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However, just as she was about to leave him to settle at a little after eight, he said, apropos of nothing in particular, ‘He never forgave me.’
‘Alessio?’ Sophie stopped and walked back to the chair by the bedroom window, where Leonard was finishing the cup of hot chocolate she had brought up.
‘The boy hates me.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘I tried. I didn’t know how. Now he’s here and everything’s unravelled for me. He’s probably gloating that the old idiot couldn’t even run his own company in the end! All the luxuries are gone. Can’t even afford to have someone come in to clean the place now. Up to him to hire someone.’
‘None of that’s true.’ Sophie was dismayed. ‘And you mustn’t stress. You know what your consultant said.’
‘Easier said than done, my dear.’ He reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Alessio was up at the crack of dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and raring to tear my company apart.’
‘He isn’t going to tear your company apart.He’s going to try and sort it out—and isn’t that a good thing, Leonard?’ Sophie asked gently. ‘If your son hated you, wouldn’t he have walked away from the responsibility?’ She was surprised to find that she meant every word as she added, ‘If there’s one thing I can tell, it’s this, Leonard. Alessio might be tough, but he’s fair, and whatever he does to sort the company out and ease your financial problems it will be necessary and done with thought and consideration for the people who might be affected.’
Leonard pursed his lips and harrumphed under his breath, but Sophie had clearly given him something to think about, and he was lightening up and complaining about the usual things by the time she left him fifteen minutes later.
But some of the things he had said had given Sophie pause for thought, and when, an hour and a half later, Alessio strode into the kitchen, where she was nursing a mug of coffee, she had to force herself to appear natural and, more importantly,neutral. He was in jeans and a jumper and he was rubbing his hands together, warming himself.
‘Bloody awful weather out there. You’ll be pleased to hear that there’s no need to cook anything for me. I’ve eaten.’ He spared her a passing glance. ‘I would have brought you back something, but I assumed you would have powered ahead without me. Tell me what you did today.’
He paced the kitchen, fetching a mug, making himself some coffee, and Sophie watched him and subliminally appreciated the graceful economy of his movements, and the way he somehow managed to own the space in which he moved.
‘I didn’t realise that you would be heading into the office today,’ she countered, her mouth tightening as she recalled Leonard’s sadness when he had so briefly confided in her earlier.
‘AndIdidn’t think I had to run my timetable by you on a minute-by-minute basis,’ Alessio said with equal cool as he joined her at the table, sprawling back in the chair, which he somehow managed to dwarf. ‘I’m here to get a job done, and how I choose to spend my time doing it isn’t really in your remit. Not unless you have a list of responsibilities of which I am unaware?’
‘I just thought you might have wanted to spend some time with your dad.’ Sophie held her ground, without any rancour in her voice, even though again she couldn’t help but marvel that a man so smart and so sexy could also be so impenetrable and so downright loathsome.
‘I spent more than sufficient time with him when I popped in before I left for Harrogate,’ Alessio said drily. ‘I got the distinct impression that he was relieved when I was ready to go.’
‘He’s scared that you’re going to tear his company apart.’
‘He has every right to be afraid. It’s a mess. I’ve spent the day reading through a mind-boggling array of numbers and figures and profit and loss columns, half of them filed in metal cabinets, as though the world hasn’t changed since those bad old days. I’ve discovered lots of poor investment decisions and badly thought-out loans, and a total lack of urgency in moving in line with technological progress. Heads will need to roll, I’m afraid.’
‘Will you...will you be gentle when you discuss that with him?’
‘It’s business, Sophie.’ Alessio looked at her from under his lashes, his face revealing nothing. ‘There’s only so much hand-holding I can do when it comes to laying my cards on the table.’
‘He’s so upset already...’
Alessio frowned. ‘Sometimes when you talk about my father,’ he murmured, ‘I almost get the impression that you’re talking about someone I don’t know at all.’
‘He’s softer than you think!’
‘Really? I’m curious to see that side to him, considering it’s never been in evidence in the past.’
‘Are you?’
Anger twisted inside Sophie at the cool, amused indifference in Alessio’s voice. Did he know his father at all? She thought of the acres of emptiness that seemed to separate them. She thought of those articles so lovingly kept, and the wobble in Leonard’s voice when he’d told her that he feared his own son hated him.
Sophie had spent a lot of her formative years in situations that she should not have been in—caretaking a bewildered, lost parent and a kid sister who had needed looking after—but not once had she failed to feel overwhelming love for both of them. The very thought of Leonard despairing of his only son’s affection brought a sour lump to her throat.
So devastatingly good-looking...so incredibly aloof...
‘You only have one father,’ she said stiffly.
‘You’re overstepping your job title, Miss Court.’
