The route to the Palvetti headquarters had become as familiar to her as her old route to the White’s Events building had been.
‘We’re not going to the office.’
‘Where are we going, then?’
His smile was knowing. ‘You’ll see.’
Minutes later they arrived at what was unmistakably a heliport. The gleaming black helicopter was the giveaway.
‘Have you ever been in a helicopter?’
‘I’ve never even seen one that’s not in the air. Is this yours?’
He grinned.
Her awe increased when they climbed inside the luxurious cabin and she found six seats in rows of three set opposite each other and covered in the softest cream leather upholstery.
She strapped herself in beside Alessio and moments later felt the slightest dip in her stomach as the pilot lifted the craft from the ground.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.
‘To where the magic happens,’ he answered enigmatically.
Time flew as quickly as the helicopter. Beth gazed out of the window and watched as they left the urban sprawl of Milan behind. Soon, she saw mountains in the distance and, as they flew closer, expanses of water gleaming under the morning sun.
Her heart leapt. ‘Is that Lake Como?’
‘Excellent deduction.’
The beauty of what lay beneath took her breath away and she forgot all about their destination until she realised they were losing altitude. At the foot of two mountains lay a sprawling mediaeval building with sand-coloured walls and red roof tiles built as a square ring around a vast courtyard.
They landed a short distance from it and, when they climbed out, she noticed the landing site was part of the complex, the entire perimeter surrounded by thick trees. She counted eight security guards patrolling the area.
She looked at Alessio.
His lips curved. ‘You wanted to see the workshop...here we are.’
‘This is the workshop?’
She’d imagined an ordinary industrial building in an ordinary industrial setting, not something that looked as if it had been an important monastery in a previous life set in the most glorious landscape imaginable.
They were driven through the vast grounds on a golf buggy, past a manned checkpoint and through the alarmed gates into the compound itself.
Alessio enjoyed watching Beth’s stunned reaction to it all.
His fellow directors could go to hell, he thought coldly.
He’d called them into the boardroom on his return from the workshop and torn a strip off them for making his wife feel unwanted and disliked.
‘You cannot expect us to accept her like this,’ Carla had shouted back at him. ‘When is she going to start taking the business seriously?’
‘She is taking it seriously’
‘Then where is she? Why is she not here?’
‘She’s gone home.’
‘Home?’ Carla had scorned. ‘While the rest of us are here working? We are coming into our busiest time with the Christmas period about to start and she’s at home with her feet up?’
Before Alessio could defend his wife, Gina had cut in to back up her sister. ‘She’s not like us. She’s not business-minded. All week she has shadowed me and it is obvious she wants to be somewhere else.’
‘Is that surprising when you make no effort to put her at ease?’
‘She’s spent the week looking at her watch! We try to forget she was Domenico’s friend but she doesn’t make it easy. She should try to fit in with us.’
At that, Alessio had slammed his fist on the table. ‘She is doing her best! If I find that any of you treat her with anything less than respect from this point on, I will clear your offices personally.’
He drove thoughts of his family aside when they stepped into the spacious reception room. He introduced Beth to the smiling receptionist, used his thumbprint to sign himself in then set Beth up with her own thumbprint.
If his family didn’t like it, then tough.
‘Is this entire building the workshop?’ she asked.
‘Only the east wing. The other wings are for our laboratories.’
‘I thought they were in separate locations.’
‘Not in a decade. We had a major renovation programme and brought it all under one roof.’
‘Why here?’ Her eyes were alight with curiosity.
‘This is where the Palvettis are from.’
‘Lake Como? I thought you were from Milan.’
‘Not originally. My great-grandfather had a small workshop on the ground floor of the family home in a town a kilometre from here. He was taught the craft by his own father—jewellery making was the family trade for generations before Palvetti as we know it today came into being.’
He pushed open the double doors to the right and they entered the art studio. Beth’s attention was captured by the intricate designs being worked on and she studied them while Alessio recounted his family history.
‘After the war, when Europe and the world itself was recovering from all the terrible things that had occurred during it, a Venetian got lost on his way back to his holiday villa by the lake. He knocked on the workshop door for directions and fell in love with a ring my great-grandfather was making. He commissioned a ring for his wife. She showed it to her friends. Those who could afford it ordered bespoke creations too. Word spread. There were not enough hours in the day for him to take all the commissions, which pushed the prices up, which in itself added to the allure. My great-grandmother recognised this—where my great-grandfather had the talent, she had the business brain.’
‘Rare that she was allowed to use it in those days,’ Beth commented.
