sister. ‘But I also care deeply about a land that has remained unchanged for millennia.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Roman face to face instead of discussing it with us?’ Leila suggested.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Eva pulled a face. ‘He won’t see me.’
‘For all the aforementioned reasons,’ Britt said. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you trying again,’ she pointed out, exchanging a hopeful look with Leila once she was sure Eva wasn’t looking. They had both noticed the chemistry between Roman and Eva at the wedding as they fired angry glances at each other from opposite sides of the aisle. ‘You never know, you might even get on better with him when you meet him again.’
‘That’s hardly likely,’ Eva scoffed, tugging angry fingers through her tangle of red-gold hair. ‘He’s about as ready to listen to a woman like me as he is to eat tacks for breakfast.’
‘You’ll never know unless you try,’ Leila pointed out as Britt got up to give Eva a reassuring hug.
‘Come on,’ Britt cajoled as she drew Eva into her arms. ‘Don’t get so upset about everything. Even you can’t save the world single-handed.’
‘But I can try.’
‘That’s right, you can—at least, your tiny bit of it,’ Britt agreed.
‘Then that’s what I’m going to do,’ Eva mumbled, her face buried in the shoulder of her older sister.
‘What are you going to do?’ Britt said suspiciously, holding Eva at arm’s length so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Should we discuss this first?’
‘No. I don’t think we should,’ Eva said, sniffing loudly as she took a pace back. ‘No more coffee for me, thank you, Leila. I’ve got a trip to make.’
* * *
He never drank. He chose not to lose control. Ever. He had seized the opportunity during the champagne reception following the wedding ceremony to slip away. Everyone would be getting ready for the party in the evening, which gave him a chance to shower and change, and maybe take a refreshing dip in his pool.
He stopped where he always stopped on the cliff path. It was a place of particular significance to him, for it was here on his fourteenth birthday he had contemplated throwing the gold chain he wore around his neck into the sea. And then maybe he would follow, his youthful infuriated self had seethed impotently.
Thankfully, he had proved stronger than that, and had resisted the teenage impulse to vent his grief in a way that would hurt others as much as himself.
It was a hot day for a wedding. Shrugging off his formal jacket, he opened the neck of his shirt. His hand stole to the slim gold chain. His adoptive mother had given him the necklace on his birthday. That was the same day she explained to him haltingly that his real mother had died, and had wanted Roman to have her only decent piece of jewellery.
That was the first time he heard he had a ‘real’ mother. What else was the woman sitting in front of him? He could still remember his shock and the pain. Discovering his father was not his father, any more than the woman he adored was his mother, had been life-changing. His adoptive father had been furious to discover Roman had learned the truth about his birth, but the damage was done by then. His adoptive father had believed Roman would crumble now he knew the facts. His adoptive mother had argued with this, knowing how strong he was. He was her son just as much as he was the son of his blood mother, and she knew him.
He had stood here on the cliff, fierce as a lion on that day, full of the passions of youth, and then he had stormed home and demanded they tell him the truth—all of it. And so he had learned about his blood father, the count, the drunken gambler who had sold his son to the childless wife of a mafia don in settlement of his gambling debts.
‘You’re not blood so you can’t take over the family business,’ his adoptive father had thought it timely to explain while Roman was still reeling from these facts. ‘But I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood and so you will inherit my island and all my property, while your cousin takes over the business after me. Your job is to protect him—’
It was only then Roman had realised how fast he could turn off his emotions. He couldn’t have cared less about owning an island, or inheriting a vast property portfolio. All he cared about was his life up to now having been a lie. He’d changed on that day. His adoptive mother accused him of becoming distant and aloof. Unreachable, his adoptive father had raged with frustration, hating to see his wife devastated by Roman’s treatment of her.
Roman still carried the guilt to this day and wondered if his behaviour had hastened her death. He would never know, but sometimes he could still hear her gentle voice in his head, insisting that his blood mother had no choice, and that in those days, in their society, women had no choice but to do what the men told them.
Now he thought of those two women, his mother and his adoptive mother, as sisters beneath the skin, looking down on him. His only desire was to make them happy and proud of him.
An alarm on his phone jolted him back to the present. Scanning the screen, he pressed a key. Watching for a moment, he felt a surge of anger. It would take him half an hour to reach the palazzo from here if he stuck to the path, but not if he took a short cut.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE HAD NEARLY reached her destination and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She could see the count’s magnificent home on the top of the cliff, a citadel of power glittering white and menacing in the heat haze. The steep path she was climbing snaked up a white cliff overlooking an azure sea. It might be someone’s idea of a heavenly walk, but she was hot and sweaty and had to keep her mind firmly fixed on her goal and her reasons for coming here so that anger powered her steps.
Having researched the fastest route from Arctic Skavanga to the count’s island, she had unfortunately given rather less thought to local topography, let alone the climate. And a hill was a hill was a hill, anywhere but here, it seemed, where the path to the count’s eyrie was treacherous and packed with slippery shale.
Throwing herself down on a prickly bank, she threw her arm over her face. The sun was like a flaming torch and she hadn’t even thought to bring a bottle of water with her from the plane. There had been very little forward planning. She had rushed into the trip after a furious row with Britt, during which she told her caring older sister to butt out and mind her own business—something she now felt sick and wretched about. Why did she always shoot off her mouth and then spend the rest of her time regretting it?
She had left without apologising, jumping on the first flight out of Skavanga. She caught a connecting flight to the Italian mainland, and from there a ferry to the count’s private island. It was a ferry packed with exuberant wedding guests, all of whom were in a very different mood from her, though they’d got round her in the end. They were all so happy as they headed for what they described as the wedding of the year. She had ended up playing a round of darts with a group of older men, and had scored the winning double. She was one of the boys, they had assured her, patting her on the back as she glowed with pride.
Now she just glowed. All over.
Getting up, she brushed herself down and started determinedly up the cliff again. The closer she got to the palazzo, the faster her heart was beating. She wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone, but just to herself she would admit she was a little bit scared of the count—mainly because she had never met anyone like him before. He’d towered over her at Britt’s wedding, his face tough and battle-hardened. He was older than she was, and Roman centurion rather than Roman effete. She remembered the lips of a sensualist. She’d thought of little else since. His hair was glorious—too long, too thick, too black. Perfect. And his eyes were keen, dark and dangerous. He had a ridiculous amount of stubble on his swarthy cheeks, considering it couldn’t have been long since he shaved when she met him. But it was that something behind his watchful eyes that had intrigued her, because that had hinted at something hidden and dangerous in his past.