by Sarah Morgan
Hearing the creak of the floorboards as Dante and his two goons had climbed the stairs had terrified her. She’d been instantly aware of the vulnerability of her position, thrown her still-wet body into the robe and wrenched the shower head off as her only means of defence.
Dante must think he was dealing with a wailing banshee, an impression it was essential she correct immediately.
He took a step back, his left brow rising up and down. ‘You believe you are my sister?’
She jutted her chin out to hide her discomfort at her nakedness beneath the robe. ‘If you will be good enough to let me get dressed, I will explain everything. The kitchen is stocked with coffee.’
He gave a grunt of surprised laughter. ‘You break into my home and want me to make you a drink?’
‘I’m asking you to give me some privacy so I can make myself decent before we start arguing about the inheritance you are trying to keep for your greedy self. I’m simply pointing out that there is coffee if you wish to have one while you wait, and that I take mine with milk and one sugar.’
The green eyes flickered over her, taking in every inch of her body, before he blinked, gave the slightest of shudders and took another step back.
‘I will leave you to dress,’ he said curtly.
He closed the door behind him.
Aislin took a moment to force huge lungfuls of oxygen down her throat but Dante’s departure seemed to have taken all the air with him. All that was left were the remnants of his cologne that even her non-perfumer self could tell with one sniff was expensive. Expensive and…sexy, just like the man it adhered to.
Knowing she needed to calm her thoughts or Dante would eat her alive, she pulled a pair of jeans, a silver jumper and underwear out of the wardrobe and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She dressed quickly, ran her fingers through her damp hair then took one last fortifying breath before leaving the room to find Dante.
This confrontation was one she had prepared for. In theory, she had prepared for all eventualities, even if those eventualities had been cobbled together in a rush when they had learned Dante had sold the hundred acres in Florence and pocketed the proceeds into his already bulging bank account.
All she had to do was hold her nerve against this physically imposing man. His looks and scent did not count for jack. This man, a billionaire in his own right, had ridden roughshod over her sister’s efforts to claim a share of their father’s estate.
The stairs lead into the cosy open-plan living area, where she found him sat on one of the sagging sofas, flicking through one of her university books. Two steaming mugs of coffee were laid on the table before him. His Goliath-proportioned sidekicks were nowhere to be seen.
His eyes narrowed at her approach and he waited in silence until she had sat herself in the farthest spot from him she could find.
He jabbed a finger onto the opened page of the text book, the place where she had marked her name, as she had done since her school days. ‘Tell me about yourself, Aislin O’Reilly.’
He pronounced her name ‘Ass-lin’, which under normal circumstances would have made her laugh.
She shook her head. For some reason her tongue struggled to work around this man.
He slammed the book on the table, making her jump. ‘You claim to be my sister, so tell me about yourself. Show me your proof.’
She crossed her legs and met the intense green stare head-on. ‘I’m not your sister. My sister, Orla, is your sister. I’m here as her representative.’
His brow furrowed. She could see him trying to work out what that made them in relation to each other.
‘Orla and I have the same mother,’ she supplied. ‘You and Orla have the same father.’
Dante’s lungs loosened at the confirmation that this intruder was not of his blood. The mere sway of her hips as she’d walked down the stairs had sent his senses springing to life. Dante was not particularly fussy when it came to women. He liked them in all shapes and sizes but to think he could find someone who was possibly his own sister desirable would have been enough to drive him straight to the nearest therapist.
‘Where is the proof of this, Aislin?’
The lighting in the cottage against the darkly painted walls left much to be desired but now she sat close enough for him to see that the colour of the eyes ringing their loathing at him was grey. The black outer rim of the eyeballs contrasted starkly, making the grey appear translucent. Along with the angled tilt of her eyes, it gave the most extraordinary effect.
‘It’s Aislin,’ she corrected, pronouncing it ‘Ashling’.
‘Ashling.’ He practised it aloud. ‘Aislin… An unusual name.’
The striking eyes held his without blinking. ‘Not in Ireland it isn’t.’
He shrugged. As unusual and interesting as her name was, there were far more important things to discuss. ‘You say you have proof that…Orla? Is that her name?’
She nodded.
‘That Orla is my sister. Let me see that proof.’
She got to her feet and walked to the small kitchen area, the curve of her bottom in her tight jeans a momentary distraction. From a small bag on the counter she took out an envelope and opened it on her walk back to him.
Pulling a sheet of paper out of the envelope, she handed it to him with a curt, ‘Orla’s birth certificate.’
Dante took the sheet from her with blood roaring in his ears. Slowly, he unfolded it.
He blinked a number of times to clear the filmy fog that had developed in his eyes.
The birth certificate was dated twenty-seven years ago. On the box labelled ‘father’ were the words Salvatore Moncada.
He rubbed his temples.
This didn’t prove anything. This could be a forgery. Or, more likely, Aislin and Orla’s mother—he scanned the certificate again and found Sinead O’Reilly named as the mother—had lied.
From the envelope still in her hand, Aislin plucked out a photograph and held it out to him.
