A few minutes later and they were driving through the district in which she’d spent an extortionate amount of Alessio’s money, shortly coming to a stop in a vibrant area packed with people dressed to the nines enjoying the best of Milan’s nightlife.
Excitement filled her. Beth hadn’t been on a night out since before Dom’s birth.
Laughter filled her ears when she stepped out of the car and new aromas wafted into her nose, different scents from the day. In the near distance she spotted the Duomo twinkling under the moonlit sky.
She didn’t get the chance to take much more in for Alessio opened a nondescript door and they entered a nondescript room where two burly men stood guarding a second door. On the wall beside it was a square box. Alessio pressed a button and it flashed green. Then he put his face to it.
A moment later the men stepped aside and the door they’d been guarding opened.
How many gasps of awe could a woman make in a lifetime? Beth wondered. There was nothing nondescript about this reception room, where Alessio went to the highly polished desk and signed them in, and nothing nondescript about the warren of rooms they passed in this luxurious club that had an eclectic, buzzing atmosphere.
There was nothing nondescript about the clientele either. On their walk through it she saw more diamonds than in a Palvetti jewellery store and she spotted more than a few famous faces.
On the third floor he led them to a room where the decibel level was lower than in many they’d passed to reach it.
A hostess greeted them and led them to a corner table with two single armchairs facing each other separated by a glass table. Alessio had removed his tie in the car and now placed his jacket on the back of his armchair.
‘What is this place?’ Beth asked once they’d ordered their drinks and were alone.
‘A private members’ club. There are rooms for all occasions and requirements. I thought we could have a drink in here to start and then you can choose what you want to do. We can play cards in the casino room...whatever you want.’
She took her Rossini cocktail from the returning hostess with a murmured thanks and had a long drink of it. ‘I want to dance.’
Alessio took a long drink of his too. ‘What do you like to dance to?’
‘Stuff with a funky beat. Funnily enough, that’s not the kind of music I like to listen to.’
‘Which is?’
‘Edgier music. Rock. What about you?’
‘My life doesn’t leave much time for music.’
‘There’s always time. I always used to have music playing when I worked.’ If ever she got her own office she would get a radio and play music to her heart’s content.
‘I find it a distraction. There’s plenty of time for music when I retire.’
‘But that’s decades away.’
‘And I will have decades left to enjoy my life and all the world’s music.’
‘You don’t know that. Life’s fragile. No one knows what’s around the corner.’ She thought of her parents. She thought of Caroline and Domenico. ‘Look at your brother: gone before he could fulfil his dreams.’
His expression darkened almost imperceptibly.
‘I know you’re dismissive of his music but he was talented.’
The strong nostrils flared.
Reading between the lines of what Domenico had told her of their relationship, and Alessio’s own version of events, their estrangement had been a long time in the making. Domenico had blinded himself to Alessio’s qualities and Alessio had done the same.
It was time her husband learned his brother had had good qualities.
Ignoring the growing darkness of his stare, she said, ‘He formed a band in London. That’s how Caroline and I met him—they were playing a gig in a venue near our flat. They were brilliant and Domenico was the creative force behind it. They had a real following behind them and were in talks about a record deal when he had the accident. I wonder...’
She sighed and grazed her teeth over her lips.
‘Wonder what?’
‘I wonder if the pressure of being a Palvetti and living under your shadow stifled him when he was living here. Your parents went out of their way to support him but, being here, I can see the pressure he must have been under. Domenico was a sensitive soul who felt things deeply. He wasn’t designed for the corporate world.’
There was intensity in the emerald stare on her but no anger.
‘The Domenico I knew was happy,’ she told him softly. ‘He never had much money but he had Caroline, friends, his band, a life. When Caroline fell pregnant they were the happiest souls on earth. I was so envious of the love they found together. They were soul mates. I longed for that...’ She shook her head away from thoughts that could never be. ‘Her diagnosis devastated him.’
He shifted in his seat. ‘It was cancer, wasn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘It was the same hereditary strain that killed her mother, grandmother and an aunt too.’
Alessio thought hard, swirling his glass of Scotch absently. ‘She had the diagnosis before Dom was born?’
It was not something he had thought about before, even though he’d known she’d died when Dom was only three months old.
‘Caroline was five months’ pregnant when she found the lump in her breast. She refused to have any treatment because she knew it would harm the baby.’
He swore, his chest tightening so hard he could hardly breathe. ‘Would treatment have saved her?’
‘We don’t know. Possibly. But she wouldn’t have taken it even if they’d guaranteed her survival, not if there was the slightest chance of it harming Dom.’
‘She knew refusing the treatment would kill her?’
‘Yes. And your brother did too.’
His head spun as if all the alcohol he’d consumed that evening had hit him at once.
And as he thought of excess alcohol he remembered the coroner’s report into his brother’s death and his initial surprise at the findings. His brother had been born a selfish bastard but he’d never been much of a drinker.
