Scandals Of The Powerful: Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) / An Invitation to Sin (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) (Mills & Boon M&B)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘When the warring started?’

  ‘Oh, it started long before that,’ Santo admitted. ‘My father and Benito were always rivals, Salvatore saw to that.’

  ‘You call him Salvatore?’

  ‘I call him both,’ Santo said. ‘You don’t really sit through business meetings saying Papà and Nonno.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘It’s got worse since he divided things up. Once a year we put on an act and are civil.’ He saw her frown, explained just a little bit more. ‘The family gets together at my nonna’s each year for her birthday—the only thing we all agree on is that we adore her, and we call a truce for one day, but after that, it’s gloves off again. These next few weeks...’

  Santo shook his head. He simply never went there, not even with himself, and really, there wasn’t time to now. There was a movie to be made after all. Except Santo found himself standing on a hillside and looking out to the docklands and the sea beyond, thinking how black it had all seemed on Sunday, the hell he had felt in a hotel room, except Ella had been there for him, had turned that day around. He wished last night she had let him do the same, wanted her to open up to him, so for her he broke his unspoken rule.

  ‘My grandfather played his sons off against the other. He taught them from the start that to get on you had to be ruthless.’ He looked at Ella. ‘So they were. When his health got worse he divided things up. Benito he put in charge of the hotel empire, and my father, Carlo, media. Now though, if we want the proposal to redevelop the docklands to go through, we need to pull together.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘I can’t see it happening. Angelo is—’

  ‘Angelo?’

  ‘My half-brother.’

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘I never do.’ He looked down the hill. ‘He has bought some of the houses here. This is supposed to be our development, but now Battaglia is throwing his weight behind Angelo.’

  ‘Because the marriage didn’t go ahead?’

  ‘Because of so many things.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Ella ventured. ‘I mean, it’s just one project.’

  ‘It matters,’ Santo said, and in that he wasn’t going to go into detail, wasn’t about to tell her that the Corretti empire was crumbling around them. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust her—he could not bear to admit it to himself.

  ‘Right now, I need to concentrate on this movie, but first...’ He pulled her into his arms and took her glasses off again, and kissed her very nicely, strangely tenderly. It made her want to cry, because she understood perfectly now her predecessors’ tears and rantings. It wasn’t just the sex—Santo Corretti was the whole package. How cold and lonely would the world be after him.

  And then, when his phone started begging for the producer to please arrive on set, there was no choice but to get moving.

  They arrived at the docklands. It was rough and worn down, but Santo told her that with some money thrown at it, it would one day again be so beautiful. ‘The town is dying,’ Santo said, ‘but if the tourists found it, if the people came back...’ There were locals all gathered to watch the activity. ‘See...’ Santo said. ‘That café has not been open for years, but now, today, it is. That is the sort of thing this film could do, and maybe it would have the people associate the Corretti name with what it can do in the future, not ways of old....’ Then he stopped talking about family. ‘Will you do one thing for me?’ Santo asked before he got to work. ‘Will you check out Luigi before you accept the job?’

  ‘I’ve already accepted it.’

  To his credit, Santo said nothing, not that he had much chance to. He was in a lot of demand and Ella took a seat and started working. Or trying to work, more often than not she found herself peering over her computer, frowning at a couple of Rafaele’s suggestions, because they weren’t interpretations Ella would have considered.

  Still, Rafaele was the expert, Ella told herself, determined to put pride aside and to learn from him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Ella blinked in surprise a little while later to the sight of Santo handing her a coffee.

  ‘Better,’ Ella said.

  ‘Because if you being here is a bit much, I don’t need you.’ He winced. ‘That came out so wrong—what I meant...’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ Ella smiled, touched that he seemed to realise that last night had been about so much more than their exchange of words. ‘How’s it going?’

  Santo grimaced. ‘Vince just lost his temper. I don’t know. It’s early days, I guess.’

