by Penny Jordan
‘You are jumping to conclusions which are not valid. My brother’s anxiety as to your worthiness has nothing to do with your social status. His concern will be to see that you will not hurt me, and it is on that issue that he will seek to test you, by hinting that he can offer you far more than I.’ He frowned as his mobile purred, telling Leonora briskly before he answered it, ‘We shall discuss all of this in more detail over supper.’
He turned away from her to take his call, leaving Leonora to look helplessly towards the magnificent wrought-iron staircase that soared up from the hallway to the upper floor. She was a reluctant eavesdropper on his conversation as he said coolly, ‘Yes, I shall be bringing someone with me, Don Falcon. Her name?’ He paused and looked at Leonora. ‘Her name is Leonora Thaxton.’
Leonora’s heart thundered with half a dozen heavy and dizzying beats. Hunger, she told herself pragmatically. That was all it was.
She focused on the cream marble of the staircase, which should have been so cold but somehow, in this Florentine setting, was a thing of beauty and sensuality that made her long to reach out and stroke the beautiful stone. Wanting to stroke the marble was fine, but she’d better not allow that longing to spread to wanting to reach out and stroke its owner, she warned herself—and then was thoroughly shocked that she should feel it necessary to give herself such a warning.
After all, why on earth would she want to touch Alessandro Leopardi, when she could barely tolerate being in the same room with him?
The only piece of furniture in the hallway was a large and ornate gilded table with a dark onyx top, on which sat a large alabaster urn filled with greenery and white lilies, their scent perfuming the air like a caress. Everything about the hallway made Leonora feel out of place and awkward, somehow underlining her own lack of sensuality whilst subtly highlighting its own. But was it the hallway that was making her so aware of her own lack of sensuality or Alessandro himself?
What if it was him? He could think what he liked about her—she didn’t care, Leonora told herself stoutly, reverting to the defensive mechanisms she had learned as a girl. She didn’t care one little bit as he finished his call and turned back to her.
A woman—Caterina, Leonora presumed—emerged from a door set at the back of the hallway. She gave Leonora a sharp look that whilst not exactly welcoming wasn’t hostile either.
Alessandro addressed her in Italian, instructing her to take Leonora to the guest suite. Leonora, whose own Italian was excellent, was just thinking to herself that it might be a good idea not to reveal that she spoke Italian when Alessandro turned to her and said in that language, ‘I seem to recall that your many job applications made mention of the fact that you are proficient in several languages, one of which is Italian.’
He had read her applications himself, and had still rejected her—despite the excellence of her qualifications? Rejected her as her brothers had so often done because she was female? Immediately and instinctively Leonora reverted to another of the habits of her childhood: wanting to get her own back. Without stopping to think she answered him in Mandarin, but the rush of triumph she felt was quickly destroyed when he spoke to her in the same language.
‘Since Caterina does not speak Mandarin, I have to assume that your decision to do so is an exhibition of showing off more suited to a foolish child than an adult woman, and as such it reinforces my belief that you are not the kind of candidate who is suited to work for me,’ he said coldly.
‘Really? And to think I thought that it was my sex and my hormones that barred me,’ Leonora retaliated sweetly.
‘You’ve just underlined the reason for yourself—your immaturity,’ Alessandro told her crushingly.
Why, why, why had she let that stupid childish desire to show she was not just as good as but better than any male goad her? Leonora asked herself grimly. She turned away from him and spoke directly to Caterina in fluent Italian, earning the reward of a delighted smile from the older woman as she explained that she was Alessandro’s housekeeper.
Five minutes later Leonora was earning herself another approving smile from Caterina as she gazed round the guest suite to which Caterina had taken her with awed delight.
The palazzo had obviously undergone a very sympathetic restoration and refurbishment process in the recent past, Leonora guessed as she admired the strong clean lines of the large, high-ceilinged rooms connected by a magnificent pair of open double doors. Whilst the elegance of its original plasterwork and ceiling cornicing and the beautifully panelled and carved doors had been retained, the walls had obviously been replastered, and were painted in an ivory that seemed to change colour with the light pouring in from the glass doors that led onto an ironwork girded balcony overlooking an internal courtyard garden. Silver-grey floorboards reflected more light, and the room’s mix of an antique bed with pieces of far more modern furniture gave the suite an air of being lived in rather than being a museum set-piece.
At the touch of a remote control Caterina proudly revealed not just a flatscreen TV but a computer, a pull-out desk and a sound system discreetly hidden away behind a folding wall.
‘Is good, sì?’ she asked Leonora in English, inviting praise of something of which she was obviously proud.
‘It is wonderful,’ Leonora agreed, telling her in Italian, ‘It is a perfect blend of past and present—a very simpatico restoration.’
Caterina beamed. ‘This building and many others belonged to the family of Signor Alessandro’s mamma, and so came to him and his brothers. Together they have worked to keep the family history but also to make it comfortable to live in now. Don Falcon, he sits on the council that takes care of those buildings that are owned by many of the old Florentine families, and he makes Signor Alessandro pay much money from his airline to help with the restoration work. Signor Alessandro knows that he cannot refuse his elder brother. Don Falcon has the most power because he is the eldest.’
