His mother had died when he was eight years old. Five years later, his father had married his mistress, Cecilia, who already had a ten-year-old son: Sergio’s half-brother, Abramo. Unfortunately, marriage to a man several decades older, who was inclined to frown on her extravagance, failed to meet Cecilia’s expectations and she took a series of lovers.
‘I minded my own business—’ Sergio’s lean strong features darkened ‘—but when my father was receiving cancer treatment, Cecilia began an affair with the family lawyer, Umberto Tessano. He was my father’s closest friend and in charge of our business interests.’
Kathy winced. ‘What age were you then?’
‘Twenty-two, and in my final year at Oxford University. I found my stepmother in bed with Tessano at our London apartment. I felt that I had no choice but to tell my father, but Cecilia and her lover got their story in first.’ Sergio vented a bitter laugh of remembrance, his classic profile
settling into grim lines.
As the silence dragged Kathy breathed, ‘And what was that?’
‘That for some time I had been harassing my stepmother with sexual attentions—’
‘Oh, no!’ Kathy exclaimed with a feeling grimace
‘—and that that particular day I made a drunken assault on her virtue from which Tessano gallantly rescued her.’
‘Surely your father didn’t believe such nonsense?’
‘When his lifelong best friend confirmed that sordid account, I had no hope of being believed,’ Sergio breathed heavily. ‘I had a playboy reputation and Cecilia was beautiful. I can’t blame my father because he was a sick man and he loved her. At the time he was dying. I didn’t know that but they did. In so far as my father was able within the law, and with Tessano’s encouragement, I was disinherited in favour of Cecilia and Abramo. My stepmother married Tessano three months after the funeral.’
His story rocked Kathy out of her self-absorption; she was appalled. There was, she was discovering, a great deal more unpleasantness to the events that had torn Abramo and Sergio apart than she had innocently imagined. The greed and envy of his stepmother and his half-brother had combined to tear Sergio’s life asunder. ‘Having your father turn against you when he was so ill must’ve been a nightmare for you.’
‘It shattered me.’ A muscle pulled taut at the edge of Sergio’s wide sensual mouth. ‘He died two months later still believing their lies. Up until that point, my life had been easy and privileged. At birth, I was the little prince, the heir to the Azzarini estates and I took it all for granted. Then it was all taken away from me.’
In a quick movement, Kathy got up and reached for his hands in a spontaneous gesture of sympathy, because she had been deeply attached to her own father and she knew how much that misjudgement and rejection from one so close must have tormented Sergio. Her softened green eyes clung to the bold angularity of his bronzed masculine features. ‘You should have told me about your family ages ago. But then you don’t tell me anything.’ Her voice grew more hesitant as she registered that he had finished talking and had still not made a reference to Grazia’s role. Feeling self-conscious, she made an abrupt movement to withdraw her hands from his.
‘That can change, dolcezza mia.’ Sergio snapped long brown fingers round her narrow wrists before she could back away again.
Uncertainly, Kathy looked up at him. She was being torn in two by the pull of his white-hot sexual attraction and the need to protect herself from further hurt and disappointment. ‘You know you think you’re great just the way you are—’
‘Until you came along and somehow I consistently manage to live down to your lowest expectations,’ Sergio traded.
‘Your aversion to weddings…how do you think that made me feel today?’ Kathy fenced, jerking her hands free, walking away and turning back with an agitation that betrayed her tension.
‘I was a selfish bastard. But, believe me, it wasn’t intentional. Grazia jilted me at the altar. It made an indelible impression.’
Shell-shocked by the sheer unexpectedness of that flat admission, Kathy stared up at him.
‘Only my closest friends know about that. My father had recently passed away and the wedding was to be a small quiet affair in London. She didn’t turn up.’ His stunning eyes were dark and reflective. A saturnine smile slashed his hard, handsome mouth. ‘Don’t look so surprised. Grazia was a luxury I couldn’t afford.’
Her lashes veiled her gaze. Her nails carved little crescents into her palms as she recalled Grazia’s smiling air of complacency, for the other woman was very much aware of her pulling power. Sergio had wanted her once, loved her enough to want to marry her and lost her again. It could only have added salt to the wound when she decided to marry his brother instead. But it troubled Kathy that both brothers seemed to accept without comment that Grazia put money first.
‘Surely she didn’t believe that claptrap about you and your stepmother?’
‘Naturally not.’ Sergio reached out and pulled her up against him with the bold self-assurance that was so much a part of his nature. ‘Are you still bent on leaving me?’
Disconcerted by that sudden change of subject, Kathy tipped her coppery head back and he meshed his fingers into the luxuriant fall of her hair to hold her there. Hot golden eyes struck hers and desire pierced her as sharply as a knife. Her tummy flipped and her knees went weak. That fast her physical awareness rose to a level of almost painful sensitivity. His high-voltage male potency got to her every time. She wondered if there had ever been any real chance that she would walk out on him. She wondered if that was a little fantasy she used to console her pride, for at that instant it would have taken brute force to tear her away from him.
‘Is it too late to strike a deal?’ Sergio husked, tracing the full pout of her lower lip with a caressing fingertip. ‘Grant me a trial run until the end of the honeymoon?’
‘How flexible are you when it comes to change?’ Kathy asked half under her breath. ‘Will I need to set objectives? Award points for performance? Come up with rewards for inspirational outcomes?’
‘All of the above, dolcezza mia.’ Brilliant eyes alight with appreciation, Sergio curved her slim body to his. ‘Rewards work with me.’
The brisk staccato knock that sounded on the door provoked a groan of frustration from him. ‘I said we were leaving immediately.’
CHAPTER NINE