legs suddenly feeling weak too, she took the seat opposite him, close enough that she could hear him breathe, the deep breaths of someone whose life was in the process of being turned upside down.
Aislin knew that feeling. Orla’s accident, which had resulted in Finn’s premature birth, had turned their world upside down. Life as they knew it had come to a stop that day, three years ago.
She could not help but feel for Dante, trying to imagine what it would feel like to discover a family secret of this magnitude.
It must be shattering.
Her own dad had fathered two more children after his split with her mum but there had been no deception about it, just an awareness that he’d created a new family unit that Aislin was a part of, if somewhat removed from. Her mother, for all her many faults, was no liar. Sometimes Aislin had wished her mum was a liar. It would have saved a lot of angst and heartbreak.
‘I’m not a hustler,’ she said softly after a good two minutes that felt more like two hours had passed, the only sound Dante’s breaths and the swipe of his thumb against the screen of her phone. ‘Orla is as much your sister as she is mine and Finn is as much your nephew too. I know she’ll be happy to take a DNA test if you think it necessary.’
More silence fell until he came to a photo that made him peer more closely. Then he turned the phone to her. ‘Why is he in hospital? What are those things on his head?’
She looked at her darling nephew, smiling in his hospital bed. ‘That was taken six months ago when he went for an EEG.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It measures brainwaves. He was born prematurely and has cerebral palsy. One of the side effects of that, which he has since been diagnosed with, is severe epilepsy. It’s the reason Orla didn’t come to Sicily herself—she’s terrified to leave him. Finn’s condition is the reason she wants a share of the inheritance. She honestly is not being greedy. She just wants a home he can be safe in.’ She was silent for a moment before adding, ‘That’s all I want for him too. I’m sorry for breaking into your cottage. Honestly, I’m not normally one for criminal behaviour, but we’re desperate. Please, Dante, Finn is your nephew. We need your help.’
Dante expelled a long breath and put the phone on the table, then dropped his pounding head and kneaded his fingers into the back of his skull.
He felt sick.
If the evidence was to be believed—and, no matter how hard he strove to find a new angle to disprove it, the evidence appeared compelling—he had a sister and a nephew. A sick nephew.
Another wave of nausea ripped through him.
His father had lied to him.
He thought back to Orla’s date of birth. He would have been seven when she’d been born. His mother had divorced his father when he was seven.
Did his mother know he had a sister? Had she conspired to keep it secret too?
So many thoughts crowded in his head but stronger than all of them was the image of the tiny boy, his nephew, lying on that hospital bed, hooked to a machine via a dozen tubes stuck to his head.
‘How old is he?’
‘A month shy of three.’
He didn’t want to hear the sympathy now ringing from the soft Irish brogue. He could feel it too, radiating from her.
This woman felt sorry for him?
She didn’t know him. All they shared was a sister. And a sick nephew.
He muttered a curse.
He raised his head and looked Aislin square in the eye.
Yes, there was compassion in the reflected stare, but also a healthy wariness.
He steepled his fingers across the bridge of his nose and thought hard, pushing aside the emotions crowding him, sharpening his wits and clearing his mind.
He had a business deal to salvage with the D’Amores before he could begin to think about this, never mind deal with it. The clock was ticking. Five days to salvage the biggest deal of his life. Unless he could convince Riccardo that his own playboy days were behind him and prove his parents’ faults were not his, then the deal for the exclusivity agreement would be lost for good. On Monday Riccardo intended to sign it with Dante’s biggest rival.
One lesson he had learned at a young age was that nothing must come before business. His father had allowed emotions and addiction to take first place and had lost everything for it.
Yet still that image of the boy, his nephew, stayed lodged in the forefront of his mind, and as he stared into the grey eyes of this woman who had just told him his entire life had been a lie, the kernel of an idea flared.
He swept his eyes again over the curvy body and imagined it dressed in expensive couture, and the hair whose colour he still couldn’t determine beautifully styled.
Aislin was a stranger in his country. No one knew her. She was clearly intelligent. And she was beautiful enough that no one would think twice to see her on his arm.
Despite her beauty, she was far removed from the women he normally dated...
‘I spoke the truth. My father died penniless,’ he told her slowly. ‘I gave him an allowance and paid his bills but, other than this cottage, he had nothing left to his name. Under Sicilian law, your sister is not even entitled to a share of that.’
Aislin closed her eyes and slumped in her chair.
The tone of his words held the ring of truth.
Defeat loomed so large she lost the strength to correct him, to say loud and proud that Orla was his sister too.
Aislin was a penniless student. Orla was a penniless single mother still fighting the insurance company for compensation for the damage to her son. They’d pooled the spare cash they’d had between them to instruct that rubbish lawyer who hadn’t even bothered to read up properly on Sicilian inheritance laws. Her open-ended return flight here and the car hire had left them skint.
If there was a loophole they could exploit to get something, they had no money left with which to do it.
‘This cottage and the land it stands on have been in my family for generations and I have no wish to sell,’ he continued, breaking through her defeated thoughts. ‘But I am prepared to give Orla half the value. Fifty-fifty.’
She snapped her eyes back open and met his unblinking gaze. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘One hundred thousand euros. It will be conditional on her taking a DNA test, but we can get that arranged soon. If the test comes back as positive, the money is hers.’
The relief that surged through her at that moment was enough to punch all the breath out of her.
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. ‘Thank you. You don’t know what that means—’
‘I also have an offer for you,’ he cut in before she could get carried away with her thanks.
