Excerpt

‘It’s what you’ve been waiting for!’ Aldo Renzetti proclaimed to his grandson. ‘Tomaso is finally willing to sell up.’

‘Only because he’s on the edge of bankruptcy,’ Tore Renzetti responded drily, a lean, powerful silhouette as he lounged like a fluid, graceful panther in the doorway of his office that connected with his grandfather’s, who was head of the board and president of their vast company. ‘But why now? He’s had a standing offer from us from the day he opened for business. What’s changed?’

Aldo winced. ‘He’s gotten older. Maybe he’s ready to retire,’ he suggested of his former childhood playmate and business partner. ‘Regardless, it means you can get his voting shares back and take our company to public when you take over. There is, however, one major drawback. Tomaso had made the offer conditional on you marrying one of his two granddaughters.’

Tore straightened to his full six foot five inches and stared back at the older man in absolute amazement. ‘You’re kidding me…right?’

Aldo grimaced. ‘I wish I was. But I assume that Tomaso is trying to conserve his legacy through his family and pass it down.’

‘What legacy? His failing company?’ Tore parried with disdain. ‘But for those voting rights, he has nothing else to tempt us with.’

‘But he was here right at the very beginning of Renzetti Pharmaceutical,’ Aldo reminded him with his ever-present regret for that lost partnership and old history.

‘And you bought him out when he chose to walk away,’ his grandson reminded him flatly, the dying sunlight of the day gleaming over his cropped silver-blond hair, accentuating his bronzed, hard-boned features. ‘You owe him nothing else.’

‘It wasn’t that simple,’ the older man sighed unhappily.

Tore didn’t want to encourage his grandfather to get down and dirty all over again in the long-distant past. Aldo was a sentimental man, prone to guilt and regret. Tore knew it all by heart in any case. That friendship and business connection had broken down when both men fell for the same woman, and that woman had become Tore’s grandmother, Matilde. Tomaso Barone had moved to England and set up his own company while retaining his voting rights in Renzetti Pharma, indeed insisting on retaining that link against his former partner’s wishes.

‘A marriage of convenience!’ Tore commented instead with sardonic bite. ‘We’re not living in the Dark Ages anymore when women were bartered like sheep. I’m twenty-eight. I’m not prepared to marry some stranger, and I can hardly credit that that stranger would be willing to marry me!’

Aldo averted his gaze in silent disagreement. In his opinion, Tore was a huge trophy on the marriage market, being the CEO of a thriving global company worth billions, who enjoyed an enviable lifestyle. He knew that, Tore had to know that and presumably his former partner knew it, too, knew what a big ask he was making while no doubt hoping that it would hurt. That unexpected demand had warned Aldo that Tomaso was still as bitter as gall over the way their respective marriages and business investments had turned out.

‘Apparently, both granddaughters are willing to make the sacrifice,’ Aldo informed his grandson wryly. ‘But Tomaso suggested choosing the eldest, who is apparently a less complex young woman. I don’t know what that means and I have no idea what either woman’s motivation might be.’

‘Money,’ Tore framed with raw distaste. ‘What else?’

‘Well, that’s for you to discover if you have the interest. If not, we’ll leave this discussion there. I’m not planning to put any pressure on you to meet Tomaso’s arbitrary demand. If you do consider it, though, note that he’s only specifying that the marital connection should last a minimum of five years,’ Aldo imparted uncomfortably. ‘In other words, it wouldn’t be a life sentence.’

Like that changed anything! Tore reflected in disbelief as the older man departed, seemingly impervious to the size of the bombshell he had dropped on his grandson. No pressure? Was Aldo serious in that claim? Tore’s green eyes flashed like emerald lightning in his lean, darkly handsome face.

How could there be anything other than pressure? Everything he was today was due to Aldo and Matilde’s care and concern for him. Aldo had liberated Tore from sordid circumstances as a young child, saving him from those who only sought to use him for his inheritance. Aldo had done what it took to stage that intervention even if it had entailed breaking the law. And that kind of action from a man, who toed the very letter of the law in every other field of his life, proved how desperate his grandfather had been to give his only grandchild a fighting chance to move beyond his unstable beginnings and flourish into something more. Thanks to Aldo, Tore had learned what it was to have security, love and education. Indeed, every good feature in Tore’s life had stemmed from his grandparents’ generous, tolerant and forgiving hearts. Their son, Marco, might have proved a grave disappointment but they had still given his son, Tore, the opportunity to prove that he could do better.

