Читать книгу The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 11

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.

After a length of time had passed that seemed to be stretched by elastic, Dante finally looked up from the photo.

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 image 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.

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 other 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 brainwaves. 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?’

‘Sì. And in return I will pay you one million euros.’