Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

‘Mother, may we come in?’

‘Of course. Have you…have you come all the way from Sicily?’

‘This very afternoon,’ Rafael answered. They followed Jennifer into her sitting room where she perched on a white leather sofa, eyebrows elegantly arced.

‘What a lovely surprise.’

‘Is it?’ Allegra asked quietly, and Jennifer’s eyes narrowed.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Allegra took a deep breath. ‘Mother, Marco Vitali was accused of embezzlement and lost his business as a result.’

‘I told you that,’ Jennifer answered with a dismissive flick of fingers. She shot Rafael a quick, wary glance. ‘I’m sorry for it, of course, but it has nothing to do with me.’

‘He killed himself as a result.’

Jennifer’s expression didn’t change. ‘Again, I’m sorry.’

‘There was never any proof it was him, though,’ Allegra continued, determined to see this through. She and Rafael both needed to have this reckoning. ‘The only so-called proof was that someone close to Papa told him it was Marco.’

Jennifer shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘So?’

‘So, who was that person? And who really did take the money? Because it was someone close to my father, someone he trusted.’

‘You flew all the way to New York to talk about this?’ Jennifer demanded, her lips twisting in a sneer. ‘I suppose he put you up to it?’ she added with a glare at Rafael.

‘I did not,’ Rafael returned, his voice a low thrum in his chest. ‘In fact, I did not want her to make the trip in her condition. But I realised I did want to know. Not for my sake,’ he emphasised, his voice lowering to a growl of menacing intent, ‘but for Allegra’s.’

‘What…?’ Allegra turned to him, her lips parting in wordless shock.

‘If your mother is guilty,’ Rafael said, ‘then she affected your life as much as mine.’ He turned to Jennifer, skewering her with a gaze full of knowledge and accusation. ‘Because that’s why her father stayed away, isn’t it? You made him.’

Jennifer’s mouth dropped open and for a few seconds she struggled to speak. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she finally blustered.

‘No,’ Rafael answered, so firm, so sure. ‘You do know. Because you tried to use Allegra as a bargaining chip.’

‘What?’ Allegra’s mind raced. ‘How do you know…?’ she demanded of Rafael, the words torn from her.

‘I don’t. I’m guessing.’ He nailed Jennifer with a look. ‘And I’m right.’

Jennifer glared at him for a full minute, and then she rose from the sofa, flouncing over to the bar where she poured herself a stiff drink. Allegra watched her, her heart seeming to beat its way up her throat.

‘Mother, is that true? Did you threaten Papa? Is that why—?’

‘You always thought your father was a saint,’ Jennifer said as she tossed back her drink in one swallow and then flung the glass on the table. ‘Even when he walked away from you for good.’ She turned around, her arms folded tightly against her chest. ‘You can’t prove anything. There’s no paper trail, nothing. Trust me on that.’

‘So you did do it,’ Allegra cried, tears streaking down her face. ‘How could you…?’

Jennifer pressed her lips together. ‘Your father kept me on very short purse strings.’

‘But why did Papa leave…?’

She looked away. ‘I told him if he made me leave he’d never see you again. He didn’t want to go through the courts, didn’t want the stain on his precious reputation. To have a criminal for a wife! He couldn’t bear it. And I thought… I thought he’d change his mind, if he couldn’t have you. I didn’t know he’d be so bloody stubborn.’

Allegra leaned back against the sofa cushions, her whole body weak and trembling with shock.

‘I never meant Vitali to be blamed the way he was,’ Jennifer said defensively. ‘I just suggested it once. I didn’t expect Vitali’s business to be ruined by it.’

‘You destroyed the life of an entire family,’ Allegra said, her voice shaking. ‘You have blood on your hands.’

‘Is it my fault that he chose to do that?’ Jennifer cried. ‘He didn’t have to.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ Rafael interjected quietly. To Allegra’s surprise he didn’t look as angry as she expected him to. He looked sad and resolute, and the surest rock upon which she could depend. He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. ‘You are not to blame for his death,’ he said to Jennifer. ‘But you are a criminal all the same, and you know it.’

Jennifer’s eyes shot sparks as she lifted her chin and said nothing. ‘Tell me,’ Rafael said quietly. ‘Did Mancini ever try to contact Allegra?’

