by Sarah Morgan
Her heart beat so hard its thrum echoed in her ears.
She had not expected that. It had been like those times when she touched something and received a surprise charge of static. But those charges had always been unpleasant, something only a masochist would enjoy. The charge she had felt when touching Dante had been…
Not unpleasant at all.
‘Please, look at it,’ she whispered, summoning the courage to look back at him.
Aislin was not the greatest photographer in the world, and generally managed to chop the top off heads or get a partial thumb over the lens or get a blurry finish. But, however terrible the pictures were in comparison to the one she’d printed off for him, they were documentary proof that she wasn’t lying; that she hadn’t catfished Orla’s identity; that her sister was Dante’s half-sister.
Biologically, Orla was Aislin’s half-sister too, but she had never thought of her as anything than her whole sister. They’d been raised together, shared a room until Orla had left for university and been true sisters in every sense of the word. They’d protected each other, fought each other, played, loved and hated. No one could wind Aislin up better than Orla could and she knew it was the same for her sister.
Dante’s Adam’s apple moved a number of times before he slowly walked to the dining table and sat on the nearest chair, his focus solely on the photos of the two people she loved most in the world.
Her legs suddenly feeling weak too, she took the seat opposite him, close enough that she could hear him breathe, the deep breaths of someone whose life was in the process of being turned upside down.
Aislin knew that feeling. Orla’s accident, which had resulted in Finn’s premature birth, had turned their world upside down. Life as they knew it had come to a stop that day, three years ago.
She could not help but feel for Dante, trying to imagine what it would feel like to discover a family secret of this magnitude.
It must be shattering.
Her own dad had fathered two more children after his split with her mum but there had been no deception about it, just an awareness that he’d created a new family unit that Aislin was a part of, if somewhat removed from. Her mother, for all her many faults, was no liar. Sometimes Aislin had wished her mum was a liar. It would have saved a lot of angst and heartbreak.
‘I’m not a hustler,’ she said softly after a good two minutes that felt more like two hours had passed, the only sound Dante’s breaths and the swipe of his thumb against the screen of her phone. ‘Orla is as much your sister as she is mine and Finn is as much your nephew too. I know she’ll be happy to take a DNA test if you think it necessary.’
More silence fell until he came to a photo that made him peer more closely. Then he turned the phone to her. ‘Why is he in hospital? What are those things on his head?’
She looked at her darling nephew, smiling in his hospital bed. ‘That was taken six months ago when he went for an EEG.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It measures brain waves. He was born prematurely and has cerebral palsy. One of the side effects of that, which he has since been diagnosed with, is severe epilepsy. It’s the reason Orla didn’t come to Sicily herself—she’s terrified to leave him. Finn’s condition is the reason she wants a share of the inheritance. She honestly is not being greedy. She just wants a home he can be safe in.’ She was silent for a moment before adding, ‘That’s all I want for him too. I’m sorry for breaking into your cottage. Honestly, I’m not normally one for criminal behaviour, but we’re desperate. Please, Dante, Finn is your nephew. We need your help.’
Dante expelled a long breath and put the phone on the table, then dropped his pounding head and kneaded his fingers into the back of his skull.
He felt sick.
If the evidence was to be believed—and, no matter how hard he strove to find a new angle to disprove it, the evidence appeared compelling—he had a sister and a nephew. A sick nephew.
Another wave of nausea ripped through him.
His father had lied to him.
He thought back to Orla’s date of birth. He would have been seven when she’d been born. His mother had divorced his father when he was seven.
Did his mother know he had a sister? Had she conspired to keep it secret too?
So many thoughts crowded in his head but stronger than all of them was the image of the tiny boy, his nephew, lying on that hospital bed, hooked to a machine via a dozen tubes stuck to his head.
‘How old is he?’
‘A month shy of three.’
He didn’t want to hear the sympathy now ringing from the soft Irish brogue. He could feel it too, radiating from her.
This woman felt sorry for him?
She didn’t know him. All they shared was a sister. And a sick nephew.
He muttered a curse.
He raised his head and looked Aislin square in the eye.
Yes, there was compassion in the reflected stare, but also a healthy wariness.
He steepled his fingers across the bridge of his nose and thought hard, pushing aside the emotions crowding him, sharpening his wits and clearing his mind.
He had a business deal to salvage with the D’Amores before he could begin to think about this, never mind deal with it. The clock was ticking. Five days to salvage the biggest deal of his life. Unless he could convince Riccardo that his own playboy days were behind him and prove his parents’ faults were not his, then the deal for the exclusivity agreement would be lost for good. On Monday Riccardo intended to sign it with Dante’s biggest rival.
One lesson he had learned at a young age was that nothing must come before business. His father had allowed emotions and addiction to take first place and had lost everything for it.
Yet still that image of the boy, his nephew, stayed lodged in the forefront of his mind, and as he stared into the grey eyes of this woman who had just told him his entire life had been a lie the kernel of an idea flared.
