CHAPTER ONE

      FROM the shadows of the musicians’ gallery, Rozzano watched his sister-in-law’s birthday celebrations and fought a losing battle against the inevitable. He just had to marry. It was an appalling idea—but he couldn’t face the alternative. A vicious claw of pain dragged at his stomach.

      In the beautiful eighteenth-century ballroom below, high-maintenance mistresses were performing prettily for their well-heeled lovers and dazzling beauties purred in the arms of elderly tycoons. Several guests were roaming around and slyly fingering the antiques in an attempt to price them.

      His chest inflated with a tight, angry breath. These were his possessions, his palace—and these people were defiling them. He despised the crowd his brother ran around with. Tawdry, the lot of them.

      And in the midst of the excited, empty chatter his lying, cheating, work-shy brother swaggered like a peacock, flaunting himself and the wealth of the Barsinis while the birthday girl bitched in a corner and her spoilt children screamed and squabbled and stuffed themselves with expensive delicacies.

      Prince Rozzano Alessandro di Barsini allowed himself the rare luxury of a malevolent scowl. He had a reputation for being the perfect, urbane gentleman. It would astonish people if they could ever see him otherwise. But Barsini emotions were not for public display.

      ‘Have emotions if you must!’ his father had said on one memorable occasion. ‘But have the decency to keep them to yourself!’

      So all the consuming hatred and fury he felt for his relations had been kept totally private—but, hell, was it good to let the mask slip for a few moments!

      Tonight, being polite to everyone for the last hour had tested his patience to breaking point and he was finding it harder and harder to restrain himself in the face of his brother’s excesses. As a child, he had spent painful long hours in isolation, forcing his volcanic passions into the required strait-jacket shaped by his exacting father. After thirty-four years of self-discipline, he had learned his lesson well.

      He’d coped by diverting his explosive energies to high-danger, high-energy sports that demanded that he push himself to the limit. But increasingly there were times when Enrico went too far and Rozzano’s control was sorely tried.

      Contempt tore at his sensual mouth. He found his brother repulsive, vulgar and immoral. Even now, Enrico was caressing a woman’s back. She was married, with two children—one of the many mistresses Enrico supported. An impotent fury surged through him like a burning acid that his brother should flaunt the woman in the family palazzo!

      He thought of the day Enrico had been born and how the tiny, black-haired scrap of humanity had melted his heart. Enrico had seemed like a miracle to him. But he’d been four years old then, and unaware that the innocent gurgling baby would systematically poison the lives of everyone he came in contact with—just for the sheer hell of it.

      Rozzano went pale. The poison was in him too. It grieved him to feel such extreme anger and revulsion for someone of his own Mood—but he could never forgive Enrico for what he’d done. Not ever.

      He set his jaw in determination, knowing he had no choice but to take drastic action. Otherwise he didn’t know what the devil he was going to do about Enrico—how to curb him, help him, and ensure he did no more damage to the unwary.

      Only yesterday he’d tried to talk some sense into him. Enrico had laughed and said that life was for living and who but a fool wanted to work in an office all day? He fumed at the memory. Did his brother imagine that a publishing empire ran itself?

      Turning away in rage when some drunken guests collided and knocked over a valuable medieval candle-stand, Rozzano hardened his heart.

      As the elder son of one of the most ancient and noble Venetian families, he had a duty to protect the honour—and the survival—of the Barsini name. Enrico and his loathsome brats must not take the title in the event of his death.

      He needed an heir. There was no escape then. He had to find a wife. Rozzano drew in a harsh breath, shaken by the finality of the decision he’d