Seduced by the Enemy

by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  Epilogue

  Olivia walked down the staircase with her two-year old daughter on her hip. ‘Nick! I didn’t know you’d arrived. It’s great to see you.’

  ‘Uncle Nick!’ the toddler exclaimed as she started wriggling against Olivia, impatient to be with her honorary uncle.

  Luca raced up the few remaining stairs. ‘Let me take Isabella, cara.’ He reached out to take the adorable toddler and Isabella squealed in delight as he swung her high in the air. ‘You need to walk down the stairs yourself now, piccola. You’re getting too heavy for Mummy to carry.’

  ‘You look well, Olivia.’ Nick kissed Olivia’s cheek as she reached the marbled entryway.

  ‘Only another two weeks to go,’ she told him above Isabella’s loud demands for a cuddle from their second visitor. ‘Come back then and it’ll really be bedlam around here.’

  Luca passed Isabella to Nick and drew Olivia to his side. ‘You love bedlam, tesoro.’

  ‘You’re definitely a star,’ Max declared as he entered the house from the terrace. ‘Coping with our friend Luca here should earn you a medal in itself, but to have left your mark on the European art world so quickly, along with balancing the demands of motherhood …’ He looked at his friend. ‘You’re a truly lucky man, Luca.’

  Olivia sent Max a wry smile. ‘I still think I owe you three gentlemen for my professional success. I retain my suspicions that the three of you engaged in a bidding war at my first exhibition.’ The prices paid by two of the bidders on her very first works had sent the rest of the bidders into a frenzy for the remainder of the auction, fetching prices Olivia felt were way too extravagant for what the pieces had truly been worth.

  ‘Us?’ Max demanded as he adopted a suspiciously innocent expression.

  ‘There were eminent art buyers there, Olivia,’ Nick added. ‘They knew the worth of what they were buying.’

  Maybe. Maybe not. What had happened at the art exhibition was questionable but there was no question that these two men were fabulous friends.

  She’d always likened Luca, Max and Nick to the three musketeers—all for one and one for all. Time and again they’d proven to have had each other’s backs, and Luca’s friends had included her in their tight-knit circle.

  ‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Christiana will be down shortly. She’s got Mum braiding her hair.’ In the last two-and-a-half years, since her hair had started growing back, Jane’s daughter had become very particular about it. Marjorie had taken lessons from a hairdresser and learnt to style it in many different ways—depending on how Christiana wanted it.

  It was the one indulgence Olivia and Luca had allowed and Olivia could understand that for a child who’d had to shave her head, it really meant a lot to Christiana to be able to enjoy her hair.

  Apart from being fussy about her hair, the now seven-year-old was still a beautiful soul. Olivia was grateful every day to the bone marrow donor who’d come forward and saved her niece’s life. The doctors were all very happy with the progress Christiana had made and while she still needed tests done every six months, they were hopeful she was in full remission—that the leukaemia would never return.

  Luca continued to support the international bone marrow registry with his monthly lottery for donors, and there’d been a huge increase in the number of donors who’d registered since the lottery had commenced. Still, more were needed to provide the all-important gift of life.

  Isabella’s incessant chatter broke into Olivia’s thoughts. The toddler was chatting away in Nick’s ear way too loudly.

  ‘Shall we go out onto the terrace?’ Olivia suggested. Isabella would be able to play in the shaded sandpit Luca had made for her, and Olivia knew Max and Nick had more than Christiana’s birthday celebrations on their minds.

  Damiano had suffered a fatal stroke only a fortnight ago and the men wanted to know whether or not Luca wanted to buy their shares and take control of his father’s company. Olivia knew the answer was a resounding no.

  There’d been no breaching the gap between father and son—no forgiveness on Luca’s part, and Olivia had never tried to influence him otherwise. How could there be forgiveness of one who was unrepentant and could never be trusted?

  Damiano had gone to his grave still hating Luca for having stood up to him all those years ago and leaving home. Banishing him from Christiana’s life had made the hatred deepen—almost to the point of insanity—but Luca had been determined Damiano would never be allowed to unleash any of his toxicity on Christiana. After his death, people who’d worked closely with Damiano had told Max and Nick the old man had always believed Luca should grovel back to him to mend the fences. If Luca had broken the fences, Olivia believed he would’ve done whatever he could to set things right because family was so important to him. That hadn’t been the case with his father.

  Max and Nick walked ahead to the terrace while Isabella sang her best rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.

  Luca hung behind to be with his wife. He grimaced. When Isabella was out of sight—but still creating so much noise she’d drown out a brass band—Luca covered his ears. ‘It’s a shame she gets her singing ability from me.’

  ‘I happen to love hearing you sing in the shower.’

  ‘I do it a lot more these days,’ he admitted.

  She winked. ‘Only when you’re by yourself.’

  ‘Hm. When I’m in there with you, other parts of my body are singing.’

  Olivia laughed as she reached out and took his hand in hers, but she grew serious again as she asked, ‘Have you changed your mind about buying out your father’s business?’

  ‘No.’ He hugged her to his side. ‘I don’t want any reminders of Damiano.’ Turning her in his arms, he delivered a gentle kiss. It was sweet, but the promise of heated passion was there under the surface. ‘You, Christiana, our children and Marjorie are all the family I need.’ His lips brushed over hers again. ‘I’m wondering how I’m going to get through the next couple of hours with our friends when I want to take you back upstairs to ravish you.’

  ‘Hey!’ She pulled away from him as he bent his head and fastened his lips against the sensitive column of her neck. ‘I completely forgot! Wasn’t Nick supposed to be bringing a date with him this weekend?’

  Ever since she’d known him, Nick had been linked to one beautiful woman or another, but this had been the first time he’d asked if he could bring a woman to their home for the weekend.

  ‘Trouble in paradise,’ Luca told her as he lowered his head again and nibbled on the delicate shell of her ear.

  ‘Damn! I want to see both your friends settled and as happy as we are. We should set Nick up with someone and Max definitely needs to get over his first love and move on.’

  ‘Easier said than done, cara. Nick wouldn’t thank you for any matchmaking attempts and Max has loved Jenna since they were kids. Max has told me on more than one occasion he’s never met another woman he’s even come close to loving the way he’s loved Jenna.’

  ‘Mummy! Daddy! Come play!’ Isabella stood at the doorway to the terrace with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Determined and bossy like her father,’ Olivia muttered.

  ‘But absolutely beautiful like her mother,’ Luca husked. ‘I’ll love you forever, cara.’

  ‘Forever won’t be nearly long enough for me,’ she told him fervently.

  Luca was everything she’d ever dreamed of and more and she knew in her heart and soul that when she’d believed she was being seduced by the enemy, she was truly finding her soulmate.

  Thanks for reading Seduced by The Enemy. I hope you enjoyed it.

  You’ve just read the first book in my The Billionaire’s Baby series. The second book in this series, Seduced by the Stranger, will be available later this year.

  If you liked this book, you might like to read my Royal Affairs Series – The Defiant Princess, The Irredeemable Prince, The Formidable King and The Irresistible Royal. My other book
s are Roses for Sophie, Echoes of the Heart, and Mistaken Identity, collected together as The Billionaire Meets His Match.

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; ISBN: 9781489279323

  Title: Seduced by the Enemy

  Copyright © 2019 by ALYSSA J MONTGOMERY

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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