With a swiftness that stunned him, he felt his body harden.
“Why is he here?” she said, her voice rising. “I demand to know the reason!”
James Black looked from his granddaughter to the one man he was certain could guide the company he loved through the twenty-first century. Bradley couldn’t do it. Aimee had tried to make him see that, and she’d been right. In the short time the boy had been at the helm, the company had lost clients and come close to taking dangerous changes of direction.
That left only one other Black to head the bank.
Aimee.
In the endless weeks of his recuperation, James had finally reviewed the proposals she’d made and he’d ignored. They were, he’d been forced to admit, good.
Excellent, actually.
And Aimee was of his blood.
But she was also a woman. A young woman. Even if he managed to convince himself that her sex was not a drawback, her inexperience was.
How could he entrust her with the responsibility handed down by generations of Staffords, Coleridges and Blacks?
He’d put thoughts of Aimee aside. Concentrated on Nicolo Barbieri. The man had the intelligence, the courage, the experience to move SCB forward.
If only he carried the right blood, James had thought…
And the solution had come to him.
Barbieri was young. Thirty, thirty-two. Something like that. Aimee was in her midtwenties.
Once upon a time, nations had forged bonds through marriage. So had powerful institutions. Men and women had been joined in matrimony so they could produce children who carried the proud ancestry of both.
“Grandfather, I want an answer. Why is Nicolo Barbieri here?”
Black looked at the Italian prince, then at his headstrong American granddaughter.
“He is here,” he said calmly, “to make you his wife.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR A MOMENT, no one spoke. No one moved. Even the dust motes hovered in the silence.
Then Aimee
collapsed into her chair and made a choked sound. Was she laughing? One glance at her and Nicolo knew she wasn’t. She looked the way he felt, as if an elephant had suddenly appeared in their midst.
“A bad joke, Grandfather. Now tell me the real reason.”
“That is the real reason.” James was unsmiling as he met her eyes. “You have some good ideas, Aimee, but you’re too inexperienced to run SCB.”
“I’m fully capable of running SCB. And in the event I needed advice, I’d turn to you.”
“If I could rely on lasting long enough to do that,” her grandfather said bluntly, “I wouldn’t be handing my company to someone else.”
“I’m not someone else. I’m your granddaughter!”
“You need guidance, Aimee.” The old man paused. “And you need a husband. A woman’s function is to marry and bear children.”
Fascinated, not yet believing what was happening, Nicolo sat back and became a silent observer.
“You’re a century behind the times, Grandfather.”