Aldo and his wife could have reacted very differently to Marco’s illegitimate child, born from a brief fling with a Norwegian fashion model. Marco had settled sufficient money on Tore’s mother to keep his child’s existence out of the newspapers. But then, unhappily, Tore’s mother had died when he was a toddler and he had become her sister’s responsibility instead: a sister who dabbled in drugs, bad men and crime; a sister who liked to live on the edge while using Tore’s ever-growing inheritance to keep her comfortable. Having exhausted all legal processes, Aldo had paid off Tore’s aunt to get her to sign over custody to his grandparents. And magically, literally overnight, Tore’s troubled, frightening childhood world had been transformed.

He owed more than family loyalty to his grandparents. He owed more than he could ever repay, so naturally, he would agree to this foolish marriage because for Aldo Renzetti, such an agreement would finally bring closure to that nasty partnership breakdown light years in the past. Tomaso would be paid handsomely for those precious voting shares, and his granddaughter would get to make a tiny marital footnote in the Renzetti family bible and leave the Barone family again royally enriched by her temporary rise in status.

Yes, he would agree to the marriage for Aldo’s sake but he would only do it on his own terms, and those would be business terms. Strictly business. He would pick the less complex candidate as advised by her own grandfather. She would get nothing but his name and lifestyle out of the deal. He would stick her in the south wing of his London mansion where she could moulder undisturbed until her time was up. There would be no mingling of any kind, not in their daily lives. However, possibly there would be the occasional social appearance as a couple to support the concept of normality, he conceded. After all, he couldn’t simply ignore the woman completely, could he? He hoped he had better manners.

Even so, he saw no reason why he should even meet his future bride before the wedding. It didn’t matter what she looked like, how she dressed or spoke, because he was stuck with her regardless, he reflected, subduing his rage at that lowering truth while he tried not to wonder if she would be an embarrassment. But he would, however, negotiate on that lengthy marital term. Five years was too long a period to be tolerated in such an empty marriage. Three years would be ample, even generous on his part. She could live high on the hog on his money. Sadly for her, however, the prenup would be a labyrinth of legalese complexity, guaranteed to hog-tie even the most rapacious of women into good behaviour for the duration of their union.

So, potential problem solved, he reflected on the back of gritted teeth and a searing current of his innate efficiency at plotting his next moves. His eager bride would shrink so far back into the wallpaper, she would be barely visible in his life. He would manage her in very much hands-off mode and she would not cause him the smallest inconvenience.

* * *

Violet clattered up the stairs to her flat, her back aching after her eight-hour shift, which had started at four in the morning. Being a baker was no job for a slacker who liked to lie in bed, but Violet was now so accustomed to the labour of early starts and busy hours in the bakery that she thought nothing of it, choosing instead to be simply grateful that there was money in the bank and no debts.

And very sadly, she owed all of that security to her best friend, Isabel. Unhappily, Isabel and her partner had not lived long enough to enjoy the success of the business they had built. The couple had died in a car accident the year before, only days after the birth of their daughter, Belle. Having long worked by her friend’s side, Violet had been nominated as guardian to Belle and had inherited the bakery in the little girl’s stead, which had made it financially possible for her to take on the responsibility of raising a young child alone.

It was a surprise for Violet to walk into Isabel and Stefan’s former apartment above the bakery and find her sister waiting for her rather than her tenant and childminder, Joy.

‘Relax, nothing’s happened. I told Joy she could leave early. She’d already given Belle her lunch and put her down for a nap,’ Tabitha explained, easily interpreting her sister’s expression of dismay at her unexpected appearance. ‘I have something to tell you.’

‘Oh…’ Violet’s tension drained away and she dropped down into an armchair with a sigh. ‘What’s up?’

Tabitha winced and then darted off to the bathroom in haste where her sister heard her be sick. Frowning, Violet followed her and stilled in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong? Have you caught a bug?’

‘Get me a glass of water while I freshen up,’ her twin urged.

Violet poured a glass of water and handed it over when her wan sister appeared back in the snug little sitting room. The apartment was a rabbit warren of small rooms because Isabel and her partner had put their money into improving the bakery rather than their living accommodation.

‘It’s not a bug,’ Tabitha shared tautly, her lovely face troubled and embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t be visiting if I had anything contagious. No, the truth is that I’m pregnant.’

