Page 151 of A Diamond Deal
She rolled her eyes, missing the way his mouth quirked in an appreciative smile.
‘I always did very well at school,’ she said. ‘I got a scholarship to study medicine, aced my pre-admission test. But then, he got sick.’ She cleared her throat, wishing she didn’t still feel that acid reflux when she thought of her dad. ‘And while he was sick, I would read the papers to him, every day. He would close his eyes and listen, but if I thought he’d drifted off, and stopped, he’d reach out and squeeze my arm, wanting me to keep going. I would read them back to front for him.’
The sympathy in his expression was impossible to miss. It hit her right in the solar plexus.
‘And you haven’t heard from your mother since she left?’ he asked, gently, settling back in the hot tub, but keeping their legs entwined.
‘Not a single card. I have no idea if she’s alive or dead.’
His brows knitted together. ‘You could hire a detective.’
She rejected that thought. ‘Either way, she’s dead to me. If she doesn’t want to be in my life, why would I push that?’
His eyes raked her face, then, slowly, he nodded. ‘I feel the same.’
‘About your father.’
He shifted his head in agreement.
‘With your father, he’d actually committed crimes. So I presume police were searching for him.’
‘There was a massive operation. He has evaded discovery. We know only that he transferred hundreds of millions of euros offshore, money he convinced every single person we knew to invest with him. He must have been planning it for a long time—the detail was meticulous.’
Amelia shook her head. ‘But your family was already wealthy. Why do that?’
‘We were wealthy enough, but not like this.’ He gestured to the view. ‘Although, sometimes I think it wasn’t about the money at all, so much as the thrill of it. He scammed his friends, he got away with it.’
‘But he lost you and your grandfather and ruined your life in the process.’
He made a gruff noise of agreement. ‘What he did was also, in all likelihood, the making of me.’
‘How so?’
‘I was always driven, I suppose, but not like this. From the moment his crimes were revealed, I vowed to repair the damage. To earn enough to pay back every last cent, and then to have enough money that, no matter what my father had done, people would respect us. I didn’t realise how entrenched those prejudices would become. The name Moretti remained mud, no matter how much money I had.’
‘That’s not true,’ she disputed. ‘You are hugely admired. You’re one of the richest men in the world. Your business success is legendary.’
‘I am talking about a very specific legacy. The Moretti name, here in Italy and in Europe, the respect that was once afforded us simply because of the generations that have gone before.’
‘I thought you didn’t care about that.’
‘I don’t. Either way, the name ends with me, so why do I care what the value of it is? But my grandfather cares. It is, I suppose you could say, his dying wish.’
Something thudded in her chest. ‘You mean the name ends with you because you don’t intend to have children?’
His eyes held hers.‘Sì.’
A shiver ran the length of her spine. ‘Does your grandfather know?’
Those dark eyes continued to probe hers, as though looking through her. ‘On the contrary, he now feels that children are imminent.’
Comprehension began to dawn. ‘Because of our marriage.’
‘Yes.’
‘Another benefit of pretending this is real,’ she murmured.
‘A definite advantage.’
