heritage and I’ve spent my life denying it,’ Angelo admitted harshly.
‘What heritage?’
‘My mother was Carmelo Zanetti’s daughter and my father was the son of another crime family.’
It took Gwenna thirty seconds to work out what he was telling her and if she was aghast, it was not for the reasons he had expected. ‘My word, that old man who died this week was your grandfather and yet you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that. No wonder you were upset last night!’
‘Per amor di Dio! I wasn’t upset!’ Angelo launched at her in an immediate denial. ‘He was an evil man and I didn’t know him—we met only once when he was already dying.’
Gwenna saw that being upset fell into the same category as being drunk and in shock in Angelo’s uncompromisingly tough expectations of himself. If he said it wasn’t happening, he could avoid having to acknowledge that he had emotions. She could only imagine how disturbing he must have found that meeting with his grandfather. She would have put her arms round him if she hadn’t known that such obvious sympathy would infuriate him.
‘You may have despised the person Carmelo Zanetti was, but he was still a close relative and you’ve been on your own virtually since your mother died,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Who your parents were doesn’t matter, though. What you are inside is more important.’
‘And where did you pick up that piece of worldly wisdom? Out of a Christmas cracker?’ Angelo derided.
Gwenna stood her ground. ‘What you do with your life matters more than your ancestry.’
Angelo vented a humourless laugh. ‘Believe it or not, I wanted to be a barrister when I was eighteen. Once I found out that my entire family on both sides of the tree were involved in organised crime, I knew there was no way I could pursue such a profession.’
Drawn by his bitterness, Gwenna moved closer to him. ‘That must have hurt.’
‘It’s immaterial. I had to know who I was to protect myself. I had to be careful who I trusted, who I did business with. I swore that everything I did would be legal and above board,’ he breathed in a savage undertone.
‘Of course you did,’ she murmured softly.
‘The same year the Zanetti family approached me through an intermediary with a job offer and a Ferrari car.’
Gwenna was appalled. ‘So your mother’s family knew who you were and where to find you in spite of the change of names?’
‘I rejected the offer and ensured that I kept my distance. I should never have agreed to that meeting with Carmelo. It was the worst mistake I ever made,’ he breathed grittily.
‘Naturally you were curious.’ Gwenna closed her hand over his in a helpless gesture of supportiveness. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. Obviously your mother tried to make a new life for both of you. But having to keep such a huge secret all these years must’ve put you under a lot of strain as well.’
Closing his arms round her, Angelo stared down at her with frank fascination. ‘Have you put all this together in your head yet? Or are you still too busy trying to make me feel better?’
‘Too busy trying to make you feel better. But I don’t quite understand yet. You’re annoyed because somehow your connection to Carmelo Zanetti has become public knowledge? How did that happen?’
‘Carmelo decided to have the last laugh and he’s blown my reputation sky-high,’ Angelo volunteered heavily. ‘The contents of his will have been leaked and I’ve been informed that he’s left me all his worldly goods. In death he has made our relationship impossible to deny.’
‘He must’ve had a soft spot for you…I mean, you’re very successful and you didn’t have to become a thug to achieve that. Making you his heir was probably his equivalent of boasting about you,’ Gwenna contended in a positive tone, leaning into the hard shelter of his big tense frame and wishing he would relax a little.
‘I also learned that it wasn’t my mother’s elderly former employer who financed my boarding-school education,’ Angelo said bitterly. ‘It was Carmelo. That makes me feel like an idiot!’
‘I don’t see why. You were only a child and people lied to you,’ Gwenna said sensibly. ‘Did Franco already know that you have dodgy relations?’
‘Not the details, but the reality that I had to take certain precautions about how I operate and who I employ close to me…yes.’
Gwenna recalled the older man’s concern that what he had called ‘other interests’ might try to take control when Angelo was unconscious and unable to make decisions for himself. It dawned on her that Carmelo Zanetti, as a blood relative, might have demanded a say in the proceedings and she suppressed a shiver.
‘Did your grandfather leave you much?’ she asked as an afterthought.
‘Millions…all clean and legitimate, according to his lawyer. I was the only close relative he had left. But I don’t want his filthy money,’ Angelo ground out with ferocious bite.
‘Then you make sure that all that cash gets spent on really deserving causes. Cancer research, famine relief, Third World projects,’ Gwenna suggested. ‘Good can be made to come out of bad and nobody can fault you for that.’
Gazing wonderingly down at her serene face, Angelo was more than ever determined to take the story of his own involvement in her father’s downfall to the grave with him. Not for one moment had she considered holding his ancestry against him. In addition, her inspired suggestion was the simple solution and the most appropriate to his predicament. His very highly paid PR consultants would not have dreamt of proposing that he give away that much money. But he didn’t want it and putting that massive legacy to humanitarian use was the only way of acknowledging his unfortunate connections, while at the same time detaching himself from that taint.
Long brown fingers framed her cheekbone and his glinting golden gaze was openly approving. ‘You’re a very special woman, bellezza mia.’
‘Sometimes you take stuff too seriously. Rise above it all,’ she urged. ‘Remember that your mother rejected her family so that she could bring you up to lead a law-abiding life. Be proud that you’ve honoured that.’
His lean, powerful face shadowed. ‘Law-abiding, sì,’ he conceded sombrely. ‘But I’ve still done things I’m not proud of.’
Someone knocked on the door and Angelo answered it. ‘There’s a phone call for you,’he interpreted as the maid spoke.
Less than pleased by the interruption at a point when Angelo seemed to be dropping the steel barrier of his reserve, Gwenna hurried past him. ‘I’ll be back in two minutes…don’t go away anywhere.’
Angelo smiled and then looked very surprised that he was smiling. Knowing that she had lifted his mood delighted her. It was a challenge for her to follow the maid into the next room when all she could think about was how much she loved him. Although she would never have dreamt of telling him the fact, she loved him all the more for betraying his vulnerability.
The sound of her father’s voice on the phone made her tense in dismay. She supposed it would be too much to hope that he had not seen or heard some report of Angelo’s origins.
