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Amelia nodded. ‘You and Gianni have never tried to hide your beginnings. And even if you had, Issy would have found it.’
‘I’m beginning to think we might have employed the wrong Seymore,’ he said, genuinely impressed by the accurate and detailed research Isabelle Seymore had seemed to gather. He was momentarily distracted by the slight curve of Amelia’s lip, her pride in her sister something he respected and understood.
‘No, we’re not ashamed of our humble beginnings, but we don’t like to think on it much. It wasn’t a nice place to grow up for either Gianni or myself. We certainly don’t talk about it.’
‘Then why are you talking about it now?’
‘Because you need to understand where I’m coming from as much as I needed to understand you.’
She nodded, slowly, that connection again becoming stronger between them.
‘Vizzini Vineyards produces a really quite disappointing Sangiovese. My father and his brother have neither the patience nor the interest to produce anything but. The ground is hard and barely fertile, and my father and uncle too stubborn, too mean and too lazy to do anything about it.
‘But every day they go out there and ravage the land and vines as if they might actually one day produce something that would be half decent and make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
‘It will never happen,’ Alessandro stated adamantly. ‘But that didn’t stop them from forcing Gianni and me to work ourselves to the bone.’ He huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘You want to know why we’re so successful? Yes, we’re hungry for it, yes, we’re determined, but what puts us above everyone else? We were born breaking ourselves; it’s in our blood, not by nature, but by nurture. Our only saving grace was ournonna. She was the only person that could still the hand of my father and his brother. She was devastated by her sons’ abuse and helped us as much as she could, protecting our mothers and us. It is why we chose her maiden name as our surname.’
His eyes softened, making him look so utterly different from the man that ruled boardrooms with an unquestionable authority and conviction, that seared ineptitude away with a single look. This was a youth who had loved and hurt, who was soft and warm. Gianni and Alessandro could have easily each taken their own mother’s maiden name. But they had chosen someone who had loved and tried to protect them, they had chosen something that bonded them together as a family, perhaps even closer than brothers, despite only being cousins.
But then his face darkened, as if a cloud had covered the sun.
‘She passed when Gianni and I were eight years old.’
His loss was so palpable that Amelia wanted to reach for him, but he had waded too far into the waters of his memories.
‘After that, there was nothing holding my father and uncle back. They treated us little better than slaves, working the fields and the machinery during the day, and being their punching bags at night.’
‘What about your mother? Gianni’s mother?’ she asked, unconsciously echoing his earlier question to her.
Alessandro looked away. ‘Mine was unable to help,’ he said, the simple words concealing so, so very much. ‘And Gianni’s story is his own.’ He shook off her question and turned back to the table.
‘My father used to say, “The Vizzini name is all that matters.” He was obsessed with it. Every single day, he would say, “It will live on for generations to come.” And I promised him, the day that I left, that the Vizzini name, the blood in his veins...it would end with me. It is—was—the only vengeance I could take against him.’
He said it looking deep into her eyes, opening himself to her so that she would understand, that she would know the truth—the depth of his promise. And she did. She knew the power of such a promise. Her heart ached for the boy he had been but it also ached for the child they had made together and the future that she had barely hoped for that was beginning to disappear like sand on the wind.
‘But now that promise doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed. Eyes that had been so expressive moments before, so free with their emotions, shuttered, the barrier falling between them with shocking speed and ferocity. ‘The child will never even hear of the Vizzini name if I have my way.’ There was a determination that she had never seen from Alessandro darkening his words to a level that sounded almost threatening, but not. Amelia realised that it was more like an oath or a promise.
‘I need you to hear this and know this.’ He pinned her with a steady gaze that she couldn’t look away from. ‘Our child will not want for anything.EverythingI have is theirs. I don’t know what the future holds for us, but no matter what—our child will be protected from anything it is in my power to protect them from.’
Amelia’s heart pounded in her chest. The vehemence in his words, his promise, wrapped tightly around her, but rather than suffocating, it was comforting. A fear that she hadn’t realised she’d had eased. Yes, she’d known that she could find a way to provide for herself and her child alone if she’d needed to. Issy would have helped without question. But Issy—bright, beautiful Issy—deserved more, she deserved not to be held back by family vendettas or obligations.
But what did his promise mean for her? Did he want to raise their child together? Did he want more? The thought of sharing a family with Alessandro, of sharing that responsibility, of working together to care for their child without fighting, bickering or mistrust... That was something that lived in a fantasy tied deeply to one night in Hong Kong that she couldn’t yet bring herself to name.
She knew Alessandro was still angry, and he clearly didn’t trust her, both of which he had a right to. But Alessandro was also a man who loved his grandmother, who was loyal to his cousin beyond all else. She knew and appreciated the tenets he lived by. She knewhim. He was a good man.
That was why she’d been forced to lie to Issy, who would never have embarked on their plan unless Amelia had promised her proof of that corruption. Because Amelia had known, even then, that there was no proof. That this strong, powerful, proud and determined Italian would never have done such a thing. So she had launched them into their vendetta in a bid to be free of a man she was hopelessly and irrevocably falling for. She bit her teeth together to force back her feelings again.
Because wanting a man who would protect her the way he had promised to protect their child—the way no one had ever promised to protecther—was a hope too far. Willing back the wet heat pressing against her eyes, she could at least hope for something smaller. If she could help him save the Aurora deal, she could hope for a place to start at least.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ASTHEPLANEbanked into a hard turn, steeply angling the private jet, Alessandro felt his stomach drop. He looked across the cabin to where Amelia accepted a glass of orange juice from the air steward with a smile that did things to him. He’d checked with Dr Moretti three times that it was safe for Amelia to fly at this stage of her pregnancy. The concern he felt for her, thepossessiveness, had shocked him. For years he’d been determined to ensure that his father’s blood ended with him.
But now? Now that Amelia was carrying his child, when his mind wandered it went to a place where there was a dark-haired child wrapped safely in their mother’s arms, where there was an uncle who looked like Gianni who would spoil that child rotten, where there was a bond between him and a woman he had never imagined for himself that looked very much like Amelia Seymore.
But when he opened his eyes, there was a company he needed to save from damage done by that very same woman. He had meant what he said to Amelia the day before. That he would give their child whatever they needed, but...
I want a chance.