‘How many brothers and sisters are there?’ Leonora asked her curiously.
‘No sister. They are all three boys. Signor Alessandro is the second brother.’
The second brother—the second child, just like her. Leonora frowned. She didn’t want to find any kind of connection between them, but as a second child he must have experienced, as she had, all that it meant to be a middle child, sandwiched between the lordly eldest and the favoured baby of the family, constantly having to fight for his position and for adult attention and love, never quite as good or grown-up as his elder sibling nor allowed to get away with as much as his indulged younger sibling. She wanted instead to continue to dislike and resent him. And besides, her situation had been worse—because she had been a girl sandwiched between two brothers. As same-sex siblings Alessandro and his siblings would have been able to bond together.
Or would he have had to compete even harder than she had done? Not that it mattered. She refused to start feeling sympathetic towards him. Look at the way he was treating her—threatening and blackmailing her...
Caterina had gone, giving her some time to freshen up before going back downstairs to have supper with Alessandro and receive her instructions.
In addition to the sitting room and bedroom, the guest suite also possessed a dressing room and a huge bathroom, with a sunken rectangular bath so large it could have easily accommodated a whole family and a state-of-the-art wet-room-style shower area.
Since it wasn’t going to take her very long to get changed, Leonora allowed herself to be tempted out onto the balcony. Florence... Right now she should have been enjoying the magic of the city, making plans to visit all those treasures she wanted to see, instead of standing here, the captive of a man who was ruthlessly using her for his own ends.
It was dark outside, and all she could see of the courtyard garden beneath her balcony were various small areas illuminated by strategically placed floodlights that revealed a long, narrow canal-st
Half an hour later, having showered and changed into her jeans and a top, she had just finished answering Leo’s anxious text asking if all had gone well. She had given an airy and untrue response to the effect that there was nothing for him to worry about and that she was looking forward to her short break in Florence.
Caterina tapped on her sitting room door and then came in, announcing that she had come to escort Leonora back downstairs.
Several doors led off the hallway, and the one through which Caterina took her opened onto a wide corridor hung with a variety of modern paintings mingled with framed pieces of what Leonora thought must be medieval fabric and parchment. The whole somehow worked together in a way that once again made her feel acutely aware of the harmony of their shared composition.
At the end of the corridor a wide doorway opened onto a semi-enclosed loggia-type terrace, overlooking the courtyard garden, where Alessandro was waiting for her.
Like her, he had changed. What was it about him that enabled him to look so effortlessly stylish and yet at the same time so intimidatingly arrogant and sexually male? Leonora wondered on a small shiver. In profile his features reminded her of the profiles of ancient Roman heroes. She could quite easily imagine that close-cropped head wearing a laurel wreath. Her heart jolted into her ribs as though his compelling aura had reached out and somehow claimed her. She must not let him get to her like this. So he possessed both extraordinary male good looks and extraordinary male power? She was impervious to both. She had to be. That pumice-stone-grey gaze could not really penetrate her defences and see into her most private thoughts.
‘Grazie, Caterina.’
He thanked his housekeeper with a smile so warm that it had Leonora’s eyes widening with surprise. This was the first time she had seen him showing any kind of human warmth, but she had no idea why it should have caused her such a sharply acute pang of melancholy. There was no reason why she should feel upset because he didn’t smile like that at her.
‘Since what I wish to say to you is confidential, and needs to be said in privacy, I thought it best that we eat here and serve ourselves,’ he told her, as soon as Caterina had left, moving towards a buffet placed on a table against one wall, in which she could see an assortment of salads and antipasti. ‘There are various hot dishes inside the cabinet. Are you familiar with Florentine dishes? Because if you wish me to explain any of them to you then please say so.’
Going to join him, Leonora marvelled. ‘Has Caterina prepared all this?’
Alessandro shook his head.
‘No. Normally when I am here in Florence I either eat out with friends or cook for myself, but on this occasion I ordered the food in from a nearby restaurant.’
‘You can cook?’ The gauche words were out before she could silence them, causing him to arch an eyebrow and give her a look that made her feel even more self-conscious.
‘My elder brother insisted that we learn when we were growing up.’
Alessandro spoke of his elder brother as though he had parented them, and yet Leonora knew that Alessandro’s father was still alive.
Ten minutes later, with her main course of bistecca alla fiorentina, a salad dish of sundried tomatoes, olives and green leaves, and a glass of Sassicaia red wine in front of her—which Alessandro had explained to her was made from the French Cabernet Sauvignon grape—Leonora could feel her mouth starting to water with anticipation. Her appetite, though, was somewhat spoiled when Alessandro began to outline what he expected from her in return for not firing Leo.
‘As I have already said, the celebrations and ceremonies of the weekend will be of a formal nature, during which, as my father’s second son, I shall be expected to play my part in representing the Leopardi family. Family is important to all Italians, but to be Sicilian means that the honour of the family and the respect accorded to it are particularly sacred. If Falcon allowed him to do so my father would still rule those who live on Leopardi land as though he owned them body and soul.’