He swept his eyes again over the curvy body and imagined it dressed in expensive couture, and the hair whose colour he still couldn’t determine beautifully styled.
Aislin was a stranger in his country. No one knew her. She was clearly intelligent. And she was beautiful enough that no one would think twice to see her on his arm.
Despite her beauty, she was far removed from the women he normally dated…
‘I spoke the truth. My father died penniless,’ he told her slowly. ‘I gave him an allowance and paid his bills but, other than this cottage, he had nothing left to his name. Under Sicilian law, your sister is not even entitled to a share of that.’
Aislin closed her eyes and slumped in her chair.
The tone of his words held the ring of truth.
Defeat loomed so large she lost the strength to correct him, to say loud and proud that Orla was his sister too.
Aislin was a penniless student. Orla was a penniless single mother still fighting the insurance company for compensation for the damage to her son. They’d pooled the spare cash they’d had between them to instruct that rubbish lawyer who hadn’t even bothered to read up properly on Sicilian inheritance laws. Her open-ended return flight here and the car hire had left them skint.
If there was a loophole they could exploit to get something, they had no money left with which to do it.
‘This cottage and the land it stands on have been in my family for generations and I have no wish to sell,’ he continued, breaking through her defeated thoughts. ‘But I am prepared to give Orla half the value. Fifty-fifty.’
She snapped her eyes back open and met his unblinking gaze. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘One hundred thousand euros. It will be conditional on her taking a DNA test, but we can get that arranged soon. If the test comes back as positive, the money is hers.’
The relief that surged through her at that moment was enough to punch all the breath out of her.
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. ‘Thank you. You don’t know what that
means—’
‘I also have an offer for you,’ he cut in before she could get carried away with her thanks. ‘An offer that is not DNA-conditional.’
‘What kind of offer?’
‘A mutually beneficial one.’ His eyes narrowed and he rocked his head as if he were thinking. Then he gave one final nod and stilled. ‘I have a wedding to attend this weekend. I want you to come with me.’
‘You want me to come to a wedding with you?’
‘Si. And in return I will pay you one million euros.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘BUT…’ AISLIN COULDN’T form anything more than that one syllable. Dante’s offer had thrown her completely.
His smile was rueful. ‘My offer is simple, dolcezza. You come to the wedding with me and I give you a million euros.’
He pronounced it ‘seemple’, a quirk she would have found endearing if her brain hadn’t frozen into a stunned snowball.
‘You want to pay me to come to a wedding with you?’
‘Si.’ He unfolded his arms and spread his hands. ‘The money will be yours. You can give as much or as little of it to your sister.’
‘Won’t your girlfriend mind?’
As soon as the words left her mouth, Aislin wanted to kick herself.
His beautifully thick brown eyebrows rose in perfect timing with the flame of colour she could feel rising over her face. ‘Did you research me?’
‘I saw a picture of you together when I was thinking up ways to get your attention,’ she muttered, dropping her eyes to examine her fingernails, desperately trying to affect nonchalance.
She hadn’t been researching him, more trying to get a handle on the man in the days before she’d set off for Sicily, trying to decide the best way to cut through the minders and hangers-on to grab his attention for long enough to have the conversation they were now having… A conversation that had taken a most bizarre turn that she was struggling to get her head around.
What she had learned was that Dante Moncada was a man any right-thinking woman would steer a million miles away from. His father had been a Lothario who had seduced Aislin’s mother when she’d still been a teenager, and all the evidence pointed to Dante being of the same ‘love them and leave them’ mould. Dante did not need to pay someone to attend a wedding with him. She would hazard a guess that, if he asked a room full of women if any wanted to go with him, ninety-nine per cent of them would bob their heads up to agree like over-caffeinated meerkats.
Aislin was part of the one per cent who would duck under a table rather than accept. She’d been there, done that, stupidly having fallen for the biggest playboy on campus, believing his declarations of love and respect; believing they’d had a future that involved marriage and babies, only to find him in bed with one of her housemates mere weeks after her sister’s accident.
If she was ever stupid enough to get involved with a man again, her preference would be for a boring, gaming-obsessed hermit with zero libido who had an abhorrence of the outside world and would thus never be in a position or have the mind-space to cheat.
Not a man like Dante. Not this man, who was sexier and more handsome than should be legal.
She could practically smell the testosterone and pheromones wafting from him. They soaked into her pores in the same way his amazing deep voice did, sensitising her skin and settling deep inside her in a way that was, quite frankly, terrifying.
But a million euros…?
‘I ended it with Lola a month ago.’ He leaned forward, a sudden, unexpected gleam appearing in his eyes.
Her heart thumped, the beat ricocheting through her like a tsunami.
It took a huge amount of effort to keep her voice steady. ‘But you must have a heap of women you could take and not have to pay them for it.’
‘None of them are suitable.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I need to make an impression on someone and having you on my arm will assist in that.’
