Page 9 of My Fake Italian Marriage

“Hi, Kevin,” she said brightly, though her chirpy tone took effort.

“How bad is it?” Kevin asked.

“Bad. Giovanni is expected to recover, but he’ll need at least a couple of months to rest, and in the meantime there’s no one running the business. And the business is a mess. You have two options: sell the estate piecemeal right away to recoup our investment, or send someone to manage the vineyard until Giovanni recovers, or at least until the vineyard’s financial outlook improves so he can buy out our share.”Ifhe could buy himself out. She blew out a breath. “Why did you invest without doing due diligence? You should have known they weren’t in a great place.”

“There wasn’t time. Sarah asked me to get them off her back, and I did.”

Sarah. Shit. She’d gotten so lost in the numbers, that she’d forgotten how this would affect her friend. What would Sarah’s position in the community be if the big bad foreign investors she’d brought in cost her neighbours their ancestral lands? While Cleo didn’t care what happened to the Fioravantis, she did care about Sarah’s future happiness in her new home.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, so selling isn’t an option. Somehow, we have to turn this vineyard around. You need to find someone to run things here, someone with business rescue experience, and you need to do it soon. There’s some big trade show thing happening in a couple of weeks where Giovanni usually renews his distributor contracts.”

“The Lario wine show.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Of course. It’s a two-day show, and after Vinitaly it’s the biggest event on the Italian vintners’ calendar. Everyone who is anyone in the wine industry will be there. And don’t worry, I’ve already found someone to run the vineyard.”

Relief swept through Cleo. “That’s great. Who?”

“You.”

Cleo choked. “I’m a tech analyst. What do I know about running a winery? And I don’t even speak Italian.”

“You don’t need to speak Italian—most people at the wine show will understand English. You’re a financial analyst with an MBA. Put it to good use. Besides, you’re the only one I trust to get this done without arousing any suspicions that I didn’t go by the book on this.” He blew out a breath. “It’s only a couple of months, and I guarantee when you get back, Fern’s job will be yours: promotion, pay rise, corner office, and all.”

A couple ofmonths? Maybe Fern’s job wasn’t worth it, after all. On the other hand, she’d wanted a new challenge, a break from the monotony her life had become…

“Two weeks,” Cleo counter-offered. “I’ll stay until the trade show is done, and then I need to come home. I have commitments.”

“We’ll handle your workload. This is more important. If the vineyard fails and the bank loses its investment, my goose is cooked. Pretty please. For me?”

She rubbed her forehead. “It’s not just work. I’m a landlady now. I have responsibilities. Moira’s useless at practical stuff, and I can’t leave her to deal with the boiler on her own.”

“What’s wrong with the boiler?” Kevin sounded amused now. He was lucky he was a thousand miles away, or she’d cheerfully strangle him.

“The pilot light went out, and the repairman can only come on Monday.”

He chuckled. “You take care of the Lario trade show, and I’ll take care of your boiler. I know the address. I’ll pop around after work.”

“It’s all the way across the city. I wouldn’t want to put you out.” But her protest was half-hearted, since he’d asked a whole lot more of her.

“I’m much closer to Wanstead than you are right now. If your housemate can let me in, I’ll take care of it.”

He hung up before she had the chance to argue.Coward. But she smirked. She really did live on the farthest side of London from him. He would have to go hours out of his way. Right now, she’d take any victory, even if it was a petty one. She texted him Moira’s number, then leaned back against Luca’s Ferrari.

Two weeks in Tuscany. That didn’t have to be so bad. She could use the time to hire some proper staff to run the vineyard until Giovanni Fioravanti was able to resume control—and possibly even beyond, if she could persuade the old man to retire.

Then Luca stepped out the cellar door. He stood like a man confident of his place in the world, back straight, head high, shoulders back, and when he looked towards her, his face crinkled into that boyish grin, dimple flashing. A cold chill skittered across her skin. Who was she kidding? Two weeks in the presence of this egotistical, spoilt brat were going to be pure hell.

ChapterFive

Casa mia, casa mia, per piccina che tu sia, tu mi sembri una badia.

(My house, my house, no matter how small, you seem like an abbey.)

By sundown, Luca itched to get out of his father’s office. He’d never enjoyed spending hours and hours behind a desk, and this room gave him a headache. Or maybe it was the lack of progress with the woman beside him giving him a headache.

He’d done what his father asked, and poured on the charm, but Cleo was impervious to his flirting. Either he’d lost his touch with women or—far more likely—he was failing because his heart wasn’t in it. His father wanted to keep the bank ignorant of the vineyard’s true state of affairs, and he expected Luca to do whatever was necessary to distract Cleo from her job. But what his father wanted, and what Luca wanted were very different things.

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