Jennifer looked as if she wasn’t going to answer. ‘There were letters,’ she said finally, and looked away.

Allegra let out a gasp. ‘Letters… Did you keep them? Why didn’t you show them to me?’

‘I could hardly do that,’ Jennifer dismissed. ‘You would have started asking questions. But I’m not completely heartless, you know.’ She pressed her lips together, and then she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

Allegra pressed her cheek against Rafael’s chest and he put his arms around her. ‘How did you know…?’ she whispered.

‘I guessed.’

‘I never thought…never imagined…’

‘Maybe now you’ll find some answers.’

Allegra look up at him, her eyes wet with tears. ‘I already have, Rafael. With you. In you.’

A brief, trembling smile touched his lips and he rested his forehead against hers. Allegra closed her eyes.

‘I’m so sorry to interrupt this touching scene,’ Jennifer said. She tossed a packet of letters on the table in front of them and Allegra took them up, scanning the faded envelopes. There had to be at least a dozen.

‘We’ll go now,’ Rafael said, rising from the sofa.

‘Wait.’ Allegra touched his sleeve. ‘Don’t you have anything to say to Rafael?’ she demanded of her mother. ‘Do you know how much he has suffered? His family has suffered?’

Jennifer flinched a little but then pressed her lips together and said nothing. She wouldn’t admit any more guilt than she had to.

‘It doesn’t matter, Allegra,’ Rafael said quietly. ‘This isn’t about me.’

‘But it is—’

‘No.’ He cut her off with gentle firmness. ‘This was about you. You needed to hear this.’ He gestured to the letters. ‘You needed to see this.’ He tugged her up to standing, his gaze intent and full of—dared she believe it?—love. ‘And now we can truly move on.’

Moments later they were standing in front of her mother’s building, blinking in the bright sunlight. Allegra pressed her father’s letters to her chest as she shook her head in wonder.

‘I never expected this…’

‘I’m glad it has happened.’

‘But what about you, Rafael? Does it…does it matter, knowing my own mother…?’

‘Someone I love taught me that the sins of our parents do not have to affect or define us. The past doesn’t have to destroy our future.’

A tremulous smile bloomed across her face, planted its roots deep in his heart. ‘Do you mean that?’

‘I love you, Allegra. I’ve loved you for a while, but I fought it because I am a blind, hard-headed fool. And I was afraid, just as you guessed and said. Afraid of being hurt. Of seeming weak. But you saw all my weakness and failure and you loved me even then. Even more.’

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘All of you.’

‘And I love all of you.’ He put his arms around her and drew her to him. ‘Especially since you can forgive me when I act so foolishly, pulling away when I should have pushed closer.’

‘I understood it was scary, Rafael. It was scary for me too.’

‘But you wised up a lot faster than I did,’ he said with a smile. He brushed his lips across hers. ‘Now let’s go home.’

EPILOGUE

Eighteen months later

‘HE’S THE SMARTEST baby that ever was,’ Allegra declared.

‘Of course he is,’ Rafael answered easily, as he joined her on the lawn, stretching his long legs out on the blanket. The sunshine bathed them in a golden glow, and above them the leaves rustled pleasantly. Their son, named Marco after Rafael’s father, babbled excitedly as he attempted to heft his chubby self to his feet.

‘He’s trying to walk,’ Allegra exclaimed. ‘And the doctors said he wouldn’t walk until he was at least two.’

‘Yes, but what do they ever know?’ Rafael teased.

It had been a long, hard year and a half in many ways. Little Marco had spent four months in the neonatal unit, first getting strong enough to handle heart surgery and then recovering from that surgery. There had been a few scary moments along the way—a bout of pneumonia that had tested his lungs, and an infection after his surgery. But he’d grown stronger and stronger and finally, when their son had been nearly five months old, they’d brought him back to the villa to begin their life together as a proper family.

Three months ago they’d got married, a small, intimate ceremony in the nearby town, with only a handful of guests. Allegra hadn’t wanted a big do, and neither had Rafael.

They were happy as they were, living quietly, with Rafael commuting to Palermo for work. Allegra had started offering cello lessons to local children, and enjoyed playing more than she ever had. The local priest had asked her to play a concert in the church in the nearby town, and Allegra had agreed.

