"I'm not yours!"

"No." He agreed. Standing behind her, he put his arms around her shoulders. "But you will be. Very soon."

With a shuddering breath, she closed her eyes. She wanted so much to lean against him, to let herself go. The heat from his body seemed to come in waves, pulling her like the sea, drawing her to drown in the waves.

As if he knew her weakness, he pulled her back against his muscled chest. "The tray is all that's left of my family's fortune."

"What happened to it?" She breathed, trying to gather strength to pull away.

"Someone ruined us. When I was five, we had English tutors, horses, fine cars. This villa." He looked around the room. "By the time I was twelve, he'd taken everything. And more."

She looked up at him in the mirror. His face was closed off, silhouetted with shadow against the last flickers of purple twilight.

"What else did he take?" She whispered. He abruptly released her.

"It was a long time ago."

His tone was like ice. Obviously the subject was closed. And Mari suddenly felt desperately sorry for him—this man that only minutes before she'd thought an ogre.

She impulsively snatched the silver hairbrush from the tray. "You always know everything, don't you?" She held it up with a forced laugh, trying to lighten his mood. "I lost my favorite hairbrush last week. How did you know I needed this?"

He paused, then looked at her in the mirror. "You didn't lose your hairbrush. My men took it."

"What?"

His strong, tall form was silhouetted in front of the fading light. "I needed your hair to run a DNA test in Rome. I ordered my men to break into your apartment."

A ripple of cold ricocheted through her body, sending ice down her spine. "You—broke into my apartment? You stole my hairbrush?"

He pushed her toward the bed. "Sit down."

"I spent an hour looking for that hairbrush!" Trembling with rage, feeling completely violated. "You sent some seedy bodyguard into my home?"

"Sit down!"

He didn't even raise his voice but her knees weakened of their own accord. She fell onto the bed, despising the power he had over her. Tears sprang to her eyes.

"You shouldn't have done it." Her shoulders shook. "You never should have done it."

"I had to know." He said quietly. "Your grandfather had petitioned to have your declared legally dead. On the first of January, the shares from your trust fund would have reverted to his control."

"So, it's true? I really have a grandfather." She whispered, dazed. "Do I have cousins? Siblings?"

He stared at her for a moment. "I'm sorry. Just your grandfather and he does not deserve to be called your family."

She looked up at him in shock. "He's the one, isn't he? The old man whose death you're waiting for."

He looked away from her.

"Oh my God, what could he possibly have done?" Then she knew, and sucked in her breath. "He's the one who ruined your family?"

"I do not wish to speak of it."

"But he's my grandfather!"

"He's a stranger to you."

"He's my blood!"

"You will stay away from him, Marina." His voice was sharp as steel, cutting through her with the brutality of a sword. "Speak with him once—just once—and our contract will be void."

Meaning no marriage, no thirty million dollars and now that she'd had a taste of the fairy tale, both for herself and Bailey, she found it hard to imagine giving it up.

"You will obey me in this. Nonnegotiable." His eyes narrowed. "Do I have your word?"

She swallowed, then took a deep breath. "All right." She muttered.

But it wasn't all right. It wasn't right at all. How could she turn her back on her own grandfather? How could she just wait for him to die, without getting to know him? Without loving him, and giving him the chance to love her—and Bailey?

The air in the darkened bedroom had grown decidedly chilly. She bit her lip. "But if I really am that baby.."

He folded his arms. "Si."

"Who saved me from that fire after the accident? Who took me to the United States?"

"No one knows." He said coldly. "Connie Wilson was an American tourist staying at my aunt penisone when you disappeared. I heard her say she longed for a child. Perhaps she took you."

She had the sudden feeling that he was keeping something from her. But before she could put her finger on the feeling, she realized what he'd said.

Her mother—a baby thief?

"No! My mother would never—"

She covered her mouth with her hands. How many times had Connie woken her up in the middle of the night—switching schools, jobs and apartments from Evanston to Lincoln to Chicago? Her mother had been a family-practice doctor—Mari had found the M.D. degree buried in her mother's papers—but she'd insisted on taking low-paying, low-profile jobs. Almost as if she was trying to stay invisible. Almost as if for all those years, Connie had been looking over her shoulder, afraid someone would find them and take her child away—

"No." Mari took a deep breath. "You have no proof."

"Not of how you ended up being raised as her daughter. But I do have proof of your identity." Turning on a small light, he took some papers from his desk. He sat next to her on the bed, his hard thigh pressing against her leg.

She looked up at him, holding her breath. His lips curved as if he knew the effect he had on her. He probably did. For a man like John, making women ache with desire came naturally as breathing. He was a playboy, wasn't he? He'd no doubt left a trail of broken hearts around the world, while he himself remained careless and free, always seeking his next pleasure. She envied his cold heart.

"Here" He handed her the papers. "The results of your DNA test. There can be no doubt. You are the long-lost daughter of Narsico and Graziella Giancamo."

Her eyes flickered over the scientific jargon, but she couldn't focus on the words. A teardrop plopped noisily onto the top page. Her mother wasn't her mother. Her mother had stolen her away from her real family.. Memories of Connie's hugs, her comfort after every scraped knee, her cookies after school, her homemade ornaments on the Christmas tree, her laughter and love, all pierced Mari like a betrayal. When she'd lost her mother eleven years ago, she'd thought it was the worst pain she would ever experience in her life. She'd been wrong.

Her mother had known she was dying, but she'd still selfishly kept her secret to the grave. Rather than send Mari back to Italy, to a grandfather who loved her, she'd left her daughter to languish for all those years in foster care, neglected, ignored. Desperate for someone—anyone—to love her.

"She was never my mother." She whispered. "All those years, she said she loved me and she lied to me."

Then she remembered the last night in the hospital before her mother had died. They'd watched a movie about Italy, and her mother had tried desperately to speak. She'd told Mari to go to Italy. She'd told her to go. But she'd died before she could explain why. Mari closed her eyes, remembering everything about the woman she'd loved more than life. "Mom." She whispered.

Holding the damning DNA results against her chest, she leaned back on the bed, holding her knees tightly. She cried, only dimly aware of John beside her on the bed, comforting her body with his own.

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