The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

      ‘Did you stay here when you were a child?’

      ‘No. My mother never returned after she married my father. He first saw her playing on the beach down there as a teenager,’ Luciano told her, tight-mouthed. ‘When I was older he called it love at first sight. I would call it lust...’

      Like what Luciano had felt on first seeing Jemima? Jemima wondered ruefully. An instant attraction, similar to what she herself had felt, so how could she look down on that?

      ‘How did they get together?’ she prompted.

      ‘In a decent world they would never have got together. He was a murderer, a thief, a gangster,’ Luciano declared without any expression. ‘She was the adored only child of a titled, educated man. But that man gambled and got into debt and my father bought his debt and soon my father owned him. My father wrote off the debt in return for my mother’s hand in marriage...’

      ‘My goodness,’ Jemima said sickly. ‘What did she have to say about it?’

      ‘She loved her father and she did what she had to do to save him from the shame of bankruptcy,’ Luciano revealed. ‘I can’t imagine she was happy about the price she had to pay. She married a brutal man.’

      Jemima heard the chill in his dark-timbred voice and decided it was definitely time to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his parents’ marriage and in the circumstances that was hardly surprising. As she recalled, his mother had died when he was only three years old and it was unlikely that he remembered much about the beautiful brunette in the portrait on the stairs. It was something they had in common and she commented on the fact.

      Luciano turned frowning eyes on her.

      ‘Have you forgotten that I was adopted? I don’t remember anything about my birth parents but what I do know now, thanks to Julie’s research, is that there’s nothing there to be proud of. Our birth mum was a drug addict and I’ll never know who our father was.’

      The grim edge stamped round his beautiful mouth eased. ‘Ignorance could be bliss.’

      ‘Leave it in the past where it belongs,’ she urged, closing her hand round his. ‘We’re not responsible for what our parents did, nor do we have to resemble them.’

      Luciano smiled at her simplistic advice and her unsubtle attempt to offer him comfort. He didn’t need comfort. He knew who he was and where he had come from and what he had to avoid to achieve a reasonably happy and successful life. Caring too much about anything, be that women, work or money, was what he had surrendered to embrace peace of mind.

      Nicky was surfacing from a nap when they entered the nursery and he held out his arms to Jemima with a huge smile. She hauled him up and turned to Luciano with a grin, wanting to include him, wanting to encourage father and son to get to know each other properly. ‘Let’s take him down to the beach. He’s never seen the sea.’

      She changed into her serviceable and rather faded blue racer-back swimsuit, unable to face the challenge of modelling one of the daring ‘barely there’ bikini sets in her new wardrobe. Luciano joined her in swim shorts, lifting a delighted Nicky high and smiling with satisfaction when the little boy laughed. She watched the long, lithe line of his muscled back flex as he tucked Nicky securely below one arm and strode downstairs. Not an ounce of fat clung to his well-built physique and it showed in his narrow waist and lean hips.

      A picnic lunch was delivered and food for Nicky. The baby loved getting his toes wet in the surf. He loved even more being held up in the air and looking down at his father. Jemima watched father and son, relieved at how naturally they could interact in a more relaxed setting. Clearly no longer uneasy in Luciano’s presence, Nicky dug his hands into his father’s hair and touched his face with growing familiarity.

      ‘That was a good suggestion,’ Luciano told her appreciatively as they headed back to the castello.

      A blonde waved and smiled at them from the terrace as they climbed the steps up from the beach. She surged forward to greet Luciano and kiss him Continental-style on both cheeks. She was a beauty, a tall, slender blonde with dark eyes and great dress sense.

      ‘Jemima, meet Sancia Abate...’ Luciano made the introduction casually. ‘Sancia, my wife-to-be, Jemima, and my son, Niccolò.’

      Sancia barely glanced in Jemima’s direction but fussed in a very feminine way over Nicky.

      ‘Who is she? Does she work for you?’ Jemima asked as they walked away.

      ‘No. She’s Gigi’s kid sister,’ he confided, startling her. ‘I still let her use the guest house here when she needs a break. Nicky gets tired quickly, doesn’t he?’

      Jemima watched the baby stick his thumb in his mouth and close his eyes against her shoulder and she smiled in spite of her surprise at that revelation concerning the svelte blonde. ‘You exhausted him. He’s not used to that kind of play. My father’s past that stage.’

      ‘But he’s very fond of him,’ Luciano cut in.

      ‘Yes, he is. Did you have grandparents?’

      ‘No, my grandfather died soon after my parents married.’ His strong jaw clenched, his mouth flattening. ‘Agnese was my nurse when I was a child. She was the closest thing I had to a grandparent.’

      ‘I didn’t have any either. Mum and Dad met and married later in life,’ Jemima told him as she passed Nicky over to Carlotta in the hall and joined Luciano on the stairs. ‘You lost your mother young.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘How did it happen?’

      Luciano strode across the landing without answering her.

      ‘Was she ill?’ Jemima persisted, following him down the stone passageway and into his room.

      ‘No,’ Luciano gritted impatiently, slamming the door closed behind him with a frustrated hand. ‘Don’t you take hints? I don’t want to talk about this...’

      Jemima reddened uncomfortably, feeling like a rude nosy parker for having continued to ask questions even after he walked away. ‘I’m sorry...’

      His lustrous dark golden eyes glittered. ‘No, I don’t want to lie but I don’t want to tell you the truth either.’

      She turned round and smoothed her hands up over his cheekbones in what was meant to be a comforting and apologetic gesture. ‘I’m a horribly nosy person,’ she confessed guiltily. ‘Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile. Don’t even hint at a secret...it turns me into a bloodhound that won’t quit!’

      Reluctant laughter escaped Luciano. He stared down at her anxious face and a deep hunger for the warmth of her engulfed him in a tidal wave of need. He pulled her into his arms and claimed her mouth with devastating urgency.

      Taken by surprise, Jemima laughed and then gasped beneath the savage onslaught of his mouth. Her body caught flame like hay, a burning ache stirring between her legs, a hot, prickling awareness stiffening her nipples.

      ‘Madonna! I think I’ll die if I don’t have you now,’ Luciano growled, long fingers closing into the shoulders of her swimsuit to wrench it down and release her breasts.

      He tumbled her down on his bed and skimmed off his shorts in an impatient motion, coming up on the mattress to join her unashamedly naked and eager. He knelt at her feet and yanked her swimsuit down her hips to toss it aside while his smouldering gaze wandered at will over her splayed body.

      ‘I love these...so pretty, so lush,’ he husked, his fingers cupping the curves of her high, full breasts before rising to stroke the pouting crests. ‘And these.’ A lean hand travelled up a slender thigh and nudged her legs apart to display a tantalising ribbon of soft, glistening pink. ‘And this perfect place, piccolo mia. I am enslaved...’

      He found that feminine perfection with the erotic expertise of his mouth and it was magical and then terrifying to lose control so fast. She