rel="nofollow" href="#u77422824-130a-5c0f-baaa-55aa2f2be97c">Introduction
Extract
THE WEALTH AND OPULENCE of Long Island’s legendary Gold Coast was like a trip back in time to the old money, scandalous, glamorous tales immortalized in American fiction. High-society dynasties born of the Industrial Revolution had built these lavish mansions and castles one after another along this sweep of the ruggedly beautiful northern coast, with gardens rivaling European grandeur.
They had sought to outdo one another, these American scions, to glitter as the Gold Coast’s preeminent jewel. But as with so many other symbols of that lavish time, little of the grandeur of those magnificent estates survived today, with only a few of the massive, character-filled mansions still left standing. Even legendary shipping magnate Giovanni Di Sione’s sprawling villa, built in the late eighteen hundreds as a rambling summerhouse to entertain the scion’s clients and financiers, had been extensively renovated to stand as a shining symbol of modern architecture.
The ostentatious display of wealth, the almost tangible scent of old money in the air, brought with it familiar irony for Nate Brunswick as he turned his Jaguar down the rolling, winding stretch of road toward the Di Sione estate. He could buy the Gold Coast several times over with the wealth he’d amassed and add it to the vast global property empire he controlled and still never feel like he belonged.
It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. That all the money in the world couldn’t heal old wounds. That new money would always be just that in New York—the spoils of an interloper who didn’t really belong. New blood might mix with blue blood, but it would never have the same status in the collective psyche of the elite.
It was a truth he would put right up there with the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not aspire to join our realm. It has never been, nor will it ever be, yours.
He brought the Jag to a halt in front of his grandfather’s villa with a defiant squeal of its wheels. The villa’s imposing facade gleamed in the late-afternoon sun, the light setting off its graceful arches and multileveled roofline.
He sat for a moment, a heavy weight pressing down on his chest. Always this place inspired a wealth of emotion, all of it complex and decades in the making. But today he felt as if whatever higher power was up there in the sky orchestrating this chess game that was life had reached inside him and yanked out his heart.
His grandfather was dying of leukemia. Nate had been traveling so much of late, overseeing his sprawling, global property empire, he had had little time for his mentor, who had been the only father figure he’d ever known. He’d stood there, shell-shocked, as his half sister Natalia had told him at her art exhibition that his grandfather’s leukemia was back, and this time, a bone marrow transplant from Nate would not save him.
Apparently not even the all-powerful Giovanni could cheat death twice.
The swell of emotion he’d been fighting during the drive from Manhattan swept over him, threatened to wipe away the composure he had cultivated as a second skin. He blinked and pushed it away. He would not allow that expression of weakness. Not now and definitely not here.
He swung his long legs out of the car, wincing as his muscles protested the long drive in the low-slung machine. He had barely put his foot on the top step of the sweeping column of stairs that led to the villa’s elegant entrance when Alma, the Di Sione family’s longtime housekeeper, opened the door.
“Master Nate,” Alma greeted him, ushering him in. “Signor Giovanni is enjoying the last rays of the sun on the back veranda. He’s been anxiously awaiting your arrival.”
A twinge of guilt stirred low in his gut. He should have made more time for his grandfather, but he had fallen into the trap of thinking Giovanni was invincible like everyone else.
A few pleasantries exchanged with Alma, he set off toward the back of the villa, his footsteps echoing on the gleaming marble floors. He’d first visited this house at eighteen, hunted down by his half brother Alex as the only genetic match for a bone marrow transplant that would save his grandfather’s life—a man Nate had never met.
A vision of his six half siblings perched on the handmade wrought-iron and stone staircase filled his head. They had sat there, lined up like birds on a telephone wire, big eyes inquisitive as Alex had led Nate past them into the salon to meet an ailing Giovanni for the first time.
Orphaned, they had been taken in by his grandfather after Nate’s father, Benito, and his wife, Anna, had been killed in an alcohol-and
