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A whiskey cradled in an elegant brown hand, Raffaele sprawled down in an armchair, hoping it wasn’t going to be a long story because he was already beginning to regret the impulse that had brought him.
‘When I was twenty-one I was engaged to Giulia Parisi. Our family businesses were competitors. Both our fathers wanted the marriage to take place but, make no mistake—’ Aldo lifted his bony chin to punctuate the point ‘—I was very much in love with her. The week before the wedding I discovered that she was sleeping with one of her cousins and was not the decent young woman I believed. I was young, hurt... I jilted her at the altar because I wanted to shame her the way she had shamed me.’
‘And?’ Raffaele pressed when the old man seemed to be drifting back into the past.
‘Her father was enraged by my disrespect and he changed his will. The Parisi business could never be bought or otherwise acquired by a Manzini. It could only pass through a marriage between the two families and the birth of a child.’
Raffaele rolled his eyes. ‘A bit short-sighted to say the least—’
‘That business is now one of the biggest technology companies in the world,’ Aldo informed him, having reached his punchline. ‘And if you do what I want you to do it will be yours—’
‘Which company?’ Raffaele prompted, his interest finally engaged as he ran through various names before Aldo nodded confirmation. ‘Seriously? And it could be mine? For the price of a wife and a kid?’ His lean bronzed features snapped taut with distaste. ‘As you guessed, not my style.’
‘Ever since Giulia, it has been my ambition to acquire that company. The question didn’t arise with my son’s generation because the Parisi clan had no daughters to target but by the time my grandson, Tommaso, was of age, there was a daughter called Lucia available.’
‘And my father blew his opportunity,’ Raffaele filled in. ‘He’s already told me that part of the story. You wanted him to marry Lucia but he was already in love with my mother and picked her instead.’
‘Great foresight there,’ Aldo quipped with a curled lip. ‘She only stayed married to him long enough to have you and then dumped him. How many stepfathers did you have?’
Raffaele shrugged. ‘Half a dozen. My father may not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but he was the best of a bad bunch.’
‘You don’t know the whole story,’ Aldo condemned. ‘Not only did Tommaso not marry Lucia, but he also paid for Lucia and her lover to run off to the UK and escape the wrath of her family using my money!’
Raffaele compressed his wide sensual mouth, almost betrayed into laughter by that dire announcement, which still, even after all the years that had passed, seemed to rankle the most with the old man. ‘That was enterprising of him,’ he pronounced stiffly. ‘However, I believe she was already pregnant by her lover and you can hardly have expected my father to still marry her in—’
‘Why not?’ the old man shrilled at him with lancing bitterness. ‘Any child would have met the terms of the will if he’d married Lucia Parisi!’
Raffaele registered that he was not dealing with a reasonable man and was not at all surprised that his father had fled to the UK and a humble lifestyle far removed from his wealthy beginnings. A quiet, gentle man, Tommaso could never have stood up to the force of his domineering grandfather’s personality or his demands. In much the same way, Raffaele’s mother, Julieta, had run over Tommaso like a steamroller. ‘That was unfortunate,’ he said, setting his glass down, resolving to get himself back out of the mansion again without further time wastage.
‘But not half as unfortunate as it would be if you were equally blind to the possibilities of marrying a Parisi.’
‘I’m not prepared to marry anyone,’ Raffaele spelt out with cool finality.
‘This one’s a beauty though, and you wouldn’t have to stay married to her,’
Aldo Manzini pointed out, tossing a file across the desk. ‘Have a look...’
Raffaele had no intention of having a look at some scion of the Parisi clan. The old man was unbalanced and obsessional and Raffaele had had quite sufficient experience of such personalities growing up with his tragically damaged mother. ‘I’m not interested. I need neither the money nor the company,’ he responded smoothly, rising from his chair.
‘Agree to consider it and I will sign over my business empire to you here and now. My lawyer is waiting in the next room,’ Aldo told him. ‘As for the former Lucia Parisi and her family, I already own them lock, stock and barrel.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Lucia married a fool. They’re in debt to their eyeballs and I own their debts. What do you think I intend to do with them?’
‘I couldn’t care less,’ Raffaele countered truthfully while thinking about that offer of Aldo’s business empire. A fading technology company in need of a fresh innovative makeover, the sort of business challenge he most enjoyed. That attracted him, not the money, no, it was the sheer challenge of rebuilding, redesigning, reenergising that kicked his shrewd brain into activity for the first time since he had entered the room. He enjoyed order, structure, after the chaotic nature of his childhood.
‘And if you want to acquire the other company, which will dovetail perfectly with mine, you marry the beauty. I know that nothing less than a beauty would tempt a man of your...shall we say...appetites?’ Aldo savoured, delighted by the reality that he had contrived to freeze Raffaele in his tracks and that the homework he had done on the nature of his great-grandson had paid off.
Like Aldo, Raffaele was a ruthless bastard in business, a tough and demanding employer and bone-deep ambitious. As Aldo had once been, he was a connoisseur of beautiful women. Like Aldo, what excited Raffaele the most was a challenge in the business field. But Raffaele had had too much too soon and too young, too much money, too much success, too many women. He needed something or someone to ground him back in the real world. Inwardly chuckling, Aldo watched Raffaele lifting the file he had, moments earlier, refused to even look at: the honey trap.
Raffaele stared down at the colour photograph. She was tall and she was naturally fair with long silky hair to her waist, flawless porcelain skin and eyes the fresh colour of spring ferns. Her features were...perfect, classical. But beautiful women were two a penny in his world and he would sooner have cut off his right arm than marry anyone and have a child. He flipped past the photo and discovered that she had an IQ higher than his own and Raffaele was twice as clever as most people. Now the thought of an intelligent beauty had considerable appeal to a man long convinced that all truly beautiful women were either mad as hatters like his late mother or insipid and shallow and so in love with their own looks that they had never bothered to work on having anything else to offer the world. Maya Campbell, Lucia Parisi’s daughter, however, would be another experience entirely...
‘I’m handing her to you on a plate. My representatives are already calling in the debts her family owes. You can ride in like a white knight and offer her a rescue package.’
‘To be blunt, I’m not the “white knight” type,’ Raffaele interposed drily. ‘If I go for this, I’ll be straight all the way. I don’t put on an act. I refuse to be anyone other than who I am.’
‘So speaks an immensely privileged young man,’ Aldo commented.