‘A million dollars for one afternoon…?’
‘I never said it would be for an afternoon. The celebrations will take place over the coming weekend.’
She tugged at her ponytail. ‘Weekend?’
‘Aislin, the groom is one of Sicily’s richest men. It is a necessity that his wedding be the biggest and flashiest it can be.’
She almost laughed at the deadpan way he explained it.
She didn’t need to ask who the richest man in Sicily was.
‘If I’m going to accept your offer, what else do I need to know?’
‘Nothing… Apart from that I will be introducing you as my fiancée.’
‘What?’ Aislin winced at the squeakiness of her tone.
‘I require you to play the role of my fiancée.’ His grin was wide with just a touch of ruefulness. The deadened, shocked look that had rung from his eyes only a few minutes before had gone. Now they sparkled with life and the effect was almost hypnotising.
She blinked the effect away.
‘Why do you need a fiancée?’
‘Because the father of the bride thinks going into business with me will damage his reputation.’
‘How?’
‘I will go through the reasons once I have your agreement on the matter. I appreciate it is a lot to take in so I’m going to leave you to sleep on it. You can give me your answer in the morning. If you’re in agreement then I shall take you home with me and give you more details. We will have a few days to get to know each other and work on putting on a convincing act.’
‘And if I say no?’
He shrugged. ‘If you say no, then no million euros.’
‘What about the hundred thousand you said you would give Orla?’
‘That is a separate matter and dependent on the DNA test. Your decision will not affect that.’
‘Do you promise?’ She knew it was a childish way of asking but she didn’t care. A hundred thousand euros was too great a sum to play games with.
But a million euros… That was a figure she could scarcely comprehend. That was life-changing.
His handsome features fell into seriousness. He inclined his head before rising to his feet. ‘Whatever you decide, and whatever the outcome, that money for Orla will remain separate from it. You have my word.’
She didn’t have the faintest idea why but she believed him.
* * *
Dante greeted the housekeeper, who made an almost convincing job of not acting surprised to see him and at such a late hour, and strolled through his old family home as he had done a thousand times before.
This was the sprawling seafront villa he’d grown up in, just as his father had. A decade ago, to prevent the villa being used as collateral against his son’s gambling debts, his grandfather had signed it over to Dante.
Although the villa had been technically his for all these years, as far as he’d been concerned it had remained his father’s to do with as he pleased…apart from sell it.
With his father dead, he still didn’t know what to do with it. Unspoken had been his grandfather’s wish that one day Dante would settle down, marry, start a family and raise them in this home.
Dante liked city life. He liked being single. What good was marriage for? All he had ever seen of it was bitterness, greed and spite. His grandparents had been married for forty-eight years until his grandmother’s death. If they were a template for the longevity of marriage, they could forget it. His grandfather had spent the three years from her death until his own celebrating being rid of her. Dante had been quite sure his grandfather’s shaking shoulders at her funeral had been through laughter rather than tears.
At the far end of the villa was his father’s study. In the days after his death, Dante had holed himself in there, finding comfort in the room that been quintessentially his father.
He pushed the door open and inhaled the familiar, if now fading, scent of bourbon and cigars.
This was the room Dante had sneaked into as a small boy, the desk he woul
d hide under until his father appeared and he would jump out at him, and his father would pretend to shout in fright every single time.
He sat on the chair his father had called his own, the chair on which his father had sat Dante on his lap, held him tightly and told him his mother had left and that it would be just the two of them from now on.
This was the room his father had given Dante his first drink of bourbon in, the room in which he’d relayed the deaths of family members, the room where he’d confessed his dire financial situation and begged his only son for a loan to pay off his gambling debts. The latter had taken place so many times Dante had lost count.
A lifetime of memories, good and bad, flooded him and it took a few minutes for him to gather himself together and for the fresh wave of grief to pass.
He opened his father’s laptop. When he’d opened it the first time after his father’s death he’d guessed the password correctly—Dante’s name and date of birth. That had been a bittersweet moment.
Keying the password in this time, all he tasted was bitterness.
Had his father really kept a sister secret from him for all these years?
Aislin claimed his father had paid maintenance for Orla. If there was evidence of it, it would be on here somewhere.
He had a sister. His gut told him that and he did not doubt the DNA test would prove a match.
But had his father known or had Sinead O’Reilly kept Orla’s existence a secret from him and lied to her daughters about maintenance being paid?
Dante sent a silent prayer that Sinead was a liar and logged onto his father’s saved bank statements.
Damn it, they only went back eight years.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. Where would the paper statements be from the years before that? His father had been a terrible hoarder so they would be here somewhere…
The filing cabinet, of course.
An hour later and he was sat on the carpeted floor, paperwork strewn around him. In his hand was the evidence he’d been seeking but praying he wouldn’t find.
Until nine years ago, coincidentally the year Orla had turned eighteen, his father had paid the sum of two thousand euros every month to a bank account in Ireland.