He stood by the window that overlooked the ground-floor reception area of Furnridge Leather’s premises and listened to his executives uneasily discussing ideas to regenerate the company with the former owner, John Ridge. Occasionally Angelo spoke up to rubbish the more unrealistic suggestions. This was the smallest company he had taken over in a decade. It was a challenge for his staff to think small enough to suit the project, particularly when this latest acquisition had a big black hole in its accounts. Now there were two thousand employees with very good reason to hate Donald Hamilton because the future of the business was very much in the balance.
A young woman approached the reception desk. Her long blonde hair was caught back in a simple clasp. Angelo stiffened, keen dark eyes narrowing in immediate recognition of the graceful angle of her head and her perfect profile. Well, what do you know? he thought without great surprise. Gwenna from the deadest little village in Somerset had found him again. Had she seen his limousine as he’d departed and recognised his financial worth? Whatever, she had evidently now identified him and intended to save him the hassle of looking for her. He felt disappointed. He had thought that just for once he might actually have to make a concentrated effort to get a woman into bed. The phone buzzed. The call was for John Ridge.
The older man set down the handset and muttered uncomfortably, ‘Donald Hamilton’s daughter, Gwenna, is downstairs asking to see me or whoever is in charge. Is there anyone here willing to speak to her?’
Angelo had become as still as a granite statue. He was frowning because when he had glanced through the background information on Donald Hamilton there had been no reference to a daughter by that name. ‘Hamilton’s actual daughter?’
‘His only child and a lovely girl, but I would really prefer not to have to deal with her. There’s nothing to say, is there?’
‘Nothing,’ one of the executives agreed very drily.
‘I will see her in here in fifteen minutes,’ Angelo decreed, rigorously suppressing the angry sense of shock and recoil spreading through him. A lovely girl? Sì, he could vouch for that. He was a connoisseur and she had stopped even him in his tracks. Impervious to his companions’ surprise at his announcement, he immediately accessed the file on Hamilton on his laptop. And there he found the brief reference to her as Jennifer Gwendolen Massey Hamilton, aged twenty-six years. Donald Hamilton’s only child, who had to be precious even to a lying, cheating fraudster.
Gwenna sat in the waiting area feeling the hostile chill in the air around her and registered that she was reaping what her father had sown. The nerve-racking minutes ticked past. She was astonished to be told that Angelo Riccardi, the billionaire head of Rialto, was in the building and prepared to speak to her, for she had dimly assumed that someone so rich and powerful would have little personal involvement in the acquisition of a comparatively small rural business. By the time she was escorted past the door that had once led to her father’s office and shown into the boardroom, she was very pale, stiff with shamed discomfiture and exceedingly nervous.
‘Miss Hamilton…’ Angelo murmured without intonation, watching the shock of recognition stamp the pure lines of her face. She could not hide her dismay and embarrassment and he marvelled at a transparency that was a rare trait in the world in which he lived. ‘I’m Angelo Riccardi.’
Astonished to be greeted by the male she had met in the village, Gwenna exclaimed in confusion,’ You’re…but you can’t be!’
Angelo elevated an ebony brow.
A timeless moment stretched while she stared, absorbing all over again the stunning set of his tawny gaze above the smooth dark planes of his high cheekbones, the masculine jut of his nose, the sensual fullness of his hard, handsome mouth. A curious little pulse of uneasy heat flickered in the pit of her stomach. Snatching in a ragged breath she made a mighty effort to regain her scattered wits.
‘Well, obviously you are…er, who you say you are,’ Gwenna conceded in an awkward rush. ‘My goodness, a coincidence I could’ve done without today.’
‘I still don’t know why you wanted to see me.’ Angelo was enjoying her frank inability to conceal how flustered she was. It seemed—and he considered himself a very good judge of character—that his enemy’s daughter lacked her parent’s innate guile and cunning.
‘To talk about my father.’
‘I’m surprised you think that I would be interested.’
Gwenna stiffened. ‘My father worked here for a long time—’
‘While he systematically stripped this business of its capital.’
Her lashes dipped over her troubled eyes. ‘I have no intention of trying to deny anything that he has done.’
‘Why else are you requesting this interview? But then, perhaps you expect the same special treatment that your father enjoyed when he worked here.’
Her uneasiness escalated. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘John Ridge treated your father more as a friend than an employee and he could never understand why improved productivity consistently failed to deliver more profits. That’s why he finally sold up.’ Angelo watched her lose colour and duck her head at that news. He was grimly amused by a sensitivity that he knew he would use against her. It was second nature to him to pick up on other people’s weak points and utilise them for his own benefit. ‘He’s gutted now that he understands how his trust was betrayed.’
‘Dad is very ashamed. I know that doesn’t change anything—’
‘You’re living in your own little world, Miss Hamilton. Right now my staff are trying to find a way for this business to survive without massive redundancies.’
Her tummy executed a sick flip of alarm. Already cringing at the reminder of how John Ridge had been deceived, she was even more dismayed to learn what a precarious position the company had been left in. Angelo Riccardi’s rebuke struck her as horribly well deserved; she had failed to consider the wider repercussions that might arise from her father’s embezzlement. In fact she had naively assumed that the future of Furnridge Leather would be more secure as a part of a much larger organisation like Rialto. The risk of redundancies appalled her since the furniture company was the main local employer.
‘I didn’t know…I genuinely had no idea matters were so serious.’
‘How could you not know? A large amount of money has been misappropriated.’ Angelo was discovering that the anger roused by the disclosure of her identity had gone to be replaced by a growing buzz of satisfaction. Why not? She was Hamilton’s daughter. He now had two people to play with, instead of only one, and as he was already discovering she was a very beautiful plaything with an entire repertoire of responses that he had not seen in a long time. ‘No business of this size could weather such a financial loss without shedding staff.’
A gleam of optimism lightened her anxious gaze and she lifted her head. ‘But that’s why I’m here…to talk about how that money could be repaid.’
‘Repaid?’ Angelo queried, his narrowed gaze skimming over her with renewed intensity. The upward tilt of her eyes and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose had an appeal he could not define. The trouser suit might be drab and un-flattering to her frame, but it was outshone by a radiant beauty that continually drew his attention back to her.
‘My father has property interests that could be sold and the proceeds put towards repayment.’ Eager to put that point across, Gwenna partially evaded his gaze as she became aware of the force of his scrutiny. Not for the first time she wondered why he made her feel so uncomfortable. Her throat was tight, her muscles clenched taut. Was it fear?
‘If any of those property interests were purchased with stolen funds and your father is found guilty in court, those assets could be seized and sold to provide compensation.’
That smooth assurance sliced through