Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Ruthless Demands

Sì, Luciano brooded, he would achieve his goal because he always got what he wanted and anything less was unthinkable, particularly when it came to his son’s well-being. If the little boy proved to be his, he would take him whatever the cost because he could not possibly leave an innocent child in the care of such a mother.

* * *

Jemima tidied the flowers on her sister’s grave. Her crystalline blue eyes were stinging like mad, her heart squeezing tight with misery inside her.

She had loved Julie and hated the reality that she had never got the chance to get closer to her natural sibling and help her. Born to an unknown father and a drug-addicted mother, the twin girls had ended up in separate adoptive homes. Julie had briefly been deprived of oxygen at birth and had required major surgery soon afterwards. Her sister had not been available for adoption until her treatment was complete a full two years later. Jemima, however, had been much more fortunate in every way, she thought guiltily. Her middle-aged adoptive parents had adored her on sight, adopted her at birth and given her a wonderfully happy and secure childhood. Julie had been adopted by a much wealthier couple but her developmental delays and problems had disappointed and embarrassed her parents. Ultimately the adoption had broken down when her sister was a wayward teenager and Julie had ended up back in care, rejected by the parents she’d loved. It was no surprise to Jemima that from that point everything in her twin’s life had gone even more badly wrong.

The twins had not met again until they were adults and Julie had tracked Jemima down. Right from the outset Jemima and her parents had been captivated by her lively charming twin. Of course that had gone wrong as well for all of them, Jemima acknowledged reluctantly. But perhaps it had gone worst of all for little Nicky, who would now never know his birth mother. Her misty eyes rested on the eight-month-old baby in the buggy on the path and predictably brightened because Nicky was the sun, the moon and the stars in Jemima’s world. He studied her with his big liquid dark eyes and smiled from below the mop of his black curly hair. He was the most utterly adorable baby and he owned his auntie’s heart and soul and had done so since the moment she’d first met him when he was only a week old.

‘I saw you from the street. Why are you here again?’ a worried female voice pressed. ‘I don’t understand why you’re torturing yourself this way, Jem. She’s gone and I say good riddance!’

‘Please don’t say that,’ Jemima urged her best friend, Ellie, whom she had first met in nursery school. She turned to face the taller, thinner redhead with determination.

‘But it’s the truth and you have to face it. Julie almost destroyed your family,’ Ellie said bluntly. ‘I know it hurts you to hear me say it but your twin was rotten to the core.’

Jemima compressed her lips, determined not to get into another argument with her outspoken friend. After all, when times had been tough during the Julie debacle Ellie had regularly offered Jemima and her parents a sympathetic shoulder as well as advice and support. Ellie had proved her loyalty and the depth of her friendship many times over. In any case, it would be pointless to argue now that Jemima’s twin was dead. Even so, the pain of that loss still made such judgements wounding. Only a few months had passed since Julie had carelessly stepped out in front of a car and died instantly. Julie’s adoptive family had refused even to attend the funeral and the cost had been borne by Jemima’s parents, although they could ill afford the expense.

‘If we’d had more time together, things would have turned out very differently,’ Jemima declared with a bitterness that she struggled to hide.

‘She ripped off your parents, stole your identity and your boyfriend and landed you with a baby,’ Ellie reminded her drily. ‘What could she have done as an encore? Murdered you all in your beds?’

‘Julie never showed any tendency towards violence,’ Jemima argued back through gritted teeth. ‘Let’s not talk about this any more.’

‘Let’s not,’ Ellie agreed wryly. ‘It would make more sense to discuss what you’re planning to do with Nicky now. You’ve got quite enough on your plate with a full-time job and helping out your parents.’

‘But I’m more than happy to look after Nicky as well. I love him. He is my only living relative,’ Jemima pointed out with quiet fortitude as the two women walked out of the graveyard and down the road. ‘Obviously I’m not planning to give him up. We’ll manage somehow.’

‘But what about his father? Surely you have to consider his rights?’ Ellie countered impatiently and, seeing her companion stiffen and pale, she groaned. ‘My shift starts in an hour—I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Parting from her friend, who lived in an apartment on the same street, Jemima walked away at the slow pace of someone exhausted—Nicky still only slept a few hours at a time. She had expended a great deal of thought on the worrying topic of Nicky’s paternal ancestry. Other than the fact that Nicky’s father was supposedly a very wealthy man, she knew nothing about him or, more importantly, why he had chosen to father a child through a surrogacy agreement. Was he a gay man in a relationship? Or were he or his partner unable to have a child? Julie had not cared about such details but Jemima cared about them very much indeed.

There was no way she could ignore the reality that Nicky had a living father somewhere in the world, a parent who had paid for and planned his very conception. But she didn’t know his identity because Julie had flatly refused to divulge it and there was therefore nothing that anyone could expect Jemima to do about tracing the man, she reflected with guilty relief. Her sole concern was, and always had been, Nicky’s well-being. She wasn’t prepared to hand the little boy over to anyone without first seeing the proof that that person would love and nurture her nephew. That was her true role now, she conceded unhappily: to step into the untenable situation Julie had created and try to ensure that Julie’s son was not damaged by his mother’s rash choices.

