concerned note in his voice drew tears to her eyes and her heart lurched within her chest. It took all of her strength to harden herself against him. He’d fooled her once, but she wouldn’t be fooled again. She was smarter. She was older. And she was a mother now. Jillian wouldn’t be swayed by warmth or tenderness, seduction or pleasure. This was about Joe, and only about Joe. His safety. His survival. His future.
This could have been avoided if she’d only known who she was dealing with when she accepted Vitt’s dinner invitation twenty months ago.
If she’d only understood the implications of that date.
But she hadn’t. Instead she’d cast Vittorio as Prince Charming and put him on a white horse and believed he was going to save her. Or at the very least, take her to an extravagant, romantic dinner and make her feel like a princess for a night.
The extravagant dinner turned into a fantasy romance. He made her feel so beautiful and desirable that she tumbled eagerly into his bed. He hadn’t disappointed. He’d been an incredible lover and even now she could remember how his body had felt against hers.
She remembered the warm satin of his skin stretched over dense, sinewy muscle. Remembered his lean narrow hips and the black crisp hair low on his belly. Remembered the sensation of him extending her arms and holding her still as he slowly thrust into her and then even more slowly withdrew.
He knew how to use his body. He knew a woman’s body. He’d quickly mastered hers.
For two blissful weeks she’d imagined she was falling in love with him, and fantasized about living with him, making a life with him, making a home. Yes, there were moments Vittorio was called away to take calls at strange hours, but she’d discounted those calls, telling herself it was just business, or the time difference, and that he was a CEO of a large international company so he had to work at all hours of the day.
He’d told her about his company, too, and she was fascinated by his newest acquisition—the purchase of three venerable, five-star hotels in Eastern Europe—and she’d fantasized about leaving her hotel job in Turkey and going to work for Vitt, helping him overhaul his newest hotels. After all, hotel management was her area of expertise, and she imagined them traveling the world together, exploring, working, making love.
And then on day fourteen, one of Vitt’s young housemaids shattered her illusions with the whispered question, “You’re not afraid of the Mafioso?”
Mafioso.
The word chilled Jillian’s blood.
“Who?” Jill asked, striving to sound casual as the maid’s eyes darted toward the bathroom door where Vittorio was showering. The maid was only there to bring fresh towels but apparently her curiosity had got the best of her.
“Your man,” the maid answered, handing off the stack of plush white towels. “Signor d’Severano.”
“He isn’t—”
“Sì. Everyone knows.” And then the maid disappeared, hurrying away like a frightened field mouse.
And then the pieces fell into place. Of course. It all added up. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Vittorio’s immense wealth. His lavish lifestyle. His strange, secretive phone calls.
Jillian had wanted to throw up. Instead she used her phone to do a quick internet search while Vittorio dressed and the d’Severano name pulled up pages and pages of links and stories and photos.
The maid had been right. Vittorio d’Severano, of Catania, Sicily, was a very famous man. Famous, for all the wrong reasons.
Jillian ran away that very afternoon, taking just her passport and purse and leaving everything else behind. Clothes, shoes, coats—they could all be replaced. But freedom? Safety? Sanity? Those could not.
Jillian gave up everything that day. She gave notice at the hotel, gave up her apartment, left Europe and all her friends, vanishing as if she’d never existed.
She knew how to do that, too. It was something she’d learned at twelve when her family was taken into the American government’s Witness Protection Program. Since twelve she’d been an imposter of her former self.
Jillian became Heather Purcell in Banff, Canada, and worked for four months as a hotel operator at the Fairmont Hotel at Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. It was there in Alberta, Canada that she’d discovered she was pregnant.
“You had to know I’d eventually catch you,” he added kindly. “You had to know I’d win.”
Trapped. The word rushed at her, just as the relentless waves crashed onto the sand. But she wasn’t a quitter. She was a fighter. And she wouldn’t give up. She’d learned through hard experience to be tough, and had been fighting like mad ever since she discovered she was pregnant to protect her child from a life that would destroy him, because Jillian knew that life. Jillian’s father had once lived that life, dragging them all into hell with him.
The rain fell harder, slashes of cold wind and water that drenched, chilling her to the bone, but Vitt looked sleek and polished and unperturbed. But then, Vitt always looked sleek, and polished, and unperturbed. It’s what had drawn her to him in the beginning. That and his beautiful face.
“But you haven’t won,” she said from between chattering teeth. “Because you don’t have him, and you can torture me, or kill me, or whatever it is you do to people, but I won’t ever tell you where he is—”
“Why would I ever want to hurt you? You’re the mother of my son, my only child, and therefore precious to me.”
“I know what I am to you. Dispensable. You made that more than clear eleven months ago when you sent your thugs after me.”
“My men are hardly thugs, and you’ve turned me into an adversary, cara, by keeping my son from me.” Vittorio’s voice momentarily hardened to match the set of his lean, hard jaw before easing again. “But I’m willing to put aside our differences for our son’s sake. So, please, come. I don’t like you standing so close to the edge. It’s not safe.”
“And you are?”
His dark gaze raked the cliff and her shivering, rain-soaked figure. “I suppose it depends on your definition. But I’m not interested in semantics. It’s time to get out of the cold.” And with a decisive step toward her, he shot out his hand, reaching for hers.
But Jillian couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him touch her. Not now, not ever again. She leaned away, pulling back so violently that she lost her footing, crying out as she fell. Vittorio, blessed with quick reflexes, grabbed her wrist and held on tight.
For a split second she dangled in midair, nothing beneath her but the beach and crashing waves, and then her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she squeezed tight.
He could save her.
He would, too.
Vitt hauled her back up from over the edge, pulling her onto her feet and into his arms.
She shuddered as her body came into contact with his. Even wet, he was big and solid and overwhelming. So very overwhelming and she collapsed against him, needing, craving warmth and security and safety.
His
