Captive At The Sicilian Billionaire’s Command

‘It’s no wonder he looks so whey-faced and undersized, since you obviously aren’t feeding him yourself.’

Rocco’s criticism, voiced the moment the steward had disappeared with the bottle Julie had removed from the shabby nappy bag, caused her to stare at him. The colour came and went in her face as she searched and failed to find a response that would have the effect of putting him in his place and ensuring that he knew just how seriously she took her responsibilities towards Josh.

‘I have to go out to work,’ was all she could think of to say, and she prayed that he wouldn’t make any comment about expressed breast milk being better than formula.

Ignoring her response, he continued, ‘As Russell just said, you’ll find everything you need in the inner cabin. It will be a three-hour flight, so feel free to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep yourself, if you wish.’ He frowned when he saw the wariness in her eyes, demanding, ‘What’s that look for? You are perfectly safe. I can assure you that I’m not desperate enough to lower myself to make use of Antonio’s leavings.’

Dangerously, the repugnance in his voice actually hurt her. Why? There had only ever been one man she had wanted to desire her, and that had been James. He had desired her—until Judy had bewitched him and taken him from her. She certainly didn’t desire Rocco Leopardi, and she never would.

The steward had reappeared.

‘We’ll be taking off soon,’ he told her. ‘If you’d like to come with me, we’ve got a sky cot set up for the baby in the sleeping compartment.’

Obediently, Julie turned towards the door he was indicating. That was the trouble with her, James had once told her. She was far too responsible and law-abiding, What he had meant, of course, was that compared to Judy—who had been spectacu¬ larly good at taking risks and getting away with taking them—she was dull and boring.

But she was also alive, Julie reminded herself sadly, whilst Judy, James and two sets of loving parents were all dead. And all because Judy had wanted a big candyfloss wedding in a fairy-tale castle. The same castle where a well-known glamour model celebrity had married.

As the steward opened the door into the sleeping compartment, Julie saw that Rocco Leopardi was busy working on a computer which had appeared almost magically at the touch of a button on the desk in front of him.

What the steward had referred to as a sleeping ‘compartment’ was far from being the utilitarian and small space Julie had imagined. It was, in fact, the most luxurious bedroom she had ever seen.

Thick pale-coloured carpet covered the floor, merging with equally pale walls. The bed—surely the widest Julie had ever seen, and equally surely, she decided, with distaste, intended for the sort of sex games and romps her sister had freely and boastfully indulged in rather than merely for a good night’s sleep—barely filled a third of the floor space.

‘The controls for the bed are here,’ the steward was telling her. ‘You can raise it to read or watch TV.’ He pressed several buttons on the remote he was holding in demonstration, causing one half of the bed to tilt up as though it were a chair, whilst almost magically a huge TV screen appeared from a narrow cupboard on the opposite wall.

‘We’ve set up the sky cot here,’ he added. ‘Right next to the seat you’ll need to strap yourself into for take-off and landing. It pulls down out of the wall, like so. The bathroom and dressing room are through that door next to the bed. I’ve unpacked a few things for you and the baby, and hung them up. I’ll be serving dinner in about half an hour. If Rocco follows his normal form he’ll want to work as soon as he’s had dinner, so you might want to think about getting a few hours’ sleep. We’ll be landing shortly before one in the morning. I don’t know what the baby’s exact routine is, but I shall be on standby if you need me for anything. I’ll bring the heated milk as soon as we’re airborne.’

Julie would have liked to tell him that she’d rather eat her food on her own, and as far away from Rocco Leopardi as possible, but she didn’t—because she didn’t want to cause the steward any extra work.

A light above the door started to flash.

‘Take-off,’ the steward told her briskly.

Two minutes later Josh was strapped into his sky cot and Julie into her seat.

CHAPTER TWO

‘HERE’S the baby’s milk, and I’ve brought you a pot of tea.’

Julie nodded her thanks to the steward. Their take-off had been smooth, but even so it had left Josh fretful, and he was grizzling as Julie lifted him out of the sky cot to feed him. She tested the heat of the formula and then settled down with him. At first he sucked greedily, but then to her dismay he suddenly rejected the teat, crying in pain and drawing his legs up towards his body.

He was having an attack of colic, Julie recognised anxiously as she tried to comfort him, gently rubbing his torso the way the doctor had shown her.

To her relief, almost immediately he started to relax. The disruption to his routine meant that this feed was late. He must have been so hungry, poor baby, that he’d tried to take it too fast. He was tired as well.

Ten minutes later, when he had only managed a third of the bottle, Julie admitted defeat, putting the bottle to one side and lifting him against her shoulder to wind him. Almost immediately he was sick, covering both himself and Julie’s jumper

with sour-smelling sticky formula.

He was crying again now, and Julie felt a bit like crying herself. It was so important that he got the nourishment he needed, but the attacks of colic he suffered meant that feeding times had become a nightmare of anxiety for her—even though the doctor had assured her that she was doing everything correctly.

He felt so light. Lighter than he had yesterday? Was he losing weight instead of gaining it?

She’d have to change him and then try again, Julie acknowledged, replacing the bottle in the thoughtfully provided insulated container before carrying Josh through into the bathroom.

Mirrored walls gave back to her an unprepossessing and unwanted image of her own too-thin body and wan face. The pair of them looked half-starved, pinched, and with too-sharp features, she admitted, as she stripped off Josh’s soiled clothes and placed him down on his changing mat.

To her astonishment, the steward had told her that there were clean baby clothes and nappies in the drawers in the dressing room, along with clothes for herself. How Rocco Leopardi had managed to arrange that she had no idea—but perhaps when you were a Leopardi everything was possible. She suspected that Rocco would believe that being a Leopardi meant that it should be possible.