Pride: Captive At The Sicilian Billionaire's Command

‘You are being ridiculous. There is no question of anyone wanting to take your child. This is simply a matter of you both accompanying me to Sicily so that the legal complexities of a certain situation can be dealt with. All that is involved is a stay of a week—ten days at the most—and then you will be free to return here if that is your wish. I give you my word on that.’

Julie looked at him. His giving of ‘his word’ should have sounded theatrical, something for her to question and even mock, but somehow instead she found herself reacting to his words at some deep psychological level—as though a contract had been made, a promise given, a vow, almost. She could feel her breath leaking from her lungs and she knew that the slight inclination of her head was an acknowledgement of that contract—just as powerful a commitment from her as his words had been from him.

She had relaxed slightly, but a woman like this one, who had no conception of honour or what was due to a man’s given word, was all too likely to cause the kind of public display she had already tried to cause once, Rocco decided, making up his mind that the sooner they were on their way to Sicily the better. Since she had their passports with her, he could see no sense in prolonging their departure. His personal jet was on standby, with its flight path filed. There was nothing to be gained by delaying things. Once she was in the car, she could argue with him all she wanted.

‘Now, if we can both get into the car and out of this rain,’ Rocco continued, opening the passenger door of the car for her.

Julie was still hesitating.

‘I assure you that, far from suffering any harm, as you seem to think, ultimately both you and the child stand to benefit financially,’ Rocco told her coolly.

Benefit? Financially? What did that mean? Julie’s heart started to beat too fast.

Ah, now he had found the key to unlock her resistance, Rocco thought cynically.

‘But why? I mean, I know that your brother …’ She could not bring herself to say that she knew that his brother might be Josh’s father, because that meant admitting to herself that Josh might not be James’s son, and she longed so much for it to have been James who had fathered him, even though Judy herself had told her that she was not completely sure about who the father was. It was Josh she must think of now, though, she warned herself, and if the family of the wealthy playboy with whom her sister had had a fling were prepared to make some kind of financial provision for Josh, what right did she have to deny her nephew that benefit?

A fresh fear struck her. What if Antonio Leopardi wanted to claim Josh and take him from her? What if that was what this was all about?

The car, long, shiny and expensive, was parked beneath a streetlight, and she could see quite plainly the contemptuous look in the slightly hooded golden-amber eyes as he turned towards her. The eyes of a predatory hunter. Leopard’s eyes.

‘Antonio was my half-brother, not my brother. He was Sicilian, therefore this child—his child—is also Sicilian, and as such is entitled to his inheritance. That is the law of our blood and our family.’

The whole sentence was seamed with warnings as dark and ancient as Sicily’s own history, but initially it was the first three words he had spoken that Julie focused on.

‘Antonio was Sicilian?’ she repeated. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means exactly what it always means when one speaks of a person’s life in the past tense,’ Rocco told her curtly. ‘My half-brother—your lover, the child’s father—is dead. However, whilst the Leopardi family does not have another Antonio, and most certainly will not supply you with a replacement lover—’ another even more derisory look, designed to strip whatever pride she might have left from her much in the same manner that one of his ancestors might have ordered that a criminal be flayed alive, followed the first one ‘—it does take its responsibilities towards those of its blood very seriously.’

She was almost mentally and emotionally numb now, as well as numb with cold, and the hardship of these last months was abruptly taking its toll on her. It was hard to remember now that she had ever been a confident, successful young woman, with a promising career in local government in front of her—never mind that it was less than six months since she had been smartly turned out, well fed, a stone heavier, with glossy hair and a growing circle of new acquaintances, sharing a comfortable apartment with three other young female graduates who, like her, had jobs in local government.

The thought of sharing the responsibility for the safe upbringing of the child she loved so much with a proper family, with a man with shoulders broad enough to carry that weight easily and safely, filled her with unexpected relief. How much easier all those decisions that would need to be made down through the years would be if there were others to share them with her, for her to turn to, others who—unlike James’s sister—would not reject her nephew.

Rocco Leopardi might not reject Josh, but he was making it plain what he thought of her, and instinctively Julie wanted to defend herself and refute his accusations. She began to say indignantly,

‘But I am not—’ and then wondered if it would be wise to tell him that she was not Josh’s mother. He might have given her his word that she and Josh would not be separated, but that word had been given to her as Josh’s mother, not his aunt—even if, as his aunt, she was also his legal guardian. Julie had no idea why she felt the need to conceal her true relationship to Josh, only that instinctively somehow she did.

‘You’re not what? Distraught at the thought of Antonio’s death? No, I can see that,’ Rocco observed as he held open the car door for her to get in. ‘But then it was hardly a longstanding relationship that you had with him, was it?’

As she sank into the luxury of the blissfully comfortable seat Julie dipped her head, knowing that she now had to either accept his insults or confess that she wasn’t Josh’s mother.