Because she could hear the angry loathing and frustration in his voice, Leonora fought not to speak her mind.
‘Falcon, when the time comes, will guide our people towards a more enlightened way of life, as our father should have done. But all his life our father has controlled others through fear and oppression, none more so than his sons. Now in the last months of his life, he expects us to give him the love and respect he delighted in withholding from us as the children of his first marriage, while he lavished everything within him on the woman who supplanted our mother and the son he never let us forget he wished might have supplanted us. Some might think it a fitting punishment that he has had to live through the death of both of them.’
Leonora was too shocked by Alessandro’s revelations to hide her feelings. The delicious food she had been eating had suddenly lost its flavour.
‘He must have hurt you all very badly.’ That was all she could manage to say.
‘One cannot be hurt when one does not care.’
But he had cared. Leonora could tell.
‘It is important that you know a little of our recent family history so that you will understand the importance of the role I wish you to play. During his lifetime our halfbrother, Antonio, was our father’s favourite and most favoured child. In fact he loved him so much that when, on his deathbed, Antonio told our father that he believed he had an illegitimate son, he insisted that the child must be found. Not for its own sake, you understand, but so that he could use it as a substitute for the son he had lost. Falcon was able to trace the young woman who might have conceived Antonio’s child.’
‘And the baby?’ Leonora pressed, immediately fearful and hardly daring to ask.
‘The child was not Antonio’s. Although as it happens he will be brought up as a member of the Leopardi family, since my youngest brother is now married to the child’s aunt. My father is so obsessed with Antonio that initially he refused to accept that the child was not his, but, as Falcon has said, it is just as well that there was no child. If there had been our father would no doubt have repeated the mistakes he made with Antonio and ruined another young life. Had there been a child I would certainly have done my utmost to ensure that it remained with its mother, and that both of them were kept safe from my father’s interference in their lives.’
He meant what he was saying, and Leonora was forced to admit that she could only admire him for his stance.
He moved slightly, reminding her of a dangerous animal of prey, dragging her thoughts away from the child whose potential fate he had described so compellingly and to her own unwanted vulnerability—to him. But then she saw the expression in his eyes as he gazed beyond her, as though looking back into his own past, and she recognised that he had his own vulnerabilities. He too had once been a small child—lonely, afraid, needing to be loved and protected.
She saw his mouth and then his whole expression harden, all his past vulnerability overridden by sheer will as he told her, ‘These days I consider myself fortunate that I was our father’s least favourite. The one he liked to humiliate the most by reminding me of the fact that I had been given life merely to be a second son whose usefulness would come to an end the day Falcon produced his own first-born son.’
As a second-born child herself, Leonora had thought she knew what it meant not to come first, but the cruelty Alessandro had just revealed so unemotionally was horrific. So much so that she had started to reach across the table towards him, in an instinctive gesture of comfort, before she realised what she was doing, quickly curling her fingers into her palm and withdrawing her hand, her face burning when she saw the frowning, dismissive way his gaze had followed her betraying movement.
‘To his credit, Falcon did his best to protect both us and himself. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for my elder brother, and all three of us share a bond that is there because, young as he was, he took it upon himself to ensure that we stood together and supported one another. My father thought to continue to control us all into adulthood through the loyalty we bear to our family name and of course through his wealth. But, whilst Falcon insists that the Leopardi name is accorded loyalty and respect, we have all three of us in our different ways made ourselves financially independent and successful as ourselves, rather than as his sons. Even me—the son he labelled second-born and second-rate.’
Leonora took a deep gulp of her wine in an effort to suppress her unwanted surge of aching sympathy for him.
‘Of course in my father’s eyes no man can consider himself to be a true man unless he has succeeded beyond all other men in every aspect of his life. My younger brother is married. But since Falcon is the heir, there is no woman alive that he could not, if he wishes to do so, command and demand as his wife. Were I to attend the weekend’s celebrations without an appropriate female partner then my father would no doubt publicly and repeatedly claim that for all my financial success I am a failure as a man. I cannot and will not allow that to happen.’
How well she understood that need to prove oneself, Leonora admitted to herself.
‘Your father is hardly likely to be impressed by me,’ she felt obliged to point out.
‘You underestimate yourself.’
She stared at Alessandro in astonishment, whilst something warm and sweet and wholly unexpected unfurled tentatively inside her heart—only to wither like life in an oxygen-deprived stratosphere as he continued.
‘It is not, after all, your looks that matter. Any fool can buy the company of someone who currently passes for a beautiful woman, and most fools do. You, on the other hand, have a certain authenticity that comes from your lack of plastic prettiness which, allied to your qualifications, make it more rather than less likely that we could share a relationship. My father sees and understands only what he wants to see and understand. Falcon, however, is not so easily deceived—which is why you will remain at my side at all times and not allow yourself to be drawn into any kind of private conversation with my eldest brother.’
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