Nicolo nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said politely, “fate did not cooperate.”
“No. Not until now.”
Nicolo frowned. Even a prince could smell a rat when it got close enough. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Signore Black.”
James looked at Aimee. “How badly do you want to keep Stafford-Coleridge-Black in our family?” he said softly.
Aimee’s heart began to race. “You know the answer to that, Grandfather.”
“Now, just a moment, Black.” Nicolo sat forward, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the old man’s face. “We have a deal.”
“What deal?” Aimee said.
“We have a tentative agreement, Prince Barbieri. Subject, as you know, to the outcome of this meeting.”
“I do not like being hustled,” Nicolo said sharply.
“Hustled?”
“Hustled. Played for a fool. Pushed for more money.”
“This is not about money, Your Highness.”
“Dio, will you stop calling me that? Call me by my last name. My first name. Just stop with the nonsense.” Nicolo slapped his hand on the table. “Damn it, just tell me what you want.”
James took a long breath.
“I want this institution to be in the hands of someone with experience. Someone with a record of achievement that I can trust.”
“That someone is me,” Nicolo said coldly, “and we both know it.”
“I also want it to be the legacy I leave to future generations of Blacks. Call it pride, call it what you will, Barbieri, but I don’t wish to see two hundred years disappear.”
“I understand.” Nicolo took a breath, too. For a couple of minutes, he’d thought the old man was trying to tell him the sale was off. Impossible, of course. Black was not a sentimentalist. He would never leave the bank in the hands of an irresponsible female. “And that is why I’m sure what I say next will please you, signore. I’ve decided to retain the name of the bank. It will be known as Stafford-Coleridge-Black, just as it has for generations.”
Aimee snorted. Nicolo shot her a warning look.
“Do you find this amusing, signorina?”
“I find it arrogant, signore. Can you actually believe my grandfather is naïve enough to think you’ve decided to keep a name that’s worth its weight in gold in financial circles as an act of kindness?”
Nicolo gave her a long, cold look. Then he turned to James.
“With all due respect,” he said, in a tone that made it clear the words were a polite lie, “I will not continue this meeting with your granddaughter present.”
“With all due respect,” Aimee snapped, “you are the outsider here, Prince Barbieri.”
“You know nothing about this.”
“I know everything about it.”
Nicolo’s mouth thinned. “What you know,” he said slowly, “has nothing to do with boardrooms or corporations or responsibility. The only person here who does not know that is your grandfather.”
Aimee sprang to her feet. “You—you no good, insolent son of a—”
“Stop it!” James’s voice was sharp. “Aimee. You are to show the prince respect.”
“Respect? If you knew—if you only knew what this man is really like. If you knew the truth about him—”
“Tell him,” Nicolo said softly. “Go on, Miss Black. Why not explain things to your grandfather?”
Aimee stared at him, eyes glittering with angry tears, lips pouting with suppressed rage, breasts rising and falling with each breath.
It made him remember how she had looked that night, in his arms.
In his bed.
With a swiftness that stunned him, he felt his body harden.
“Why is he here?” she said, her voice rising. “I demand to know the reason!”
James Black looked from his granddaughter to the one man he was certain could guide the company he loved through the twenty-first century. Bradley couldn’t do it. Aimee had tried to make him see that, and she’d been right. In the short time the boy had been at the helm, the company had lost clients and come close to taking dangerous changes of direction.
That left only one other Black to head the bank.
Aimee.
In the endless weeks of his recuperation, James had finally reviewed the proposals she’d made and he’d ignored. They were, he’d been forced to admit, good.
Excellent, actually.
And Aimee was of his blood.
But she was also a woman. A young woman. Even if he managed to convince himself that her sex was not a drawback, her inexperience was.
How could he entrust her with the responsibility handed down by generations of Staffords, Coleridges and Blacks?
He’d put thoughts of Aimee aside. Concentrated on Nicolo Barbieri. The man had the intelligence, the courage, the experience to move SCB forward.
If only he carried the right blood, James had thought…
And the solution had come to him.
Barbieri was young. Thirty, thirty-two. Something like that. Aimee was in her midtwenties.
Once upon a time, nations had forged bonds through marriage. So had powerful institutions. Men and women had been joined in matrimony so they could produce children who carried the proud ancestry of both.
“Grandfather, I want an answer. Why is Nicolo Barbieri here?”
Black looked at the Italian prince, then at his headstrong American granddaughter.
“He is here,” he said calmly, “to make you his wife.”
Chapter Five
FOR A MOMENT, no one spoke. No one moved. Even the dust motes hovered in the silence.
Then Aimee collapsed into her chair and made a choked sound. Was she laughing? One glance at her and Nicolo knew she wasn’t. She looked the way he felt, as if an elephant had suddenly appeared in their midst.
“A bad joke, Grandfather. Now tell me the real reason.”
“That is the real reason.” James was unsmiling as he met her eyes. “You have some good ideas, Aimee, but you’re too inexperienced to run SCB.”
“I’m fully capable of running SCB. And in the event I needed advice, I’d turn to you.”
“If I could rely on lasting long enough to do that,” her grandfather said bluntly, “I wouldn’t be handing my company to someone else.”
“I’m not someone else. I’m your granddaughter!”
“You need guidance, Aimee.” The old man paused. “And you need a husband. A woman’s function is to marry and bear children.”
Fascinated, not yet believing what was happening, Nicolo sat back and became a silent observer.
“You’re a century behind the times, Grandfather.”
“So it would seem. Which is why I’m willing to see you as second-in-command to a man capable of running my company.”
“Second-in-command?” Aimee’s voice rose. “Do you actually think I’d agree to such an arrangement?”