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CHAPTER ONE

Luca Bellini shot upright in bed, torn from sleep as abruptly as he had tumbled into it

Cristo!

His head felt as if soet out His mouth was coated with a substance that was best politely described as foul His belly was cra Gordian knot

And where in hell was he? A bedroom, but what bedroom? Better yet, whose bedroom?

Luca scrubbed his hands over his face

It surely was not his

This was not the bedroom in his flat in Rome It was not the one in his home in Tuscany or in his New York condo

A light current of cool air fanned his naked torso He looked up, saw the big fan slowly rotating in the center of the high, bea…

And remembered

He was in Texas, in an overblown mansion on an overblown chunk of real estate known as El Sueño

It was the last place on the planet he wanted to be

He fell back against the pillows, his face twisted in the kind of glower that would have sent those orked for hi for cover

El Sueño His father’s ranch in Wilde’s Crossing Texas

“Fuck,” he snarled, because only thatinside him

And what tiht sunlight leaking into the roo at the s and wide French doors

Luca plucked his watch frohtstand and peered at it

Six Six in theto explode He’d gotten to bed somewhere around three, his belly filled with the booze he and Matteo had driven sixty miles to find, some hideous stuff he’d never heard of, because no way in the world would he or his brother have touched a drop of whiskey from this house

Alessandra and Bianca had called the to drink the that had been paid for with Wilde s?

Luca hadthat opinion Alessandra had responded by jabbing her index finger into the center of his chest

“We are not women,” she had said hotly, “we are your sisters!”

Any other tih about when it ca to do with them There hadn’t been, for months

“And we are sensible,” Bianca had added, filling a pair of crystal goblets to the brientinian Malbec she’d liberated from the wine rack in the library “Booze is booze”

Actually, what she’d said was boose is boose

Alessandra had swung toward her sister

“We grew up speaking English,” she’d snapped “Can you not speak it properly now?”

“We grew up speaking Siciliano far lese,” Bianca had replied “And unless you wish to wear this wine instead of drinking it, you will not correct my speech”

Alessandra had countered with a classic Sicilian gesture that proper young women were not supposed to make

Bianca’s response had been to offer the saesture—and then the sisters had rolled their eyes and stepped into each other’s ar

The e followed by an embrace was bittersweet

Luca’s sisters were like Maive

He supposed those traits were coirls, himself and Matteo None of the son of a bitch of a father, and grazie a Dio for that

The Bellini offspring—not one of them considered themselves Wildes—had seen the truth about John Hao Well, perhaps not the actual truth Who in the naed that? But they’d certainly begun to question da he said and did

But bigamy?

That had come as one hell of a shock

It had taken theally married to their mother, and the worst of it was that when they finally did, they had not been able to tell her for fear of what the neould have done to her

And then, without warning, their one

She had drowned in the very sea she’d loved Then they’d been free to confront the man whose cursed blood flowed in their veins

Luca rose fro bathrooht kit and scrubbed his teeth

That was a little better

Now to get dressed

Someone tapped at the French doors that opened onto a raparound porch Luca frowned and stepped back into the bedroom

“Who’s there?”

The sound was repeated, more a hard rap of the knuckles than a tap this time, and the door handle rattled

Whoever it as impatient

Luca snatched his jeans from the chair where he’d dumped them, pulled them on, zipped up the fly, went to the doors and opened the sun, feet apart, hands fisted on his hips

He looked awful

Hair uncorim

In other words, he looked pretty , but ouldn’t he?

Looking at Matteo was al in a mirror

They were twins Fraternal, not identical, born two ht: six feet three in their bare feet Both had the bodies of athletes: wide shoulders, narrow hips, long legs Woushed that he, Luca, was a nificent male specimen

She hadn’t lasted long after that

Emotion had its place In bed Not out of it Luca knehat he wanted from a woman, knehat he was prepared to deliver, and out of control emotion was not on the list

It was too dangerous

A e of his emotions

If anything could be said to be his mantra, it was that

Of course, there were physical differences between them Luca’s hair was the color of dark, rich coffee; his eyes were a deep sapphire blue Matteo’s hair was an inky black His eyes were sea green

Matteo had a diht cheek—his sisters teased hierated Victorian swoons cohs and hands pressed to their hearts

Luca also had a dimple It was in the center of his square, very h when Bianca or Alessandra called it a dimple he would say, sternly, that it was a cleft

And then one sister or the other would do that hand-to-the-heart routine and say Oh my God, a cleft!

“Si A cleft,” Luca would growl

And then, inevitably, he’d give up being stern and he’d laugh

He laughed with his sisters With Matteo But not very much with others

Luca was a serious ain It wa

s important to both brothers

Growing up as they had with a hot-blooded, hot-tempered mother—she was Sicilian, after all—and a father as often withdrawn and generally unavailable had shaped Matteo into a man who knew emotions were best kept to himself

Luca had taken things a step further

Eether

He had adhered to that conviction his entire life

But last night, when he and Matteo, Alessandra and Bianca had finally confronted the damnable Wilde clan, more than fireworks had exploded into the hot Fourth of July night

Months worth of rage had overtaken him

“Luca”

It had see the Wildes The other children of John Hahters they had not known existed

The sons and daughters born to legitimacy

“Luca?”

No sha why their father had never really seemed a part of their lives

“Luca! Dude, are you deaf?”

Luca, hands fisted at his sides, glared at his brother

“Do not start with ”

“Do you think I am?”

Luca took a deep breath, let it out and unfisted his hands