Fated Attraction

by Carole Mortimer

As well he might be—it was incredible!

  Anita looked at the three of them, really looked at the three of them for the first time, seeing the truth of Jordan’s words there in their faces. ‘Oh, God,’ she breathed weakly. ‘You mean, if I hadn’t said anything—’

  ‘As you appear not to have done all these years,’ Raff put in harshly.

  ‘—none of you would ever have known,’ Anita realised heavily, all the fight seeming to have gone out of her at this realisation. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, grasping the back of the chair that stood in front of the desk. ‘When I saw the three of you together I thought you must have somehow found out the truth and come here to confront me with it.’

  ‘I think,’ Raff stated firmly, ‘that now you have gone this far you had better tell us exactly what that truth is!’

  Anita closed her eyes briefly. ‘The two of you are really going to be married?’ She looked at Rhea-Jane and Raff.

  ‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ Raff nodded tersely.

  Anita sighed, moving to sit down. ‘Then you’ll have to know the truth, won’t you?’ she accepted dully. ‘You know, for years Diana and I would avoid being at the same social occasions.’ She shook her head. ‘And now this!’

  Rhea-Jane moved to Raff’s side as Anita began to tell them what had happened thirty years ago.

  Donald and Helen Quinlan were separated when Diana went to the house as Raff’s nanny, Helen having left some months previously with the family chauffeur, claiming she had had enough of the boring life to be had there.

  Rhea-Jane felt Raff tense at this, and her hand caressed his arm to show him she understood the dismay this conversation was giving him.

  The inevitable had happened. Donald and Diana fell in love.

  It was obvious, from Anita’s scornful attitude, how she had felt about that!

  ‘You would have approved of that, I dare say?’ Anita accused Raff.

  ‘And obviously you wouldn’t?’ he rasped.

  Anita’s turned back with derision. ‘Diana was even more unsuitable as mistress of Quinlan House than Helen had been!’

  ‘In whose opinion?’ Raff challenged.

  ‘You know how I’ve always felt about Quinlan House,’ his aunt defended.

  He nodded. ‘To the point where no one was good enough to own the estate but you!’

  Anita’s face was flushed. ‘I have as much right—’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point in getting involved in personalities, Anita,’ Jack Barnes cut in quietly, obviously as stunned by his wife’s revelations as the rest of them. ‘Just stick to the facts,’ he encouraged uncomfortably.

  ‘Very well,’ she accepted snappily. ‘Helen was injured in a car accident, paralysed from the waist down. Her young lover deserted her without a qualm, apparently,’ she added distastefully. ‘What could poor Donald do in the circumstances?’ she shrugged. ‘He suddenly had a wife, the mother of his son, who needed him very badly.’

  ‘And Diana was expecting his child,’ Raff bit out, glancing at Jordan, who stood so white-faced and still across the room.

  ‘Donald never knew about that—’

  ‘What?’ Raff demanded incredulously.

  ‘Diana hadn’t had a chance to tell him, when Helen’s accident happened,’ Anita explained impatiently. ‘Donald would never have ignored the existence of his son if he had known about him,’ she defended.

  ‘You knew,’ Raff accused.

  ‘Only because I had seen Diana being ill one day and guessed at the truth,’ his aunt told him defensively. ‘But she swore me to secrecy …’

  ‘A secret you were only too happy to keep,’ Raff taunted harshly.

  ‘Raff!’ Jack Barnes cautioned. ‘This isn’t helping the situation.’ He glanced pointedly at Jordan.

  ‘No,’ Raff accepted impatiently.

  Anita drew in a deep breath. ‘Diana decided she had to leave, and because of Helen’s presence back in the house Donald had no choice but to accept her decision. I felt almost sorry for Diana, offered to help her out if I could. Then by some fluke she met Somerville-Smythe,’ she said disgustedly. ‘He couldn’t have children of his own, Diana was pregnant but alone; it was a perfect match,’ Anita dismissed scathingly.

  ‘But—but that can’t be possible,’ Rhea-Jane protested that claim. ‘There’s me!’

