Kate Hoffmann – His Forbidden Conquest: A Moment on the Lips / The Best Mistake of Her Life / Not Just Friends (страница 14)

Thank you for the book. All homework in progress.

Though first she needed to get the sales figures. Broken down by outlet.

That was when she discovered that her grandfather didn’t have everything on a computer spreadsheet, the way Amy always had at the gallery. Everything was in paper format only. Which left her with no choice; she was going to have to talk to Emilio Mancuso and ask him for the information.

He frowned when she called in to see him and made her request. ‘Why do you want to see the last five years’ figures?’

‘So I can see the trends.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s no need. I’ve looked after things for your grandfather for the last five years.’ He paused, and gave her a significant look. ‘Since he had his heart problems.’

Heart problems? What heart problems? Why didn’t she know anything about this? Though the last thing she wanted was for Mancuso to think that she’d been kept in the dark, so she kept her worries under wraps. She’d talk to her grandmother about this later.

‘I know sales have been down, but there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s just the recession, and everyone’s in the same boat.’ He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it, carissima.’

Darling? She wasn’t his darling. And he’d just used the phrase that always made her see red. Her pretty little head, indeed. Why wouldn’t men take her seriously? Was she going to have to dress in frumpy clothes, stop wearing make-up, dye her hair mouse-brown and scrape it back into a bun, and don a pair of thick glasses before anyone would notice that she did actually have a brain?

And why wouldn’t he just give her the figures and let her see them for herself? ‘Nonno’s put me in charge, and I can’t do my job unless I have all the facts,’ she said, more rudely than she’d intended, but his attitude infuriated her. ‘I can see you’re busy, Signor Mancuso, and I’d hate to disturb you unnecessarily. Just tell me where the paperwork is and I’ll find it for myself.’

He went a dull red. ‘I already told you. You don’t need to do this.’

Another refusal. Did he have something to hide? She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘If it’s a problem for you, I could always ask Nonno.’ And she had some other questions to ask her grandparents, too. Such as why they hadn’t breathed a word about her grandfather’s heart problems.

Tight-lipped, he took her through to a dusty-looking office, rummaged on a shelf and handed her several books.

‘I hope you don’t mind me taking these back to my own office.’ Before he had a chance to say he did mind, she added, ‘Of course, I’ll take great care of them. And I’ll return them personally when I’ve finished.’ And she called a taxi to take her back to her office; no way was she going to ask him to help her get the books back to her place.

But when she looked closely at the figures, it seemed to be just as Mancuso said: sales were simply dropping, year on year. Maybe her instinctive dislike of him had been wrong. Maybe he had nothing to hide after all, and he was just fed up because Nonno had handed the reins over to her instead of letting him continue to run the business.

Though surely he realised that, if Nonno had sold the business, Dante Romano would’ve brought his own management team in—maybe even taken over the reins himself, at first? So this was pretty much the same thing.

Well, she’d make her peace with him later in the week. Right now, she had more important questions to ask.

She arrived at her grandparents’ house that evening with flowers for her grandmother and some of the little marzipan fruits she knew her grandfather adored. After dinner, she insisted on helping her grandmother in the kitchen.

‘Nonna, why didn’t you tell me about Nonno’s heart problems?’ she asked softly.

Elena Tonielli looked flustered. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, tesoro.’

‘Emilio Mancuso told me today. The ones Nonno had five years ago.’ She couldn’t help the hurt spilling out. ‘The ones you didn’t tell me a thing about.’

‘You were in London, cara. You were happy. We weren’t going to drag you back here.’

She bit her lip. Had her grandparents really thought that she’d need to be dragged home? ‘Nonna, you surely can’t think that you and Nonno would ever take second place in my life? If I’d known he was ill, I would’ve got on the first plane from London.’

‘And disrupted your life. I know. But you were doing so well in London and we didn’t want to worry you. Nonno’s fine.’

So had Mancuso been lying to her? ‘So are you saying Nonno didn’t have heart problems?’

‘He had chest pains, yes, but it was more of a scare than anything else.’