Jemima still marvelled that her twin had not even recognised that she was literally agreeing to bring a child into the world for a price. Incredibly at the time she had signed up, Julie had only viewed the surrogacy agreement as a job that paid living expenses at a time when she was short of cash and needed somewhere to live. She had admitted to loathing what pregnancy did to her body and she had not changed her mind about handing Nicky over after the birth. No, Julie had simply decided that she had not been well enough rewarded for suffering the tribulations of nine months of pregnancy followed by a birth, particularly once she had learned that Nicky’s father was rich.

And what were the chances that the man would prove to be a caring, compassionate father? The sort of man who would love and cherish Nicky to the very best of his ability? Jemima believed that there was little chance of that being the case when the man concerned had not even wanted to meet the mother of his future child. From what little she had read most surrogacy agreements encouraged some kind of contact between the various parties involved, at least initially. After all, Nicky was half Julie’s flesh and blood as well. He had not been conceived from a donated egg but from her sister’s body, which meant he was very much Jemima’s nephew and a part of Jemima’s small family, a little connected person whom Jemima felt it was her duty to love and protect.

Jemima let herself into the small retirement bungalow that was her parents’ current home. It had two bedrooms and a small garden and she was very grateful that there was enough space for her and Nicky to stay there. Her father was a retired clergyman and her mother had only ever been a clergyman’s wife. Sadly, the careful savings her parents had made over the years had gone into Julie’s pocket when she had pretended that she’d wanted to rent a local shop and start up her own business. Or maybe that hadn’t been a pretence, Jemima conceded, striving not to be judgemental.

Quite possibly, Julie had genuinely intended to set up a business when she’d first floated the idea to Jemima’s parents but Julie had been tremendously impulsive and her plans had often leapt enthusiastically from one money-making scheme to the next within days. Her sister might have seemed to have good intentions and might have uttered very convincing sentiments but she had told lies. There was no denying that, Jemima reflected unhappily.

Regardless, the Barbers’ financial safety net was now gone and her parents’ lifelong dream of buying their own home was no longer possible. In fact the only reason her parents still had a roof over their heads was Jemima’s decision to come back home to live and help to pay the rent and the household expenses, which were exceeding her father’s small pension. Faced with bills they couldn’t afford to pay, the older couple had begun to fret and their health had suffered.

With quiet efficiency, Jemima changed Nicky and settled him down for a morning nap. Screening a yawn of her own, she decided to lie down too, having learned that napping when Nicky did was the only sure way to get her own rest. She peeled off her tunic top and winced when she caught an accidental glimpse of her liberally curved bottom in the wardrobe mirror.

‘Your backside’s far too big for leggings! Always wear a long top to cover your behind,’ Julie had urged her.

But then Julie had been thin as a willow wand and tormented by bulimia, Jemima reminded herself ruefully. Her twin had had serious issues with food and self-image. On that unhappy reflection, Jemima fell straight to sleep, still clad in her leggings and vest top.

When the shrilling doorbell wakened her, Jemima scrambled up in surprise because most visitors were family friends and aware that her mum and dad were currently staying in Devon with a former parishioner. That was the closest her parents could get to a holiday on their restricted income. She peered into the cot, relieved to see that her nephew was still peacefully asleep, his little face flushed, his rosebud mouth relaxed.

From the hall she could see two male figures through the glass.

‘Yes?’ she asked enquiringly, opening the door only a fraction.

An older man with greying hair dealt her a serious appraisal. ‘May we come in and speak to you, Miss Barber? My card...’ A business card was extended through the narrow gap and she glanced down at it.

Charles Bennett, it read. Bennett & Bennett, Solicitors.

Instantly fearing yet another problem linked to her twin’s premature death, Jemima lost colour and opened the door. Julie had left a lot of debts in her wake and Jemima just didn’t know how to deal with them. She shrank from the prospect of telling the police that her sister had stolen her identity to the extent of contracting debts in her name, travelling on her passport and even giving birth in Sicily as Jemima Barber. She was very much afraid that revealing that information would make her current custody of Nicky illegal and she was frightened that the minute she admitted that he was not her child he would be taken from her and placed in a foster home with strangers.

‘Luciano Vitale...’ the older man introduced as his companion stepped forward and Jemima took yet another step back from her visitors, all her senses now on full apprehensive alert.

And when she focused on the taller, younger man by his side she froze, for he was a man like no other. His movements were fast, smooth and incredibly quiet as if he were a combat soldier slinking through the jungle. He was poetry in motion and pure fantasy in the flesh. Indeed he was very probably the most breathtakingly beautiful man Jemima had ever seen in her life. The shock of his sudden magnetic appearance was hard to withstand. Her chest tightened as she struggled to catch her breath and not stare as the compellingly handsome lineaments of his lean bronzed features urged her to do. It made her feel frighteningly schoolgirlish and she hurriedly turned her head away to invite them into the living room.