“Go, then,” he said hoarsely. “Take Esme and go.”
Closing her eyes, she took a deep, shuddering breath. When she opened them, they were luminous with grief.
“Thank you.” Rising from the table, she walked slowly up the stairs. Stefano stood by the enormous fireplace in the great hall, frozen in shock.
Surely Tess would come to her senses. Surely she’d realize that they were meant to be together.
But when she came back downstairs five minutes later, she was wearing a coat, with a diaper bag over her shoulder and Esme sleeping in her arms. “I saw Salvatore in the hall. He’ll give me a ride to the airport.”
Stefano looked at his wife and child, and his chest twisted painfully. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want them to go.
“Goodbye,” Tess choked out. She turned to go.
“Wait.”
She stopped, not turning around. Stefano still couldn’t believe this was happening. He came up behind her.
“If you really love me,” he said in a low voice, “how can you leave?”
Tess turned, and the look she gave him cut him to the core. Stefano realized her rose-colored glasses were finally gone. She now saw him exactly for the man he really was.
“I loved an illusion,” she whispered, and left.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU HAVE SOME NERVE. Stealing my designer.”
Fenella Montfort softened her words with a feline smile. She was sitting behind her black lacquer desk in her office at London’s Zacco headquarters.
“I didn’t steal Aiko Sakurai,” Stefano replied coldly. “She quit after you hired von Schreck to replace her.”
“I intended for them to be co-designers. Creators of a brand-new synergistic vision.”
He gave a grim smile. “Apparently Mrs. Sakurai didn’t see it that way. Your loss. My gain.”
“I still have von Schreck.”
“Which is why you should sell all your shares now. Because once he shows his first collection, your numbers will drop.”
Fenella narrowed her eyes. He returned her gaze coolly.
Stefano should have felt a thrill of triumph. For the last month, since Tess had left him, he’d focused on this goal, day and night. He’d done everything he could to get this meeting today.
His own company, Gioreale S.p.A., had already gotten offers from around the world for Stefano’s controlling interest in the stock. He’d hired away Zacco’s star designer, Aiko Sakurai, by tripling her salary and giving her a large amount of stock, so even if the company sold, she’d be wealthy enough to start her own brand, should she choose. And Fenella Montfort must by now have some inkling how awful Caspar von Schreck would be for Zacco.
For once, Stefano held all the cards.
And he would have traded every one of them, he thought, to have his family back.
Just thinking of Tess caused a deep ache through his body, from his throat to his jaw to his chest to his hips. All of him.
Turning away, Stefano looked out the large window, toward the gray steel and glass of London’s business district, and behind that, the gray November sky. All so gray, Stefano thought. Flat and gray.
“So cheeky,” Fenella said.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to focus on her. “So that’s why you finally agreed to a meeting? Because I stole your designer?” Stefano knew she was as competitive as he was.
“Not just that,” Fenella said. Clicking on her computer, she turned the monitor to face him on the other side of the desk.