of them had, but Rocco had had another issue with which he was not happy.
‘Our father has stated that it is the child he wants, but not the mother, so that it can be raised as a Leopardi. Apart from the damage it could do to a child to be deprived of any contact with its mother, given the way Antonio turned out—’
‘You are worrying unnecessarily, Rocco,’ Falcon had told him. ‘Our father’s life expectancy is limited. It is true that he is not quite as close to death’s door as he would have us think—he could have another year—but ultimately it is us who will decide the future of this child, if it should be Antonio’s. I assure you that I share your feelings with regard to the child’s mother. Whatever decision is made about the child’s future, that future will include its mother. You have my word on that and so will she. No child should grow up without its mother.’
They had all looked at one another. Rocco knew how badly the death of their mother had affected both his brothers. However, it wasn’t true that he himself had no knowledge of her. She had after all carried him close to her heart for nine months, and he had been born knowing that—knowing too that he had lost her.
‘And if this child is not Antonio’s?’ Alessandro had asked.
‘Then she will be recompensed for her co-operation—and her future silence regarding this debacle,’ Falcon had answered.
‘It is damnable that our father should impose this duty on us,’ Alessandro had said angrily.
‘Damnable, indeed. But we shall be damned if we do not accept the duty imposed on us by our father. The duty to accept such a charge—father to son—came to us with our conception. It is encoded in our genes. We cannot change that any more than we can change our inherited bone structure or the blood that runs through our veins. Antonio’s child, if he or she exists, is of those genes and therefore of us. We have a duty and a responsibility towards it that goes beyond any promise we have made our father.’
Who could argue with that? Not him, Rocco admitted now, although he had argued—and very passionately—with Falcon’s announcement that since he had commitments overseas he could not escape, and because Alessandro was in the middle of negotiating tricky new contracts for his airline business it would fall to Rocco to go to London and persuade this Julie Simmonds to return to Sicily with him, bringing her child with her.
‘Now, the first thing we need to do is persuade the woman to come to Sicily with her child, and …’
Rocco grimaced now, remembering how Falcon had paused and then looked at him.
‘Me? Why me?’ Rocco had objected, with a lifetime’s worth of a youngest sibling’s indignation and resentment.
‘I have just explained,’ Falcon had pointed out, adding firmly, ‘In performing this task you are carrying a heavy responsibility for all of us, Rocco.’
Trust Falcon to make it sound as though he had been awarded a prize instead of being dumped on, Rocco thought grimly now. He wasn’t liking the ‘duty’ which, according to Falcon, his genes imposed on him any more than he had expected. Perhaps the streak of rebelliousness within him that pulled against the iron grip of the Leopardi family code was something that had come down to him from his mother? She had, after all, been only part-Sicilian. Her father’s family had come from Florence—the city that Falcon loved so much.
Rocco glanced at his watch.
They had been in the air for close on an hour. He was hungry and ready for his dinner. The steward had assured him that he had told Julie Simmonds when he would be serving their meal. If she was one of those women who believed that good time keeping was an unnecessary nuisance that need not apply to her, she needed to have the error of her ways pointed out to her.
Rocco stood up and strode towards the bedroom door.
CHAPTER THREE
THE shower area of the bathroom was designed as a wet room, without any protective screen, and the water was blissfully hot and there was plenty of it. Such a treat after the miserable trickle of never more than lukewarm water that came from her own shower.
Julie acknowledged that she had stayed under its wonderful spray longer than perhaps she should, but even so it was still a shock when the bathroom door—which she hadn’t thought to lock—was suddenly pulled open, and she saw Rocco Leopardi standing there, fully dressed, his gaze travelling slowly and deliberately the full length of her naked body. Such a shock, in fact, that Julie didn’t even think to cover either her sex or her breasts until it was far too late and that gaze had swept all the way back up over her and come to rest on her flushed face.
‘Well, well—a natural blonde. Now, that is a surprise,’ Rocco drawled mockingly.
What was also a surprise, although he had no intention of feeding her vanity by saying so, was just how erotic he found the sight of the naturally neat rather than sleekly waxed tousle of damp blonde curls that clung to the gentle rise of her flesh, just above the sensually shaped and softly closed lips that concealed the inner intimacy of her sex.
Already, and against his own wishes, he could feel himself responding to what he could see.
She might be a natural blonde, but she was every bit as thin as he had suspected, he told himself, hoping to channel his thoughts into rejection of her rather than desire. Then, yes—but her breasts were far fuller than he had imagined, and natural too, perfectly shaped, with a full lower curve and nipples that tilted erotically upwards. A party girl’s breasts, not a nursing mother’s. In focusing on her sexuality she was depriving her child. But then a woman like her would do that, wouldn’t she?
It had been her total abandonment to the sensual pleasure he had seen in every line of her body as she had stood naked beneath the shower, her face tilted up towards the water, her eyes closed and every inch of her flesh showing its joy, that was responsible for the hardening of his own flesh right now, Rocco acknowledged. Something about that abandonment made him want to walk into the shower and share it with her. It made him want to take her swiftly and hotly, his flesh sinking deep into hers, whilst her muscles closed around him, in a primitive shared physical orgy of greedy pleasure and hedonistic satisfaction. Like rough wine on a hot day after hard physical activity—the base, thoughtless satisfaction of a momentary fierce need.
If he did feel like that then he was a fool, Rocco told himself cynically. She was a piece of flesh that had no doubt been handed out to any number of other men before his brother, and would be handed out to others. That was her choice, and he certainly wasn’t moralizing, but her type did nothing for him. Right now the only hunger he wanted to recognise was the hunger that was driving him, which came from his stomach and not from his loins, he told himself determinedly.
Reaching for a towel, he threw it towards her, telling her coolly, ‘Russell is waiting to serve dinner. You’ve got five minutes. And let me warn you that my temper doesn’t improve with hunger.’
Five minutes. Julie didn’t even bother looking at the clothes which Russell the steward had said he’d hung in the wardrobe. She simply dried her body, plaited her wet hair, and then pulled on one of the thick white towelling robes she found hanging on the bathroom door.
She was out of breath and her heart was pounding when she slid into the chair that Rocco Leopardi pulled out for her.
‘Four minutes and fifty-five seconds,’ he commented as he went round to the other side of the elegantly set table and sat down.
If Rocco Leopardi found anything odd in the fact that she had chosen to eat wearing a bathrobe, he obviously wasn’t going to say so. Which was just as well, Julie thought fiercely, because if he did she would tell him that it wasn’t her choice that she was here on board his private jet, without a clean top to replace the one on which Josh had been sick.
It was, in fact, almost impossible to believe that they were actually on a plane and flying, Julie acknowledged, as she looked towards the bedroom door, which she had left propped open