The Italian Inheritance (3 page)

Vialli’s gaze rose impatiently. “It’s for a background check. I have to vet everybody who wants to see
Signore
Albertosi.”

“A background check? Crumbs. Whatever for? I just want to say hello to the man. Why is that so difficult?”

“It’s for security purposes. Like I said, he is a very important man. If you’ll just answer the questions
,
we can get to your business a lot quicker.” His impatience was evident in the taunt stance of his hard upper body.

Anna gave her address. She was getting more and more confused.

“Who is Giovanni Albertosi to warrant all this security?” she enquired. Perhaps he was a politician or someone of local importance. She’d certainly never heard the name before.

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” he intoned. Anna wondered how many times in his life he’d said that sentence. He made a good lawyer, cold, emotionless.

“Do you have a copy of your passport with you?”

Anna sighed. “I do.” She reached into her handbag and put it down on the large mahogany desk. It was so wide he had to stretch to retrieve it. At this point it
could have been
a mountain between them and Anna suspected it
was going to b
e a
long,
hard climb
before she got
any
thing out of
him
.

But
what choice did she have?
Unfortunately
,
this man
was her only lead. She had to go along with his stupid questions before he’d give her any information about Giovanni. That much was
crystal
clear. She glanced at his
stony
face. Nope. Nothing was getting past this guy.

He opened the document and glanced at the photograph, then up at her face. She smiled sarcastically.
Yes, it’s me.

“I’ll be right back.” He strode to the door and pulled it open. He asked the receptionist something in Italian, probably to make a copy, and came back inside. This time instead of sitting in his swivel chair he leant casually against the front of the desk
,
studying her.

Anna raised her eyebrows. “Anything else before we get down to business?
A urine sample, perhaps?
”

He had the grace to smile. A tiny smile that played at the corner of his lips. Anna noticed, rather irrationally, that they were full, sexy lips. Not hard and thin like his demeanour predicted.

“My secretary will make a copy of your passport. Don’t worry. You’ll get it back shortly. Now, why don’t you tell me why you want to find
Signore
Albertosi?”

“Well, it’s
a personal mater
. I’ve come all the way from London to see him. I’m sure if you just explain
the situation to him, he’ll be happy to see me.”

Anna really didn’t feel like telling this man about her mother’s affair
twenty-
six years ago
, the subsequent letter that was never posted and her
own
hopes and dreams of
finally
meeting her father. He wouldn’t understand.
Her gaze fell from his humourless face to his
broad chest.
He didn’t appear to have a compassionate bone in his hard, toned body.

Rafael sighed. “I’m afraid that is not possible. Unless I know what business it is you have with him, I can’t let you see him.
It’s for his own safety.
”

The man was incorrigible. Anna stared at him in frustration. Why did he have to make everything so difficult?
Then his words sunk in.

“His own safety? Is he unwell?” The fact that he might be sick hadn’t even occurred to her.

The attorney looked like he didn’t know how to answer. Anna gave him an odd look. “Is he sick?”
she repeated, urgently.

“No, he’s not sick
,
” he said slowly
,
folding his arms across his chest and gazing at her through narrowed eyes.

“Oh, thank God for that.” Why was the lawyer looking at her so suspiciously? Perhaps there was something else wrong with Giovanni. “Is he in trouble then?” She was grasping at straws, making wild guesses in the hope that Vialli would give something away.

“No, what do you mean?”
Vialli
looked concerned.

“I mean he’s not in jail or anything is he?” Maybe her father was a gan
gster or even worse, Mafioso—a
fter all this was Italy. Now that put a different spin on things.
She gulped.
Was it possible
she
could be related to a criminal?

It struck her how little she actually knew about her father. If only her mother had
opened up to
her about Giovanni before she
’d
died. Maybe then she’d have a bit more to go on than a faded address on a
crumpled
old
envelope
.

“Definitely not,
” came the horrified reply.

Relief flooded Anna’s body. Okay, so he wasn’t ill and he wasn’t in jail. Good start. At least she’d ruled
out
those two options. Suddenly
Anna
felt like she was playing a game of charades with a total stranger.
For that’s
what
this
had been
so far—a
guessing game.
An urge to giggle rose in her throat.
It must be nervous tension.
Luckily
her gurgle
was masked by the
office
door opening and the secretary waltzing in with her passport.

“Grazie, Christina.”

Anna didn’t miss the provocative body language or the
sultry
smile as Christina handed
the passport over
to her boss. Interesting. Either the girl was smitten or Vialli was sleeping with his secretary. Not that
Anna cared either way. She watched Vialli’s eyes flicker in acknowledgement
,
but his face remained stoic. It was hard picturing him
open
ing
up to anyone
, let alone sleeping with them
. He was so... con
tained, so obviously
in control of his every emotion
.

Her eyes darted back to Christina, leaving the room. She supposed the girl was sexy in her figure-hugging skirt and white shirt unbuttoned low enough to show off an admirable cleavage.
Clearly
it worked for Vialli.

