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In the face of his elder brother’s outraged rebuttal, Nuncio had turned a pasty colour and fallen silent. Now he said uneasily, ‘Ever since Damiano came home, Annabel has done nothing but beg us to mind our own business and keep quiet about this, Cosetta. I told you I wasn’t happy with the odd way she’s been behaving—’
‘That’s only because Annabel wanted Damiano to make a free choice between her and Eden,’ Cosetta argued even more frantically. ‘Annabel wouldn’t have lied to me!’
‘What you seem to forget is that your brother made that choice when he married me,’ Eden retorted with crisp dismissal. ‘It’s long past time that his family accepted that and, if you can’t accept it, then leave us alone.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Damiano stated flatly, curving Eden even closer to his big powerful frame as he surveyed their three visitors. ‘And, sadly, you, my family, really do deserve Annabel. Indeed Annabel could not have ripped off a nicer set of people. I can barely believe how stupid you’ve all been—’
‘Ripped off? Stupid?’ Cosetta repeated incredulously. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Annabel waits until she thinks I’m dead and Eden has been driven from the family before she comes forward with her touching little confession…am I right?’ Damiano prompted, sounding very bored.
‘Well…yes,’ Nuncio confirmed.
‘She then told you she was expecting my child. Tell me, did anybody argue at that point? Did anybody seek any supporting evidence of her claim?’ Damiano surveyed his siblings with questioning derision. ‘So you just accepted that if Annabel was pregnant, the child was mine because she said so. Even though I was married—’
‘Annabel said you were planning on getting a divorce.’ Nuncio groaned.
‘Annabel said,’ Damiano stressed with angry contempt. ‘Her father going bankrupt must’ve been a really nasty shock because Annabel has expensive tastes. Weren’t you capable of adding two and two and making four, Nuncio? Didn’t you smell the proverbial rat? How much money have you given her over the years?’
‘I can’t believe that Annabel could have made it all up just to get money off us! How could she do that to me?’ Cosetta sobbed and she stalked over to the window and turned her back on them all.
‘You used her to get at me, Cosetta,’ Eden reminded the brunette ruefully. ‘And she used you to stay in Damiano’s radius.’
‘Ouch…’ Damiano groaned.
Looking hangdog, Nuncio muttered defensively, ‘I was only trying to look out for your interests when I helped Annabel out, Damiano—’
‘How? By hurting and humiliating my wife when she was at her most vulnerable? Tell me, how was that looking out for my interests?’ Damiano demanded with a hard condemnation that made his younger brother flinch.
China-blue eyes cold as charity, Tina now spoke up with her usual hesitancy. ‘I’m sorry but it’s really not fair to blame Nuncio,’ she said softly. ‘None of us have wanted to mention it but Eden did have an affair with another man and obviously that upset all of us a great deal.’
Bitter anger flared in Eden at Tina’s nerve in making that crack. She felt electric aggression power tension through every muscle in Damiano’s lean, well-built length. ‘Tina…’ Damiano began not quite evenly, rage gritting from even those two single syllables, but he did not get the chance to continue.
Without the smallest warning, Cosetta erupted back into the centre of the room and pitched a set of prints down onto Tina’s lap. ‘You lying, cheating little snake!’ she spat furiously. ‘It was you who had the affair with Mark Anstey! It was you all along and you lied all the way down the line!’
As Eden fixed appalled eyes on the photos she now belatedly recalled having left lying on the window-seat, close to where Cosetta had been standing, all hell broke loose. Nuncio made a sudden grab at the photographs and broke into an aghast exclamation while Cosetta continued her ranting attack on her former ally.
‘You can stage this confrontation elsewhere,’ Damiano drawled with chilling clarity. Striding over to the door, he flung it wide. ‘All of you…out!’
Shattered silence fell.
‘I’m prepared to get physical,’ Damiano warned.
Their unwelcome visitors departed but they were all shouting at each other again before the front door even closed behind them. Eden sagged with relief.
