limousine had done a U-turn and was approaching the private road off the scenic coastal Highway 1 that led to her cul-de-sac.
Jill’s rental house was small, brown, with very 1950s architecture, which meant nondescript. It was a house surrounded by soaring evergreens. A house with a plain asphalt driveway. A house that would draw no attention. Jill was smart, far smarter than he’d given her credit for, but once he understood her, once he understood how her mind worked, it was easy to lead her right into the palm of his hand.
The house.
The nanny.
The job opportunity.
He’d known she was in Monterey County for the past four months, but he didn’t want to frighten her away until all his plans were in place. And to help her feel safe, secure, he’d wooed her into complacency by posting the rental house information on a coffee shop bulletin board where she went every day to get her latte. Thirty people called on the house before she finally did. He’d turned thirty people down before Jill made the call, and asked to see the house.
She toured the house with one of his company employees, a lovely woman named Susan who worked for him in his San Francisco commercial real estate office. It was Susan who casually mentioned the job opportunity at the Highlands Inn, an opportunity created for her as he owned the hotel, along with another thirty others spread over the globe.
Jillian had interviewed for the job, and while chatting with the hotel’s resource manager, the manager dropped into the conversation that she was just about to let her nanny go as her children were now all of school age, and did Jillian know of anyone looking for excellent, but inexpensive, child care?
Jillian pounced.
The trap had been set.
Jillian was his.
In hindsight, it sounded easy. In truth, it’d been excruciating. He’d wanted to rush in and seize his child, know his child, help raise his son. But he didn’t. He waited, fighting his own impatience, knowing that everything he did was watched.
The d’Severano name was a double-edged sword. People knew and feared his family. His grandfather had once been the don of one of the most powerful, influential crime families in the world. His family had been intimately involved with the Mafioso for generations. But that was the past. Vittorio’s business ventures were all completely legal, and they’d remain legal.
“Shall we go to your house so you can change?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“But aren’t we close?”
“No.”
“You don’t live near here?”
“No,” she repeated, staring out the tinted window toward the street.
He gazed out to the street, too. It was a blur outside the window. Rain drummed down, dancing onto the asphalt. It’d been raining the day he’d met her in Turkey, too. Absolutely pouring outside.
And so instead of taking the car to his next meeting, he lingered in the lobby waiting for the rain to let up. It was while he was waiting Jill crossed the lobby, high heels clicking on the polished marble floor.
He’d known from the moment he saw her across the lobby of the Ciragan Palace Hotel in Istanbul she was beautiful, and she’d shown remarkable intelligence during their first dinner date in the Caviar Bar Russian Restaurant, but he had no idea she could be so resourceful. This woman sitting next to him was street-smart. Savvy. Far savvier than many of the businessmen he regularly dealt with.
“I know your house is close, but if you don’t want to go and collect anything…” He allowed his voice to drift off, giving her the opportunity to speak up.
Instead she lifted her chin and her fine, pale jaw tightened. “No.”
“Then we can go straight to the airport, and I’ll have your house emptied and your possessions packed and stored.”
He’d gotten her attention now. Her head snapped around, her eyes blazed at him. “My house is none of your business!” she snapped furiously.
“But it is. Who else would have reduced the rent on an ocean-view home from fifty-six hundred a month to fourteen hundred for a single, unwed mother, with no references or credit, and her young son? I own the house. And you, cara, are my tenant.”
He saw the moment his words registered, saw it in the widening of her eyes and then the clenching of her jaw.
“Your house?” she choked.
He shrugged. “My house. My nanny. My hotel.”
“What do you mean, your hotel? I’ve never stayed at an expensive hotel—”
“But you’ve been employed by one the past sixty days, haven’t you?” He smiled faintly. “The Highlands Inn is part of my International Prestige Collection. Or did you not check that on Google?”
Her lips parted. And her brown eyes practically shot daggers. Brown eyes. So very interesting. Her eyes had been a dark sapphire-blue some twenty months ago.
“You set me up,” she whispered.
“What did you expect? That I’d let you get away with abducting my son?”
“I didn’t abduct him. I carried him, gave birth to him, loved him—”
“Good. And now you can love him from the comfort and security of my home in Sicily.”
“I will not live in Sicily.”
“Fine. You can come and go, and visit us whenever you’d like, but the courts have agreed that based on your erratic behavior, and your inability to provide financially for the child, Joseph will make his permanent home in Paterno with me.”
“But I have provided for him! I’ve always managed—”
“With my help, yes. You forget, cara, that the courts are fully aware that I provided you with a home, a job and child care. They understand you couldn’t have survived without me.”
Her hands balled into fists. “That’s not true. I was fine. We were both doing fine!” “So you say.”
She fell back against the seat. “You tricked me.”
“I did what I had to do to be with my son.”
“And now that you have him?”
“He’ll live in Paterno at my family home.”
“What about me?”
“You will live with us until he’s eighteen and then when he leaves for university, you can go, too. You’ll be free to travel, buy a new home, start a new life, but until then, you will live with us in my home.”
Jillian dug her nails into her palms. “I’m a prisoner?”
His gaze settled
