The Italian Millionaire's Marriage

Their clothes too revealed their opposing characters. Olympia was dressed in the height of Italian fashion. Harriet looked as though she’d put on whatever was comfortable and handy. Olympia’s figure was slender and seductive. Harriet was certainly slender. It was hard to be sure about anything else.

Olympia looked around her at the exquisite shop in the heart of London’s West End. It was filled with fine art and antiques, several of which caught her interest.

‘He’s splendid,’ she exclaimed, noticing a bronze bust of a young man.

‘First-century Roman,’ Harriet said, glancing up. ‘Emperor Caesar Augustus.’

‘Really dishy,’ Olympia purred, studying the face close up. ‘That fine nose, that aristocratic head on the long, muscular neck, and that mouth—all stern discipline masking incredible sensuality. I’ll bet he was a tiger with the women.’

‘You spend too much time thinking about sex,’ Harriet said severely.

‘And you don’t spend enough time thinking about it. It’s disgraceful.’

Harriet shrugged. ‘There are more interesting things in life.’

‘Nonsense, of course there aren’t,’ Olympia said with conviction. ‘I just wish you were as interested in living men as dead ones.’

‘Listen to you!’ Harriet riposted. ‘You’ve just been mooning over a man who’s been dead for two thousand years. Anyway, dead ones are better. They don’t tell lies, get legless or chat up your friends. And you can talk to them without being interrupted.’

‘So cynical. Mind you, Marco’s pretty cynical, too. Otherwise he’d have married long ago.’

‘Aha! He’s a grey-beard!’

‘Marco Calvani is thirty-five, loaded, and extremely good-looking,’ Olympia said emphatically.

‘So why aren’t you marrying him? You said he asked you first.’

‘Only because his mother’s an old friend of Pappa’s mother, and she’s got this sentimental idea of uniting the two families.’

‘And he does what she tells him? He’s a wimp!’

‘Far from it,’ Olympia said with a little chuckle. ‘Marco is a man who likes his own way all the time. He’s doing this for his own reasons.’

‘He’s a nutter!’

‘He’s a banker who devotes his life to serious business. He reckons it’s time to make a serious marriage and he isn’t into courting.’

‘He’s gay!’

‘Not according to my friends. In fact, his reputation is of a ladykiller, with the emphasis on killer. You might say he “loves ’em and leaves ’em” except that he doesn’t love ’em. No emotional involvement just a quick fling and goodbye before things get too intense.’

‘You make him sound irresistible, you know that?’

‘It’s only fair to tell you the downs as well as the ups. Marco doesn’t go for moonlight and roses, so you can see why he’d be doing this. It would be more of a merger than a marriage, and I thought that since you were serious, too—’

‘I’d be happy to take on one of your rejects. Gosh, thanks Olympia.’

‘Will you stop being so prickly? I took all this trouble to warn you that he might turn up here next week—’

‘And I’m grateful. I’ve been planning a vacation on the other side of the world. Next week will suit me just fine.’

‘Dio mio!’ Olympia threw up her hands in sisterly exasperation. ‘It’s impossible to help some people. You’ll end up an old maid.’

Harriet gave a cheeky grin that transformed her face delightfully.

‘With any luck,’ she said.

CHAPTER ONE

‘MY DEAR boy, have you really thought this through?’

Signora Lucia Calvani’s face was full of concern as she watched her son lock the suitcase. He gave her a brief smile, warmer for her than for anyone else, but he didn’t pause.

‘What is there to think through, Mamma? In any case, I’m doing what you required of me.’

‘Nonsense! You never do anything except to suit yourself,’ she retorted with motherly scepticism.

‘True, but it suits me to please you,’ Marco replied smoothly. ‘You wanted a union between myself and the granddaughter of your old friend, and I consider it suitable.’

‘If you mean that you like the idea, kindly say so, and don’t address your mother like a board meeting,’ Lucia said severely.

‘I’m sorry.’ He kissed her cheek with a touch of genuine contrition. ‘But since I’m doing as you wished I don’t understand your concern.’

‘When I said I’d like to see you marry Etta’s granddaughter I was thinking of Olympia, as you well know. She’s elegant, sophisticated, knows all the right people in Rome, and would have been an admirable wife.’

‘I disagree. She’s frivolous and immature. Her sister is older and, I gather, has a serious mind.’

‘She’s been raised English. She may not even speak Italian.’

‘Olympia assures me that she does. Her pursuits are intellectual, and she sounds as if she might well suit my requirements.’

‘Suit your requirements?’ his mother echoed, aghast. ‘This is a woman you’re discussing, not a block of shares.’

‘It’s just a way of talking,’ Marco said with a shrug. ‘Have I forgotten to pack anything?’

He looked around his home which was at its best in the brilliant morning sun that came in through the balcony window. He stepped out for a moment to breathe in the fresh air and enjoy the view along the Via Veneto. From this apartment on the fifth floor of an elegant block he could just make out St Peter’s in the distance, and the curve of the River Tiber. In the clear air he caught the sound of bells floating across the city, and he paused a moment to listen and watch the light glinting on the water. He did this every morning, no matter how rushed he might be, and it would have surprised many people who thought of him as a calculating machine and nothing else.

The inside of his home, however, would have reinforced their prejudices. It was costly but spartan, without any softening touch, the home of a man who was enough unto himself. The cool marble of the floors gleamed. The furnishings were largely modern, adorned with one or two valuable old vases and pictures.

It was typical of Marco that he had chosen to live in the centre of Rome, for his heart and mind, his whole presence were Roman. Height, bearing, and the unconsciously arrogant set of his head all spoke of a man descended from a race of emperors.

Nor was it far-fetched to see him as one, for were not international bankers the new emperors? At thirty-five he lorded it over his contemporaries in the financial world. Buying, selling, merging, making deals, these were the breath of life to him, and it was no accident that he spoke of his prospective marriage in a businesslike way that scandalised his mother.

Now he gave her his most charming smile. ‘Mamma, I wonder that you dare to reprove me when you yourself proposed the merger.’

‘Well, somebody has to arrange proper marriages for this family. When I think of that old fool in Venice, getting engaged to his housekeeper—’

‘By “old fool” I take it you mean my Uncle Francesco, Count Calvani, the head of our family,’ Marco said wryly.