Buch lesen: «Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child»

CHAPTER ONE

THE SONOROUS MUSIC SWELLED, lifting upwards to one last crescendo before falling silent. The hushed murmurings of the congregation stilled as the priest raised his hands and began to speak the words of the ancient sacrament in the age-old ceremony.

Inside his breast Vito could feel his heart beating strongly. Emotion filled him, and he turned his head towards the woman now standing at his side.

Gowned in white, her face veiled, his bride waited for him. Waited for him to say the words that would unite them in marriage...

* * *

Eloise sipped her champagne, her eyes drifting around the gilded salon privée of the hotel, one of the most famous on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on the Cote D’Azur in the South of France.

The salon was crowded with women in jewels and evening gowns, men sleek in tuxedos. But Eloise knew with absolute conviction that no other man present could possibly compare with the man she was with. For he was, quite simply, the most devastatingly handsome male she had ever seen in her life, and her pulse quickened every time she looked at him. As she did now.

Her eyes returned to his tall, distinctive form, so superbly sheathed in a hand-tailored tux, his sculpted Roman profile and the sable hair that moulded his well-shaped head. Her gaze caressed the smooth, tanned skin, taut over high cheekbones and chiselled jawline, the ready smile of his mobile mouth as he chatted in French—which he spoke as well as he did English and his native Italian—to the others in their little group. She felt her stomach give its familiar little skip.

Is this really me, being here like this? Or am I dreaming it?

Sometimes she thought it must be the latter, for the past weeks had been a headlong, heady whirl in the arms of the man at her side now, at whose feet she had, quite literally, fallen.

Memory, warm and vivid, leapt in her consciousness...

She had been hurrying along the airport concourse towards her departure gate, where her flight was already closing. It was her first holiday for ages, snatched before she knuckled down to look for a new placement as a nanny. Her most recent post had come to an end when the twins she’d been looking after had started school.

They would miss her for a bit, but they would soon adjust to her absence, Eloise thought—just as she herself had coped with a succession of nannies and au pairs in her own childhood. Her mother had not just been a mother with a busy job, but one supremely lacking in maternal feelings, and Eloise had long had to acknowledge this—just as she’d had to acknowledge that, because she’d been born a girl, her father—faced with her mother’s adamant refusal to have any more children—had abandoned them both to seek a new wife who would give him the sons he craved.

Eloise’s mouth tightened in a familiar fashion at the thought of her father rejecting her for his new family, playing no further part in her childhood.

Is that why I became a nanny? Eloise sometimes wondered. To give warmth and affection to children who don’t see much of their parents? Like me?

She certainly loved her job—even though her mother had never been able to understand it. Just as she couldn’t understand why her daughter would have preferred her father to stay in her life. Her mother’s views were simple—and stark.

‘Fathers aren’t in the least necessary, Eloise. Women are perfectly capable of single motherhood! And it’s just as well. Men let you down—far better never to depend on them. Far better to raise a child on your own!’

Eloise had refrained from pointing out that actually she had been raised by nannies, not by her mother...

But I’m not going to be like that—and I won’t pick a man who’ll desert me, either!

No, her life would be very different from her mother’s—she was determined on it. She would prove her mother completely wrong. She would fall deeply in love with a wonderful man who would never leave her, never let her down, never abandon her for another woman, and never reject their children, whom they would raise together in loving devotion.

Just who that man would be, she had no idea. Oh, at twenty-six she’d had her share of boyfriends—she knew without vanity that her blonde good-looks had always drawn male attention—but none had touched her emotionally. Not yet...

But I’ll find him, I know I will! The man I’m dreaming of! The man I’m going to fall in love with! It will happen one day.

But as she’d raced onward to the closing gate that day, she had been fine with being footloose and fancy-free, ready for a good holiday, travelling as lightly and comfortably as she could, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and casual jacket, and well-worn pumps.

The shoes must have been a tad too well worn, for suddenly, without warning, she’d skidded, her foot shooting sideways. She had gone careering down in a heap on the hard floor, her pull-along cabin bag slewing in the other direction, slamming into the legs of another passenger. She’d heard a short, sharp expletive in a foreign language, but had paid it no attention. Pain had been shooting up her sprawled legs, and she’d given a cry.