  Anita looked at her assessingly. ‘So there is,’ she drawled speculatively. ‘And undoubtedly Diana’s daughter.’

  ‘And James’s daughter, too,’ Jordan assured Rhea-Jane calmly, the first time he had spoken since Anita had begun her explanation. ‘I can still remember his behaviour when you were born.’ He shook his head. ‘There was grief that he had lost Mother, but at the same time he went around the house ranting and raving about it ‘‘only being a damned girl after all these years of trying’’. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but it does now.’

  And Rhea-Jane realised now that her father had never forgiven her for ‘only being a damned girl’. She had been his first legitimate child, and not the boy he had hoped for! It explained so much of his behaviour towards her.

  In fact, all of this explained so much …

  ‘And my father and mother lived the rest of their married life in armed neutrality,’ Raff sighed. ‘What a damned waste!’

  ‘But your Rhea-Jane wouldn’t have been born if Donald and Diana had stayed together all those years ago,’ Anita pointed out mockingly.

  His arm tightened about Rhea-Jane’s shoulders. ‘Then for our sakes I can only be glad it worked out the way that it did. But—’

  ‘Mummy!’ The young brunette who had originally opened the door to them entered the room after the briefest of knocks. ‘Your guests are getting a little restless at your disappearance. After all, it is your anniversary party!’

  ‘We’re coming now, Chelsea,’ her father assured her firmly. ‘Anita, Robert, I see it’s time we rejoined the party.’ He turned to Raff, Jordan, and Rhea-Jane. ‘I think the three of you need to be alone to talk.’

  ‘But, Jack—’

  ‘Anita, I think your silence all these years has caused enough damage,’ he reproved his wife in an uncharacteristic show of strength where she was concerned. ‘The least we can do now is leave these three young people alone to become accustomed to their change of relationship.’

  Anita followed her husband disgruntledly, Robert giving Rhea-Jane an encouraging smile before exiting himself.

  Raff and Jordan simply stared at each other once they had been left alone in the silence of the study, and Rhea-Jane recalled all the times she had compared the two men and found them to be so much alike. There was a similarity in their looks too, she realised now, although she had obviously never looked for such a likeness before.

  Raff was the first to speak. ‘Despite her designs on the Quinlan estate I can’t believe Anita kept all that to herself for thirty years.’ He shook his head a little dazedly. ‘If Rhea-Jane and I hadn’t met …’

  ‘But we did,’ she reminded him firmly.

  ‘Fate.’ Jordan finally spoke. ‘It had to happen,’ he added convincingly. ‘And I have a feeling that Mother would have been very happy about it.’

  ‘Jordan—’

  ‘Would the two of you excuse me?’ Jordan interrupted Rhea-Jane in a strained voice as she would have gone to his side. ‘I—I need time to be alone and—think about all this.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Let him go, Rhea.’ Raff softly stopped her, watching the other man as he crossed to the door with jerky movements. ‘He needs time on his own,’ he advised gently after Jordan had left. ‘Time to think, as he said. Time to reassess his own position.’

  ‘Oh, Raff.’ Rhea-Jane buried her face against his chest. ‘I can’t believe all this.’

  ‘Then how do you think Jordan feels?’ he cajoled. ‘Hey, come on, Rhea, it will all work out, you’ll see,’ he soothed as she trembled.

  ‘How could Anita have kept such a thing to herself all these years?’
She shook her head disbelievingly.

  ‘At a guess I would say I was just about right when I suggested she didn’t want another child on the scene ruining Robert’s chances of one day inheriting the estate,’ Raff drawled.

  Rhea-Jane looked up at him. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Of course,’ he dismissed, some of his own shock starting to fade. ‘And until I met you there was never any chance of her plans being foiled.’ He smiled down at her.

  ‘And they’re foiled twice over now that Jordan knows he’s your—brother.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s going to take a little getting used to! And we could have children of our own. I’d like that,’ she added wistfully.

