The Sicilian's Defiant Virgin. Susan Stephens

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       EPILOGUE

       Etract

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘CHE? BUON DIO!’

      Nothing could be worse than his younger brother’s funeral. Until Luca Tebaldi’s father hit him with a fresh disaster.

      Swearing savagely under his breath, Luca closed his father’s study door on the stream of mourners who had gathered in Sicily to show their fealty to the Tebaldi clan, rather than to demonstrate their grief at the loss of Luca’s reckless younger brother Raoul in a senseless accident. The Tebaldis were the uncrowned kings of Sicily, but on days like this Luca’s guilt at leaving his homeland as a youth ran thick and deep and ugly.

      The funeral was being held on the Tebaldis’ private island off the toe of Sicily, where the Tebaldi family had ruled unchallenged for a thousand years. Luca had rebelled as a youth against the lifestyle of his father and brother, believing their actions belonged to another age. His success was founded on shrewd moves in business, and legitimate takeovers. He had begged his father and brother on countless occasions to change their ways before it was too late. There was no satisfaction in being proved right.

      ‘If all I had to worry about was Raoul’s gambling debts...’ The man the world still called Don Tebaldi slumped back in his leather chair, looking spent and exhausted.

      ‘Whatever has happened, I’ll put it right,’ Luca soothed his father. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’ They might not see eye to eye, but blood was thicker than water.

      ‘You can’t put this right, Luca,’ his father assured him.

      ‘I’ll fix it,’ Luca stated firmly. He had never seen his father looking quite so defeated.

      ‘As if I didn’t have enough with your brother’s gambling, Raoul thought it would be amusing to leave his estate to some girl he met at that casino in London.’

      There was no change in Luca’s expression, but his mind was whirring. His brother had been a compulsive gambler, who had increasingly distanced himself from Luca. On their last meeting Raoul had said Luca would never understand him.

      ‘I retire to Florida soon,’ Luca’s father reminded him. ‘You’ll have to go to London to clear up Raoul’s mess. Who better for the task than you, with your morally judgemental view on life?’

      His father’s angry gesture and the sneer on his face revealed Don Tebaldi’s contempt for his sons—one too weak, and the other too strong, he would say.

      Luca found it incomprehensible that a parent could feel such a level of loathing for their children. He watched as a man turned suddenly old manoeuvred his arthritic limbs behind the desk. A lifetime of excess had finally caught up with his father. He felt compassion, though they had never been close. Considering the practical side of the problem, his business interests were so successful he could easily take a break. He must. His father needed him.

      ‘This wouldn’t have happened if you had followed me into the family business,’ his father moaned as he buried his face in his hands.

      ‘Joining the family business was never an option for me, and it never will be,’ Luca said.

      His father lifted his face from his hands, his expression hardening into the unforgiving mask Luca remembered so well from his childhood.

      ‘You don’t deserve my love,’ he spat out viciously. ‘You’re not worthy to be my son. Raoul was weak, and you are worse, because you could have taken over from me, making the name Tebaldi great again.’

      ‘I would do anything to help you, but not that,’ Luca replied evenly, his mind already working on his trip to London.

      His father’s scornful look remained trained on his face. Neither of his sons had been blessed with his killer instinct, Don Tebaldi would tell them when Luca and Raoul were youths, as if this were a quality they should aspire to.

      ‘You are a stubborn fool, Luca. You always were.’

      ‘Because I won’t do as you say?’

      ‘Correct. And as for Raoul?’ His father made a sound of disgust.

      ‘Raoul always tried to please you, Father—’

      ‘Then, he failed!’ his father raged, slamming his fist on the desk to make the point.

      Luca said nothing. He’d been out of the loop for a long time working on his various charitable projects. He wished he’d been around for his brother. He wished his father could show some emotion, other than hate. Even Don Tebaldi’s shadowed study reeked of bitterness and disappointment in his sons, yet Luca felt compelled to offer reassurance to the older man—and he would have done, if his father’s cold stare hadn’t forbidden any form of human contact between them. It was an expression that lacked every shred of parental warmth.

      ‘Leave me,’ his father commanded. ‘If you’ve nothing positive to offer, get out!’

      ‘Never,’ Luca said quietly. ‘Family comes first, whether I work for the family business, or not.’

      ‘What family business?’ his father hissed bitterly. ‘There’s nothing left thanks to your brother.’

      ‘There are islanders to protect,’ Luca argued quietly.

      ‘Then, you do it!’ his father blazed. ‘I’m done here.’ Dropping his head into his hands, the once great leader began to sob like a child.

      Tactfully turning his back, Luca waited for the storm to blow over. He wasn’t going anywhere. Neither his father nor Raoul had ever been able to accept that he would love them, no matter what.

      Luca Tebaldi could have been a worthy successor to a man who had ruled his fiefdom with a rod of iron for more than fifty years. Well over six feet tall, with the hard-muscled frame of a Roman gladiator, Luca was considered to be outrageously good-looking. With the intellect of a scholar and the keen stare of a warrior, Luca possessed the type of dangerously compelling glamour of a man born to rule. But it was Luca’s steel-trap mind that had brought him such huge success. His business interests were wholly legitimate, and had been founded far away from his father’s crumbling empire. Rampant sex appeal made him irresistible to women, but Luca had no time for softening influences in his life, though his late, hugely passionate Italian mother had drummed into him an appreciation of the fairer sex. Luca’s raging libido was a hitch that he and his iron control had learned to live with.

      His father looked up. ‘How could you not know what was happening to Raoul? You both own property in London.’

      ‘Our paths rarely crossed,’ Luca admitted. His life was so different from that of his fast-living brother. ‘Is there anything more I should know before I leave for London?’ he pressed, wanting to move past the histrionics to the meat of the matter.

      His father shrugged. ‘Raoul owed money everywhere. He left several properties, all heavily mortgaged—’ These he dismissed with a contemptuous flick of his wrist. ‘It’s the trust fund that concerns me. She gets that!’

      A trust fund worth millions, Luca calculated, and one of the few sources of money Raoul hadn’t been able to get his hands on to fritter away. Raoul wouldn’t have been able to touch the trust