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Thomas Seymore had died by their hands as surely as if they’d killed him themselves. The demons sent by Alessandro and Gianni had haunted their father until he had finally drunk himself into an early grave—never recovering from the damage done to his reputation or status. And their mother? She had never been the same. Leaving their friends, their school, their social circle, losing her husband, declaring bankruptcy had broken something in the once vibrant Jane Seymore and no matter what Amelia and Issy had done, their mother had never come back to them.
‘I hope Gianni comes back soon. I hate meetings when it’s just Alessandro.’
‘He’s such a ballbreaker.’
‘At least by the end of this meeting we’ll know which company the project will partner with. The back and forth has been going on for months.’
For the first time that morning, the erratic beat of Amelia’s heart settled because this was it. At the end of this meeting, she would guide Rossi Industries to partner with the wrong company and seal their fate. She would deliver Issy the revenge that Amelia had promised her ten years before and finally,finally, they would be done with this; she would walk away and never look back.
The room went quiet and she looked up to see Alessandro take his seat at the head of the table. When everyone was sitting up, backs straight, silent and waiting, he nodded for Amelia to begin what would be the last deal Rossi Industries ever undertook.
Today was the day.
Alessandro turned a page on the printout Amelia had provided the team. She was articulate and concise—nothing was wasted. Even the image she presented was considered; elegant but subtle, nothing intrusive, almost nothing memorable. He imagined she’d rehearsed the presentation over and over again. He would have, in her position. She stood to the left of the large screen displaying the two companies vying for partnership on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the gentle glow of the screen making her nothing more than a silhouette.
Just as she had been against the gauzy curtain of the hotel room in Hong Kong when he’d reached for the tie holding her wrap dress together and pulled. The dress had sighed open to reveal perfection. The black-lace-underwear-embellished skin that drew his hand like a magnet. The slide of his palm over the smooth planes set off a wave of restlessness that crested over her body, her breasts heaving with each inhalation and when he reached for her, his own body trembled.
‘And this is the problem we have,’ Amelia claimed to the room, bringing him back to the present with a start he managed to disguise by reaching for his coffee, when caffeine was patently the last thing he needed.
He tuned out her words, remembering the first time he’d encountered her. His attention had snagged on her name, linking her to a moment in time that Alessandro refused to dwell on. Her file had revealed an impressive academic record, a notable drive, and enthusiastic references. She had interviewed well and he was sure that she would excel in her role, just like all of RI’s other employees. And it should have ended there. But...
She had ignored him.
And that was unusual. It wasn’t arrogance talking, but experience. Over the years, Alessandro had attracted as much attention as his charming playboy cousin, Gianni. He simply chose not to indulge. Alessandro had no desire to entertain anyone with expectations of amorehe had absolutely no interest in pursuing. Which had earned him the nickname ‘The Monk’. Despite this, it hadn’t escaped Alessandro’s notice that the looks he owed to an impressive combination of genes attracted a certain amount of attention, wanted or not. Yet, Amelia Seymore had treated him with the same cool impartiality as she did every other colleague in the building. It might not have made her close friends with her colleagues, but her talent and efficiency were undeniable, and she impressed her managers and team alike.
Her hair—rich admittedly, with reds and chestnuts and hints of golds—was always up, efficient in a bun, or plait, or some kind of twist that Alessandro was sure defied the laws of gravity. He shouldn’t know that when it was down, it reached just below her shoulder blades, curled with the curve of her breast and curtained over nipples that were a fascinating shade of pink.
Her features were small, equally proportioned to ensure that nothing stood out, except that theyallstood out. Lips of the palest pink that were neither lush, nor dramatically shaped into a bow, but that had explored his body with a ravenous fascination that had driven him to the edge of his control. The arch of a mahogany eyebrow framed her face in perfect symmetry with the line of a jaw that had fitted perfectly in the palm of his hand, concealing a pulse point behind her ear that flushed when she became aroused.
An arousal that when he had lain between her thighs, her body trembling beneath his touch, the wet heat welcoming him, calling to him, enticing him to taste, to tease, to—
Cristo.
He cleared his throat and the entire boardroom looked up at him. Amelia pinned him with a gaze that showed nothing but professionalism—and yet he still felt her censure. A flick of his hand and she continued.
‘It is clear that this decision is one of utmost importance and will shape the face of not only the project, but the future of this company.’
He needed better control over himself. Control that Amelia seemed to have mastered.
She had been true to her word. Absolutely nothing had changed. It was almost as if it had never happened. Which was absolutely for the best, he assured himself. Once this meeting was done, and the choice of partnership had been decided, he would have nothing further to do with Amelia Seymore other than as a name on paperwork pertaining to the project. There would be no need for any kind of interaction other than that, which, Alessandro decided firmly, was most definitely a good thing.
As Amelia began wrapping up the presentation, a sense of eager expectation filled the room. Her team wanted to get this decision made and move on, but they had no idea of the true consequences that would follow which company was chosen.
Everything about the presentation had been created to seem as if she was offering them a choice between Chapel Developments and Firstview Ltd. If Rossi Industries partnered with Chapel Developments, then it would be the most successful partnership in the property development world working on a venture that was as daring as it was creatively ingenious. But if they chose to partner with Firstview Ltd, then every hope and dream in this room would turn into a nightmare. Firstview didn’t have the infrastructure or the financial backing to support the project to fruition. Of course, Amelia had worked incredibly hard to ensure that wasn’t evident in the least, but a partnership would be the ruin of them all.
She looked at Alessandro’s leadership team—she could see it in their eyes. Respect, understanding, eagerness and more than just a little avarice. This deal could make them billionaires in their own right. And it turned her stomach. Greed, the same greed that had destroyed her family. The nausea hit her hard again, throwing her momentarily. As if needing to see the one person her vengeance hung on, she looked up to find Alessandro’s gaze firmly on hers. Waves of unnatural fire arced across her body, short-circuiting her brain for just a nanosecond—and she remembered. Remembered the crushing endlessness of the orgasm he had given her, flooding her body with a rush she’d never experienced, one that had threatened to undo everything she’d known, everything she’d sacrificed. And in the crushing aftermath of that wave, she found her voice.
‘My suggestion is that Firstview is the only possible way forward to achieve the desired outcome.’
And with that one sentence, she started the process of destroying one of the biggest property companies in the world—ensuring that finally, ten years after Alessandro and Gianni had taken everything from Amelia and her sister, they would know how it felt for their world to crumble.
CHAPTER TWO
SOMETHINGWASWRONG, but Alessandro couldn’t put his finger on what. The feeling had started around the time that Amelia wrapped up her presentation that morning, successfully getting one hundred per cent agreement on her partnership proposal for the Aurora project.
He checked his watch. The day had all but disappeared. If he left now, he might be able to make it back in time to hit the gym, grab dinner and check over the Aurora contracts for whatever it was his subconscious was snagging on. In the ten years since he and Gianni had taken the Englishman’s business and turned it into an empire, Alessandro had learned to trust his gut. And his gut was telling him that something was wrong.
Alessandro was tempted to call Gianni. He’d messaged him earlier about the decision to move ahead with Firstview Ltd, but his cousin’s yearly holiday was sacrosanct and Alessandro disliked the idea of disrupting it. Outside the twelve days Gianni spent each year in the Caribbean, he worked as if the Devil himself held the reins and he deserved the break. Alessandro switched off his computer, grabbed his jacket, turned off the lights in his office and made his way towards the elevator that ran through the centre of the building.
