But marriage was not an institution to go into on a whim and investigative reports on a person only revealed so much. He needed to learn for himself if Beth was as ideal a candidate in real life as she was on paper.
That was when Alessio had contacted his old friend and called in the favour owed from their English school days. In return for Alessio providing an alibi that had saved Giannis Basinas from expulsion twenty years ago, Giannis would host a ball in the heart of Vienna, in the sumptuous palace he’d bought a few years ago and spent millions renovating. And he would employ White’s Events to run it for him with the specific request that Beth Hardingstone be the manager for it.
Alessio’s name would not be mentioned in the same breath as the masquerade ball. This was not only to keep Beth Hardingstone oblivious to his plans. Alessio lived his life quietly and discreetly, far from the media spotlight, keeping the Palvetti mystique that his great-grandparents had first cultivated and which enhanced the allure of their brand.
With no idea of the real reason for her being there, Beth answered his question with a cheery, ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Vienna but this is the first job to bring me here.’
They’d reached his car, a gleaming black four-wheel drive. He clicked the fob to unlock it.
‘Is this yours?’ she asked with obvious surprise.
‘It’s for work.’ Another evasion of the truth, he acknowledged ruefully as he opened the back door. Intrinsically honest, he found the deception about his identity increasingly hard to maintain.
Beth opened the back door then fixed large brown eyes as velvety as chocolate on him with a smile. ‘You remembered a baby seat.’
He nodded. Damn, but she was beautiful when she smiled.
He’d been struck by that smile at their first meeting then in all their subsequent video calls. Her wide, generous mouth naturally turned upwards, as if smiling were her default position.
Today she’d dressed in a pair of slim-fitting cream trousers that rested above her ankles and a striped grey and white shirt. On her feet were flat ballerina-slipper-style shoes which, remembering the heels she’d worn to their first meeting, he guessed were for the practical reason of having a child in tow. Her long, dark hair had been left loose, the slight breeze lifting random silky strands, some falling across her pretty heart-shaped face. She wore no make-up that he could see but, with her lightly golden, clear complexion and those large, chocolaty eyes, she didn’t need it.
She reached into the pram and unstrapped Dom.
Alessio held his breath as she carefully lifted the sleeping infant out.
The bundle in her arms was the reason he was doing all this. This bundle was a Palvetti, flesh of his flesh.
He cleared his throat. ‘Do you need help?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she replied with a cheerful smile, oblivious to the rush of blood pounding through him at this first clear sighting of his nephew.
With obvious practice, she placed the baby into the car seat then leaned over to fiddle with the straps to secure him.
Suddenly Alessio found his attention transfixed on her pert bottom.
His mouth dried and the blood rushing through him rapidly heated and diverted to concentrate in his loins.
It was a primitive reaction, the like of which he hadn’t experienced since his teenage years.
‘Aha!’
He blew out a puff of air and willed the burgeoning ache to subside. ‘Sorry?’
She turned her head and wrinkled her nose. ‘This was a bit more complicated than I thought it would be but I got there in the end.’ Then she grinned again and turned back to Domenico to place a kiss on his cheek.
Pulling himself together, Alessio put her luggage in the boot of the car while Beth climbed into the front passenger seat. When he was done, and feeling more in control of his functions, he jumped into the driver’s seat.
The moment he closed the door he found his senses springing back to life as a heady fragrance dived into him. Beth’s perfume.
Dio, it was the most mouth-watering of scents.
‘Ready?’ He put the car into gear.
‘Absolutely.’ She laughed, an infectious, melodic tinkle. ‘Take me to the palace!’
He grinned back.
Inappropriate though his responses were at this moment, he welcomed them.
Having worked with her these past six weeks, albeit remotely, he’d come to the conclusion that his initial thoughts had been correct. Beth would be an asset for any business.
Factor in her natural beauty, and his visceral response to her, and she had the exact traits he required in a wife.
CHAPTER TWO
BETH’S TIREDNESS HAD GONE. Now she buzzed with the adrenaline that always came when an event was within touching distance. She had never worked so hard in her life as she had these past six weeks. Lucinda, her boss, had diverted staff and resources to her, allowing Beth to co-ordinate everything with a military precision she hadn’t known she was capable of.
She’d never got by on so little sleep, either. The hours during which Dom slept or napped had been spent ensuring everything Giannis Basinas required for his masquerade ball was exactly as it should be.
In only nine hours the guests would arrive. She had arranged events with impressive guest lists before but this one had made her gasp. Paying the extortionate sum to dance and be entertained were the world’s most famous faces: European royalty, Hollywood royalty, billionaires, heirs and heiresses, artists... This was a ball guaranteed to make news.
She thought of the plans that must have been changed so high society could attend the masquerade ball at such short notice—the cancelled holidays, the rearranged schedules...
