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‘To be vulgar…’ Misty pulled a comical face ‘…we’re all loaded. Freddy is married to an oil-rich Arab prince, I’m married to a very wealthy businessman and Ione is a billionairess in her own right. Our combined resources make us very powerful and we can put huge financial pressure on da Valenza’s empire. In fact we could ruin him—’
In receipt of that recitation of facts, Kerry lost colour and felt distinctly queasy.
‘But first we want to ensure that da Valenza sells Ballybawn castle back to us…whether he wants to or not,’ Ione declared.
Misty nodded in agreement. ‘In fact we’ve already made him an offer that he had better not refuse.’
‘How can you threaten Luciano when you don’t even know him?’ Kerry demanded in disbelief.
‘Does that bother you? Surely you would be much happier with him out of your life?’ Misty was studying Kerry in surprise. ‘You ditched him five years ago and it looks to us as if he’s come back looking for revenge. If he has, we can stop him in his tracks by hitting him where it hurts—’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Before Kerry was even aware of formulating those angry words in her mind, they had leapt off her tongue. ‘If you make any move against Luciano, I’ll fight you every step of the way. If you want to blame someone for our grandparents being forced out of Ballybawn, blame me for not managing to make a profitable enterprise of the estate!’
‘You’re in love with Luciano da Valenza…’ Ione murmured in a shaken tone of discovery.
Making no attempt to hide her disconcertion, Misty groaned out loud. ‘We didn’t know…’
Kerry was still very much on the defensive. ‘Well, now you do know.’
‘I’m afraid we’ve been talking at cross purposes.’ Misty’s discomfiture was clear. ‘We assumed that Luciano was making you unhappy.’
‘We’re your sisters and we care about you, so I think we also need to admit that we have access to confidential information…and we’re trying to warn you that in our opinion you can’t trust Luciano da Valenza,’ Ione stated uneasily. ‘He’s a very clever and dangerous man who is already hurting your family.’
‘I’d have to know you a lot longer before I could think of you as family and I won’t ever forgive you if you try to hurt Luciano. You have no right to threaten him and no justification either. He was planning to take care of Grandpa and Grandma…you’ve got him wrong.’ Kerry found it hard even to voice those words, for she was hurt and distressed and alienated all at the same time. Without warning, her meeting with her sisters had gone horribly wrong and all the bright promise of a continuing relationship with them had evaporated before her eyes.
Misty groaned out loud. ‘I can see that we’ve come across as interfering but we weren’t aware that you were involved in a relationship with Luciano—’
‘Yes, and I’m not ashamed of that either.’ Kerry lifted her head high. ‘Look, I think I’d be more comfortable leaving now. We all have a lot to think about. I’ll tell our grandparents about their three new granddaughters so that when you go to see them—as I assume you plan to do—you won’t come as too much of a surprise to them.’
‘From now on, we’ll be responsible for taking care of their needs.’ Freddy gave her a warm, reassuring smile. ‘You don’t need to fret about them any more.’
Ione rested rueful green eyes on Kerry. ‘I’m sorry that we’ve made such a hash of our first meeting with you. Hopefully we’ll do better on the next occasion, little sister.’
‘Maybe when sisters are already grown up, it’s too l-late to be meeting for the first time!’ Before her pent-up emotions could make her stammer even worse, Kerry walked out of the suite.
Without caring where she went and in too much turmoil to stand still long enough to decide, Kerry left the hotel and walked through the busy city streets. What she had learnt from her newly discovered sisters had sent her into shock. It was clear that Misty, Ione and Freddy were behind that mysterious offer to buy Ballybawn at any price. Naturally. Who else would value Ballybawn as much as her own flesh and blood? Her half-sisters were as linked to O’Brien history and their ancestral home as she was herself and it was hardly surprising that they should blame Luciano for their grandparents’ plight.
Hadn’t she once blamed Luciano too? When had she stopped blaming him quite so much? Just when too had she started believing that no matter what happened her grandparents would be coming back to live at Ballybawn? For, in a moment of frank acknowledgement, Kerry recognised that she did have total faith in that reality and complete trust that Luciano would bring it about. Did that mean that she had been playing games with him as he had accused her of doing? Hanging out for a better offer from him? Why was what went on in the back of her own mind as big a puzzle to her as it might well be to him? Mingled tears of pain and reluctant amusement stung Kerry’s eyes.
If ever anything had served to increase her understanding of herself, it had been the disorientating experience of her own automatic recoil from her sisters’ threats against Luciano. In the space of seconds, her siblings had seemed more like the enemy than her own kin. She had not been able to bear that they should talk of harming Luciano in any way.
Her sisters seemed so confident of their right to stand in judgement over Luciano. How could they understand the forces that had made Luciano the tough guy that he was? Right from the moment of his illegitimate birth, nothing had come easy to him. His grandfather had been a hard-drinking bully and his mother had been virtually illiterate. Luciano had never been praised for his hard work at school because his parent had felt threatened by her son’s unsettling ambition to make something more of himself. In short, Luciano had always had to forge his path in life alone and without support.
And it was that knowledge that made Kerry ache for him most of all. At the height of his success in the business world when he had been only twenty-eight years old, Luciano had been charged with theft and imprisoned and everything he had achieved had been taken from him. His career, his reputation, his financial security, even his fiancée, Kerry conceded with an agonised sense of guilt.
He had been too proud to reach out to her then and she had not thought enough of herself to keep faith in him. Convinced that he had fallen back into Rochelle’s arms, she had found it that much easier to believe that he was a fraudster as well. After all, the whole Linwood clan had believed that and, heartsick with the pain of losing him—as she had believed—to her stepsister, she had not had sufficient trust in her own judgement to dare to think anything different.
But Luciano had loved her…he had loved her then. That awareness just tore Kerry apart and her throat closed over with anguished regret for what she could not alter. It was way too late now to see how her low self-esteem and his arrogant self-sufficiency had weakened their relationship. However, the past did not have to make the present, Kerry reminded herself fiercely. Nor did she have to repeat the same mistakes or behave as if nothing she could do could change anything.
Just when Luciano had regained his freedom and the right to live his life again, her sisters were threatening to ruin him. She had to warn him. She had to ensure that he understood exactly who he was dealing with and what he was up against, and that he backed off. This need clear as day before her, she pulled out her mobile phone and punched out the number of his London office. She was eventually put through to Costanza.
‘Luciano is booked up until six,’ his PA confirmed.
‘I have important information for him. I know who’s behind that offer for Ballybawn.’
‘I’m sure I can find a space for you somewhere,’ Costanza conceded.
Kerry smiled, glimpsed her own reflection in a shop window and stilled. Her smile fell away while she stared because she looked wild: her face coloured hectic pink from hurrying at a breakneck pace through the streets, blue eyes big with anxiety, springy red-gold curls on end from her efforts to tidy her hair with her fingers. At best, with all the stops pulled out, her hair done by a stylist and with full cosmetic assistance, she could make pretty. Yet regardless of that reality, Luciano had chosen her over Rochelle and yet still she hadn’t had the courage to give their relationship a second chance!
