Italian Marriage: In Name Only Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cavelli.
    ‘Anyway, I laid the law down to her,’ Tom Roberts was saying smugly. ‘Told her the deal wouldn’t be on the table tomorrow if she didn’t get herself down here.’
    Antonio was barely listening. He had his back to the guy and was reading the directive from his father and the attached documentation.
    I’m not getting any younger, Antonio. All I ask is that you marry and provide me with a grandchild. Once you have done that I will happily hand over all of my shares in the business to you.
    ‘Anyway, she came to heel pretty quickly. She knows we’ve made a damn good offer.’
    Tom’s voice was like an annoying drone. ‘Great…’ Antonio murmured distractedly. He looked up from the papers in his hand and out of the window at the street below.
    There was a taxi pulling up at the curb, and as Antonio watched he saw Victoria Heart step out onto the pavement.
    It looked as if Tom was right. Well, that was one less problem to sort out, he told himself wryly. He was about to turn away when he noticed that she had a child in her arms and that she was struggling to get a pushchair out from the back seat.
    He frowned. ‘I didn’t know that Ms Heart had a child.’
    ‘Yes, she’s a single mother. I did some digging when I was researching her. She’s never been married and there’s no man on the scene and no maintenance for the child.’ Tom’s voice was derisive. ‘Another reason why she can’t afford to turn us down.’
    Antonio stilled.
    ‘Anyway, leave it with me,’ the man told him briskly. ‘I’ll have the deal signed and sealed for you within the next hour.’
    ‘I’ve changed my mind….’
    ‘Sorry?’ Tom looked over at him in surprise.
    ‘I’ve changed my mind. Tell Victoria Heart when she arrives that this deal is off and then get my secretary to show her through to my office.’
    ‘But…’ Tom turned an interesting shade of beetroot. ‘But…’
    With a smile Antonio returned to his office. He’d found the perfect solution to the problem his father had posed. And that solution was Victoria Heart.
     
    ‘What do you mean the deal’s off?’ Victoria looked at the accountant in horror, all colour draining from her face. She’d thought that the worst thing that could possibly happen was selling her business to Lancier but now she knew differently. The worst thing was if this sale fell through, because it meant bankruptcy for certain.
    ‘My boss has changed his mind.’ Tom shrugged. ‘I told you not to delay—I warned you.’
    Victoria transferred Nathan over to her other arm as the child wriggled to get down. She was trying very hard to keep calm, but as she stood watching the man coolly shuffling papers on his desk, the feeling was getting further and further away. ‘But we only spoke a few moments ago on the phone!’
    ‘As I said, it’s nothing to do with me now.’ Tom shrugged again. ‘Take it up with the owner of the company. He said you could go through and see him.’ He closed the files in front of him and looked up. ‘It’s the door at the end of the hallway. I’ll get his secretary to show you through—’
    Before he had finished speaking Victoria had swung out of the room and was heading down the hallway. She wasn’t waiting around for any secretary; she needed this sorting out—now.
    Without knocking she opened the door and strode into the large sunlit office. And for a moment she thought she had entered some kind of parallel universe as her eyes met with the man’s behind the desk.
    Antonio Cavelli!
    What was he doing here? Her mind struggled with the situation and she stood nonplussed, holding onto the child in her arms as if he were her only lifeline to sanity.
    Antonio by contrast seemed perfectly relaxed; he was lounging back in the leather chair behind his desk, talking in Italian to someone on the phone. He glanced over and motioned for her to take a seat opposite to him. ‘Won’t be a moment,’ he told her in English before returning to his