The Prosecco Fortune Read online

  STELLA WHITELAW

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapters

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  By the same author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  To Diana and David who would love Venice

  one

  The number 25 red London double-decker bus trundled by, totally full.

  It didn’t even stop at the bus stop. The driver shook his head.

  ‘Damn it,’ said Emma, rain dripping off her umbrella and down her neck. She could feel the wet trickle down bare skin despite her fawn Jaeger raincoat and Hermès scarf. When it came to clothes, she bought classic.

  December was not her favourite month despite the Christmas and New Year festivities. It was too cold and too wet and Christmas left Emma feeling more alone than ever. She had no family and a microwaved Christmas dinner in her Brixton flat was a depressing thought. She’d seen all the repeat old films.

  This morning at Irving Stone Accountants was going to be different. One of their most important and long-standing clients was to grace their doorstep. Emma had to be on time. She was now a junior partner in the old-established firm, working her way up, but it was vitally important that she should be there. She had the figures.

  She hailed a rogue taxi, stepping out into a puddle. Water splashed right up and into her boots. ‘Taxi,’ she shouted.

  She must have looked desperate because the taxi driver stopped. ‘Where to, miss?’ he asked, leaning across to open the door.

  Emma gave him the West End address of Irving Stone Accountants. Goodbye to any lunch and probably dinner. Even her legs were wet from the splash. No chance to change her tights.

  She sank down in the back seat, grateful to be out of the rain, grateful to be moving in the right direction. She knew this client was one of their oldest. She knew that his grandfather had been an esteemed client. The man was Italian. He grew grapes to make wine somewhere in Italy. She knew nothing about wine but a lot about his accounts.

  When the taxi reached the offices of Irving Stone Accountants, an old red-bricked nineteenth-century house, hemmed in by tower-block buildings, Emma was in a slight state of panic. She had less than a minute to get to her desk and look efficient. She gave the taxi driver several notes, not counting, which was against the grain for an accountant.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, so much,’ she gasped. ‘You’re a star.’

  ‘Slow down, miss,’ he said, grinning. ‘There’s always tomorrow.’

  She ran through reception, waving her identity pass, and squeezed into the lift as the doors were closing. She leaned against a wall, getting her breath back, only then aware of one other person in the lift.

  ‘Mi scusi,’ the man said. ‘Your umbrella is raining on my leg.’

  Emma froze. Her life was about to change. It was the most beautiful male voice she had ever heard, like soft brown treacle, deep and dark, but with the slightest accent and an element of amusement. She had never in her life heard a voice that was so magnetic. It was if his voice took her into a soft and slow embrace.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Emma. She pulled away her umbrella and tried to close it. It was one of those automatic, extending umbrellas that were so difficult to get back into their fold-up shape. This one had no intention of being folded up. It had enjoyed its morning in the rain and was determined to continue the adventure.

  ‘Allow me to ’elp you,’ said the gorgeous voice.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Emma, desperate.

  As he took the umbrella from her, Emma allowed herself to look at him. Then she wished that she hadn’t. He was unbelievably good-looking. She drank in his masculinity. Tall with short, thick dark hair, chiselled cheeks and firm chin, a mouth curved and warm with amusement. And his eyes. She dared not look into them. They were a dark, velvety brown, like cascades of mountain water against rock, glittering with gold lights, fringed with dark lashes too long for a man. She looked away before he could see the sudden hunger in her eyes.

  ‘There, I have fixed your rebellious umbrella,’ he said, handing it back as the lift stopped at her floor. He was obviously going up further to the executive floor. ‘Ciao, signorina.’

  Emma got out, legs unsteady as she took her first steps. She had seen the most beautiful man in London and already she was leaving him. Her life had been like that from day one. She never got dealt the best card. She always got the joker.

  ‘Late again,’ her colleagues shouted, as she raced through the open-plan office to her desk in the far corner. At least she had a window and a view. It was one of the perks of being a junior partner.

  Emma gritted her teeth. Late by a minute was not exactly late again. She hung up her raincoat and examined her boots. The rain had splashed inside her boots and trickled down onto her feet. She eased off the boots and turned them upside-down to dry. She peeled off her damp tights and stuffed them into a drawer. Her fine, tawny-red hair was a tousled mess, but it would dry quickly.

  She turned on her computer and brought up the file for Marco Angelo dell’Orto Vineyards. This was the man she would be meeting soon. She had to have all the information at her finger-tips. His accounts were in a mess. Even overnight, there was news from the Stock Exchange. Dell’Orto Vineyards were being pursued in a takeover bid by a giant American firm of wine importers. Dell’Orto grew grapes in their Veneto vineyards and brewed the prestigious sparkling Prosecco. Emma had no idea what that was. She’d never heard of Prosecco. All she knew, from Google, was that Veneto was in Northern Italy. And now, that Dell’Orto had no funds.

  Her phone rang. She picked it up. ‘Miss Chandler? Would you come into the conference room, with your files? We are waiting for you.’

