Chapter One #2
Her laugh had turned unkind. ‘Oh, poor little Ellie-Ellie—’ she’d used the scornful childhood nickname Eleanora had always hated ‘—no hunk like Sanzio Bastoni would have the hots for you! No man ever will! Skinny and scrawny and dull as ditchwater, and dressed like a frump!’ Then she’d reverted to her favourite subject—herself.
‘Yes,’ she’d mused in her self-satisfied way, ‘my wedding night with Sanzio will definitely be off-the-scale scorching.’
But now there wasn’t going to be a wedding night with Sanzio Bastoni. Tonia was going to be spending it as the Marquise de Rochevallet instead.
And Eleanora was being dispatched to the spurned Sanzio Bastoni to try and sell him the ancestral da Verano palazzo.
Except—and she took a breath of determination as the distance between Florence and Rome shortened inexorably—that was the very last thing she was going to try and do.
* * *
The handset on Sanzio’s desk buzzed, and he picked it up.
‘Signorina da Verano has arrived,’ Gina informed him.
Accidenti! He was in the middle of running the numbers on his latest prospective acquisition, yet another struggling, mid-sized business needing to be turned around then sold on at a healthy profit.
It was the way he’d relentlessly clawed himself up from the poverty he’d been born into, discovering a talent in himself for spotting an undervalued asset which could, with determination and energy, yield a ripe harvest.
He gave a thin smile. Maybe it was his peasant ancestry showing.
Peasants could see arable land in marshland which could be drained, pasture in stony hillsides which could be cleared of stones and the stones used for building, timber in fallen tree trunks which needed logging and the smothered saplings nurtured. It just took work.
Of course, and now his smile soured, back in the day, it wasn’t the peasants who’d profited most from their work. The landowners had. Helping themselves to the first fruits of the land. Enriching themselves at their peasants’ expense.
Like the illustrious da Verano family had—
The name echoed again. ‘Signorina da Verano?’ his secretary prompted.
‘Tell her to wait,’ Sanzio said brusquely.
He went back to the numbers he needed to run.
* * *
Eleanora’s nerves were mounting. It was one thing to sit on the train and tell herself she could beard Sanzio Bastoni in his den—another to be sitting right outside that den.
She did her best not to let her nerves show.
The Bastoni offices were in a nineteenth century building in Rome’s centro storico, and were very elegant, as was Sanzio Bastoni’s smartly dressed secretary, who had informed her that Signor Bastoni was running late.
Eleanora sat down on a cream leather sofa, in front of which was a low table with the day’s business newspapers on it.
She picked up one to take her mind off the task ahead.
‘Signorina da Verano?’
A deep, terse voice spoke her name. She looked up with a start. The double doors to the side of the room had been thrown open and a man stood there, looking her way.
Eleanora gulped audibly.
It was Sanzio Bastoni and he was every, every bit as formidable in the flesh as any press photo. Every bit—and a whole, whole lot more.
* * *
Sanzio frowned. This was Tonia’s sister? In a million years he’d never have thought it. She looked nothing like her.
For a start, she was sitting primly—Tonia wouldn’t have known the meaning of the word—wearing a badly cut grey suit and white blouse—an outfit Tonia wouldn’t have been seen dead in.
Her brown hair was pulled tightly off her face into a French pleat—totally unlike Tonia’s flowing raven tresses—and her face was completely bare of make-up—a total no-no for Tonia.
She couldn’t have made less effort over her appearance if she’d tried.
But maybe she doesn’t try? The thought occurred to him—Maybe if you have a sister like man-magnet Tonia you don’t bother to compete? Does that account for the way she looks?
His frown deepened. She was getting to her feet—her shoes were flat and clumpy, he noticed, doing nothing for her legs. Which were actually pretty good—or could be, if shown off properly.
‘Signor Bastoni, it’s good of you to agree to see me.’
She had spoken with a diffidence that was completely unlike her sister’s self-regard, but with the same impeccable, upper-class accent.
He made no answer, only gestured towards the open double doors to his office. He watched her precede him. She was taller than Tonia, more slender, quite graceful, considering her flat shoes. Tonia always wore heels, to make her hips sway seductively.
‘Coffee, please, Gina,’ he instructed, and followed his visitor, indicating she should sit down on one of the pair of facing cream leather sofas opposite his desk, and she did so, once again adopting that same prim pose.
