Identity: …………..People aren’t always who you believe them to be (Miss Taken Identity Series Book 2) Read online

  IDENTITY

  Miss Taken

  book two

  CLEO SCORNAVACCA

  The Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Sal & NikkiAnn

  Thanks for putting up with me and all of my craziness. The nights when dinner was burned, because I was in the middle of an important scene. Eating chicken fingers almost on an everyday basis, because it was easier. I will admit, you know I’m always on the quest for the best chicken fingers.

  I love you, both, so so much.

  xoxo

  ****

  Copyright©2014 by Cleo Scornavacca. Published by Cleo Scornavacca

  In accordance with the United States Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, incidents, and circumstances are either used in a fictitious manner or are the subjects of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events is purely a coincidence.

  Edited by Jessica Adkins-Charles

  Bottles & Books Author Services

  Edited by Nikki Ann Scornavacca

  Cover Design by Stephanie White

  Steph’s Cover Design

  Formatted by Angela McLaurin

  Fictional Formats

  Proofread by Charmaine Butler

  Beta-Readers: Liz Aguilar

  Lindsay Thibodaux

  Carol L. Wahl-Allen

  Robin Dion

  Erin Knaus

  Teri-Lynn Jeavons

  ****

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ****

  THE PROLOGUE

  DOMINICK’S WORDS

  Rain walked out on me. Fuck. Who could blame her? I deserved it. I wanted Rain to know what she had overheard me say when I spoke to Martin, my lawyer. Yet, what I didn’t want was her to find out like that. It was rotten timing and poor judgment on my part.

  I wanted her to see that her father, Victor, created that so-called safe world she lived in and kept her there for far too long. Victor was the cause of all of this shit. He allowed Rain’s mother to keep her locked away. He basically encouraged it by doing nothing about Mrs. Medici’s actions towards Rain over the years. He was also the bastard that stole my birthright.

  I couldn’t allow him to win. I wouldn’t allow him to win. I loved Rain. I could protect her and take care of her better than anyone in her life, including Conte.

  If Tommy Conte truly loved her like he professed he did, then why wasn’t he with her? Why hadn’t they become a couple? Why didn’t she allow him in her bed? I knew why. It was because Rain wanted more. Rain wanted to break free from her past and she wasn’t home free yet. I will say she cared for Tommy, but she knew somewhere in that beautiful head of her’s that she would never truly be free if she were to have a relationship with him.

  How could she be? Her family was around her constantly. The would even let her breathe without advice from them. She was comfortable, it was easy, familiar, but Rain wasn’t living. I could make her more than even comfortable. She came alive when she was with me. Who was I kidding? I came alive when I was with her. I thought that I had been living too, but when I first saw Rain and the way she was, even after all that she had been through; I knew I hadn’t really begun to live. I walked through life doing the same mundane things we all do, day after day. I went to college, became a lawyer. I built a law firm to be proud of, but I wasn’t really alive. I was dead inside. I was just existing.

  Rain made me love life every moment I was with her. She made me happy, sad, pissed off and totally aroused. My cock had a constant hard-on when she was near me. Even when she wasn’t around, I was constantly thinking about how much I wanted her. How much I craved to control her in my bed and make her scream my name, when I made her come.

  Fuck. I was hard now.

  Only now, I lost had her. How do I fix this? How do I make the one woman who finally understood me, love me back, again? Even if I did get her back, how would I approach the subject of the truth with her? The truth about the kidnapping and about what really happened and why.

  Once I told her, she may leave again. Only this time, I knew it would definitely be for good.

  ****

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE LONG RIDE HOME

  I sat silently in the passenger seat of Tommy’s car as we headed over the bridge to leave Long Beach Island and Dominick behind. I stared out at Barnegat Bay as the sun started to go down and I thought to myself how beautiful the shore looked. Even in the dead of winter, the sky was bursting with brilliant orange and salmon colored hues. The blue from the daytime hours slowly faded away and soon the sun would retire and give way to the moon. It was eerily peaceful. All I could here was the low hum of the car engine. It was rhythmic and somewhat hypnotic.

  I felt completely broken inside. Broken…. I let a small weakened laugh. I’ve always been broken. I guess I just never wanted to admit it. I’ve always looked for something, someone; who could make me happy. I really believed that I found that in Dominick. He seemed to understand me so easily. I guess I was wrong, though.