  ‘So would I.’ Raff’s arms tightened about her. ‘Maybe once we have a child, whom we can all share in, Jordan included, this change of relationship won’t seem so strange to us.’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ she said worriedly, knowing what a blow the last half-hour had been to Jordan; in a sense he had lost his own identity. He was going to need all the loving support they could give him over the next few months.

  ‘We’ll support each other.’ Raff accurately read her concern. ‘It will work out, Rhea.’

  And when he spoke as positively as that she couldn’t doubt him!

  EPILOGUE

  ‘MY MOTHER still isn’t pleased,’ Robert told her drily.

  Rhea-Jane smiled up at him as they danced together in the main salon of the house, the furniture cleared from the room to allow for the fifty or so guests invited to celebrate her twenty-first birthday with her. ‘She looks a little happier than she did at the wedding last month.’ She glanced across to where Anita Barnes was at least trying to look as if she were enjoying herself—even if she was convincing very few people of the fact!

  It had been a busy month, work due to begin on the estate directly after this party, Raff and Jordan partners in the venture, their relationship known only to close family. After all, the marriage between Rhea and Raff had made the two men brothers-in-law, and it had been accepted as natural that the two men should go into business together.

  ‘ ‘‘Family silver’’, and all that,’ he reminded her.

  Rhea-Jane laughed softly. ‘She’s going to be even more upset when she knows about the baby.’

  ‘My God, you aren’t—you don’t mean—?’

  Robert stopped dancing to stare down at her. ‘Already?’

  ‘Already,’ she glowed up at him, ecstatic with the news. ‘Raff is absolutely delighted,’ she added happily.

  ‘You certainly didn’t waste any time!’ Robert looked admiring.

  The first night of their honeymoon, to be exact …

  Diana’s grandchild would be born into the Quinlan family, surrounded by the love of its mother and father.

  ‘If you aren’t going to dance with my wife, then I will,’ Raff told the younger man, whisking Rhea-Jane away among the other couples dancing before Robert could even think of raising any objections.

  She smiled up at him lovingly. ‘I think Robert is going to enjoy telling his mother about the baby,’ she said with relish.

  Raff grinned. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’ve just had the pleasure of telling Jordan. He wants to know if he’s going to be known as Uncle Uncle Jordan, as the baby will make him an uncle twice over?’

  ‘I never thought of that!’ she laughed.

  Raff sobered slightly. ‘He’s going to be just fine, you know.’

  She looked across to where Jordan was in polite conversation with one of Raff’s elderly maiden aunts. There could be no doubting that finding out that Donald Quinlan was his father and not James Somerville-Smythe, as he had always thought, had knocked him for six, but he slowly seemed to be adjusting to the fact.

  ‘We’ll make sure he is,’ Rhea-Jane agreed warmly.

  ‘God, you’re lovely.’ Raff looked down at her darkly. ‘Do we have to stay here? Can’t we just slip away and be alone together?’

  She moved closer to him. ‘We’ve been ‘‘slipping away to be alone together’’ the last nine weeks,’ she reminded him ruefully. ‘We really should make an effort to behave ourselves tonight.’

  Marriage suited both of them; theirs was a loving relationship, a true partnership, because although Raff refused to touch any of her money they were, in fact, working together with Jordan on the leisure complex, would run it together once everything was completed: Rhea-Jane had found her niche in life, after all.

  ‘We’ve made an effort—and failed,’ Raff coaxed. ‘Come on, Rhea,’ he encouraged. ‘It is your birthday today, darling. I think reaching the age of twenty-one deserves to be celebrated—privately.’

  ‘Later,’ she promised.

  ‘Now,’ he insisted softly.

  Rhea-Jane looked up at him, loving every hard contour of his face, recognising the desire she could see there, knowing that same desire herself.

  ‘Now,’ she agreed huskily, knowing that their fated attraction had turned into something so much more special, that it would last a lifetime.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story by

  USA TODAY bestselling author

  CAROLE MORTIMER,

  you will love

  Harlequin® Presents!

