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Alert now that he had revealed too much and she had been quick enough to spot it, he hesitated before he answered. ‘I don’t need it,’ he lied, choosing his words carefully. He refused to admit that the betrayal he’d felt at his grandfather’s belief in his inferiority had poisoned his family’s company for him for ever.
‘But we are running out of time to meet the terms of the will,’ he continued, pressing the issue.
‘How long do you have?’
‘One month.’
Ivy’s mouth formed a little ‘o’. Not in shock, almost a silent ‘oh’. It confused him, the way she communicated. And when she looked back up at him the blue of her eyes caught him by surprise, just like they had the first time he’d seen her in the London café.
‘Can you give me five minutes?’
Her question interrupted his train of thought, thankfully.‘Sì.’
She nodded and walked past him, away from the shelves. His gaze followed her, almost unwillingly, and when he noticed the slight limp in her stride he frowned at the inflamed slash of red at her heel.
‘You’re bleeding,’ he called after her.
She spun round, something like fear on her features, her hand rising to her eye, of all places.
‘Your heel,’ he explained, and she looked down.
‘Oh. Yes.’ And then, unfathomably, she turned and continued to walk away.
A headache pressed against his temples. He had already spent too long in London and didn’t have time for the confusing roundabout ways of the English. Nothing was simple here. No one said what they meant and, after a childhood of misinformation and misdirection, after his grandfather’s manipulations, he disliked that intensely.
Mindlessly, he scanned the bookshelves, distracting himself from the questions pouring through his mind. The only way he’d managed to achieve what he had in the last six years was to focus on what he wanted to the exclusion of everything else. Ruthlessly so, some had said. But it had worked, hadn’t it?
Footsteps approached him and he turned to find Ivy, still holding the book to her, as if she’d forgotten it but needed it at the same time.
She cleared her throat, a pink flare filling the delicate hollow beneath her cheekbones.
She nodded before she spoke. ‘I can come to Italy if…’ She swallowed and he waited. There was always an if. It was inevitable and yet he dismissed the strange feeling of disappointment.
‘If you can give me ninety thousand pounds,’ she finished in a near whisper.
Ninety thousand…
He masked his surprise. Behind Ivy, at the end of the shelves, two women peered into the stacks, failing in their attempt to look inconspicuous.
Ninety thousand pounds?
She could have asked for anything. But Antonio was as confused as he was near offended by the insignificant amount. So much so that his natural inclination to barter, to haggle, absolutely disappeared. Before he remembered the poster at the reception desk that he’d passed on the way to find her.
Star Donator: Michael Morrison for providing ninety thousand pounds!
It couldn’t be a coincidence. The exact same amount of money she was asking for. Was she not asking for herself?
Did it even matter? Not at that precise moment in time, no. What did matter was that he had everything he needed to meet Carmondy’s ridiculous demands.
‘So, to confirm. I will pay you ninety thousand pounds in exchange for two weeks of your time in Italy, to comply with whatever it takes to satisfy the terms of Judge Carmondy’s assessor and however the assessor expects us toprovethat we have given our marriage a true and proper ‘go’, before finally appearing before the judge again to ask for a divorce,’ he stated succinctly.
Ivy, wide-eyed, nodded.
‘Done,’ he informed her.
‘Really?’ she asked, seemingly surprised to find it that easy.
‘I can have it in your account in five minutes,’ he announced. ‘I just need your account details.’