Читать книгу The Italian's Rags-To-Riches Wife - Julia James - Страница 7

‘WHAT do you mean, you’re retaining the chairmanship?’

The voice that had spoken was harsh, and clearly angry. But out of respect for the man he had addressed, a man more than twice his age, Allesandro di Vincenzo kept the anger under control.

‘The situation has changed,’ the other man replied sombrely. He was sitting in his leather chair, in the library of his eighteenth-century villa in the depths of the Roman countryside.

Allesandro drew in his breath sharply. His lithe body was clad in a handmade suit from one of Italy’s most stylish and fashionable designers, and his sable feathered hair was superbly cut, setting off a face whose features could have graced an Italian movie star, let alone the chief executive of a major Italian company. He had dark, long-lashed eyes, high cheekbones, a finely cut nose, planed jaw and a sculpted, mobile mouth which, at the moment, was drawn in a taut, forbidding line.

‘But it’s been understood you would step down in my favour—’

‘Only by you, Allesandro,’ the older man retorted. ‘I never gave any legally binding undertaking. You simply assumed that when Stefano died—’ His voice broke off a moment, then he recovered, and continued. ‘And, as I have said, the situation has changed. Changed in a way I could never have envisaged.’

For a moment the sombre look left him, and he shook his head, looking suddenly every one of his seventy years.

‘I could have had no idea—none at all…’ His voice trailed off.

Allesandro’s brows drew together impatiently. His long-fingered hands pushed back his jacket, indenting around his lean hips.

‘What is this, Tomaso? No idea about what?’

The old man looked at him again. He paused a moment before speaking, his voice heavy.

‘Stefano hid it from me completely. I discovered it now, only when I was able to face going through his personal effects. What I found shocked me to the core.’ He paused again, as if collecting himself, then continued, still in the same heavy voice.

‘The letters are over twenty-five years old—why he kept them I do not know. It cannot have been sentimental attachment, for the last of them says that it will be the final letter—that the writer accepts, finally, that Stefano will not reply. But for whatever reason they survived. And the fact that they did—’ his gaze rested unreadably on the younger man again ‘—changes everything.’

Allesandro’s expression was closed.

‘How so?’ he prompted. There was wariness in his voice, and suspicion. The old man was being evasive, and Allesandro was running out of patience. Ever since Tomaso’s forty-five-year-old son, Stefano, doggedly bachelor, had smashed himself up in his power-boat ten months ago, Allesandro had been earmarked to move up from being the energetic and highly successful chief executive of the company founded by his late father and Tomaso Viale to being chairman of Viale-Vincenzo—with full control. He had given Tomaso time to mourn—even though his relations with his son had never been good—and had even accepted Tomaso taking on the temporary role of caretaker chairman after the initial shock of Stefano’s death.

But enough was enough. Tomaso had given Allesandro every reason to expect that he would retire before the end of the financial year and hand full control of the company over to him. Frustration bit at Allesandro. He had places to be, things to do, plans to execute—and having to make the journey here had not been on his agenda. Dio, he could think of a dozen places he’d rather be right now. Starting with the Rome apartment of Delia Dellatore, whose voluptuous charms were currently exclusively reserved solely for his enjoyment.

He threw a covertly assessing look at Tomaso and saw that he had aged since Stefano’s death. Stefano might not have been a satisfactory son—his flamboyant playboy lifestyle had been wild and self-indulgent—but his death had been a devastating shock.

And now it seemed Tomaso had suffered yet another shock—sufficient enough to distract him from the business of the chairmanship of Viale-Vincenzo.

‘How so, Tomaso?’ Allesandro prompted again. Whatever it was that was keeping the chairmanship out of his reach, he wanted it sorted.

Tomaso’s eyes had a strange expression as he looked at Allesandro before speaking.

‘As you know, Stefano refused to marry, preferring his wild lifestyle.’ There was a familiar disapproval in Tomaso’s voice. ‘So I had little hope of the continuation of my line. But those letters I found were from a woman. A young Englishwoman imploring Stefano to come to her, to at least acknowledge her letters. And her reason for writing them…’

He paused again, and Allesandro saw emotion in the lined face.

‘She bore Stefano a child. A daughter. My granddaughter.’ His hands tightened over the cusp of the arms of the leather chair. He looked straight at the younger man.

‘I want you to find her and bring her here to me, Allesandro.’