Heiress's Pregnancy Scandal by Julia James

Author:Julia James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-11-23T14:59:02+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

NIC SAT AT his desk in his residence, trying to concentrate on the latest occupancy figures on his screen and failing. There was only one focus for his thoughts—one he did not want to have but which burned in his head, flaring on his retinas as if she stood there still in front of him the way she had that evening, suddenly reappearing in his life. Vividly real and as beautiful as ever.

With an oath, he pushed his chair back, gazed grimly across the sitting room. His residence was on the topmost floor, with slanting eaves, set into what had once been the servants’ quarters of the Georgian mansion. Maybe there were those who thought it a fitting place for him.

His mouth twisted. Well, now he owned the whole damn mansion—and dozens more multi-million-dollar properties. Not bad for a slum kid! A slum kid who’d somehow ‘made the acquaintance’—Viscari’s supercilious words seemed to mock him savagely—of the daughter of a marchese.

Donna Francesca.

The name, her courtesy title, was hardly used any more, but still it was redolent of centuries of fine breeding, of titles and lands and privileges, and coats of arms and ancient houses and historic palazzos filled with priceless artworks—all related to each other, all marrying each other, all closing ranks against outsiders, all helping each other to keep their privileges for themselves.

Oh, Italy might be a republic these days—most European countries were—but that didn’t mean a thing to those born to the aristocracy. Maybe they didn’t call the shots politically any longer, but they had the rest of the world handed to them on a plate.

They’d worked for none of it—had simply sat back and inherited it. Just the way Vito Viscari had sat back and waited for his plush inheritance to fall into his lap, courtesy of his father and uncle, who’d ensured he’d had his path to the top smoothed and eased, had never had to strive for anything. Brushing aside as irrelevant anyone who got in the way—as he had been brushed aside in favour of the pampered young Viscari heir.

Scorn filled him—a familiar scorn that reached to the woman who’d stood in front of him this evening, a woman from that gilded world of privilege and aristocracy. And another emotion was shafting through it—anger. Anger that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was.

I thought she was Dr Fran Ristori—with her golden hair and a smile to take the breath out of my body. And a body to fuse to mine like it was part of me.

Memory, hot and searing, tore at him.

To think he’d even contemplated breaking his rule of a lifetime to get back in touch with her. To seek to capture again that time he’d had with her. His expression hardened. Thank God he hadn’t! Thank God he’d done what he’d done all his life—moved on.

Whoever the hell she really was, he was done with her. So why should he care that she was the daughter of a marchese?

The phone on his desk was ringing and he snatched it up.

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