Free Rescued by the Brooding Tycoon by Lucy Gordon

father’s real name. He chose it for effect.’
    ‘He wanted to be named after a bird?’
    ‘No, he discovered that it has connections with a Roman consul and two princes.’
    ‘You’re kidding me.’
    ‘Do you mean you’ve never heard of Pompeyo Falco?’ Darius demanded with mock surprise. ‘He was a very powerful Roman. The princes were Spanish, and there’s even supposed to be a saint in the background. Not that he’s ever made too much of that one. Nobody could keep a straight face.’
    ‘I guess your father isn’t much like a saint.’
    ‘That’s putting it mildly. He called me Darius because it means “wealthy”. It was his way of signalling what he expected of me.’
    Harriet dropped her face into her hands. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ she said at last. ‘It’s like something out of a mad fantasy.’
    ‘That’s just what it is. I grew up knowing what I had to do to please my father—or else! Luckily, I’d inherited his head for figures, so I was able to live up to at least some of his expectations.’
    ‘Only some?’
    ‘He’s not pleased with me at the moment, losing so much money and letting things crumble under me.’
    ‘But that’s happened to a lot of people.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t have happened to a Falcon. He’s currently considering whether I, or one of my brothers, does him the most credit. At the moment I think I’m bottom of the list.’
    Harriet frowned. ‘I think I read somewhere that your brothers come from different parts of the world,’ she said carefully.
    ‘If you mean that my father spread himself thinly, yes, that’s right. As the business built up he did a lot of travelling, first in England, then abroad. I don’t think he was ever faithful to my mother for five minutes; that’s how, in addition to a full brother, I come to have a half-brother from Russia, one from France, and one from America.
    ‘In the end my mother couldn’t stand it any more and she left, taking my brother Jackson and me with her. But she died after a few years and my father reclaimed us. By that time he had a new wife and a new son. We entered their house as strangers, and that was how we felt for a long time. Jackson coped better, although even he had a tough time with our stepmother.’
    ‘She was furious that we were there at all because that meant that her boy, Marcel, wasn’t the eldest. When she caught my father playing around she left him and went back to France. Marcel turned up a few years ago and, oddly enough, we all get on well. Our father has helped him start up in business in Paris, and I understand he’s a real chip off the old block.’
    ‘More than you?’ she asked shrewdly.
    He hesitated before saying, ‘Who can say?’
    Greatly daring, she ventured to ask, ‘Is that what you want? To be like him?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s all become confused. When I was growing up my one thought was to follow in his footsteps and be a power in the land. People were awed by him, they hurried to please him, and that seemed wonderful to me. But I was immature and, as you grow up, things happen to you—’
    He grew silent. After a while he repeated softly, ‘I simply don’t know.’
    A noise made him look up quickly, smiling as if everything was normal. Nobody, Harriet thought, could guess that the moment of insight had taken him by surprise. Now she felt he was trying to forget it.
    ‘Ah, here’s Kate with the next course,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And not only Kate.’
    Phantom had slipped in and came to curl up near the table.
    ‘Have you had enough?’ Harriet asked, caressing his ears. ‘Has the guest of honour been properly cared for?’
    A soft woof was the reply.
    ‘How did Phantom happen to be with you and the rest of the crew that night?’ Darius asked when they were alone again. ‘I gather you’d been out on a shout. Don’t tell me he comes too?’
    She laughed. ‘No, I left him with my neighbour—’
    ‘To protect him