A Dark Sicilian Secret

“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.