An Inheritance of Shame(35)

He might have been able to buy up the flagship hotel in Matteo’s absence, but it appeared taking over Luca’s fashion enterprise was going to be a little bit more difficult.

Luca set his briefcase on the table, his gaze moving slowly around the room, pinning every uneasy shareholder in his or her place. ‘Now,’ he said pleasantly, and Angelo heard the unmistakable undercurrent of authority in his voice, ‘where were we?’

Twenty minutes later the meeting had ended and Luca was still in charge. Angelo slid his papers back into his attaché, affected an insouciance he didn’t really feel.

Luca glanced at him coolly from across the table. ‘Foiled this time, Angelo.’

Angelo gave him a hard smile. ‘I don’t think we’ve actually ever been introduced.’

‘And yet you seem determined on snatching as much of the Corretti empire as you can.’

‘Snatching?’ Angelo raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s business, Luca. It always has been.’

Luca closed his briefcase with a decisive snap. ‘Business?’ he repeated with a shake of his head. ‘I don’t think so. Not for you.’

Angelo felt everything in him tense as that familiar rage flashed through him. He hated the other man’s mocking tone, that superior sneer. ‘Trust me,’ he answered evenly, ‘it’s business.’ Without another word he stalked from the boardroom, felt the adrenalin course through him as he took the lift down to the street. Once outside he decided to walk off his anger. He headed towards Pretoria Square, his mind racing along with his heart.

He could certainly do without Luca’s fashion house. Buying out the Correttis’ flagship hotel had been far more a significant coup and he wasn’t going to concern himself with a few dresses. And yet he couldn’t keep the resentment from lodging inside him like a stone, heavy and hot, burning through him. Snatching indeed.

How he hated the Correttis, with their smug superiority and their complete indifference to a blood relation, simply because he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Not one of them had ever concerned themselves with him or his welfare. Not one of them had ever cared or considered him at all.

As a boy he’d had the most pathetic, useless fantasies about how they’d notice him. His father would find out about his existence and welcome him into the palazzo. His half-brothers and cousins would become his friends. He had, once upon a time, imagined how they’d become his family, his real family. He’d dreamt of how they’d all love him.

But of course no one ever had.

Except Lucia. Lucia loved you.

He stumbled in his stride and righted himself, tried to push that unhelpful thought away. In the past three days, since he’d left Lucia in front of the hotel, she’d never been far from his thoughts. He’d determined to think of it—her—with cold logic; she said she loved him, so either she was lying or she believed she loved him even though she didn’t. Couldn’t. There were no other possibilities.

Angelo didn’t think she had been lying; she had no reason to lie about such a thing. So she must have somehow convinced herself that she loved him, perhaps as some kind of moral justification for their one-night stand.

And if he disabused her of the ridiculous notion? Convinced her that she couldn’t actually love him, that such an idea was mere fantasy? Angelo had at first found himself strangely reluctant to consider such an idea. Yet now as he strode towards Pretoria Square and gazed up at the huge marble fountain—the fountain of shame, it had once been called—he thought again.

Why not? Why not convince Lucia she couldn’t love him? Once she let go of such ridiculous, romantic notions she might be more willing to embark on what he wanted: a mutually pleasurable affair. He could still get what he wanted. What she wanted…He just had to convince her that she did.

Lucia was just reaching for another stack of linens when she heard a voice behind her.

‘There you are.’

She turned and felt her heart stop right in her chest at the sight of Angelo in the doorway of one of the hotel’s supply closets.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Here? People will talk, Angelo.’

‘Let them.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘You never used to care what people thought, Lucia. Remember?’ His voice was a rough caress and he stepped into the little room, seeming to take up all the space and air. ‘You told me not to care what people thought. What they said to me.’