Carol Marinelli - The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child

She tried not to let it show.

‘Take a seat,’ he told her, and then turned to his PA. ‘Marianna, let’s get started. We have a lot to get through.’

‘First, though…’ Aurora said. And instead of taking a seat, as instructed, she removed a large leather bag from her shoulder, took out a bottle of tomato sauce, and placed it on his immaculate, highly polished walnut desk. And then she took out another bottle.

‘Homemade passata from my mother,’ Aurora said, ‘and here is some limoncello from my father.’

Nico glanced over to Marianna, who was trying to keep the shock from her expression as Aurora turned his gleaming desk into a market stall. And then his black gaze returned to Aurora.

‘I don’t need these,’ Nico said, and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘You can take them back with you.’

‘No!’

He had rejected her greeting. And now this!

Nico was not doing as he should. He was not saying that he missed the taste of that homemade sauce, and nor was he inviting her to join him in sharing the feast that the sauce would create.

He was not playing by the endless ingrained codes of home.

But then, she reminded herself, Nico never had.

For if that were the case then Aurora would be his wife.

Aurora Eloise Caruso.

As a teenager she had practised writing that name in her journals and saying it out loud. Now her cheeks flushed, just a little, as she tried to keep the note of anger from her voice. ‘You know very well that my family would never let me visit you without gifts.’

‘This is work —not a visit,’ Nico snapped. ‘You are here for five days to train for the opening of a new hotel; it is not a social occasion. Now, get these things off my desk.’

Nico knew he was being harsh, but he had to set the tone—and not just with Aurora.

The Silibri contingent had been in Rome for just eighteen hours and already he was fed up with the lot of them.

Francesca, who was to be Regional Manager, had brought, of all things, a salami, and left it for him at the reception desk. Did she assume that Nico could not get salami in Rome?

And Pino, who would be chief concierge at the new hotel, had somehow found his private number. Nico guessed he had got it from Aurora. He had given it to her once.

Once…

Nico refused to think of that time now.

The fact was, on their arrival yesterday evening Pino had called and asked Nico where they should go for dinner and what time he would be joining them!

Nico had rather sternly declined to do so.

The village of Silibri had come to Rome, and it seemed determined to bring him several slices of home.

Except Nico had been trying to run from home since he was sixteen.

Was it guilt or duty that always pulled him back?

He truly did not know.

‘Get these off my desk, Aurora,’ he repeated. It was a warning.

‘But I don’t want them.’ She shook her head. ‘I have shoes to buy, and I need the space in my suitcase.’ She fixed him with narrowed eyes. ‘Assuming I’m allowed to shop during non-work hours?’

He almost smiled at her sarcastic tone, but did not.

A smile.

A kiss.

When combined with Aurora, Nico knew full well the trouble they made…

So he met her glare with one of his own and hoped she’d hear the message in his veiled words. ‘When you’re not working, Aurora, I don’t care what you do.’

‘Good.’

‘For now…’ Nico flicked his hand at the desk. ‘…can we get rid of these and start work? We’re already running behind.’

‘I’ll take them.’

Marianna was rarely flustered as she was now. Aurora had that effect on people.

‘And I’ll get the swatches for the meeting…’

‘Swatches?’ Nico checked.

‘It’s decision day for the Silibri uniforms.’

‘What decision?’ Nico inhaled deeply and tried not to show his irritation. Really? Since when did he get involved in orders for uniforms?

‘They don’t like the green,’ Marianna said.

‘But it’s the same as in all my hotels. I want continuity—’

Nico halted himself, deciding that he would save it for the meeting. He nodded to Marianna, who gathered the bottles and, with Nico’s desk back to its usual order, headed out.

He was surprised when Aurora did not follow, and instead took a seat. ‘I thought you were supposed to be shadowing Marianna?’

Aurora could hear the irritation beneath the silk of his low tone and she spoke hurriedly. ‘I wanted a moment alone to apologise for being indiscreet. I was making a little joke about the times when you used to stay at our house.’

She grimaced then, because despite her best efforts that hadn’t come out right. There really wasn’t anything to make a joke about. Her father had used to find the young Nico asleep in the park after a beating from his father and had insisted he come and sleep at their home. Aurora would be moved to a made-up bed at the foot of her parents’ and Nico would be given her room.

‘Apology accepted,’ Nico said, and got back to his spreadsheets.

He was still angry, though, Aurora knew, and she was cross with herself too, for she had been so determined to be serene when she saw him.

Nico did not make her feel serene.

‘Anyway…’ Aurora continued, and under the desk she gave his knee a playful little tap with her foot. ‘We were never in bed together—you took my virginity on the couch!’

Her breath hitched as he caught her ankle with his hand and gripped it tight for a second. She wished—how she wished—that he would run that hand up her calf, but he scolded her instead.

‘I didn’t take it, Aurora. You very willingly gave it to me.’ He pointedly removed her foot and released his grip. ‘You pleaded with me, in fact.’ He turned back to the computer. ‘It’s forgotten now.’

Liar.

For Nico, sex was necessary and frequent—if a touch emotionless. And it was always a smooth and controlled affair, taking place in his suite at the hotel, never at his home.

It did not compare to the panting, hot, sweaty coupling that had taken place with Aurora.

Nothing could ever compare.

‘Forgotten?’ Aurora checked.

‘It happened just the once and it was a long time ago.’

‘Four years, Nico.’

Yes, it had been four years since that night, and Nico had been paying for it ever since.

That one slip had cost him millions.

Tens of millions, in fact.

Though the cost of a new hotel had been preferable to another night under the Messina roof.

He did not glance up as she stood and walked to the window.

This was hell.

Nico was aware he had treated her terribly.

He should never have slept with her.

They had been supposed to marry. Of course they had never had a say in it, but as they’d grown up it had become a given. Her nonna ’s house had been left to her father, Bruno, and he had kept it for them to reside in after their wedding day.

Nico had been able to think of nothing worse. Stuck in that damned village, living opposite the in-laws and working all day on the vines.

Aurora had taken it well when he’d told her they would never marry. She had laughed and said something along the lines of Thank God for that .

It had been the sun that had made her eyes sparkle, Nico told himself. She had been sixteen then, and a skinny, slip of a girl. He hadn’t seen her for a few years after that.

Oh, but when he had…

He glanced over to where she stood, looking out towards the Vatican City, and though he wanted to turn back to his computer screen he could not resist a double-take.

There was nothing, Nico thought, more beautiful than a beautiful Sicilian woman.