New Arrivals: His Expectant Mistress: Accidentally Pregnant! / One-Night Pregnancy / One Tiny Miracle...

The waiter chose that moment to bring their food to the table. Once he went away again and they’d started to eat Vincenzo said, “Father won’t be cochairing anything. His cancer has come back. No one knows how much longer he’s going to live.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, putting down the iced tea she’d been drinking.

“I am, too. One good thing about the title is that it gives me absolute authority to choose the person who will cochair with me. What I need is a young outsider with business savvy and fresh vision. The company has been losing business over the last five or six years.”

“Because you left,” she stated baldly. Her confidence in him reassured him as nothing else could.

“It’s more a case of mismanagement and a bad economy. There are plenty of areas to attach blame. My way of doing things is to delegate once I’ve concluded the big contract negotiations. The detail work will be left to the others on the board who are capable of doing a good job if pointed in the right direction. Father didn’t give them that much responsibility.”

“That sounds good in theory.”

“The changes I make will cut down on my work-load. When I have to travel, you’ll go with me and we’ll turn those trips into vacations. Everything will be different.”

“Are you thinking of asking Fabbio to help you? Being your stepbrother, he’d be a natural choice and is young like you.”

Until Irena had come into his life, Vincenzo had felt like he was hurtling toward his old age at warp speed. Being with her was like finding the source of life all over again.

“There’s no question Fabbio’s an asset to the company. They all are in their own way, but after I chose to work at the plant, father did everything himself because he didn’t trust anyone. No one has been taught to act or think outside the box. As a result, they’re locked in a group mentality of business as usual. The company needs new blood for revitalization.”

“It sounds like you’ve already made your pick.”

“I have. It’s a woman.”

She looked down at her food. “In an all-male enclave?”

“Revolutionary, isn’t it?”

“One of your dozens of female cousins?” Did he detect approval in her question?

“Not a cousin, but she is a relative.”

At that revelation she lifted her head. Those dark, velvety-brown orbs had suddenly brightened. “Your father approves?”

“He doesn’t know yet. When he does, it still won’t matter. As I told you earlier, I hold the title now and can do as I please.”

“I thought you hated it.”

“This is the first time in my life I’ve had a change of heart about it. But I won’t be keeping it for long.”

She stopped eating. “Why?”

“When my father dies, I’ll bypass Dino and bequeath it to my uncle Tullio while he’s still alive. He’s the next youngest Valsecchi brother. Knowing him, he’ll think he died and went to heaven. His first item of business will be to throw me out and crown himself CEO.”

“Be serious.”

“You think I’m not? You have no idea how much my uncles have envied my father. Tullio particularly has coveted his position.”

She kept staring at him. “Then what will you do?”

“Go back as head of the plant and work around the people I like.”

Irena made a sound of exasperation. “Sometimes I don’t know when you’re being serious or not.”

“I guess you’re going to have to take this on trust.”

Her eyes moistened. “I do.”

“Bene.” He put his napkin down. “How would you like to see Valsecchi headquarters?”

“Considering you’re its head now, I guess I’d better. It would be embarrassing if someone asked me where my husband worked and I had no clue.”

“It’s only two miles from here in the marina district. Afterward I’m taking you sailing for the weekend.”

A stillness enveloped her. He hoped it was because she liked the sound of it.

“I remember you telling me you had a sailboat when I was here the first time.”

His eyes traveled over her features. “I wanted to take you out in it then, but it was in for repairs. It’s a lucky thing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I might have sailed away with you and never come back. Once I met you, I couldn’t keep things on a professional level with you.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t, either, especially not that last night.”

“Thank heaven for that. I was a thirty-four-year-old man you’d reduced to a besotted teenager who’d have done literally anything to get you to respond to me. I feared I didn’t have what it took to entice the most beautiful woman I’d ever met in my life to stay with me another twenty-four hours.”

Color seeped into her cheeks. “That last night with you was the result of a challenge you threw at me, one I couldn’t not answer…” Her voice trailed.

One brow quirked. “For a woman as cautious as you, you showed a breathtaking response I suspected was in there somewhere, waiting to emerge.”

“I had no idea I was that transparent.”

“You weren’t,” he said in a serious tone. “It was wishful thinking on my part because I wanted you so badly and hated the thought of you ever leaving my bed.”

“I didn’t want to,” she admitted, suddenly breathless at the memory of that night they had shared.

The chemistry between them was overpowering. Vincenzo reached over and held his wife’s hand. “I’m longing to take you out on the water and show you some of my favorite places. There are isolated beaches where we’ll relax and swim away from everyone else.” He was counting the seconds until he could be alone with her.

Chapter Seven (#ulink_e23cd8bd-c764-5b7a-b260-ed0ad6c82eae)

IRENA’S HEART THUDDED to realize he didn’t want their honeymoon to be over. Vincenzo intended to give her a true wedding night. Several of them in succession. She could scarcely breathe anticipating it.

Vincenzo fell silent as they neared La Spezia. Irena had found it perfectly charming before the way the city sprawled over the verdant mountains all the way down to the port. But this time as she looked up to take in churches and private estates clinging to the hillsides, she was aware that one of the more magnificent structures had to be Vincenzo’s family palazzo.

The Valsecchi complex turned out to be a grouping of five buildings, each seven stories tall, surrounded by immaculately kept gardens. All of it was spread out over a large area. Vincenzo parked in the VIP lot and escorted her inside the first building with the family crest emblazoned on the main doors.

He nodded to the security people and ushered her inside a private elevator. “This will take us to my suite on the seventh floor.”