AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Blindly she reached for the handset built into the wall beside her and listened to the voice on the other end.
‘Yes... Absolutely... We look forward to seeing you soon.’
She placed the handset into the cradle on the wall and looked up to find Alessandro staring studiously out of the window.
‘Sofia Obeid is on her way.’
He nodded without sparing her a glance.
Get your damn head on straight, right now, or you’re going to lose everything you and Gianni have worked so damned hard for.
Amelia instructed the private staff to provide refreshments and drinks in the shaded courtyard in the villa’s garden. Covered by a pergola dripping with extravagant fuchsia blossom and rich green leaves, the courtyard edged a pool that reflected the mountains in the distance. It should have been peaceful, serene even, but Alessandro was on edge—a feeling he disliked intensely. Inviting Sofia Obeid into the villa felt personal, invasive. Again, that protective instinct rose in him, surprising in its intensity, wanting to keep this place, and Amelia, to himself. And it shook him to his core.
Presently she was fussing over the table in a way that reminded him of the day she had helped to pitch for Firstview, the day she had tried to sabotage his company. And he was trusting her to save it? This could just as easily be another trap. He pushed the thought away, searching for a calm that was far from natural, but successful nevertheless.
He grounded himself in facts, in the presentation, in the confidence that it was a sterling project that would be more than just a roaring success. In the belief that Obeid would see this and partner with them—even if it was a partnership born from desperation rather than choice.
Amelia looked up as if she’d felt the change in him. Awareness flashed in her golden green gaze, before she looked away. They heard the knock on the door, the villa’s staff greeting their visitor, and Alessandro turned to welcome what would either be their salvation or damnation.
Sofia Obeid was a very attractive woman. Six feet of sheer elegance and beauty did nothing to distract from the lethal intelligence in her sharp gaze. Despite her reputation for being impossible to work with, Alessandro could at least appreciate her exacting standards. And though there had been whispers of impropriety, Amelia had assured and reassured him that she had found not one single ounce of evidence pointing to the truth of it. And given how ruthlessly she had investigated him, Alessandro was almost sure that that was what they were—whispers.
‘Ms Obeid. Thank you for meeting with us. I know that it was both short notice and inconvenient for you.’
Her eyes narrowed momentarily, as if she was surprised that he was so openly acknowledging his need for her visit.
She hates obsequiousness with a passion. Be simple, be honest, be direct, Amelia’s coaching whispered into his mind.
Sofia nodded once, glanced at Amelia, who bowed her head in a way that surprised Alessandro, but seemed to satisfy Sofia.
‘Would you care to sit?’ he asked, gesturing to the table.
‘Thank you,’ Sofia replied in a precise English accent that spoke of her years of private schooling in Britain.
She sat in the middle seat, gesturing for him and Amelia to take the chairs either side of her.
‘Where is the other one?’ she asked when they were all seated at the table.
‘The other—?’
‘TheHotRossi?’
Alessandro just about managed not to choke on the coffee he’d just taken a sip of. The unconcealed disdain of Sofia’s tone making his cousin’s moniker somehow amusing. He was about to come up with a lie, when a warning flashed in Amelia’s gaze. A warning Sofia might or might not have seen.
‘He is in the Caribbean.’
‘You expect me to take this business deal seriously while one half of Rossi Industries suns himself and his ego on a beach, presumably—if reports are true—surrounded by as many women as he can get his hands on?’
‘I do. My cousin might—’ he saw the flash of scepticism in Sofia’s gaze ‘—doeshave a reputation, but he works harder than anyone else I know. He earns his one holiday a year, each and every other day in the office. And as you—and the world—have noted, we are effectively one and the same. If I speak, it is for the both of us, unquestionably. And I promise you, if he could be here, he would. It is not a reflection on how much we value your time and input here.’
Sofia looked between Alessandro and Amelia, and it was only because a part of him was trained almost exclusively on Amelia at all times that he noticed an imperceptible nod from Amelia that seemed to give Sofia some kind of reassurance.
Warning bells sounded in his mind, loud and impossible to ignore. Something was going on. He didn’t know what yet, and he couldn’t work out why, but he didn’t like it at all. So while he gave Sofia the pitch he knew by heart, his mind tried to calculate all possible angles that could be played here. But he kept running up against one.
Amelia. If anyone needed this deal to go ahead as much as he did, it was her. He couldn’t see what was in it for her to sabotage this.
‘What happened to the original partner?’
‘It was discovered that they didn’t have the capability to see the project through,’ he replied, holding Sofia’s enigmatic gaze.