Love, she realised, made her bloom. Made her believe more in herself, because Rafael believed in her. And she saw the same unfurling in Rafael, the lightness and sheer joy in his face, his eyes. Love made you bloom and love also healed.

In recent months Rafael had taken new steps with Angelica, talking more honestly to her than he ever had before. Last week Angelica had moved into the clinic in Switzerland and was undergoing several months of rehab and therapy. So many miracles.

‘Allegra, look!’ His voice filled with amazement, Rafael pointed to their son who, with a look of both determination and terror on his face, was taking his first step.

‘He’s amazing,’ Rafael declared, and, laughing, Allegra reached out to clasp Marco’s hands.

‘Just like his father, then,’ she said, and, smiling, Rafael leaned down to kiss her.

The Virgin’s Shock Baby

Heidi Rice

The Italian’s one-night heir

Vulnerable Megan Whittaker has orders to find out if tycoon Dario De Rossi plans to acquire her father’s business. Reluctantly, she agrees, but doesn’t expect to be so distracted by their searing chemistry that she ends up in his bed!

Dario does have takeover ambitions, but when Megan is violently punished for her night with the enemy, he feels honor-bound to protect her. They escape to Italy, but this commanding businessman soon discovers a deeper problem. Not only is Megan suffering from amnesia, meaning she believes they’re engaged and passionately in love…but she’s also carrying his baby!

To Bryony, who made sure I gave this story the

depth it deserved.

And Daisy, who talked me off the ledge a few

times while I was doing that!

Dario, Megan and I thank you both sincerely.

PROLOGUE

‘DARIO DE ROSSI IS escorting you to the Westchester Ball tomorrow night and you need to seduce him while you’re there.’

‘What? Why?’ Megan Whittaker was fairly sure she’d just been transported into an alternate universe. An alternate universe that was two hundred years past its sell-by date. Either that or her father had lost his mind. Whichever way you looked at it, the demand he had just levelled at her from across his walnut desk in the Manhattan offices of Whittaker Enterprises, without even the hint of a smile on his face, was not good news, because he did not appear to be joking.

‘To save Whittaker’s from possible annihilation,’ her father snapped. ‘Don’t give me your whipped puppy look, Megan,’ he added. ‘Do you think I would ask this of you if there were another option?’

‘Well, I…’ She wanted to believe him, even though she knew his love for Whittaker’s had always taken precedence over his love for his daughters.

But unlike her sister, Katie, Megan understood that. Having spent the last four years working her way up to head her own tiny department at Whittaker’s, she didn’t begrudge him his dedication to the company that had been in their family for five generations.

She also didn’t really begrudge him a request so outside the norm for a father to a daughter, or indeed a boss to his employee. She knew that to be successful in business your personal life had to suffer, and personal loyalties could be tested. But this was… Well… It wasn’t even rational. What possible reason could there be for her to seduce any man? Let alone a man like De Rossi, a corporate wolf who had risen through the ranks of New York business society in the last ten years to become one of its prime movers and shakers.

Quite apart from anything else, if her father was looking for a femme fatale, surely he must know Megan was not the best candidate for the job.

She simply did not have the necessary temperament, equipment or experience. She had always been more comfortable in business suits and flats than cocktail dresses and heels. She found going to the beauty salon tedious, the concentration on her appearance a waste of time and money. Her intellect and her work ethic were so much more important. And after the few fumbled encounters she’d had at college, she’d been beyond grateful to discover she comprehensively lacked her mother’s voracious and indiscriminate libido. At twenty-four, she was still technically speaking a virgin, for goodness’ sake! These days she would much rather spend her small amount of free time watching TV boxsets with a nice glass of Pouilly Fuissé, than finding a man—especially as the judicious use of a vibrator could take care of her needs without all the awkwardness and disappointment.

‘Someone’s buying up all our stock,’ her father said, the vein pulsing at his temple starting to disturb Megan. ‘I’m almost certain it’s him. And if it is him, we’re in serious trouble. We’re exposed. We have to stay his hand. That means making sacrifices for the good of the company.’

