Modern Romance August 2016 Books 1-4

More often than not, she’d failed, and Giovanni had had to step in. While with each failure, she’d doubted her ability to be what she needed for her family, she’d never shied away from doing the right thing.

And the right thing was her family. Grandfather and her siblings came first and foremost. Always.

Stemming the pain slashing her heart, she took a deep breath and nodded. ‘What do you need me to do?’

Whether it was the briskness in her voice or the hard acceptance that she couldn’t change the wiles of fate that did it, her grandfather sat upright, his face showing a trace more colour than it had a few minutes ago. Allegra was grateful for it, even as her heart hammered at whatever he was about to ask of her. Giovanni wouldn’t have summoned her if it weren’t important.

‘I need you to recover something for me. Something rare and precious that I lost a long time ago.’

Allegra nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll call the head of the investigative firm I use...’

‘No, you misunderstand. I don’t want this item found. I need it recovered. I already know where it is.’

She frowned. ‘If you know where it is, then why don’t you just send for it?’

Giovanni relaxed in his bed with a slight shake of his head. ‘I need you to go and get it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Her grandfather exhaled. ‘Perhaps I need to elaborate. You remember the story of my Lost Mistresses?’

Warily, she nodded. ‘The collection you told us about when we were kids? Matteo said you asked him to find one of them for you. So it’s really true? They exist?’

A sad smile flitted over the old man’s lips. ‘Yes, my dear, it’s true. I sold them off to get the capital to start our family business. But now...’ His gaze drifted off and Allegra’s heart lurched at the bleakness she witnessed. ‘Now, I need them back. I must have them back before I die!’

Unable to deny the man whose love—even when it was distant and buried beneath the huge responsibility of caring for his numerous grandchildren—had never dimmed, she nodded. ‘I’ll find it for you, whatever it is.’

Giovanni sighed deeply. His head lolled against the snow-white pillow, but his gaze never wavered from hers. ‘I knew I could count on you. If my memory serves me right, my beloved box was sold to a sheikh decades ago. He wanted it for his bride and, at the time, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’ He smiled, although it was tinged with an even deeper desolation. ‘Besides, who was I to stand in the way of true love?’

‘Do you remember his name? Where he was from?’ Allegra pressed, partly because she wanted the facts as quickly as possible so she could pull her grandfather from the memories that were clearly causing him such great sadness. The grandfather she remembered had always been focused very much in the here and now, the future of his family business and the welfare of his grandchildren, his paramount concern. To see him dwelling on the past he so rarely talked about heightened the fear of impending loss.

‘I don’t recall his first name, but he was the Sheikh of Dar-Aman. When we met, he was about to marry the woman of his dreams. He wanted the box as part of his wedding gift to her. It was one of many he’d accumulated over the years.’

‘Nonno,’ she murmured the Italian term she hadn’t used in a long time. ‘I’ll do all I can to get it back, but you have to bear in mind that this was a long time ago. The box may have been sold on.’ The last thing she wanted to do was disappoint her grandfather, but she had to prime him in case she hit a dead end.

Giovanni shook his head. ‘No. I tried to buy it back after the sheikh lost his wife. He refused to part with it. He swore that he would never give it up. I tried one more time a few years ago without success. But it’s still in the Dar-Aman palace.’

The conviction with which he said it made Allegra suspect her grandfather had been keeping a close eye on his precious box. Which made her wonder why he hadn’t made moves to reacquire it before now.

The Di Sione name alone could open the most hallowed doors, never mind the fortune that went with it.

‘Will you find it for me, my dear?’ The plea in his voice was hard to miss. And hard to take in that he’d yearned secretly for this box, which he’d let go in order to lay a foundation for his family.

‘Of course I will.’ Whether it was a long shot or not, Allegra intended to do her utmost to locate the box. ‘How did you come about it in the first place?’

Her grandfather coughed, the rough sound echoing around the sun-drenched terrace. Then he began to wheeze. Panicked, Allegra jumped to her feet. ‘Grandfather?’

Giovanni pointed feebly at the oxygen canister. She reached for it and settled the mask over his face just as an orderly rushed through the French doors.

Matteo had mentioned that the doctors had agreed for Giovanni to come home only if he arranged to have private medical care on-site. Nevertheless, the appearance of the nurse hammered home the severity of her grandfather’s condition. And the fact that things would only get worse.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Di Sione. He needs to rest now.’

Allegra watched the rapid rise and fall of her grandfather’s chest with stinging eyes. ‘Grandfather...’

He reached up and pulled down the mask, much to the disapproval of the nurse. ‘It’s okay. These bouts are short and much worse than they look. There’s life in this old dog yet.’ The brief twinkle in his eye triggered her smile, but the fear gripping her heart remained. When he reached for her hand again, she stepped closer.

‘Bring me back the box, Allegra mia. It needs to come home.’

Nodding, she leaned down and kissed his pale cheek. ‘I’ll find it. I promise. Rest now, please.’

His grip tightened on hers for a brief moment before he let go.

