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Remembering her sister’s stunned, tearful call, she felt another stab of guilt. Claudia was her priority. She would do whatever her sister wanted—help in any way she needed. Then she would face her father.
But first...
Her fingers tightened around the phone in her hand—Vicè’s phone.
She found what she was looking for easily—an email from the family lawyer, Vito Neglia, to Ciro and Vicenzu, plus further emails between Alessandro and Neglia.
She scrolled down the screen, her eyes following the lines of text.
It made difficult reading.
Alessandro Trapani had been unlucky—machinery had broken and mistakes had been made. He had taken out a loan with the bank and then his troubles had begun to escalate. There had been accidents at work, then more problems with machinery, and he had started to struggle to meet the repayments.
Her heart jolted as her father’s name leapt out from the screen. But she had been right, she thought with a rush of relief. Cesare had offered cash for the business with the proviso that the sale would include the family estate. She took a steadying breath. It was just as her father had told her. Papà had only been trying to help.
She glanced back down at the screen and some of her relief began to ooze away.
Alessandro had refused her father’s offer. But then he hadn’t been able to pay one of his suppliers—and, with the bank putting increasing pressure on him over the repayments, he’d gone back to Cesare.
This time her father had offered twenty percent less.
With no other options left, Alessandro had had no choice but to accept.
But that was just business, she told herself, trying to push back against the leaden feeling in her stomach. Probably if the circumstances had been reversed Alessandro would have done exactly the same.
Clearly Neglia didn’t agree with her.
He had done some digging around and, although he had found no direct link to her father, there was clearly no doubt in the lawyer’s mind that Trapani employees had been bribed to sabotage the machinery.
And her father had been behind it.
Imma’s throat worked as she struggled to swallow her shock. She felt sick on the inside. Her skin was cold and clammy and her head was spinning.
She didn’t want it to be true.
But the facts were stark and unforgiving.
Cesare had used bribery and intimidation to ruin a man’s business and steal it away from him. The fact that he had also demanded Alessandro’s home made her heart break into pieces.
Hot tears stung the back of her eyes. No wonder Ciro and Vicè hated him. But, whatever her father had done, it didn’t give them the right to punish her and Claudia, and she hated both of them for that.
Only despite everything she had read, she couldn’t bring herself to hate her father. It wasn’t an excuse, but she knew he would have done it for her and for Claudia.
Cesare was not stupid. He’d heard the rumours about his ‘friends’ and his shady dealings. And she knew that he wanted something different for his daughters. That was why they had been educated at the convent. That was why they’d been raised like princesses in a tower.
And that was why he had used every trick in the book to acquire a ‘clean’ business and a beautiful family estate—as gifts for his beloved girls.
The world suddenly felt very fragile.
She forced air into her lungs, tried to focus.
She couldn’t hate her father, but she couldn’t face moving back home either. She needed space, and time to think about all of this—about her part in it and her future.
Her future.
She sank down in one of the chairs, wrapping her arms around her stomach. She felt incredibly, brutally tired. Tired of not knowing who she was or what she wanted.
Her heart pounded. She had thought she wanted Vicè—that he had wanted her. She had been wrong about that too. And yet on one level she didn’t regret what had happened. Having sex with him had unlocked a part of herself she hadn’t known existed.