‘But I don’t understand how…’

‘You don’t have to understand. What you have to do is get an invitation back to his penthouse so we can discover if it is him. If you can find out which of our shareholders he’s targeting that would be even better. Then we might have some hope of keeping the bastard off our back until I can secure new capital investment.’

‘You expect me to seduce him for the purposes of industrial espionage?’ Megan tried to clarify where her father was going with this, as something became devastatingly obvious to her. He had to be exceptionally stressed to believe she could pull such a plan off with her limited skills, which meant the company must be in serious financial difficulties.

‘You have your mother’s face and figure, Megan. And you’re not a lesbian… Are you?’

Her face coloured, the heat racing up her neck, the impatient enquiry mortifying her. ‘What? Of course not, but…’

‘Then what’s the damn problem? Surely there must be enough of that oversexed bitch in you somewhere to know how to seduce this bastard. It’s built into your DNA, all you have to do is locate it.’ Her father was becoming increasingly frantic. The bitterness in his voice at the mention of her mother made Megan’s stomach knot.

Her father never mentioned her mother. Not ever. Alexis Whittaker had abandoned all three of them—her father, herself and her little sister, Katie—not long after Katie’s birth, and had died ten years ago when her Italian boyfriend’s Ferrari had plummeted from a clifftop road on the island of Capri. Megan could still remember her father coming to tell her the news at her boarding school in Cornwall, his face white with an agonising combination of grief, pain and humiliation. And she could remember the same hollow sensation in her stomach.

Her mother had been a social butterfly, stunningly beautiful, flamboyant and reckless—with everyone’s life including her own. Megan could barely remember her; she’d never come to visit her daughters, which was why their father had shipped them off to board at St Grey’s as soon as they were old enough.

The hollow confusion had turned to panic though, when paparazzi photos of her and Katie at the funeral had appeared on the Internet. They had been forced to leave the only real home they had ever known, chased out by the photographers wanting to get a glimpse of the ‘grief-stricken’ Whittaker sisters, and the salacious whispers about their mother’s infidelities, spread by some of the other girls at St Grey’s. Her father had moved them to an apartment ten blocks from his own on Fifth Avenue in New York, employed a housekeeper and a security guard, enrolled them in an exclusive private school and made the effort to visit them at least once a month. And eventually the media storm surrounding Alexis Whittaker’s wicked ways and her untimely death had died down.

But ever since Megan had been ripped away from St Grey’s, she had promised herself two things: she would protect the sister she loved from the fallout of her mother’s disgrace, and she would work herself to the bone to prove to her father that she was nothing like the woman who had given birth to them.

And up until this moment, she had thought she’d succeeded. With her second objective at least. Katie, unfortunately, appeared to be almost as wild as their mother, despite Megan’s best efforts to tame her rebellious temperament.

Megan, though, had concentrated on making her father proud. She’d got a first at Cambridge two years ahead of her peers in computer science. And then an MBA at Harvard Business School specialising in e-commerce. To prove herself worthy, not just to her father but to her colleagues at Whittaker’s, she’d refused his offer of a vanity position and had instead started on the ground floor of the building in Midtown. After six months in the mailroom, she’d applied for an internship in the tech department. It had taken her three years to work her way up the ladder from there, rung by torturous rung. Her recent promotion had put her in charge of the company’s small three-person e-commerce department, finally proving once and for all that her mother’s shameful behaviour had no bearing on who she was. Until this moment.

How could her father even consider asking her to seduce De Rossi? Did he expect her to have sex with the man, too?

‘I can’t do it,’ she said.

‘Why the hell not?’

Because I’m about as far from being De Rossi’s ideal woman as Daffy Duck is from Jessica Rabbit.

‘Because it wouldn’t be ethical,’ she managed, recoiling from the hot flash of memory from the only time she’d ever met De Rossi in the flesh.

He’d certainly made an impression.

She’d heard of him, but the gossip hadn’t prepared her for the staggeringly handsome man who had arrived at the Met Ball with supermodel Giselle Monroe hanging off his arm like the latest fashion accessory. The brute force of his powerful body had barely been contained by the expertly tailored designer suit, and his bold heated gaze had raked over her when they’d been introduced by her father. The knowledge in his ice-blue eyes had disturbed her on a purely visceral level. And set off a thousand tiny explosions of sensation over every inch of exposed skin.

