She could have had it. She could have had the whole of Gallo Group. She’d have been CEO. And she’d chosen him. As his brain tried to catch up to the instinctive reaction of his heart, Maria turned to look at the members of the board.
‘None of you, not a single one, has brought in the revenue that Micha has over the last eleven years. He turned Paris around from a middle-of-the-road satellite post to the second-highest revenue earner to Rome. I don’t know what poison my father has been dripping into your ears, but surely,surely, none of you would do anything as monumentally stupid as to remove the man who has consistently built and improved processes and revenue in ways that only financially benefit you?
‘I mean, what would lackmoreconfidence than making a decision that negatively impacted the price of your shares and your income?’ she said, turning on her father. ‘It almost reeks of sabotage, to make such a risky move when Gallo Group is still on such shaky ground following Gio’s death. I mean…of course, if thatwerethe case,’ she said, her tone heavy on implication, just as Micha realised where she was going with this, ‘then when all your shares dropped so shockingly low, there would really only be one person in this room with enough money to buy them off you before you lost any more money. And how very kind that person would be. To buy all of your shares from you,’ she said, her tone turning whip sharp, ‘at a knock-down price, in order to have complete ownership of Gallo Group.’
One by one, he watched the confused faces of Gallo Group’s board realise what Maria was implying: that her father was purposefully sabotaging GG in order to engineer a buyout leaving him as the sole owner. And whether or not it was the truth, whether that had been his intention all along—which Micha believed probably was the case—Maria had just successfully managed to turn every single selfish one of them against him.
The shock and fury on the faces of the board rivalled only what he’d seen when they had been told thathewould be the one stepping into the CEO position and he almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
And then he couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Because in that moment, Maria really had shown herself to be worthy of running Gallo Group.
He stared at his wife. The pride, the joy, the genuine love he felt for her poured into his gaze and when she caught it, he thought that she’d understood. The flare of her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, the little hitch in her chest as her breath caught. He was almost sure that she’d felt his very thoughts.
‘So,’ Maria said, turning back to the faces around the table. ‘Would you like to try this again? All in favour?’
One after the other, they raised their hands to cast their votes again, her father looking absolutely thunderous, his face an angry blotchy red.
Micha didn’t spare a single person a second glance, even as they all voted in favour of him this time, with the sole exclusion of Maria’s father, who desperately stuck to his guns. Micha didn’t care. He didn’t once take his eyes off Maria, not even as the rest of the board members filed out of the room, under harsh whispers and grumbles, utterly deflated and more than a little angry.
Throughout it all, he took in how glorious she was, truly in her element, finally taking her position, whether in title or not, as head of the Gallo family. He wondered whether this was what Gio had been hoping for, or whether the old man would be turning in his grave. Micha liked to think that, somehow, he’d always known that this was the way it would be.
That if they could get over the deep hurts holding them back when they’d been younger, thatthiswas how incredible it could be between him and Maria. That only through the trials and tribulations they’d been through in their time apart had they become strong enough to reach for what they wanted. Each other.
She dropped his gaze, only to speak in hushed tones to Antonio, who glanced in Micha’s direction, eyes narrowed in assessment, before turning back to Maria, nodding and leaving the room. Maria closed the door behind him.
She turned to lean back against the door.
And for a moment they remained like that, staring at each other across the boardroom.
‘Did you know?’ she asked him.
He didn’t bother pretending not to understand her. ‘I had my suspicions that this was what your father was after. When did you realise that’s what he was doing?’
She bit her lip. ‘Last night. After speaking to Antonio. Enzo had given him a heads-up that my father had approached him for his vote. Enzo’s position on the board might be new, but despite all accounts of him being some scandalous playboy, he is, in fact, a very shrewd businessman and was quick to realise what was going on.’
‘He wasn’t here today?’
‘He couldn’t come on such short notice, but he’d given permission for Antonio to vote for him in favour of you.’
It felt a little unusual to have the support of a stranger, but although no one had known Enzo Rossetti that long, Maria’s cousin seemed to have become a close friend to Antonio and Maria.
Maria closed the distance between them with a step.
‘I didn’t know,’ he said, needing her to understand. ‘I didn’t know, in Paris, that you’d never been with anyone.’
‘I wouldn’t change a single thing about it,’ Maria replied, truthfully, defiantly, her hand protecting her stomach.
‘Maria, you deserved—’
‘I wouldn’t change a single thing,’ she said again. ‘It was perfect, it was us. It was the beginning of us,’ she said, reaching for his hand as if unable to hold herself back from touching him.
‘You are incredible,’ Micha said, unashamed to offer his praise of her. No matter what happened between them now, not after their last exchange back in Morocco, he wanted her to know that. ‘And I will happily step down as president and CEO,’ he said honestly and truly. Nothing was worth more to him than her. Nothing. Not a job, not a company and certainly not his ego. He wanted her, in whatever way he could get her. Nothing else mattered.
The man I love.
She looked at him, and for a moment, he was reminded of how this all started, back in Paris, in a different headquarters.
‘I don’t want it,’ she replied easily.
