LITMIR.BIZ

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smile before looking away. Allegra felt too tired and on edge to return it. The other woman had her mother’s cool blonde looks without the icy demeanour. In different circumstances, another life, Allegra might have considered getting to know her. Now she could barely summon the emotional energy to sit next to the two women who had taken her and her mother’s places in her father’s life.

      Signor Fratelli began making some introductory remarks; through a haze of tiredness Allegra tried to focus on what he was saying.

      ‘I am afraid, in recent weeks, there has been some change to Signor Mancini’s financial situation.’

      Caterina’s gaze swung to pin the lawyer. ‘What kind of change?’ she demanded.

      ‘Another corporation now has controlling shares in Mancini Technologies.’

      Caterina gasped, but the words meant little to Allegra. She still didn’t know why the lawyer had insisted she be there for such news.

      ‘What do you mean, controlling shares?’ Caterina asked, her voice high and shrill.

      ‘Signor Vitali of V Property has secured controlling shares,’ the lawyer explained. ‘Only recently, but he is now essentially the CEO of Signor Mancini’s company. And he will be here shortly to explain his intentions regarding its future.’

      Allegra sat back and closed her eyes as Caterina’s ranting went on. What did she care that some stranger now owned her father’s company? None of this was relevant to her. She shouldn’t have come. Not to the lawyer’s, and not even to Italy.

      ‘Ah, here he is,’ Signor Fratelli said, and then the door to his office opened and Rafael appeared like a dark angel from her worst dreams.

      Allegra stared at him in shock, too stunned to react other than to gape. He looked remote and professional and very intimidating in a navy blue suit, his eyes narrowed, his mouth a hard line. His cool gaze flicked to Allegra and then away again without revealing any emotion at all. Allegra shrank back into her chair, her mind spinning, her body already remembering the sweet feel of his hands... What was he doing here?

      Signor Fratelli stood. ‘Welcome, Signor Vitali.’

      Maybe because she was so tired and overwhelmed, it took Allegra a few stunned seconds to realise what it all meant. Rafael was Signor Vitali of V Property. He owned her father’s company. Had he known who she was last night? Was it some awful coincidence, or had she been part of his takeover? She pressed her hand to her mouth and took several deep, steadying breaths. The last thing she wanted to do was throw up all over Rafael Vitali’s highly polished shoes.

      She was so busy trying to keep down her breakfast that she missed the flurry of conversation that swirled around her. Distantly she registered Caterina’s outraged exclamations, Rafael’s bored look. Signor Fratelli was looking increasingly unhappy.

      Allegra straightened in her chair, her hands gripping the armrests as she struggled to keep up with what was being said.

      ‘You can’t do this,’ Caterina protested, her face pale with blotches of angry colour visible on each over-sculpted cheekbone.

      ‘I can and I have,’ Rafael returned in a drawl. ‘Mancini Technologies will be dissolved immediately.’

      Allegra stayed silent as Rafael outlined his plan to strip her father’s company of its apparently meagre assets. Then Signor Fratelli chimed in with more devastating news—nearly all of her father’s assets, including the estate in Abruzzi, had been tied up with the company. The result, Allegra realised, was that her father had died virtually bankrupt.

      ‘You killed him,’ Caterina spat at Rafael. ‘Do you know that? He died of a heart attack. It must have been the shock. You killed him.’

      Rafael’s expression did not change as he answered coldly, ‘Then I am not the only one with blood on my hands.’

      ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Caterina demanded, and Rafael didn’t answer.

      Numb and still reeling from it all, Allegra turned to Signor Fratelli. ‘May I go?’ She didn’t think she could stand to be in the same room as Rafael much longer. He’d used her. More and more she was sure he’d known who she was, and had planned it. Had it amused him, to have the daughter of the man he’d ruined fall into his hands, melt like butter?

      ‘There is something for you, Signorina,’ the lawyer told her with a sad smile. ‘Signor Mancini had a specific bequest for you.’

      ‘He did?’ Surprise rippled through her along with a fragile, bruised happiness, even in the midst of her shock and grief. Signor Fratelli withdrew a velvet pouch from his desk drawer and handed it to Allegra.

      Caterina craned her neck and Rafael and Amalia both looked on as Allegra clasped the pouch. She didn’t want to open it in front of them all, but it was clear everyone expected it. Caterina was bristling with outrage, seeming as if she wanted to snatch the precious bag from Allegra’s hands.

      Taking a deep breath, she opened the pouch and withdrew a stunning necklace of pearls, with a heart-shaped diamond-encrusted sapphire at its centre. She knew the piece; it had belonged to her father’s mother, and her mother had loved to wear it. Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them back. The value of the piece was not in its jewels but in the sheer, overwhelming fact that her father had remembered her. She clenched the necklace in her fist, gulping down the emotion, before she managed to give Signor Fratelli a quick nod.

      ‘Grazie,’ she whispered, the Italian springing naturally to her lips.

      ‘There is a letter as well,’ Signor Fratelli said.

      ‘A letter?’ Allegra took the envelope from the lawyer with burgeoning hope. Perhaps now she would finally understand her father’s actions. His abandonment. ‘Thank you.’ The letter she refused to open here. She rose from her seat, making for the door.

      As she brushed past Rafael she inhaled the saffron scent of his cologne and her stomach cramped as memories assailed her.

      His hands touching her so tenderly. His body moving inside hers in what had been an act more intimate than anything Allegra had ever experienced or imagined. She’d understood all along that it had been a one-night stand; she’d known that they weren’t building a relationship. And yet the reality had been both harsher and more intense than she’d ever expected—both the import of what she’d shared with Rafael and the cruelty of him kicking her out the door.

      Now, on shaking legs, with her head held high, she walked past him and out the door. She’d just started down the steps when the door opened behind her and Rafael called her name.

      Allegra hesitated for no more than a second before she kept walking.

      ‘Allegra.’ He strode easily to catch her, touching her lightly on the arm. Even the brush of his fingers on her wrist had her whole body tensing and yearning. Remembering. She shook him off.

      ‘We have nothing to say to each other.’

      ‘Actually, we do.’ His voice was low and authoritative, commanding her to stop. She paused, half turning towards him, wanting to ignore how devastatingly attractive he looked even now.

      ‘What,’ she demanded in a shaking voice, ‘could you possibly have to say to me now? You got your revenge.’

      ‘Revenge?’ His mouth firmed into a hard line. ‘You mean justice.’

      ‘Did you know I was his daughter last night?’ Allegra demanded shakily. ‘Did it...did it amuse you, having me fall all over you when you knew you were ruining him?’

      ‘I didn’t know you were Mancini’s daughter, and if I had, I wouldn’t have touched you. I want nothing to do with any Mancini, ever.’ He spoke with a cold flatness that made Allegra recoil.

      ‘Why? What had my father ever done to you?’

      ‘That is irrelevant now.’

      ‘Fine.’ She wouldn’t let herself

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