The Antoninnis could trace their lineage to Cosimo de’ Medici or, rather, to a supposedly illegitimate son of Cosimo’s. Faced with his mistress’s threats to make their affair a public scandal, Cosimo was said to have given her the vast, fertile rolling acres that even then were producing excellent wine. When the illegitimate son died, as so many Medicis, legitimate or not, were wont to do at that time, the mistress passed the estate on to her daughter, who married a prince of the house of Antoninni, which was when the vineyards became known by that name.
The Antoninni part of the tale was true; there was some doubt about the Medici connection but no Antoninni had ever tried to verify it. Someone in each generation always realized that tracing something that might turn out to be a centuries-old falsehood—or, worse still, a tale of murder—would serve no purpose except to disgrace the Antoninni–Medici connection.
Alessia thought the whole thing was foolish. Who had the time for titles and lineage and fifteenth-century intrigue? Besides, the Antoninni problem right now was not one of DNA but of dollars. Orsini dollars, ones that would become Antoninni euros. That was the reason she had arranged to hold the meeting here, in these magnificent surroundings.
“An excellent plan,” her father had said, assuming that she meant to impress their foreign guest.
Alessia’s motives had been far less admirable.
In terms of power and wealth, Nicolo Orsini was the modern version of Cosimo de’ Medici, but with one enormous difference.
Cosimo had been a man of refinement and honor.
Nicolo was not.
And if her motives for bringing him here took her down to his level, so be it.
She had no choice but to deal with him. She did have a choice as to the way in which she did it, and impressing him was not on her agenda.
What she wanted was to remind him of where he existed on the social scale, that he no more belonged in this beautiful city, this jewel of a palace, than a junkyard dog belonged in a roomful of poodles.
In other words, she wanted him to be ill at ease.
Yes, she admitted, glancing at him as the big car glided to a stop before the palazzo, it was petty. She’d permitted herself a moment of guilt but only a moment because of the satisfaction it promised. Nicolo Orsini might have a polished look to him, he might speak passable Italian, even if it was tainted by the rough dialect of Sicily. He might have all the manners, all the money in the world, but he was not a gentleman.
He wasn’t even an honest businessman.
He was a bandit all gussied up in fancy clothes, and she’d known that before she ever set eyes on him. Now that she had, now that she’d seen, firsthand, how he took what he wanted, how he…he thought nothing of forcing himself on a woman who clearly wanted nothing to do with him…
He had kissed her.
Her cheeks flushed.
And…and if she had seemed to let it happen, even to participate, it was only because she was—she was—
Dio, what was she?
Why had she permitted a man like this to put his mouth on hers? Why had she spent part of the night imagining how that mouth, that hot, firm mouth would feel on her breasts?
“Principessa?”
Alessia blinked. The chauffeur stood at rigid attention beside the open passenger door of the Bentley.
She took a deep breath. “Oh. Sì, Guillermo. Grazie.”
The man dipped his head, a gesture she despised but this was no time to remind him of it, not when Nicolo had moved across the seat, not when she could feel the heated pressure of his thigh against hers.
She stepped quickly from the car; he followed after her.
“We will be ready to return to the villa in two hours,” she told the chauffeur, who did that damned lowering-of-the-head thing again. “And do not do that,” she said irritably. She heard Nicolo snort and she swung toward him. “Do you see something amusing?”
“Not amusing,” he said lazily. “Perplexing. The man is treating you as you wish to be treated. And you fault him for it?”
“I have not asked him to bow to me!”
“You don’t have to. Every breath you take makes it clear that you are part of the aristocracy.”
She felt her face turn pink. “You know nothing about me, signore, and yet you feel free to judge me?”
The faint smile on his lips faded. “There’s an American expression, Alessia. ‘Right back at you.’ If you don’t know what it means, I’ll be happy to explain.”
Dio, the impertinence of the man. Alessia swallowed her irritation and marched through the tall golden gates that guarded the palace.
“Wow.”
Wow. She almost laughed. Her unwelcome guest, her father’s onerous hope of salvation, sounded as she’d expected him to sound, as if he were entering a Disney World building.
“This is quite a structure. Which Medici built it?”
She stopped and looked at him. He stood with his face turned up to the spectacular gold cherubs on the building’s facade.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know it’s Medici. It has to be. But was this Giovanni’s work? Cosimo’s? Lorenzo’s? Lorenzo, I’d bet. The others were benefactors of the city, too, but he was the one with the soul of an artist. Am I right?”
“You know of the Medicis?”
Nick looked at her. He could read the astonishment on her face.
“Yes,” he said coolly. “I do. Surprised?”
“No. Not at all.”
She was a beautiful liar. He was damned certain she’d expected him to assume this perfect little structure had been put up by Disney.
“And you are correct,” she added briskly. “Lorenzo was its benefactor.”
He nodded. “That figures.”
“But Cosimo is one of our ancestors.”
