Italian Devil’s Baby
Heidi Rice
To Rob, my Italian connection xx
Chapter One
Mia
‘Mia, one ofVittorio Rocco’s security guys is coming our way…and he’s looking directly at you.’
When my kid sister Evie whisper-shouted that in my ear, the neglected spot in my panties throbbed in time with the dance music and the strobe lighting and my palpitating heartbeat on the superyacht we’d boarded two hours ago. The superyacht owned by Rocco, which had looked more like a small cruise ship when we’d arrived at the dock in Naples with Evie’s best friends, Jessie and Becca.
After two days in the city, doing all the touristy things we could fit in around eating as much pizza as was humanly possible, the four of us had spent all day today shopping for the perfect frock, then getting mani-pedis and our hair done at a tiny salon near our budget hotel. But nothing could have prepared me for an event, or a location, this glamorous and exclusive.
This was the first foreign holiday Evie and I had ever been able to afford. I’d maxed out my credit card buying our dresses this afternoon at a boutique on the Via Toledo. Evie and I had been surviving on our own since we were teenagers, and our mum had skipped out on us, so this wasn’t a regular experience.
We’d rubbed shoulders for two hours—like,literally—with a string of European celebrities, A-list film stars, supermodels and social media influencers, and those were just the people I recognised. But I still felt as if I were floating in a weird alternative reality—an exhilarating, breathtaking dream which made me feel like a total imposter.
‘Oh. My. God! Mia, Evie’s not wrong. He must be coming to get you for his boss after “the look”,’ Becca supplied with additional air quotes. Becca was the one who had somehow finagled an invite to this event for us all through her work. ‘We should make ourselves scarce, so he knows you’re available.’
‘Don’t you dare disappear!’ I whisper-shouted back while grabbing Evie’s arm to keep my sister by my side.
The sultry spring evening scented with sea salt and expensive perfume was almost as breathtaking as the spectacular view across the bay, gilded by moonlight, from the open deck of the yacht, where a world-famous DJ was performing.
Nothing, though, had been as breathtaking as the man I’d first seen standing alone on the top deck of the yacht while we were having our IDs checked and photographed by the phalanx of security personnel before being allowed on board.
We’d figured out from the whispers in the line of guests the man was our host, Vittorio Rocco. Becca, who worked for a brand marketing consortium in the City of London—hence the invite—said no one knew much about him, except that he was an immensely rich local businessman.
But then, twenty minutes ago, he’d strode through the crowd with a couple of bodyguards—greeting a few of the guests but ignoring the rest—before I got ‘the look’ I was still struggling to decipher. Was he into me, or was he aware I was a total imposter?
As he passed our group, his gaze had locked on mine for what felt like an eternity… Good thing it wasn’t an eternity, because I had stopped breathing, my heart slowing to pound between my thighs.
Up close, he was the hottest man I’d ever seen… His gaze was like a heat-seeking missile, scorching everything it touched.
At six-foot-three or-four, with a cut body perfectly displayed in an expertly tailored designer suit, and the sort of tanned, chiselled features which wouldn’t look out of place on a catwalk, he had literally oozed sex and dominance. After that heart-stopping eye clash, the four of us had been dissecting and analysing ‘the look’ in exhaustive detail while the DJ kicked off his set…
But—even though I was wearing my first thong, a mini-dress I’d spent a month’s salary on, a push-up bra which made my boobs look like a work of art and killer heels I could barely walk in—I had never expected ‘the look’ to lead to anything.
Why would this man notice me when there were so many other, more stunning and sophisticated women here?
Supposedly, I was here to cut loose, live a little after spending the last seven years being a stand-in mum to Evie, and finally shake off the shackles of a three-year relationship which had ended in humiliation and heartbreak six months ago…and hopefully finally get laid by someone who knew where a clitoris was, so I could forget about my cheating ex-fiancé Dave and our vanilla sex life.
Or rather, that’s what Evie had talked me into when we’d agreed to come on this girl trip together with her friends and make the most of Becca’s invite.
But what if ‘the look’hadbeen real—and not just something we’d embellished with our fertile imaginations? What if the billionaire owner of this superyacht hadreallybeen checking me out?
Evie was the hopeless romantic. Not me.
I sucked in several deep breaths to build up the courage to glance over my shoulder.
‘Is he still headed our way?’ I whispered to Evie.
‘Yes,’ she hissed back. ‘And it’s definitely you he’s headed for. Hehasto be here on Rocco’s orders. Wetoldyou he was checking you out. You look spectacular in that dress, Mia. Why are you even surprised?’
A bubble of laughter eased past the tightness in my ribs.
Evie had been trying to rebuild my confidence ever since I’d kicked Dave to the curb, so she was definitely exaggerating.
