The Sheikh's Innocent Bride

He didn’t like losing control. He had never liked losing control. He had often seen his father lose his head in temper and living through the experience unscathed had been a challenge for everyone around him. Luciano had little fear that he himself would erupt into mindless violence, but he was absolutely convinced that reactions like passion and anger twisted a man’s thinking processes and made bad decisions and human errors more likely. She would be in his bed this very night, he reminded himself soothingly. He would have what he wanted, what he increasingly felt he needed from her, and then this temporary insanity would be over and done with, decently laid to rest between the sheets. It astonished him, it even slightly unnerved him, that sexual desire could exercise that much power over him.

Jemima concentrated on the mechanics of feeding and changing Nicky while stubbornly denying herself the opportunity to look back in Luciano’s direction. He was gorgeous and he had to know he was gorgeous. After all, he saw himself every time he shaved, she thought wildly. But that was not an excuse to stare and blush and act all silly like an adolescent who didn’t know how to behave around a man. Absolutely not any sort of an excuse at all, Jemima reminded herself doggedly as she abstractedly admired how much Nicky’s glossy black curls resembled his father’s and resisted the urge to make another quite unnecessary visual comparison.

Suddenly the thought that she would be in Luciano’s vicinity for the rest of the summer was a daunting one. She could never act polite and indifferent in the company of such a dynamic and passionate male. He lit her up like a fire inside but she ought to be fighting that tooth and nail. She was lying to Luciano and he was Nicky’s father, which meant that there was no possibility of any normal relationship developing between them. Keeping her distance and resisting temptation were what she needed to do. Intellectually she knew that...but knowing and actually doing were two very different things, as she had already discovered. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, Luciano’s attraction yanked at her on every possible level...

CHAPTER FIVE

LUCIANO’S PHONE BUZZED into life after they landed, shooting out a string of text messages and missed calls, every one of which hailed from his British lawyer, Charles Bennett. His mouth quirking as he wondered what could possibly have prompted the relaxed Charles to such an uncharacteristic display of urgency, Luciano phoned the older man as soon as he stepped inside the airport.

‘I have the worst possible news for you. We’ve all been conned,’ Charles announced with rare drama the instant the call connected. ‘Jemima Barber is not the mother of your child—’

Luciano froze and waved an impatient hand at his bodyguards to silence their chatter while he listened. ‘That’s not possible,’ he declared.

‘I haven’t got all the details yet and I won’t waste your time with speculation but I believe that the mother of your child was one of an identical set of twins. She died when she was struck by a car a couple of months ago,’ the lawyer explained curtly.

Luciano was frowning darkly. ‘Which would mean—’

‘That at best our Jemima is an aunt to the boy and a con artist,’ Charles framed drily. ‘I have a top-flight set of investigators digging into this right now and I expect to have the whole story for you by this evening at the latest.’

‘How sure are you of these facts?’ Luciano prompted, watching Jemima detach his son’s clinging fingers from her hanging golden braid. Not Niccolò’s mother? How could that be? His brain, usually so fast to adapt to new scenarios, was for some reason still struggling to find solid ground in this shift of circumstances.

‘Take it from me—she’s definitely not the woman who gave birth to the boy. I now have that woman’s real name along with a copy of her death certificate. She called herself Julie Marshall. Matters are complicated by the fact that from the very beginning of your dealings with Julie, your son’s real mother was using Jemima Barber’s identity to hide behind.’

‘But why? You believe this was a conspiracy from the start?’

‘Who can tell? With one of them dead it’s doubtful that the full truth will ever be known,’ Charles pointed out cynically.

Rage began to shadow Luciano’s rational mind as the ramifications for his son began to filter into his thoughts. His son’s mother had deceived him and his staff from day one and now she was dead and, as such, untouchable. Luciano was his son’s only living relative. He refused to credit that an aunt could possibly have a claim to challenge his own. So, naturally, Jemima had not owned up to the truth. After all, her only way of making a profit through Niccolò was by pretending to be his birth mother.