Had she really said that? Judging by the lift of his eyebrows, she had. It was not an appreciative lift, either; he saw the boast just as much a foolish one as she did. Still, boasting, if more subtly than that, was the reason she’d brought her father’s crime-boss investor to this place.
She would have to keep one thought ahead of him at all times.
A golden cage of an elevator, installed in the mid-1800s, whisked them to the third floor. The meeting room, the one she had carefully chosen, was directly opposite. It was the most glorious chamber of all the glorious chambers in the small, elegant palace.
“After you,” the man she was trying to intimidate said politely, and she led him inside.
There was no “wow” this time but she could hear the intake of his breath as he took in the surroundings: the marble-topped table, the gilded vases filled with flowers, the thick silk carpet that was almost as old as the building itself, the Michelangelos and Raphaels and Donatellos hanging on the walls.
Orsini was impressed. And, she was certain, most assuredly aware that he was out of place. The thought gave her another guilty twinge but she dismissed it.
She might have to eat her pride by ferrying this man around as if he were not who he was, but it would surely be worth it.
The five men seated at the marble-topped table rose to greet him. Oh, yes, he was in over his head today. Her father’s attorney. Her father’s accountant. The vineyard manager. The viniculturist and the vintner.
Alessia watched Nicolo shake hands with each of them.
Then she sat back, ready to watch him eat crow. An American expression, and an excellent one.
What could a gangster possibly know of the law, of finance or of vino?
Five minutes later, she knew she had made a terrible error in judgment.
“Ah,” he told the attorney, “what a pleasure to meet the man who won Palmieri versus Shott in Venice last year.” Alessia watched the lawyer sit up straighter.
“You know of that case, signore?” he said, and Orsini replied that yes, of course he did, it had made headlines everywhere.
The accountant turned brick-red with delight when Nicolo said he was delighted to meet t
he man responsible for such an outstanding article in a prior month’s international finance journal.
He made no pretence at knowing anything at all about wine.
“Except how to enjoy a good vintage,” he said, which made everyone laugh, even the vintner and viniculturist, who were the worst wine snobs imaginable.
Finally, he looked around the room and took long looks at the paintings her father had not sold only because he had understood there was more to gain from being known as a man who owned such things than from giving them up.
“Magnificent,” he said, and added, casually, that he’d been fortunate enough to have acquired a Donatello at Sotheby’s a few months ago and had his agent keeping an eye out for a Raphael rumored to be coming on the market soon.
By the time they got down to business, her father’s people were eating out of his hand.
But that changed. Once the niceties were out of the way, Orsini the gentleman gave way to Orsini the thug….
Alessia gave an imperceptible shake of her head.
No. Not fair. He wasn’t a thug. Not today, anyway. Seated across from her was a sophisticated, powerful, blunt man who was as smart as anyone in the room. Smarter, she suspected. He understood finances.
And that he was being lied to.
He’d listened without expression as the accountant and the attorney danced around the questions he had asked. Why did a successful vineyard suddenly stop earning a profit? Why was it failing? More to the point, what would it take to make the place a success again?
The answers were interesting. He seemed to think so, too….
Until, after twenty or thirty minutes, he held up his hand and said, “Enough.”
This was, he said, pure fiction. Nicely done fiction, but fiction nevertheless. Then he pushed aside the documents spread over the table. His obsidian eyes were as merciless as those of a marauding shark.
“Assuming I decide to put money into this operation, it will be because I see a good reason to do so.”
“But we understood…” The attorney looked beseechingly at the accountant. “We understood it was your father who would make the loan to the prince.”
“I will be the one making it,” Nick said brusquely. “And none of what I’ve seen or heard makes me eager to turn over ten million euros.”
“Ten mill—”
“Ten million, that’s right.” He looked from one man to the other, then at Alessia. “The terms of the loan have also changed. I will expect to own a fifty-one percent interest in Antoninni Vineyards.”
“No,” Alessia said quickly. “We are not selling our vineyard to you.”
“It’s your father’s vineyard, and he will do whatever I ask or there will be no loan.” Nick turned to the attorney and accountant. “My own people will want to see these documents. As for the condition of the vines and land…” He looked at the other men. “Can they be saved if money is diverted to them, or have they been allowed to deteriorate for too long?”
“They most assuredly can be saved,” the viniculturist said eagerly, as the vintner and property manager nodded in agreement.
“Excellent.” Nick rose to his feet, motioned those three to remain seated and nodded at the attorney and accountant. “In that case, gentlemen, I’ll expect the legal and financial data to be faxed to my New York office by the end of the week.”
The attorney opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. So did the accountant. It was clear they had been dismissed as if they were errant schoolboys.
Alessia snorted. She tried to turn the sound into a cough but Nicolo’s raised eyebrows said he knew the difference between the two.
“Is there something you wanted to say, princess?”
“Only what I have already said. My father will not agree to giving you controlling interest in what has been a family-owned property for many centuries.”
She saw his mouth thin. Then he drew back her chair and smiled pleasantly to the three remaining men.
“The princess and I will be just a moment. Alessia? Let’s step into the hall.”
