"A global concern, I know, but he could have delegated more."
"Not without risk."
"Life is made up of risks. You choose which ones you want to take."
"You want me to risk my company for the sake of time with our child?"
"Hopefully children, but yes." He'd been willing to risk the whole shebang by marrying her without a prenup. It shouldn't be a big stretch.
"You want more than one child?"
"You know I do." Five years ago, they'd agreed on at least two children, but she had always wanted four. So, there was no middle child to be lost on her own.
"I did not know if your desires in that regard had changed."
"A good conversation to havebeforemarriage."
He shrugged. "Perhaps, but ultimately, whether we agreed on how many children to have did not matter. Youarepregnant with our child. We are getting married. If you choose never to get pregnant again, that will not change those basic facts."
"I still think being on the same page about expectation in that regard is nice."
"Certainly, but life does not afford us the luxury of always being on the same page as the people most important to us."
"Is this about your father?" She knew it had hurt Carlo when Alceu had asked him to sign over the shares to the company.
The prenup had allowed Alceu to withdraw the request, but she knew it still rankled with Carlo that the older man had made it.
Carlo shrugged. "It does not matter. My point is thatniceis not always our luxury."
Since she could not argue with that, Annette didn't try. "He still thinks the world of you, you know?"
Carlo looked at her, the contract pages spread out between them over the library table. Although library was a misnomer. There were books in the room and lots of bookshelves, but they held more objects d'art than reading material.
Joyce was not the reader that Annette was. Apparently, neither was Fantino.
Still, it made a nice room to have this meeting in, having a door that shut snugly with a lock. With his parents staying and both Joyce and Fantino back in residence, along with the psychologist, privacy in the mansion was in short supply.
"I know my father respects me. Do not worry about my tender feelings, Annette. I am fine. It was business and that is one thing I understand very well."
"If you say so." She still wasn't convinced. Something was bothering Carlo and she was certain it was his father's apparent lack of faith in him.
This contract negated all the older Messina man's worries though, so Annette felt good about that. She didn't want father and son at odds. The family had been through enough.
Carlo finished reading the last page and then signed the prenuptial agreement with a flourish. "So, it is done."
"Just like that?" she asked, a little shocked. "I expected some push back and to have to negotiate the number of weeks of vacation time each year at the very least." She'd stipulated six. Two weeks at the winter holidays and four more weeks throughout the year.
She would prefer they were taken in at least weeklong clumps, but she would settle for lots of long weekends so long as he made real time in his schedule to spend with her and their children regularly.
He seemed perfectly willing to do just that.
"I give my top executives six weeks of vacation and an additional two of personal leave. I cannot justify giving myself any less to spend with my own family." Carlo stood, his smile filled with something he usually reserved for the nighttime when they were alone. "I think that sofa looks quite comfortable. Would you like to join me on it?"
He was talking about a large brown leather sofa situated in front of another gas fireplace. It was blocked from the windows by standing bookcases behind it.
She darted a glance to the door.
"I locked it on the way in."