  Emma stood up. Her heart was beating wildly. She tried to calm down her breathing. It was not far to the conference room, but it felt like the green mile. She was followed by ribald comments. She had to survive this moment if she was to keep her job. She needed to earn enough to pay the mortgage on her high-rise Brixton flat.

  She smoothed down the slim skirt of her grey suit and made sure the nipped-in jacket sat on her waist. The buttons were all fastened on her crisp white shirt, no wardrobe malpractice. She ran her fingers through her hair. That was all she had time for. She was, after all, employed for her accountancy skills, not her looks.

  She picked up the bulky file she had prepared the day before and tucked it under her arm. This was not going to be an easy meeting. She had discovered many discrepancies in the figures sent to her from Italy. In fact, large sums of money had disappeared.

  The conference room was a big corner room with tall windows on two walls. The furthest windows faced the river Thames, the other windows looked down onto the busy London street. The oval mahogany table was highly polished and laid with pads of lined paper, pens, water carafes and tumblers. There were already eight people sitting round the table, arm’s length apart as if they were infectious. Emma saw her empty place on the far side.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Emma said as she entered.

  The gathering was intimidating. Irving Stone nodded a greeting. His son, Harry, looked at her with
disinterest. He had not approved of her appointment. Maybe he thought she was a rival with her clever brain. Maybe he knew that she was not interested in him and that piqued his masculine vanity.

  One man stood up. He was tall and lean, wearing an Armani suit in the finest black worsted material. His shirt was cream with the faintest pinstripe, a narrow grey tie knotted at his throat.

  ‘Buongiorno, Signorina Chandler,’ he said. ‘Come sta?’

  Emma did not understand a word of Italian but even if she had, she would have been speechless. It was the same deep and grave voice of the man in the lift, the man who had already shaken her composure with his devastating good looks. She could not take her eyes off him. He stood with an easy air of authority, his ebony brown eyes amused by her reaction. Her head jerked up.

  ‘Buongiorno,’ she said.

  Marco dell’Orto was used to women falling for him on sight and this slim young English woman was no exception. But usually it was some glamorous woman in expensive couture clothes and immaculate make-up, straight from a hairdressing salon, every strand in place, reeking of expensive perfume.

  But this young English miss had not bothered to make an impression on him. Her grey business suit was neat and serviceable, her hair needed a comb or a brush, and there was the faintest shine on her straight nose.

  Then he saw her lips and her eyes. Her lips were the most perfectly curved shape with only a touch of gloss and asking to be kissed again and again. Her eyes were the most beautiful he had ever seen, the clearest hazel green, like summer pools of Monet water, her lashes long and silky, fluttering like butterfly wings.

  He wanted to drown himself in those eyes. But Marco dell’Orto did nothing of the sort. He sat down abruptly, annoyed with himself that some young English accounts clerk should have this effect on him. Every young woman in Venice wanted to be with him, attached and unattached. There were even older women who would flatter him with undisguised desire. He could take his pick.

  ‘To business,’ he said, reverting to English. ‘I am flying back to Venice this evening. This matter must be settled now.’

  Irving Stone, the senior partner, had been briefed on the situation. Emma had given him all the facts that he needed.

  ‘To be brief, Signor dell’Orto,’ he began, adjusting his spectacles. ‘The accounts for your business are in a mess. Large amounts of money are missing. And unless they are sorted out to our satisfaction, we feel we can no longer act for you. The situation is a delicate one, especially if you are considering this American offer.’

  ‘The American offer is nothing,’ said Marco dell’Orto dismissively. ‘The vineyard is not for sale. It was my grandfather’s before me and it is not leaving the family. I have worked all my life in the vineyards since I was a boy of eleven. No American company is going to trample over my name, change it to something smart and trendy.’

  Emma could see him as eleven years old, working in his grandfather’s vineyard. He would have been tall for his age, bronzed by hours in the sun, muscles hardening as he toiled in the terraced fields. Had he carried brimming baskets of grapes on his shoulders?

  ‘Emma, would you like to give us some of the details?’ said Irving Stone.

  ‘Emmer, that is your name?’ asked Marco dell’Orto, leaning forwards.

  ‘Emma,’ she corrected him.

  ‘What a small name,’ he said.

  ‘No smaller than Marco,’ she replied.

  He laughed. It was a warm, rich sound. She wanted to make him laugh some more but these figures were no laughing matter. She was about to destroy him with the figures. The Prosecco fortune had disappeared.

  Everyone round the conference table had copies. It was an hour of relentless questioning and probing. Marco’s face grew grim, all amusement gone from his eyes. He was still a rich man but his vineyards would collapse if he did not discover where the income of the past two years had gone.

  ‘My accountant in Italy is an old man, Signor Bragora,’ he said. ‘I know there have been health problems. Macular degeneration, I believe. He is losing his sight. But I have always left the money side to him. I trust him implicitly. I ran the vineyards, day to day, and he saw to the bills and the accounts.’

  ‘It is not a happy situation,’ said Irving Stone, polishing his glasses. ‘The money is not there.’

