The Italian's Rags-To-Riches Wife. Julia James

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      Allesandro strode past her, towards a pair of double doors beyond. He threw them open and walked in. Tomaso was there, at his desk by the window. He looked up immediately. There was a taut expression on his face. Tense. Expectant.

      Suddenly, for all that the old man had manipulated him shamelessly, Allesandro felt he could not do this to him. He should go in first, warn the old man what he was about to get by way of a granddaughter. Then he crushed his compunction. Tomaso was playing hardball—deliberately using Allesandro’s desire for control of Viale-Vincenzo in order to make him do what he wanted. And if what he wanted was his deeply unpleasant granddaughter, he could have her.

      Behind him Allesandro could hear the heavy plod of unfeminine feet shod in flat clumpy shoes that no Italian woman this side of a lunatic asylum would even have possessed, let alone worn.

      The old man was getting to his feet.

      ‘Tomaso—your granddaughter,’ announced Allesandro, his voice studiously expressionless. ‘Laura Stowe.’

      But Tomaso was not looking at him. He was staring past the younger man to the female figure that had walked in behind him. Allesandro watched his face as the old man’s expression changed.

      It became bland, unreadable.

      ‘Laura—’ said Tomaso, and held his hand towards her.

      The girl was standing there, ignoring the hand that stretched out to her. Her face was shuttered, the way it had been the entire journey. The lack of expression made the girl look like a pudding—one of those stodgy English ones, with suet in them.

      ‘I am your grandfather,’ said Tomaso. The face might be bland, Allesandro thought, eyes narrowing minutely, but the voice was not. It was audibly suppressing emotion.

      Something flickered angrily in the girl’s face.

      ‘My grandfather is dead. You are merely the father of the man who ruined my mother’s life.’

      The aggression in her tone was unequivocal. For a moment Allesandro saw new emotion in Tomaso’s face. Shock. Naked and raw.

      The girl held her pitiless gaze.

      ‘The only reason I’m here,’ she told him, ‘is because that man—’ she nodded curtly in Allesandro’s direction, and he felt a spurt of vicious anger both at her manner, and at what he knew was coming next ‘—bribed me to come.’

      ‘He bribed you?’ The old man’s voice was a disbelieving echo.

      ‘Yes.’ Allesandro watched, aghast, as the girl spoke bluntly. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you, or anyone connected with the man who treated my mother so unforgivably! I can’t imagine why you thought I would have the slightest desire or interest in meeting you—any more than the man who fathered me had the slightest desire or interest in my existence, or in what he’d done to my mother!’ A sharp, tight breath made her pause, and then she went on. ‘I’m sorry your son is dead—but it’s nothing to do with me. Nothing. Because your son wasn’t anything to do with me. He made that totally clear even before I was born!’

      Shock edged Tomaso’s face. ‘This is not how I—This is not—’ He faltered. He looked across at the girl, half turned away. ‘I thought—I thought you would be glad—glad that I had sought you out…’

      His face greyed, and then suddenly his hand was clutching at his heart. Allesandro started forward, catching him as he fell.