AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sucked in a deep breath.
“Lucy speaking,” she said answering the phone.
“Hello, my dear,” the other voice on the end of the line was the cheerful voice of Antonio Romero I. “It’s Toni here. Antonio Romero.”
She was relieved it was the elder Romero on the line. She didn’t know if she could possibly handle speaking to anyone else right now. Certainly not his gorgeous, overbearing grandson who was about to make her life a living hell. That much into the future she could see.
“Hi, Mr. Romero.”
“No. Please, call me Toni. I feel like a young man again. It’s Toni.” A hearty chuckle followed on the end of the line.
Toni.
Okay, I’ll call the older Romero Toni from now on. Good. That makes things easier.
Lucy felt as if her heart plummeted to her knees. How could she possibly ruin this happy man’s life? How could she turn around and tell him she wasn’t going to do his high-risk wedding to his young sweetheart? It wasn’t for her or his grandson to decide. He was, after all, a big boy. But then again, she saw Antonio’s point about not wanting any harm to come to his grandfather. She could just see it. The older Romero having a heart attack after being slung from a gigantic human slingshot to the funny tune of Fun Birds and then Romero the third fuming mad and holding her fully responsible for his death.
Lucy blinked her eyes shut and opened them again. She fought hard to stifle a tear.
“Yes, sir. Yes, Toni.”
“Listen, I need to see you right away. It’s very important. How soon do you think you can come over to the house?”
House? Come over to the house? Well, if that isn’t the understatement of the year. Try mansion or palace.
“Um. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”
When Lucy concluded her phone call, she collapsed into her chair and held her head in her hands.
“You okay, Lucy?”
Lucy shook her head. “What have I gotten myself into?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“We need to tighten things up, Antonio,” Mariam told her boss, Antonio Romero III, at his headquarters. “Your expenditure on the Brighter Future project has gone through the roof. I know you want to help our community's younger people but-”
“The matter is closed.” Antonio’s reply was curt. His tone was sharper than he had intended. After all, Mariam had always been his faithful assistant and advisor for as long as he was in business. A friend of his own late father. She had been in the family forever. She was an older woman but charming and had her days. But she was stellar at keeping the family assets in tune with changing times. They’d even survived the great economic meltdown that had adversely affected the real estate market in Toronto many years ago, all thanks to her astute financial planning and management.
“It is for a good cause,” Antonio continued.
“I know it is, sir.” Mariam grew more defensive and formal. “But every little Tom, Dick and Henrietta who comes to your project with a business idea gets your approval for a sizable grant to fund their new business venture and you haven’t even looked at any of their business plans to see if they are solid.”
Antonio leaned back in the leather executive chair behind his oak desk. He gave thought to what Mariam was saying. It was true that during the past year he hadn’t bothered to see if the recipients of his grant program had solid plans but he was extremely preoccupied for some reason. And just this morning he had given more funding to groups of university students who had requested additional sums of money. Why had he done that? Was he displacing emotionally? No. It must have been something else.
Maybe he was tired of the underdogs being kicked and he wanted to overextend himself to give them a good start. Something they would have difficulty securing anywhere else. Or maybe he was simply rebelling against his own grandfather and everything his materialistic family stood for.
Perhaps he secretly wanted to give away every dime he inherited to the underprivileged because he knew it would tick off the gold-digging leaches that sucked the lifeblood from his family. And even though Mariam was a loyal associate and assistant, she was a throwback from his father and grandfather’s time and she seemed to worship money more than people and that irked him more than anything.
