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Yet foreboding persisted in prickling his nerve-endings as instinct told him that it wouldn’t be that easy.
* * *
Holly Romano tucked a tendril of blonde hair behind her ear and stared at the impressive exterior of the offices that housed Simpson, Wright and Gallagher, a firm of lawyers renowned for their circumspection, discretion and the size of the fees they charged their often celebrity clientele.
Last chance to bottle it, and her feet threatened to swivel her around and head her straight back to the tube station.
No. There was nothing to be afraid of. Roberto Bianchi had owned Il Boschetto di Sole. The Romano family had been employed by the Bianchis for generations and therefore Roberto had decided to leave Holly something. Hence the letter that had summoned her here to be told details of the bequest.
But it didn’t make sense. Roberto Bianchi had been only a shadowy figure in Holly’s life. In childhood he had seemed all-powerful as the owner of the place her family lived in and loved—a man known to be old-fashioned in his values, strict but fair, and a great believer in tradition. Owner of many vast lands and estates in Lycander, he had had a soft spot for Il Boschetto di Sole—the crown jewel of his possessions.
As an employer he had been hands-off. He had trusted her father completely. And although he’d shown a polite interest in Holly he had never singled her out in any way. Plus she’d had no contact with him in the past eighteen months, since her decision to leave Lycander for a while.
The aftermath of her wedding fiasco had been too much—the humiliation, the looks of either pity or censure, and the nagging knowledge that her father was disappointed. Not because he questioned her decision to cancel the wedding, but because it was his dream to see her happily married, to have the prospect of grandsons and the knowledge Romano traditions and legacies were secured.
There had also been her need to escape Graham. At first he had been contrite, in pursuit of reconciliation, but when she had declined to marry him his justifications had become cruel. Because he had never loved her. And eventually, at their last meeting, he had admitted it.
‘I wooed you because I wanted promotion—wanted an in on the Romanos’ wealth and position. I never loved you. You are so young, so inexperienced. And Bianca...she is all-woman.’
That had been the cruellest cut of all. Because somehow, especially when she had seen Bianca, a tiny bit of Holly hadn’t blamed him. Bianca was not just beautiful, she seemed to radiate desirability, and seeing her had made Holly look back on her nights with Graham and cringe.
Even now, eighteen months later, standing on a London street with the autumn breeze blowing her hair any which way, a flush of humiliation threatened as she recalled what a fool she had made of herself with her expressions of love and devotion, her inept fumbling. And the whole time Graham would have been comparing her to Bianca, laughing his cotton socks off.
Come on, Holly. Focus on the here and now.
And right now she needed to walk through the revolving glass door.
Three minutes later she followed the receptionist into the office of Mr James Simpson. It was akin to stepping into the past. The atmosphere was nigh on Victorian. Heavy tomes lined three of the panelled walls, and a portrait hung above the huge mahogany desk of a jowly, bearded, whiskered man from a bygone era. And yet she noticed that atop the desk there was a sleek state-of-the-art computer that indicated the law firm had at least one foot firmly in the current century.
A pinstripe-suited man rose to greet her: thin, balding, with bright blue eyes that shone with innate shrewd intelligence.
Holly moved forward with a smile, and as she did so her attention snagged on the other occupant of the room—a man who stood by the window, fingers drumming his thigh in a staccato burst that exuded an edge of impatience.
He was not conventionally handsome, in the drop-dead gorgeous sense, although there was certainly nothing wrong with his looks. A shade under six feet tall, he had dark unruly hair with a hint of curl, a lean face, a nose that jutted with intent and intense dark grey eyes under strong brows that pulled together in a frown.
Unlike Holly, he hadn’t deemed the occasion worthy of formal wear and was dressed in faded jeans and a thick blue and green checked shirt over a white T-shirt. His build was lean and lithe, and wh
ilst he wasn’t built like a power house he emitted strength, and an impression that he propelled his way through life fuelled by sheer force of personality.
The man behind the desk cleared his throat and heat tinged her cheeks as she realised she had stopped dead in her tracks to gawp. She further realised that the object of her gawping looked somewhat exasperated. An expression that morphed into something else as he returned her gaze, studied her face with a dawning of... Of what? Awareness? Arrest? Whatever it was, it sent a funny little fizz through her veins. Then his scowl deepened further, and quickly she turned away and resumed her progress towards the desk.
‘Mr Simpson? I’m Holly Romano. Apologies for being a little late.’ No need to explain the reason had been a sheer blue funk.
The lawyer looked at his watch, a courteous smile on his thin lips. ‘Not a problem. I’m sure His Highness will agree.’
His Highness?
As her brain joined the dots and his identity dawned on her ‘His Highness’—contrary to all probability—managed to look even grumpier as he pushed away from the wall.
‘I don’t use the title. Stefan is fine—or if you prefer to maintain formality go with Mr Petrelli.’ A definitive edge tinged his tone and indicated that Stefan Petrelli felt strongly on the matter.
Stefan Petrelli. A wave of sheer animosity surprised her with its intensity as she surveyed the son of Eloise, one-time Crown Princess of Lycander. The very same Eloise whom her father had once loved, with a love that had infused her parents’ marriage with bitterness and doomed it to joylessness.
As a child Holly had heard the name Eloise flung at her father in hatred time after time, until Eloise had haunted her dreams as the wicked witch of the Romano household, her shadowy ghostly presence a third person in her parents’ marriage.
Of course she knew that this was not the fault of Stefan Petrelli, and furthermore Eloise was no longer a threat. The former Princess had died years before. Yet as she looked at him an instinctive visceral hostility still sparked. Her mother’s words, screamed at her father, were still fresh in her head as they echoed down the tunnel of memories.
‘Your precious Eloise with her son—something else she could have given you that I can’t. That is what you want more than anything—a Stefan of your own.’