  She sipped on her coffee, but after a moment or so she decided to take him up on his offer. ‘If you’re sure you don’t need me I might go and get some work done in the hotel.’

  ‘Sure,’ Santo said. ‘I’ll call if I need anything.’

  It was safer to be alone right now—she simply daren’t get closer to him. He’d been open, far more open about his family than Ella had expected him to be and, as nice as it had been to talk, on reflection it disarmed her. Sex she could handle—it was the rest that terrified her so. Holding that thought once back in her room Ella contacted the agency that had first sent her to Santo. She spent most of the day going through résumés as well as confirming the docking times for the ship which was going to be a huge part of the film set. Ella did a few phone and online interviews, until she had narrowed it down to two. Then she checked her own emails, frowning a little at the response from Luigi, who was, he said, delighted to give her this opportunity and that he was looking forward to seeing her when she came to Rome, that they must have dinner as soon as she got there.

  Of course Luigi would want to take her out to dinner and go over things before filming started. It was dinner, Ella told herself as she headed down to the restaurant to have dinner herself with Santo.

  ‘Better?’ Santo checked, standing briefly as she walked over.

  ‘Much.’

  And then there was no more personal talk, because there was actually an awful lot of work to discuss, especially now that they had started shooting. They worked their way through most of it, even the rather more delicate stuff.

  ‘Her name is Marianna Tonito.’ Ella brought him up to speed on her potential replacements. ‘She’s worked for two movie producers and one film star, so she has loads of experience. I spoke to the agency and then I spoke to her. She seems very...’ Ella struggled for the right word—knowledgeable, competent, confident, all applied, and thanks to the magic of Skype, Ella knew that Marianna was also terribly, terribly sexy. ‘Suitable’ was the word Ella settled for, though she knew that she was handing inevitable heartbreak over as she passed Santo the résumé, but Marianna was in fact the perfect person for this role.

  ‘When can she start?’

  ‘Immediately.’

  Santo frowned. ‘How can she be so good if she is so available?’

  ‘I checked all that.’ Ella had thought exactly the same. ‘She’s still working, much the same as me—actually training up her replacement now, at her boss’s wife’s request.’

  Ella saw the slight raise of one eyebrow. ‘Are there any other candidates?’

  Ella handed him the second résumé. Santo tried, he really did, to keep his expression bland—so much so that Ella had to suppress a smile. ‘He seems to have a lot of experience.’

  ‘He does,’ Santo said carefully. ‘And perhaps things would be a little less complicated.’ He glanced over to Ella, as if to check her thoughts, but she refused to give them. ‘How soon can he start?’

  ‘Paulo has already given his notice. He’s in Singapore now with his current boss, but should be back in Italy in the next couple of days, though he wants to take two weeks off before he starts a new job.’

  ‘Fly them both over for an interview.’ He could feel this huge sulk unfurling. He did not want her gone. It was all so unnecessary to Santo, and certainly he did not want her working for Luigi. ‘You haven’t given your notice in writing.’

  She went into her huge handbag and took it out. ‘I meant to
give it to you last night.’

  He didn’t take it.

  ‘File it.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘In the shredder.’

  ‘I’ll email you a copy before I do,’ Ella said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I need to change the ship date.’

  Ella blinked. Surely he wasn’t talking about the ship date. It had taken her forever to organise—ships sailing into the sunrise generally did!

  ‘I need you to make it for two days later.’

  ‘Santo...’ Ella drew a long breath. It was just the sort of request she’d come to expect from him, just the usual impossible ask that with one look he expected her to fix. ‘There are three hundred extras booked.’

  ‘You think that I don’t know that?’ Santo responded. ‘But the fact is we lost a day’s filming yesterday and things haven’t exactly gone well today.’ She sat quiet for a moment as he voiced it. No, things hadn’t gone well. All the hope and excitement that had greeted them this morning had slowly dispersed throughout the morning, and from the whispers Ella was hearing, after she had left things had gone from bad to worse. ‘I think I might have made a mistake.’

