Chapter Two #3
But Maria had done the exact opposite. She had, instead, worked at Gallo Group for years.
She had poured all her efforts and energy into it, hoping to eventually prove her worth to a grandfather who couldn’t see beyond her chromosomes.
And it hadn’t meant a single thing. Gio had, in his last will and testament, left the company to her conditionally.
And the outcome was that if they didn’t marry the company would go straight to Micha, and neither he nor Maria would ever allow that to happen.
‘Yes,’ he said, finally acknowledging Ivy’s question. ‘I intend to marry my cousin, Maria.’
‘Because a billion-dollar company hangs in the balance?’ she asked.
‘ Sì ,’ he said, before contradicting himself. ‘If we marry, the company comes to us. And then I can give it to Maria.’
‘Why didn’t he just leave it to you?’
His jaw ticked. ‘Because I am not my mother’s son by blood.’
Ivy frowned even deeper. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘It was important to my grandfather.’ And my father . It was an errant thought, ruthlessly pushed aside. ‘The Gallos have strong feelings on legitimacy and blood ties.’
She frowned at him, as if wanting to disagree. But he’d long ago given up trying to understand his grandfather’s motivations because, blood or not, Antonio was a Gallo—and it was a surname that meant everything to him.
‘Okay, so why can’t Maria inherit the company on her own then?’
‘Because she is a woman.’
Ivy reared back and Antonio raised his hands in surrender. ‘This is not how I feel, I assure you. But it is crucial that we marry so that she can inherit the company and prevent it from going elsewhere.’
‘Where would elsewhere be?’
‘To someone unworthy,’ he said, utterly unaware how like his grandfather he sounded in that moment.
‘Why don’t you want it—Gallo Group?’ she asked.
He stopped, surprised by her question.
‘You said, “And then I can give it to Maria”?’ she pressed.
Alert now that he had revealed too much and she had been quick enough to spot it, he hesitated before he answered.
‘I don’t need it,’ he lied, choosing his words carefully.
He refused to admit that the betrayal he’d felt at his grandfather’s belief in his inferiority had poisoned his family’s company for him for ever.
‘But we are running out of time to meet the terms of the will,’ he continued, pressing the issue.
‘How long do you have?’
‘One month.’
Ivy’s mouth formed a little ‘o’. Not in shock, almost a silent ‘oh’. It confused him, the way she communicated. And when she looked back up at him the blue of her eyes caught him by surprise, just like they had the first time he’d seen her in the London café.
‘Can you give me five minutes?’
Her question interrupted his train of thought, thankfully. ‘Sì.’
She nodded and walked past him, away from the shelves. His gaze followed her, almost unwillingly, and when he noticed the slight limp in her stride he frowned at the inflamed slash of red at her heel.
‘You’re bleeding,’ he called after her.
She spun round, something like fear on her features, her hand rising to her eye, of all places.
‘Your heel,’ he explained, and she looked down.
‘Oh. Yes.’ And then, unfathomably, she turned and continued to walk away.
A headache pressed against his temples. He had already spent too long in London and didn’t have time for the confusing roundabout ways of the English.
Nothing was simple here. No one said what they meant and, after a childhood of misinformation and misdirection, after his grandfather’s manipulations, he disliked that intensely.
Mindlessly, he scanned the bookshelves, distracting himself from the questions pouring through his mind.
The only way he’d managed to achieve what he had in the last six years was to focus on what he wanted to the exclusion of everything else.
Ruthlessly so, some had said. But it had worked, hadn’t it?
Footsteps approached him and he turned to find Ivy, still holding the book to her, as if she’d forgotten it but needed it at the same time.
She cleared her throat, a pink flare filling the delicate hollow beneath her cheekbones.
She nodded before she spoke. ‘I can come to Italy if…’ She swallowed and he waited. There was always an if. It was inevitable and yet he dismissed the strange feeling of disappointment.
‘If you can give me ninety thousand pounds,’ she finished in a near whisper.
Ninety thousand…
He masked his surprise. Behind Ivy, at the end of the shelves, two women peered into the stacks, failing in their attempt to look inconspicuous.
Ninety thousand pounds?
She could have asked for anything. But Antonio was as confused as he was near offended by the insignificant amount. So much so that his natural inclination to barter, to haggle, absolutely disappeared. Before he remembered the poster at the reception desk that he’d passed on the way to find her.
Star Donator: Michael Morrison for providing ninety thousand pounds!
It couldn’t be a coincidence. The exact same amount of money she was asking for. Was she not asking for herself?
Did it even matter? Not at that precise moment in time, no. What did matter was that he had everything he needed to meet Carmondy’s ridiculous demands.
‘So, to confirm. I will pay you ninety thousand pounds in exchange for two weeks of your time in Italy, to comply with whatever it takes to satisfy the terms of Judge Carmondy’s assessor and however the assessor expects us to prove that we have given our marriage a true and proper ‘go’, before finally appearing before the judge again to ask for a divorce,’ he stated succinctly.
Ivy, wide-eyed, nodded.
‘Done,’ he informed her.
‘Really?’ she asked, seemingly surprised to find it that easy.
