teeth clenched down hard in his jaw. ‘So the upshot is she wangled her way back into Sergio’s life and then seduced him.’
‘That’s not how Sergio tells it. He says he seduced her.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Sergio.’
‘I agree, but apparently he did. And then the poor bastard fell in love with her.’
‘Yes, but did she fall in love with him back, or is this a case of like mother like daughter?’ Bella’s mother was a cold-blooded, ambitious woman who’d married Sergio’s widowed father to finance her daughter’s singing and dancing career, then divorced him once Bella’s career had taken off. ‘Does Bella know he’s a billionaire now?’
‘Don’t know. It’s been a madhouse here.’
Alex rolled his eyes. ‘You must have got some impression of Bella’s sincerity. Or lack of it.’
‘Well, as unlikely as this will sound coming from an old cynic like me, I think she might be genuinely in love with Sergio.’
‘Don’t forget she’s an actress,’ Alex pointed out sharply.
‘Now who’s being a cynic? Anyway, the wedding’s set for the thirty-first of July. I have no doubt that Sergio will be in contact with you shortly. He wants us both to be his best men. I told him we’d be honoured. So when he asks you, try to act thrilled, because there’s no way he’s going to change his mind about this. The man’s crazy about her. All we can do is be there for him to pick up the pieces if and when everything goes belly-up.’
Alex wasn’t sure how much help he could be from Australia. But of course he would go to the wedding. He would be proud to stand at Sergio’s side as his best man.
‘Just book a flight that will get you to Lake Como the day before the wedding. No, make that two days before. I want to take you into Milan and have you fitted with a decent dinner suit. This might prove to be a disastrous marriage, but that’s no excuse not to look our very best. We must do Sergio proud on the day. We are, after all, his best men.’
A lump formed in Alex’s throat, rendering him speechless for a moment. Fortunately, Jeremy wasn’t similarly afflicted.
‘Have to go now, Alex. Claudia has just come out onto the terrace looking for me. Now, don’t forget to book your flight, and for pity’s sake sound thrilled when Sergio calls you. Ciao,’ he said with a wry laugh. ‘When in Rome, you know.’ And he hung up.
Alex groaned at the thought of having to sound thrilled when Sergio contacted him. But he would do it for Sergio’s sake. Fate wasn’t being kind to him, letting him fall for a woman like Bella. Their getting married was a disaster waiting to happen.
Such thinking reinforced Alex’s own decision never to get tangled up in the whole ‘love and marriage’ thing. Loving and losing someone—either through death or divorce—was never going to be on his agenda. No way would he risk ending up like his father, or becoming the victim of some clever gold-digger. That was why he always dated girls who never had a hope of ensnaring his heart. Girls who just wanted to have fun.
Alex quickly realised there would be no time for fun during the next two weeks. His nose would be pressed to the grindstone every single day. At least it would be when he finally got to the damned office. Poor Harry. She was probably close to sending out a search party!
* * *
Harriet didn’t mind at all that her boss was running late that morning. When she’d arrived at the office shortly before eight, she’d been dreading having to tell him her news, news which she should have told him when he’d first come back from London. But at the time her emotions had been too raw. She would have wept in front of him. She knew she would. And she didn’t want to do that. Alex would have been embarrassed. And so would she.
So she’d let the days tick away without confessing that her engagement to Dwayne was no more, her anxiety increasing as each day passed. She’d rather hoped her boss might notice that she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring, but he hadn’t. Alex didn’t notice personal details like that. He was a man with tunnel vision most of the time. When at work, he worked.
It did irk Harriet slightly that no one else at Ark Properties had noticed, either. But that was her fault. Whilst she was friendly with everyone who worked there, she didn’t socialise with the rest of the staff. She never went with them for drinks on a Friday night. Harriet had her own group of girlfriends she had drinks with, Emily of course being the main one. Then of course, up till recently, she’d had Dwayne.
Naturally, things would be different from now on, with no Dwayne to complain if she didn’t hurry home after work. It worried Harriet, however, that her suddenly single status would change the wonderful working relationship she’d always had with Alex. He was a great boss. She liked him a lot and felt sure that he liked her back. Yet when she’d walked into his office to be interviewed for the job last year, Harriet had gained the immediate impression that she was a non-starter. Alex had looked her up and down with sceptical eyes. With hindsight, maybe he’d been worried that she might make a play for him. He was, after all, one of Sydney’s most eligible bachelors.
Whatever; as soon as he’d discovered she was engaged, his attitude had changed. Though he’d still put her through the mill during the interview. She must have pleased him with her answers, because he’d hired her on the spot.
Of course, her résumé had been second to none—provided you overlooked her poor pass in her Higher School Certificate. Which Alex had, once she’d explained that her dad—who was a miner—had lost his job during her high school years and that the family finances had been so tight that she’d taken not one but three part-time positions to help make ends meet, her studies suffering as a result. A little white lie, that. But not one she felt guilty about. The boss of Ark Properties didn’t need to know the ins and outs of her past life. Alex had seemed suitably impressed by her work ethic, plus her career in real estate. He didn’t care that she’d never actually been a PA before. He wanted someone who could take over the office whenever he was away, which up till recently had been quite often. He had business ties in England which she wasn’t privy to; Alex could be secretive at times.
But those business ties had apparently been wound up and he was back in Sydney permanently. Harriet might have felt pleased if she hadn’t been in a state of apprehension at the time. That apprehension had now reached such a level that it was interfering with her sleep. So Harriet had resolved last night to bite the bullet and tell Alex the truth this morning. Which would have happened already if he’d been here when she’d arrived, she thought with a flash of irritation. All of a sudden, his being late didn’t seem quite so desirable, the delay in confessing twisting her stomach into more knots.
Sighing at the sight of Alex’s empty office, she headed straight for the staff room, where she filled the kettle in readiness for the mug of black coffee Alex always wanted first thing on arriving. He’d probably send her out for a bagel, too. That man was a bagel addict! Maybe she’d leave off telling him her news till he’d downed his coffee and bagel. Alex wasn’t at his best till he’d eaten. The kettle on, she opened the overhead cupboard and took down one of the small tins of quite expensive cat food she kept there. The snapping sound of the ring pull had a rather large moggy dashing into the room, purring his welcome as he wound his way around Harriet’s ankles.
‘Hungry, Romany?’ Harriet said, quickly scraping the food out onto a saucer and putting it down on the floor. The cat pounced, gobbling up the food like he was starving.