‘It was. I never met her but my father described her as a formidable lady. She recognised that our unique selling point was exclusivity and mystique. She was the driving force behind the Palvetti we are today. No interviews and, at the time, no advertising or marketing. To wear our jewellery and our scents—those were her idea too—you had to be in the club to know about it and you had to be wealthy to be able to afford it. My grandfather and his siblings all joined the company when they turned eighteen and it’s been Palvetti owned and controlled ever since.’
‘What happened to the house where it all began?’
‘One of my cousins owns it.’
The art studio done with, they went through to the next room—the workshop itself.
Beth gaped at the scale of it and wondered if Alessio’s great-grandparents had ever envisaged their creations being made in a place like this.
Work benches and tools of all shapes and sizes lay as far as the eye could see, instruments Beth didn’t recognise, a scent in the air she didn’t recognise either, but which contained a metallic tang, a chaotic yet somehow orderly mess.
A dozen people in protective overcoats worked at their benches, too engrossed in the intricacy of their creations to pay attention to them other than one tall, skinny man who hurried over to greet them.
Alessio introduced him as his cousin, Gianluigi.
Gianluigi, it quickly transpired, ran the workshop. He was also Carla’s and Gina’s brother, a fact made more shocking by him greeting Beth with real warmth and enthusiastically showing what he was working on: a thick gold bangle half-encrusted with gleaming jewels of differing colours. He explained it was part of a set commissioned by a sheikh for his new bride.
Beth couldn’t resist asking the price.
‘The whole set is six million euros.’
A month ago, the price would have made her eyes pop out.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said with feeling. ‘I am in awe of your talent.’
When they left the workshop and were back in the reception room, she said to Alessio, ‘I didn’t realise a Palvetti still made the jewellery.’
‘Gianluigi’s not the only one. His eldest daughter wants to take an apprenticeship in the workshop when she finishes school. Four of our jewellery makers and goldsmiths are family members. There are six of us working in the laboratories too. I told you—there is a role in our company to suit everyone.’
He opened the door on the other side of the reception room and suddenly Beth found herself transported into a futuristic world of science fiction fantasy, all clean white lines and people in white overcoats.
The deeper they explored, the more there was to see: the indoor greenhouse, the room with dried harvested ingredients, a distillery...even a packaging room. Everything there to create the wonderful scents which pervaded the air with every step she took from conception to finished product. There was so much to it, so many rooms to explore and people with differing roles to talk to, that she could hardly take it all in.
Their tour ended two hours after it started in a vast meeting room, the only space in the building to have retained its mediaeval roots. She could imagine dozens of monks dining together in this room amidst the exposed ancient stone walls and oak flooring.
Refreshments were brought in to them. Beth stood at a lead-paned window, soaking in the glorious views and nibbling on a pastry, her mind racing.
Alessio watched her closely just as he’d watched her closely throughout the tour. He’d never seen her so animated or her eyes shine so brightly. They shone now as she turned from the window to face him.
‘You should hold a party here.’
He raised a brow at this outrageous suggestion but a dreamy expression had come over Beth’s face and she didn’t notice.
‘A party for your richest clients. An exclusive party...’
His ears suddenly pricked up. ‘Go on.’
She closed her eyes and swayed. ‘You invite a select few. Ten at the most. And partners. We tell them to meet in Milan and then helicopter them in blindfolded...no, blindfolds are taking secrecy too far. They tour specially selected parts of the laboratories and are allowed to smell the scents in production. You give them demonstrations of various processes...but keep them away from the workshop; there’s no glamour there, and it’s good to retain some mystique. Once their experience in the laboratory is over, they’re brought into this meeting room which is transformed into a wonderland. The finest Palvetti jewellery will be discreetly displayed and admired. The guests are greeted by a string quartet playing beautiful music, real-life models sprayed in gold standing in artful positions to become human statues, delicious canapés, champagne...
‘When the guests leave, it’s with a gift-wrapped box containing their own specially produced scent and a specially crafted bracelet for the ladies and cufflinks for the gentlemen.’
For a moment he was so taken with watching her speak, the dreaminess on the beautiful face, the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her pale green shirt-dress, that the words she’d actually said took a little longer than they should have to land in his brain.
His throat was dry as he spoke. ‘What would be the purpose?’
Her eyes snapped open. ‘To make them feel special. You said your great-grandmother thought of Palvetti as being like a club that you had to be in the know about to be a part of. A party would be an extension of that. The more exclusive and secret it is, the more the guests won’t be able to resist boasting to their rich friends about it. Those friends will be green with envy and spend even more money on bespoke jewellery in the hope of one day getting their own special invitation...’
She suddenly stopped talking, gave an embarrassed laugh and reached for her coffee. ‘Sorry, my imagination ran away with me there.’
He shook his head slowly, his mind bringing to life Beth’s vision that had sprung from nowhere. ‘That is an incredible idea.’
She was incredible. Beautiful, sexy and burning with ideas that just needed a conduit into which to unleash them.
