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He walked silently out of the room without a backwards glance.
CHAPTER ONE
Four years later
‘MARRY you!’ Claudia Hazelton gasped, too startled to mask her appalled reaction to the shocking proposal she’d just received. She set her cup down on her saucer with a clatter. ‘You’re not really asking me to marry you, are you?’
She was suddenly shaking like a leaf and her heart was pounding horribly, but she held her head high and forced herself to look straight across the beautifully laid table at the Ritz Hotel, into the face of the fifty-year-old man who had just proposed to her.
His name was Primo Vasile. He was her stepmother’s cousin and her father’s business partner. But, despite her family’s connection to him, he had always made her skin crawl. There was no way in a million years she would ever consider marrying him.
‘I’m not asking you,’ Vasile said quietly, a nauseatingly smug expression on his smooth Italian face, ‘I’m telling you. Or would you rather see your father face a criminal investigation and then go to prison for embezzlement of the company pension fund—if he even lives that long?’
Claudia stared at him in shock, horrified disbelief leaving her speechless for a moment. Surely Vasile could not really be saying that her father had stolen money from their joint business and that he expected Claudia to marry him, as a way of repaying that debt?
Suddenly, a painful image of her father lying critically ill in hospital flashed through her mind, pushing all other thoughts aside for a moment and making her throat constrict with grief. He was so frail and was already suffering terribly. She couldn’t bear to think of him facing a criminal investigation or—even worse—prison.
But why was Vasile threatening that? She’d never liked him. But she couldn’t believe he was actually trying to blackmail her into marriage.
‘I don’t understand why you are saying these awful things,’ Claudia said. Her golden brown eyes were wide with confusion as she looked at him. ‘Why would you want to hurt my father?’
‘I don’t want to hurt him,’ Vasile said. ‘But, if you don’t accept my proposal, I may be forced to. He took a great deal of money, which needs to be repaid.’
‘I can’t believe my father would do something like that.’ Claudia pushed her hair back from her stark white face with a jerky gesture and turned in appeal to her stepmother, who was sitting with them at the table.
They’d never been close. Francesca was not the type to let motherly responsibilities get in the way of her extravagant and self-indulgent lifestyle. But she must know the truth about the money—and surely even she wouldn’t condone what her cousin was doing.
‘I’m afraid it’s true, darling. Marrying Primo is the only way to get us all out of this terrible mess,’ Francesca said. ‘When you are married, you will get access to your trust fund. We need that money to pay back what your father took from the company pension fund.’
Claudia bit her lip, trying to take in what they’d told her. The family business really must be in terrible trouble for things to have got this bad—bad enough for blackmail.
‘There has to be another way,’ Claudia said. ‘I can help repay the debt.’
‘Foolish girl!’ Vasile scoffed. ‘Apart from your trust fund—how could you ever raise the money needed?’
‘I’ll sell my flat and my car,’ she replied. ‘And maybe I could get a bank loan. I’ll do whatever it takes—work as hard as I can to pay off the debt.’
‘Don’t be so naive!’ The contempt in Vasile’s voice clawed viciously across her nerves. ‘We’re talking about the pension fund here. Even I can’t raise the amount of money needed. Hundreds of workers have paid contributions into that fund for years—and, if the money isn’t replaced, they’ll all lose their pensions.’
‘How long will it be until the money is missed?’ Claudia asked. She felt sick at the thought of all those loyal employees losing the income they were counting on for their retirement. She was sure her father could never have intended that innocent people should suffer—they had to find a way to put things right. ‘What did my father do with the money? Surely we can get at least some of it back.’
‘It’s gone,’ Francesca said. ‘You must understand, darling—this really is the only way. You must marry Primo.’
‘If we are not married by Christmas,’ Vasile said, ‘I’ll be forced to go to the police.’
‘Christmas!’ Claudia gasped. ‘It’s already mid-December. Why does it have to be so sudden? Why would you want to go to the police so quickly—surely you have some loyalty to my father after all this time?’
‘Embezzlement is a serious crime,’ Vasile said. ‘If I’m not careful I’ll be implicated too. I won’t sacrifice myself to save your father.’
‘You mean you’ll have nothing left if my father’s business goes under,’ Claudia said. ‘You’re just trying to save your own skin.’
‘It wouldn’t be necessary if your father hadn’t stolen the money,’ Vasile sneered.
‘I just can’t believe my father could do such a thing,’ Claudia repeated. She lifted her hands to cover her face for a second and let her long hair fall forward over her eyes. She closed them momentarily—still trying to come to terms with the fact that her father might have taken money that wasn’t his.
‘It’s a bitter pill to swallow.’ Vasile’s heavily accented voice jarred intrusively in her ears, dripping with self-satisfaction. ‘Your precious father is not so perfect after all.’
‘I want to see proof. See the figures for myself,’ Claudia said resolutely. It was unbearable that Primo Vasile was gloating over her father’s mistake.