‘I can have it in your account in five minutes,’ he announced. ‘I just need your account details.’
‘It’s actually not my account,’ Ivy said, wincing as if that might change his mind.
‘Ivy, I don’t care,’ he said, almost truthfully. Because his curiosity had been piqued, but he could satisfy that on his own time. ‘Now, can we go?’
Ivy threw some clothes into an old holdall of Jamie’s.
She’d explained to Mrs Tenby that she would only need two weeks of holiday, but the watery-eyed woman had insisted that she take as long as was needed.
The fact that Ivy would be using it to secure enough funding to fill the hole left by Michael Morrison was enough to soften even her icy demeanour.
Ivy looked around her bedroom, wondering what else to take, painfully conscious that Antonio and his car were outside, waiting impatiently.
She refused to think about what would happen when she got to Italy.
She refused to wonder how they would prove that they were giving their marriage ‘a go’.
She knew from past experience she needed to take each day as it came, otherwise she would become overwhelmed to the point of stasis. And she couldn’t do that. Not again.
Two beeps from a car horn sounded from outside.
Keys, passport, clothes, phone charger and, most importantly, camera. If she had those, she’d be fine, she promised herself.
The number for her doctor was in her phone.
He’d insisted that she could travel when she’d taken a moment to call him before letting Antonio know she would come to Italy.
At her request, the doctor had explained, for the hundredth time, that she was at no more risk than anyone else of the retinal detachment happening either in her good eye or worsening her bad eye.
He’d reminded her that she knew the warning signs.
But preventatively? There was nothing she could do but live her life.
Yet, despite that reassurance, her heart still pounded in her chest.
‘Go to Italy. Make the most of it. Have fun,’ the doctor had said.
Fun? Perhaps there were some people on the planet for whom having fun involved a private jet to a villa in Tuscany and spending time with a man like Antonio Gallo.
But she knew first-hand how dangerous it was to build sandcastle dreams about the Italian billionaire.
Because three years ago she’d learned very vividly that she was not important to him in the slightest.
Perhaps that was fair for a man who had never said otherwise. But at least she knew where she stood. It was a lesson she had learned first from her mother and then him. So no, she was under no illusions about Antonio. But he had paid her to do this and she would do it to the best of her ability.
She scribbled a note to the flatmate she barely saw and left her mobile number in case of emergencies. It felt almost surreal to lock her front door, leave the flat and, after giving her bag to the driver, get into a car that would take her to a private airfield.
A car that had brought her and an impatient Antonio to her flat from the library.
She hadn’t missed the way that Antonio had peered up at the house her flat was part of.
The way that he’d—albeit discreetly—raked his gaze over his surroundings, more wary than disdainful.
But it had made her hyperaware of the fact that they came from very different worlds.
As she buckled herself back into the seat, the driver putting her very small bag in the boot of the town car, she felt the build-up of questions fill the car. So it wasn’t surprising when Antonio finally asked the question, but she still felt his censure.
‘Is there anything left of the money I originally gave you?’ he said, his voice steely. With judgement, she wondered, or was she just being sensitive?
Ivy turned to look out of the window to see what he saw.
It clearly wasn’t anything like the luxury he was used to, but she refused to be ashamed of it.
No, there wasn’t any money left from what he’d given her six years ago.
It had been used: spent or lost for reasons beyond her control.
She had worked hard for every penny she now had and she was proud of that, but she wouldn’t lie to him.
‘No.’
A cool silence descended between them, until Antonio passed her a small box before returning his attention to his phone. Frowning, she opened the white plastic box to find a first aid kit inside.
Her heel.
She’d been in such a hurry to pack her clothes, she hadn’t even changed out of what she was wearing, or her shoes. She could change on the plane, and she’d deal with the cut then. To do so now, with Antonio so close, it felt too…personal. Vulnerable.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered and only the slight nod of his head told her that he’d heard.
The driver took them straight onto the tarmac of the airfield, where his jet was fuelled and ready to leave. Air staff brought the few bags they had onto the plane and checked them in on their flight path plan.
Ivy was still holding the first aid kit as she buckled herself into the seat on the opposite side of the cabin from him, but honestly, she was old enough to look after herself and he couldn’t waste time worrying about a blister.
Let alone whatever she’d spent the money he’d paid her to marry him on.
Yes, he remembered that her brother had needed help, but a part of him was strangely disappointed.
He’d expected that she’d have done more with it, and that he’d read her wrong was unsettling.
But none of it was important and to distract himself with such curiosity was ridiculous.
He finally typed out a message to Maria.
I’m on my way.
What kept you?
A judge, a marriage and a librarian.
Is that a joke?
Sadly not.
He stole one last glance at the librarian in question before he opened his laptop.
He wondered whether she was ready for what was about to come.
Because, in truth, he wasn’t entirely sure he was.
To prove that they had given their marriage ‘a go’ would presumably require them to ‘be married’.
He didn’t think even the judge was crass enough to suggest that they share a bed, but he had a sneaking suspicion that there would be marital hoops they would have to jump through, and that neither he, Ivy, nor anyone else involved would emerge unscathed.