He threw himself down on the sofa opposite, crossing one leg over his knee, his arms stretching out in apparent relaxation either side along the back of the sofa.
‘So,’ he opened, ‘the Palazzo Verano.’
* * *
Eleanora’s gaze went to the man her sister had jilted.
In the flesh, Sanzio Bastoni was way, way more impactful even than he was in photos.
She could feel it emanating off him, that sheer sense of power and presence.
His height, his build, those keen, dark-browed, slate-grey eyes, the strong features, the curved, disturbingly sensual mouth…
Did Tonia really prefer her nice-but-totally ordinary marquis?
It seemed extraordinary to her. At one glance she’d realised just why Tonia had described Sanzio Bastoni as ‘earthy’.
Yet it was also utterly the wrong word too. Whatever his origins, he wore his five—ten?—thousand-euro suit, his navy tie with its gold pin, his pristine white tailored shirt and clearly hand-made polished shoes with an air of careless nonchalance, as if born to it.
Forcibly, she dragged her attention from the magnetic physical presence of Sanzio Bastoni and back to what he’d just said.
‘Um, yes,’ she acknowledged. She paused, swallowing. Sanzio Bastoni was not helping her out in the slightest. His expression was unreadable. She made herself go on.
‘I understand from my father,’ she began haltingly, ‘that, had you and my sister married, you had indicated that you would like the Palazzo as, well, her dowry, I suppose.’
She glanced up at him, wondering how he’d take such a statement. Had something altered in his expression? She wasn’t sure. He made no reply, only kept that dark, unreadable look on his face. She made herself go on.
‘He’s asked me—’ she plunged right in ‘—to enquire whether, now that you and Tonia… Well, anyway, whether you might still have an interest in the Palazzo.’
She swallowed again, unnerved by the expression—the lack of one—on his face. The entrance of his secretary with a tray of coffee was a relief. As she disappeared, and Eleanora busied herself stirring cream into her black coffee, she heard Sanzio Bastoni speak.
‘He couldn’t be bothered to ask me himself?’ He reached for his own coffee, keeping it black.
She coloured. ‘I think… I think he felt it might be awkward, because of Tonia breaking up with you…’
‘So he sent you to do his dirty work.’ His voice was flat.
Eleanora took a breath. Tension was knifing in her, but now was the time to speak.
‘Well… I’m actually quite glad of it,’ she said in something of a rush. She abandoned her stirring. Said what she’d been bracing herself to say at this moment.
‘Signor Bastoni, do you actually want the Palazzo Verano?’
She tried to keep her tone neutral, but failed. For a second his inscrutable expression held. Then, in its place, another showed.
Amusement.
He gave her a level stare. There was the darkest of glints in them. ‘You don’t really expect me to answer that question, do you?’
She stared at him. ‘Why not?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he drank his coffee.
She, with nothing better to do, did likewise.
The atmosphere was strange suddenly, different, though she didn’t know why, nor why he’d seemed amused at her question.
She set back her coffee cup, feeling awkward.
His were resting on her, quite unreadable.
He’s assessing me, she thought. But just what there was to assess she had no idea.
Except that I am nothing, absolutely nothing, like my glamorous, stunning sister…
But that was a familiar acknowledgement, and in the presence of a man like Sanzio Bastoni even more obvious to her. Another too-familiar emotion went through her.
Oh, to have something, anything, that might actually make a man look twice at me. Or even once. Let alone a man like Sanzio Bastoni.
But when you had a sister like Tonia, how could that ever be possible? It wasn’t, and she knew it only too, too well.
Abruptly, he put his empty cup down, interrupting her depressing but far-too-familiar train of thought.
He leant forward, drummed his fingers absently, it seemed, on the surface of the table.
Then he glanced at his wristwatch. It wasn’t gold, Eleanora noticed, but steel.
It looked lean, and businesslike. Like him.
He frowned slightly, seemed to pause, then his eyes went to her.
She still couldn’t read their expression.
‘You must excuse me,’ he said, though he didn’t sound the slightest apologetic. ‘I have a business call coming through shortly. But I wish to continue this conversation.’ He paused again, the very slightest pause. ‘We’ll do so over dinner,’ he said.