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      In memory of my nephew Devon,

      who in seventeen years touched more lives than most people manage in a lifetime

      Prologue

      Once a year since her death, on the day of her birth, December thirtieth, Giuseppe Caroselli honored Angelica, his wife of sixty-eight years and mother of his three sons, by making her favorite cake, raspberry walnut torte with dark chocolate frosting.

      Caroselli chocolate, of course.

      In less than an hour his family would be there to celebrate with him. To pass photos and share memories. On his request, his grandsons Rob and Tony had arrived early. They each sat on a barstool at the kitchen island, watching him carefully measure the ingredients and mix them together, the way they had when they were boys.

      From birth, his three grandsons—Robert, Anthony Jr. and Nicholas—had been groomed to someday take over Caroselli Chocolate, the business Giuseppe had built from the ground up, after emigrating from Italy.

      What he hadn’t counted on was their being so resistant to carrying on the Caroselli name. And if they didn’t settle down and have sons of their own, the Carosellis would be no more. At least Nicholas now had the marriage part taken care of.

      “As I’m sure you already know, Nicholas has forfeited his portion of the thirty-million dollars.”

      “He told us,” Tony said, a perpetual frown on his face. So serious, that one. He needed to learn to take life in stride. Have fun.

      “That means fifteen million each to you boys if you marry and produce a male heir,” he told them.

      “That’s a lot of money,” Rob said. He was the most driven of the three, the one who would no doubt take his father Demitrio’s place as CEO one day. If Demitrio would only put aside his doubts and trust his son.

      “It is a lot of money,” Giuseppe agreed. Money that he had no intention of actually giving them. What sort of man would he be if he singled out only two of his seven grandchildren? And as he had suspected, Nick was so happy to be married, so content with his life, he had turned down his share.

      One down, two to go.

      And Giuseppe didn’t doubt that like their cousin, in the end, Tony and Rob would make the right decision and do him proud.

      In fact, he was counting on it.

      One

      As he watched his date leave the hotel bar wrapped around another man, Robert Caroselli wanted to feel angry or put out, or even mildly annoyed, but he couldn’t work up the steam. He hadn’t wanted to come to this party, but he’d let Olivia, a woman he’d been seeing casually, talk him into it last minute.

      “I don’t really feel like celebrating,” he’d told her when she called him around nine. He had already turned off the television and was planning to crawl into bed and with any luck sleep away the next three months or so. It was that or face daily the fact that his family, the owners of Caroselli Chocolate, had lost complete faith in him as a marketing director.

      Yes, sales for the last quarter were down, but they were in a recession for Christ’s sake. Hiring Caroline Taylor, a so-called marketing genius from Los Angeles, was not only an insult, but also total overkill as far as he was concerned. But against the entire family, his objections carried little weight.

      On top of that he had the added pressure of finding a wife. A woman to give him a male heir. By thirty-one most of his cousins, and the majority of his college buddies, were already married. It wasn’t as if he’d made a conscious decision to stay single. His dedication to the family business had kept him too busy to settle down. He couldn’t deny that ten-million dollars had been a tempting incentive, but fifteen million? That was difficult to pass up. Especially when it meant that if he didn’t get his cut, his cousin Tony would walk away with the entire thirty million. He would never hear the end of it.

      But if he was going to find a woman to be his wife and bear his children, it wouldn’t be in a bar. And it definitely wouldn’t be Olivia. Which was why he’d planned to stay home.

      “You can’t stay home alone on New Year’s Eve!” Olivia had said. “Who will you kiss? You can’t start the New Year without a kiss at midnight. It’s…un-American!”

      She hadn’t seemed too concerned with whom he would kiss when she walked out the door with someone else. Not that he blamed her for bailing on him. He hadn’t exactly been the life of the party. When they arrived around ten, he scoped out a counter-height table with two vacant barstools near the back corner, claimed it and hadn’t moved since. Now he was on his—he counted the empty glasses in front of him—third Scotch and feeling a hell of a lot more relaxed than when he got there.

      Alcohol flowed freely at every Caroselli family function—hell, his family would use any excuse to get together, drink and gossip—but Rob rarely indulged. He never much cared for the out-of-control feeling that came with intoxication. Tonight was a rare exception.

      From his table he had a decent view of the entire bar, which was crammed above capacity with people, who, from his vantage point, undulated like the waves off the shore of Lake Michigan. Or maybe that was the liquor playing tricks with his vision.

      “Excuse СКАЧАТЬ