He put the dates together. Caroline was diagnosed with cancer at five months’ pregnant. A month later, Domenico was the one lying dead.
‘He begged her to have the treatment but her mind was made up,’ Beth whispered into the silence. ‘He started drinking heavily because he couldn’t cope. Caroline was his life. The only time he was truly sober in the weeks before his death was when they got the wills drawn up.’
A stab of anger cut through him at this unwitting confirmation of his brother’s selfishness. Domenico’s pregnant wife had received a terminal diagnosis and all he’d been able to do was hit the bottle?
He downed what was left of his Scotch but his throat had become so constricted it was an effort to swallow it.
Alessio and Domenico had always been different. They’d been brothers but they’d not had much in the way of a brotherly relationship.
The truth was, they had despised each other.
Seeing tears swim in Beth’s eyes only made him feel more wretched.
‘I brought you here to enjoy yourself, not to make you cry.’
‘You haven’t.’ She contorted her face into a smile. ‘It’s still raw. Caroline.’
‘I get that.’
Her eyes held his. ‘Do you miss him at all?’
‘Domenico?’
She nodded.
‘No.’ It was an admission that weighed on his conscience. ‘I miss my mother, but I think to miss someone you have to know them, and I never knew my brother.’
Once Alessio had gone to boarding school, any brotherly bond had been severed. He’d been too disdainful of his brother’s life choices to get to know him as an adult.
Placing his empty glass on the table, he got to his feet and held out a hand. ‘I promised you a dance.’
Th
is time her smile was a notch brighter.
She slipped her much smaller hand into his and held it tightly as he guided her to the dance room, already packed with people letting their hair down to the thudding beats.
When he pulled Beth into his arms and they found a rhythm together that came as naturally as breathing, all he could think was that he’d forced her into a life she’d never wanted and from which she could never escape. She would never have the chance to build true happiness for herself as Domenico had done before his death.
She would never find the love she’d longed for.
Alessio had taken that from her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU HAVE AGREED to what?’
Alessio folded his arms across his chest and merely stared at Gina. He would not repeat himself.
He had called the directors into the boardroom to share the innovative idea his wife had come up with, not to be on the receiving end of yet more attitude. He was rapidly losing patience with the cousin to whom he had always been closest.
Gina put her hands on the table and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘A party in our production facility? You are out of your mind.’
Carla and Marcello, however, both had thoughtful expressions on their faces. Neither had said anything since Alessio had explained Beth’s idea.
‘Our production facility is located in one of the most beautiful places on God’s earth in a converted monastery,’ he reminded them icily. ‘The external architecture rivals any of the lakeside villas for beauty.’
‘I do not deny that. My point is that our most sacred secrets are kept within its walls and you want to open it up to the public.’
‘No, we want to host an intimate party for no more than ten of our most lucrative clients.’
‘And their partners. And bespoke gifts when they leave? How much is it going to cost?’
‘A lot,’ he admitted, unperturbed. The more he’d thought about it over the weekend, the more genius he’d come to think the idea. ‘Whatever we spend will be recouped. If this is played well it could be more lucrative than the necklace that actress wore at the Hollywood awards ceremony.’ Palvetti refused to lend their jewellery for award ceremonies but this particular actress had a doting husband who happened to be a filthy-rich movie producer. A stroke of luck had seen her win the best actress role. She had been on the front cover of every major newspaper across the world, wearing her Palvetti necklace.
‘If,’ she seethed. ‘That has big implications for such a small word.’
‘Beth can pull it off. I’ve seen her work and this project will allow you to see how hard she works when it’s something she’s passionate about. You will see what a great asset she can be for us.’
Gina stared at him then burst into a peal of laughter. ‘That’s what this is about? You are opening up our facility to please your little pet? You would give away our secrets just to make her happy?’
Before he’d even registered his backside leaving his chair, Alessio was on his feet, his fists clenched.
‘Do you forget who you are talking to?’ he asked, chest heaving, controlling his voice by a thread.
If Gina had been a man he would have thrown himself across the boardroom table and pinned her to the floor.
How dared she call Beth a pet when she was the one who’d made his wife feel like an unwanted stray?
‘Do you forget who you are talking to?’ But, for all the bravado of Gina’s tone, her face had turned white. ‘The business is not yours alone, Alessio. I was voted onto the board of directors for the same reasons you were. My voice is as valid as yours.’
‘Not when your voice speaks only poison.’
‘Someone has to say it. I have agreed with your insistence that I be respectful to her, and I will abide by it, but I will not be party to an event that could be the ruin of us.’
Breathing deeply to control the fury racketing through him, he turned his attention to Carla and Marcello. Both kept their eyes fixed on the table. ‘We will take a vote. Normal rules apply. But if you all agree that hosting an exclusive party for our most select guests is the potential ruin of us then I stand down from the board and the business.’