  He didn’t actually say it, but Ella knew that he was talking about Taylor. She hadn’t exactly shone today, but Ella could see it wasn’t her acting that was the problem. Though it would sound like sour grapes if Ella suggested that it was the director who was the issue.

  ‘Things might improve tomorrow,’ Ella attempted. ‘It was never going to be perfect the first day of filming.’

  ‘I know. But for now just sort out the ship and the extras. We’re going to need more time.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can to...’ Her voice trailed off as his phone bleeped the text. She watched relief flood his face.

  ‘Alessandro?’

  ‘Thank God,’ Santo said, reading the text. Ella found herself wishing he’d tell her what his brother had said. She wanted more into his life and was having terrible trouble dealing with that. ‘So we’re done?’

  Ella nodded.

  ‘Did you want another drink?’ he offered.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Did you want to talk?’

  ‘We’re up at five tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine.’ He was curt—it had been a hell of a day and not a particularly good last night and Santo would love to happily screw his way out of it, but he wasn’t going to beg.

  He didn’t understand her.

  But he’d tried to.

  ‘You’d really rather be alone than be with me.’

  Yes, Ella thought, because it was safer to be alone tonight. In his bed she’d be telling him she loved him or something ridiculous, which wouldn’t cause a remote problem for Santo, Ella knew. He was more than used to hearing that.

  It just caused a huge problem for Ella. She simply didn’t want to love anyone, didn’t want her heart out there in harm’s way, and she was already scrambling to take it back.

  ‘’Night, Santo,’ she said, because it was far safer too.

  ‘’Night, Ella.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE WAS UNABLE to get hold of Paulo for a couple of days, but when Ella did he was delighted to hear from her.

  But trying to arrange an interview proved a little difficult. ‘What about next Sunday?’ Ella peered at the diary, then changed her mind. If they changed the shipping dates, it would be the final day of filming and there would be three hundred extras milling around and the set would be crazy. ‘Let me sort out things this end and then I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘No problem.’ He was just so funny and nice and keen to work for Santo, and he told Ella that he was happy now to take just one week off between jobs. ‘Even no time off, but don’t tell him that yet—I would love to work for Santo,’ Paulo said. ‘I have heard so many good things.’ He laughed then and so did Ella. ‘Lots of terrible things too—the whole family, really. They’re a PR nightmare. I assume you’ve seen the papers this morning?’

  ‘You really don’t expect me to discuss that!’ Ella smiled, because there were tales of infidelity and missing grooms and illegitimacies. It was Santo’s mother, Carmela, who was taking up the news today. She was an exceptionally cold woman, one who had been more interested, the newspaper article read, in her designer suits than being a mother to her children. Even if Santo knew that already, he was surely reeling from the news that had just broken of his mother’s most illicit affair.

  She turned her attention back to Paulo. They really weren’t gossiping. Ella had asked him questions about his employer, liking the fact that though Paulo chatted away, he told her nothing. ‘There is an awful lot of discretion required for this role.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even with Santo—though you work alongside him, really, you won’t have a clue half the time what is going on. He especially doesn’t discuss his family.’

  ‘I would never expect a Corretti to,’ Paulo said. ‘I am Sicilian, I know.’

  Marianna was nowhere near as accommodating or as pleasant to speak to as Paulo.

  Most annoyingly, Marianna insisted on speaking in English. God, the Italians were so good at delivering a snub when they wanted to, but Ella took it nowhere near as well as she did when it was Santo. It was even harder to pin her for an interview time than it had been with Paulo.

  ‘I’ll arrange transport for you if you can just give me a suitable date.’ Ella did her best to keep her voice even. ‘Santo really would like to get this organised as soon as possible, so if you could let me know when you’re available, I’ll try to sort things out with him.’

