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CHAPTER ONE

LUCIANO VITALE’S LONDON LAWYER, Charles Bennett, greeted him the moment he stepped off his private jet The Sicilian billionaire and the professional exchanged polite small talk Luciano stalked like a lion that had already picked up the scent of prey in the air, i every step

He had tracked her downat last The thieving child stealer, Jemi for the woman who had stolen his son and then tried to sell the baby back to hialled hi the full force of the lan on Jemima Not only did he not want his private life laid open to the world’s -tereful act Hadn’t he suffered enough at the hands of the press while his as alive? These days Luciano very ht and the endless libellous headlines that had followed his every e

Even so, Luciano still walked tall and every fe He stood six feet four inches tall, with the build of a natural athlete, not to ood looks he had been born with Not a single flaw h cheekbones and hollows that coel He cared not at all for his beautiful face, though, indeed had learned to see it as a flaw that attracted unwelcome attention

As it was, it was intolerable to hi every precaution he had almost lost a second child Instantly he repri that assumption He could not know for certain that the boy was his until the DNA testing had been done It was perfectly possible that the surrogate mother he had chosen for the role had slept with other men at the time of the artificial insereened, so why not that one as well?

But, if the baby was his as he hoped, would it take after its lying, cheating enes? He refused to accept that His own life stood testa ruthless line of men, famed for their contempt for the law and their cruelty There could be no taint in an innocent child, ed He reminded himself that on paper his son’s mother had appeared eminently respectable The only child of elderly, financially indebted parents, she had presented herself as a trained infant teacher with a love of growing vegetables and cookery Unfortunately her true interests, which he had only discovered after she had run froood deal less respectable She was a sociopathic proambled and stole without conscience when she ran out of money

Tiain he had blamed himself for his decision not to physically meet with the mother of his child, not to personalise in any as essentially a business arrangenised her true nature if he had? He had not expected her to want to see him either, when he came to collect the child from the hospital after the birth, but in the event he had arrived there to learn that she had already vanished, leaving behind only a note that spelt out her financial dereed had motivated her

‘I must ask,’ Charles murmured in the tense silence within the limousine ‘Do you intend to tip off the police about the lady’s whereabouts?’

Luciano tensed, his wide sensual‘No, I do not’

‘May I ask’ Choosing tact over frank frustration, Charles left the question hanging, wishing that his wealthiest client would be a littleBut Luciano Vitale, the only child of Sicily’s onceMafia don, had always been a e of thirty, he was a hugely successful businessitis And yet his very name still struck fear into those who surrounded him and they paled and tre for the paparazzi, and the ever lingering danger of his criet of a hit, ensured that he was encircled by bodyguards, who kept the rest of the world at bay In so many ways, Luciano Vitale reivenoptions had chosen to pick a surrogatea child into the world

‘I will not be responsible for sending the apparent mother of my son to prison,’ Luciano said without any expression at all ‘There is no doubt in o to prison but I do not wish to be the instrument that puts her there’