That made them look up.
‘I mean it. I will not stay if you doubt my judgement or my motives. One of you can take control.’ He had earned enough from his time at Palvetti in the form of salary and bonuses to need never work again ten lifetimes over. ‘All those in favour of the party, raise your hands.’
He held his hand up then held his breath.
Carla lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then she slowly raised her hand.
Gina glared at her sister.
He had won. In the event of a tie, Alessio had the casting vote.
But then Marcello looked up from his spot on the table and looked straight at his furious wife. ‘I’m sorry, Gina. I trust Alessio and I think this could work.’
Then he too raised his hand.
The slam of the boardroom door as Gina stormed out reverberated through the floor.
* * *
Beth was engrossed with writing her initial plans with old-fashioned pen and paper when she heard Alessio enter his office and close the door behind him.
‘How did it go?’ she asked, not looking up.
This was the first time she’d gone to the office in a week without the chimes of doom playing in her head, and she’d got stuck straight into writing down all the thoughts for the party that had percolated in her head over the weekend while Alessio filled in the other directors in about it.
She wrote ‘scented truffles’ down and underlined it. Was there such a thing? Could they lace confectionery with perfume without killing anyone?
‘Alessio?’ She looked up from her work, wondering why he hadn’t responded, and found him propped against the adjoining door of their offices.
There had been no discussion about it but to Beth’s mind this was her permanent office now. The first thing she’d done when arriving at headquarters that morning was to take all her stuff out of the box room Gina had made her work from and move it back in here.
She liked this office. She liked being close to Alessio. She liked that she could look up from her desk whenever she wanted and see the man she...
Her eyes met his.
There was something in his stare, a starkness that made her heart expand to fill her chest.
She gazed into those emerald eyes with emotions surging through her, crashing through her blood and pounding in her head, diving to deepen the breaths straining to escape from her lungs.
Suddenly her heart could expand no more. It exploded. Shockwaves followed its wake, rippling in her veins like a thousand tsunamis.
Alessio couldn’t tear his eyes from Beth’s. His feet felt weighted to the floor.
From his position at the doorway, he’d observed her with a compression in his chest, head bowed in concentration, silky dark hair spilling around her shoulders and onto her desk.
Where had the white-hot rage that had consumed him minutes ago come from? When he would have turned his back on everything for her, his business and his family?
He would have walked away from everything he’d spent his life working for. For her.
When she’d lifted her head and those chocolate eyes had met his, the compression had reached a peak. Something shifted inside him and a pain like nothing he had experienced before ripped through him.
He felt as if he’d been shot.
The silence in the office was absolute. Other than his heart. It thumped harder and stronger in his chest than he had ever felt it do before.
If he strained his ears he was certain he’d be able to hear Beth’s heart beating too.
Their eyes stayed locked together.
Moving of its own accord, his hand reached behind him to pull the door shut.
&n
bsp; He put one foot in front of the other.
He inhaled her scent before he reached her. It dove into him.
And then he stood before her and stared at her beautiful face. But Beth’s beauty ran deeper than merely skin-deep. She had beauty in her core and that beauty was shining at him.
Her face tilted up to his. Her breaths were as heavy as his own but it was the hunger staring back at him... It pulsed in the swirl of her eyes, lived in the colour rising high on her cheeks.
He didn’t know who made the first move but one moment they were gazing wordlessly at each other, the next they were pressed tightly together, her arms hooked around his neck, his arms tight around her waist, mouths fused, tongues dancing, her sweet taste filling him.
And how it filled him.
Suddenly he was consumed with the need to possess her and devour her whole.
Within seconds he’d lifted her so she was sat on her desk, the skirt of her dress bunched around her waist.
Her fingers dug into the base of his skull before she dragged her hands over his shoulders and placed her palms on his beating chest.
He broke the kiss and stared into her eyes but found only the same madness that had taken him in its grip.
With a loud groan he kissed her again, hard, hungry, a starving man desperate for the sustenance only she could provide.
In a tangle of fingers and kisses razed over cheeks and necks they worked together to free his arousal from the confines of his trousers, and then he was pulling down her knickers, which she kicked free with her feet, and then he was standing between her parted thighs and with one thrust buried deep inside her tight, sodden heat.
Their lips fused together and he pounded into her with an urgency heightened beyond anything he’d ever known before. And she matched him. He held her tightly around her back while her hands cradled his head, nails scraping against his scalp. Their gasps were drowned in each other’s mouths.
Somehow, he was able to hold his release until she wrenched her mouth from his and pressed her lips tightly into his neck. He felt a thickening drag him deeper and deeper inside her and he lost himself in a climax so powerful, the walls around him faded to a blurry nothing.
A Cinderella To Secure His Heir (Cinderella Seductions Book 1) Page 12
