At last, he nodded. ‘I suppose your qualifications are of no significance now,’ he remarked.
What was that supposed to mean?
The swooping sensation in her stomach went into overdrive when he walked to the desk and lowered himself into the chair. The pronounced limp had sympathy tangling with the knot of anxiety in her stomach.
Was he still in pain? His movements were stiff, unwieldy, but his face no longer had the strained, stoic pallor she remembered from the early weeks after his accident, whenever the painkillers had worn off.
He opened a laptop on the desk, jolting her out of her thoughts.
Stop staring at him and thinking about that boy and start making a better impression on your boss.
Gathering a breath, she launched into the spiel she’d rehearsed a million times in the last two years, during all those sleepless nights, preparing for this exact moment.
‘Actually, I’m so glad you’re finally here, Mr Lorenti,’ she began, determined not to falter when his gaze rose to hers, the blank disdain even more intimidating than the sceptical frown. ‘There’s so much to discuss about Westwick. I’ve worked up a detailed investment plan to turn the Estate around. It’s got so much potential, and our hiring freeze is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems with staff…’
‘Fermare.’He held up his hand.
She stopped talking, intimidated despite herself by the command in his voice. The lump of panic became a boulder. Something was seriously wrong.
‘Your plans are not important now, Tallulah Whittaker,’ he said, the hollow tone of voice somehow much worse than the earlier hostility. ‘As I am here only to end your employment. The land will be parcelled up and sold as soon as possible.’ He glanced around the room, his features devoid of emotion, while Tali’s stomach went into free fall—and the boulder threatened to crush her ribs.
At last, that searing gaze landed back on her face. ‘And the Hall demolished.’
Chapter Three
‘BUT?WH-WHAT? Y-YOU CAN’T… You can’t do that, Mr Lorenti.’
Dario stared at the girl standing in front of his desk, her chest heaving with emotion under the shapeless plaid shirt, her striking blue eyes bright with—were those tears?
He stifled the ripple of something hot and fluid, which had hit him the minute she had stepped out of the shadows and into the light.
She was hardly the sort of woman he would ever consider dating, with her dirty work clothes, her mess of caramel curls tied back in a haphazard knot, her soft, pale skin devoid of make-up. Not only did she look too young for the job she had inherited, clearly by default, she looked too young to date anyone. And certainly too young for a man like him, even if she was telling the truth about her age.
The frustration which had propelled him to this godforsaken place today—thanks to the fallout from his disastrous meeting this morning in London with the Westwick Estate’s board of Trustees—swept through him. And resentment blindsided him again.
After seven years of negotiations between Lorenti Corp’s legal team and the Westwick Trustees who controlled his mother’s old home on Capri—the palazzo he had spent a small fortune renovating and restoring since his father died—those bastards had refused point blank to let him bypass the terms of his father’s will to inherit the palazzo outright.
He ground his teeth, furious that he had been unable to circumvent the demands his father had made from beyond the grave—in seven long years of legal wrangling.
It had always struck him as a cruel joke that his father had allowed him to inherit Westwick Hall, a place he had always hated, while keeping the palazzo in trust—until he agreed to marry an Englishwoman. But after trying to force those old fools to see reason through the courts, he wasn’t laughing anymore.
But he refused to let his father win.
The bastard had always railed against the fact his only son and heir considered himself an Italian. That Dario had never given a damn about fitting into the mould of an English gentleman so he could inherit the Westwick title and estate. His father had cut him off when he was eighteen to try to force his hand. But instead of capitulating, Dario had borrowed money and built a hugely successful tech business, managing to amass his own fortune without any help from his father.
The terms of his father’s will had been Lord James Westwick’s last-ditch attempt to bring Dario to heel, by keeping ownership of the palazzo—which contained the only memories he had of his mother—out of Dario’s hands unless he married an English debutante.
Seven years ago, when he’d first heard that blasted will, Dario hadn’t been concerned. He’d simply set his legal team to work on breaking it… Unfortunately, the ancient aristocratic friends his father had put in place were as entitled, old-fashioned and intractable as the bastard himself, and had stymied every one of Dario’s attempts to purchase the palazzo without marrying anyone.
While also spending a large portion of the Westwick trust to fight him in court.
He hadn’t cared, because he didn’t need or want his father’s money. But the irony—that he owned Westwick Hall, a place he didn’t want, while he would never own Palazzo di Constanzo now—had only fuelled his fury. That fury had propelled him here for the first time in fifteen years, to decide what to do with the Hall, which he had been ignoring since his father’s death.
Receiving an invitation to his sister Mia’s wedding while en route here today—she was marrying that Sicilian bastard Sante Trovato, the man who had once abandoned him on a roadside and left him for dead—had added another layer of fury to his frustration.
The fact he would have to attend the wedding only increased his anger. If Mia was foolish enough to fall for that man’s dubious charms, so be it. She had made it clear only a few weeks ago she did not value Dario’s counsel. She had also refused to accept a penny from him over the years, even though she had been cut off by their father too, her blasted independence so precious she would rather starve than admit she needed his support. But as her older brother, it was his duty to make one last attempt to get her to see Trovato for who he really was. Which meant Dario was going to have to attend the event on the man’s private estate in Sicily in two weeks’ time. The hasty wedding was also a red flag as far as he was concerned.
If he managed to stop himself from killing his sister’s fiancé, it would be a miracle.
