“You don’t really talk about her. Were you close?”
“She was my grandfather’s world.”
“That’s how he felt about her. What about you?”
He hesitated. “She was a very smart, driven woman.”
Ally compressed her lips. That didn’t exactly ring with affection. “So you weren’t close.”
“My grandparents were not like you might imagine grandparents to be.”
“In what way?”
He dug a large forkful of risotto into his mouth and relaxed back in the chair—or imitated the pose—as he looked to the horizon. “We were not children to them, so much as heirs. I have always been aware of the lessons they were teaching us about generational wealth, our duty to care for and grow the empire, to understand that we are merely caretakers for future generations.”
Ally tipped her head to the side, mulling on that. “But your father and uncle were not business-orientated?”
Luca had explained, in the beginning of this, about their disinterest in the company, even before their deaths. It had turned up the pressure dials on the next generation, to be groomed to take over. To fight to earn that privilege, to prove to their grandparents that they deserved to be the one at the helm.
“No.”
“Yet your grandparents presumably instilled the same lessons in them?”
“Perhaps, but not as effectively. I think their failure there made them more persistent with us. Every holiday we had from school was spent in my grandfather’s office. If we travelled as adolescents, it was only to see our business interests abroad. We were made to understand that our sole purpose in life is doing the right thing by the family.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “But that doesn’t include actually acting like a family?”
“Meaning?”
“I mean, you know I’m completely alone. I don’t have siblings or cousins or aunts and uncles, I’ve got no one. But I always imagined…no, I’ve seen with my friends, that usually, families are in each other’s lives. They don’t always get along, but there’s something there. A sense of having come through the same experiences together, and having each other’s backs when necessary.”
Luca took another big mouthful of risotto and Ally sipped her wine, waiting for him to say something.
“That’s not my experience.”
She toyed with her fork then slowly ate a little more.
“Nor yours,” he pointed out. “Every family is different.”
“But this kind of dog-eat-dog mentality is just plain stupid,” she said, and realised that she’d been thinking it all along. “You’re obviously very smart and good at what you do, driven like your grandparents, I guess. But Paolo seems pretty switched on as well. I didn’t get to speak much to Dante, but I imagine he’s the same. What if you’re damaging the business by not including them?”
“Damaging how?”
“You have a half-brother and a cousin who might be more like you than you realise. Wouldn’t you be stronger if you worked as a team?”
“You are quite remarkable,” he said, but in a way that had her breath snagging in her throat. She couldn’t say that it was a compliment. “Even after all you’ve been through, you can still be such an idealist. How is that possible?” Scepticism tinged his words. “You are right. We are the same. Too similar to ever work together. Our grandfather trained us to fight to win, to always seek the supreme position. I could never trust them not to want to destroy me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You don’t know them.”
“I know human nature. I know that people can change, that you could let them in?—,”
“Therapy again?”
She ground her teeth then sucked in a breath, turning to face him carefully. “I’m all alone, Luca. I have no one in my life. But you’re not. You have a family, and if you let them, they’d be in your life in a way that’s meaningful. I’m sure of it.”
“I have no interest in that.”