  ‘I’ll arrange my own transport,’ Marianna said. ‘You can reimburse.’ Ella held on to her breath. Really, she felt rather more as if she were the one being interviewed, as if she was Marianna’s assistant. She tried to remember that this was the sort of person best for the job—someone brash and confident, someone who would be able to reschedule a ship at five minutes’ notice and deal with all the drama Santo generated. There was certainly no off-the-record chats with Marianna. In fact, she wanted to speak only with the man himself.

  ‘I will look in my diary and see when I am available. Perhaps if I speak directly with Santo...’

  ‘Santo is busy with filming at the moment,’ Ella said. ‘I arrange his diary.’ And she heard the note of possession in her own voice and tried to stifle it. ‘If we can organise a mutual time that would be great, but there are several applicants and Santo is very busy.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ It was Marianna who rang off.

  Still, it was a minor triviality and not one she would worry Santo with, because the filming was going from bad to worse and, as the days progressed and the filming didn’t, his mood darkened. The crew were putting in incredibly long hours but it was seemingly all going backwards. Still, Ella had more on her mind than Santo. It was the day she had been dreading for weeks—her mother’s birthday—and later she needed to ring her.

  And say what?

  Ella tried not to think about it. Instead she responded to a couple of texts from Santo, who was already on set, and then sorted out some of his overnight correspondence.

  The second it was 9:00 a.m., she started on the endless phone calls to sort out the extras and ship, and then it was time to head for the set.

  She could feel the tension on set as she approached.

  Santo had been right to reschedule the ship scene. There was no way they would have been ready otherwise.

  ‘Where’s Vince?’ someone called.

  ‘Sulking in his trailer.’ Santo scowled back.

  She looked to where Rafaele was placing all the actors, and then glanced over to Santo. There was a muscle jumping in his cheek as he watched the placement. ‘What the hell is he doing?’

  Ella said nothing—it wasn’t her place to—but how she would have loved to get in and change things. Rafaele had Vince walking along the docklands where he would come across Taylor crying and stand watching her for a long moment before making
his way over.

  It didn’t work.

  The characters weren’t supposed to even like each other and it just made Vince look opportunistic, especially when Rafaele asked him to put more purpose in his stride.

  ‘Yep...’ Santo gritted. ‘March over there, why don’t you...’ He turned his head to Ella. ‘Is Rafaele reading the same script as you and me?’ Ella said nothing, just watched in silence as, yet again, the make-up team were called on to touch up Taylor’s make-up.

  ‘This is a disaster,’ hissed Santo.

  Again Ella said nothing.

  But absolutely he was right.

  Over and over they watched as Taylor cried on cue, and then, over and over, Rafaele called for her to do it again.

  ‘It’s too much,’ Santo said, and Ella stayed silent, knowing Santo wasn’t stressing about the pressure on Taylor. It was that there was far too much going on in the scene that was the problem. This particular scene was to be combined with a flashback of her receiving the news that her lover had died. It was supposed to portray the devastated heroine staring out to sea and breaking down as she realised her lover would never return.

  ‘Action,’ Rafaele called, and Ella watched as again Taylor broke down. Vince was being filmed too, from the rear first, watching her from a distance, then walking across the docklands towards her. It was at the end of this scene their grief and passion would ignite.

  ‘First her face—’ Santo was incensed ‘—then the beach, then back to her face, and now Vince.’

  Santo was right. Vince was just bombarding the scene. Ella could see what was needed, could actually see it before her eyes. Taylor was acting beautifully. It was an Italian shot that was needed—an extreme close-up of her eyes with the ocean reflected in them and then turning as Vince joined her side.

  God, she could see it.

  ‘It’s going to be like watching tennis,’ Santo moaned.

  Still Ella said nothing, just watched as a very tense Taylor flounced off. Finally Rafaele told everyone to break for lunch.

  ‘What do you think?’

  An ironic smile twisted her lips, that he had the audacity to ask her.