The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

His handsome features fell into seriousness. He inclined his head before rising to his feet. ‘Whatever you decide, and whatever the outcome, that money for Orla will remain separate from it. You have my word.’

She didn’t have the faintest idea why but she believed him.

Dante greeted the housekeeper, who made an almost convincing job of not acting surprised to see him and at such a late hour, and strolled through his old family home as he had done a thousand times before.

This was the sprawling seafront villa he’d grown up in, just as his father had. A decade ago, to prevent the villa being used as collateral against his son’s gambling debts, his grandfather had signed it over to Dante.

Although the villa had been technically his for all these years, as far as he’d been concerned it had remained his father’s to do with as he pleased...apart from sell it.

With his father dead, he still didn’t know what to do with it. Unspoken had been his grandfather’s wish that one day Dante would settle down, marry, start a family and raise them in this home.

Dante liked city life. He liked being single. What good was marriage for? All he had ever seen of it was bitterness, greed and spite. His grandparents had been married for forty-eight years until his grandmother’s death. If they were a template for the longevity of marriage, they could forget it. His grandfather had spent the three years from her death until his own celebrating being rid of her. Dante had been quite sure his grandfather’s shaking shoulders at her funeral had been through laughter rather than tears.

At the far end of the villa was his father’s study. In the days after his death, Dante had holed himself in there, finding comfort in the room that had been quintessen

tially his father.

He pushed the door open and inhaled the familiar, if now fading, scent of bourbon and cigars.

This was the room Dante had sneaked into as a small boy, the desk he would hide under until his father appeared and he would jump out at him, and his father would pretend to shout in fright every single time.

He sat on the chair his father had called his own, the chair on which his father had sat Dante on his lap, held him tightly and told him his mother had left and that it would be just the two of them from now on.

This was the room his father had given Dante his first drink of bourbon in, the room in which he’d relayed the deaths of family members, the room where he’d confessed his dire financial situation and begged his only son for a loan to pay off his gambling debts. The latter had taken place so many times Dante had lost count.

A lifetime of memories, good and bad, flooded him and it took a few minutes for him to gather himself together and for the fresh wave of grief to pass.

He opened his father’s laptop. When he’d opened it the first time after his father’s death he’d guessed the password correctly—Dante’s name and date of birth. That had been a bittersweet moment.

Keying the password in this time, all he tasted was bitterness.

Had his father really kept a sister secret from him for all these years?

Aislin claimed his father had paid maintenance for Orla. If there was evidence of it, it would be on here somewhere.

He had a sister. His gut told him that and he did not doubt the DNA test would prove a match.

But had his father known or had Sinead O’Reilly kept Orla’s existence a secret from him and lied to her daughters about maintenance being paid?

Dante sent a silent prayer that Sinead was a liar and logged onto his father’s saved bank statements.

Damn it, they only went back eight years.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. Where would the paper statements be from the years before that? His father had been a terrible hoarder so they would be here somewhere...

The filing cabinet, of course.

An hour later and he was sat on the carpeted floor, paperwork strewn around him. In his hand was the evidence he’d been seeking but praying he wouldn’t find.

Until nine years ago, coincidentally the year Orla had turned eighteen, his father had paid the sum of two thousand euros every month to a bank account in Ireland.

* * *

Aislin hovered by the front window of the cottage, peering out intermittently while she waited for Dante.

Nerves in the form of butterflies rampaged in her belly.

Her bags were packed and waiting by the front door. She’d spent most of the night fighting the urge to flee to the airport.