  I placed my face on the passenger door window. The surface of the glass cooled my forehead and began to wash away the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, but only for a brief moment. The numbness instantly returned. The pain had set in and played tug of war with my heart. It physically hurt.

  I couldn’t believe any of this shit was really happening. When I woke up this morning and read the pregnancy test, all I wanted to do was get to Dominick. I wanted him to hold me and look deep into my eyes, like he always did. He constantly reminded me that I was the only one that mattered in his world. I wanted him to lean in, give me his sly signature scowl and kiss me hard, like only he could. Then I would tell him that he was going to be a father. Would I be sure of the outcome? Would I like his response to my announcement? I wasn’t sure about anything right now. What I did know beyond a shadow of a doubt was that I had never thought that Dominick would have lied to me for the entire time we were together. I would have staked my life on it.

  Dominick would never view what he did as a lie. He would,
in his own twisted way, view it as protecting me, loving me. He saw us as the same. He said it himself. Both of us were isolated from life during our formative years. His isolation, although different from mine, still affected him to this day. He blamed his father for not being there when he was young and not participating in his childhood. I can’t fault Dominick for that. Mr. Kane admitted that he didn’t spend time with his son. He revealed this to me in the letter he wrote to me before he died. It was also true that Elise Kane was the one who manipulated Dominick into believing that Vincent was the bad guy. She was just as much to blame for this mess as Mr. Kane. She was even more to blame as far as I was concerned. She made Mr. Kane believe she was pregnant and developed a well thought out plan to appear as if she was carrying a child and then conveniently she went into labor while away from home and away from Mr. Kane.

  In reality she wasn’t carrying a child at all. She adopted Dominick somewhere in Europe for her own selfish needs. More than likely to get her claws deeper into Mr. Kane’s pockets and when that didn’t work, she turned her son against the only father he ever knew as his own. A father that truly loved him and would have supported him, if given the chance. He would have spent time with him, but that never happened. She ruined it. She ruined everything. Dominick was damaged because of her actions.

  Dominick saw my childhood to be similar to his. Our trip to Capri made him see on some small level, what I had dealt with for my entire life. What he didn’t see or chose to ignore, was that both of my parents loved me. My dad wasn’t the bad guy. He did what my mom wanted him to do. He worked tirelessly to give her the control she needed over my illness and ultimately over me. I may have gotten angry with my parents and even resented being sick at times when I was young, but I was always loved and cared for. They never let me forget that. Was my life easy? No, but it wasn’t horrible either. Yet, in Dominick’s eyes he felt differently. He seemed to think I was the isolated princess in the tower. That the prince needed to save.

  What he thought, though he never expressed it verbally to me during our relationship, but all of the signs were there, was that he felt I connected with him, because of our pasts. Because I understood about isolation and loneliness. What he didn’t get to see were the good times that I had- had with my parents. A family’s love was an emotion Dominick had never been exposed to. He told me that I was the only one, other than Anna and Joseph, who truly loved him. Was that even possible now? Could I still continue to love him? The question which may be closer to the truth was will I be able to stop myself from loving him?

  As crazy as our relationship was in the beginning, with the kidnapping, the deal we made between each other to get his father Vincent’s share of Kane & Medici back, so it could be turned over to Dominick; the fights, the making up and all of the bullshit in between, I never saw this coming. I kept going back to that. I kept replaying the sight of him on the phone repeatedly in my head. To hear him tell his lawyer that he was going to essentially bury my dad, showed me that he was more determined than ever to ruin him.

  He stood there in his power suit, staring out at the Atlantic ocean. He had his cell phone pressed against his ear and his other hand in his pocket, impatiently jiggling his keys. He was yelling. He wouldn’t listen to his lawyer, who was trying to reason with him.

  It was futile. His lawyer wasn’t going to be able to change Dominick’s mind, no one could. He never gave up on his original plan to hurt my family. He was just going to keep me for the prize, the added bonus. The woman he was supposed to love. Maybe it wasn’t love, but a conquest, a trophy.

  When I look back at Dominick’s personality, this was how Dominick loved. He possessed it, took ownership of it and always controlled it. He never saw what was right in front of him, though. I really loved him and all he had to do was love me back. It was that simple, but Dominick didn’t do simple. Dominick did complicated.

