Their relationship was affectionate, but detached, and Cory found herself regarding Sonia very much as a wayward older sister. Most of the mothering in her life had been supplied by her grandmother.
Beth Grant had been a serenely beautiful woman, confident in the love of her husband and family. The loss of her son had clouded her hazel eyes and added lines of sadness to the corners of her mouth, but she had given herself whole-heartedly to the rearing of his small daughter, and Cory had worshipped her.
However, it hadn’t taken long for Cory to realise there was another shadow over her grandmother’s happiness, or to understand its nature.
The feud, she thought wearily. The damn feud. Still alive even after all these years.
It had been the only time she’d known her grandparents to quarrel. Seen tears of anger in Beth Grant’s eyes and heard her voice raised in protest.
‘This can’t go on,’ she’d railed. ‘It’s monstrous—farcical. You’re like children, scoring off each other. Except it’s more dangerous than that. For God’s sake, stop it—stop it now…’
Her grandfather’s answering rumble had been fierce. ‘He started it, Bethy, and you know it. So tell him to give it up. Tell him to stop trying to destroy me. To undermine my business—overthrow my companies.’
Arnold Grant had smiled grimly. ‘Because it hasn’t worked, and it never will. Because I won’t allow it. Anything he does to me will be done back to him. And he’ll be the one to call a truce in the end—not me.’
‘The end?’ his wife had echoed bitterly. ‘What kind of truce can there be when you’re trying to annihilate each other?’
She’d suddenly seen Cory, standing in the doorway, and had hustled her away, chiding gently.
‘Gran,’ Cory had asked that night, when Beth had come to tuck her into bed, ‘who’s Matt Sansom?’
‘Someone who doesn’t matter,’ Beth had said firmly. ‘Not to me, and, I hope, never to you. Now, go to sleep, and forget all about it.’
Wise counsel, Cory thought, grimacing, but sadly impossible to follow. And, since her grandmother’s death six years before, the enmity between the two men seemed even more entrenched and relentless.
Only last week her grandfather had been gloating because he’d been able to filch a prime piece of real estate which Sansom Industries had been negotiating for from under their very noses.
‘But you don’t even want that site,’ Cory had protested. ‘What will you do with it?’
‘Sell it back to the bastards,’ Arnold had returned with a grim smile. ‘Through some intermediary. And at a fat profit. And there isn’t a damned thing that old devil can do about it. Because he needs it. He’s already deeply committed to the project.’
‘So he’ll be looking for revenge?’ Cory had asked drily.
Arnold had sat back in his chair. ‘He can try,’ he’d said with satisfaction. ‘But I’ll be waiting for him.’
And so it went on, Cory thought wearily. Move and counter-move. One dirty trick answered by another. And who could say what damage was being done to their respective multi-million empires while these two ruthless old men pursued their endless, pointless vendetta? It was a chilling thought, but maybe they wouldn’t be content until one of them had been the death of the other.
And then there wouldn’t be anyone to carry on this senseless feuding.
Cory herself had always steadfastly refused to get involved, and Matt Sansom’s only heir was the unmarried daughter who kept house for him. There’d been a younger daughter, too, but she’d walked out over thirty years ago and completely disappeared. Rumour said that Matt Sansom had never allowed her name to be mentioned again, and in this case, Cory thought wryly, rumour was probably right.
Her grandfather’s enemy was a powerful hater.
She shivered suddenly, and got up from her chair.
In her bedroom, she tossed her robe on to a chair and unhooked her bra. And paused as she glimpsed herself in the mirror, half naked in the shadows of the lamplit room.
She thought with amazement, But that’s what he was doing—the man on the balcony—undressing me with his eyes. Looking at me as if I was bare…
And felt, with shock, her nipples harden, and her body clench in a swift excitement that she could neither control nor pardon…
For a moment she stood motionless, then with a little cry she snatched up her white cotton nightdress and dragged it over her head.
She said aloud, her voice firm and cool, ‘He’s a stranger, Cory. You’ll never see him again. And, anyway, didn’t you learn your lesson with Rob—you pathetic, gullible idiot? Now, go to bed and sleep.’
But that was easier said than done. Because when she closed her eyes, the dark stranger was there waiting for her, pursuing her through one brief disturbing dream to the next.
And when she woke in the early dawn there were tears on her face.
ROME walked into his suite and slammed the door behind him.
For a moment he leaned back against its solid panels, eyes closed, while he silently called himself every bad name he knew in English, before switching to Italian and starting again.
But the word that cropped up most often was ‘fool’.
The whisky he’d ordered earlier had been sent up, he noted with grim pleasure. He crossed to the side table, pouring a generous measure into a cut-glass tumbler and adding a splash of spring water.
He opened the big sliding doors and moved out on to the narrow terrace, staring with unseeing eyes over the city as he swallowed some of the excellent single malt in his glass. He put up a hand to his throat, impatiently tugging his black tie loose, ignoring the dank autumnal chill in the air.
He said quietly, almost conversationally, ‘I should never have come here.’
But then what choice did he have, when the Italian banks, once so helpful, had shrugged regretful shoulders and declined to loan him the money he needed to revitalise his vines and restore the crumbling house that overlooked them?
And for that, he thought bitterly, he had Graziella to thank. She’d sworn she’d make him sorry, and she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
He’d intended his trip to London to be a flying visit, and totally private. He’d planned to stay just long enough to negotiate the loan he needed, then leave immediately, without advertising his presence.
But he’d underestimated his grandfather, and the effectiveness of his information network, he realised, his mouth twisting wryly.
He’d barely checked in to his hotel before the summons had come. And couched in terms he hadn’t been able to refuse.
But he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. His mother had been quite explicit.
‘Sooner or later he’ll want to meet you, and you should go to him because you’re his only grandchild. But don’t accept any favours from him, caro, because there’s always a payback. Always.’
Yet he still hadn’t seen the trap that had been baited for him.
He’d been caught off guard, of course. Because Matthew Sansom had come to him first. Had simply appeared one day at Montedoro right out of the blue.
Rome had been shaken to find himself staring at an older version of himself. The mane of hair was white, and the blue eyes were faded, but the likeness was undeniable, and not lost on Matt Sansom either.
The shaggy brows had