by Heidi Rice
‘Some things simply aren’t excusable,’ the man said, but he’d lost a lot of his bluster and sounded more confused than self-righteous.
‘Yeah, right,’ Nick sneered, but even as his scorn for the bureaucratic jerk curdled his stomach he knew he had to take a large share of the blame for Eva’s predicament.
‘So I take it you won’t be making a complaint?’ the man said tentatively.
‘Of course not,’ Nick barked, thoroughly sick of the whole situation now.
He hadn’t felt this guilty about anything since he’d refused to return to the UK seven years ago and see Carmine Delisantro one last time, despite his sister Ruby’s tearful pleas.
He’d done the same thing then that he’d done a week ago. Put himself and his feelings, his wants and desires first, above everyone else’s. He hadn’t wanted to see Carmine again, because he’d been so bitterly ashamed of how he’d behaved as a teenager towards the man who had raised him. He’d thought at the time it had been the right thing to do, not to risk digging up all that anger and unhappiness and resentment about the miserable circumstances of his birth all over again. But as the years had passed, and he’d never been able to forget Ruby’s phone calls, and the funeral invitation that he’d thrown into the trash as soon as he’d received it, he’d finally had to admit the truth. That he’d taken the easy way out. He hadn’t done the right thing—he’d just done the right thing for him.
‘Well, that being the case, Mr Delisantro,’ Crenshawe’s voice buzzed in his ear, distracting him from the unpleasant memories, ‘I’m eager to talk to you on another matter entirely,’
‘What other matter?’
‘As I believe Miss Redmond informed you, she was working on the Alegria account.’
Here it comes, Nick thought bitterly. The real reason for Crenshawe’s call. ‘Yeah, what about it?’
‘We have reason to believe that Vincenzo Palatino Vittorio Savargo De Rossi, the fifteenth Duca D’Alegria, is your paternal grandfather.’ The eagerness in Crenshawe’s voice sickened Nick, but he listened.
Maybe he could work this to his advantage. Crenshawe wanted something from him, and he wanted something for Eva.
‘I already told Eva, I couldn’t give a flying—’ He paused, bit back the swear word that wanted to come out. ‘I couldn’t care less about this duc or his relationship to me.’
‘I understand, Mr Delisantro. But I thought you should know that your connection to De Rossi, if it’s confirmed, could possibly make you the sole heir to a substantial fortune in Italian real estate and assets. Not to mention the Alegria Palazzo on the banks of Lake Garda.’
‘So what? I don’t need it,’ Nick said, and meant it.
Money had been the driving force of his existence at the lowest point of his life. How to get it had become an obsession that had consumed him every second of every day, so that he could eat, stay clean, stay healthy, find shelter. When you’d been at the very bottom, when the pursuit of a few pennies meant the difference between eating or going hungry, between curling up over a tube grate or having a hostel bed for the night, you discovered just how important money was. And you’d do anything you had to do to get hold of it.
But after he’d clawed his way out of the gutter he’d flung himself into at sixteen, and begun the long, slow and difficult process of remaking himself into the man he had eventually become, he’d made a conscious effort not to let money control his life any more. Sure, he’d pursued it with almost feral intensity long after he’d needed to, but he’d eventually learnt the painful lesson that to get over his past, he had to get over the insecurity of his years on the street, and the ‘anything for a buck’ mentality that had turned him into a less-than-stellar human being.
He knew that was still a work in progress. His decision not to go and see Carmine Delisantro on his deathbed, and his reckless pursuit of Eva were proof of that. But he had more than enough money now, not just to survive, but to prosper, and he certainly had no need of De Rossi’s fortune. Maybe by some trick of genetics he was related to this guy, but he wasn’t related to him in any genuine sense.
‘But surely, Mr Delisantro, you must at least be curious about the De Rossi family? They are, after all, your blood relations.’
‘Look, Henry,’ he countered with deliberate insolence. ‘Why don’t you stop trying to butter me up and tell me what it is you want from me?’
