Page 122 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

‘I don’t,’ she rushed on to say, ‘want any of the authors or contracts or staff, or even assets. I just...’ She swallowed, knowing that she was revealing herself far too much to the man who was called a shark on a good day. ‘I just want to buy back thename.’

‘And you plan to fund this purchase with the proceeds of the sale of your own business?’ Gio asked, his accent leaning into his words.

Erin frowned. She opened her mouth to ask how he knew that, but he pressed on.

‘You sold a lucrative business that you started up in your first year of university in order to buy back the name of your father’s company?’ The Italian’s voice was sharp like a whip, the tone, clear as a bell, incredulous.

‘Myfamily’scompany,’ Erin stressed, before biting her lip at the overshare.

Of course, Signor Gallo would have done his research, so he knew about HomeJames, the sober-driver app she had started at uni. What had started as a favour to her flatmate had quickly spun into a way of earning money to counter the exorbitant costs of student living that no scholarship could fully cover. Being a ‘sober driver’ for drunk peers quickly spiralled into a hugely successful country-wide business. Students, it seemed, were far more likely to trust other students to get them home safely. It was a win/win for everyone. A friend of a friend had wanted to test their app development skills, and they had worked together on the design as coursework for both their degrees. They’d sold the company six months ago and split the profits. Profits Erin wanted to use to buy back her family’s company—in name if nothing more.

‘Yes, sir. I did.’

Gio shook his head as if disappointed.

‘It is the one thing that seems to run contrary to the fact that you are, by all accounts, a sensible, intelligent, promising young businesswoman. You are letting sentimentality get in your way.’

It was horribly close to the argument she’d had with her mother the last time Erin had seen her. And she said to Gio what she had said to her mother. ‘I’m comfortable with that.’ Because sentimentality was what kept her on the right side of the line, what kept her from being too much like her father.

After a period of time that would have made most grown men weep, Gio Gallo grunted and sat back in his chair, reappraising her through narrowed eyes.

‘I have a counter-offer,’ he announced.

She hadn’t expected anything less, but it still hurt. She’d wanted this to be easy. Just a simple transaction so that she could go home with the company name and start to work in earnest.

‘I will do as you’ve asked. More so in fact. I will sell you Charterhouse—the publishing houseandall its assets, for one million pounds.’

Shock blanketed her brain.He’d do what?

It was beyond her wildest dreams. And after a few quick calculations, she realised she would even have a little money left over from the sale of her startup to cover the costs of operations to allow for the smooth transition in ownership and revenue. She could—

‘On one condition.’

Her heart sank. She should have known it was too good to be true.

‘What do you know of Enzo Rossetti?’ Gio asked, his hawk-like gaze penetrating hers.

Surprised by the hard left turn of the conversation, Erin wracked her brain.

The Playboy of Amalfi?The moniker slipped into her thoughts.

‘Enzo Rossetti—famous for being infamous. Early thirties, American-Italian,’ she recalled. ‘Itinerant playboy. Always breaking hearts and climbing out of the wrong bed,’ she said, calling to mind the many headlines that had delighted in his bad behaviour. And she had scowled every single time she had seen it. The man was everything she hated about celebrity and money. Wasteful, careless, arrogant, promiscuous.

‘And...’ Gio prodded.

‘He is the son of American actor Luca Rossetti and an Italian heiress... AmeliaGallo,’ Erin said as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. ‘The daughter you disinherited just over thirty years ago.’

‘Mmm,’ was Gio’s response to her scathing description of his grandson. ‘I want you to marry him.’

‘Pardon?’ she asked, knowing that she couldn’t have heard him correctly.

‘I want you to marry him,’ Gio repeated in exactly the same tone.

Erin’s gasp turned into a shocked choke, and Gallo waited for her to recover.

‘I am not here to find a husband, Mr Gallo,’ she said trying to regain her composure. ‘I am here to buy back my family’s company.’

‘And I am offering you terms,’ he insisted civilly, as if he’d not just asked her to prostitute herself. ‘I will sell you back your family’s company, whole and as it is, for one million pounds if you become Enzo Rossetti’s wife.’