Chapter Three #3
Ivy’s heart sank. The woman immediately reminded her of Mrs Tenby and Judge Carmondy combined.
There was no way that they’d be able to convince her of anything.
She reached for Antonio’s arm, trying to call his attention to her, wanting to warn him, because she was absolutely convinced that this—perhaps for the first time in his life—was a woman he wouldn’t be able to charm.
But he shook her off gently and went to greet the woman with a smile.
‘Please forgive my lawyer, he was rude enough not to share your name with me,’ Antonio explained with his hand outstretched.
The assessor stared at it for a beat longer than necessary—just enough to try and put a man like Antonio Gallo in his place—before taking it.
Ivy swallowed. This was going to be a total disaster.
This was going to be fine, Antonio told himself. All they had to do was get this woman on side, and that was something he excelled at.
He turned to the assessor as Ivy came to stand beside him.
‘Would you like something to drink, Mrs—?’
‘It’s Ms Quell,’ she informed him curtly.
Antonio swallowed his dislike of her tone. ‘A drink, Ms Quell?’
‘No. I would prefer to get this first assessment done as soon as possible, thank you.’
He nodded to Agata who—despite what most people thought—could speak fluent English when she wanted to and had practically done all his childhood homework with him.
She withdrew from the room, leaving the three of them alone.
He gestured for Ms Quell to take a seat and she took the middle of the sofa, retrieving an obscene amount of paperwork from her deceptively sized handbag.
Ivy was forced to assume the place next to him on the opposite sofa.
‘So, have you—?’ he began.
‘Mr Gallo, I assure you this will go much quicker if you let me take the lead,’ Ms Quell interrupted.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, raising his hands in surrender.
He leaned back, his arm draped across the back of the sofa, perilously close to the thin column of Ivy’s neck. But to remove his arm would be a display of discomfort and this woman, he thought, eyeing Ms Quell, was a shark. If she hadn’t irritated him so much, he’d be offering her a job.
‘Mr and Mrs Gallo. His Honour Judge Carmondy has ordered there to be three assessment interviews to take place over the next two weeks.
These assessments will be in the form of three interviews—of which this is one—and one additional written assessment in the form of a questionnaire to be completed ahead of the next court date.
‘The intention of these sessions is to verify that you have both given this marriage due and proper consideration before a divorce can be granted. Furthermore, as these sessions are court-appointed, they, and I, should be treated with all due respect. Do you both understand?’
‘Yes,’ they answered in unison.
‘Mrs Gallo,’ she said, turning to Ivy without any further delay.
Ivy blinked, eyes wider than necessary, and sat up straight.
‘Why don’t you tell me how you two met?’
‘I was working in Affogato, a café in central London, when M… Antonio was in the country on business,’ she began. Antonio winced at the near slip that would have—he was ninety percent sure—been ‘Mr Gallo’, and the least likely thing a wife would call her husband. She was going to ruin it.
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off her,’ he said, intervening in the car crash that was about to happen. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said without having to lie.
Ms Quell acknowledged this with a tilt of her head.
‘And beyond that, what most drew you to Mrs Gallo?’ Ms Quell asked.
His mind blanked. Impossible. It had never before happened, but there was nothing.
‘He’s too shy to say,’ Ivy confided, leaning towards Ms Quell conspiratorially. ‘But I won him over with my espresso,’ she teased. ‘Impossible for a mere Englishwoman to be capable of matching the best coffee in the world. Impossible ,’ she said with a rather worryingly accurate mimicry of him.
For a moment he thought Ms Quell might actually smile.
‘And you? What drew you to your husband?’
Something passed across Ivy’s features—he only caught a glimpse of it, sitting beside her, but then he became distracted by her answer.
‘He came to my rescue,’ she said simply.
‘Not literally.’
‘Yes, literally,’ Ivy said with a laugh that for some reason squeezed his stomach in a vice.
‘I was being harassed by a difficult customer. It had been a hard, long day. I’m sure you can imagine.
And you know what men can be like. The customer was being belligerent, and Antonio came to my aid.
He was my hero,’ she said, turning a glistening gaze on him.
If Ivy was a terrible liar, he’d eat his hat.
‘Why was there such a rush for the marriage?’ Ms Quell asked, scribbling notes down on the notepad in her lap.
‘We were worried about family intervention,’ Antonio supplied, also truthful.
‘And once married, did you visit Italy?’
‘Of course, I live here,’ Antonio replied brusquely.
‘I was asking Mrs Gallo.’
Ivy shook her head slowly. A slight wince in her eye made him wonder if something was wrong. A headache, perhaps? They had covered quite a lot of ground in one day, which couldn’t have been usual for her.
Ms Quell frowned. ‘How did you feel about that?’ she asked, turning on him in the blink of an eye.
‘Feel?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, Mr Gallo. How did you feel when Ivy wasn’t able to follow you to Italy?’
‘Frustrated,’ he lied. ‘I would have liked her to join me, but it wasn’t possible. There were family matters to attend to.’
‘Family matters that excluded your wife?’ Ms Quell asked.
Antonio took a breath and suddenly felt Ivy’s hand on his where it lay between them on the sofa, a warning.
‘I didn’t want my new wife to see my family the way that they were behaving at that time,’ he forced through his teeth. Also, not an untruth.
‘You were protecting her from your family,’ Ms Quell clarified.
‘ Sì . Yes.’
‘And since then?’
Antonio opened his mouth.
‘I’m not sure if you’re aware, Ms Quell,’ Ivy interrupted.
‘But that was a difficult time for my husband. He was estranged from his grandfather for a significant period of time following the news of our marriage. Emotionally and financially. Antonio has spent the intervening years working harder than anyone alive to make the company he founded with nothing but grit and determination a multinational success. And I am so very proud of him for that. Truly. Even if it came at the cost of our marriage. A marriage that I will never regret. But we are no longer in a relationship and to pretend as such would be dishonourable, not only to Judge Carmondy but to each other,’ Ivy concluded, shocking the words right out of Antonio’s mind.
‘I appreciate your words, Mrs Gallo. Mr Gallo should too, as they are clearly a very kind interpretation of what appears to have passed between you. But let me be clear. While this is a highly unusual situation and while I may be far more familiar with custody battles, alimony disputes, and the wants and needs of small children,’ she said, peering directly at him with intent, ‘I assure you, I take my job very seriously.
‘I have been sent here to assess how you have tried to repair your marriage. Not grade how well you know each other, or identify what caused the rift. Tell me— show me—what you’ve done to try and bridge it,’ she said, putting the monumental amount of paperwork back into her bag.
‘You have two more sessions to show me this.’
On that note, Ms Quell left, and Ivy, deflated, sank back on the sofa beside him.
In that moment, Antonio Gallo was forced to admit to himself that he had greatly underestimated the ease with which they would navigate these ‘assessments’. But there was no other option than to rise to the occasion if he was going to ensure that Maria got what she wanted.