  ‘I could sell my palazzo on the Grand Canal,’ Marco went on, drawing on the pad of paper. ‘And my villa on Lake Garda. They would fetch millions of euros. The winemaking plant. There are many assets.’

  ‘It might be enough, Signor dell’Orto, to stave off bankruptcy,’ said Irving Stone. ‘But you really need to find out where the money has gone to satisfy the revenue authorities.’

  Marco dell’Orto looked shaken by the events but he was drawing on some inner strength, his eye steely and stubborn. ‘I shall find the money. I shall get it back. No one is going to take my vineyards from me, even if I lose everything else.’

  ‘Emmer,’ he said, turning to her suddenly. ‘What do you think of this situation?’

  His voice pierced right into her. It was if he was speaking to her alone in the room.

  He had realized by then that she was no little accounts clerk, but a clever, efficient accountant in her own right. She knew what she was talking about and could see paths through a maze of figures.

  He was not used to clever women. His women friends had lithe, supple bodies, not brains.

  ‘Emma,’ she said, making time. There was power in his bearing. If he stood up, he would tower over her. She was trembling, searching for her usual composure.

  ‘Emma,’ he repeated gravely.

  ‘I think someone should go through every piece of paper and follow every transaction that has taken place in your office recently, maybe even going back several years. I’m really sorry, Signor dell’Orto,’ she added, her voice softening. ‘I can understand how much you care for your vineyard. We shall try to save it.’

  ‘Vineyards,’ he corrected her, his eyes glinting. ‘I have more acres than you can imagine. They stretch to the horizon.’

  He stood up, gathered the papers with rough movements. He had been touched by the sympathy in her voice. Not many women in his life cared about anything more than the money he could spend on them, the jewels he could give them, the hours of rough loving in his big bed.

  ‘Gentlemen, I have a proposition to make. Give me one month to sort out this chaos. I will get to the floor of it, I promise you.’ He felt suddenly awkward about using the word bottom in Emma’s presence. He had already noticed the pert shape of her body as she walked round the conference table. His hands had tingled with longing to touch her.

  ‘But I need help. I propose that this clever Ms Emma Chandler comes with me to Venice and takes charge of my accounts office. Let those lucid green eyes do some detective work. She is already a detective. I will pay her salary and all expenses. There will be a bonus at the end. Do you agree, gentlemen?’

  Marco knew he was in serious trouble. He was also being foolish to trust a young woman, simply because she had beautiful eyes. He would go to the Questura as soon as he returned to Venice and speak to the Commissario di Polizia. He wondered if his old college friend, Claudio Morelli, was still working there.

  ‘Someone more senior should go,’ said Harry, drumming his fingers on the polished table. ‘Emma has little experience and I don’t think she speaks Italian. I know some Italian. She would be lost without the language.’

  Emma gasped. No one bothered to ask her. They were talking over her head as if she was part of the furniture. She was indignant, her eyes dimming, blurred. She put her rimmed glasses back on. She knew they made her look officious.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, interrupting. ‘But I do not wish to go to Veneto, wherever that is. I have my job here and my home here. I don’t speak the language and I would know no one.’

  Marco came round to her side of the table. ‘You would know me,’ he said. ‘And I would teach you enough Italian.’
/>   He was leaning far too close. She could scent his aftershave, the cleanliness of his body. She wanted to reach out and touch him as if he was still eleven years old. There was a touch of mockery in his voice.

  And that was the real reason for Emma’s panic. This man was dangerous. A few minutes in a lift and she was ashamed of her wanton feelings. A month with him would be a nightmare. She would be the one sent home with a broken heart and nothing to show for it except perhaps a few moments of ecstasy.

  ‘Emma,’ said Irving Stone, ignoring Harry’s objection. There was an edge of steel to his voice. ‘We should like you to go to Venice and sort out this situation. The police may be involved. I know how much you like your job here. It will still be here for you, of course, when you return.’

  There was a veiled threat in his words. Emma wanted to keep her job. She wanted to keep her flat. She was on a career ladder.

  Marco bent down, his breath fanning her cheek. A wisp of her hair blew into her mouth and she raised her hand to remove it. Marco saw the softness of her inner lips and wondered if he would ever have the strength to keep his hands off her.

  ‘It is only a month,’ he said so that only she could hear.

  ‘That’s four whole weeks.’

  ‘You need never wear any shoes, signorina.’

  They both looked at her bare feet. Her feet were cold now. Emma felt exposed, almost naked. Marco was smiling. ‘I will send a car for you at four o’clock. The plane for Venice leaves at six. Please be ready.’

  Emma did not realize that she might lose her heart or that she might also lose her job. This was not simply misplaced money, this was hacking, cybercrime. Her life would be at risk. But she knew she would take the risk.

  two

  Later Emma rushed home, by bus, snatching a quick sandwich lunch of tuna and watercress. She had all the files she needed.

  Her colleagues had been envious, curious.

  ‘A palace on the Grand Canal, a villa on Lake Garda? You’ve fallen on your feet, girl, this time,’ they said.

  Emma pretended not to hear as she took a few personal items from her desk.