‘Are you all right?’

The accented voice had had a low, attractive husk to it. But as Eloise had lifted her head, still feeling the sting of pain from her fall, her line of sight had impacted with a crouched pair of very male trouser legs, the fine light grey material straining over hard-muscled thighs.

She’d lifted her gaze further up. And the breath had just stopped in her throat. She’d stared. She’d been able to do nothing else.

A pair of dark, deep eyes fringed with inky lashes had looked at her with an expression of concern. ‘Are you hurt?’

She’d tried to speak, but her mouth had suddenly been completely dry.

‘I...’ she croaked. ‘I’m...fine.’

She started to get up, but a pair of strong hands was lifting her to her feet with a strength that made her seem completely weightless. But then, gravity seemed to have disappeared already. She had the strangest feeling that she was floating two inches off the ground.

People were walking and hurrying and talking all around them, but it was as though they didn’t exist. She just went on staring helplessly at the man she had knocked into.

‘Are you sure you are all right? Would you like me to summon medical assistance?’

There was still the same warm concern in his voice, but it had a hint of humour in it, too, as though he were well aware of how she was staring.

And why...

A slanting smile sifted across his face. Eloise felt her insides go hollow. The thickly lashed dark eyes washed over her, and the hollowness increased a thousandfold.

‘I believe this is your bag,’ he said, and stooped to rescue her carry-on.

‘Thank you...’ Eloise answered faintly.

‘My pleasure.’

He smiled again. He didn’t seem to mind that she was still gazing at him, drinking in his dark, expressive eyes, his sable hair, the sculpted mouth with its slanting smile, the cheekbones that seemed to be cut from the finest marble.

She swallowed. Something was happening and she was reeling from it. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with having just tumbled down at his feet, or her luggage slamming into his legs.

Realisation hit. ‘Are you all right?’ she exclaimed, contrition filling her voice. ‘My bag thumped right into you!’

He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Niente—it was nothing,’ he assured her.

With the fragment of her brain that was still functioning Eloise registered that he spoke in Italian—then simultaneously registered that his gaze was as focused on her as hers was on him. She saw his eyes narrow minutely, as though studying her in great detail. Studying her and finding that she was entirely to his liking...

She felt colour run up into her cheeks, and as it did so she saw a glint spark in his gorgeous dark eyes. It was a subtle message between them that only heightened her colour and made her suddenly, piercingly, aware of her body and its reaction to being looked at with such intensity.

Oh, my God, what is happening?

Because never, never had she felt such an immediate overpowering response to a man. She gave a silent gulp of awareness. He was speaking again, and she dragged her fragmenting mind to order.

‘Tell me, which gate are you heading for?’

Belatedly Eloise recalled what had been uppermost in her head until a few moments ago. Her eyes shot to the display by the gate further down the concourse, which now read, ‘Flight Closed’.

‘Oh, no!’ she said with a wail. ‘I’ve missed my flight!’

‘Where were you travelling to?’ he asked her.

‘Paris...’ she answered distractedly.

Something flickered in the man’s eyes. Then, in a smooth voice, he said, ‘What an extraordinary coincidence. I’m on my way to Paris myself.’

Was there the slightest hesitation in his voice as he named his destination? She had no time to think as he continued to speak.

‘Since it was my fault you missed your flight, you must allow me to take you there myself.’

She stared, her mouth opening and then closing like a fish. A fish that was being scooped up, effortlessly, by someone who was—and the fact came to her belatedly—a very, very accomplished fisherman.

‘I couldn’t possibly—’ she began.

The dark, beautifully arched eyebrows above the dark, deep eyes rose. ‘Why not?’ he said.

‘Because—’ She stopped.

‘Because we don’t know each other?’ he challenged, again with that querying lift of his brows. Then his slanting smile slashed across his features. ‘But that is easily remedied.’

His mouth quirked, making her stomach give a little flip.

‘My name is Vito Viscari, and I am entirely at your service, signorina—having caused you to miss your flight.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Eloise protested. ‘I did. I skidded. Crashed my bag into you.’

He lifted his free hand dismissively. ‘We have already agreed that that is of no account,’ he said airily. ‘But what is of account is finding a medic to check your foot. There’s plenty of time before our Paris flight leaves.’