If it all went wrong it would be her neck on the chopping block.
But if it all went right then a healthy bonus would be hitting Beth’s depleted bank account.
The salary she’d been paid for the ball up to this point had enabled her to pay her rent and buy Dom some new clothes. If she received the bonus she would have enough money to keep them going until her year’s leave was up with enough spare for any future legal battle with Alessio Palvetti.
She would then have the difficult decision of whether or not to return to work.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ Valente said, cutting through her thoughts. ‘Is something on your mind?’
She cast him a quick glance. His attention was fixed on the clean, wide road before them. There was something incredibly reassuring about his command behind the wheel. Not once in their thirty-minute journey from the airport had she pressed an imaginary brake. ‘I’m just thinking.’
‘About what?’
She laughed. ‘What do you think? The guests are due in nine hours. There’s a lot that can go wrong in those nine hours.’
‘Nothing is going to go wrong.’
‘Speaks the voice of experience?’
‘No, speaks the voice of someone who has found much to be impressed with your organisational talents.’
Embarrassed at how ridiculously flattered she felt at the compliment, she turned her face to look back out of the window. The view outside was almost as good as the view beside her. Little wonder this was a city famed for its romanticism. The architecture alone, grandeur and beauty at every turn of the head, was enough to make her catch her breath.
Sitting beside Valente kept making her catch her breath too. The longer she sat beside him, the more aware she became of his scent, the capable fingers controlling the steering wheel and the tensing of the strong thighs whenever he changed gear.
The longer she sat beside him, the more she became aware of him.
She cleared her throat and answered, ‘The proof of the pudding’s in the eating.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That we won’t know how good my organisational skills really are until t
he ball’s over.’
‘Why are you so nervous?’
‘I’ve never undertaken an event of this magnitude before... Is that the palace?’
They’d turned into an enormous courtyard with a water fountain right in the centre of it. Surrounding the courtyard like a titanic curved horseshoe rose the most beautiful building she had ever seen.
Gleaming white under the rising sun, it was impossible to count the number of windows, all aligned with perfect symmetry over three high storeys, or count the ornate white pillars. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
No wonder it had quickly become famed as the most expensive hotel in Europe.
The same sense of awe enveloped her when, Dom in her arms, she climbed the wide, curved steps and stepped through the main doors.
She thought she knew every inch of the palace’s ground floor from the photos, videos and scale drawings she’d been provided with but nothing could have prepared her for the reality.
If she closed her eyes, she could believe she was an eighteenth-century princess.
If she closed her eyes she could pretend not to be intensely aware of Valente watching her so closely.
‘Let’s get you to your suite,’ he murmured. ‘Dom’s nanny is waiting for you.’
Pulling herself out of her stupor, she followed him through the richly decorated corridors and up a flight of stairs, as wide as her flat, covered in thick royal blue carpet. They took a left at the top and walked to the far end of the mezzanine to her designated room.
She gasped.
‘This can’t be for me.’
Valente had not been kidding when he’d called it a suite.
Dazzling green eyes fixed on her. ‘You have a child. We weren’t going to put you in the servants’ quarters. Your outfit for the ball is hanging on your wardrobe.’
But she could see more than amusement in his gaze and that warm feeling trickled through her again, delving deep through her veins to coil into her bones and right into her core.
The glint in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils...
One of the many doors of the suite opened and a middle-aged woman appeared wearing a navy dress with a white sash tied around the waist.
Beth blinked and breathed a sigh of relief as she hurried over to introduce herself.
There was kindness in the nanny’s eyes and Beth’s nerves over handing Dom into the care of a stranger, however highly qualified and impeccable the references, evaporated.
‘I need to check in with Giselle before we do anything else,’ she told Valente when everything that could be discussed about Dom’s care had been discussed and they were heading back to the ground floor.
Dom was going to be fine. The nanny would take good care of him.
Beth had a job to do and it was time to get going on it.
Giselle was the manager of the palace’s hotel. While she had no involvement with the ball itself, many of the guests were staying there.
Valente pulled his car keys out of his pocket. ‘I will leave you to it.’
‘Are you going somewhere?’ she asked, surprised.
His smile was faint but the gleam in his eyes was vivid. ‘I have an appointment to attend but I will be back by noon. Call me if you need anything.’
And then he strode out of the palace, leaving her feeling something that smacked strangely of disappointment but which she pushed aside.
Beth did not mix business and pleasure. She never had and never would, not even for a man who made her heartbeat go into overdrive as Valente did.
Having committed the ground floor layout to memory, she found the manager’s office easily and entered it, to find a severe-looking, diminutive blonde woman sat behind a huge desk.
‘Giselle?’ she asked.
The woman rose to her feet with a smile. ‘Beth?’
