‘Have you moved to management? Are you here to get things settled then hand the store over to someone? The Sydney store has a local manager…’
Please let Luchino be about to hand the store over to someone else.
‘I no longer work with the family. Diamonds by Montichelli is my store, a separate entity from all the others. I may share the family name, but ultimately the store will succeed because of my work, my design and my reputation.’
Something painful crossed his face as he spoke the words. He lowered his gaze. His fingers closed around the key. ‘I have a lot of roles here—owner, head designer, manager, salesman, craftsman. Whatever is needed at any given time, I do it. I’m here to stay.’
Here to stay and out of sorts with his jewellery-making family? Oh, Bella could relate to that and she didn’t want to. She didn’t want any common ground with him at all. How could she feel even a mild sympathy for a man who walked away from his child?
‘That’s why the store isn’t called simply Montichelli’s like the others.’
‘That’s right.’ Luchino turned his broad back to her and strode towards the front of the store. ‘Finish up, Arabella, so we can get this discussion over with.’
‘I’m leaving in a minute.’ Bella made the warning to him, but she had to work to control her shaking hands as she emptied the contents of the cash drawer into a bag and dumped it in the small timed floor safe. Her sheath dress of peach Oriental silk rustled as she moved.
As he turned back towards her, Luchino stopped to examine each of the Design by Bella gowns displayed on mannequins to left and right. Despite her anger, Bella’s breath hitched as she waited to hear his verdict.
Finally, he spoke. ‘You’re a woman of hidden talents, Arabella. These are good. At least your skill with design and creation will mean there’s half a chance of fixing the mess you’ve made.’
She had almost relaxed into his praise. Now she pulled herself stiffly upright. ‘Mess? What mess?’ How dared he say she had made a mess?
‘You’ve gone from modelling, to coercing middle-aged ladies out of huge amounts of money in business ventures that have no guarantee of succeeding.’ Accusation tightened every contour of the sculpted face. ‘You must really be proud of yourself.’
‘Modelling was only ever a job to put money on the table for me and my sis—’ She stopped abruptly as she heard herself attempt to justify her earliest choice of career to him.
Then the rest sank in. ‘What do you mean? I haven’t coerced anybody, and what’s it got to do with you, anyway?’ Bella had hammered out a deal with Maria Rocco, had agreed to bring her designs exclusively to Maria’s and keep them here on a five-year contract, only if Maria purchased her year’s worth of already-created stock up front, but it was a reasonable agreement, because Bella intended to succeed.
‘Maria Rocco is my aunt.’ As Luchino said it, he watched her face for her reaction. ‘That makes this very much my business.’
Bella pulled her face into a tight mask to cover her shock and uncertainty. Maria was Milanese, it was true, but the older woman had lived in Australia almost all her adult life. ‘Maria is a Rocco, not a Montichelli, and she told me she has no family.’
Bella clung to that knowledge, even as she noted that Luchino did indeed share some similarities of feature with Maria. That had to be just happenstance, though. What was a nose, after all, or the tilt of a chin?
‘My aunt left Milan, left the family and changed her name long ago. She no doubt considered herself alone.’ Harsh anger radiated from him as he went on. ‘I’m sure you saw that as an advantage when you set out to rob her of a vast amount of money.’
‘I did not! How do you even know about the agreement I have with her?’ She stopped, didn’t want to reveal anything to him. But he clearly knew something.
Luc’s hand rose to touch a spot above his heart—as though to assure himself of the presence of something in his shirt pocket? And yes, a faint square outline showed there—a photo, perhaps.
Before Bella could wonder about it, the mouth that had once offered soft seduction, had once whispered hungry words, love words to her that were oh, so false, tightened again into a strong, determined line.
‘I told my new finance manager I wanted to meet Maria. He’d heard Maria took on a protégé. When he mentioned your name, I asked him to get details for me.’
‘That’s an invasion of Maria’s privacy, and of mine!’ One that Luchino had apparently taken in his stride.
‘It was a timely intervention.’ He accompanied the declaration with a squaring of his shoulders. Low warning filled his tone. ‘Estranged or not right at this moment, I won’t see Maria go under financially because of you.
‘You somehow bullied her into buying a year’s worth of designer gowns at an astronomical price with no guarantee whatsoever that any of them would sell, and no way for her to get her money back if they don’t. On top of that, you talked her into employing you here to make more gowns which also may not sell.’
His face darkened. ‘A five-year contract where Maria carries the burden and risk, and you swim along on the high tide of all that money she’s handed to you. Don’t bother to deny it.’
Bella frowned. She had slaved over that three-page agreement herself. Luchino made it sound one-sided but it wasn’t an unfair arrangement, because Maria knew Bella’s only aim was success for both of them. Bella pushed the inkling of unease aside. ‘It’s an agreement, actually, not a contract.’ She hadn’t wanted the expense of a lawyer, but Chrissy’s past boss, Henry Montbank, had helped Bella to make sure the agreement was water-tight.
‘It’s robbery in the guise of a work arrangement.’
‘You’d call me a thief? How—how dare you?’ While Bella simmered in fury, questions vied for space.
Despite Maria’s indications to the contrary, she had a family? That family was the Montichellis?
One fact lodged deep: Luchino had investigated not only Maria, but also Bella. ‘You’ve pried into my life, behind my back, as though you had every right to do that. Just what did you find out about me, about my sisters? How far did you dig around, expose us—?’
‘I investigated your finances, Arabella, the work you’ve done in the years since I last saw you. And I learned everything there is to know about your arrangement with my aunt. I won’t apologise for doing that.’ He said the last with a hard glare in his eyes.
‘I intend to reclaim Maria as my aunt.’ His expression softened a little as he said this. ‘She’s family and…I want that bond with her if it’s at all possible. I’d have arranged to meet her before now if she hadn’t been out of the city.’
A hunger for family was bizarre, given his history. Yet he seemed sincere. Bella needed to remember he could be both convincing and duplicitous!
Bella glared right back at him, but sudden weariness tugged at her. Her hands ached from the hours spent in the adjoining sewing and consultation room, meticulously stitching Chinese cloisonné beads to the fitted sleeves of her latest creation while Maria’s sales clerk took care of customers. Bella wanted to go home, slip into one of her black