  If he knew that I was the one who could give him what he wanted, maybe he would have stopped this ridiculous vendetta. I don’t know. He blames my dad for what happened to me, more so than he blames my dad for taking his father’s share of the company at this point. Dominick was not a man that listened to reason. He set a goal, placed his entire focus on it and tried to win at any cost. This time that may have cost him everything. I hope he’s satisfied.

  I didn’t want to think about him right now. I didn’t want to talk to him. It was too soon. I just wanted to go home and curl up on my living room couch and not think. Then maybe my world would stop spinning. I was overwhelmed, partly because of Dominick, but mainly because I was pregnant. I was pregnant. This was one subject I couldn’t keep from Dominick forever. Let’s face it, it would become visibly apparent soon enough. I just needed some more time. Time to rest and to collect my thoughts. I had to be strong enough to face him and deliver the news of our unborn child, among other things.

  I turned my body away from the window and settled back in my seat for the long ride home. I knew Tommy wanted to talk, but he was uncomfortably quiet. He was driving silently up the highway not pushing me, giving me time. I knew he was angry. I saw it in his body language. He was leaning against the driver’s side door with his left arm bent and his hand over his mouth. He harshly rubbed his already tense jaw. His right arm was stretched out straight as he gripped the steering wheel in a stiff and forceful manner. His focus of the road appeared intense, but I knew he was thinking about what had just transpired and the surprise news of my pregnancy.

  Tommy had always been there for me, but this was way too much for even him to deal with. I knew he would want to fix everything and make the situation perfect for me once more, but this was the one time where he couldn’t. Not that I would have allowed him to anyway. He had to live his own life. He was taking Maggie, my father’s assistant at the firm, to my photography show in February. He finally started to take a chance on dating someone and not just getting laid. I won’t let my fucked up life ruin this for him. My life and my friendship had always been an intrusion for Tommy, even though he would never say that. I needed to think of a way to not let my problems with Dominick and my pregnancy hurt my best friend any further. Tommy on the other hand had a different idea.

  “Baby?”His voice was so low and soft.“Talk to me. This silence between us is killing me. Let me know you’re with me.”

  I took a deep, shaky breath and sighed.

  “I’m with you, Tommy. I’m just tired. That’s all.”My voice started to crack.

  “No Rain, you’re not tired. You’re pregnant and you’re done. You’re done with that sick fuck. After what just went down back there, I’m going to handle this from now on.”Tommy’s statement was a demand, not request.

  I couldn’t blame his reaction to all of this in the least. He lived through the circus sideshow, which was my life, from the very beginning. He kept all of my secrets and never called my dad, when Dominick was holding me captive. Now, I knew he was blaming himself for that. It wasn’t his fault, so I needed to hear him out, but I was probably not going to like this one bit and I definitely wasn’t going to allow him to take over, no matter what he thought.

  “I’m going to be the one to take care of you and the baby now. That twisted fuck isn’t going to cause you or your baby anymore problems. Enough is enough, Rain.”Tommy’s anger was palpable.

  “Tommy, I love you, you know that, but this situation is not your job to take care of. It’s not anyone’s job,but mine.”

  “Wrong! I know you, Rain, maybe better than you know yourself. You’ll say that you’ll stay away from him and you will for a little while, but something will always draw you back into his nightmare. Not this time. You have a baby to consider now.”

  Tommy decided to take control of my situation without even asking my opinion. I didn’t like that, not even coming from him. I wouldn’t allow Tommy to control me either. I needed to tread carefully here. I didn’t want tension between us, but this was my life. I had to do what I felt was right.

  “What do you
expect me to do, Tommy? This is his baby. He has the right to be a father to him or to her. I need to give him that chance. He didn’t have a father growing up and he barely had a mother from what I can tell. I won’t take that from him. Even if he and I can’t be together as a couple. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Give me a fucking break, Rain. This is me you’re talking to. Do you really believe what you’re saying? You’re worried about fair. Fair isn’t even a word in Kane’s vocabulary.”Tommy was mad and even slightly sarcastic.“Right now you’re pissed,but you’ll take him back. You always do. He’ll plead and beg and whine and then he’ll say he really didn’t mean it; that it was wrong to treat you that way and you’ll buy every fucking word of it. Before you know it, the two of you will be a happy couple again. Yet this time, both of you will be bringing a baby into your sick, fucked up relationship.”