LITMIR.BIZ

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her become James, and the intensity of her emotions dictated her actions, so that she was kissing him with all the fierce longing and pride of her love for James.

      Julie’s sudden passion caught Rocco off guard. She was pressing her body into his, opening her mouth beneath his, and her breathing was altering to become as unsteady as her heartbeat.

      Unaware of the reason for it, instinctively he responded to it, shaping her body to his own, taking the sweetness her parted lips were offering, and letting the soft moan of assent she gave at the first thrust of his tongue be the signal that brought his hands sweeping down her body to bring her intimately close to his own flesh.

      The sensation of hard male thighs pressing against her jolted Julie back to reality.

      This man was not James.

      As soon as he felt her struggle Rocco stopped kissing her, sliding his hands back up over her body more out of habit than desire, as distaste for his own actions filled him. Since when had he ever wanted Antonio’s leavings?

      It was unthinkable that he should want a woman like this one—a pathetic excuse for a real woman.

      He had stopped kissing her, but he was still holding on to her, Julie recognized, shivering in his hold. Why had she kissed him like that? He wasn’t anything like James. The couple she would have called out to for help had now, of course, gone.

      As much as he wanted to turn his back and walk away from her, and from his own momentary betrayal of himself and his values, Rocco knew that he could not do so. On this occasion his duty to his family must come before any duty to himself.

      ‘There are matters we need to discuss,’ he told Julie coldly.

      ‘I will not let you take my baby away from me,’ Julie warned him fiercely, blinking back the tears caused by the overload on her emotions.

      Rocco frowned at her.

      ‘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 long-standing 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

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