Modern Romance March 2019 5-8. Dani Collins

his leisurely pace.

      Ivo’s personal spaces were minimalist and uncluttered—functional could still be pleasing to the eye or at least his eyes—but he appreciated beauty and artistic talent in many forms. He would have liked to study this testament to the skill of long-dead artisans for longer. The irony, of course, was that his grandfather would not appreciate the beauty.

      Salvatore was a famed collector of many rare and precious objects—jade, art, porcelain—but for him it was all about the acquisition. For Salvatore, the pleasure came from possessing what someone else wanted. He might forget the history of an artwork or the name of an artist, but he had a flawless recall of the price he’d paid for any item and the identity of the collectors he outbid.

      Once through the doors and into a brighter corridor, thanks to massive windows that revealed breath catching views of the Tyrrhenian Sea that glittered turquoise in the Tuscan morning sun, Ivo turned to his shadow.

      ‘I think I know my way from here.’

      The man hesitated; clearly Ivo’s words clashed with his instructions. He began to bluster but his protests trailed away as Ivo’s dark level stare held his, and after a moment he tipped his head and faded away. Ivo’s grandfather’s private apartments were situated in one of the older parts of the building, taking up all of one of the iconic twelfth-century square towers built by an ancestor. The massive metal banded door to the study was open and Ivo walked straight in. He was prepared; even so he experienced a moment’s disorientation as he stepped over the threshold, feeling as if he’d stepped through some time portal or onto the set of a futuristic film. He almost reached for the designer shades tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket, the antiseptic white and chrome was that dazzling.

      Five years earlier his grandfather had ripped out the antique panelling along with the books that had once lined the walls, and the decor was now sleek and modern. Efficient, as his grandfather had said as they’d watched the monitors being mounted on the wall, the only thing left from the past the antique desk that dominated the room.

      A half-smile flickered across Ivo’s wide sensual mouth as he recalled the occasion he had casually admitted that he missed the old room, inviting further scorn when he had added he actually liked the smell of musty old books. This had apparently confirmed his grandfather’s suspicion that Ivo was a sentimental fool.

      Ivo had accepted the insult with a careless shrug of his wide shoulders, aware that if Salvatore had believed either of these things he would not have given him control of the IT and Communications division of Greco Industries, although given was perhaps the wrong word. When the grand gesture was made his grandfather had not anticipated the role would have any permanence.

      His gratitude at the time had been genuine even though Ivo had known that it had been intended as a wing-clipping exercise—the unspoken but universally acknowledged expectation had been that the young upstart would fail; indeed he was meant to fail, publicly.

      But Ivo had defied those expectations, denying his grandfather the opportunity to ride to the rescue. A source of frustration to a man who liked to be in control.

      And so far, Ivo had been allowed a free hand.

      Was that about to change?

      He was not given to paranoia but neither was Ivo a believer in coincidence, and the timing of this peremptory summons, coinciding as it did with the ink drying on the new global merger he had negotiated, had raised a few warning bells. Was it significant that this merger would mean the IT division was no longer the poor relation of Greco Industries but able to challenge the leisure, property and construction arms of the company, and even make the jewel in the crown, Greco’s media division, look over their shoulder?

      So far Salvatore had been content to bask in the reflected glory of his grandson’s success but maybe that was no longer enough. Was he about to announce he wanted to be more hands on?

      Ivo approached the possibility with more curiosity than trepidation. Considering the fact Salvatore was a control freak, this scenario had always been a possibility and Ivo had already decided that, rather than surrender his control, or even share it, he would walk away.

       Just looking for an excuse, Ivo?

      His dark brows twitching into a frown that drew them into a straight line above his masterful nose, he ignored the sly voice in his head as he cleared his throat.

      In reality he knew he would never walk away from his duty, any more than his grandfather had walked away from him. Ivo was not his father, or his brother.

      ‘Morning, Grandfather.’

      Close to eighty, Salvatore Greco remained an imposing figure. There was nothing fragile or infirm about his upright stance, but as he turned to face his grandson Ivo found himself thinking, for the first time in his life, that his grandfather was old.

      Maybe it was the morning light shining directly on the older man’s face as he turned, revealing the depth of the lines that grooved his forehead and etched deep the furrows carved from his nose to the downward-turning corners of his thin mouth.

      The line of silent speculation vanished the moment the older man began to speak, as did pretty much every other thought. There was definitely no hint of age or softness in his voice as he delivered his announcement.

      ‘Your brother is dead.’ He took his seat in the high-backed chair behind the massive antique desk that still dominated the otherwise minimally furnished white room, pausing only to straighten the line of meticulously sharpened pencils before he continued to speak.

      Ivo didn’t notice a tremor in his grandfather’s voice as he stared blindly ahead, and the words just rolled over him in a meaningless jumble until one sentence made itself heard above the loud static hum in his head.

      ‘I will need you to take care of this personally, you understand?’

      Ivo fought his way through the swirl of churning emotions that made their physical presence known in the fog in his head and the constricting band that felt like steel around his chest before he spoke.

      ‘The funeral?’ It still didn’t seem possible—would it ever? Bruno—nine years his senior...what did that make him? Thirty-eight? How did anyone die at thirty-eight?

      Outrage at the thought elicited a mind-calming burst of rage followed swiftly by denial. It had to be a mistake. Yes, that was it, some awful mistake. If his brother was dead, he’d know.

      His grandfather’s eyes narrowed fractionally as his lips compressed in faint irritation at the interruption.

      ‘Their funeral was last month, I believe.’

      The words ricocheted around in Ivo’s head. He needed to sit down. His fingers clenched his knuckles white against the leather armrest...he was sitting down. He had been walking around functioning as normal for weeks while his brother was dead. How could he not have known, not have felt something? He tipped his head in a sharp motion of denial and cut across his grandfather, who was speaking again.

      ‘Last month?’

      His grandfather looked at him without speaking before he reached for the stopper on the crystal decanter that sat on the desk and glugged some of the amber liquid into one of the glasses that sat beside it on the silver tray.

      The full glass scraped on the desk as he pushed it towards his grandson.

      Ivo shook his head, not mistaking the action for empathy; he had accepted years ago that his grandparent was incapable of that. Emotional responses were, in Salvatore’s eyes, weaknesses to be studied and exploited. It was not coincidental that Ivo was famed for his unreadable expression. What had begun as a self-protective device was now second nature.

      ‘You said their?’ Ivo’s brain was starting to function, but he was not sure if that could be classed as a good thing. The sense of loss had a physical presence; he could feel it at a cellular level in a way he’d sworn never to feel anything again. As he’d coped alone after Bruno’s desertion, the realisation that