‘Pregnant?’ Violet gasped in disbelief. ‘But how? I mean—’

‘Not a virgin anymore,’ Tabitha cut in somewhat bitterly. ‘You have to remember me saying that there was no way I was going into this marriage a virgin and staying that way for another three years!’

Violet frowned. ‘Yes. Of course I remember that but I didn’t see why it should be a problem when this marriage is a business deal rather than a normal one. Nobody’s expecting you to sleep with the wretched man!’

‘So you assumed but who knows?’ Tabitha asked. ‘And even if he doesn’t push the sex idea, it means that I can hardly be an unfaithful wife while I’m with him, and I couldn’t stand the idea that I would be trapped in celibacy as well for the next three years. So, I decided I would get rid of the problem.’

Violet groaned out loud. ‘It’s not a problem, not something you should think of in terms of getting rid of.’

‘I’m only doing what you did,’ Tabitha condemned with flushed cheeks. ‘Didn’t you sleep with your high school boyfriend because you thought it was time?’

Violet turned scarlet with embarrassment but the less said about that unwise decision of hers the better, when she had never come clean with her sister about what a disaster that had proved. ‘So, if you’re pregnant, who’s the father?’ she asked instead.

Tabitha grimaced. ‘Someone I met at work who was just passing through. I thought he would be perfect as I’d never see him again but my birth control let me down.’

Her twin studied her with sympathy. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘It’s more a question of what you are going to do,’ Tabitha stated, turning the question back on her. ‘After all, I can’t marry Tore Renzetti now that I’m pregnant. It would be a breach of the contract I signed and I can’t hide it, so I’ll have to fess up and then the marriage won’t go ahead and that means we don’t get the money up front.’

Violet slumped in horror. ‘Oh, good heavens…’ she whispered, aghast at that prospect for they were depending on that money for their mother’s benefit.

In recent years, Lucia Blessington, Tomaso Barone’s only child, had had every cancer treatment available in the UK and her health was still failing. But there was a clinical trial of a new experimental drug taking place in America that could save their mother’s life. Unfortunately, it took serious money to win a place on such a trial, and the Blessingtons were poor as church mice.

Through their grandfather’s lawyer, Tabitha had agreed to reduce the length of the agreed marriage to a three-year maximum and in return had demanded a very large up-front payment of cash. With that safe in the bank there would be sufficient money to fund her mother’s place on the trial, and there would also be enough for her mother and her lifelong best friend to live on while she received treatment. That was the only reason both sisters had been willing to marry Tore Renzetti, because their grandfather had agreed to help his daughter and had then backed out on the agreement. Either twin would have done virtually anything to give their mother even that slender chance of survival. Their childhood might have been pretty miserable, but throughout it all their mother had been a beacon of love and support.

‘Now it’s your turn to step up,’ Tabitha remarked with a guilty grimace. ‘And we dare not tell Tore Renzetti in advance in case he refuses to do a swap.’

‘But why should he? He couldn’t be bothered meeting either of us!’ Violet reminded the blonde tartly. ‘He doesn’t care who we are or what we look like or if we come with dependents. His lawyers never asked, did they?’

‘No, they didn’t, but it’s going to be a headache getting the relevant paperwork changed in time from Tabitha to Violet. I’ve already committed you,’ her twin announced, throwing her a remorseful glance. ‘I had to sign the prenup this morning to ensure that that cash payment was transferred in time, and I panicked and forged your signature.’

Violet paled. ‘But that’s against the law.’

Her more impulsive and less careful sister shot her a silencing glance. ‘So? We can’t take the risk at this stage that Renzetti will back out.’

‘But would he? He must want those shares pretty badly to agree to this in the first place. And how am I supposed to pretend to be you when I’m six inches shorter and as dark-haired as you’re fair? His legal team has seen you,’ Violet reminded her in dismay.

‘For the wedding, we’ll stick you in high heels and a blond wig with a veil on top. We can swing it if we try hard enough,’ Tabitha declared with characteristic fortitude.

Violet surveyed her twin with a sinking heart but not a word of argument could she come up with. How could she argue? Tabitha had been willing to sacrifice three years of her life, and it went without saying that Violet should be equally willing. Just because she was the less daring twin, didn’t mean she had to be useless, did it?

It could work. It would have to work, wouldn’t it? She would bring Belle into this stupid fake marriage and since Tore was based in London, she would keep on running the bakery as usual. As Tabitha was already telling her, no problem was insurmountable.