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“No, you had that opportunity and you turned it down. You said you wanted to be left alone. I am leaving you…alone.”
Jillian didn’t remember moving or launching herself at him, but suddenly she was in the car and the limousine was moving and she was sitting on the black leather seat, next to Vittorio with his two thugs on the seat across from theirs.
“Calm yourself,” Vittorio repeated. “Joseph is fine. He’s in my safekeeping and with the court’s permission, will be flying to Paterno with me tonight.”
Jillian’s stomach rose and fell and panicked, she searched Vitt’s eyes for the truth. “You’re bluffing.”
“No, cara, I’m not bluffing. We had an early lunch together, Joseph and I. He’s a delightful little boy, full of charm and intelligence, although I wouldn’t put him in yellow again. It doesn’t suit him.”
For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Nor could she think. Everything within her froze, and died a little bit.
She’d dressed Joe in a golden-yellow T-shirt this morning and tiny adorable blue jeans. She’d thought he looked like sunshine and it’d made her smile and kiss his neck where he smelled so sweet. “What have you done with him?”
“Besides treat him to a healthy lunch and ask that he be put down for a nap? Nothing. Should I have?”
“Vittorio.” Her voice was hoarse, anguished. “This isn’t a game.”
“You’ve made it one, Jillian. You’ve only yourself to blame.”
“What about Hannah?” she asked, referring to her wonderful new sitter, a sitter she’d found two months ago just after she’d rented the house. “Is she with him?”
“She is, but you don’t need her anymore. We’ll get a proper nanny in Sicily, someone who will help teach Joseph his native language.”
“But I like Hannah—”
“As do I. She’s been a very good employee. Has done everything I’ve asked of her.”
A cold, sick sensation rushed through her, making her want to throw up. With a trembling hand Jillian wiped the rain from her eyes. “What do you mean, you’ve asked of her?”
Vittorio’s mouth curved, which only made his handsome face look harder, fiercer. “She worked for me. But of course you weren’t to know that.”
CHAPTER TWO
SHE was sitting as far from him as she could on the limousine’s black leather seat. Vitt had expected that. She was upset. As well she should be.
He’d just turned her world upside down. As they’d both known he would.
Nothing so far today had surprised him. Jill was the one in shock. Water dripped from her thick sweater and the ends of her hair, and her teeth chattered despite the fact the heater blasted hot air all over them. He found the temperature stifling, but left the heater on high for her, thinking it was the least he could do considering the circumstances.
His 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 on her pale face, studying the high cheekbones, straight nose, full lips and strong chin. “Absolutely not. You’re free to come and go, but Joseph will remain with me, to be raised by me.”
“So he’s the prisoner?”
“He’s an infant, and my son. He needs guidance, and protection.”
“From your enemies?”
He regarded her steadily. “I have no enemies.”
“Except for me,” she said beneath her breath.
“You didn’t used to be.” He spoke the words just as softly, and her color stormed her face, staining her cheeks a hot pink, a clear indication that she also remembered how responsive she’d been in his bed.
A translucent bead of water fell from a tendril at her brow to her temple. With an impatient swipe of her fingers she knocked the water from her face but not before he noticed how her hand trembled.
She was flustered. Good. She should be. He was furious. Beyond furious. Jillian had hidden her pregnancy, until she had accidentally bumped into one of his employees while taking the baby for a walk. On hearing the news, he’d worked out the dates and rung her immediately. Jillian had the gall to first deny the baby was his, and then when he demanded a DNA test, she ran from him, keeping his son from him for nearly the entire first year of Joseph’s life.
Jill should be punished. And there would be consequences.
“In fact, I can still see you at the wheel of my new Ferrari in Bellagio,” he added. “You loved driving it, didn’t you? But then you loved everything about our time together at the villa in Lake Como. Including spending my money.”
“You make it sound like I had a thing for your money.”
“Didn’t you?” he countered, signaling his driver to move on.
“No!” she answered fiercely, as fresh pink color darkened her cheekbones, highlighting the shape of her delicate face. “Your money meant nothing to me. It still doesn’t.”
“So you didn’t enjoy the private jet, the villa, the servants, the car?”
“Things don’t impress me,” she threw at him, averting her head once more, giving him a glimpse of her neck and nape.
Her skin was pale, creamy, flawless, and his gaze traveled slowly over her, studying her elegant features and the mass of blond hair that hung in damp loose waves over her shoulders. The blond hair color was something new as well.
“I see. You were there for me.” He studied her lazily, as though trying to decide if he liked her better as a glossy chestnut brunette or this California beach-girl blonde, but his lazy, relaxed demeanor was a façade, because on the inside he was wound hard, and tight.
Never in his life had he been played the way she played him. Never. It still astonished him. Jill Smith had seemed so innocent. Sweet. Pure. God, he’d misjudged her. But now he knew, and he’d never be foolish enough to make that mistake again. “You cared for me.”
She met his gaze directly, her chin lifting. “I did care for you.”
“Past tense.”
Her eyes looked enormous but she didn’t back down. “Past tense.”
He glanced briefly out the window at the twisted, gnarled limbs of a cypress tree before focusing on her. “So what changed, Jill Smith?” he asked, emphasizing her name because her name, like the rest of her life, was invented. Jillian Smith didn’t exist. Jillian Smith was a fabrication. A very good one, but a fabrication nonetheless.
Her lies had made it difficult to track her down, but he was persistent, and he’d succeeded.
Now all that was left was bending her to his will to ensure his son’s health, wealth and happiness.
“Nothing happened.”
“No? Nothing happened?” One black eyebrow lifted quizzically.
“No.”
“No one whispered in your ear? No one told you something that sent you packing?”
Her jaw dropped a little before she snapped it closed, and yet even then she looked sick. Scared. He wondered if that’s what she felt that day in Bellagio when his young housemaid told Jill he was part of the mafia. Silly housemaid to talk of things she knew little about. Silly girl to think he wouldn’t find out. His staff had to know there were security cameras everywhere.
“What did you do to her?” Jill whispered hoarsely.
