The Italian in Need of an Heir Read online

  The new house on Aoussa was a rambling ultra-modern property, perfectly suited to family occasions, which was fortunate when pretty much their whole lives revolved around family connections. The sisters got together as often as possible. Maya and Raffaele would fly to Zenara and stay at the palace in the desert with Rafiq and Izzy and their children would race around together kicking up a storm. As couples they got on very well. Maya had long since confided in Izzy about the loss of her very first pregnancy, but she hadn’t yet told her twin the truth of why she had married Raffaele. She didn’t think that would be fair to him when he had changed so much since then and she didn’t want her sister to think less of him. She was as protective of Raffaele as she had ever been.

  She saw a great deal of her parents and her grandparents because when she visited Izzy and vice versa, their older relatives were often included in the invitation. Her little brother, Matt, had benefitted hugely from the stem cell treatment and was no longer in a wheelchair but could now get around on crutches. His condition was still improving as he was still undergoing treatment. Raffaele’s great-grandfather, Aldo, had died two years earlier and Raffaele regretted never having had the chance to get to know the old man better before his dementia set in. They saw Tommaso, Claire and Raffaele’s half-sisters regularly as well.

  Raffaele’s giant business holdings had begun to take up too much of his time and when Maya complained about the long hours he was working, Raffaele sold off some of his empire, choosing to invest instead. Maya wrote a mathematics textbook, which only sold to very clever people but that didn’t bother her. She had Raffaele, her children, the dogs, a large and demanding extended family and entertainment to organise, and in reality she didn’t have time for much else.

  Now, when she watched Raffaele striding up from the beach, the dogs, Luna and Primo, at his heels, Pietro plodding after his father with his thumb stuck in his mouth, Daniele lazily dribbling a football and Greta dragging her basket of toy cars and diggers behind her, she got to her feet. Behind the group, Rafiq was urging his children towards the house with the nannies in attendance.

  There Raffaele was, vital and golden in swim shorts and nothing else, and her heart hammered like crazy inside her chest.

  ‘The nannies are about to feed the tribe and we’re...we’re taking a nap,’ Raffaele announced with a wicked gleam in his dark golden gaze.

  Maya turned as red as fire.

  ‘I thought only children need a nap in the middle of the day,’ Izzy remarked pointedly.

  ‘The heat drains Maya,’ Raffaele countered cheerfully. ‘If she doesn’t get a nap now, she’ll be asleep before we get the BBQ lit.’

  Izzy rolled her eyes with amusement and said nothing more.

  ‘Do you have to be so obvious?’ Maya hissed as Raffaele urged her upstairs to their secluded bedroom suite, which rejoiced in a spectacular view of the sea and Manzini One moored out in the bay.

  ‘You know you wouldn’t have me any other way.’ Raffaele laughed. ‘I don’t want to turn into a boring lover who waits for bedtime when you’re most tired. No, I’d much rather have you sun-warmed and sexy and sandy, even if you’re embarrassed by something as entirely natural as your husband lusting after you.’

  ‘You’re never going to be boring in bed or out of it,’ she promised him lovingly.

  ‘But that’s because I’ve got you to keep me on my toes and fully diverted.’ Raffaele watched her strip off her wrap and bikini and fold sinuously down on the bed, stunning dark golden eyes absorbing her every move. ‘You’re so beautiful. I don’t want to be shallow, but that is the very first thing I noticed about you.’

  ‘You’re forgiven. It’s the very first thing I noticed about you as well,’ Maya confided as he sprang up on the bed beside her.

  ‘You blew me off!’ Raffaele reminded her accusingly as if that memory still rankled. ‘You walked away from me!’

  ‘I don’t think you’d have wanted me half as badly if I hadn’t done that,’ Maya murmured.

  Raffaele strung a line of kisses across her collarbone and butterflies danced in her tummy, heat stirring lower down. ‘You’re probably right, but then I’m convinced that you were made for me, put on this earth just for me to love. Women don’t come any more perfect than you.’

  ‘I’m not perfect.’

  ‘You’re perfect for me,’ he contradicted. ‘That’s why I love you...we fit.’

