Sophie's Seduction

What sort of home? Marco struggled to maintain his positive expression as his eyes lifted to the Renaissance facade. Fortunately no major structural work needed to be done, he told himself, concentrating on the fabric of the building, not on the dark emotions he experienced when he looked at his ancestral home.

Would he ever be able to wipe away the shadows left by his failed marriage? Would he ever be able to look at this building and think of it as a home in the true sense of the word? It would take more than a fresh coat of paint, though being a pragmatic man he thought that would be a start.

‘Yes, but first I want to make it…habitable.’

Alberto nodded in total understanding. Too much understanding, for Marco’s liking; pity, even from an old friend, was not something he enjoyed.

‘I just need to find someone who understands what this building deserves.’

Someone who felt as he did about preserving its integrity; someone capable of feeling passionate about their work…to compensate for his own lack of it…He tore his eyes away from the facade and said, ‘And of course a new housekeeper—do you think Natalia would consider it?’

During one of his absences Allegra had ousted Natalia from her kitchen and replaced her with a French chef. On his return Marco had sacked the chef and tried to persuade Natalia to return, but she had steadfastly refused to enter the palazzo while Allegra was mistress there.

Allegra had retaliated for his actions by getting drunk in public and being photographed half naked in the back of a cab with a boy who worked in the nightclub she had just fallen out of at four in the morning.

So it had been a win–win situation.

Alberto beamed, and said, ‘I think it might be possible…’

Marco pulled the key from his pocket, inhaled and approached the door.

His instructions had been that the place was not to be touched and they had been followed to the letter; barring the dust, it was all just as it had been.

A walk through the building did not lift his mood. In his youth this had been a showplace; now the whole building had a pervading air of gloom and neglect that the grandeur of the architecture and furnishing could not hide.

Had it always been this dark and depressing? he wondered as he pulled aside a dusty drape to let in some light. The light revealed damp patches on the high, carved ceiling and this fresh physical evidence of his neglect deepened the frown on his wide brow.

He cursed softly under his breath, and as he strode purposefully out into the sunlight and the waiting Alberto, Marco determined to bring light and life back into his home.

‘All I need is to find someone I trust, who appreciates what this building deserves.’

It had not seemed a major problem to find such a person when he’d said it, but a week later, and after six pitches by possible candidates that had left him totally unmoved, Marco was realising he might have to cast his net wider.

Recalling a comment by someone who had spent last summer in London concerning a firm they had used to refurbish their penthouse flat—they had been very complimentary—he picked up his phone to speak to his PA.

He gave her the limited information he had, not doubting for a moment that she would be able to provide him with all the information he required; she was absolutely perfect, if you discounted the fact she was about to take maternity leave.

Chapter Three

SOPHIE had not left work until 8:00 p.m. Taking advantage of the growing realisation that Sophie’s work ethic was a little overdeveloped, people were dumping on her…And what are you going to do about that? asked the voice in her head.

It was a good question but one she had so far avoided; it wasn’t as if her evening had contained any contemplative moments for reflection. She had arrived home to find a large hole in the street outside her flat, and after she’d pretended not to hear the comments about her bottom made by the men inside the hole, she discovered no water or electricity inside her flat.

The electricity had finally come on at eleven; the water still hadn’t. She stopped waiting at twelve, cleaned her teeth with bottled water, finally crawled into her bed and with a sigh of relief turned out the light—not just because every bone in her body ached with exhaustion, but because the bedroom looked better with the light out.

‘Basic, but I have everything I need,’ she had told her mother on the phone, ‘and I’m very near work.’

The work part was playing out a lot better than she had anticipated.

Conversations no longer stopped when she walked into room. Now that had not been nice, but even when she was viewed with extreme suspicion Sophie had kept her head down, concentrated on doing her best no matter how menial the task and smiled at everyone.

The hostility had faded once her co-workers had recognised she was not afraid of hard work—or, possibly, once they had recognised that there was someone who would willingly perform all the tasks nobody else wanted to do while smiling.

Sophie in her turn had discovered something too—she had a real talent for organisation; not quite the artistic spreading of wings her father had intended, but it was a start. She still felt homesick almost all the time but she didn’t allow herself to think about going home.

She dreamt, though—she dreamt of her mum in the kitchen with flour in her nose, the smell of baking in the air…She was having that dream when the shrill sound of the phone cut through the cosy picture of domesticity.

Sophie surfaced and flicked on the lamp before reaching for the phone and snarling crankily, ‘Yes…?’ into the receiver.

‘Sophie, thank God you’re there!’

Sophie, who couldn’t imagine where else she’d be at this time of night, which on reflection made her one of the most tragic twenty-three-year-olds on the planet, pushed her tangled hair from her eyes and frowned.

‘Amber…? Why are you calling me at…’ She glanced at the clock, saw the time and sat up straight, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Everything,’ came the tragic response. ‘But we can do this.’

Sophie who was suspicious of the use of the word we asked, ‘What’s happened?’

‘Just listen, don’t talk. You have to be on the flight to Palermo at five-thirty.’

Pretty sure she was the victim of some elaborate hoax—either that or Amber had been drinking—Sophie leaned back, yawned and said, ‘Of course I do.’

Palermo was the clue; she had made the flight arrangements for Amber herself, and the office had been buzzing for days with the news that they had been contacted by Marco Speranza—the Marco Speranza, people kept saying to Sophie, as though she thought she might be likely to mistake him for another Sicilian billionaire.

Obviously, they had not been personally contacted, but the fact that the invitation to tender for a contract to refurbish his ancestral home had been issued by Marco’s own office had been enough to send the entire office into party mode.

Sophie privately called it mass hysteria, and also a little premature. ‘How many others are tendering?’ Her tentative enquiry had been ignored.

‘Something this prestigious could make us,’ Amber had said as she’d gathered her team together to plan a strategy and draw up plans for a refurb that would knock the utterly gorgeous man’s socks off.

Sophie, who was listening, would have loved to dispute the reverential gorgeous and the utterly but she had seen the photo someone had pinned on the notice board and there was no doubt at all that Marco Speranza was almost too good-looking to be real, unless he had been airbrushed to perfection.

The possibility made her feel unaccountably more cheerful.

Having worked her team into a state of hysterical enthusiasm Amber then smiled and promised, ‘We are going to bury the opposition.’

Sophie’s role in the team involved making tea but she had listened and frankly she had doubts, but aware that her place in the scheme of things did not involve giving an opinion she kept her mouth shut.

Sophie slid back under the covers as a sigh of relief echoed down the line. ‘You know, Sophie, when I first saw you I thought…’ Clearly thinking better of being that frank, Amber allowed herself a generous, ‘You’re an asset.’

‘Thank you.’ Now go away; I want to go to sleep.

‘And I really admire your ability to multitask—maybe you could pack while we talk…?’

‘Look, Amber, I’m going back to sleep now. I’ll laugh at the joke tomorrow, and good luck with the Speranza contract.’

‘No, Sophie, this isn’t a joke. I can’t go. This afternoon I—’