was dead and, as such, untouchable. Luciano was his son’s only living relative. He refused to credit that an aunt could possibly have a claim to challenge his own. So, naturally, Jemima had not owned up to the truth. After all, her only way of making a profit through Niccolò was by pretending to be his birth mother.

As they climbed into a limousine outside the airport Luciano watched his son nestle trustingly into Jemima’s arms and then complain loudly at being placed in the car seat instead. His lean dark features shadowed. He was finally a parent and already he had failed. He had failed to protect his son from hurt. Niccolò had been encouraged to form a bond with his two-faced, duplicitous aunt and would be emotionally bereft when the woman disappeared from his world. Who did Luciano blame for the formation of that deceptive bond? Jemima Barber! She must’ve known from the outset that her only weapon would be the baby’s attachment to her. Niccolò was only a baby but he had already been tricked into bestowing affection where he should not. Luciano, in a rage beyond anything he had ever experienced, ground his even white teeth together while he pretended an interest in the emails on his tablet.

She was a lying, cheating prostituta with a stone for a heart! And just like her late sister, the only thing that greased the wheels in Jemima’s world was money. There was no other explanation for her behaviour! At any time she could have admitted the truth but she had preferred to lie and stage a scam to ensure that she wielded the greatest power she could and made the biggest possible profit out of her dishonesty. In ignorance Luciano had agreed to settle her debts—her sister’s debts?—and had made the mistake of offering her an all-expenses-paid trip to Sicily. And she would have even more cause to celebrate when she saw what awaited her at the castle...

Of course he didn’t want her now, he told himself fiercely. He wanted nothing more to do with her and out of sight would be out of mind. How long had it been since a woman put one over on him? He suppressed a shudder of all too fresh recollection. What did it say about him that the women who most attracted him were thoroughly immoral and unscrupulous characters? Was that some hangover from his ancestral forebears? Something dark and shady in his blood that slyly influenced his choices?

Although Jemima was trying not to stare at Luciano she was convinced that something unpleasant had happened. She had watched his lean, darkly handsome face freeze into rigidity while he was talking on the phone at the airport. Had he received bad news? Some business setback? Or something of a more personal nature? Jemima acknowledged how very little she actually knew about Luciano Vitale. He was a widower who had lost a wife and a daughter and that was the summit of her information. But whatever was amiss, Luciano’s jaw was rock hard with tension and he had barely acknowledged the existence of Jemima and his son since the jet had landed. Ironically, Nicky, who acted up whenever Luciano actively tried to get closer to him, now chose to stretch out an inviting hand towards his father, who might as well have been on another planet for all the interest he was showing in him. Still, there was yet another similarity between the two of them, Jemima reflected helplessly. Neither one of them could bear to be ignored...and ten to one that was exactly why Nicky was vying for attention now.

The limousine came to a halt and Jemima looked out of the window, surprised to see various aircraft parked. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘A private airfield. I use a helicopter to fly to my home,’ Luciano divulged, his firmly modelled lips compressing.

Jemima’s eyes widened in surprise. She had never been on a helicopter before and yet he evidently regularly used them just to travel home. Nothing could have more easily illustrated the vast gulf between their worlds. While they were boarding the helicopter, there was no further conversation, which was probably just as well because Jemima was concentrating on her exciting new experience.

As the helicopter took off Jemima peered out of the window to watch a slice of sea appear at a crazy angle. Her brow pleated in astonishment when the craft then flew out directly over the water. Where on earth were they going? Naturally she had assumed that Luciano’s home was either in a city or in the mountainous interior but as the minutes passed on their seabound journey it was clear that their destination could only be another island.

She watched land appear again with keen interest. A bright patchwork of forested slopes, olive groves and a vast brown building on the shoreline of a long beach appeared. The building had towers and turrets like a castle, and as the helicopter dropped down to land in the manicured grounds enclosed by tall boundary walls she realised that it was a genuine castle.

‘What’s this place called?’ she asked as she hopped down onto the grass and approached Luciano to take Nicky back off him.

‘Castello del Drogo. The island is named for it. I’ll keep him,’ Luciano told her, hoisting the sleepy baby against his shoulder in a blatantly protective movement, his eyes as dark and cool as the night sky and about as far from melting honey as eyes could get, she thought ruefully.

Refusing to be quieted by his discouraging coldness, Jemima smiled. ‘How long have you lived here?’

‘A couple of years. It has the privacy I need. Intruders can only approach by sky or sea and both are monitored. I can walk by the sea here without fear of a camera appearing from the bushes,’ he spelt out flatly.

They got into the beach buggy waiting to waft them up to the doors of the castle. Jemima was smiling, her earlier concerns forgotten as she rejoiced in the warmth of late afternoon and the beautiful gardens surrounding them. It would be really interesting to stay in a castle, she thought absently, studying the imposing fortress before her. ‘How old is it?’

‘The oldest section is medieval, the youngest eighteenth century.’

They mounted shallow steps to the giant porticoed entrance where two women awaited their arrival. Both wore black, one of possibly pensioner age and the other around fortyish.

The hall was an imposing oval shape with a marble floor and black ebonised furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Jemima was silenced by the sheer splendour of the castle, especially when she compared it to her parents’ tiny retirement home. How could she ever have denied Nicky the wealthy lifestyle that his father evidently enjoyed?