‘All right,’ the man said warily. ‘It’s fairly simple really. We’ve spoken to our client about the results of our research on his behalf.’
‘You mean Eva’s research,’ Nick clarified sharply.
Crenshawe cleared his throat. ‘Yes, that’s correct, Miss Redmond’s research.’ The guy at least sounded a little circumspect. ‘And the duca would like to meet you. He has requested that you visit his estate in Italy, as a guest, and if things go well he would then involve his lawyers. Of course a DNA test will be required at some point, but he’s insisting that he meets you first. On his home turf, so to speak.’
The cagey old bastard, Nick thought wryly. The duca might be looking for a biological heir, but he wasn’t going to accept any Tom, Dick or Harry to inherit his precious real-estate fortune, whether they carried his son’s DNA or not.
The idea of being inspected and deemed worthy or unworthy by some pompous Italian aristocrat whose own son had been a callow playboy, from the little Nick knew of the man who had seduced his mother, made Nick’s temper burn. Who did this duca think he was?
‘We’ll be sending a representative from Roots Registry to accompany you,’ Crenshawe continued. ‘To make the introductions and then set out for the duca and his legal team the research we’ve carried out that supports your claim.’
And to make sure they got their commission out of the old guy, Nick suspected, as he hardly needed an introduction, and any research documents could easily be emailed. But he didn’t contradict Crenshawe, an idea forming in his mind.
‘When does he want me to visit?’ Nick asked.
‘As soon as your schedule will allow,’ Crenshawe replied, his voice perking up. ‘The duca is an elderly man and he wants this matter settled as soon as feasibly possible.’
‘And how long does he want me to stay?’
‘He’s asked for anything up to a month. If things go well, he would like to become properly acquainted with you—and teach you about the holdings you will be inheriting.’
‘A month?’ Nick almost choked. ‘No way. I’m not hanging round in some castle in Italy for a month.’ The truth was he didn’t think the old guy would want him to stay too long once Nick had given him a few graphic details about his past. This wasn’t going to be a heartfelt family reunion, so the quicker they got it over with, the better.
But he was going to go, because he wanted to see Eva again. And if he could get her her job back into the bargain, all the better.
‘The final deadline for my latest script is the end of this week,’ he continued. And now he had an added incentive to make sure he met it. ‘After that there will be rewrites, but that’s only after the producers, the director and the lead actors and their agents and assistants and pretty much every other nobody involved with the production company have read it,’ Nick added, thinking on his feet, and steadfastly ignoring the little voice in his head that was shouting at him to stop and think this through. ‘And it always takes a couple of weeks at least for that to happen.’
‘I understand entirely, Mr Delisantro. Of course, we wouldn’t presume to impinge on your valuable—’
‘Shut up, Henry.’
What kind of pompous jerk used the word ‘impinge’?
‘I’ll book a flight to Heathrow a week tomorrow. Eva can meet me there and you can arrange the connecting flights to Italy. But you’ll have to tell your duca I can only spare a fortnight tops. And I want Eva with me at all times.’
He decided not to worry about the fact that the mere thought of having Eva near him again was making heat spread through his system. She migh
t well hate his guts after the way he’d treated her, which would force him to get over her. And if she didn’t, well… Two weeks in some luxury palazzo in Italy would be a good way to figure out what had got him so obsessed with her in the first place.
‘But, Mr Delisantro, Miss Redmond is no longer in our employ,’ Crenshawe said hesitantly.
‘That’s your problem, Henry. Not mine. But let me give you some advice. If she’s not waiting for me at Heathrow a week from tomorrow, you can kiss your commission goodbye.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVA reread the monitor in Heathrow’s Terminal Five for the fiftieth time and tried to even her breathing. She was starting to hyperventilate.
‘In the arrivals hall.’ She whispered the words above the hum of conversation and the indecipherable drone of the terminal announcer’s voice.