She smiled back. ‘Lovely to finally meet you in person. Any problems since we last spoke?’
‘None. Any problems your end?’
‘Not that I know of. Valente said the caterers have arrived...’
‘Who?’
‘Valente Cortada. I’ve been reporting to him for the ball.’
‘I have never heard this name.’
‘Oh.’ Flummoxed, Beth thought hard, trying to remember if Valente had said he actually worked at the hotel. ‘He must work for Mr Basinas directly.’
‘That must be it because he does not work here. And, yes, the caterers have arrived. I will take you to them shortly. Can I offer you refreshment before we get started?’
Beth put her professional head on and got down to business.
But, as the busy hours passed, the disquiet she’d felt at Giselle’s unfamiliarity to Valente’s name stayed with her.
* * *
Alessio locked the documents his lawyer had given him during their meeting in his suite’s safe and called his PA in Milan to check in.
He disliked being away from the business. For his entire life he’d known that, if he worked hard enough, one day Palvetti would be under his control. It might be the family business but it had not been handed to him on a plate. He’d had to prove himself. The top job gave ultimate control of the business and a majority share. If the natural heir was deemed unfit for the job, the role would be passed to another family member better qualified. In Palvetti, there was a role to suit everyone’s skills and inclinations. It was and always had been a family business.
Alessio had coveted the top job from as far back as he could remember. School holidays had been spent shadowing various family members in their differing roles. When he’d graduated from university with a first-class economics and management degree, he’d started work for Palvetti immediately, reporting directly to his father.
At that time there had been something of a sales slump that had hit their profit margins. Alessio’s suggestions to turn the slump around had been implemented and within three years profits had risen by nine per cent. When his father had retired shortly after Alessio’s thirtieth birthday, the family board had been unanimous—the top job was Alessio’s. Under his guidance, Palvetti had gone from strength to strength. Their target of breaking into the crucial Chinese market had been a resounding success. Their jewellery graced the necks, wrists, ears and fingers of the world’s richest people and their luxury scents soaked their skin.
Palvetti was enjoying a boom and Alessio had no intention of allowing that boom to turn into a bust. He would not risk taking his eye off the ball.
His brother had not had the same sense of duty or destiny. Despite Alessio’s and his parents’ best efforts, Domenico had shown nothing but contempt for the business.
Domenico had refused to embrace anything but his own selfish pleasures.
Judging by the coroner’s report into his death, the years of estrangement had only made him worse.
What reckless selfishness had spurred him to ride his bicycle on London’s busy roads with enough alcohol in his bloodstream to defrost a freezer when he had a six months’ pregnant wife at home waiting for him?
Had his brother wanted to die? He’d written his will only weeks before his death.
What kind of character would his nephew have? Alessio ruminated as he searched for Beth. Would he take after his father or would Alessio’s influence be enough to steer him on the right path?
The great ballroom was a bustle of activity, dozens of people working together and separately to transform the room into a magical wonderland. Supervising it all was Beth, clipboard and tablet in hand, standing at the base of the stage the orchestra would be performing on, chatting to a couple of the workers.
He admired the sense of calm she exuded. The nerves she’d displayed in his car were either gone or she’d hidden them. She had the perfect leadership traits: calmness and competence. If a leader was prone to panic, it infected the workers.
A
bout to approach her, his phone vibrated in his pocket. As he answered it, her gaze suddenly found him.
Something he could not explain passed between them in the look they shared in that moment, something that made all the cells in his body thicken.
There had to be thirty feet between them but his body reacted to her stare as if she were right in front of him.
He inhaled and raised a hand in greeting.
Her lips curved into a half-smile. She waved her fingers.
She stepped in his direction but had moved only a couple of paces when another worker hurried over to her.
She said something then looked back at Alessio.
He gestured that he needed to go.
She nodded and smiled again before giving the worker her full attention.
Alessio left the ballroom to continue his phone conversation but with the thrill of anticipation racing through his veins.
* * *
‘Valente?’ Beth said when he answered her call.
‘Is something the matter?’
A not unpleasant shiver raced up her spine as the richness of his voice seeped through her ear and burrowed deep inside her.
‘There’s been a mix-up with my uniform. The outfit left in my suite is a ball gown. I’ve spoken to Giselle but she doesn’t know anything about it.’
In the main bedroom of her suite she’d found her uniform hanging on the wardrobe as Valente had told her it would be, covered in grey wrapping with the palace insignia and her name tied to the hanger. Beth, like all the other White’s Events staff and palace staff working at the ball that night, had provided her vital statistics for her outfit. Expecting the same black uniform everyone else had been given, she’d been gobsmacked when she’d removed the cover to find an obviously expensive strapless, floor-length gold ball gown.
A Cinderella To Secure His Heir (Cinderella Seductions Book 1) Page 2
