Love Islands: Swept Away. Natalie Anderson

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       CHAPTER ONE

      THE HIDEOUS MANSION was just as he’d recalled in his nightmares, the gaudy orange exterior clashing wildly with the massive blue shutters. The only thing that didn’t quite gel with the picture before him was the blaze of the sun glinting off the grotesquely opulent marble statues guarding the entry gates.

      Romeo Brunetti’s last memory of this place had been in the chilling rain, his threadbare clothes sticking to his skin as he’d huddled in the bushes outside the gates. A part of him had prayed he wouldn’t be discovered, the other more than a tiny bit hopeful that discovery would mean the end to all the suffering, the hunger, the harrowing pain of rejection that ate his thirteen-year-old body alive from morning to night. Back then he would’ve welcomed the beating his reluctant rescuer had received for daring to return Romeo to this place. Because the beating would have ended in oblivion, and the bitterness coursing through his veins like acid would have been no more.

      Unfortunately, the fates had decreed otherwise. He’d hidden in the bushes, cold and near catatonic, until the ever-present hunger had forced him to move.

      Romeo stared up at the spears clutched in the hands of the statues, recalling his father’s loud-bellied boast of them being made of solid gold.

      The man who’d called him a bastard and a waste of space to his face. Right before he’d instructed his minion to throw him out and make sure he never returned. That he didn’t care whether the spawn of the whore he’d rutted with in an alleyway in Palermo lived or died, as long as he, Agostino Fattore, the head of the ruling crime family, didn’t have to see the boy’s face again.

      No...not his father.

      The man didn’t deserve that title.

      Romeo’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of his Ferrari and he wondered for the thousandth time why he’d bothered to come to this place. Why he’d let a letter he’d shredded in a fit of cold rage seconds after reading it compel him into going back on the oath he’d made to himself over two decades ago. He looked over to the right where the towering outer wall to the late Agostino Fattore’s estate rose into the sky, and sure enough, the bush was exactly as he remembered it, its leafy branches spread out, offering the same false sanctuary.

      For a wild moment, Romeo fought the strong urge to lunge out of the car and rip the bush out of the earth with his bare hands, tear every leaf and branch to shreds. Tightening his jaw, he finally lowered his window and punched in the code his memory had cynically retained.

      As the gates creaked open, he questioned again why he was doing this. So what if the letter had hinted at something else? What could the man whose rejection had been brutally cold and complete have to offer him in death that he’d failed so abjectly to offer in life?

       Because he needed answers.

      He needed to know that the blood running through his veins didn’t have an unknown stranglehold over him that would turn his life upside down when he least expected it.

      That the two times in his life when he’d lost control to the point of not recognising himself would be the only times he would feel savagely unmoored.

      No one but Romeo knew how much he regretted wasting the four years of his life after the bitter night he’d been here last, looking for acceptance anywhere and any way he could find it. More than hating the man whose blood ran through his veins, Romeo hated the years he’d spent trying to find a replacement for Agostino Fattore.

      Giving himself permission to close his heart off at seventeen had been the best decision he’d ever made.

       So why are you here? You’re nothing like him.

      He needed to be sure. Agostino might no longer be alive, but he needed to look into the heart of Fattore’s legacy and reassure himself that the lost little boy who’d thought his world would end because of another’s rejection was obliterated completely.

      Impatient with himself for prevaricating, Romeo smashed his foot on the accelerator and grunted in satisfaction as the tyres squealed on the asphalt road leading to the courtyard. Unfolding himself from the driver’s seat, he stalked up to the iron-studded double doors and slammed them open.

      Striding into the chequer-tiled hallway, he glared at the giant antique chandelier above his head. If he had cared whether this house stood or fell, that monstrosity would have been the first thing in the incinerator. But he wasn’t here to ponder the ugly tastes of a dead man. He was here to finally slay ghosts.

      Ghosts that had lingered at the back of his consciousness since he was a child but that had been resurrected one night five years ago, in the arms of a woman who’d made him lose control.

      He turned as slow feet shuffled in his direction, followed by firmer footholds that drew a grim smile from Romeo. So, the old order hadn’t changed. Or maybe the strength of Romeo’s anger had somehow transmitted to Fattore’s former second in command, prompting the old man who approached to seek the protection of his bodyguards.

      Lorenzo Carmine threw out his hands in greeting, but Romeo glimpsed the wariness in the old man’s eyes. ‘Welcome, mio figlio. Come, I have lunch waiting for us.’

      Romeo tensed. ‘I’m not your son and this meeting will not last beyond five minutes, so I suggest you tell me what you withheld in your letter right now and stop wasting my time.’ He didn’t bother to hide the sneer in his voice.

      Lorenzo’s pale grey eyes flared with a temper Romeo had witnessed the last time he was here. But along with it came the recognition that Romeo was no longer a frightened little boy incapable of defending himself. Slowly, his expression altered into a placid smile.

      ‘You have to pardon me. My constitution requires that I strictly regulate my mealtimes or I suffer for it.’

      Romeo turned towards the door, again regretting his decision to come here. He was wasting his time looking for answers in stone and concrete. He was wasting his time, full stop.

      ‘Then by all means go and look after your constitution. Enjoy the rest of your days and don’t bother contacting me again.’ He stepped towards the door, a note of relief spiking through him at the thought of leaving this place.

      ‘Your father left something for you. Something you will want to see.’

      Romeo stopped. ‘He was not my father and there’s nothing he possesses in this life or the next that could possibly interest me.’

      Lorenzo sighed. ‘And yet you came all this way at my request. Or was it just to stick out your middle finger at an old man?’

      Romeo’s jaw clenched, hating that the question he’d been asking himself fell from the lips of a man who’d spent his whole life being nothing but a vicious thug. ‘Just spit it out, Carmine,’ he gritted out.

      Lorenzo glanced at the nearer bodyguard and nodded. The beefy minder headed down the long hallway and disappeared.

      ‘For the sake of my friend, your father, the Almighty rest his soul, I will go against my doctor’s wishes.’ The remaining guard fell into step behind Lorenzo, who indicated a room to their left.

      From СКАЧАТЬ