The Italian's Rags-To-Riches Wife. Julia James

      ‘Get me Tomaso on the phone,’ he ordered savagely. ‘Now!’

      CHAPTER TWO

      LAURA picked up the post that had fallen through the letterbox, her expression bleak. Yesterday’s post had brought grim news. A final reminder from the taxman warned her that late payment would incur interest charges, and a letter from the auction house had valued the remaining antiques at considerably less than the sum the taxman required.

      Despair and fear were gnawing at her. Day by day she was edging closer to the bleak prospect of having to sell Wharton. Her heart clawed at the thought.

      I can’t sell! I just can’t! There has to be something—something I can do to keep it going!

      If she could just pay the taxman, she would have a chance. She could raise a mortgage on the property and then use the money to convert the house into a holiday let, as planned. The lettings would then pay the mortgage and maintenance costs. But if she couldn’t pay the tax…

      Desperation knifed through her again.

      As she continued to consider her bleak future, her hands stilled suddenly on one of the letters. It was a thick white envelope, and the stamp was Italian. Grimly she ripped it open. Inside were three things: a letter, an airline ticket…

      And a cheque.

      A cheque drawn on Viale-Vincenzo. In a sum that brought a rasp to her throat.

      Slowly she looked at the letter, written on company paper. It was not informative, merely drew her attention to the enclosed cheque and ticket. As she flicked open the ticket she saw it was from Heathrow to Rome, and was dated for a week’s time. It was also executive class. Attached to the back of the letter was a second page of closely printed Italian that she could not understand. Obviously this document must explain that the cheque was a gift in return for her visiting her grandfather in Italy.

      Carefully, Laura replaced everything inside the envelope, and went to sit down at the kitchen table. She stared at the envelope in front of her, so different from yesterday’s communication from the Inland Revenue and the auctioneer.

      Suddenly temptation, like an overpowering wave, swept through her.

      I’ll pay the cheque back—every last penny, with interest!—once I’ve got the mortgage through. But the taxman won’t wait—I’ve got to settle that first, in any way I can!

      But not this way, she riposted mentally. She couldn’t touch a penny of Viale money! Her grandfather would turn in his grave if she did—especially after the way Stefano Viale had treated his daughter..

      But surely the Viale family owed him, too?

      They owe you—and your mother, and your grandparents—for all the years of struggle, because of what your father did. They owe you…

      Not a penny in child maintenance had her mother received. It had been Laura’s grandparents who had kept her and her mother, who had brought her up, paid for her education and keep, shod and housed her. Stefano Viale—whose father, according to the handsome lordly gofer who had told her, was one of the richest men in Italy—had not parted with a penny of his money.

      The cheque’s just back-payment. That’s all!

      But if she did take the cheque, she would have to do what it was bribing her to do. Her stomach hollowed. She would have to go to Italy and face her father’s family.

      Her face hardened. She had to save Wharton. It was her home, her haven! She had always lived here, helping to take the burden of its upkeep off her increasingly frail grandparents. She couldn’t lose it now! She just couldn’t! She stared blankly at the cheque in her hand, stomach churning.

      I’m going to have to do it. I’m going to have to go to Italy. I don’t want to—I don’t want to so badly that it hurts. But if I want that money—money I need to help save Wharton—then I’m going to have to do it.

      Laura stared out of the porthole over the fleecy white clouds, her expression tight. With every atom of her body she wished to heaven she was not here. But it was too late now. She was on her way, and there was nothing she could do about it.

      ‘Champagne?’ The flight attendant, a tray of foaming glasses in her hand, was smiling down at her, as if she didn’t look totally out of place in an executive class seat.

      ‘Thank you,’ said Laura awkwardly, taking a glass. Well, why not? she thought defiantly. After all, she had something to drink to.

      She lifted her glass a fraction.

      ‘To Wharton,’ she whispered. ‘To my home. And damn my father’s family!’

      A man was holding up a sign with her name on it as she walked out into the arrivals section at Fiumicino airport. Landing in Rome had been strange. She had seldom been abroad. There had been a school trip to Brussels, and her grandparents had once taken her to the Netherlands. But Italy, of course, had been out for obvious reasons.

      And she didn’t want to be here now. Resentment, resistance, and a horrible churning emotion she could not name sat heavily on her as she clumped after the man holding the sign, who was now carrying her single piece of luggage. Outdoors, the difference in temperature from still-wintry Devon struck her. It was not warm, but it was definitely mild. Thin sunshine brightened the air, but it could not brighten her mood. The ordeal ahead of her suddenly seemed very real. She clenched her jaw and climbed into the back of the smart black saloon that had been sent for her.

      It was only as she sank into the deep, soft leather of her seat that she realised she was not alone in the car.

      Allesandro di Vincenzo sat beside her. His dark eyes surveyed her critically.

      ‘So,’ he said, ‘you finally came. I thought the fat cheque I paid you might change your mind.’

      His voice was caustic, as was the look he gave her.

      The intervening time since his rain-sodden descent on Laura Stowe had not improved her looks, observed Allesandro critically. She looked every bit as much of a fright now as she had then. Oh, she’d clearly made some degree of effort to look less bedraggled than before, but to hopeless effect. Although she was no longer wearing those unspeakable corduroy trousers and that thick unravelled jumper, her skirt was ill-fitting, clearly cheap, and her blouse bagged around her bust and waist. She wore thick stockings and heavy-soled flat shoes. Her hair was unkempt, completely unstyled, and still tied back with an elasticated band in a clump at the back of her neck. Her eyebrows still beetled across her brow, and she wore no make-up whatsoever. As his gaze narrowed, he knew why. Because it wouldn’t do anything for her.

      Nothing could—that much was obvious.

      His mouth tightened. Tomaso was welcome to her. After this second round of even more base manipulation, Allesandro’s sympathy for Tomaso was at rock-bottom—even allowing for the old man’s emotional state. He would deliver the girl and get back to his life—running Viale-Vincenzo, at least as CEO again, even though Tomaso was still holding out on the chairmanship. If the old man reneged on that again, now that he’d actually delivered the damn girl to him…He snapped his mind away and opened his laptop, immediately burying himself in work and ignoring the other passenger in the car.

      Laura spent the journey staring out of the window. They seemed to be heading deep into the Italian countryside, rather than heading into Rome. But wherever her grandfather was, she didn’t want to meet him.

      She also didn’t want to be in a car with Allesandro di Vincenzo. It had been an unpleasant surprise to see him again. A discomforting one. She’d always done her best in life to avoid the company of men, removing herself before they did. A man who was as ridiculously good-looking as Allesandro di Vincenzo, with all his expensive glamour and effortless sex appeal, simply made her even more acutely uncomfortable. Even without all the business about her father and his family, it was totally obvious that a man like that would endure her company only under duress.

      A