Michelle Smart - The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

Damn him. The old fool was supposed to have retired.

He had one chance to prove his respectability before the deal was lost for good, Alessio’s forthcoming wedding.

Dante’s angry ruminations on his business problems were put to one side when his driver pulled the car to a stop in a small opening amidst the dense woodland that ran along the driveway to the cottage. A few metres away, also cunningly hidden in the woodland, was a much smaller city car...

Dante reached into the footwell for the baseball bat he hoped he wouldn’t have to use.

Flanked by his bodyguards, he neared the run-down farmer’s cottage through the thick trees that hid their approach from watching eyes and rubbed his arms against the bracing chill under the cloudless night sky. The remnants of what had been an unusually cold winter still lingered in the air.

The small cottage with its peeling whitewashed exterior walls came into view. All the shutters were closed but smoke curled out of the chimney that hadn’t been used in two decades, wisping upwards into the still darkness of this early spring Sicilian evening. Marcello, who managed the land, had been correct that someone was there.

Keeping to the shadows, Dante and his men approached it.

The door was locked.

Brow furrowing, he pulled his key out and unlocked it.

He winced as the sounds of the creaking hinges echoed through the walls, and stepped inside for the first time since his teenage years, when he would sneak girls there. It hadn’t been his father he’d worried about catching him, it had been the girls’ fathers. Sicilian men did not take kindly to their daughters having a sex life before marriage; at least, they hadn’t twenty years ago.

The open-plan interior was much smaller than he remembered. The lights already on, he scanned it quickly, looking for damage. The window above the sink had been boarded in cardboard. He guessed that was where the intruder had gained entry, but there was no other visible damage, nothing to suggest his unwelcome visitor had come here intent on vandalising or robbing them. Not that there was anything to take unless the intruder had a penchant for decades-old musty furniture. An air of neglect permeated the walls, mingling with the black smoke billowing from the log fire. A pile of what looked like educational books was stacked on the small table.

He stared at those books, brow furrowed again at their incongruity.

A floorboard creaked above his head.

Adrenaline surged through him.

Keeping a tight hold on the baseball bat, Dante nodded at his men to follow and treaded slowly up the narrow staircase, cursing that each step was received with yet another creak. He could have left his men to deal with the intruder but he wanted to see the face of the man who’d had the nerve to break into his property before deciding what to do with him.

Like all men with his wealth and power, Dante had enemies. The question he asked himself was if it was one of those enemies hiding behind this door plotting against him or just a cold vagrant chancing his luck.

He nodded at his men one more time and pushed the door open.

His first thought as he entered the empty bedroom was that he was too late and the intruder had escaped. There was no second thought, for a figure suddenly burst through from the en suite bathroom and charged at him, screaming, with what looked like a showerhead in hand.

It took a long beat before his brain recognised the screeching figure for what it was—a woman.

Before the showerhead in her hand could connect with Dante’s head, Lino, the quicker of his men, grabbed hold of the woman and engulfed her in his meaty arms.

Immediately she started kicking out, hurling a string of obscenities in what sounded like English, but with a strong accent he had trouble placing.

Dante stared with amazement at this struggling intruder dressed only in a thick maroon robe.

Her eyes fell on him. There was a wild terror in the returning stare.

‘Let her go,’ he ordered.

Lino removed the showerhead from her hand and released her.

As soon as she was free from his hold, she backed away from them, her eyes going from Dante, to Lino, to Vincenzo and back to Dante, the terror still there.

He quite understood her fear. Dante was tall and physically imposing. Lino and Vincenzo were mountains.

‘Leave,’ he barked at his men. ‘Wait downstairs for me.’

Her eyes settled on him.

This woman might be an intruder, her reasons for being there to be revealed but, unless she had a gun hiding beneath that robe, which she would have already used if she’d had one, she posed no danger.

His men were too well trained to argue and left the room. Stealth no longer being needed, they thumped down the stairs like a herd of wildebeest.

Now that he was alone with her, Dante’s senses became more attuned. A wonderful scent filled the room, a soft floral smell that clung around the intruder, who had backed herself into the corner of the room. The only sound to be heard was her ragged breathing.

He stepped slowly towards her.

She pressed herself more tightly into the corner of the room and hugged her arms across her seemingly ample chest, strikingly angled eyes ringing with fear at him. If she hadn’t broken into his property and made herself at home, he could feel sorry for her.

He guessed her to be in her early twenties, petite yet curvy, snub nose, plump lips, freckles covering a face that was either naturally pale or white from fright. The colour of her long, wet hair was impossible to judge. Whatever the colour, nothing could detract from the fact that this was one beautiful woman.

Under any other circumstance he would be tempted to let a whistle escape his lips.

Her long, swanlike neck moved but she didn’t speak. Those strange eyes did not leave his face.

He stopped a foot away from her and asked in English, ‘Who are you?’

Her lips tightened and she hugged herself even harder, giving a quick shake of her head.

‘Why are you here?’

But still she didn’t speak. If he hadn’t caught the obscenities she’d screeched when she’d exploded out of the bathroom, he could believe she was mute.

If she hadn’t broken into his property, he would feel bad for her obvious fright.

‘You know this is private property? Sì? ’ he tried again, speaking slowly. Dante’s English was fluent but his accent thick. ‘This cottage is empty but it belongs to me.’

The strange yet beautiful eyes suddenly narrowed and in that slight movement he realised fear wasn’t the primary emotion being thrown at him, it was loathing.

‘My backside does it belong to you.’ She straightened. Her strong accent registered in his brain as Irish. ‘This cottage is part of your father’s estate and should be shared with your sister.’

Anger swelled in him.

So that was what this was all about? Another charlatan pretending to be Salvatore Moncada’s secret love-child in the hope of grabbing a portion of Dante’s inheritance. What did this make? Eight or nine fraudsters since his father’s death three months ago? Or was this someone Dante’s lawyer had already sent packing but thought they would chance their luck one more time and try and convince Salvatore’s legitimate child herself?

As a means of getting his attention this woman had played a master stroke.

What a shame for her that it would end in her arrest and deportation.

‘If I had a secret sister I’m sure I would be open to sharing a portion of my father’s estate with her, but—’

‘There’s no if about it,’ she interrupted. ‘You do have a sister and I have the proof with me.’

Something in her tone cut the retort from his tongue.