He didn’t want to look at it.
He had to look at it.
The photo was a headshot of two people, a young woman and a toddler boy.
A violent swell clenched and retracted in his stomach.
Both subjects in the photo had thick, dark-brown hair, the exact shade of Dante’s.
The woman had green eyes the exact shade of Dante’s.
CHAPTER TWO
AISLIN TOOK IN the ashen hue Dante’s olive skin had turned and experienced a stab of sympathy to witness the penny drop in that arrogant head.
She placed the envelope on the table and grabbed the coffee he’d made for her, unable to understand why her hands shook. It felt as if her entire insides were shaking, tiny vibrations quivering through her bones and veins.
She told herself it was because of the situation, her body preparing itself for the biggest fight it had ever undertaken. It was nothing to do with Dante himself.
The value of this cottage and its land were peanuts for a man of Dante’s wealth but for her sister it meant the world. It would enable her to buy a home that Finn could live in with the freedom to be as normal a child as his condition allowed. That was all Orla wanted—a decent home in which to raise her son.
Aislin loved her nephew with her whole heart. Finn was her heart. For months she’d sat by his side as he’d lain in that awful incubator in the neonatal intensive care nursery, willing his tiny body to grow, for his lungs to work on their own; praying that one day he would be strong enough to go home…to survive.
The little fighter had survived, but not without complications. His entire life would be a fight and Aislin was prepared to do whatever necessary to make that fight more bearable.
Dante’s lawyer had blocked her sister’s every attempt for recognition. Aislin had flown to Sicily determined to confront Dante in person but, again, had been blocked. The security around him was too tight for her to get a foot through it. Breaking into this cottage had been the last desperate resort.
Her heart made the strangest clenching motion when his green eyes locked onto hers. There was a hardness in his stare.
‘I have never heard of this woman. My father had many lovers. Many men and women have come forward since his death claiming to be his secret love child. You give me a photograph and claim it is my sister…’
His thick Sicilian accent soaked into her skin as if her pores were breathing it in.
‘I am claiming nothing—she is your sister. You can see the resemblance.’
He gave a tutting sound that was pure Sicilian. ‘A convenient resemblance.’
‘There is nothing convenient about it!’ she retorted hotly, and would have added more had he not raised a palm up.
‘If she is my sister, why did she wait until after my father’s death to reveal herself?’
‘She didn’t need to reveal herself. Your father paid maintenance for her upbringing until she was eighteen.’
He sagged slightly at this revelation but it was the briefest of movements, his composure regained in a breath. ‘That is something I can discover the truth of for myself.’
‘It is the truth and, if you hadn’t stonewalled her every attempt to speak to you, you would have all the facts at your fingertips.’
‘My father acknowledged one child. Me. There was no talk of a secret sister, no death-bed confession.’
‘That’s not Orla’s fault.’
‘Would she still claim to be my sister if I were to tell you there is nothing left of his estate?’
‘That’s because you’ve sold it all off!’
The look he cast her was full of fake pity. ‘My father was a gambling addict. He sold everything he could to fund his debts.’
‘I’ve seen the list of assets.’ That was the only thing Orla’s useless lawyer had been able to get from Dante’s terrifyingly efficient one. ‘He was worth millions. Orla isn’t being greedy. All she wants is a small share of it. Morally, she’s entitled to that, even if you and your lawyer don’t agree. I’m prepared to stage a sit-in in this cottage until you either sign it over to her or pay her off.’
Before Dante could laugh at Aislin’s nerve, a lock of hair fell onto his forehead and over his eyes. He brushed it back. He needed to get it cut, another thing to add to his ever-long list of things to do.
‘The law is on my side. Do you really believe that moving into this cottage—illegally—will get you anywhere?’
Her eyes spat fury at him. ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’
‘Maybe in Ireland. But this is Sicily. My country. My property. My land. I can snap my fingers and have you removed from this cottage and expelled from the country.’
‘Try it.’ She jumped back to her feet and snatched the envelope off the table to pull yet another sheet of paper out of it. ‘Try it and I will make sure every media outlet knows what you’ve done. This is not your land, it’s part of your father’s estate. All Orla wants is what she’s entitled to, and this is the authority for me to handle things on her behalf.’
Dante ignored the letter, although he took note of the pretty hand holding it and the buffed, shapely nails. Then he slowly let his gaze drift upwards, over the curvy hips, the slender waist and the large breasts caressed lovingly in a soft, silver sweater. Simple clothing draped over an outstanding body. As her fragrance snaked its way back into his senses, he experienced a thickening in his loins. Disconcerted with this involuntary reaction to this woman, and at this moment in time, he reached for his coffee.
Dante freely admitted his libido was strong but the last time he’d experienced an inappropriate erection like this had been in a maths lesson almost two decades ago when his teacher had leaned over his desk to help him and her top had gaped open, exposing her cleavage.
He made a point of taking a large sip of the coffee, dragging his focus to the matter at hand. For instant coffee, it wasn’t too bad, its heat a welcome respite from the cold that had settled in his spine.