  Maya trailed her fingers through his tousled wind-blown black hair, her gaze captured by his. ‘Yes, we do,’ she agreed softly. ‘We fit amazingly well, don’t we?’

  ‘And I love you more every day, particularly when you agree with me,’ Raffaele said with a wolfish grin before he kissed her and then there was no more talking for a long while.

  * * *

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  A Baby to Bind His Innocent

  by Michelle Smart

  PROLOGUE

  ‘WE MUST FIX THIS.’ Ciro Trapani drained his bourbon and fixed his eyes on his brother’s shattered face.

  The past four days had seen Vicenzu age by a decade. The ready smile had been lost, and the always amused eyes were now dank, murky pools of grief. And guilt.

  They both shared the grief and guilt, but for Vicenzu the guilt was double.

  After a long pause, in which Vicenzu drained his own drink, he finally met Ciro’s stare. His features twisted and he gave a sharp nod.

  ‘We have to get it back,’ Ciro stated. ‘All of it.’

  Another nod.

  Ciro leaned forward. He needed to be certain that whatever they agreed today, Vicenzu would stick to it.

  The family business was gone. Stolen.

  The family home was gone. Stolen.

  Their father was dead.

  Ciro had looked up to his brother his entire life and, while their personalities and temperaments differed, they’d always been close. The man sharing a table with him in this Palermo bar was a stranger. He knew Vicenzu thought they should wait for a decent mourning period to pass before they did anything to avenge their father but the fury in Ciro needed to put plans into action now. And Vicenzu needed to play his part. What had been stolen would be recovered by whatever means necessary. Their devastated mother needed her home back.

  ‘Vicenzu?’

  His brother slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. After another long pause, he finally spoke. ‘Yes, I know what I have to do, and I’ll do it. I will take the business back.’

  Ciro pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. Cesare Buscetta, their father’s childhood tormentor, the thief who’d legally stolen their parents’ business and home, had gifted the business to his oldest daughter, the inappropriately named Immacolata. Right then, Ciro did not believe Vicenzu had the wits about him to take her on and win. Vicenzu had always been closer to their father than Ciro. His sudden death four days ago and the subsequent revelations of everything that had been stolen had all contributed to mute his brother’s natural exuberance and turn
him into this lost ghost-like person.

  Vicenzu must have recognised the cynicism in his brother’s expression for he straightened. ‘I will get the business back, Ciro. This is my responsibility. Mine.’

  ‘You are sure you can handle it?’ A question he would never have needed to pose four days ago before their world had been ripped apart. Getting the family home back would be a much easier task. Cesare had gifted the house to his younger daughter. From what Ciro had gleaned about the reclusive Claudia Buscetta, she was a spoilt, pampered princess with a brain that compared unfavourably to a rocking horse.

  His brother’s nostrils flared, a glimmer of the old spark flashing from his eyes. ‘Yes. You get the house back for Mamma and leave the business to me.’

  Ciro contemplated him a little longer before inclining his head. ‘As you wish.’ He caught a passing bartender’s eye and indicated another round of drinks for them before addressing his brother again. ‘You must stop blaming yourself. You weren’t to know. Papà should have confided in us.’ That he hadn’t was something they would both have to live with.

  ‘If I hadn’t borrowed all that money from him he would never have been forced to sell.’

  ‘If I’d made more visits home I would have been on hand to help,’ Ciro countered grimly. This was the guilt that lay so heavily in him. He hadn’t been home to Sicily since Christmas. The sabotage against his father had started in the new year. ‘Papà should have told you—told both of us—how precarious the family finances were but what’s done is done. The only person to blame is that bastard Cesare. And his daughters,’ he added, his top lip curling with distaste.

  Fresh drinks were placed before them. Ciro raised his glass aloft. ‘To vengeance.’

  ‘To vengeance,’ Vicenzu echoed.

  They clinked their glasses and knocked back the fiery liquid.

  The plan was sealed.

  Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Smart

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  ISBN-13: 9781488059643

  The Italian in Need of an Heir

  Copyright © 2020 by Lynne Graham

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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