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‘And you care about the employees.’ Once she would have said as much incredulously, but now there was the lilt of a question in her tone. ‘Because I don’t understand that—your reputation is so ruthless, firing most of the employees of the companies you take over. And yet…’
Alessandro smiled wryly as he raised his eyebrows. ‘And yet?’
‘And yet that didn’t seem to be the case with Dillard’s. Most of the staff were given jobs elsewhere, better jobs by the sounds of it, and the people who were let go had very generous redundancy packages, which has to cut into your profit. But none of that seems to make it into the press.’
‘No,’ he agreed, sounding unbothered by that fact.
‘Why? Don’t you mind being portrayed as some ruthless monster?’
‘No, because I can hardly be a teddy bear if I’m going to take over a company. Having a reputation helps.’
‘But why do you do it?’ Mia pressed. ‘What are you trying to achieve?’ He hesitated for a long moment, and Mia had the sense they were on the cusp of some great and terrible revelation.
‘I do it,’ he finally said, ‘because I cannot abide having weak or corrupt people in leadership, and I will not stand by and allow them to ruin people’s lives.’ He paused. ‘Like my father did.’
Alessandro gazed at Mia, noticing the way her hair, like a golden slide of silk, hid her face, so he couldn’t gauge her expression. He hadn’t meant to make that admission, but now that he had he was glad he had. He could hardly expect Mia to come to trust him if he didn’t share something of his life and past with her…even if doing so made him feel uncomfortably exposed.
‘Your father?’ she repeated softly. ‘How…?’
‘He was the CEO of a company in Rome. My mother was a cleaner in his office.’ He could not keep the old bitterness from twisting his words. ‘It was, as I’m sure you can imagine, a short-lived affair. He made my mother promises he never intended on keeping. And when he found out she was pregnant, he fired her.’
‘Oh, Alessandro.’ His name was a soft cry of distress. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged one shoulder, half regretting having told her that much. It made him feel scraped raw inside, to have these old wounds on display.
‘What did she do?’ Mia asked softly.
‘She had me, and then worked one dead-end job after another trying to make ends meet, which they rarely did. She told me about my father when I was quite small, and I followed his career, saw how he abused his power and privilege, not just with women like my mother, who had nothing, but in all sorts of ways.’ He shifted where he sat, that old determination coursing through him again. ‘I determined then that I would never allow people like that to abuse their power. And I’ve made it part of the mission of my work to take over companies that are showing such signs.’
Mia shook her head slowly. ‘I had no idea…’
‘You’re not meant to. I can’t exactly publicise what I’m doing. Hostile takeovers are just that. Hostile.’
‘Still, to do something noble and never be known for it…’
The warmth in her eyes both discomfited and awed him. He realised he liked having her look at him like that, feel like that. And that was alarming.
‘It’s not as much as you think, Mia. Some people are still out of jobs. I have a reputation for a reason.’ Why he was trying to dissuade her from thinking well of him, he had no idea. Perhaps simply because he wasn’t used to it.
‘Still.’ She pursed her lips as she gazed down at their daughter. ‘I wish I’d known earlier.’
‘Well, now you know.’
Alessandro paused, watching as she cradled Ella in her arms, their daughter feeding happily, one fist reaching absently for Mia’s hair.
‘It occurs to me,’ he said conversationally, ‘that you know more about me than I know about you.’
Mia looked up, eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘What do you want to know about me?’
‘Everything. Anything.’ He realised he was truly curious. ‘But we can start with the basics. Where are you from?’
‘The Lake District.’
‘A beautiful area.’
‘You’ve been?’
He smiled. ‘I’ve heard.’
