If she closed her eyes she could pretend not to be intensely aware of Valente watching her so closely.
‘Let’s get you to your suite,’ he murmured. ‘Dom’s nanny is waiting for you.’
Pulling herself out of her stupor, she followed him through the richly decorated corridors and up a flight of stairs, as wide as her flat, covered in thick royal blue carpet. They took a left at the top and walked to the far end of the mezzanine to her designated room.
She gasped.
‘This can’t be for me.’
Valente had not been kidding when he’d called it a suite.
Dazzling green eyes fixed on her. ‘You have a child. We weren’t going to put you in the servants’ quarters. Your outfit for the ball is hanging on your wardrobe.’
But she could see more than amusement in his gaze and that warm feeling trickled through her again, delving deep through her veins to coil into her bones and right into her core.
The glint in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils...
One of the many doors of the suite opened and a middle-aged woman appeared wearing a navy dress with a white sash tied around the waist.
Beth blinked and breathed a sigh of relief as she hurried over to introduce herself.
There was kindness in the nanny’s eyes and Beth’s nerves over handing Dom into the care of a stranger, however highly qualified and impeccable the references, evaporated.
‘I need to check in with Giselle before we do anything else,’ she told Valente when everything that could be discussed about Dom’s care had been discussed and they were heading back to the ground floor.
Dom was going to be fine. The nanny would take good care of him.
Beth had a job to do and it was time to get going on it.
Giselle was the manager of the palace’s hotel. While she had no involvement with the ball itself, many of the guests were staying there.
Valente pulled his car keys out of his pocket. ‘I will leave you to it.’
‘Are you going somewhere?’ she asked, surprised.
His smile was faint but the gleam in his eyes was vivid. ‘I have an appointment to attend but I will be back by noon. Call me if you need anything.’
And then he strode out of the palace, leaving her feeling something that smacked strangely of disappointment but which she pushed aside.
Beth did not mix business and pleasure. She never had and never would, not even for a man who made her heartbeat go into overdrive as Valente did.
Having committed the ground floor layout to memory, she found the manager’s office easily and entered it, to find a severe-looking, diminutive blonde woman sat behind a huge desk.
‘Giselle?’ she asked.
The woman rose to her feet with a smile. ‘Beth?’
She smiled back. ‘Lovely to finally meet you in person. Any problems since we last spoke?’
‘None. Any problems your end?’
‘Not that I know of. Valente said the caterers have arrived...’
‘Who?’
‘Valente Cortada. I’ve been reporting to him for the ball.’
‘I have never heard this name.’
‘Oh.’ Flummoxed, Beth thought hard, trying to remember if Valente had said he actually worked at the hotel. ‘He must work for Mr Basinas directly.’
‘That must be it because he does not work here. And, yes, the caterers have arrived. I will take you to them shortly. Can I offer you refreshment before we get started?’
Beth put her professional head on and got down to business.
But, as the busy hours passed, the disquiet she’d felt at Giselle’s unfamiliarity to Valente’s name stayed with her.
* * *
Alessio locked the documents his lawyer had given him during their meeting in his suite’s safe and called his PA in Milan to check in.
He disliked being away from the business. For his entire life he’d known that, if he worked hard enough, one day Palvetti would be under his control. It might be the family business but it had not been handed to him on a plate. He’d had to prove himself. The top job gave ultimate control of the business and a majority share. If the natural heir was deemed unfit for the job, the role would be passed to another family member better qualified. In Palvetti, there was a role to suit everyone’s skills and inclinations. It was and always had been a family business.
Alessio had coveted the top job from as far back as he could remember. School holidays had been spent shadowing various family members in their differing roles. When he’d graduated from university with a first-class economics and management degree, he’d started work for Palvetti immediately, reporting directly to his father.
At that time there had been something of a sales slump that had hit their profit margins. Alessio’s suggestions to turn the slump around had been implemented and within three years profits had risen by nine per cent. When his father had retired shortly after Alessio’s thirtieth birthday, the family board had been unanimous—the top job was Alessio’s. Under his guidance, Palvetti had gone from strength to strength. Their target of breaking into the crucial Chinese market had been a resounding success. Their jewellery graced the necks, wrists, ears and fingers of the world’s richest people and their luxury scents soaked their skin.
Palvetti was enjoying a boom and Alessio had no intention of allowing that boom to turn into a bust. He would not risk taking his eye off the ball.
His brother had not had the same sense of duty or destiny. Despite Alessio’s and his parents’ best efforts, Domenico had shown nothing but contempt for the business.
Domenico had refused to embrace anything but his own selfish pleasures.
Judging by the coroner’s report into his death, the years of estrangement had only made him worse.
What reckless selfishness had spurred him to ride his bicycle on London’s busy roads with enough alcohol in his bloodstream to defrost a freezer when he had a six months’ pregnant wife at home waiting for him?
Had his brother wanted to die? He’d written his will only weeks before his death.
What kind of character would his nephew have? Alessio ruminated as he searched for Beth. Would he take after his father or would Alessio’s influence be enough to steer him on the right path?
The great ballroom was a bustle of activity, dozens of people working together and separately to transform the room into a magical wonderland. Supervising it all was Beth, clipboard and tablet in hand, standing at the base of the stage the orchestra would be performing on, chatting to a couple of the workers.
He admired the sense of calm she exuded. The nerves she’d displayed in his car were either gone or she’d hidden them. She had the perfect leadership traits: calmness and competence. If a leader was prone to panic, it infected the workers.
About to approach her, his phone vibrated in his pocket. As he answered it, her gaze suddenly found him.
Something he could not explain passed between them in the look they shared in that moment, something that made all the cells in his body thicken.
There had to be thirty feet between them but his body reacted to her stare as if she were right in front of him.
He inhaled and raised a hand in greeting.
Her lips curved into a half-smile. She waved her fingers.
She stepped in his direction but had moved only a couple of paces when another worker hurried over to her.
She