The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

She would pick her life up where she’d left it but now she would allow herself to think of her own needs too.

She would make something of her life.

And she would never think of Sicily again.

* * *

Dante’s mother was already seated in a corner of the restaurant when he entered it, a large glass of white wine in her hand. She rose to her feet with a big smile and embraced him tightly.

‘This is an unexpected pleasure,’ she said, sitting back down. ‘Is your Irish beauty not joining us?’

He took his own seat with a grimace. ‘Aislin’s in Ireland.’

His mother looked at him shrewdly. ‘Trouble in paradise?’

‘It’s over,’ he said shortly, then attempted a smile. ‘Have you looked at the menu?’

A waiter came over to take their order. As soon as he left them, Dante’s mother leaned forward. ‘What happened?’

He feigned bored ignorance. ‘With what?’

‘Your Irish beauty.’

‘Nothing happened. We just decided marriage was a step too far.’

She cast him that shrewd look again. ‘That’s a shame. I liked her. You liked her too.’

‘Mother...’ he said warningly. He’d never discussed his love life with her before and was not about to start now.

The last person he wanted to talk about was Aislin. All he had to do was recall their last conversation and his blood pressure would rise to dangerous levels.

‘Okay, so you don’t want to talk about her. What do you want to talk about? I assume there has to be a reason you’ve invited me here—you’ve never invited me to dinner before.’

He looked at her, feeling strangely discomfited. He’d picked up the tab on every occasion they’d dined out since he’d turned twenty.

Had none of those occasions come from his instigation? ‘Haven’t I?’

She waved a dismissive hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. What’s on your mind? Or shall I make an educated guess and ask if it’s about your sister?’

The nausea that curdled in his guts at this comment was almost as violent as the nausea he’d experienced when she’d mentioned Aislin.

He inhaled slowly then exhaled for even longer.

In the eight days that had passed since Aislin had slammed his car door, he’d failed to find the focus on work he needed. Instead he’d replayed their many conversations, especially those about his father, over and over, a loop playing so frequently he’d feared his head would combust.

He couldn’t go on like this. He needed answers and his mother was the only person who could supply them.

‘Is she the reason you left my father?’

Her perceptive eyes narrowed a touch then she gave a sharp nod. ‘I left him when I learned he’d got another woman pregnant but she wasn’t the reason. I’d wanted to leave him for years—that affair was the excuse I’d been waiting for.’

Dante’s glass of wine was brought to the table, along with a basket of freshly baked rolls.

He took a long drink. ‘Why did you need an excuse?’

‘To justify it to myself. The Irish woman wasn’t the first woman he’d cheated on me with. She was just the first with real consequences.’

He took another sip of his wine then asked the question that had plagued him since Aislin had first suggested it might be for different reasons to what he’d always thought. ‘Why didn’t you take me?’