Betrayal Read Online Free

eyes from. She didn’t know his mother. She’d never met his mother. As far as she knew, no one had ever met Noah’s mother—except Gavino, of course. Sarah had never doubted Noah was Gavino’s child; he possessed the arrogant Di Luca bone structure as well as the Di Luca allure.
    When Gavino brought Noah home and placed the red-faced, squalling baby in Sarah’s arms, Gavino had nolonger sported his usual bland, uncaring, movie-star charm. He had been angry, embarrassed, and defiant, and he had refused to say how he came by the child—and that was unlike the Gavino she knew, who enjoyed hugely public marriages and affairs with a parade of gorgeous women.
    Yet for all that Sarah wanted to unravel the mystery of Noah’s parentage, to raise the child without interference from his parents was easy. Noah had been the golden child, raised in Nonna’s home, a loving, happy, laughing boy. She and her beloved Anthony had been his parents, and she loved Noah so much, her second-chance child, the one she hoped to raise to be a good man.
    She had never expressed her hopes to him; looking back, she was sure she had never burdened him with her expectations.
    But ten years ago, after Noah graduated from high school, he’d taken a year off to travel the world, and when he came home… she no longer recognized him as the boy she had known. Something dreadful had happened, and no matter how carefully she questioned, he refused to talk. He shrugged and smiled and told her he was fine, and went to college, and excelled in his studies.
    Of course, Rafe and Eli were oblivious.
    They were such guys , Noah’s older siblings. When Sarah mourned the changes in Noah’s behavior, they patted her shoulder and told her their little brother had become a man. They’d believed it was cool that Noah’s personality had changed, that he’d suddenly become reckless, riding his motorcycle up steep mountain slopes in Colorado, breaking bones in international karate tournaments, handling every kind of firearm with ease… as if his life depended on it.…
    Eli and Rafe had been oblivious, as all men were, to emotions and nuances, and the fact that Noah behaved like someone who feared nothing, not even death… and he could no longer quite meet anyone’s eyes. For a decade, she had feared for her youngest grandson.
    It had taken this crisis to peel back the truth. Not the whole truth, though, merely a single layer of truth. When Sarah’s nurse had been murdered, Noah had said in a burst of ill-considered grief and passion, “I’m right in the middle of this. These people… they’re ruthless, and they are going to find Massimo’s pink diamonds any way they can.”
    Too late, he had reined himself in.
    Now Rafe and Eli, Brooke and Chloë—and Sarah—wanted to know it all. Needed to know it all. They had worked out that there could be priceless stolen diamonds hidden in the family’s oldest, missing bottle of wine, but who were these people he spoke of?
    Yet Noah refused to talk. He shook his head and said he’d take care of it, and nothing they had said had changed his mind.
    Eli and Rafe were furious that they’d been deceived, that their brother knew something he wouldn’t divulge, while if they’d been willing to simply open their eyes, they would have known, as Sarah did, that something horrific had happened ten years ago, something that changed Noah, hurt him, made him afraid.…
    Sarah’s unbidden tears splashed on the dusty white-painted railing.
    She hastily wiped them away.
    How had everything gone so bad so quickly?

Chapter 3
    N oah didn’t need the furious glares of his brothers to know the truth.
    He was the biggest shit in the world.
    Nonna was crying. He’d made Nonna cry.
    And they were going to have to do something about it.
    Noah vaulted onto the porch first, then Rafe; then they both helped Eli heave himself and his casts up and over.
    Nonna watched them, tears welling in her big brown eyes, splashing down her