‘It is?’
‘A secret, exclusive party that they won’t be able to resist talking about. If we host it in a month, there will be time for word to reach the ears of those who would want to place orders in time for Christmas.’
‘A month doesn’t give you much time.’ She flicked a crumb of pastry off the skirt of her dress.
‘You organised a masquerade ball in six weeks. If anyone can pull this off, you can.’
Her gaze shot up to meet his. ‘Me?’
‘Who better?’ he asked nonchalantly. ‘This is the perfect role for you.’
‘But I’m shadowing Marcello next week and—’
‘Not any more.’ His wife’s shadowing days were over. Gina was right. Beth wasn’t business-minded, not in the way needed to run a Palvetti department. She was creative. She thrived on projects. Chaining her to an office desk would suck the life out of her.
She chewed her lips with an expression on her face that concerned him.
‘Don’t you want to do it?’
‘I do...’ She raised her shoulders and grimaced. ‘I’m just thinking. Four weeks is no time at all. It’ll mean I have to work weekends.’
‘You object to weekends?’ He hadn’t got her to work any yet, mostly because he’d been easing her into the business slowly so as not to overwhelm her any more than she already was.
‘I see little enough of Dom as it is without losing my weekends with him.’
Alessio dragged his fingers through his hair, knowing exactly what his cousins would say if they heard Beth speaking like this.
He also knew what they would say if they heard his response. They would be outraged. ‘We will provide you with enough staff that working weekends will be unnecessary.’
The light that shone from her face at his words was bright enough for him to feel as if he’d been injected with sunrays.
To hell with his cousins.
He would let Beth arrange the party and, once it was done, create a permanent role for her within the company as bespoke as any of the jewellery they created.
His mind made up, the weight he’d carried on his shoulders since Beth’s confession that she was overwhelmed at work and felt hated by his family lifted.
* * *
If Beth had been told three weeks ago that she would be dining in a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Milan that had the appearance of an art gallery with Alessio Palvetti as her husband, their fellow diners a Chinese businessman and his translator, she would have thought the person doing the telling was a crank. The very notion would have been so preposterous that she’d have advised them to see a doctor.
But here she was.
The food, as to be expected, was divine: an eleven-course tasting menu, each course served with its own specially selected accompanying wine.
Her taste-buds thought they’d died and gone to heaven, especially when she ate the scallops served with fennel, coral mayonnaise, capers and raspberry vinegar, ingredients she would never have thought should be put together. She resisted the urge to steal the tiny portion left on the translator’s plate.
Her husband sat beside her. He ate with gusto too, although she noticed he drank half the amount of wine as the businessman. Between courses he hooked an arm casually around the back of her chair. She liked the casual possessiveness of the gesture. She hated that she liked it, not out of any feminist ideals, but because she knew the danger.
Their trip to the workshop had changed everything.
She practically buzzed with excitement... She could hardly believe he’d listened to her rambling thoughts and not only thought them a good idea but wanted her to go ahead and do it! Finally, a project she could get her teeth into, doing something she was good at and which she enjoyed.
Finally, she understood what Alessio meant about there being a role for everyone in Palvetti. It gave her hope for Dom too. When he grew up he would find a place in the family business into which to carve his own niche.
Even if professional pride would not allow her to do anything but her best at this, for Alessio she would go even further. For Alessio she would do everything she could to make this party perfect and justify his faith in her.
That faith blew her mind.
It meant so much.
Her feelings for him were becoming harder to contain. For an ordinary married couple this would be a good thing, but there was nothing ordinary about their marriage, and she continually had to remind herself of that.
Trying her hardest to push her thoughts aside, she concentrated on the conversation at hand.
Their trip to Lake Como had given her a greater understanding of the business and let her see with her own eyes Alessio’s fierce pride in both the business and his family. He was doing his best to find her a role within it and she was determined to play her part too and be the best asset she could be.
Eventually, the meal was over and the businessman messaged his driver to collect him while Alessio picked up the tab.
When they were seated in the back of their car, Alessio turned to her. ‘Ready for something different?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That the night is young.’ His lips quirked. ‘I’d hate for you to think my idea of a good night out is a boring business dinner.’
She tried not to get excited. ‘You’re taking me out?’
‘Do you want to? Dom will be asleep so we don’t need to rush back for him.’
‘Are we going to do something fun?’
‘That’s the idea.’ His lips quirked again. ‘I got the distinct impression that you were disappointed when I told you tonight’s meal was a business dinner.’
Beth beamed. Her husband’s perceptiveness was a constant source of astonishment.
He pressed the intercom button and spoke to his driver. ‘Take us to Club Giroud.’
A Cinderella To Secure His Heir (Cinderella Seductions Book 1) Page 11