Pulling the two tickets to Milan out of her handbag, she studied the flight numbers for the twentieth time. Then shoved them back in and fastened the bag.
Think pretty thoughts.
But instead of puppies gambolling on a bed of wild flowers springing to mind, the less-than-pretty picture of Nick, his eyes glittering with contempt, leapt into her head. Her breath clogged her lungs, taking on the consistency of treacle.
Breathe.
She pushed out a breath. Gulped in another.
She’d never had a panic attack before, but seeing Nick Delisantro again was exactly the sort of extreme-stress situation that could trigger one. She sucked in several more painfully shallow breaths, exhaled slowly.
Focus. Because quite apart from the humiliation factor, you don’t have time to pass out.
Nick’s plane from San Francisco was already half an hour late. Their flight to Italy was due to take off in two hours. She had to get them to Terminal One, and ensure they checked in at least an hour prior to take-off. And then…
She swallowed down the lump of treacle cutting off her air supply as heat seeped into her cheeks.
And then she would be spending the next two weeks at Nick Delisantro’s beck and call.
She still wasn’t quite sure how she’d got into this fix. Everything had happened so fast and so unexpectedly. She’d been scouring the job ads last Tuesday morning, trying to figure out a way to make her meagre savings last while she reinvented her shattered career, her confrontation with Mr Crenshawe not making her feel quite as courageous as she would have hoped, when she’d received a frantic call from her ex-boss—begging her to return to work and claiming that her sacking had all been a terrible misunderstanding. When she’d hesitated momentarily, from shock rather than reluctance, he’d immediately doubled her salary as an incentive.
It was only when she’d arrived at work that afternoon, trying to ignore the inquisitive stares from her co-workers, that she’d discovered the enormous catch in her sudden change of fortunes.
First there had been the astonishing news that she was back on the Alegria account, promptly followed by the heart-stopping information that Nick Delisantro had not only consented to travel to the Duca D’Alegria’s estate in Lake Garda, but that he was insisting she accompany him as Roots Registry’s representative.
She’d left her boss’s office in a daze, her fingers whitening on the printouts of the Alegria client presentation Bob had already started work on, as the whole terrifying scenario had slotted into place.
Nick Delisantro was the only reason she’d got her job back. Mr Crenshawe hadn’t had a sudden change of heart, and if she refused to make the trip he would kick her right back out of the door again.
So she’d agreed to go to Italy.
And then endured seven whole days of extreme agitation while she tried to figure out Nick Delisantro’s motives. Why had he insisted she go with him? When he couldn’t stand the sight of her?
The only possible scenario that had made any sense was that he had devised this trip as some new way of punishing her. As if shouting at her, humiliating her and kicking her out of his apartment weren’t enough.
At first she’d panicked. Horrified at the thought of not only having to deal with his anger all over again, but having to spend two whole weeks with him using her as his whipping boy. But after a long phone conversation with Tess, during which she’d given her friend a pared-down version of her one-night stand, Tess had made her realise that she had every right to be mad at Nick and not the other way around.
Unfortunately, despite her show of bravado in finally standing up to Mr Crenshawe, Eva wasn’t sure she had enough courage to stand up to someone as dominating as Nick.
The truth was she had even less experience of confrontational situations than she did of sexual ones. As a child she’d always been a champion conciliator, had hardly ever even uttered a cross word at the dinner table—because she’d always been far too aware of the weight of her parents’ disapproval if she did. Not that her parents had been bad parents—they hadn’t. They’d never been aggressive or unkind towards her, and they hadn’t even been particularly strict, except about her schoolwork. But they had never been very affectionate either. They simply hadn’t been demonstrative people—and unfortunately she was. She’d longed for the spontaneous hugs and kisses, the casual praise and all those other unconscious signs that demonstrated you were loved and cherished, which she saw her school friends receiving from their mums and dads, but her own parents had never been capable of. And as a consequence of that childhood yearning, she’d become pathetically eager to please. Nick had accused her of always apologising. And he’d been right.
