Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child. Julia James

one thing he knew with absolute, total certainty. He did not want to part with her—not yet! No way was his romance with her played out.

      But until he had sorted out the unholy mess of Guido’s shares he was not free to think of Eloise. He felt his teeth grinding. Here he was, one day back in Rome, and Marlene thought she could corral him with her ludicrously offensive scheming. His expression sharpened. She had made no such move while he’d been making his tour of the European hotels.

      So why don’t I just take off again? If I’m not in Rome, she and Carla will be stymied.

      So where to go? Somewhere far away... The Caribbean would be ideal! The latest addition to the Viscari Hotels portfolio was taking shape on the exclusive island of Ste Cecile—he could combine a site visit with whisking Eloise away from this impossible situation here in Rome!

      Mood lifting, Vito reached for the phone, wanting to tell her immediately. It rang as he touched it and he snatched it up impatiently, eager to get rid of whoever was phoning him.

      It was his director of finance.

      ‘What is it?’ he asked, trying to hide his impatience.

      ‘I’ve just had a phone call,’ came the reply, and Vito could immediately hear the note of clear alarm in his voice. ‘A financial journalist I know—asking for a comment on a rumour that’s just hitting the wires that Falcone is in discussion with Guido’s widow about her shareholding. What do you want me to say?’

      Vito froze. The new hotel in the Caribbean, and his trip there with Eloise, went totally out of the window.

      Fifteen minutes later, his face stark with anger, he was confronting his step-cousin in her apartment in the Centro Storico.

      ‘Carla, you can’t go on with this! It’s madness and you know it!’

      Marlene was obviously flirting with Falcone to hasten her nephew’s consent to marry her daughter. Surely to God Carla could see how insane the idea was? They’d always got on well enough, and he’d kept an eye out for her when she’d arrived in Rome as an awkward teenager while she found her feet socially. And she was not responsible, after all, for her mother’s unpopular marriage to his uncle.

      ‘You haven’t the slightest interest in marrying me!’ he bit out.

      ‘Actually,’ she snapped back, her stony gaze flashing into bitter animation, ‘I do! I want everyone to see me marry Vito Viscari!’

      ‘What you want,’ Vito ground out, ‘is for Cesare to see you marry me—that’s all!’

      ‘Yes! And then he can go to hell—for ever!’ There was all the venom and all the fury of a woman scorned in her voice.

      ‘And after the wedding?’ Vito came back with angry sarcasm, determined to make her see reason. ‘When Cesare realises what he’s lost—then what? You’re stuck married to me!’

      But her eyes only glittered manically. ‘I shall throw parties! Huge parties! And everyone will see how totally, blissfully happy I am!’

      He gave a heavy, defeated sigh. For ‘everyone’ read ‘Cesare’ again.

      He played his last card. Looked her straight in the eye. Expression totally serious. Spelled it out to her.

      ‘Carla, it’s impossible for me to marry you. I’m...involved with someone else—someone I met in England.’

      There—he had said it. Stated it openly.

      The words hung in his head, portentous. But all he got from his step-cousin was a harsh, derisive laugh.

      ‘What? Another of your endless parade of blondes?’ she countered. ‘Don’t trot that line out, Vito! I know you! Women come and go in your life like butterflies—they never mean anything to you!’ Her expression altered suddenly, twisting with pain. ‘Just as I never meant anything to Cesare—’

      She broke off abruptly, her expression venomous again, but this time with a haunted, manic look in her eyes.

      ‘So—like I said—if you don’t want my mother to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone you’ll announce our engagement! Right away, Vito, right away!’

      Her voice was rising, and he could hear the note of hysteria plain in it. If he went on any more she’d just threw a full-blown fit of hysterics.

      For one long, angrily fulminating moment he went on glaring at her, her words knifing in his head. Then, without another word, he strode from her flat, fury burning in him.

      His own words echoed in his head—I’m involved with someone else...

      Eloise! Her beautiful, trusting face lifted to his.

      I can’t do this to her.

      Resolution speared in him. Whatever it took, there had to be a way—there had to be—of stalling Marlene, of extricating himself from her daughter’s desperate, drowning clutch that was trying to drag him down with her.

      As he climbed into his waiting car his mobile rang and he glanced at it angrily. It was his mother, and he knew he had to answer it—knew, too, that he could not let her know what Marlene was doing now, touting Guido’s shares to his rival to force his hand.

      But at his mother’s first panicked words, Vito knew it was too late for prevarication.

      ‘Vito! That woman has just phoned me! She’s threatened to sell Guido’s shares to Falcone if you don’t announce your engagement to Carla—so you’ve got to! You’ve just got to!’

      ‘Mamma,’ he said in a hollow voice, ‘you cannot mean that...’

      There was a stifled cry down the line. ‘Vito, you made a vow to your father! He begged you with his dying breath! Don’t betray him, Vito—don’t betray your own father. You promised to get Guido’s shares back, and you can’t break that promise—you can’t!’

      He swallowed. ‘Mamma, I cannot do what Marlene demands—’

      ‘You must! Vito, you must!’ There was desperation in her voice.

      He closed his eyes. He could hear how distraught she was. He had to calm her down somehow, anyhow. ‘Mamma—listen. Listen. I will put out an announcement. OK?’

      It wasn’t OK—it was total opposite of OK—but it would buy him something that, right now, was the most vital thing for him to get. Time—time to control this runaway situation. It would give him time to manoeuvre, to come up with a way out of this, time to think!

      He heard the rush of emotion and relief in his mother’s voice. ‘Oh, thank goodness! I knew you would never, never break your promise to your father, my darling son!’

      Automatically, his mind racing, Vito went into soothing mode, seeking to calm her—get her off the line so he could focus on how to neutralise Marlene, think through the implications of what he’d just agreed to.

      It’s an announcement, that’s all—it’s not a wedding! That’s all Carla really wants—to shove her engagement to me into Cesare’s aristocratic face in order to save her own face. And I can go along with that—just for now. Until I can find a way to calm her down, get her onside so that the two of us can persuade Marlene to sell Guido’s shares directly to me without this farce of me marrying her daughter!

      He sat back, his expression steeled. He was playing for time, that was all. He was staying Marlene’s hand, placating Carla, calming his distraught mother—finding a way out, a solution. A means to keep his promise to his dying father.

      He headed back to his office. His first priority—after authorising that damn announcement—was to scotch those rumours about Falcone getting hold of any of the Viscari shares. He’d need to speak to his direct reports and his board members, to industry analysts, financial journalists... His mind raced down the list.

      And, above all, he had to speak to Eloise.

      You can’t