Anna
turned her attention back to Vialli who had returned to his casual half-sitting, half-standing stance against his desk. Being only a few feet away from her, Anna had to crane her neck to look up at him.

“So getting back to Giovanni
,
” she began, shifting her tall frame to better see him. “I’m trying to understand why all this security is necessary. It seems to me that you’re going to an awful lot of effort to vet someone as harmless as myself, for no reason. I’m hardly a threat to the man. I just want to see him.”

“If you tell me why, I might be able to help you,” replied Vialli, unflinchingly. He really was like a brick wall.
And his intimidation tactics weren’t working either. Anna was getting a stiff neck. She stood up.

“Okay. You win.” Being almost six
feet
tall she was practically eye
-
to
-
eye with him.
He didn’t react like most pe
ople did to her unusual height, in that his expression remained unchanged. He maintained his
stationary
position
against the desk.

Anna put her hands on her hips.
She may as well tell him the whole story. This meeting was going nowhere fast and she
was tired of dancing around him. “I bring news from a friend of his.”

“Who is the friend?” His hands
rested easily
in his pockets, but Anna could tell by his stance
and the muscles tensing in his neck and jaw that
he was anything but relaxed.

“Carmen Crawford. My mother.” Just saying her mother’s name brought a catch to her throat. Sudden
ly she felt tired and emotional, but instead of buckling, her natural tenacity kicked in and she met his gaze determinedly.

“Tell me more...
” he said softly.

“
Giovanni met my mother a long time ago.
Here in Capri.
They became friends. In fact
,
I think t
hey had an affair.
”

She paused to gather her thoughts. Vialli was watching her intently. “An affair?”

Anna nodded. “Yes, twenty-
six
years ago. Here in Capri. I’m not sure how it happened, the details are so
sketchy
. I only found out myself a few days ago.”

Vialli blinked a
nd
pushed away from the desk. At his full height he was still a good few inches above Anna. She was back to looking up at him.

“So what you’re saying is Giovanni and your mother had an affair and...” He gazed at her warily.

“Yes,” Anna confirmed, correctly guessing where his thoughts were going. “I am the result of that affair. I’m Giovanni’s daughter.”

Now how did I know she was going to say that?

Rafael sighed. Another one. It was just as he thought. Damn Giovanni for causing all this chaos.

If only the press hadn’t published the story in the local news, then none of these
hopefuls
would even know about the unclaimed fortune. Unfortunately
, it
was a human interest story of mammoth proportions.

WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN LEAVES FORTUNE TO ILLEGITIMATE LOVE CHILD

Rafael had been shocked when Giovanni told him he’d changed his will. He remembered the day like it was yesterday.

Giovanni’s face, flushed with fever. An urgency in his direct blue gaze that Rafael had never seen before.

“It was before I married Rosa,” Giovanni had gasped, gripping Rafael’s hand. “She was English and so very beautiful. There was a baby...”

At Rafael’s incredulous expression he continued, “I saw her with my own eyes.”

“But why didn’t you tell me?” He’d never heard of this illegitimate child before. All these years Giovanni had kept the secret to himself.

“Rosa...” he whispered. “I couldn’t do it to Rosa. It was better that she never knew.” Rosa, Giovanni’s wife, had died only the year before.

“So you actually went to England, and saw
this child? Your child
?”

The old man had nodded. “
Yes, I went... A
long time ago
..
. I had to see her just once.”

“Well, where is she?” Rafael had asked. He wanted confirmation, proof of the child’s existence.
The story was so unreal he had to verify it.

But Giovanni just shook his head. His memory was fading and he was
consumed
with pneumonia. “You can find her.” He’d patted Rafael’s hand weakly.

Rafael looked doubtfully at Giovanni.
“What do you want me to do?”

“I want her provided for.” It was an order
, a hint of the powerful man he once was
. “I’ve changed my will. Please see that it’s drawn up
...” He broke off as a coughing fit wracked his body. When he could breathe again he gasped, “... q
uickly.”

Giovanni had handed him a worn piece of paper, which Rafael recognised as the original will.

“Of course.”

The new will had been drafted, printed and signed that very day. Giovanni’s illegitimate daughter would inherit
half of her father’s fortune—a
nd she didn’t even know it.

This last act had caused infinite problems for Rafael.
He looked at the beautiful young woman in front of him. Was she for real? He decided not to mention Giovanni’s death, or the inheritance just yet. If she was the latest in a line of clever con-women determined to help themselves to a portion of the Albertosi inheritance, then she already knew and if not, well, he still needed time to verify her claim.

So he delivered the stock same answer he’d given all the others. “I’m sorry Miss Crawford, but I have known the Albertosi family for many years. Giovanni does not have any children.”

In actual fact, he’d tried in vain to track down the illegitimate daughter in the weeks after Giovanni’s death, or rather his private investigator had. But without a name or an address
to go on,
it was
literally
like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Great Britain.