Page 11 (1/2)

Prologue

MIA stood poised between two great stone gateposts on top of which stood a riffins perched as if ready to swoop

A fine shiver ran down her taut backbone She had to drag her eyes away fro her nerve Part eagle, part lion, she recognised the two fearsome creatures from the Balfour fa with the family motto Validus, Superbus quod Fidelis…

Powerful, Proud and Loyal…

‘Dio,’ she breathed in a soft shaken whisper, so intirandeur of the stately entrance that the butterflies already playing havoc in her stomach ild

Behind her, the sound of the taxicab that had brought her here fro her alone in the weak February sunlight filtering down through the bare branches of the overhanging trees

It felt strange to think that only one short week ago she had been living her life with her aunt in rural Tuscany, colish family called Balfour, never lorious name

She would still be unaware of it if that coldly distant person as supposed to be her nored her pleas to let her co Tia Giulia decide it was ti to herself for twenty long years

Now here she stood on the very brink ofOscar Balfour Proud head of the house of Balfour Powerful businessman and billionaire Husband to three very different wives and father to seven—seven—beautiful daughters

Eight daughters, Mia adjusted, and it made her tummy flip over

Would a hters want another one?

It was the question she had come all this way to ask him She needed to face Oscar Balfour and take his reaction to her existence square on her vulnerable chin If he refused to acknowledge her, then what had she lost but a little bit more of her heart? The cold rejection of her e chunk of it, so his rejection could not be any more hurtful, could it?

And anyway, there was that chance that he ht be prepared to welcome her

Biting down on her full soft trerasp the handle of her suitcase, then straightened Setting her narrow shoulders inside her soft woven jacket she tipped the case onto its wheels Her heart was going pitter-patter, she noticed, feeling a tightening across her chest that made it almost impossible for her to breathe As she stepped out and placed her weight on her leading foot, tiny pinpricks of tension tingled up her leg to her spine For a second she felt slightly dizzy For a second she had to close her eyes

When she opened the stretch of driveway lined either side by an avenue of old trees She could not see the house from here because of a dip in the land ahead, but she kneas out there defending its privacy in its own secluded valley, because it had said so on the Balfour website

Now all she had to do alk between those two lines of trees towards it, she told herself, aware as shethat her insides were truly quailing with dread at what she was doing, and yet also aware of a quivering, tu sense of excitement that danced like fire in her blood