‘So did he deign to tell you?’ she demanded. ‘Or did you find out the way I did?’
Of course she hadn’t found out the way Imogen had! She never looked at such sites, or picked up the kind of magazine that followed the rich and famous in their glamorous lifestyles. Imogen, she knew, even when she’d realised just what was going on between Alexa and Guy de Rochemont, still made a point of being assiduous in her perusal of such sources.
‘Believe me, Alexa, if that man is up to stuff you should know about, I’ll be on to it!’ she’d said, way back. ‘I can tell you straight off that it’s plain as my face that Carla Crespi is dead set on picking up with him again, for a start.’
But Imogen’s vigilance had not been necessary. Nor had Alexa ever thought it would be. For why should Guy conceal anything from her? Let alone the fact that their affair had run its course, as she knew it must one fine day…
‘He told me this morning,’ she said. The calmness was holding.
There was an intake of breath from Imogen.
Alexa went on, pre-empting any outburst from her friend. ‘So, obviously I wished him well, gave him my felicitations, and said goodbye to him. We parted perfectly amicably.’
There was another eloquent silence down the line. Alexa realised that she was gripping the phone hard, yet try as she might she could not make her fingers slacken. Instead, she concentrated on holding that calmness in her voice.
‘Imogen, I knew this day would come, and that’s that. Now it has. That’s all there is to it. There’s absolutely no point my making a fuss about it. Guy de Rochemont walked into my life, and now he’s walked out of it. End of story. And I’m fine. Absolutely fine. Honestly. Completely fine. Fine.’
Again she tried to slacken her grip on the phone, and again for some annoying reason her fingers would not obey her. Something seemed to be gripping her throat as well. Choking her.
At the other end of the line she could hear her name being spoken. Then again. Then, ‘I’m coming over,’ said Imogen. And underneath, as she was disconnecting, Alexa heard a sibilant, hissing expletive. ‘Bastard!’
‘Guy! Servus! Wie gehts, wie gehts?’
The voice greeting him was jovial and welcoming. Guy’s arm was taken, and he was all but steered in the direction his host wanted. Guy’s jaw tightened. But then that was, after all, exactly what Heinrich von Lorenz was doing—steering him in the direction that suited him personally. And suited his damn investment bank. His tottering investment bank, brought to the brink of ruin.
Familiar anger bit within him. Deep and highly masked. Why the hell hadn’t Heinrich come to him earlier? Why had he bluffed it out for months, getting more and more mired in toxic debt? Pride, that was why, Guy knew. Expensive, unaffordable pride.
Then his anger veered round to target himself. He should have picked up on the depth of the problems Lorenz Investment was having. Dammit, that was his job—taking the helicopter view of everything—everything!—that fell within the labyrinthine world of Rochemont-Lorenz. It was the job he’d inherited from his father, and the job he was stuck with.
A caustic glint showed temporarily in his eyes. How many people envied him? Not just those outside the Rochemont-Lorenz behemoth, but even those within. How many considered his position one they would love for themselves? The titular and de facto head of a vast, powerful, immensely rich dynasty.
Well, it was nearly ten years since the heavy mantle had fallen on his shoulders, in his early twenties—thanks to the premature death of his father. It was a death to which, Guy knew bitterly, the role he had passed on to his son had contributed in its ceaseless demands on him. Guy was no longer—if he ever had been—a willing occupier of that grandiose position. It might sound good—and, yes, it certainly came with wealth and power, with a social cachet and a historical heritage that lent glamour to the name and role—but it came with a weight of responsibility that exacted its own heavy price.
A price that had suddenly become crippling.
But I have no option but to pay it! No damn option!
His mouth tightened as he went into the ritual of greeting Heinrich and his wife Annelise, in the baronial hall of their Alpine schloss. It was Heinrich’s residence of choice, for it had once belonged to an archduke and still bore Hapsburg arms above the mantel—arms which, defunct as they were, nevertheless intimated an association with royalty that Heinrich took pleasure in emphasising. The Lorenz quarterings might not have reached further back than a bare century and a half, but Heinrich took inordinate pride in them. Suppressed anger flared again momentarily in Guy. Just as Heinrich took inordinate and clearly unjustified pride in his financial acumen.
Pride goeth before a fall.
The sobering words of the Bible stung Guy’s consciousness. Lorenz Investment was as near to falling as if it were a metre away from a precipice. But from the expansiveness of Heinrich’s greeting it was impossible to tell how perilously positioned he was. Yet he knew, all right, just how bad things were, despite all his avuncular bonhomie. Again Guy’s eyes darkened. He’d taken his eye off the Lorenz Investment balance sheet, targeted his attention at other parts of the operation that had seemed to be in more serious straits courtesy of the global recession, and by the time he’d knocked together the requisite heads, re-set the vulnerable financial thermostats to ‘sound’ across the multiple divisions and corporations that formed the complex corpus of Rochemont-Lorenz, the window of opportunity for a far less painless rescue package for Lorenz Investment had passed.
And now Heinrich had done what he should have done six months ago, and disclosed the full state of affairs.
And called for the ultimate rescue package.
One that would not just bail out his bank, but achieve his dearest wish…
Had Heinrich been planning this all along? Guy would not have put it past him. He had always known that Heinrich had ambitions to further his branch of the family by any means at his disposal—but Guy had always been uncooperative. Not just for business reasons—Heinrich’s mismanagement at Lorenz Investment was proof that had been wise—but for far more cogent reasons. Heinrich’s love of royal residence
s was not the predominant evidence of his fondness for the way royalty did things.
Dynastic marriages were.
For years Guy had simply ignored the subtle and less than subtle comments, insinuations and outright hints. So Heinrich had no sons, only a daughter to inherit his place within Rochemont-Lorenz? So what? This was the twenty-first century. Heinrich might think it impossible, but there was already a sprinkling of highly competent female Rochemonts and Lorenzs taking their place in the higher corporate echelons of the family, and there was no reason why Louisa, if she showed any talent, shouldn’t join those ranks in time.
Not that—from what he recalled of Louisa—she seemed to have shown any signs of financial acumen. She was studying something like ecology, he vaguely remembered, and his impression of her was that she was quite shy.