Perez was the most dangerous woman he had ever met. With her bedroom eyes and wily ways, she threatened everything he stood for. She made him feel things he had trained himself not to feel. Emotions were things he controlled. Desires were something he properly channelled. He did not rush into mad flings and one-nighters with strangers, especially ones with a criminal past.
He had standards. Principles. He was a good citizen who paid his taxes on time. He never coloured outside the lines. Damn it, he didn’t even park outside of them. Call him conservative, or even obsessive, but rules were things he respected because for most of his life his parents had disregarded them. Rules provided structure in a disordered world. He liked order. He liked predictability. Planning was his forte. He didn’t do things on the fly. He wasn’t spontaneous. He wasn’t a risk taker. He left that sort of thing to his brother, Jake, who loved to live life in the fast lane. Julius was only happy in the fast lane if he knew exactly how fast it was, how long, how wide and how long he would have to be in it.
He did the calculations and then he acted.
And right now his calculations told him in big neon flashing letters: Holly Perez was danger personified.
But for all that something about her got to him...not just physically, but on an entirely different level. He felt something for her. Something he hadn’t expected to feel. He was drawn to her. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. He couldn’t forget her touch. The way she moved. Even the sound of her laughter—the tinkling-bell sound that made his spine shiver. She was blatant, brazen and in-your-face, yet beguiling. He’d seen a glimpse of vulnerability down at the lake. And when he’d asked her about the scar on her arm. For just a moment he had seen a flicker of something behind the mask she wore. He couldn’t help feeling there was more to her than met the eye. Yes, she made him uncomfortable. Yes, she was a flirt. But he had some sort of responsibility towards her, didn’t he?
It was only for a month. He would be away for part of that with work. He would hardly have to have contact with her if he chose not to.
And right now the less contact he had with her the better.
Julius was back in his office trying to work when his phone rang. He was in two minds to ignore it when he saw it was his brother calling. ‘Jake,’ he said heavily.
‘Whoa, bro, you sound a little tense there, man,’ Jake said. ‘So I take it you’ve already heard the news?’
Julius sat upright in his chair. ‘Heard what news?’
A list of possibilities went through his head in the nanosecond that followed. His father had had another heart scare. His parents were splitting up. Again. His sister was finally going on a date after losing her childhood sweetheart to cancer when she was sixteen. No, he thought; Miranda was too intent on martyrdom. Jake was getting married... No. That would never happen.
‘A skeleton has come out of Dad’s closet,’ Jake said.
‘Another one?’ Julius asked, thinking of the veritable cast of mistresses and hook-ups his father had dallied with over the years in spite of ‘working at his marriage’. Not that his mother, Elisabetta, could stand in judgement. She’d had a fling or two herself. ‘How old is she this time?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘God, the same age as Miranda,’ Julius said.
‘It gets worse,’ Jake said.
‘Go on, ruin my day,’ Julius said.
‘She’s not his mistress.’
Julius’s heart stopped as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. ‘He’s not a bigamist? Tell me he’s not got a secret wife?’ Please, God, spare us all that shame.
‘She’s his daughter.’
‘His daughter?’
‘Yep,’ Jake said in a grim tone. ‘He’s sired himself a love child. Katherine Winwood.’
‘Dear God, what does Elisabetta think of this?’ Julius said. ‘How’s she taking it?’
‘How do you think?’ Jake said wryly. ‘Hysterically.’
Julius groaned at the thought of the temper tantrums, door slamming and object throwing that would be going on in his parents’ hotel suite in New York. He couldn’t face another divorce. The last one had been bad enough. The press. The publicity. All of their private lives exposed. ‘Is it in the papers?’
‘Papers, internet, every social media platform you can poke a finger at,’ Jake said. ‘It’s gone viral. And that’s not all.’
Julius’s stomach pitched. ‘It gets worse?’
‘Way worse,’ Jake said. ‘Kat Winwood was born two months after Miranda.’
Julius did the maths. ‘So that means Dad was still seeing this woman’s mother when he reconciled with Mum?’
‘Got it in one.’
Julius let out a colourful curse. ‘What’s Dad got to say for himself? Or is he denying it?’
‘You can’t deny the results of a paternity test.’
‘How did this Kat girl get one done?’ Julius said. ‘Who is she? Where did she come from? Why’s she revealed herself now? Why didn’t her mother tell Dad she was pregnant, or has he always known?’
‘He knew all right,’ Jake said. ‘He paid the woman to have an abortion. Handsomely, too.’
Julius swallowed a mouthful of bile. Just when he thought his father couldn’t shock him any more, he raised it to a whole new level of indecency. ‘But she didn’t go through with it,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘Nope,’ Jake said. ‘She had the kid and kept the father’s identity a secret. Even the birth certificate says “father unknown”.’
‘So why come forward now?’ Julius asked.
‘She died recently of a terminal illness,’ Jake said. ‘She told Kat on her death bed who her father was.’
‘So this girl Kat is after money.’
‘What else?’
Julius scored a hand through his hair. ‘How many more like her could there be out there? Why can’t Dad keep it in his trousers? He’s nudging seventy, for God’s sake.’
‘I just thought I’d give you the heads up on it in case the press come sniffing around you for an exclusive,’ Jake said. ‘They’ve been parked outside my place since the first Tweet went out.’
His brother’s words sent an army of invisible ants across Julius’s scalp. A drumbeat of panic started up in his chest. His blood ran hot and cold. He felt beads of sweat break out across his brow. If the press came here they would find Holly—living with him. A girl not much older than his father’s love child. In fact, Holly looked younger than twenty-five. What would the press make of her holed up here with him? Especially if they caught a glimpse of her flaunting her flesh at every available opportunity. They wouldn’t
