child. You have to appreciate that my lawyer and I have been through this many times already.’
When the first fraudster had tried their hand at claiming on the estate, Dante and his lawyer had discussed all the legalities on the off-chance the fraudster was telling the truth.
‘It might have been different if she had lived in my country at any point in her life. I suggest she pays a visit to a Sicilian lawyer and hears for herself that she has no rights.’ He laughed, although humour was the last thing he felt right then. ‘There is nothing for her to have. That list you have is old and dates from my grandfather’s death. My father sold most of the assets on it. The family home never belonged to him and nor did the land in Florence—my grandparents put them in a trust for me to stop my father selling them to feed his gambling addiction.’
That hadn’t stopped one of the fraudsters taking out an injunction to prevent Dante selling those assets, an injunction his lawyer had overturned in ten days. That fraudster was currently rotting in a Sicilian prison, awaiting trial for fraud.
‘This cottage is all he had left and it is not for sale.’ As dilapidated as the cottage was, Dante would never sell it. He wasn’t a man for sentimentality but this was the one place where his childhood memories were only positive. His mother had loathed the cottage and thus it remained untainted by her long-ago desertion.
‘Then pay Orla off. Even if what you say is true, and your grandparents bypassed your father, surely she’s entitled to something? She knows she can’t expect things to be fifty-fifty between you but morally she’s entitled to something. She’ll be happy to settle for the value of this cottage.’
He shook his head in a display of sympathy. Her approach was pitch-perfect, reason matched with a seeming lack of greed. The perfect cover for an outrageous act of fraud.
Dante had almost convinced himself she spoke the truth but that was impossible. His father would never have kept such a secret from him.
He was quite sure his lawyer, one of the most feared legal brains across the Mediterranean, would have been taken in too. Aislin clearly had the brains to match her beauty. She was an incredible actress.
‘This cottage is worth no more than a hundred thousand euros,’ he said, ensuring his voice contained just the right amount of commiseration. ‘The land is worth about the same.’
‘That might not be a lot of money to you but to Orla it’s a fortune.’
‘If it’s worth so much to her then why is she not here? Why has she sent you to deal with it?’
‘Because right now she doesn’t want to leave Ireland. I’m portable—’
‘Did she not want to face me?’ The anger that had been simmering deep inside bubbled to the surface. ‘Or did my sister think sending a beautiful woman in her place would blind me? Is that why you’re here? To tempt me into giving this cottage to her?’
Her eyes widened, dark spots of angry colour forming again over the high cheekbones. ‘Your mind belongs in a sewer.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ He rose slowly to his feet. ‘You were showering when I came to the cottage. Was that deliberate? Were you keeping watch for me? Did my men being with me force you to change your plans? Did you realise then that you had taken on more than you could handle?’
He gave her no time to defend herself.
Stepping to where she had backed herself against the kitchen unit, he continued, ‘Admit it, this is all a bag of lies. What do they call it in English, when a person steals another’s image and passes it off as their own?’
The colour spread from her cheekbones to suffuse her entire face, the plump lips clamping tightly together as he stared down at her, daring her to tell the truth.
A sudden image came into his head of those plump lips parting for him...
Heat coiled through his loins again and he breathed deeply to drive it away, only to inhale another lungful of her beautiful scent.
Dante gritted his teeth and waved the photograph still in his hand at her. ‘How long did you search for the perfect image that you could use to pretend to be my long-lost sister?’
In one sharp but graceful movement, she snatched it from his hand and stabbed a finger at the toddler’s face.
‘Did you not even look at the boy Orla’s holding?’ she snarled. ‘That’s your nephew.’
‘Of course it is. What better than a beautiful child to pull on a man’s heartstrings and charm him into giving you money? I have to say, of all the hustlers who have tried to con me, you, dolcezza, are by far the best.’
Her foot moved. For a moment Dante thought she was going to kick him.
Instead she spun around, grabbed her handbag and pulled her phone out.
In seconds she had it unlocked and was thrusting it in his face.
‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ he asked drolly.
For someone who had to be a foot shorter than him, she raised herself magnificently. ‘The photos. There must be a hundred of Finn on it and a load of Orla too.’
The coldness in his veins made a sharp return.
‘Take the phone, damn you, and look!’ She grabbed hold of his hand and pressed the phone into it.
A jolt ran through him at the touch of her skin on his, a charge that flowed through them both and had their eyes locking together in mutual shock.
After a pause that went on a beat too long, she moved her hand and stepped to the side, away from him.
Aislin dropped her eyes to the floor and rubbed her hands together, trying to negate the charge flowing through her veins.
Her heart beat so hard its thrum echoed in her ears.
She had not expected that. It had been like those times when she touched something and received a surprise charge of static. But those charges had always been unpleasant, something only a masochist would enjoy. The charge she had felt when touching Dante had been...
Not unpleasant at all.
‘Please, look at it,’ she whispered, summoning the courage to look back at him.
Aislin was not the greatest photographer in the world, and generally managed to chop the top off heads or get a partial thumb over the lens or get a blurry finish. But, however terrible the pictures were in comparison to the one she’d printed off for him, they were documentary proof that she wasn’t lying; that she hadn’t catfished Orla’s identity; that her sister was Dante’s half-sister.
Biologically, Orla was Aislin’s half-sister too, but she had never thought of her as anything other than her whole sister. They’d been raised together, shared a room until Orla had left for university and been true sisters in every sense of the word. They’d protected each other, fought each other, played, loved and hated. No one could wind Aislin up better than Orla could and she knew it was the same for her sister.
Dante’s Adam’s apple moved a number of times before he slowly walked to the dining table and
