As he entered the room, he estimated that the meeting would take four minutes. One minute for them to stare at him gravely and comment on how his appalling behaviour left a stain on the Corretti name and the company as a whole, another minute while they told him he wasn’t going to have a seat on the main board and a further two minutes while he gave them an uncensored, unvarnished account of what he thought of them. That part promised to be entertaining.
Prepared to make full use of his two minutes, it threw him to see the chairman rise to his feet, tears in his eyes.
Tears?
Luca executed a perfect emergency stop. He was used to women crying over him, but men crying over him? That was taking things a step too far.
‘Luca…’ Hands outstretched, the man who had been a close friend of his grandfather’s walked round the table towards him.
Preferring all physical contact to come from the opposite sex, Luca backed away hastily, crashing into a chair in the process. ‘No need for the drama. I’m the sort of guy who prefers the truth without embellishment.’
‘I’m not going to lie to you, we didn’t see this coming.’
‘Didn’t see what coming?’
‘Your engagement.’
The word felt as if someone was rubbing sandpaper over raw skin. ‘Ah, yes. About that—’
Bursting into a stream of Italian, the man hugged him and Luca stood rigid in that embrace, thinking that if becoming engaged triggered so much uncontrollable emotion in people then he was doubly relieved he’d chosen never to do it. ‘Look, there’s something I need to—’
‘It changes everything.’
‘Marriage? Yes, I know, that’s why I’ve never—’ Luca broke off, horrified as the older man took his face in his hands.
‘If you’re responsible enough to take that step then you’re responsible enough to have a seat at this table.’
‘Scusi?’
‘We’re voting you in as Matteo’s successor at least until the fuss dies down and he returns. Angelo thinks he can just walk in here and take over our hotel—we’ll show him a united front. You’re a family man, now. A true, loyal Corretti.’
Biting back the observation that the words loyal and Corretti went together about as well as lion and baby gazelle, Luca extracted himself carefully from the man’s grip, thanking his lucky stars that he hadn’t actually been kissed. ‘So what you’re telling me,’ he said slowly, ‘is that my track record with the House of Corretti meant nothing to you but now that I’m engaged, I’m suddenly fit to run the hotel group?’
‘Running a hotel group takes more than brain power.’ One of the other directors spoke up. ‘It takes dedication. You have to demonstrate responsibility not just to your employees, but to your shareholders. We saw no evidence of that in your life, but it seems we were wrong. Not only that, but you’ve proved yourself capable of discretion. You and Taylor Carmichael are both highprofile people and yet somehow and we can’t imagine how—’ he beamed approvingly ‘—you have managed to keep this relationship a secret until now. Frankly, this has come as a shock to us, Luca.’
‘It came as a shock to me too,’ Luca confessed with perfect honesty. ‘I didn’t see it coming.’
‘So what are your plans?’
Plans? He’d planned to kill the engagement rumours and move on with his life, unrestricted, but now he was rethinking fast. Being engaged seemed to have afforded him a status within the board that impressive profits and innovative thinking had failed to produce.
If that was what it took to prove to this bunch of dinosaurs that he could add value to their company, then maybe it was worth considering.
He tested the water. ‘The wedding itself isn’t going to happen for a while.’
That statement was met by more beams of approval.
Encouraged, Luca elaborated. ‘And right now we’re both so busy we’re not managing to see much of each other.’
Approval turned to sympathy and Luca decided that maybe he could be the first engaged man on the planet who never actually saw his ‘fiancée.’ Pondering on that thought, he decided that the situation could actually be turned to his advantage. All he had to do in return for the responsibility he wanted was resist the urge to throw himself under the wheels of a passing car every time someone said the word engaged.
As his mind gradually emerged from the vice-like panic that came from thinking about weddings, he realised that Taylor Carmichael was probably already announcing to the world that she’d dumped him.
Knowing he had to act quickly, Luca spread his hands and smiled at the board. ‘I just came here today to share the happy news, but I’m afraid I can’t stay. Gutted though I am not to spend more time with you, I’m sure you understand. It’s Taylor’s first day of filming down at the docklands and I want to just go over there and be supportive, because—because—’ never having been supportive before, he floundered for a plausible reason for his actions ‘—because that’s what engaged people do.’ Truthfully he had absolutely no idea what engaged people did. All he knew was that he had nothing in common with them. ‘I want to be there for her.’