Eloise looked at him dazedly. ‘But I can’t just swap flights—my ticket won’t let me.’

The amused look came again. ‘But mine will. Do not worry.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘I have frequent flyer miles to use up. If I don’t use them they’ll be wasted.’

Eloise looked at him. Whatever else there was about him, he was not someone who looked as if he gave the slightest consideration to something as money-saving as air miles. Everything about him, she registered, from the tailored suit that fitted his lean body like a hand-made glove, to the gleaming black hand-stitched shoes and the monogrammed leather briefcase he was carrying told her that.

But he was talking again as he helped her forward. Looking down at her with that warm, admiring look in his eyes that made her forget everything except the quickening of her pulse, the heady airiness in her head.

‘So,’ he was saying, and his Italian accent was doing wonderful things to her, as well as the effect his warm, admiring eyes was having on her, ‘am I to call you only bella signorina? Though if I do,’ he murmured, his lashes sweeping over his eyes as his gaze dipped to meet hers, ‘it would be nothing but the truth. Bellissima signorina...’

She took a breath. The air seemed to have too much oxygen in it suddenly. ‘It’s Eloise,’ she said. ‘Eloise Dean.’

He smiled again, warm and intimate, and she felt breathless.

‘Come,’ he said again, and there was that low husk in his voice again, ‘lean on me, Signorina Eloise Dean. I’ll take care of you.’

She gazed up at him. He seemed very tall, she realised. And absolutely devastating...

Her breath caught, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide as she just stared up at him, drinking him in. The sculpted mouth quirked again. Long lashes swept down over deep dark eyes.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll take care of you...’

* * *

And Vito Viscari had done just that ever since. It had only been much later that Eloise had learnt that Vito hadn’t been travelling to Paris at all. He’d been heading for Brussels. He’d swapped his destination to Paris for one reason and one reason only, he’d openly admitted to her, with a caressing, bone-melting smile. To woo her. And win her.

And he had succeeded. Succeeded quite effortlessly.

She hadn’t put up even a token reluctance at being wooed and won by Vito Viscari. In fact, Eloise thought with rueful admission, she had participated in the process with every sign that being whisked away to Paris and romanced in the most romantic city in the world by the most gorgeous, devastating man she had ever met was in the nature of a dream come true!

And it still felt that way all these weeks later. Weeks that had passed in a complete haze, her feet hardly touching the ground, as Vito had whisked her across Europe from one luxurious hotel to another—each and every one a Viscari Hotel, one of the world’s great hotel chains, owned by his family.

He had told her he was making an inspection of all his European hotels, of which it seemed there were a great many, situated in Europe’s most beautiful, vibrant and historic cities from Lisbon to St Petersburg. And as Eloise had travelled with him, cocooned in a haze of romantic bliss, all thoughts of returning to the UK to start work again had begun to fade. How could she think of giving up Vito? Being with him was as intoxicating as champagne.

Yes, but even champagne runs out in the end—and in the end we always wake from our dreams...

That was what she had to make herself remember.

Now, as she stood beside him in this glittering environment of luxury hotels and high society, she could hear that voice inside her head. For, however intoxicatingly romantic it had been to waft across Europe in Vito’s arms, feeling herself headily on the brink of something she had never before felt for a man, there were still questions she could not blind herself to.

Can I trust my own feelings? How real are they? And what does he feel for me?

Oh, he desired her—there was no doubt about that, no doubt at all! But was that all he felt? Certainly now, as he glanced down at her, she saw the warm glint in his eyes and knew that desire was real, burningly real—in her, as well as in him. Desire such as she’d never felt before for a man.

‘Eloise?’

Vito’s voice, his soft, oh-so-sexy Italian accent that always made her breath catch, set aside her thoughts.

‘They’re serving supper—let’s go through.’

Together they walked into the adjoining salon, where a lavish buffet supper had been laid out. A woman glided up to Vito—a few years older than Eloise, more Vito’s age, immaculately gowned in a clinging designer number in blonde satin that matched the pale blonde of her hair. It was their hostess, holding this evening party at the Viscari Nice to which, of course, Vito had been invited.

