had started work for them eight years ago, after passing her accountancy exams with top honours. She had always known that one day she would be a partner, just as one day she would marry David.
Eight years had transformed her from a rather shy, awkward girl, more at home with figures than people, into a stunning, sophisticated woman.
It was David himself who had unknowingly started the transformation in her early days with the firm. Struck by his looks, she had longed to attract his attention.
After six months, without success, she had overheard him casually asking a colleague, ‘Who’s the pudding in the red dress?’
He had passed on, unaware that the ‘pudding’ had heard him and was choking back misery and anger.
Two days later David announced his engagement to the daughter of the senior partner.
Alex had plunged into her work. For the next five years she allowed herself only the most passing relationships. At the end of that time her long hours and excellent results had made her a power in the firm.
By then the senior partner had retired and David had taken over the position. Now he no longer needed his father-in-law’s influence, although it was only ill-natured people who openly made a connection between that and his divorce.
Alex had worked as hard on transforming herself as she had on her job. Her body represented the triumph of the workout. Her legs were long and slender enough to risk the shortest skirts. The tightest of dresses found no extra pounds on her.
Her fair hair was short, expertly cut and shaped, nestling close to her neat head on top of a long, elegant neck. She was a highly finished work of art, her mind as perfectly ordered as her appearance.
She and David became an item, and everyone knew that soon the firm’s two stars would link up and run the place together.
Now it seemed that nothing could be better structured. Her inheritance would be followed by her partnership, and then by her marriage.
‘Of course it might take a little time to arrange,’ David mused now. ‘You haven’t actually inherited part of the property, have you?’
‘No, just the money that was loaned against it. Enrico assigned the debt to me in his will. So the Farnese brothers owe me a large sum of money, and if they can’t repay in a reasonable time, that’s when I can claim some of the actual farm.’
‘Either that or sell your interest to someone else, which would make more sense. What would you want with one third of a farm?’
‘Nothing, but I’d feel uneasy about doing that. I have to give the Farneses every chance to pay me first.’
‘Sure, and, as I said, it may take time. So don’t rush back. Take as long as you need and do it properly.’
Alex smiled, thinking fondly how understanding he was. It would make everything easier.
‘You haven’t seen much of your Italian relatives, have you?’ David asked now.
‘My mother was Enrico Mori’s niece. He came to visit us a couple of times. He was an excitable man, very intense and emotional. Just like her.’
‘But not like you?’
She laughed. ‘Well, I couldn’t afford to be intense and emotional. Mum filled the house with her melodrama. I adored her, but I suppose I developed my common sense as a reaction. One of us had to be cool, calm and collected.
‘I remember Enrico frowning and saying, “You must be like your English Poppa,” and it wasn’t a compliment. Poppa died when I was twelve, but I remember he never shouted or lost his temper.’
‘And you don’t either.’
‘What’s the point? It’s better to talk things out sensibly. Mum used to say that one day we’d visit Italy together, and I’d “see the light”. She even raised me to speak Italian and some Tuscan dialect, so that I wouldn’t be all at sea when we visited “my other country”.’
‘But you never went?’
‘She became ill. When she died three years ago Enrico came over and I met him again.’
‘Are you his only heir?’
‘No, there are some distant cousins who inherit his house and land. He was a rich man, with no wife or children. He lived alone in Florence, having a great old time, drinking and chasing women.’
‘So where did Vincente Farnese come into this?’
‘They were old friends. A few years ago he borrowed some money from Enrico, and charged it against Belluna, that’s the farm. Last week, apparently, they went out on a binge, drove the car home, and had the accident that killed them both.’
‘And his sons had no idea that there was a hefty mortgage against the land?’
‘Not until Enrico’s will was read, apparently.’
‘So you’re going right into the lion’s den? Be careful.’
‘You surely don’t think I’ll be assassinated down a dark lane? I shall go to Florence, make an arrangement with the Farnese brothers, and then come home.’
‘And if they can’t raise the money, and you sell your interest to an outsider? Will they sit quiet for that?’
‘Don’t be melodramatic, David,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m sure they’re reasonable people, just as I am. We’ll sort it all out, somehow.’
‘Reasonable?’ Rinaldo snapped. ‘Our father charged a huge loan against this property without telling us, and the lawyers want us to be reasonable?’
Gino sighed. ‘I still can’t take it in,’ he said. ‘How could Poppa have kept such a secret for so long, especially from you?’
The light was fading, for the evening was well advanced. Standing by the window of his home, looking out over the hills and fields that stretched into the distance, earth that he had cultivated with his own hands, sometimes at terrible cost, Rinaldo knew that he must cling onto this, or go mad.
‘You and I are Poppa’s heirs and the legal owners of Belluna,’ Gino pointed out. ‘This woman can’t change that.’
‘She can if we can’t pay up. If she doesn’t get her cash she can claim one third of Belluna. Poppa never made any repayments, so now we owe the whole amount, plus interest.’
‘Well, I suppose we gained from having all that money,’ Gino mused.
‘That’s true,’ Rinaldo admitted reluctantly. ‘It paid for the new machinery, the hire of extra labourers, the best fertiliser, which has greatly improved our crops. All that cost a fortune. Poppa just said he’d won the lottery.’
‘And we believed it until the wills were read,’ Gino said heavily. ‘That’s what hurts, that he left us to find out like that.’ But then he gave a heavy sigh. ‘Still, I suppose we shouldn’t blame him. He didn’t know he was going to die suddenly. Do we know anything about this woman, apart from the fact
