‘Poor you,’ Maria bit back as she plonked his espresso before him, barely managing to keep the coffee in the cup.
As he took a sip, she shook her head.
‘No.’
He had expected her to put up a fight. And he had come prepared. ‘I—’
‘No, Micha.’
‘You haven’t heard my offer yet.’
‘It won’t matter.’
‘You’ll be a consultant, and you’ll get an on-signing bonus worth ten percent of the contract,’ he explained.
‘No,’ she said again.
‘Fine. I’ll give you your job back with an increase in salary, and a promotion to senior vice-president.’
‘No.’
‘What?’ he replied, genuinely shocked.
His offer was more than generous. It was so good it was almost bad business. And she would have known that. And she was still saying no? And even if itwasn’tgood enough, surely the risk to a company that was as good as her lifeblood would be enough to get her on board.
‘There is literally nothing that you could offer me that would make me come back to Gallo Group and work under you. It’s yours. You handle it. And if that’s all?’
Micha frowned, bracing against the punch of her words. He thought that she’d play hardball. That she’d take some convincing, but this flat-out refusal, this wasn’t stubbornness. Because he knew what stubbornness looked like on her. This didn’t even have the heat of outrage or anger. This was cold. This was…numb.
‘If you’ve finished your coffee, I’d like you to leave.’
He clenched his jaw, stifling all the arguments and objections, the questions that thickened his throat. There was something going on here. She was definitely trying to get rid of him. But why?
Her mobile rang just as he was going to press his point, and she let it ring as she stared at him until he raised his hands in surrender.
‘Va bene.’
She reached for her phone, and asked Antonio’s wife to give her two minutes. He’d seen Ivy’s name flash up on the screen.
Maria gestured for him to return to the door.
‘You can see yourself out,’ she said, turned her back on him and looked out through the large window that formed the back wall of the open-plan room.
He had been dismissed and he didn’t like it one bit.
‘Ivy… No, not at all. How are you doing?’ he heard Maria ask in English.
Turning on his heel, he walked to the door. He wasn’t going to beg her to come back. Yes, he needed her. But if Gallo Group had to continue without Peterson, he’d do that. But…it wasn’t Peterson that had him curious now. It was Maria.
He closed the door behind him and stepped out into the sunshine.
Something wasn’t right. He’d seen her furious, with him, he’d seen her grieving over Gio, he’d seen her pleasured and he’d seen her happy. He’d never seen her so…closed down. As if she was trying to hide something. But what?
Maria cast a look over her shoulder, her heart pounding in her chest and blood rushing in her ears.
‘Are you okay?’ Ivy asked, worried, after Maria had explained that Micha was there. ‘How did he know where you are?’
‘Someone must have told him,’ Maria surmised.