‘They will never set foot in any residence of ours again,’ Damiano swore with vehemence. ‘But when did my kid sister turn into such a shrew?’
Eden sighed and, turning round, rested her brow against his broad chest, feeling his arms close round her and revelling in the warmth and solidity of him. ‘I think her friendship with Annabel turned her in that direction. Annabel is a lot older and she influenced her a good deal. Oh, dear…I feel so awful about leaving those dreadful photos just sitting there where anyone could find them!’
‘I noticed them long before Cosetta did. I was subconsciously willing Nuncio to go over there and see them, cara mia,’ Damiano confided grimly, strongly disconcerting her. ‘Tina has not been good company for Cosetta either—’
‘But what about Nuncio? He looked so stricken, Damiano—’
‘He’s miserable with her or hadn’t you noticed that yet? Let them work out their own problems,’ Damiano advised. ‘I don’t have any sympathy to spare after that outrageous spiel about Annabel. Listening to them, I honestly wondered if my brother and sister had more than one brain cell apiece—’
‘But you’ll note that I had total faith in you,’ Eden informed him with the kind of sweetness that carried a slight sting in its tail.
Dark colour accentuated his blunt cheekbones just as a knock sounded on the door and it opened. Their housekeeper began to speak but was silenced by the woman pushing impatiently past her to gain entrance to the room.
It was Annabel Stavely and Annabel as Eden had never seen her before. The redhead had no make-up on, swollen eyes and a look of desperation etched on her still beautiful face.
‘You’ve got to let me explain myself!’ Annabel exclaimed pleadingly.
‘Do you think you could make it brief?’ Damiano enquired very drily.
‘I passed the limo at the end of the driveway,’ Annabel confided in a rush and bit at her full lower lip. ‘I hoped I’d get here first so that I could explain but I know that Nuncio and Cosetta must already have told you about the story I made up—’
‘Children make up stories. Adults tell lies.’ Damiano shot Annabel a derisive appraisal. ‘And when an adult lies to commit a fraud, it is rather more serious. So let’s not pretend that you involved yourself in some playful little charade—’
Annabel was very pale. ‘I didn’t see that it was going to hurt anybody—’
‘You didn’t care whether it did or not,’
Eden cut in helplessly. ‘For you to have pretended that your child was my husband’s is about as low as any woman could sink—’
‘How many other people are suffering from the same delusion?’ Damiano demanded with sudden harshness, that aspect clearly not having occurred to him until Eden mentioned it.
‘Only your family,’ Annabel hastened to assure him. ‘It really was a big secret—’
‘It had better have been or you will find yourself in court,’ Damiano spelt out in hard warning. ‘If one rumour of this appears in print, call your solicitor because you’re going to need him.’
Annabel surveyed him with appalled eyes and then dropped her head.
‘Does your son believe that Damiano is his father?’ Eden had to ask.
‘No! Really, you’re making far too much of this,’ Annabel contended shakily. ‘It was wrong and it was stupid but I was so broke I couldn’t even settle the rent on my apartment! Don’t you realise the hell I’ve gone through this last month since Damiano turned up alive?’
At that plea for sympathy on such a count, Eden’s lips parted company and then sealed together again for she dared not have spoken.
‘I mean I just couldn’t believe you coming back from the dead like that!’ Annabel wailed accusingly at Damiano. ‘Do you think I’d have lied if I’d known there was any chance of that happening? I had to take myself off to a friend’s villa in Turkey to hide. I didn’t know what I was going to do to get myself out of this mess. And Cosetta kept on phoning and phoning and phoning me to demand that I fly out to Italy to see you! You were the very last person I wanted to see!’
‘You’ve had a really dreadful time,’ Eden muttered soothingly but she was challenged to keep her face straight.
Damiano murmured tautly, ‘I don’t think we need to discuss this any further, Annabel—’
‘You mean you forgive me?’
Damiano sighed. ‘Annabel…unless I’ve very much mistaken you have managed to defraud my brother of thousands of pounds over the last few years. You ripped him off and what he chooses to do about that is nothing to do with me.’
