Latin Lovers: Italian Husbands: The Italian's Bought Bride / The Italian Playboy's Secret Son / The Italian Doctor's Perfect Family

Latin Lovers: Italian Husbands: The Italian's Bought Bride / The Italian Playboy's Secret Son / The Italian Doctor's Perfect Family
Rebecca Winters

Alison Roberts

Kate Hewitt

Successful, strong, sexy – these hot Italians would tempt any woman to marriage!Years after Allegra Avesti had run away from their wedding, wickedly handsome tycoon Stefano walked back into her life determined to take his defiant and desirable runaway bride back to Italy. He would even seduce her into agreeing…Cesar Villon de Falcon, top racing driver and playboy, is fighting for his life when Sarah Priestly comes to his bedside to tell him about the son he never knew he had. Now he will survive!The gorgeous new Italian doctor on the ward – Toni Costa – is making Pip Murdoch feel things she’s never known, but can he convince her he’s a man worth keeping?

Latin Lovers Italian Husbands

The Italian’s

Bought Bride

Kate Hewitt

The Italian

Playboy’s Secret

Son

Rebecca Winters

The Italian

Doctor’s Perfect

Family

Alison Roberts

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

The Italian’s Bought Bride

Kate Hewitt

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon

romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older.

She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.

Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

To Abby,

for being a wonderful friend and confidante.

You’ve seen my tears! Love, K.

CHAPTER ONE

STEFANO CAPOZZI SAT in the well-appointed office of one of Milan’s top psychiatrists, his eyes glittering in a face set like stone.

‘It has been eight months,’ he said flatly, even though Renaldo Speri had the case notes on his desk. ‘Eight months of every treatment available, imaginable, and no change.’

Speri smiled in sympathetic understanding. ‘You cannot expect a miracle cure, Signor Capozzi. You may not be able to expect a cure at all.’ He trailed off as he took in Stefano’s unrelenting gaze.

Stefano shook his head. ‘I want better.’

He would have better. He wouldn’t accept brush-offs or excuses. He’d come to Milan to find the best therapist for the child in his charge, and he would have it.

Speri ran a hand through his thinning hair and sighed. ‘Signor Capozzi, you must face the very real possibility that Lucio falls on the spectrum of pervasive development disorder—’

‘No.’ After eight months of Lucio’s silence and stress, he would not accept it. He was used to obstacles in business, and personal ones would prove no different, no more difficult. ‘Lucio was normal before his father died. He was like any other child—’

‘Autism often manifests itself at three years of age,’ Speri explained gently. ‘Lucio had only a little speech before his father’s death, and lost it completely in the months afterwards.’

Stefano raised one eyebrow in scathing scepticism. ‘And you are now trying to tell me that the two aren’t related?’

‘I am trying to tell you that it is a possibility,’ Speri said, his voice becoming strained with patience. ‘As difficult as it may be to accept.’

Stefano was silent for a moment. ‘There is no cure for autism,’ he finally said. He’d done his research. He’d read the books, seen the statistics.

‘There are therapies, diets, that alleviate some of the symptoms,’ Speri said quietly. ‘And it also depends where he falls on the spectrum—’

‘He’s not on the spectrum.’

‘Signor—’

‘I want something else.’ Stefano levelled his gaze at the psychiatrist and waited.

After a moment Speri raised his hands in a defeated gesture. ‘Signor Capozzi, we have tried therapies and grief counselling, and as you’ve reminded me, there has been no change. If anything, Lucio has descended deeper into his own iron-walled world. If this were a case of normal grief—’

‘What,’ Stefano asked icily, ‘is normal about grief?’

‘The grieving process is normal,’ Speri said steadily. ‘And accepted. But Lucio’s behaviour is not normal, and there should have been signs of improvement in communication by now. There have been none.’

On his lap, out of sight, Stefano’s hand curled into a fist. ‘I know that.’

‘Then accept that he might fall on the spectrum, and turn to the therapies and treatments that can help him best!’

Stefano was silent. Carefully, deliberately, he flattened his hand, resting it on the desktop. When Lucio’s mother, Bianca, had asked him to help, to come to Milan and tell ‘those doctors’ that her son was not autistic, Stefano had accepted. He had believed Bianca then, but now he felt the first flicker of doubt.

He would do anything for Bianca, anything for Lucio. Their family had saved him all those years ago, had pulled him up from the mire of his upbringing, giving him the steps and tools to be the man he was today.