filled him with self-disgust when he recognised it as jealousy. Dio! No wonder his father had kept quiet about this flame-haired siren. He had no problem picturing her working in a lap-dancing club, Raul thought as his eyes focused on the rounded contours of her breasts outlined beneath her stretchy top. An image flashed in his mind of her dancing in a skimpy costume, tossing her mane of fiery hair over her shoulders as she unfastened her bra and slowly let it drop…
He bit back an oath, infuriated by his body’s involuntary reaction to his wayward thoughts. ‘You are Gino’s mother?’ He sought clarification, aware that he had initially jumped to the conclusion that the older woman had been his father’s lover.
Libby hesitated. Margaret was making a show of hunting through her handbag for something, but she was conscious of the older woman’s avid curiosity. Her neighbour was a kindly woman, who often babysat Gino, but Margaret was an inveterate gossip. If she overheard that Libby was not Gino’s mother, as everyone in Pennmar believed, but his sister, the news would be all around the village within the hour.
She recalled those first few terrible days after her mum had died. They had been living in London, packing for the move to Cornwall and the new life they had planned, when Liz had collapsed and never regained consciousness. Gino had only been three months old, and Libby had struggled to cope with her shock and grief while caring for her orphaned baby brother. Her friend Alice, a trainee lawyer, had been an invaluable help, but she had also warned Libby of the potential problems caused by Liz’s death.
‘If your mum didn’t make a will and appoint you as Gino’s guardian, then technically he becomes the responsibility of the State, and Social Services will decide who should care for him,’ Alice had explained. ‘Just because you are Gino’s half-sister it doesn’t mean they will automatically choose you.’
‘But I’ve helped to care for him since the day he was born,’ Libby had argued, ‘especially when Mum was so tired after his birth.’
Liz’s long labour had left her exhausted. At the busy hospital where Gino had been born no one had mentioned the potential dangers of deep vein thrombosis, and when Liz had felt unusually breathless Libby had been unaware that it was a sign her mother had developed a blood clot which had lodged in one of her lungs.
Liz had died before the ambulance had arrived. There had been no time for mother and daughter to say goodbye, no chance for Liz to stipulate who should care for Gino, but Libby was utterly determined to bring up her baby brother and love him as her mother would have done. She had moved to Pennmar a week after Liz’s funeral, to the shop they had set up with the money left by Libby’s grandmother. Everyone in the village assumed that Gino was her baby. After Alice’s warning that Social Services might take him from her, Libby had encouraged that misapprehension, and now she was reluctant to reveal the truth in front of Margaret.
She would explain the situation to Raul Carducci later, she decided, her sense of unease intensifying when she glanced at his hard face and saw no glimmer of warmth in his dark eyes. ‘Yes, I’m Gino’s mother,’ she said quietly, a shiver running down her spine when his expression changed from cool disdain to savage contempt.
He flicked his eyes over her, and Libby felt acutely conscious that she had bought her top in a charity shop and had made her skirt from an old curtain. ‘You are much younger than I had expected,’ he said bluntly. He paused and then drawled softly, ‘I’m curious to know what first attracted you to my sixty-five-year old billionaire father, Ms Maynard?’
His inference was plain. Raul thought she was a gold-digger who had had an affair with a wealthy older man for his money, Libby realised, colour storming into her cheeks. But she could not defend herself when Margaret had given up all pretence of searching in her handbag and was unashamedly listening to the conversation. Raul Carducci was an arrogant jerk, she thought angrily, her hot temper instantly flaring. ‘Forgive me, but I don’t think my relationship with your father is any of your business,’ she told him tightly, her eyes flashing fire.
She could sense that Margaret was practically bursting with curiosity, and she forced a casual smile as she turned to the older woman. ‘Thanks for taking Gino out. The doctor says that the sea air will help his chest.’
‘You know I’ll have him any time.’ Margaret paused and glanced from Libby to her foreign-looking visitor. ‘I could stay and mind him now, if you and the gentleman have things to discuss?’
Yes, and Margaret would waste no time sharing what she’d overheard with the rest of the village, Libby thought dryly. ‘Thanks, but I must give Gino his lunch, and I don’t want to take up any more of your time,’ she said brightly. ‘Could you put the ‘”Closed” sign on the door on your way out?’
Libby contained her impatience while a disgruntled looking Margaret ambled out of the shop, but the moment the older woman had shut the door she glared at Raul. ‘I assume there is a reason for your visit, Mr Carducci, and you are not here merely to make disgusting innuendos?’
The unfamiliar sharpness of her voice unsettled Gino. He gave her a startled look and his lower lip trembled. Libby joggled him on her hip and patted his back, still furious with the man who was looking down his arrogant nose at her as if she were something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe.
‘Before you say anything else, I’d better explain—’ She broke off as Gino let out a wail and began to squirm in her arms. At ten months old he was surprisingly strong, and she struggled to hold him, dismay filling her when his cries turned into the familiar hacking cough that shook his frame. Immediately Libby’s attention was focused exclusively on the baby, and she glanced distractedly at Raul. ‘I must get him a drink. Excuse me,’ she muttered, and hurried through the beaded curtain into the back part of the shop.
She took a beaker of juice the fridge, but Gino was crying and coughing too much for him to be able to drink. He was still wearing his thick outdoor suit, and his face was turning steadily redder as he overheated. Frantically Libby tried to unzip the suit with one hand and hold a hysterical, wriggling Gino in the other, conscious that Raul had followed her into the room and was watching her efforts.
‘Here—let me hold him while you undress him,’ he said abruptly, stepping forward and lifting the baby out of her arms before she could protest.
Gino was so startled that his cries subsided, but he was going through a particularly clingy stage at the moment and disliked strangers. Libby quickly tugged down the zip of his suit, waiting for him to renew his yells, but to her amazement he gave a little snuffle and stared fixedly at Raul’s face.
‘You must have a magic touch. Normally he screams blue murder if someone he doesn’t know tries to hold him,’ she muttered, feeling faintly chagrined as she freed Gino from the suit and he did not even glance at her. ‘But Gino is a Gemini, and people born under that star sign are often very intuitive,’ she added earnestly. ‘Perhaps he instinctively recognises that there is a connection between the two of you. You are his brother—well, half-brother,’ she amended, when Raul’s dark brows rose sardonically.
‘There is no blood link between us,’ he informed her dismissively. ‘Pietro was my adoptive father.’ He saw the flash of surprise in Libby’s eyes and wondered why he had felt the need to reveal that he had no biological link to the father of her child. The idea that she and Pietro had shared a bed…He snapped a door shut on that particular image, infuriated that his eyes seemed to have a magnetic attraction to her breasts.
Elizabeth Maynard had been his father’s mistress and had borne him a child; it was inconceivable that he could be attracted to her. He forced his gaze up from her lush curves, moulded so enticingly beneath her clingy top, and stared at her face, his body stirring as
