PROLOGUE

      ORLA O’REILLY BLEW her nose and swallowed back a breath, trying her hardest to stop fresh tears falling down her sodden cheeks. She didn’t want people to see her like this.

      She’d flown to Sicily ten days ago on a mission to meet the man her mother had always unkindly referred to as ‘Orla’s sperm donor’. Only now did she understand her mother had actually been diplomatic.

      Her father, who’d returned from his travels that morning, had refused to see her. He had no curiosity about his twenty-three-year-old daughter. No curiosity at all.

      She hadn’t expected a grand reunion or anything but his outright rejection…

      It hurt. Really, really hurt. Now all she wanted was Tonino’s strong arms holding her tightly and his breath whispering into her hair that everything would be okay.

      At least something good had come from her time in Sicily. She’d met the man of her dreams.

      Ten days ago she’d taken one look at her room in the budget hotel she’d checked into and gone back to the reception. Orla was not one for complaining but the state of it would have driven a saint to boiling point. The bed sheets were stained and crumpled, the carpet sticky under her feet and the bathroom…well, the less said about that, the better.

      She’d stood at that reception desk for exactly six minutes before a tall, imposing figure had appeared from a door marked Privato and Orla had found herself face-to-face with the sexiest man she’d ever set eyes on.

      Until that first sight of Tonino, she’d never understood what it meant to meet someone and feel as if you’d been struck by lightning.

      When she’d returned to the hotel much later that day, her first attempt to meet her father scuppered due to him being abroad, she’d found her room hadn’t just been cleaned but sanitised. New furniture and furnishings had been installed, including a brand-new carpet. Her melancholy mood had lifted when the gorgeous hotel manager had knocked on the door and asked if she would like to meet for coffee in the morning.

      What had followed had been the most wonderful week and a half of her life, right until two hours ago when she’d returned to her father’s home for her second attempt. All those glorious hours with Tonino had infused her with a sense of optimism. She had become certain that her first meeting with her father would be the stuff of Hollywood; all tight embraces and schmaltzy words.

      It had taken her father exactly eight minutes to break her heart, the length of time his housekeeper had made Orla wait alone on the doorstep before she’d returned with the ‘regretful’ news that he didn’t want to meet her.

      She