The Uncompromising Italian

‘Sixteen. And, to save you the hassle of doing the maths, she was, shall we say, an unexpected arrival when I was eighteen.’

‘You were a father at eighteen?’

‘Bianca and I had been seeing each other in a fairly loose fashion for a matter of three months when she announced that her contraceptive pill had failed and I was going to be a father.’ His lips thinned. The past was rarely raked up and when it was, as now, it still brought a sour taste to his mouth.

Unfortunately, he could see no way around a certain amount of confidential information exchanging hands because he had a gut feeling that, whatever his uninvited email correspondent wanted, it involved his daughter.

‘And you weren’t happy about that.’ Lesley groped her way to understanding the darkening of his expression.

‘A family was not something high on my agenda at the time,’ Alessio imparted grimly. ‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that it hadn’t even crossed my radar. But, naturally, I did the honourable thing and married her. It was a match approved by both sides of the family until, that is, it became apparent that her family’s wealth was an illusion. Her parents were up to their eyes in debt and I was a convenient match because of the financial rewards I brought with me.’

‘She married you for your money?’

‘It occurred to no one to do a background check.’ He shrugged elegantly. ‘You’re looking at me as though I’ve suddenly landed from another planet.’

His slow smile knocked her sideways and she cleared her throat nervously. ‘I’m not familiar with people marrying for no better reason than money,’ she answered honestly.

Alessio raised his eyebrows. ‘In that case, we really do come from different planets. My family is extremely wealthy, as am I. Believe me, I am extremely well versed in the tactics women will employ to gain entry to my bank balance.’ He crossed his legs, relaxing. ‘But you might say that, once bitten, twice shy.’

She made an exceptionally good listener. Was this why he had expanded on the skeleton brief he could have given her? Had gone into details that were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? He hadn’t been lying when he had told her that his unfortunate experience with his ex had left him jaded about women and the lengths they would go to in order to secure themselves a piece of the pie. He was rich and women liked money. It was therefore a given that he employed a healthy amount of caution in his dealings with the opposite sex.

But the woman sitting in front of him couldn’t have been less interested in his earnings.

His little problem intrigued her far more than he did. It was a situation that Alessio had never encountered in his life before and there was something sexy and challenging about that.

‘You mean you don’t intend to marry again? I can understand that. And I guess you have your daughter. She must mean the world to you.’

‘Naturally.’ Alessio’s voice cooled. ‘Although I’ll be the first to admit that things have not been easy between us. I had relatively little contact with Rachel when she was growing up, thanks to my ex-wife’s talent for vindictiveness. She lived in Italy but travelled extensively, and usually when she knew that I had arranged a visit. She was quite happy to whip our daughter out of school at a moment’s notice if only to make sure that my trip to Italy to visit would be a waste of time.’

‘How awful.’

‘At any rate, when Bianca died Rachel naturally came to me, but at the age of fourteen she was virtually a stranger and a fairly hostile one. Frankly, a nightmare.’

‘She would have been grieving for her mother.’ Lesley could barely remember her own mother and yet she still grieved at the lack of one in her life. How much more traumatic to have lost one at the age of fourteen, a time in life when a maternal, guiding hand could not have been more needed.

‘She was behind in her schoolwork thanks to my ex-wife’s antics, and refused to speak English in the classroom, so the whole business of teaching her was practically impossible. In the end, boarding school seemed the only option and, thankfully, she appears to have settled in there with somewhat more success. At least, there have been no phone calls threatening expulsion.’

‘Boarding school...’

Alessio frowned. ‘You say that as though it ranks alongside “prison cell”.’

‘I can’t imagine the horror of being separated from my family. My brothers could be little devils when I was growing up but we were a family. Dad, the boys and me.’

Alessio tilted his head and looked at her, considering, tempted to ask her if that was why she had opted for a male-dominated profession, and why she wore clothes better suited to a boy. But the conversation had already drifted too far from the matter at hand. When he glanced down at his watch, it was to find that more time had passed than he might have expected.

‘My gut feeling tells me that these emails are in some way connected to my daughter,’ Alessio admitted. ‘Reason should dictate that they’re to do with work but I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t approach me directly about anything to do with my business concerns.’

‘No. And if you’re as above board as you say you are...’

‘You doubt my word?’

Lesley shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s really my business; the only reason I mention it is because it might be pertinent to finding out who is behind this. ’Course, I shall continue working at the problem, but if it’s established that the threat is to do with your work then you might actually be able to pinpoint the culprit yourself.’

‘How many people do you imagine work for me?’ Alessio asked curiously, and Lesley shrugged and gave the matter some thought.

‘No idea.’ The company she worked for was small, although prominent in its field, employing only a handful of people on the creative side and slightly fewer on the admin side. ‘A hundred or so?’

‘You really skimmed through those articles you called up on your computer, didn’t you?’

‘Big business doesn’t interest me,’ she informed him airily. ‘I may have a talent for numbers, and can do the maths without any trouble at all, but those numbers only matter when it comes to my work. I can work things out precisely but it’s really the artistic side of my job that I love. In fact, I only did maths at university because Shane, one of my brothers, told me that it was a man’s subject.’

‘Thousands.’

Lesley looked at him blankly for a few seconds. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Thousands. In various countries. I own several companies and I employ thousands, not hundreds. But that’s by the by. This isn’t to do with work. This is to do with my daughter. The only problem is that we don’t have a great relationship and if I approach her with my suspicions, if I quiz her about her friends, about whether anyone’s been acting strangely, asking too many questions...well, I don’t anticipate a good outcome to any such conversation. So what would you have done if you hadn’t done maths?’

Time had slipped past and they were no nearer to solving the problem, yet he was drawn to asking her yet more questions about herself.

Lesley—following his lead and envisaging the sort of awkward, maybe even downright incendiary conversation that might ensue in the face of Alessio’s concerns, should he confront a hostile teenager with them—was taken aback by his abrupt change of topic.

‘You said that you only did maths because your brother told you that you couldn’t.’

‘He never said that I couldn’t.’ She smiled, remembering their war of words. Shane was two years older than her and she always swore that his main purpose in life was to annoy her. He was now a barrister working in Dublin but he still teased her as though they were still kids in primary school. ‘He said that it was a man’s field, which immediately made me decide to do it.’

‘Because, growing up as the only girl in a family of all males, it would have been taken as a given that, whatever your brothers could do, you could as well.’

‘I’m wondering what this has to do with the reason I’ve come here.’ She pulled out her mobile phone, checked the time on it and was surprised to discover how much of the day had flown by. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to sort things out for you immediately. I’d understand perfectly if you want to take the matter to someone else, someone who can devote concentrated time to working on it. It shouldn’t take too long, but longer than an hour or two.’

‘Would you have done art?’ He overrode her interjection as though he hadn’t heard any of it and she flung him an exasperated look.

‘I did, actually—courses in the town once a week. It was a good decision. It may have clinched me my job.’

‘I have no interest in farming out this problem to someone else.’

‘I can’t give it my full-time attention.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ she said patiently, ‘I have a nine-to-five job. And I live in London. And by the time I get back to my place—usually after seven, what with working overtime and then the travel—I’m exhausted. The last thing I need is to start trying to sort your problem out remotely.’