A Clash With Cannavaro by Elizabeth Power Read Free Book Online

the fast lane of the busy motorway.
    He knew he should have telephoned Lauren to let her know that he was coming, but he hadn’t, and for a very good reason. When he had spoken to her from his Rome office earlier in the week to advise her of his wishes, they had been met with fierce opposition. There had, however, never been any problem he couldn’t overcome, or any challenge he couldn’t meet, but the most difficult, he’d learned from an early age, were often best dealt with head-on.
    No one answered when he knocked on the door of the farmhouse several hours later and, going around the back, he found the rear door slightly ajar.
    A toddler’s tricycle was abandoned in the little lobby to the kitchen, he noticed as he allowed himself to go through, calling her name.
    Again, he was struck by the poor conditions she was living in, which were a far cry from the chic modern flat he’d imagined the woman he’d met at his brother’s wedding called home. He still couldn’t quite equate the glamorous creature who had set out to seduce him two years ago with the tousle-haired, natural-faced, but nonetheless desirable female he had confronted when he had driven up here over a week ago, because there was no doubt that he still found her desirable. More so, if that was possible...
    His heart kicked over as he heard footsteps on the flagstones in the hall beyond the kitchen. A woman about the same age as Emiliano, with dark hair tied severely back in a ponytail, strode in, balancing a toddler on her hip.
    The child surveyed him solemnly before his gaze skittered past him, over his shoulder. ‘Lauren...’ The little face seemed to crumple in disappointment when it was obvious that she wasn’t there.
    ‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded, looking him up and down. She was wearing corduroys and a thick check shirt and looked as though she wouldn’t take any messing from anyone.
    Quickly, Emiliano introduced himself, before enquiring after Lauren.
    ‘I’m afraid she’s out,’ the woman told him with a refreshing indifference on hearing his name.
    Unlike Lauren, who had come on strong to him when she had found out who he was, he reminded himself, bristling, as again his eyes took in the jaded furnishings, the cracked plaster on the ceiling and the dark patch in one corner that signified definite damp creeping up the wall. No wonder she had been out to get her clutches into some rich fool at that party! he thought, unable to forget how she had been all smiles for that other man she’d been chatting up before she’d obviously decided it would be more to her advantage to make a play for him.
    A little hand reached out to touch the dark blue stripe in his tie and a shaft of some complex emotion sliced through Emiliano as he took in the brown hair and surprisingly blue eyes of the child. His brother’s child. He couldn’t help catching the tiny hand in his.
    ‘And you are Daniele.’ He wished with every power he possessed that he could take the little boy with him immediately. That his brother hadn’t been as foolish and uncaring as to leave the child with his aunt—if she was to be believed—so that he could have brought him back into the Cannavaro family legally, and without all the hassle that he found himself facing now.
    ‘Want Lauren!’ the toddler told him pointedly.
    You aren’t the only one! he thought, and decided that the sooner he took his nephew out of this damp and dreary place, the happier he would be.
    ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t like leaving her side for a moment,’ the woman who had introduced herself as Fiona told him more amiably now, as she hoisted the child further into her arms. ‘But I’m afraid that you, young man, are coming back with me tonight as your mother has an appointment first thing in the morning. I was hoping she’d be in before I left,’ she said, clearly worried, to Emiliano, before explaining briefly to him where Lauren had gone. ‘She should have been back...’ awkwardly,