AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
THEBUILDINGWASN’Tquite what Sophie had been expecting. Although now that she was standing outside the impressive Georgian edifice she had to concede that she had just rushed to assume the obvious.
Arrogant billionaire...shiny over-the-top offices. The sort of place that announced in no uncertain terms that its occupant was not a man to be messed with because he was bigger, stronger and richer than you.
Buffeted by a brutal winter wind, and noting that it was already dark at a little after five-thirty in the afternoon, she remained hesitantly staring at the building.
It was an impeccably groomed four-storeyed town house, fronted by black railings and a shallow flight of steps that led up to a black door. In all respects it was identical to all the other town houses in this uber-prestigious crescent in the heart of London. From Bentleys to Teslas, every single car parked was high-end. There was a hush about the place which made her think that if she hung around for too long, staring and frowning and dithering, wondering whether she had done the right thing or not, then someone would materialise out of thin air and escort her right back to the busy streets a stone’s throw away. Possibly by the scruff of her neck.
Galvanised by the prospect of that, Sophie hurried across the completely empty road, up the bank of steps, and realised that the gleaming brass knocker was just there for show—because there was a discreet panel of buttons to the side and a speakerphone.
Just for a few seconds, she took time out to contemplate where she was and why.
She’d had a long and uncomfortable journey from raw and wintry Yorkshire down to London—a journey undertaken with the sort of subterfuge she personally loathed, and with an outcome that was far from predictable. She had a message to be relayed under cover of darkness, because Leonard-White had expressly banned her from contacting his son, and what sort of reception was she going to get? Having gone against the wishes of her boss to uneasily follow what her inner voice had told her?
She had no idea, because Alessio Rossi-White, from everything she had seen of him, was a forbidding and terrifyingly remote law unto himself.
Sophie pressed the buzzer, and the nerves which she had been keeping at bay leapt out from their hiding places and her heart began to beat faster. The disembodied voice on the other end was a woman’s, clipped and well-modulated, and it told her that, no, unless an appointment had been made, there was absolutely no chance that she would be allowed in.
‘I’m afraid,’ the woman said, without a trace of regret in her voice, ‘that Mr Rossi-White is only in the city for a few days, and his calendar is far too packedfor him to seeanyoneat all, whatever the circumstances.Of course,’ she added, ‘if you would like to make an appointment...’
‘I’ve spent hours getting here...’
The cut-glass accent dropped a few shades down from cool to positively glacial. ‘Perhaps you should have checked first to find out whether Mr Rossi-White was available? Now, if you don’t mind, I have calls waiting—’
‘Idomind, actually,’ Sophie interjected, before the next sound she heard could be the sound of a disconnected intercom. However unpleasant this task was, she was here for a reason, and she wasn’t going to be deterred by a receptionist, however cut-glass the accent happened to be.
She had dealt with bigger, weightier setbacks in her life than an overprotective receptionist behind a closed door. The bottom line was that she wasn’t leaving until she saw Alessio Rossi-White and told him about his father.
‘Ibegyour pardon!’
‘This is personal,’ Sophie said shortly, unwilling to divulge anything further to someone whose business it most certainly wasn’t. ‘If you really want to refuse me entry, then be my guest. But I can assure you that there’ll be hell to pay when Alessio finds out that I’ve been turned away.’
She noted the momentary hesitation at the other end of the speakerphone and quietly breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she should have done precisely as the woman advised and alerted Alessio to the fact that she was travelling to London to see him, but it had all been all so hurried and so hush-hush. She’d known he would be in London because, in her typically formal manner, his PA always uploaded his movements to his father’s email on a weekly basis. Just in case. To her knowledge, Leonard had never once used the information to contact his son.
So, yes, she’d known where to pin him down, but still...it had been a time of anxiety, during which she had barely stopped to catch her breath as revelation after revelation had crawled out of the woodwork, sending her into a tailspin. It went so beyond her brief to be here that she seemed to have lost sight of her job title completely—but what else could she do? She was incredibly fond of Leonard, and the thought of the uncertainty and stress he had carried around with him for months...was still carrying...had propelled her into this unfamiliar territory. She was paid way over the odds for her work, and with that, she accepted, came unfamiliar territory—even if this category of ‘unfamiliar’ was something she hadn’t banked on ever having to deal with.
‘I’ll see what I can do. Might I have your name?’
‘Sophie Court.’
Would he even recognise the name?
‘You can tell him that I work for his father.’
‘Please hold the line.’
It took Alessio a couple of seconds to register the name, but it fell into place as soon as he was told that the woman was his father’s nurse/companion.
Or maybe it was companion/nurse. It was a distinction that had never really been clarified.
His father had had a stroke two years ago—or, as he had impatiently brushed it off as,‘A silly health scare...nothing to worry about...no need to tramp all the way to Yorkshire... I might be old but I’m not completely decrepit yet...But did he really need someone to look after him on a daily basis?
The last time Alessio had visited—which had been months previously—the old man had seemed his usual self. Scowling...impatient...and disinclined to do or say anything that went beyond the absolute minimum on the politeness scale. There had certainly been no touching confidences of any kind—not that there ever was. When it came to their quarterly duty visits, punctuated with dry, superficial telephone exchanges, he and his father had cornered the market.
Alessio had long given up debating the normality of this situation. It was what it was. If his was a life of hard edges, a place where regret and nostalgia no longer existed, then it was because bitter experience had shaped him, and he had grown to see those hard edges as symbols of an inner strength that had made him the hugely successful and powerful man he was.
Sophie Court...He’d forgotten the woman even existed. She had certainly never been in evidence on the last few occasions he had visited his father’s estate.
