by Betsy Swann
‘So what happened?’
‘Clarissa had given up on true love and got engaged to the man her family had already chosen for her.’
‘Hetherington,’ Enzo guessed.
Izzy nodded. ‘Shortly after the engagement, she found out that she was already pregnant with twins, but Hetherington married her anyway. Presumably because he was after her hotels.’
‘Twins, of course!’ Enzo smote his forehead. ‘Now I understand so many things. These photos in the press...’
‘…where not of me, but of my identical twin Isabella. Samuel Carson is her godfather, by the way. He happened to be there that night to rescue her after her drink got spiked. But it ended up all twisted in the papers, so that she looked like his lover.’
‘When we got engaged two years ago, you told me your mother had died when she gave birth to you.’ Enzo looked at her questioningly. ‘But Nick is your younger brother, so she must have still been alive for some time. Did you not know?’
Izzy shook her head. Tears gliding down her cheek, she told him how her parents had tossed a coin about their two little girls, and how she had ended up with her father and Bella with her mother. How she had never known that she had two siblings until that day two years ago.
‘Don’t cry, cara,’ Enzo comforted her and tenderly kissed the tears off her face. She could see it in his eyes how shocked he was about her revelations. ‘This won’t happen to us, I promise. I will always be there for you and listen. I swear.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I trust you with my life.’
‘So let me get this straight,’ he said, pushing himself up on one forearm. ‘Your twin Isabella was the one working as Luca’s PA, do I guess that right?’
She nodded. ‘Bella had fallen in love with him from afar, but she didn’t want Luca to know her true identity. She feared that he might pretend to love her to get hold of her hotels, just like Hetherington had pretended to our mother.’
‘Are you sure he just pretended?’
‘Of course I can’t be sure,’ Izzy said. ‘I never even met him, but the way he treated Bella… As soon as my mother had died, he gave her into the sole care of a nanny. When she was six, he sent her off to boarding school. She wasn’t even allowed to spend her holidays with Nick and him. That’s why everybody assumes that Nick is an only child.’
Enzo shuddered. ‘You’re right. This man doesn’t sound as if he was capable of love.’
‘When Luca mistook Nick for Bella’s lover and left London, she was desperate to chase after him,’ Izzy continued. ‘That’s when I stepped in to take her place.’
Enzo sighed. ‘That was quite a performance and false as hell, but I won’t complain. I got my woman at the end.’ He bent down to plant a tender kiss on her lips. ‘Dio, Izzy, if you had not told me to trust my heart…’
She smiled. ‘But I did and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Just to make sure you’ll never forget.’
‘I won’t,’ he said, endless love shining in his eyes. ‘Trust me.’
THE END
THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE’S DISGRACED FIANCEE
© 2014 Betsy Swann
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All characters in this work 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.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN