to the conclusion that while she’d acted rashly, his condemnation had been too harsh. Francesca had been appalled when he’d pointed out the danger she’d put her career and the foundation in but it seemed she was far angrier with herself than he could be. She deserved the chance to see it through.
She closed her eyes. ‘Thank you. I think I was overwrought yesterday. It’s not an excuse but I’ve not been sleeping well since Pieta died and all that’s been keeping me going is the thought of getting this hospital built. I promise I’ll be considered in my approach from now on.’
‘Why don’t we draw a line through yesterday?’ he suggested gently. ‘Forget any cross words and start again?’
‘I would like that,’ she whispered. Reaching again for her napkin, she dabbed some more at her eyes then rolled her neck, took a deep breath, straightened and flashed him a smile that made his heart turn over. ‘What are you going to eat? Seeing as Daniele’s footing the bill, I’m going to select the most expensive items on the menu.’
Before he could correct her assumption, as he should have done the day before, she said, ‘Have you met him?’
‘Daniele?’
She nodded.
‘I met him a few years ago in Paris with his girlfriend. Pieta introduced us.’
The bleak veil cloaking her since he’d joined her lifted in its entirety.
‘Girlfriend? Daniele?’ She leant forward, eyes alight. ‘He’s never had a girlfriend. Lots of scandalous flings, though.’
He shrugged. ‘She was with him. I assumed she was his girlfriend. They acted like a couple.’
‘Daniele with a girlfriend? That’s amazing. Pieta knew they were together?’
‘I assumed so.’
The waiter returned with Felipe’s beer so they ordered their food and Francesca quickly finished her cocktail and ordered another.
‘What were you all doing in Paris?’ she asked when they were alone again.
‘Attending a party at the US Embassy.’
‘What did you think of Daniele?’
‘Very different from Pieta.’ He looked at her shrewdly. ‘I would say you’re more like him.’
‘More like Daniele?’
‘Pieta was intense and thoughtful.’ At her darkening colour he added, ‘You’ve an energy about you. You’re impulsive and, I think, competitive. Daniele struck me as the same.’
She nodded slowly, her pupils moving fast as she thought. ‘Yes. Daniele’s highly competitive. He has to be first with everything and he hates losing.’
‘And you? Am I right that you’re also competitive?’
She grinned. ‘I grew up wanting to be better than my brothers in everything.’
‘Have you ever beaten them?’
‘My aim throughout my education was to smash all their exam results.’ She gave a mischievous smile. ‘Which I achieved. It was very fulfilling. I even skipped a year. I like to tell people I’m the clever one of the family.’
Not so clever when it came to negotiating and agreeing bribes, he thought but didn’t say. For the first time since they’d met they’d found relative harmony and he wasn’t ready to break it.
‘But when it comes to true competitiveness, Daniele’s worse,’ she continued. ‘He’s ferocious.’
‘Has he always been like that?’
‘As long as I’ve been alive. He grew up knowing the family wealth would pass on to Pieta—’
‘Only to Pieta?’
‘The oldest inherits the estate. It’s always been like that, for centuries. Pieta inherited when our father died.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘She has rights to the income during her lifetime but the physical assets transferred directly to Pieta.’
‘Will it go to Daniele now?’
‘Everything that’s family wealth will so long as Natasha isn’t pregnant.’
‘Do you think she could be?’
‘I don’t know and none of us can bear to ask her. It would be cruel. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘So if she is pregnant...?’
‘Then we have the first in the next generation of Pellegrinis.’ A sad smile played on her lips. ‘If it’s a boy he will inherit, if it’s a girl then Daniele will inherit.’
‘That doesn’t sound fair.’
‘Natasha will inherit Pieta’s personal wealth whether she’s pregnant or not. She will have enough to provide for a child and we will all love and cherish it whatever its gender.’
‘And what do you get from your family estate?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That’s not right either.’
‘Right or not, that’s how it is.’
‘Doesn’t it make you angry?’ He didn’t know why he was asking. Francesca’s personal life was none of his concern.
Her second cocktail was brought to the table and she took it with a grateful smile and immediately sucked half of it up her straw. Done, she put the glass on the table. ‘It’s not just the wealth that’s inherited, it’s the responsibility. I was glad not to have it as it meant I could do whatever I wanted with my life without having to consider anyone else and, believe me, the life I’ve chosen is very different to the one expected for me.’
‘In what way?’
She pulled a rueful face. ‘I was expected to marry young and have babies, like all the women in my family have done for generations. It isn’t supposed to matter that us weak females don’t inherit anything because we’re supposed to be provided for by our husbands.’
‘You didn’t want that?’
‘I wanted to provide for myself and have a career, like my brothers.’ The thought of being a kept woman filled Francesca with horror. Her mother had inherited money but had blithely given it to her husband to invest for her, believing herself too stupid to manage it herself.
She remembered being a small child and her mother casually asking her father for money to buy some new shoes. It had been a nothing incident, her father going straight into his wallet and handing the money over, but it had crystallised in Francesca’s mind as the years passed. What if he’d said no? What would her mother have done then? Why should her mother not manage her own money? And why should she, Francesca, not be expected to go out and make