It had not taken Eloise long to realise that Vito moved in high society circles—not just in Rome, but in all the sophisticated, cosmopolitan places where rich people gathered. His looks, his wealth, his background all made him a favourite—as did his bachelor status. That last, she was only too aware, drew women to him like moths to a flame. Including, so it seemed, their hostess tonight.

‘Vito—cherie! How lovely that you’re here for my little party! I must drag you away some time to talk over old times together!’

The woman’s wide smile passed from Vito to flicker over Eloise. The pale blue eyes glittered with a hint of frost.

‘So, you are our gorgeous Vito’s latest, are you? How he loves beautiful blondes!’

She gave a tinkling laugh, and glided off.

Vito looked down at Eloise, a rueful expression in his eyes. ‘Mi dispiace,’ he said. ‘Stephanie was quite some time ago—long gone, I promise you!’

Eloise smiled forgivingly. It didn’t bother her, and nor did any of the attention that other women lavished on Vito. Oh, he was charming and polite to all of them, but Eloise knew that the sensual glint of desire in his eyes was for her and her alone.

But will it last? Being the woman in Vito’s life?

An invisible tremor went through her. One day would she be the next Stephanie? The next beautiful blonde ex?

Or was something else growing between them? Something that would mean much more to both of them? Could there be?

Again, the questions hovered in her mind. Seeking answers that it was too soon for her to give. Reminding her of the need for caution where her heart was concerned.

Hadn’t her mother fallen head over heels in love, committed herself in marriage on a whirlwind of romance, only to find out too late how deeply incompatible she and her husband were on matters that were of profound importance to them both? A discovery that had torn them apart and lost their daughter her father.

I mustn’t make the same mistake. It would be so easy to tell myself I’m in love with Vito! Especially when I’m living this kind of dream existence...one gorgeous hotel after another!

But his European tour would be completed soon, for it was all part of Vito making his mark in his new role as head of Viscari Hotels. It was a role he’d been jettisoned into at the young age of only thirty-one, after the unexpected death of his father.

‘I’ve had to step into large shoes,’ he’d told Eloise, his face shadowed. ‘I’m the only Viscari left—the only one to carry on the legacy. It all rests on me now. I can’t let my father down.’

Had there been a tension in his voice that was more than grief for his lost father? But all he had gone on to say was how Viscari Hotels had been founded by his great-grandfather, the redoubtable Ettore Viscari, at the end of the nineteenth century, during the heyday of luxury hotels. He had then passed it on to his son, and thence to his two grandsons—Vito’s father, Enrico, and Vito’s childless uncle Guido.

It had been Guido who’d overseen a major expansion of the chain across the globe, as more and more international locations had become fashionable destinations for the rich clientele the hotels catered to.

Now, as the fourth generation of the Viscari family, it was clear to Eloise, that Vito was pressingly conscious of the legacy he had been left to run, and of the demands it made on him—including much of his social life, as it was this evening and all the evenings since she’d been with him.

‘All this socialising with people who are or who will be guests at the hotels is unavoidable,’ he said now. ‘But, however wearing it gets, I can never let it show.’ The shadows had left Vito’s face. ‘Your being with me makes it so much less onerous!’

It lifted her heart to hear him say such things, and she felt a familiar little thrill go through her—a thrill that was accentuated when, as he helped her to a plate of delicious food, she saw a telltale glint in Vito’s dark, lustrous eyes.

Soon—oh, very soon—he would murmur his farewells to their hostess for the evening, take his leave of the other guests smoothly, courteously, and then whisk Eloise away to his suite to have her entirely to himself! To indulge in a night of exquisite, sensual bliss...

A tremor of anticipation went through her. Making love with Vito was like nothing she had ever known! His skilled, sensitive touch could bring her to an ecstasy that left her breathless, took her soaring into a stratosphere she had never known existed—and that seemed to sweep away all her questions and wariness about her headlong romance with him.

As she lay in his arms later, her heart beating like a wild bird, she felt emotion pour through her. Felt full of longing...

Oh, Vito—be the one for me! Be the one man for me!

It was so easy—so dangerously easy—to believe that he was that one man she could love.

But dare I believe it? Dare I?

She could not answer—only knew in those moments that above all else she longed to dare. Longed to believe he was the man for her. Longed to let herself love him.