The Italian Demands His Heirs. LYNNE GRAHAM

novelty for a man who generally only met with fear and flattery. Being very rich and very influential, Stam was more accustomed to those who did exactly as he told them to do. But not Vivi, he reminisced fondly, Vivi who had no fear of him and spoke her mind without hesitation and, surprisingly, he respected her the more for her inner strength and conviction.

      Fortunately for him, however, Vivi utterly loathed Raffaele di Mancini for the way he had wrecked her life. Two years earlier he had ruined her reputation to ensure that his flighty little sister came out of the same scandal whiter than white. Vivi had been accused, not only of being a prostitute, but also of having lured Arianna into stripping off for the camera and signing up as an escort with a sleazy business masquerading as a legitimate modelling agency. No, there was little chance of Vivi falling in love with Mancini, Stam conceded with an amused smile. But of the three potential husbands he had originally lined up to rescue his granddaughters’ reputations, Raffaele di Mancini was undeniably the most dangerous as well as being the biggest mystery.

      Raffaele, billionaire banker and noted philanthropist, was the descendant of an extravagantly long and blue-blooded family line that could trace its beginnings back to the tenth century. By repute, he was a genius in the financial field and he led a remarkably discreet and conservative life, never ever seeking publicity. That made it all the harder for Stam to understand why Mancini had broken the discretion of a lifetime and labelled poor Vivi an escort on the back of the slenderest evidence. Had he somehow imagined it would shield his kid sister, Arianna, from being associated with the sleazy operation both young women had innocently become embroiled with?

      But what did that matter now when the damage had been done? Stam ruminated. His problem was that Mancini was too clever by far to be entrapped by the usual ploys and too rich and virtuous to be bribed. That had meant that Stam was forced to stoop to a means of persuasion that he disliked intensely, particularly when that file revealed that Mancini had spent his adult life struggling to protect his wayward sister from her mistakes and their consequences. It was commendable that he had gone to so much trouble for a girl who was only a half-sister and the daughter of the drug-addled stepmother he could only have despised.

      Mancini, however, deserved everything he had coming to him for what he had done to poor Vivi’s self-esteem, Stam reflected with harsh finality.

      * * *

      Raffaele di Mancini was uneasy.

      And he didn’t know why, which nagged at him because he always trusted his gut. Yet there was nothing wrong in his world. His life ran with machine-like efficiency from the instant he arose at six in the morning to a perfectly cooked breakfast to the moment he retired to a bed made up with the very finest bed linen available.

      All was quiet within his family circle as well. His younger sister, Arianna, for a long time a source of concern, was finally settled and on the brink of marrying a suitable man, with whom she was currently sharing a home in Florence. He had neither worries nor any thorny problems to tackle.

      In London to speak at a banking conference, he had been surprised to be invited to a meeting with the notoriously reclusive Stamboulas Fotakis at his palatial and multi-storeyed London apartment. Fotakis was one of the richest men in the world but Raffaele had never met him and naturally he was curious to discover what had prompted such an invitation. He was also curious about the man himself, he acknowledged wryly. Over the years, reams had been written about Stam Fotakis and even if half of the stories could be discounted as nonsense, what remained was the stuff of legend.

      Raffaele raked impatient fingers through his cropped black hair and checked his designer watch. Being kept waiting was a new experience for him. Raised to believe that good manners were integral to good business practice, Raffaele frowned, dark-as-charcoal eyes flaring with irritation. Clearly, Fotakis was running late but Raffaele was keen to get back to his town house and unwind after a very long day spent answering stupid questions and being sociable. Raffaele had a very low tolerance threshold for fools. Labelled a genius at school, he was impatient, extremely organised and only happy when following a precise schedule.

      A PA, a beautiful blonde, entered the reception room and ushered him into a lift, where she tried to strike up a conversation and flirt with him. Stiffening in exasperation at her hair-tossing, fluttering eyelashes and lingering glances, Raffaele behaved much like a man swatting off a fly. Women came on to him all the time and it often irritated him. It got in the way of normal dialogue and tainted the professional atmosphere of an office environment. If she had been working for Raffaele, he would have instantly sacked her for such a display.

      Women had their place in his life, of course they did. Raffaele had a high sex drive, as with many other thirty-year-old men. But he was infinitely more discreet than most. He chose his lovers with care and none of his affairs lasted longer than a few weeks. There was even a good reason for that brief timescale. Raffaele had eventually worked out that the longer he spent with a woman, the more attached and ambitious and indiscreet she became. As he had no intention of getting married until he was in his forties and mature enough to make a wise choice, he enjoyed sex only as long as it came without strings.

      Raffaele was shown into a wood-panelled office of almost Victorian magnificence. Another door opened and a small white-haired, bearded man appeared. He immediately lifted the fat file on the desk and extended it to Raffaele. ‘Mr di Mancini,’ Stam Fotakis murmured flatly.

      ‘Mr Fotakis.’ Somewhat disconcerted by the lack of social chit-chat even though he had very little time for such time-wasting pursuits, Raffaele accepted the file and took the seat his host indicated.

      ‘Give me your thoughts on that,’ Stam invited smoothly.

      As Raffaele leafed ever more slowly through the incredibly detailed file with a rare sense of growing horror, he breathed in slow and deep to steady himself. Arianna’s every mistake seemed to be included in that file and there were one or two that not even Raffaele had known about. He swallowed hard on his shock at being presented with such a shady dossier on his little sister’s past activities.

      ‘What are you planning to do with this information?’ Raffaele enquired in as civil a tone as he could manage because he was angry, seriously angry, and that was an emotion he rarely experienced but instinctively knew had to be controlled.

      His host surveyed him steadily. ‘That very much depends on you. It will be released to the tabloid press only if you disappoint me,’ he revealed quietly.

      ‘That is an unthinkable threat,’ Raffaele breathed tautly. ‘I cannot believe that my sister has ever done you any harm.’

      ‘Let me explain the connection,’ Stam urged him stonily. ‘It’s the tale of two young women, one born into rank and privilege and great wealth...your sister.’

      ‘And the other?’ Raffaele prompted impatiently.

      ‘Born into poor circumstances and raised without any advantages but nonetheless a hard-working, educated and respectable young woman...and my granddaughter.’

      ‘Your granddaughter,’ Raffaele repeated blankly, still trying to fathom at top speed what Stam Fotakis could possibly want from him to warrant such a threat.

      ‘Vivien Mardas, better known as Vivi,’ Stam supplied. ‘For a little while she was a friend of your sister’s.’

      Raffaele went rigid, the link established and comprehension now possible. ‘I remember her,’ he said stiffly. ‘She is a member of your family?’

      ‘Yes,’ Stam said, equally stiffly. ‘And I am as protective of her as you are of your sister and determined to rectify any injustices she has suffered.’

      Raffaele remained diplomatically silent, for a slow, deep anger was burning like hellfire inside him as he joined the dots and hit pay dirt. When he had known her, Vivi had definitely been unaware that she had a very rich and powerful grandfather. Evidently, having discovered that no doubt welcome reality, she had lied about the less presentable parts of her past in an effort to cover them up.

      ‘Injustices?’ he prompted flatly.

      ‘You ruined her reputation by referring to her