her head, Britt pressed her lips down, adopting an innocent expression as she exchanged a look with Leila, who was careful to show no emotion at all, in case it fuelled Eva’s fire.
‘He’s a dangerous-looking individual, if you ask me,’ Eva remarked, pushing the newspaper aside.
‘Fortunately, we didn’t ask you,’ Britt said mildly.
‘All hair grease and designer clothes, with a good helping of arrogance and entitlement,’ Eva muttered, sliding a disparaging look at the count’s photograph.
‘Definitely no hair grease,’ Britt argued. ‘I would have noticed that. And secondly, if Sharif trusts the count with his life, then so do I.’
Eva narrowed her eyes as she contemplated, the conflict ahead of her. ‘Well, I, for one, can’t wait to meet up with him again.’
‘I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about you,’ Britt commented, tongue in cheek.
‘I’m sure Eva will see sense, and reason with him,’ Leila put in, clearly eager to calm things down.
‘Reason?’ Britt pulled a wry face. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it. But just before you apply your version of reason to your exchanges with Roman, Eva, may I remind you that without his money and the money from the other two men in the consortium both our mine and the town would have died by now?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Eva assured her older sister. ‘I just can’t understand why he hasn’t stayed here to see things through. Oh, I forgot,’ she added acidly. ‘He prefers to swan around on his private island.’
‘He’s on the island for the wedding of his cousin,’ Britt pointed out.
‘He could still have seen me before he went when I asked him to,’ Eva insisted. ‘If he had explained things clearly, perhaps we could all understand what’s happening at the mine.’
‘Perhaps if you had listened instead of protesting,’ Britt suggested, but gently this time, because no one doubted Eva’s genuine concern for the pristine landscape the new drilling was putting under threat. ‘You can’t expect him to drop everything to attend a meeting with you. He has a life, as well as all his other business interests. There are huge sums of money involved—’
‘Oh, yes, it always boils down to money,’ Eva observed with a dismayed shake of her head.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ Britt agreed calmly. ‘We like to keep people in jobs around here.’
‘That’s all I care about,’ Eva assured her sister. ‘But I also care deeply about a land that has remained unchanged for millennia.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Roman face to face instead of discussing it with us?’ Leila suggested.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Eva pulled a face. ‘He won’t see me.’
‘For all the aforementioned reasons,’ Britt said. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you trying again,’ she pointed out, exchanging a hopeful look with Leila once she was sure Eva wasn’t looking. They had both noticed the chemistry between Roman and Eva at the wedding as they fired angry glances at each other from opposite sides of the aisle. ‘You never know, you might even get on better with him when you meet him again.’
‘That’s hardly likely,’ Eva scoffed, tugging angry fingers through her tangle of red-gold hair. ‘He’s about as ready to listen to a woman like me as he is to eat tacks for breakfast.’
‘You’ll never know unless you try,’ Leila pointed out as Britt got up to give Eva a reassuring hug.
‘Come on,’ Britt cajoled as she drew Eva into her arms. ‘Don’t get so upset about everything. Even you can’t save the world single-handed.’
‘But I can try.’
‘That’s right, you can—at least, your tiny bit of it,’ Britt agreed.
‘Then that’s what I’m going to do,’ Eva mumbled, her face buried in the shoulder of her older sister.
‘What are you going to do?’ Britt said suspiciously, holding Eva at arm’s length so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Should we discuss this first?’
‘No. I don’t think we should,’ Eva said, sniffing loudly as she took a pace back. ‘No more coffee for me, thank you, Leila. I’ve got a trip to make.’
* * *
He never drank. He chose not to lose control. Ever. He had seized the opportunity during the champagne reception following the wedding ceremony to slip away. Everyone would be getting ready for the party in the evening, which gave him a chance to shower and change, and maybe take a refreshing dip in his pool.
He stopped where he always stopped on the cliff path. It was a place of particular significance to him, for it was here on his fourteenth birthday he had contemplated throwing the gold chain he wore around his neck into the sea. And then maybe he would follow, his youthful infuriated self had seethed impotently.
Thankfully, he had proved stronger than that, and had resisted the teenage impulse to vent his grief in a way that would hurt others as much as himself.
It was a hot day for a wedding. Shrugging off his formal jacket, he opened the neck of his shirt. His hand stole to the slim gold chain. His adoptive mother had given him the necklace on his birthday. That was the same day she explained to him haltingly that his real mother had died, and had wanted Roman to have her only decent piece of jewellery.
That was the first time he heard he had a ‘real’ mother. What else was the woman sitting in front of him? He could still remember his shock and the pain. Discovering his father was not his father, any more than the woman he adored was his mother, had been life-changing. His adoptive father had been furious to discover Roman had learned the truth about his birth, but the damage was done by then. His adoptive father had believed Roman would crumble now he knew the facts. His adoptive mother had argued with this, knowing how strong he was. He was her son just as much as he was the son of his blood mother, and she knew him.
He had stood here on the cliff, fierce as a lion on that day, full of the passions of youth, and then he had stormed home and demanded they tell him the truth—all of it. And so he had learned about his blood father, the count, the drunken gambler who had sold his son to the childless wife of a mafia don in settlement of his gambling debts.
‘You’re not blood so you can’t take over the family business,’ his adoptive father had thought it timely to explain while Roman was still reeling from these facts. ‘But I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood and so you will inherit my island and all my property, while your cousin takes over the business after me. Your job is to protect him—’
It was only then Roman had realised how fast he could turn off his emotions. He couldn’t have cared less about owning an island, or inheriting a vast property portfolio. All he cared about was his life up to now having been a lie. He’d changed on that day. His adoptive mother accused him of becoming distant and aloof. Unreachable, his adoptive father had raged with frustration, hating to see his wife devastated by Roman’s treatment of her.
Roman still carried the guilt to this day and wondered if his behaviour had hastened her death. He
