Yes, he’d had his secrets. He’d been mysterious. But she’d ignored her concerns and followed her heart. “No.”

“But you ran. And worse, you’ve kept my only child, my son, from me. How is that fair?”

She couldn’t answer because already his voice was doing that strange seduction, where he peeled away her rigid control, stripping away her defenses. He’d done it that very first day she’d met him in the hotel lobby in Istanbul. One introduction, one brief conversation, one invitation to dinner and then she lost her head completely. Took leave from her job. Moved into his villa at Lake Como. Imagined she was in love…something Jillian didn’t even believe in. Romantic love was silly and foolish and destructive. Romantic love was for other people, people who didn’t know better. She’d thought she knew better.

But then came Vitt, and there went sanity, reason, self-preservation.

Oh, he was too dangerous for words.

He’d destroy her. And Joe.

But no, she wouldn’t let him have Joe. Wouldn’t let Vitt turn Joe into a man like him.

“He’s not Sicilian, Vittorio. He’s American. And a baby and my son.”

“I’ve indulged you this past year, given you time alone together, but now it’s my turn—”

“No!” Jillian pressed her nails into her palms, barely maintaining control. “You can’t have him, you can’t.”

She swayed on the lip of the cliff, aware that the rain was making the soil a soggy, unstable mess, but she’d never go to Vittorio, nor would she give in to him. Far better to tumble backward into space than let Vittorio have Joe. Because at least Joe was safe with Hannah. Hannah knew if anything happened to Jillian, she was to take Joe to Cynthia, her college roommate in Bellevue, Washington. Cynthia had agreed to be Joe’s guardian should the need arise and Jillian had formal papers drawn, clearing the way for adoption. Because it was Jillian’s fervent wish that Joe be raised by a loving family. A normal family. A family with no ties to organized crime.

A family unlike her own.

A family unlike Vittorio’s.

“Jill, give me your hand now. That ledge could give way any moment.”

“I don’t care. Not if it means I can protect my son.”

“Protect him from whom, cara? Protect him from what?”

The concerned note in his voice drew tears to her eyes and her heart lurched within her chest. It took all of her strength to harden herself against him. He’d fooled her once, but she wouldn’t be fooled again.