But it had happened five years ago, and she hadn’t had a clue about it. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ she asked. Her grandmother’s awkward expression told her the answer, and she closed her eyes. ‘I wish I’d never left Naples. If I hadn’t gone abroad, hadn’t been so selfish and stayed away … I should’ve come back and taken over from Nonno years ago. Like Papa would’ve done.’ They both heard the words she left unspoken: had he lived.

‘We only wanted to see you happy, tesoro,’ Elena said softly. ‘It was right you should spread your wings and see a bit of the world. And you needed to meet the English side of your family. We’d been selfish in keeping you to ourselves. We should’ve sent you over before.’

Carenza swallowed hard. ‘You weren’t selfish. You took me in, you gave me a home, gave me everything I wanted.’ They’d been in their fifties when her parents had died, and dealing with a young child on top of their own grief must’ve been such a strain on them.

‘We took you in because we loved you. And having you meant—well, it meant we still had some of Pietro. We could see him in you as you grew up.’

‘So Nonno’s been ill for the last five years?’

‘He was in hospital for less than a day,’ Elena reassured her. ‘They said it was angina and told him to take it easier, that’s all, and to use a spray under his tongue if he ever gets any more pains in his chest.’

‘Nonno, take it easy?’ she scoffed.

‘I didn’t give him a choice,’ Elena said dryly. ‘I told him I’d already lost my son and I wasn’t prepared to lose my husband. So he agreed to slow it down, delegate the business to Emilio until …’

‘Until what?’ Until she was ready to come home and take over?

Elena flapped her hand dismissively. ‘Never mind. He’s fine. Now, stop fussing or your grandfather will want to know what we’re talking about.’

‘And we don’t want to worry him and give him chest pains.’

‘Exactly.’ Elena smiled. ‘Emilio’s been so good to us. He’s done so much, never asked us for a thing.’

And now Carenza had waltzed in from London and been given the business that he’d spent the last five years looking after. No wonder he was hostile towards her: she was taking everything away from him and not giving him any credit for the work he’d put in. She made a mental note to make more of an effort with him.

‘Now, let’s go and join Nonno. And not too much business talk, please.’

‘I’m doing a good job with the gelateria, Nonna. I’m not going to let Nonno down.’

‘I know, tesoro. And it’s good to have you home.’

Carenza spent the rest of the week working hard on the SWOT analysis Dante had asked for—and trying to be pleasant to Emilio Mancuso, though he didn’t make it easy for her. And, even though she kept trying to remind herself of how much her grandparents valued him and how good he’d been to them, she still couldn’t warm to the man. What it was about him, she didn’t know, but there was definitely something. Or maybe she was just taking it out on him because her grandparents had leaned on him five years ago instead of on her, and she resented that.

She sighed. Why did it all have to be so complicated?

At half-past seven precisely on the Saturday, she knocked on the door of Dante’s office.

‘Coffee?’ he asked.

She needed more than coffee. Right now, she thought, she could do with her body weight in chocolate. Probably intravenously. But coffee would have to do. ‘Thank you.’

‘So how’s the SWOT analysis?’ he asked.

‘Getting there.’ Though she’d found it hard to concentrate. Mancuso’s revelation had shocked her and, although her grandmother had reassured her that Nonno was absolutely fine now, Carenza couldn’t get it out of her head. ‘Did you know my grandfather had heart problems, five years ago?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘No.’

‘I would’ve come home, if I’d known.’

He frowned. ‘Of course you would. That’s obvious.’

She stared at his desk. ‘My grandparents didn’t even tell me he was ill.’

‘They probably had their reasons.’

‘Nonna told me. Because I was in London, I was happy, and they didn’t want to disrupt my life.’ She looked up at him. ‘You’re right about me. I am a princess. A spoiled, selfish bitch.’

‘You’re a princess and, yes, you’ve been spoiled,’ he said softly, ‘but you’re not selfish. Well, not very,’ he amended, ‘considering your background. You’re definitely not a bitch. And you forgot to add the good points.’

‘Which are?’

‘Fishing now, Princess?’

She lifted her chin. ‘No.’

‘No?’

She sighed. ‘All right. It’s been a horrible week, right now I don’t like myself very much, and it’d be nice to have just a little bit of encouragement. People need carrots as well as sticks, you know, and a bit of praise can do wonders for someone’s morale.’