The Italian Billionaire's Secret Love-Child

She was aware of passing the Heathrow turn-off as she headed out towards the M25. She knew this route to their Midlands branch and could drive it with her eyes shut. It gave her plenty of time to think, and while she tried to make an effort to think of Ben—lovely, upwardly mobile, fantastic-catch Ben—she found herself thinking of Riccardo instead. Riccardo, who had been so shocked when she had turned up on his doorstep like an unwanted parcel that should have been delivered to another address.

She hadn’t been Charlotte then. She had been Charlie. Charlie the teenager without a care in the world, madly in love, and crazy enough to have thought that the man she loved might just love her back. After all, he had wanted her, hadn’t he? He’d told her so a million times! And how could you make love with someone with such tenderness and passion without there being just a tiny bit of love somewhere?

Finding his mother’s house had been a nightmare. It had been a steaming hot day, one of those days when too much walking about made you feel slightly sick, and she had stupidly worn trousers and a tee-shirt that had clung to her like glue. Even eight years on, she could still recreate in her head all those nauseous feelings that had assaulted her as she’d tiredly travelled the distance that must have taken Riccardo, in his car and knowing the roads, no time at all.

Of course, in retrospect, she knew where the sickness had sprung from, but at the time she could remember thinking that if she didn’t get to the house pretty soon then she would have to blow some of her money on a meal in one of those expensive air-conditioned restaurants as soon as she got to Florence.

Because Florence had been her destination, or rather the outskirts of Florence.

Where, exactly, she couldn’t quite remember. Having committed the address to memory, she’d realised that her memory wasn’t quite as obliging as she had hoped.

She had ended up spending far too much money on a mediocre meal simply because she’d been too tired to carry on trekking, and her broken Italian combined with her white-blonde hair had made her feel strangely vulnerable. Lingering over coffee, she’d realised just how much Riccardo had protected her from the open stares of Italian men. She had felt their eyes boring into her, on top of her sickness, and she had been halfway regretting the impulse to follow him.

But there had been no turning back, and besides she’d wanted to meet his mother, had wanted to prove to him that she loved him whatever his background. She hadn’t cared if he didn’t have any fixed plans or career path!

In the end, it was sheer luck that she landed up in the right place. After several hours, she could only remember bits of the wretched address, and she had forlornly managed to find a taxi driver with only the despairing hope that he could piece together what she recalled and somehow work out where she was supposed to go.

But, of course, she had Riccardo’s name—di Napoli. And that was the key that eventually unlocked the door.

He knew the family name. In fact, knew exactly where to find the house, looked at her curiously, although she was too relieved to notice that fleeting glance.

She arrived late in the evening, and even in the fading light could see that this was not the house of a destitute woman.

‘Are you sure you have the right place?’ she asked the taxi driver anxiously. ‘Are you sure you have the right di Napoli? I mean, there must be hundreds of them!’

A mansion faced her. It was of that distinct washed terracotta colour, but this was no simple dwelling. Portico after portico stretched along its clean main façade, and above them rows of windows and yet more doors sitting squarely behind a long balcony that extended the width of the building. And the pattern was repeated yet again. Surrounding the villa were extensive manicured lawns and trees that looked as old as time. Behind her, the taxi driver was talking rapidly in Italian, way too fast for her to understand a word he was saying, but she recognised the name Elena di Napoli, and if nothing else that was enough to make her realise that she had reached the right place. And no insignificant little place with dodgy electricity and erratic plumbing.