Sicilian's Baby Of Shame

Playboy on Her Christmas List

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For my wonderful editor Flo Nicoll.

Thank you for being you.

Carol xxx

Contents

Cover (#ub744ed9c-add9-5ec4-86bd-e64a2016e1b8)

Back Cover Text (#u5108022b-9b75-521f-963a-51e3535b2cb3)

Introduction (#u4027f546-6b85-586e-88b9-ddebe8b8cf1e)

Billionaires & One-Night Heirs (#u1c47ec7f-0c66-5fef-9841-94f46b3c68bc)

Title Page (#ufc1a65ff-63be-5619-a444-028fcacd2dbe)

About the Author (#u11dade60-383e-58ba-bcbb-52d05a835356)

Dedication (#u794f00de-448d-5809-9815-8e3f22498a8e)

PROLOGUE (#u32854db6-643d-5834-86fc-3b575c84cbdf)

CHAPTER ONE (#u4cfd245f-a631-5165-b657-71083696674c)

CHAPTER TWO (#u734027b4-e76d-5c72-9fe3-fb952973cb81)

CHAPTER THREE (#u66244d41-39ee-51aa-8700-771caa2813bd)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ufed0e5e5-fc5c-5caf-9f6b-405f0226ff20)

BASTIANO CONTI HAD been born hungry.

And born a problem.

His mother had died giving birth to him and had never disclosed who his father was. All she had owned had been left to him—a ring.

It was Italian gold with a small emerald in its centre and some seed pearls dotted around it.

Bastiano’s uncle, who had four children of his own, had first suggested that the nuns raise the orphaned baby who’d lain crying in the small maternity ward in the Valley of Casta. There was a convent that overlooked the Sicilian Strait and orphans had usually been sent there.

But the convent was on its last legs.

The nurses were busy but occasionally one would take pity and hold Bastiano a little longer than it took to feed him.

Occasionally.

‘Familia,’ the priest had said to his uncle. ‘Everyone knows that the Contis look after their own.’

The Contis ruled the valley to the west and the Di Savos held the east.

Loyalty to their own was paramount, the priest told him.

And so, after a stern talk from the priest, Bastiano’s zio and his reluctant wife had taken the little bastard to their house but it had never, for Bastiano, been a home.

Always Bastiano had been considered an outsider. If something had gone wrong, then he’d been the first to be blamed and the last to be forgiven.

If there had been four brioches for lunch, they had not been split to make five.