The resemblance between himself and the woman in the photograph was astounding.
‘Has your sister ever lived in Sicily?’
The neat, pretty eyebrows drew together. ‘No.’
‘Say for argument’s sake that your assessment is correct and that my father really was worth millions when he died, what makes you think Orla would be entitled to anything? My father named me as his sole heir. She was not recognised as his child. You have to appreciate that my lawyer and I have been through this many times already.’
When the first fraudster had tried their hand at claiming on the estate, Dante and his lawyer had discussed all the legalities on the off-chance the fraudster was telling the truth.
‘It might have been different if she had lived in my country at any point in her life. I suggest she pays a visit to a Sicilian lawyer and hears for herself that she has no rights.’ He laughed, although humour was the last thing he felt right then. ‘There is nothing for her to have. That list you have is old and dates from my grandfather’s death. My father sold most of the assets on it. The family home never belonged to him and nor did the land in Florence—my grandparents put them in a trust for me to stop my father selling them to feed his gambling addiction.’
That hadn’t stopped one of the fraudsters taking out an injunction to prevent Dante selling those assets, an injunction his lawyer had overturned in ten days. That fraudster was currently rotting in a Sicilian prison, awaiting trial for fraud.
‘This cottage is all he had left and it is not for sale.’ As dilapidated as the cottage was, Dante would never sell it. He wasn’t a man for sentimentality but this was the one place where his childhood memories were only positive. His mother had loathed the cottage and thus it remained untainted by her long-ago desertion.
‘Then pay Orla off. Even if what you say is true, and your grandparents bypassed your father, surely she’s entitled to something? She knows she can’t expect things to be fifty-fifty between you but morally she’s entitled to something. She’ll be happy to settle for the value of this cottage.’
He shook his head in a display of sympathy. Her approach was pitch-perfect, reason matched with a seeming lack of greed. The perfect cover for an outrageous act of fraud.
Dante had almost convinced himself she spoke the truth but that was impossible. His father would never have kept such a secret from him.
He was quite sure his lawyer, one of the most feared legal brains across the Mediterranean, would have been taken in too. Aislin clearly had the brains to match her beauty. She was an incredible actress.
‘This cottage is worth no more than a hundred thousand euros,’ he said, ensuring his voice contained just the right amount of commiseration. ‘The land is worth about the same.’
‘That might not be a lot of money to you but to Orla it’s a fortune.’
‘If it’s worth so much to her then why is she not here? Why has she sent you to deal with it?’
‘Because right now she doesn’t want to leave Ireland. I’m portable—’
‘Did she not want to face me?’ The anger that had been simmering deep inside bubbled to the surface. ‘Or did my sister think sending a beautiful woman in her place would blind me? Is that why you’re here? To tempt me into giving this cottage to her?’
Her eyes widened, dark spots of angry colour forming again over the high cheekbones. ‘Your mind belongs in a sewer.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ He rose slowly to his feet. ‘You were showering when I came to the cottage. Was that deliberate? Were you keeping watch for me? Did my men being with me force you to change your plans? Did you realise then that you had taken on more than you could handle?’
He gave her no time to defend herself.
Stepping to where she had backed herself against the kitchen unit, he continued, ‘Admit it, this is all a bag of lies. What do they call it in English, when a person steals another’s ima
ge and passes it off as their own?’
The colour spread from her cheekbones to suffuse her entire face, the plump lips clamping tightly together as he stared down at her, daring her to tell the truth.
A sudden image came into his head of those plump lips parting for him…
Heat coiled through his loins again and he breathed deeply to drive it away, only to inhale another lungful of her beautiful scent.
Dante gritted his teeth and waved the photograph still in his hand at her. ‘How long did you search for the perfect image that you could use to pretend to be my long-lost sister?’
In one sharp but graceful movement, she snatched it from his hand and stabbed a finger at the toddler’s face.
‘Did you not even look at the boy Orla’s holding?’ she snarled. ‘That’s your nephew.’
‘Of course it is. What better than a beautiful child to pull on a man’s heartstrings and charm him into giving you money? I have to say, of all the hustlers who have tried to con me, you, dolcezza, are by far the best.’
Her foot moved. For a moment Dante thought she was going to kick him.
Instead she spun around, grabbed her handbag and pulled her phone out.
In seconds she had it unlocked and was thrusting it in his face.
‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ he asked drolly.
For someone who had to be a foot shorter than him, she raised herself magnificently. ‘The photos. There must be a hundred of Finn on it and a load of Orla too.’
The coldness in his veins made a sharp return.
‘Take the phone, damn you, and look!’ She grabbed hold of his hand and pressed the phone into it.
A jolt ran through him at the touch of her skin on his, a charge that flowed through them both and had their eyes locking together in mutual shock.
After a pause that went on a beat too long, she moved her hand and stepped to the side, away from him.
Aislin dropped her eyes to the floor and rubbed her hands together, trying to negate the charge flowing through her veins.