  Do you want alpha males, decadent glamour and jet-set lifestyles? Step into the sensational, sophisticated world of Harlequin® Presents, where sinfully tempting heroes ignite a fierce and wickedly irresistible passion!

  Look for eight new stories every month!

  Recommended Reads for February 2017

  Read on for the first chapter of

  THE LAST DI SIONE CLAIMS HIS PRIZE

  by Maisey Yates

  the final part in the unmissable new eight book Presents series

  THE BILLIONAIRE’S LEGACY

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS RUMORED that Alessandro Di Sione had once fired an employee for bringing his coffee back two minutes later than commanded and five degrees cooler than ordered. It was rumored that he had once released a long-term mistress with a wave of his hand and an order to collect a parting gift from his assistant in the following weeks.

  There were also rumors that he breathed fire, slept in a dungeon and derived sustenance from the souls of the damned.

  So, when his shiny new temporary assistant scurried into the room with red cheeks and an apologetic expression on the heels of his grandfather—who appeared neither red-cheeked nor sorry for anything—it was no surprise that she looked as though she was headed for the gallows.

  Of course, no one denied Giovanni Di Sione entry to any place he wished to inhabit. No personal assistant, no matter how formidable, would have been able to keep his grandfather out. Age and severely reduced health notwithstanding.

  But as his typical assistant was on maternity leave and her replacement had only been here for a couple of weeks, she didn’t know that. She was, of course, afraid that Giovanni was an intruder and that she would be punished for the breach of security.

  He saw no point in disabusing her of that notion. It was entirely possible she would spend the rest of the day deconstructing the meaning to his every glance in her direction. Likely, in the retelling she would talk about the blackness of his eyes being a reflection of his soul, or some other such nonsense. And so, his reputation would darken even more, without him lifting a finger.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Di Sione,” she said, clearly out of breath, one palm pressed tightly over her rather unimpressive breasts.

  He made a low, disapproving sound and raised one dark brow.

  She was trembling now. Like a very small dog. “Should I go back to work, sir?” she asked, nervous eyes darting toward the door.

  He waved his hand and she scurried back out much the same as she had scurried in.

  “I see you’re up and moving around,” Alex said, not descending into sentimentality because his relationship with Giovanni didn’t allow for that. With each returned Lost Mistress, Giovanni’s health had
recovered bit by bit.

  “It’s been a while since my last treatment, so I’m feeling better.”

  “Good to hear it.”

  “The way you acted toward your assistant was not overly kind, Alessandro,” his grandfather said, taking the seat in front of Alex’s desk somewhat shakily.

  “You say that as though you believe I have a concern about being perceived as kind. We both know I do not.”

  “Yes, but I also know you’re not as terrible as you pretend to be.” Giovanni leaned back in his chair, both hands planted on his knees. He was getting on in years and after seventeen years in remission his leukemia had returned. At ninety-eight, Giovanni likely didn’t have many years left on the earth regardless of his health, but this had certainly added a bit of urgency to the timeline.

  The goal being to recover each and every one of Giovanni’s Lost Mistresses. Stories of these treasures were woven into Alex’s consciousness. His grandfather had been spinning tales about them from the time Alessandro was a boy. And now, he had tasked each of his grandchildren with finding one of those lost treasures.

  Except for Alex.

  He had been expecting this. Waiting for quite some time to hear about what part he might play in this quest.

  “Maybe not,” Alex said, leaning back in his chair, unconsciously mimicking his grandfather’s position.

  “At least you do not dare to behave terribly in my presence.”

  “What can I say, Nonno? You are perhaps the only man on earth more formidable than I.”

  Giovanni waved his hand as if dismissing Alex’s words. “Flattery is not the way with me, Alessandro, as you well know.”

  He did know. His grandfather was a man of business. A man who had built a life out of nothing upon his arrival to America, he was a man who understood commerce. He had instilled that in Alex. It was how they connected. Where their minds met.

  “Don’t tell me you’re feeling bored so you wanted to get your hands back into the shipping business?”

  “Not at all. But I do have a job for you.”

  Alex nodded slowly. “Is it my time to take a mistress?”