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‘Vitale needs to knohat Julie did to you and your family,’ Steven said harshly ‘After all, if he’d kept better tabs on her, Julie would never have corief’

‘That’s very much athat she had been sufficiently hospitable, she stood up in the hope of hastening his departure

‘You’re not thinking this through, Jem,’ he told her in exasperation ‘Nicky’s not your child and you shouldn’t be behaving as if he is If you pass him on to his father’

‘Like a parcel?’

‘He belongs with his father,’ Steven argued vehemently ‘Don’t think that I don’t appreciate that that child is preventing us froain!’

‘Only in your iination—’

‘You kno I feel about you keeping Nicky Why are you trying to do more for the kid than his own mother was prepared to do? Let’s be honest, Julie was a lousy mother and not the nicest—’

‘Stop right there!’ Hot-cheeked, Jeour ‘I’ll tell Mum and Dad that you called in when I phone them later’

She closed the door again with the suggestion of a slarateful as she was to see Steven leave, he had left her with food for thought She played with Nicky in the bath and stared down at his da in her eyes He wasn’t her child and all the wishing in the world couldn’t change thator bring Julie back Luciano Vitale had lost a hter She must have been loved, for that could be the only reason her father had gone to such lengths to have another child Jeure into a towel and hugged him close

Luciano had searched for eight months to find his child He wanted Nicky She had to stop being so selfish She had to take a step back Was she prejudiced against Luciano because he had chosen a surrogacy arrangement to father a second child? She was conservative and conventional and she supposed she was a little bit disposed to prejudice in that line The admission shamed her How could she have accepted Julie and Nicky but retained her bias against Nicky’s father? Of course, what if Luciano Vitale wasn’t Nicky’s father?

Two days later, however, she received the results of the DNA testing, which declared that her nepheas Luciano’s flesh and blood, and she had barely settled the docu