She didn’t want to go with him. Foolish, she knew; there was no reason to avoid being alone with him and so she stood up and preceded him out the door. The attorney and accountant were gone; she could hear the faint buzz of conversation start up in the room behind her.
“You’d better accept this, princess, and so had your father,” Nicolo Orsini said calmly. “I won’t invest in the vineyard without an assurance that it can be made profitable, nor will I invest in it without owning a majority share.”
“That’s not going to happen. You knew about my father’s financial woes before you came here. I know you did. And you never even suggested you’d demand ownership.”
“I came here as my father’s emissary. He didn’t care how badly your father had screwed up, but I do.”
“Because you changed the rules,” Alessia said with indignation. “You decided to invest your own money, not your father’s. Why did you do that?”
It was, Nick thought, a good question. He’d tried finding an answer before but he kept coming up empty. All he knew was that instinct told him there was more going on here than met the eye and that it somehow involved the woman glaring at him.
His life had been ruled by logic, but he had to admit, there were times a man could do better by relying on instinct. It was instinct that had kept him alive more than once in the hellholes in which he’d served his country, and while this surely wasn’t a life-or-death situation, he had the sense that instinct was still the way to go.
“I changed my plans and decided to invest my own money because investing is what I do.”
She laughed, and Nick narrowed his eyes. “I know you find that hard to believe, but that is exactly what I do.”
“Right,” she said sarcastically. “You invest in vine yards.”
“In all kinds of properties, but not in ones that aren’t worth my time or resources.”
“Antoninni is very much worth your time and money!”
Her voice trembled; she’d been so caught up in watching him, watching how he dealt with her father’s impressionable lackeys, that she’d almost forgotten what the stakes were.
Her mother’s welfare.
That was what mattered, not her anger at having to deal with this man or the future of the vineyard. Mama was what counted, and what would happen to her if Nicolo didn’t put millions into her father’s hands. His unfettered hands, because the last thing her father would want would be Nicolo Orsini looking over his shoulder, telling him he could or could not spend ten million euros.
“Nicolo.” She drew a deep breath, smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. “Isn’t it enough to invest in Tuscan property? There’s no reason to own any. I mean, you are not Tuscan—”
She gasped as his fingers dug into her shoulders.
“No,” he growled, “I’m American. Sicilian-American, and that puts me on a different plane, or so you think.”
“No! I didn’t mean—”
“I am an Orsini, Alessia, but that doesn’t mean I am a fool.”
“I did not suggest—”
“Never lie to me, princess. It’s the one thing I won’t ever forgive.”
Her color rose; she could feel it in her face. “I am not a liar! I’m simply trying to figure out why you are so determined to take control of the vineyard from my father.”
“Because that’s the way I want it.”
“But if he won’t let you and if you walk away and don’t give him the money—”
“What?” His eyes searched hers. “What is the real reason this is so important to you?”
Alessia stared at him. He was so powerful. So capable of holding the world in his hands, and never mind how he had earned that power. He was a man who could do anything; she had known that from the moment she first saw him.
What if she told him everything? About why she had agreed to deal with him. About her father’s vicious threat. About her mother
and how only he, Nicolo Orsini, a stranger from another world, one she detested, could save her.
“Tell me the truth, Alessia. I know there’s more to this than you’re letting me see.”
His voice was low. His hands no longer bit into her shoulders, they cupped them instead. She looked up into his face, into his dark, deep eyes. She could tell him the truth….
And then what?
He was a ruthless thug. Forget his beautiful face and body. His manners. His ability to tell Donatello from Donald Duck. He was what he was, and she could never trust him.
“There’s nothing more to this than you see, signore,” she said coolly. “I’m just a good Tuscan daughter, determined to do all I can for my papa.”
Nicolo’s mouth twisted. He let go of her, walked back into the conference room with Alessia behind him.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “tell me what I need to know.”
The manager spoke in glowing terms of the land. The viniculturist talked excitedly of what he would do to improve the vines, given the money and the time. The vintner talked of past vintages, of future ones, of how he could return Antoninni Wines to their past glories.
Then there was silence. Even Alessia held her breath.
Nick smiled. “I’m impressed. Not just impressed, I’m pleased.” He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. So did the others, including Alessia. “If I go through with this deal, signori, I’ll want you all to stay on.”
Beaming smiles. Handshakes. The men trooped out of the room and Nick turned, folded his arms and leaned back against the table, the look in his eyes indecipherable.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the rest of the sell.”
“The rest of the…the presentation? That was all of it. Well, you will meet the mayor tonight and some others who live nearby, but—”
“Aren’t you going to make a pitch, too?”
Her chin rose. His tone was insulting; they both knew it.
“The pitch, as you call it, was just made, signore.”
“Really?” He unwound from where he stood. There was no other word to describe the lazy straightening of that long, muscular male body, or the slow way he came toward her. “Because it occurs to me, princess, that you might be part of the sell.”
Nicolo: The Powerful Sicilian Page 7