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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘NOW tell me. Why the secrecy?’ Vido’s PA demanded. ‘Why was I forbidden to mention your name during the purchase of this house? And why did you want it so badly that you paid over the odds?’

      More than a little petulant, Camilla Lycett-Brown swung her long legs into his car and tried to make sense of the extraordinary tension that ran through Vido’s entire body.

      Injustice! he wanted to snarl, with a bitterness that startled him. But he realised how powerfully his Italian blood burned in his veins, despite having an English father—whoever he was—and living in England for the first eighteen years of his life.

      At that age he’d fled to Italy with his mother and ever since, the scouring injustice had clawed and chewed and nagged at him. Slowly and viciously it had taken over his life till he knew he had to take steps to seek a solution of his own—or lose his sanity.

      ‘My late mother worked here,’ he said abruptly. ‘As a cook.’

      The memories of that time flooded back, tearing at him cruelly. The insults. The humiliation and betrayal.

      His jaw tight, he took one last look at the historic Elizabethan building in the small village of Shottery. He had owned Stanford House for the past two weeks but this had been his first visit since it had been purchased from the bankrupt George Willoughby.

      For you, Mama, he said in silent offering. One of his goals achieved. Two more to come and then he could rest easy.

      ‘And?’ Camilla was astute enough to know there was more to it than he was saying.

      Wondering how much to tell her, he drove away, towards the elaborate wrought-iron gates. But when they hummed smoothly shut behind the car, he found his hands shaking so much that he had to switch off the ignition.

      Turning his head, he glowered back at the house. The early-April sunshine illuminated the stately façade with a welcoming warmth. This belonged to him now! A sudden explosion of excitement made it hard for him to breathe. Such a building, such a lifestyle, had once seemed utterly beyond his reach.

      Acquiring Stanford meant more to him than turning around the family business in Italy and putting it into profit. More, too, than his formidable reputation in Milan as the only conceivable man to call in whenever a company teetered on the brink of extinction.

      Because this little triumph was deeply personal.

      ‘Mother was sacked. Unfairly.’

      His voice was quiet, his eyes hard and unforgiving. The specialist had confided that his beloved mother’s ME had initially been triggered by the stress of Willoughby’s impossible demands. It saddened Vido that she had died before she could enjoy the luxuries he could provide. He mourned her deeply and would fulfil his vow to her, whatever it took.

      ‘That started off a chain of events that soured her life and mine.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘We went through hell. I was still at school but I took night-shift work in a factory owned by the same man who lived in Stanford House.’ He hesitated. What the hell. It might help to confide in her. ‘Then he threw me out of the factory for theft—even though he knew his daughter had framed me. They caused me to be vilified as a thief!’

      He spat out the word, still incapable of containing his horror at the sickening shame he’d felt. The proud lines of his face were riven with a grim anger and Camilla cringed back in her seat, suddenly afraid of this unknown, dark side to Vido’s nature.

      ‘I intend,’ he continued grimly, ‘to make them apologise for what they did. I promised my mother I would clear our name. I need closure on Willoughby and his shrew of a daughter. That’s all you need to know.’

      ‘This…isn’t like you,’ Camilla ventured uncertainly.

      ‘You don’t know the humiliation they put me through. It was like a physical pain to be treated like a leper. The people I’d worked with spat at me.’ He took a moment to get himself together. This was screwing him up, big time. ‘The daughter was clever. She made sure that the stolen money came from a fund that the workers had saved for a works outing.’

      ‘So how did the daughter frame you?’ Camilla asked, round-eyed.

      ‘She planted the cash in my locker.’

      ‘Why would she do that?’ His PA’s cut-glass accent was more pronounced than ever.

      There was a tightening of his jaw. ‘Spite. We’d had a row. She accused me of sleeping around while I was dating her. And of planning to marry her for her inheritance.’ His eyes gleamed and his mouth was savage.

      ‘I imagine you weren’t.’

      He gave her a filthy look. ‘I was so shocked I could hardly speak. Now do you understand how passionate I feel about this?’

      ‘Oh, yes. Was she beautiful?’ Camilla asked a little shakily.

      With a jerk of rogue emotion in his chest he recalled the sixteen-year-old Anna; long-legged and lissom with a sexuality that had given him dreams at night. And of her nose that had been so large and deformed that she’d been called a witch from nursery school onwards.

      He shrugged. ‘I loved her. God knows why. She’d seemed sweet and innocent and made me laugh. But underneath she was a heartless little bitch.’

      The more he thought of Anna’s malice, the angrier he became. But she’d get her comeuppance too. He didn’t know where she was, but he’d find