But as Tess had pointed out rather forcefully on the phone yesterday afternoon from San Francisco, he hadn’t been right to turn on her the way he had after they’d slept together. He’d accused her of things she hadn’t done. Things that, once she’d had a chance to think about it, didn’t even make sense. Why on earth would she have needed to sleep with him to tell him he was in line to inherit millions? Surely most people would have been overjoyed to receive that news? The fact that he hadn’t been must have something to do with his past.
When had he discovered he was illegitimate? she wondered. Had it been a particularly traumatic experience for him?
Eva frowned at the dwindling line of passengers coming out of the arrival gates, and swallowed down the wave of sympathy.
Don’t even go there.
She needed to nurture her indignation and work on her confrontation skills—or Nick Delisantro was going to walk all over her a second time, and the little shards that he’d somehow inserted in her heart would never go away. She definitely did not need to feel sorry for him. So making assumptions about what might have happened to him as a child was out.
She peered towards the gate and smoothed damp palms down the lower half of the power suit she’d chosen that morning, after trying on six other outfits. With its knee-length steel-grey pencil skirt, matching tailored jacket and demure white cotton blouse, it made her look one-hundred-per-cent professional.
She was calm now, she noted. Or calm enough. She gripped the handle of her wheel-around suitcase. Her hands had stopped quivering and she was breathing, if not evenly, at least fairly regularly. Once she’d got over this first meeting, established how she was going to play things—calm, detached, not given to emotional outbursts of any kind—everything would be fine.
Then she spotted the tall, well-muscled man strolling out of the gate in a worn T-shirt and low-slung jeans. His caramel brown hair was shorter than she remembered it, hugging his head and curling only slightly around his ears. But there was no mistaking that devastatingly handsome face, the olive skin, or the dark gaze that scanned the crowd, then locked onto her face with a focus and intensity that reminded her of their first meeting.
Her grip flexed and tightened on the handle to stop the trembling in her fingers and the quick, shallow gasp of breath. But it didn’t do a thing for the swell of heat beneath her pencil skirt that dampened the gusset of her panties.
She bit down on her bottom lip as he strolled towards her, his strides
measured but exact, and the expression on his face completely unreadable.
Ignore the heat. Stay calm, stay professional and, whatever you do, do not say sorry. You’re not the one who should be apologising.
She stood rooted to the spot. Determined not to give in to the sudden instinct to lift the hem of the confining pencil skirt and leg it straight out of the terminal building.
She’d flown once before, and he’d caught up with her. What she had to do now was fight.
Fight for composure. Fight to regain her dignity and fight to maintain control of this situation for the next two weeks. Not to mention fight an attraction that for some inexplicable reason had not gone away, despite the appalling way this man had treated her already and the unpleasant way she was sure he intended to treat her again.
Unfortunately, her hormones paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to her mission statement. Because as Nick Delisantro got closer, they began jumping and jigging about as if they’d just won the lottery.
She squeezed the fingers of her free hand into a fist, released them and then thrust out her palm as he stopped in front of her. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Delisantro. I hope you had a pleasant flight,’ she said, her voice satisfyingly polite and professional despite her jackpot-hitting hormones. ‘But I’m afraid we need to hurry or we’ll miss our plane to Milan.’
His fingers closed over hers, making electricity zing into her palm and then shoot up her arm.
‘Mr Delisantro?’ One dark brow arched as a mocking smile curved his lips. ‘Isn’t that a bit formal, given that I’ve seen you naked, Eva?’
The confidence in his tone, and the spark of humour in his eyes, made it clear he wasn’t asking a question. And her temper finally got the better of her hormones.
‘Formal works for me, given that you’re not going to see me naked again, Mr Delisantro,’ she fired back, tugging her hand out of his grasp.
Nick chuckled at the steely hint of aggravation in her tone.
