Page 11 of Hidden Heir, Italian Wife

Did she want it? She had deliberately refused to take it four years ago. She had regretted that impulsive decision when she had realized she was pregnant, but she’d also chosen to have Sofia knowing she’d be a single parent.

They rose and shook hands again. Bree tried to catch her breath in the elevator.

“I hate the idea of you leaving my team, but I can’t think of any good reason for you to turn this down,” Sheila said.

Bree smiled weakly. “Neither can I.”

***

Jackson disliked New York at the best of times. November was not the best of times. It was gloomy and drizzly and cold.

Yet, for some incomprehensible reason, his sister had chosen to host her wedding reception here this month. For some equally incomprehensible reason, she had married Domenico Blackwood in a secret ceremony six weeks ago.

Jax was still furious about that. The Blackwoods had given the Viscontis headaches and heartaches for three generations. He was furious with Nico for selling their sister into an arranged marriage to the devil. He was furious with Eve for going along with it.

He was furious with himself. He felt guilty that she’d resorted to such a thing when the roots of this disaster could be traced back to his own negligence four years ago. If he’d gone to Naples as scheduled, Blackwood never would have got the upper hand against them.

As a turn of the knife, Eve had berated all three of her brothers the last time Jax had been here, accusing them of clinging to bachelorhood instead of making a “strategic alliance” the way she had.

She had apologized to Jax later, but her remark hadn’t been as cheap a shot as she feared. His broken engagement was seven years old. Eight? She had a point, and it was stuck in him like a poison-tipped arrow. He could have and should have married by now.

All of the Visconti children were expected to follow in their parents’ footsteps with advantageous unions. Like his brothers, Jax had been putting off finding a wife, but his foot-dragging was no longer about Paloma and that unpleasant history. It was about his obsession with a woman he had slept with once.

He couldn’t say what agitated him more, knowing that if Blackwood hadn’t demanded his attention in Naples he might have stayed longer with Bree, or knowing that if she hadn’t consumed him that day, he might not have lost that property to Blackwood. That incident wasn’t the whole reason things had deteriorated to the point his sister had been forced to marry Blackwood, but it was definitely a factor.

Jackson owed it to his family—to his sister—to step up with a marriage that bettered their collective position financially and socially,especiallybecause of the anguish he’d caused all of them when his first engagement imploded.

At the time, he had been trying to do the right thing, reporting an assault. His fiancée had sided with the perpetrator—her brother. Jax understood that kind of loyalty, but her rejection of him, and the attacks that had followed, had left a mark on his psyche.

Jackson had not only let down his family with his broken engagement, but had caused them real anguish as Paloma’s family turned their back on his, siding with Blackwoods against them, fueling those fires of animosity.

It had become so ugly, Jax’s father had had to send Jax to Italy to get some peace for the rest of the clan. Jax still carried a heavy weight of thorny responsibility over it.

His guilt and sense of rejection were no reason to dodge his duty, though. It wasn’t as though he was averse to marriage. Growing up one of four children, Jax had always presumed he would marry and have a family of his own. That’s why he had proposed to Paloma while he was still at university. He’d been in love and hadn’t seen any reason to put off starting the life he planned to live.

Love was a very troublesome emotion, though. It clouded judgment and tested loyalty and became delicate and brittle when pressed into the space between right and wrong.

He had been guarding his heart ever since, which was another reason he had pushed marriage and children firmly onto the back burner. His sexual infatuation with a tourist hadn’t helped, otherwise he might have considered one of the women his mother had been throwing at him for the past several years. Everything about settling down had felt like settling.

It was time, though. Time to step up and contribute to the family instead of causing scandal and heartache.

He told his mother to arrange him a date for Eve’s party.

Typically, Jax flew in the day before an event he couldn’t avoid. He landed with enough time to sleep off the worst of the jet lag, ate dinner with his parents, accomplished his purpose, and got the hell out of Dodge.

This trip, however, other appointments had been shoehorned into the schedule.

“Come early for your suit fitting,” his mother insisted. She feared Jax’s younger brother, Christo, would turn up in flip-flops if she didn’t dress him herself.

“While we’re together, we’ll hold strategy meetings with Dom,” Nico said.

After a lifetime of rivalry with WBE, they were moving from competition to alignment between their hotel chains. Eve had been appointed to lead that endeavor, which was an excellent use of her skill set, so Jax was willing to be supportive.

Then there was their father. Romeo wasn’t making any demands on Jackson’s time, but ever since his surgery, he had sounded…tired. There was every chance he would bounce back over time, but Jax had to face the fact his parents were aging.

It added fuel to his decision to marry, to offer his parents peace of mind.

He arrived four full days before Eve’s party. He stayed in his childhood bedroom—one of them, at least. The Manhattan apartment was the family home situated closest to the corporate offices and the primary school they’d all attended before leaving for boarding schools in Europe.

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