Page 42 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

Gianni was staring at his computer screen, a frown etched into his face, so Mia’s own lips tilted downwards. He slammed the laptop shut, gestured to his seat. ‘Of course. What is it?’

Mia’s stomach rolled. Now that she’d reached the moment of truth, she struggled to know exactly how to say what she wanted to say. ‘It’s about Lorenzo.’

His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. ‘Is something wrong? Has he contacted you?’

Mia shook her head. ‘No. No. Nothing like that. I mean, yes. Something is wrong.’ She made a sound of exasperation, stood up, paced towards the windows and tried to take solace from the familiar view. ‘I can’t go through with it.’

Gianni jackknifed out of his chair. ‘What?’

‘The wedding.’ She twisted her fingers together. ‘I need to cancel it. I can’t marry him.’ She felt as though she were suffocating. ‘I don’t love him. I’ll never love him. I can’t marry him.’

‘I don’t believe this. You are supposed to be getting married in a matter of weeks...’

‘I know. It’s not ideal. I know I promised him, you, his family. I get it. I’m letting everyone down. But I can’t go through with it. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ he repeated, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘Mia, I don’t think you understand what you’re saying.’

‘But I do. For the first time in a long time, I understand myself, my words, my wants, perfectly. I will not marry Lorenzo di Angelo. The company will have to be sold without the marriage as a part of the deal.’

Gianni’s face drained of all colour. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘Of course it’s possible,’ she said firmly, refusing to allow her resolve to be weakened. ‘Companies change hands every day without some feudal marriage deal.’

‘This is different.’

‘Why? Because I’m me? Why do you think I need to marry Lorenzo di Angelo? Do you honestly not think I can stand on my own two feet?’

He stared at her, eyes boring through her, then collapsed back in his chair, as though the weight of the world were pressing down on him.

‘I need you to marry him,principessa.’

The childhood name was like an arrow through Mia’s heart. She walked slowly across the room, alarm bells blaring now. Her father was crumpled; destroyed.

‘What is it?’ she asked, the tone of her voice carefully wiped of her anxieties. But sheknewthat he’d been lying to her. She knew that Luca had told the truth. Even when he’d been careful not to tell her too much, he’d said enough for Mia to understand that her father’s business was in a bad way.

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, coming to crouch at his side. ‘Tell me the truth, Dad. Tell me everything: how bad is it?’

It was bad.

As her father finally, slowly, spelled out the truth: that the business had been running on air for eighteen months—which was the sole reason he’d looked for a buyer in the first place—Mia realised just how heavy his burden had been. But the older man had looked for solutions in all the worst ways.

‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’ she asked, lifting fingers to her lips, numb from the revelation she’d just listened to.

‘I had no choice!’

She shook her head. ‘This isillegal, Dad. You cannot falsify corporate figures for the purpose of enticing someone to buy the company. You cannot seriously have thought this wouldn’t be found out?’

‘But by then, you would be married, perhaps even pregnant. They would not be able to press charges.’

‘Of course they could have. It would have been a sham marriage, not a real one. There’s no love between Lorenzo and me!’

‘It is still a marriage,’ he insisted.

‘So I would have been, what? Insurance? You’ve turned me into an accomplice.’ She thought of the guilt Luca had laid at her feet when he’d learned the truth, naturally presuming she was a part of the deception. ‘Damn it, Dad, you’ve made me guilty by association.’

‘But you are not. And anyone who knows you will see that.’

‘You cannot do this.’

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