‘What happened to … to Antonio?’ Julie had no idea why she was asking. She had not even known the man, after all, even if the news of his death had come as a shock.

‘He died as he lived,’ Rocco told her curtly. ‘Believing that nothing and no one mattered apart from himself.’

Now Julie looked at him, taken aback by the contempt she could see in his gaze.

‘He was showing off, driving a car he did not have the skill to control far too fast.’

Judy had said that she and Antonio were two of a kind, and from what Rocco had just told her it sounded as if she had been right, Julie acknowledged.

‘However, if the child is of our blood,’ Rocco continued curtly, ‘then no matter how carelessly he was conceived he is of us—a part of us, Leopardi.’

Instinctively Julie wanted to tell him that there was no way Josh could be a Leopardi, and that it was James who was his father. She had been so determined to believe that Josh was James’s son that she was still in shock from the sudden appearance of Rocco Leopardi, with his unwanted reminder that not even her sister had known just who Josh’s father was.

The look in the leopard eyes whilst he had been speaking had been all fiercely proud severity and intent. He really meant what he was saying, Julie recognised. His words revealed to her the centuries-old proud belief of a family who prized their blood and honoured their responsibility towards it above everything and everyone else.

It was slowly beginning to sink in for her just what it would mean if Josh was Antonio Leopardi’s son. A part of her wanted to state that she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Antonio could not be Josh’s father—but, even if Rocco Leopardi would accept that claim, how much damage might she be doing to Josh if she were to deny him his right to a heritage that might be his?

It was his need and his well-being that she must put first from now on, until the day came when he was old enough to make such a decision for himself. After all, she loved him for himself equally as much as she loved the thought of him being James’s son.

Just as she could not and must not refuse to go to Sicily and reject whatever financial advantage for Josh that visit might bring about, so equally she must not deny the fact that he could be, as Rocco Leopardi has so emotively put it, ‘of Leopardi blood’.

It was obvious that Rocco Leopardi did not know about her sister’s death and thought that she was Judy. Julie’s lips twisted in a small sad smile. If he had known her sister he would never have mistaken them. Both of them had disliked the fact that their parents had chosen such similar names for them, but it had been Judy who had complained about it most frequently when they had been growing up, stating that it was silly when they were so different and she was so much prettier and more popular than Julie.

‘What will happen when we reach Sicily?’

‘Our family doctor will do a DNA test.’

‘But that could have been done here,’ Julie protested.

Ignoring her outburst, Rocco continued, ‘It will be at least five days before it is possible to have the results of this test. If it should prove that the child was fathered by Antonio then naturally that will mean that your son is part of our family.’

‘And if they do not prove that?’ Julie asked huskily, unable to bring herself to look at him as she made what she knew in Rocco Leopardi’s eyes would be an admission of her lack of morals.

Rocco frowned. Her behaviour was not what he had expected. He had anticipated that her manner would be more coy—cloyingly so—with many protestations of love for Antonio and her conviction that her child must be his half-brother’s. It seemed out of character that she should talk so openly about the possibility of the child not being Antonio’s.

‘Then you will be financially recompensed for agreeing to travel to Sicily and given a substantial sum of money in return for your discretion.’

Julie’s eyes widened.

‘You mean that you will buy my silence?’ she guessed shrewdly, watching as Rocco inclined his head in agreement.

How unpalatable and sleazy the whole situation was, Julie thought uncomfortably. She wished desperately that she and Josh did not have to be part of the whole unpleasant situation, but for Josh’s sake she had to ignore her own distaste.

‘Of course if you already know the father is not Antonio …?’

‘No, I can’t be sure,’ Julie had to admit.

She was telling the truth, Rocco recognised.

The interior or the car smelled of expensive leather mixed with a hint of equally expensive male cologne. Julie turned to look at her sleeping nephew, thankful that she had taken the time to feed and change him before she had left the nursery.

Josh was such a quiet baby. Too quiet, Julie often worried, and the lovely new doctor at their busy local practice had agreed when Julie had raised her concerns with her.

Initially Julie hadn’t wanted to betray her dead sister by telling the doctor that she had often worried that Judy neglected her baby, but Josh’s health was her responsibility now, and more important to her than any loyalty she might owe a sister whose attitude to life had been opposite to her own and who had often treated her so unkindly.

The sad truth was—as Julie had feared and the doctor had gently confirmed—that poor little Josh had been neglected and malnourished by his mother during the first weeks of his life. Because the infection he had picked up had been left untreated it had compromised his immune system, which had then struggled to combat the winter viruses other babies could throw off. Emotionally too he had suffered—from maternal neglect. Julie had sworn to herself that she would make up for the sad early weeks of his life, and ideally she would have liked to be with him herself twenty-four-seven. But that, of course, was not possible since they were dependent on her income until her parents’ estate was settled.