Читать книгу The Sicilian's Baby Bargain - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 5

FALCON LEOPARDI grimaced in distaste. This was supposed to be a memorial gathering to mark what would have been the birthday of his late half-brother Antonio. It was their father’s idea, and one that strictly speaking Falcon did not approve of—especially not an excuse to get drunk. But then the majority of Antonio’s so-called friends obviously shared his late half-brother’s love of over-indulgence just as they had shared his love of a louche lifestyle.

One of them was breathing alcoholic fumes over Falcon now, as he leaned drunkenly towards him confidingly and spoke to him.

‘Did Tonio ever tell you about that woman whose drink he spiked in Cannes last year? He swore to us all that he’d get his revenge on her for turning him down, and he did that, all right. Last I heard she was trying to claim that he’d fathered the brat she was carrying.’

Falcon, who had been about to move away in disgusted irritation, turned back to look at the unpleasant specimen of manhood now reeling unsteadily in front of him.

‘I seem to remember him mentioning something or other about the situation,’ he lied. ‘But why don’t you refresh my memory?’

The drunk was more than happy to oblige.

‘We’d seen her at Nikki Beach. She wasn’t joining in the fun like the other girls there, even though she was with one of the film outfits. Always turned up in a blouse and skirt, looking like a schoolteacher. Antonio soaked the shirt with champagne for a joke, trying to get her to lighten up, but she wasn’t having any of it. Really got his back up, she did—the way she treated him. Rejecting him like she was something special. He told us all he was going to have his revenge on her, and he certainly did that. He found out where she was staying, then he bribed one of the waiters to slip something into her drink. Knocked her out flat. It took three of us to get her back to her room. Of course Antonio swore us to secrecy, threatened us with a whole lot of bad stuff if what he’d done ever got out. ’Course, me telling you now is different, ’cos he’s dead and you’re his brother.’ He hiccupped and then belched, before continuing. ‘Tonio made us keep guard outside. He told us afterwards that she was so tight she must have been a virgin.’

The man’s expression began to alter and his manner changed from one of swaggering confidence to something far more sheepish as Falcon’s cold silence penetrated his drink-befuddled state, bringing home to him the true shameful reality of the horrific tale he was relating. ‘Not that Tonio got away with it,’ he rushed to reassure Falcon. ‘He told me that her brother came after him, saying that he’d got her pregnant. But that there was no way he was going to do as she wanted and provide for the kid she was carrying.’

Falcon hadn’t said a word whilst his late brother’s friend had been speaking. He found it easy, though, to accept his late half-brother’s role in the nasty, sordid little incident the other man had described to him. It was typical of Antonio, and underlined—if any underlining had been necessary—exactly why Falcon and his two younger brothers had so disliked their half-brother during his short life and had not mourned his passing.

‘What was her name? Can you remember?’ he asked the drunk now.

The other man shook his head, and then frowned in concentration, before telling Falcon, ‘Think it might have been Anna or Annie—something like that. She was English—I know that.’

As though Falcon’s cold contempt chilled him, the drunk shivered and then staggered away. No doubt keen to find himself another drink, Falcon reflected as he looked across to where his two brothers and their wives were seated with his father.

Their father, the Prince, had worshipped and spoiled his youngest son, the only child he had had with the woman who had been his mistress during his marriage to the mother of his elder three sons’ mother—his wife once she was dead.

He had claimed, after Antonio’s death in a car accident, that Antonio’s last words to him had been to say that he had a child—conceived whilst Antonio was in Cannes—and he had demanded that this child be found.

Falcon had believed that he had left no stone unturned trying to do this—without any success—but now realised that he had overlooked the fact that his brother had lived his life among the slimy waste of humanity that was expert at scuttling away from the too-bright light of overturned stones.

He knew what he had to do now, of course. The only question was whether or not he told his brothers before or after he found the woman his half-brother had drugged, raped and impregnated with his child—because find her he most certainly would. Even if he had to turn the whole world upside down to do so. His honour and his duty to the Leopardi name would accept nothing less. On balance, telling them first would be easier….