Brunetti's Secret Son

She’d known from a very young age that her parents, had they been given a choice, would’ve remained childless. As hard as it’d been, she’d tried to accept that not everyone was built to nurture a child. Her parents certainly had found raising her a challenge, one they hadn’t deemed as worthy as the academic careers they’d pursued relentlessly. She’d always known she came an indifferent second to her parents’ academic ambitions.

But she’d wanted Gianlucca the moment she’d found out he was growing inside her.

There had been nothing she wanted more than providing the very best for her son.

She had given him the very best.

The tiny niggle of ever-present guilt threatened to push its way through, but she smashed it down. She’d done everything she could when she’d found out she was pregnant. Even going against her parents’ intense disapproval to make that daunting trip back to Sicily. She’d tried.

Yes, but did you try hard enough?

She dropped her hand from the picture and resolutely opened the account books. Indulging in might have beens wouldn’t get the chequebook balanced or the staff paid. She was content enough. More important, her son was happy.

Her gaze drifted back to the almost-four-year-old face that was already taking the shape of the man he would one day be. To the deep hazel-gold eyes that looked so much like his father’s. Eyes that could sometimes make her believe he could see straight into her soul, just as the older pair had done to her that long afternoon and longer night in Palermo five years ago.

Romeo.

A portentous name if there ever was one. While her life hadn’t ended in fatal tragedy like the famous story, meeting Romeo had significantly altered it, her son being the only bright thing that had emerged from encountering that dangerously sexy, but deeply enigmatic Italian with eyes that had reflected enough conflict to last him several lifetimes.

Enough.

She switched on her computer and had just activated the payroll system when a knock sounded on her door.

‘Come in.’

Lacey, her young reservations manager, poked her head around the door, her eyes wide and brimming with interest. ‘There’s someone here to see you,’ she stage-whispered.

Maisie suppressed a smile. Her young employee had a flair for the dramatic and saw conspiracies and high drama in the simplest situations.

‘If it’s someone else looking for a job, please tell them I’m not hiring anyone. Not till the summer season really kicks off...’ She stopped speaking as Lacey shook her head frantically.

‘I don’t think he’s looking for a job. Actually, no offence, Maisie, but he looks like he could buy this place a hundred times over.’ Her eyes widened and she blushed, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry, but he looks really, really rich, and really, really, intense.’ Lacey’s eyes boggled some more. ‘And he came in a limo,’ she whispered again, looking over her shoulder into the restaurant.

The tingling Maisie had experienced earlier returned full force. ‘Did he give you a name?’

‘No, he just asked if you were in and ordered me to come and get you.’ Lacey glanced furtively over her shoulder again, as if expecting their visitor to materialise behind her. ‘He’s very...full-on.’

Recalling her own line of thoughts moments ago and the intensity of Romeo’s personality, she shivered. Shaking it off, Maisie stood up and brushed her hands down the practical black skirt and pink shirt she’d chosen to wear today.

She’d left all that dangerous intensity back in Palermo. Or it had left her, seeing as she’d woken up alone the morning after, with only rumpled sheets and the trace of her lover’s scent on the pillow as evidence that she hadn’t imagined the whole encounter.

She was in Ranelagh, the serene village she’d chosen to build a life for herself and her son in, not the sultry decadence of Palermo and its dangerous residents.

No danger or intensity whatsoever welcome here.

‘Okay, Lacey. I’ll take care of it.’ Lacey’s head bobbed before she disappeared from the doorway.

Sucking in a breath and telling herself she was being silly to feel so apprehensive, Maisie stepped out from behind her desk. In her short but successful stint as a criminal lawyer, she’d faced her share of unsavoury and even dangerous characters.

Whatever unknown quantity faced her out there in her beloved restaurant, she could face it.

Maisie knew just how wrong she was even before the tall, broad-shouldered figure clad from head to toe in black turned around from his brooding inspection of his surroundings.