New Arrivals: One Secret Child: Mistress, Mother...Wife? / Wealthy Australian, Secret Son / Her Prince's Secret Son. Margaret Way

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СКАЧАТЬ resentments can fester… we all know that. And this guy is a real people person. We thoroughly checked him out before inviting him over for a meeting. Apparently one of the first things he does is to interview everyone to discover how they feel about their job. He passionately believes that their attitude contributes to how well they work, and he has a unique reputation for getting staff and management to work more successfully together. The best thing of all is that the family get to stay doing what they love. We don’t have to just sell up and go. Who knows? If the hotel starts to make a real profit, we might eventually be able to buy it back completely. The staff will remain too of course. It means you won’t have to search for another job, Anna, isn’t that great? Having someone like this Dante Romano guy invest his money in the hotel and take a look at how we can improve things could be the best opportunity we’ve had in ages!’

      ‘And what’s the pay-off for this man? I mean…what’s in it for him besides making a profit? I doubt that he’s going to do all this out of the goodness of his heart.’

      She couldn’t help it, but Anna wasn’t entirely convinced. It all sounded too good to be true. Perhaps her nature wasn’t as trusting as it could be, but then bruising experience had taught her to be alert to the glossily wrapped Christmas present that contained nothing but an empty shoebox.

      The earnest dark-haired young man before her in the charcoal-grey suit that was showing signs of fraying at the edges of its cuffs abruptly stopped pacing.

      ‘Of course there’s a pay-off for him, Anna. He’s a businessman! But his interest in helping us sounds perfectly genuine. I know you’re only being protective of Mum and Dad but they’re experienced hoteliers, don’t forget. They won’t agree to anything that remotely smacks of a scam or a rip-off. Yes, this guy might become the main shareholder—but he won’t be running the business. we will. Plus, his policy is to take a longer-term view of situations, so he won’t be in a hurry to just look at what he can get out of the business and then head for the hills.’

      ‘You sound as though you believe this is the answer to all your family’s prayers, Jason.’

      It did indeed seem the ideal solution in terms of enabling them all to stay put, but Anna would rather hunt for another job and flat elsewhere if it meant that Grant and Anita wouldn’t be out of pocket and the couple would have the means to start a good life again somewhere else. What if it really was in their best interests for them to sell the Mirabelle to a big commercial hotel giant?

      ‘Nothing’s been decided yet, Anna.’ Compounding her guilt at being sceptical, Jason sounded subdued. ‘But Romano is coming for lunch, and after he’s eaten we’ll have a proper meeting to thrash things out. Hopefully we’ll be able to report back on what’s been decided later on that afternoon. Would you mind going to talk to Luigi, to make sure he’s got everything he needs to impress our visitor with his menu?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Carrying what remained of her half-drunk coffee to the door, Anna flashed him a smile to make up for her less than enthusiastic response earlier, but her stomach still churned at the prospect of the unknown changes that lay ahead for them all. She paused to glance back at the Cathcarts’ preoccupied son, guessing that he probably saw the chance of working with this Romano chap as something that would enhance his reputation and ability—assets that were sometimes overshadowed by his much more confident and experienced father.

      ‘I just want you to know that I’ll do everything I can to help you and your parents, Jason. I love this hotel too, and I know it’s been a very worrying time for all of you.’

      ‘Thanks, Anna…I’ve always known I can count on you.’

      The memories crashed in on Dante the instant he walked through the glass-panelled entrance into the cosily old-fashioned lobby, with its chintz armchairs and worn brown chesterfields.

      After that incredible night with Anna he’d left the hotel in the early hours of the morning to jump in a cab and catch a flight to New York. His mother’s death had plunged him into a tunnel of despair for a frighteningly long time. It had taken a good year or more for him to be able to function anywhere near normal again because, disturbingly, his work and everything he’d achieved had become utterly meaningless. Life had only started to improve when the warm memory of Anna’s tenderness and his mother’s unfailing belief that he was a much better man than the world suspected broke through the walls of his grief and his self-imposed isolation and helped him start to entertain the possibility of a very different, much more fulfilling future.

      That was when Dante had decided to change his driven, selfish approach to something far more wholesome.

      The Cathcarts were a delightful couple, with admirably solid values when it came to business and family. But Dante, although charmed by their unstinting hospitality and the superlative lunch, sensed that some of those solid values were a bit too entrenched in the past and needed to be brought up to date.

      At lunch, his cool gaze assessed as much as it could as they talked, including the worn velvet hangings at the stately Georgian dining room windows, the tarnished silver cutlery and the slightly old-fashioned uniforms of the waiting staff. Afterwards he was invited to the Cathcarts’ office to discuss the nuts and bolts of an investment.

      As the fragrant, elegant Anita Cathcart poured him some coffee—at Dante’s nod adding cream and sugar—he sat back in the comfortable leather chair, loosened his silk tie a little and relaxed. The hotel was in an absolutely prime location and could—as Eddie had foreseen—potentially be a goldmine. Because of lack of funds and the large debt they had accrued with the bank, it was clear the Cathcarts weren’t able to make the best of their incredible asset, and that was where Dante came in.

      ‘We’ll get started soon, Mr Romano. We’re just waiting for our assistant manager to join us. She’s more like family than an employee, and we’d like her to be in on what we decide. She’ll be along any minute now.’

      Jason, the Cathcarts’ slightly built son and manager, smiled diffidently at Dante as he sat down opposite him at the meeting table. He was clutching a pen and a spiral notebook and his hand shook a little. What was the story with him? Dante wondered. Was the manager’s role too big an ask for him, or was it just that he struggled to assert himself under his parents’ guardianship of the hotel?

      ‘Was she informed about the meeting?’

      ‘Yes…of course. It’s just that she—’

      ‘Then she should be here on time, like everyone else.’

      His chastising glance encompassed them all, but Dante nonetheless tempered it with a trace of a smile. He heard the door behind him open and turned expectantly. A woman with hair the same hue as a bright russet apple stepped inside, bringing with her the faint but stirring scent of oranges and patchouli.

      His thoughts careened to an abrupt halt…like a driver applying the emergency brake before hitting a wall. He stared in shock. Anna…dear God, she still worked here?

      ‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she breathed, porcelain skin flushing. ‘I was—’

      The startled leap in her sherry-brown eyes told Dante she recognised him. His heart—which had all but stalled—pumped a little harder as he realised he’d been genuinely afraid she might have forgotten him. What a blow that would have been to his pride, when out of all the women he’d seen over the years she was the one that haunted him…

      ‘Mr Romano,’ Grant Cathcart was saying, ‘I’d like to introduce СКАЧАТЬ