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Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Retrieving it, she scanned the message from the unknown number.
We need to meet.
A shiver of apprehension cut through her. The way that she’d been thinking of him when he’d messaged her was unnerving. Ivy didn’t have to guess who it was from. Only Antonio Gallo would dare send such a message without even bothering to sign his name.
She typed back.
When?
Now.
She frowned and messaged back.
I’m working.
‘As I said before, Ivy, this is more important,’ Antonio said from behind her.
Antonio watched an entire range of emotions pass across Ivy’s fine features. Shock, surprise, guilt…hope. With her hair swept back from her face in a knot atop her head, they were exquisitely on display and he wondered at them. A light dusting of freckles covered the bridge of a perfect nose, small enough and just slightly upturned enough to be considered cute.
He took in a small scar halfway along her jaw that hadn’t been there when he’d known her six years. Seeing it set off a small twist in his memory, something he should have remembered but couldn’t quite…
The thought disappeared before it could take hold as she bit into her bottom lip, slicked only with gloss that made it look simple, homely. All the things that the women he encountered on the rare occasions he socialised disguised in an attempt to garner his attention.
His lawyer had warned him not to go to the library where Ivy worked, fearing that Antonio’s wife would recognise the power she held at that moment. But the one thing Antonio knew about Ivy was that she wasn’t calculating in the least. Had she wanted to, she could have demanded twice as much six years ago. Negotiation hadn’t even crossed her mind.
Yes, he’d been surprised that she’d denied his request—demand?—to follow him to Italy, and she’d baulked at his offer of money. But she didn’t understand the severity of the situation for him. He’d come here to plead his case, but something had changed, he could tell. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t care. As long as it resulted in her agreement to pursue this farce of a plan the judge had cooked up.
Simon had informed him that the judge was beloved in the UK, which just went to show how crazy the English were, and that no one would be willing to either defy or circumvent his decision. They just had to get through these ‘assessments’ as quickly as possible—time was running out.
Antonio had one month to meet the requirements of the will. And only then would Maria finally be free to inherit the company she deserved more than anyone else. Gio might have entailed the whole of Gallo Group to Maria and Antonio on the occasion of their marriage, but Antonio had absolutely no intention of touching his grandfather’s company. Maria was the one who had sacrificed blood, sweat and tears, she had danced to their grandfather’s tune, and Antonio was determined to see that his cousin got what she deserved. Because if she didn’t, the entire company would go to Micha Rufina, their grandfather’s henchman, and while Antonio didn’t care a single bit about the company, hedidcare about that.
Aside from his mother, Maria was the only person who had treated him like family from the very first, even when others hadn’t. And he would do whatever it took to repay that kindness. So, he had come to the work address listed on Ivy’s paperwork to convince her that she needed to come back to Italy with him.
Ivy took a step towards him and then stopped, claiming his focus.
‘You can’t be here,’ she whispered, staring around her as if someone—her boss presumably—would come and tell her off.
Antonio bit back a sigh of impatience, frustrated that she was bothering to fight this. He just didn’t have time. He opened his mouth to say as much when she cut him off.
‘What would you do if I barged into your boardroom and demanded you return to England with me?’ she pressed on.
Laugh.
He didn’t have to say it. She knew the answer.
‘Precisely,’ she concluded, hugging the worn hardback to her chest as if it were armour.
He clenched his jaw, feeling the muscle flickering under the strain of holding back his frustration. In an ideal world he’d have liked to be less blunt, but he didn’t have time for gentle. Brutal was perhaps the only way to get through to her.
‘Ivy—let me be painfully clear. I need this divorce. A billion-dollar company hangs in the balance. It employs over four hundred thousand people globally, it has contracts with household name companies, and stocks and shares and subsidiaries that would make any businessman weep. So, forgive me for being crude, but your single job that can’t pay much more than twenty-five thousand pounds is literally the definition of less important.’
Eyes widening as each word struck, outrage warred with shock, and then confusion.
‘I didn’t realise that Alessina International had grown so big,’ she said, taking a step back.
This time, Antonio frowned. He wasn’t talking abouthiscompany, but she was. She knew about that?
‘It hasn’t. I’m talking about Gallo Group,’ he clarified.