She’d been careful to avoid De Rossi for the rest of the evening, because she’d known instinctively the man was not just tall, dark and handsome, but also extremely dangerous—to her peace of mind.

‘Don’t be naïve.’ Her father flicked a chilling glare at her. ‘There are no ethics in business. Not when it comes to the bottom line. De Rossi certainly doesn’t have any, so we can’t afford to have any either.’

‘But how did you even persuade him to take me to the ball?’ Megan said, becoming desperate herself.

‘It’s a charity ball. He’s paying for a table. You’re going to be Whittaker’s representative there. I asked him to escort you as a courtesy to me; he’s a member of my club.’

So she had officially become a pity date—which would have been mortifying, if her father’s ulterior motive wasn’t a thousand times worse.

‘De Rossi’s only weakness that I could find is for beautiful women,’ her father continued in the same deceptively pragmatic tone. As if he were talking sense, instead of insanity. ‘Not that it’s exactly a weakness. He’s never been foolish enough to marry one of them, unlike me. And he never keeps them longer than a few months. But he’s between women at the moment, according to Annalise, who keeps up with this nonsense,’ he said, mentioning his mistress. ‘And he never has one out of his bed for long. Which gives you all the opportunity you need. He’ll be on the hunt and I’m putting you in his path. All you need to do is get his attention.’ The dispassionate statement had shame burning the back of Megan’s neck. ‘Get an invite to his penthouse on Central Park West,’ her father continued. ‘Once he takes you there, you can get access to his computer and his files. Computers are your forte, are they not?’

That he’d thought this scenario through in such detail wasn’t helping the chill spreading through Megan’s abdomen—or the flush of awareness flaming across her scalp. ‘But anything he has on there will be password protected,’ she said, trying to be practical.

‘I have his passwords.’

‘How?’

‘It’s not important. The important thing is to get access to his computer before he changes them. Which means acting quickly and concisely.’

And setting her up as some kind of Mata Hari? The idea would almost be funny if it weren’t so appalling.

‘You can’t ask me to do this,’ said Megan. She’d always strived so hard to please her father, to prove herself worthy of his trust. There weren’t many things she wouldn’t do for him, but this request scared her on so many levels. ‘You wouldn’t ask me to, if I were your son,’ she added, trying to appeal to her father’s sense of justice. He wasn’t a bad man, he was fair and, in his own gruff, distant way, he loved her and Katie. Obviously he was so stressed he had completely lost his grip on reality. But he had to be under a huge amount of pressure, if De Rossi was sniffing about the company.

She knew enough about De Rossi’s business practices from the financial press to know that once his conglomerate got their hooks into your stock you were as good as dead in the water. He was famous for asset stripping. If he really was planning a hostile takeover, he could reduce Whittaker’s to rubble in weeks, a legacy company destroyed in a heartbeat simply to feed his insatiable appetite for wealth at any cost. But her father’s solution was beyond desperate, not to mention illegal, and doomed to failure. She had to make him see that, and find another way.

‘If I had a son and De Rossi was gay, that would be an option.’ Instead of looking persuaded, the tic in her father’s cheek went ballistic. ‘As neither is the case, it’s a moot point.’

The blush seared her skin, the knot in her stomach tightening into a hollow ball of anxiety. It was no good, she was going to be forced to state the obvious.

‘De Rossi might as well be gay for all the interest he’s likely to take in me. He dates supermodels.’

And I’m hardly supermodel material.

At five-foot-five, and with the lush curves she had inherited from her mother, Megan had felt like an over-endowed pixie next to the slim, stunning woman who had fawned over De Rossi at the Met Ball.

But Megan’s lack of appeal to men had always felt like a boon. She didn’t want to become any man’s decorative accessory. Especially not a man like De Rossi, who even on their brief acquaintance she suspected was as ruthless with women as he was in his business dealings.

She could control those mini explosions. They were nothing more than a biological reaction.

‘Don’t sell yourself short.’ Her father huffed, looking exasperated now as well as desperate. ‘You have enough of your mother’s charms to attract him if you put your mind to it.’