AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded gently. ‘Is he...?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed, unprepared for the rush of emotion that filled him. ‘He’s dead.’ He frowned. ‘Saying that is strange. I haven’t...talked about him in the past tense yet.’ A frown stretched across his handsome face. ‘My father was an incredibly dynamic man—larger than life. I still find myself forgetting that he is gone sometimes.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She speared a small tomato and lifted it to her lips. ‘You must miss him a lot.’
‘Yes.’ He reclined in his chair, taking in the view, his expression unknowingly sombre. ‘When your brother set out to destroy Herrera Incorporated, it was very hard on my father. He’d spent his life building the company up, making it bigger and better than it had been under his father, and to have that in jeopardy—’ He turned back to face her and for a moment he recalled she was a diSalvo, and he remembered all the reasons he had for keeping her at a distance.
But then she sighed, a soft, small noise,
and she was so sympathetic that he couldn’t throw her in the same box as her brother and father. She was different—lacking the killer instincts that had brought his father to his knees.
‘I imagine that must have been very difficult for you.’
‘Yes,’ he drawled, and at her look of pain he grimaced, making an effort to soften his expression. ‘The markets were weak and confidence was low. His investors deserted him—he was left with barely anything.’
‘But you rebuilt it,’ she said.
His nod was short.
‘That must have taken an incredible amount of work.’
He shrugged laconically. ‘It’s what I’m good at.’
Her smile was just a shiver across her lips. ‘I can see that.’
‘I needed him to know that Herrera Incorporated was valuable again. It’s more than a business, hermosa. This is a birthright. A legacy. No one wants to leave something worse than when they inherited. But my father...’ he said, breaking off, not quite sure why he felt so free to confide in Amelia when he generally made a point of holding his private matters close to his chest. But she waited patiently, her enormous eyes promising him discretion, encouraging him to finish his sentence. ‘He was a gentleman,’ he went on, smiling as he surrendered to the memory. ‘He believed in honour and decency. He came from a time when a man’s handshake truly was as good as his word—and a word between decent people meant more than a contract. It was naïve, in hindsight, but it’s how he’d always done business. It was easy for your brother to target him.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The despair almost killed him.’
She blanched visibly. ‘You couldn’t do anything to stop it?’
‘Not at the time. My father didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. Their plan was ruthless, meticulous and executed with brilliance. Within the space of a fortnight, he’d lost almost everything.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently, her eyes showing the sincerity of her words. ‘I wish...that hadn’t happened.’
How long had he been waiting for a diSalvo to apologise? A long time. But not this diSalvo—and not now. It was too late for apologies, too late for forgiveness. The die had been cast long ago: his hatred and need for vengeance had been forged in fire. No words could weaken those feelings.
‘It is part of our history now,’ he said, sipping his drink, his eyes holding hers.
‘But not our future,’ she ventured, her look one of hope.
He stayed silent—how could their future be anything but?
‘When did he die?’ she asked, turning the conversation away from their blood feud when he didn’t respond. And he was relieved by that—another out-of-character feeling, for Antonio Herrera never shied away from a conflict.
‘Not long ago.’
A frown flickered across her face. ‘When?’
‘Four months,’ he said.
Her frown deepened. ‘That’s right before we met?’
‘A month before,’ he agreed.
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘Why would I?’ he prompted, as though it didn’t matter. As though his father’s death hadn’t invigorated his passionate need for revenge. As though it hadn’t scored through his flesh like acid with new resentments, fresh pains.
‘Because,’ she responded with exasperation, ‘we talked about stuff and because it feels like something your wife should know,’ she said simply. And then, less simply, infinitely more pleasurably, ‘Because I want to know stuff like that. Because maybe I could help you. Maybe talking is important.’