Allegra walked away with a head full of questions and a heart filled with tears. Plucking her phone from her dress pocket, she dialled Matteo’s number, then exhaled in frustration when it went straight to voicemail. She contemplated contacting the rest of her siblings, but discarded the thought. Besides Matteo and Bianca, she hadn’t spoken to the rest of her brothers or sisters for a couple of weeks. They all knew about their grandfather’s illness, and would make time to see Giovanni when they could, but they led busy lives. She couldn’t burden them with the sadness weighing her down.

Besides, she needed to get on with keeping her promise to her grandfather. A promise she intended to keep, come what may.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ALLEGRA, IT’S TEN O’CLOCK.’

Allegra highlighted another section of the document she was reading with her marker pen, then glanced up.

‘What?’ she enquired absently, her mind still tackling how best to encourage the powers that be in the tiny Asia Pacific country to ratify a few more women’s rights laws. As she’d found with countries great and small, diplomacy went a long way, but never far enough. She made a mental note to speak to her brother Alessandro about directing a few business deals to the country to grease her efforts. Allegra had learned the hard way that the lines of communication opened up wider with a promise of tangible reward. She’d fought too hard to win further rights for women in the country to let anything stand in the way at the last hurdle.

‘Sheikh Rahim Al-Hadi’s personal secretary agreed to grant you a fifteen-minute window, remember?’ Her assistant, Zara, glanced at her watch and smiled. ‘You now have fourteen minutes.’

Allegra dropped the marker pen with a grimace.

Wondering what sort of man she would be dealing with after her visit with her grandfather, Allegra had spent a quick half hour researching the Kingdom of Dar-Aman and its current ruling sheikh. Her initial discoveries had been appalling and an affront to everything she stood for as a champion of women’s rights.

But she had a task to perform. A promise to keep.

Her fingers flew over the numbers and she breathed out as the line connected. ‘Allegra Di Sione for Sheikh Al-Hadi, please,’ she said calmly, trying and failing to erase the images of the sheikh’s very vivid and very public playboy lifestyle, the pictures of gold-threaded sheets, diamond-studded mirrors and treasures in every room in the royal palace that were superimposed on her mind.

That those exploits and excesses were enjoyed at the cost of his kingdom’s subjects made her hand tighten on the phone as she was put on hold.

Sultry Arab music filled the brief silence, the sounds so surprisingly beautiful and poignant Allegra’s breath caught. She relaxed against her high-backed leather chair, a reluctant smile curving her lips as the hypnotic music washed over her, momentarily eclipsing every worry blotting her horizon.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift, back to a time when romance books had been her secret pleasure, her selfish escape. In a flash she was transported to hot Arabian desert nights and tall figures in flowing white robes. To whispered promises in the dark and soulful brown eyes that promised forever.

‘Hello?’

Allegra jerked upright, chagrined that she’d missed the first prompt.

‘Um... Sheikh Al-Hadi, thank you for taking my call.’

‘You can thank me by stating the purpose of this call, and giving it the proper attention it deserves,’ he replied, the pitch of the deep, masculine voice powering down her spine.

His intonation, the way his voice caressed the vowels of the words he spoke, threw Allegra for a moment. A moment too long, if the harsh exhalation at the end of the line was anything to go by.

She hurried to speak. ‘My name is Allegra Di Sione...’

‘I’m very much aware of who you are. What I’m still waiting to find out is why you wished to speak to me.’

She bit her tongue against an acerbic response. As the head of her family’s charity, she’d been well practiced in diplomacy, even when she least felt it.

Allegra reminded herself why she was doing this, and regrouped. ‘I have a matter to discuss with you—one of the utmost importance—which I’d prefer not to do over the phone.’

‘Since you and I have never met before, I assume this matter you wish to discuss concerns your Di Sione Foundation?’

Allegra frowned, a little aghast by her body’s unwanted but deeply decadent reaction to his voice.

The notion that the answer she gave would determine the course of this conversation made her hesitate. The matter she wished to discuss was intensely personal. She had no intention of failing her task. But neither did she want her access blocked before she’d even started her quest to regain the treasured box for her grandfather by admitting that her visit would be personal. For one thing, with the previous sheikh dead, she wasn’t even sure Sheikh Rahim Al-Hadi was still in possession of the box Giovanni spoke so fondly of.

She framed her words carefully. ‘I’ll be visiting you in my capacity as the head of my family’s foundation, yes,’ she prevaricated, fighting the urge to cross her fingers.

She didn’t believe in luck. Or fate. Or destiny. Or she would be unbearably heartbroken that the cosmos had seen it fit to orphan seven small children, then given the only loving substitute parent she’d known a life-threatening condition.

Life was what it was.

She’d long ago accepted the fleeting happiness along with the abiding pain that came with being a Di Sione. Once she reached Dar-Aman, she would explain the true purpose of her visit.

If she got there.

‘I’m leaving the capital on Thursday morning. Perhaps you can arrange to see me when I return in a month’s time.’

‘What? No. I need to see you before you go away.’ Presumably to Europe or the Caribbean. After all, he was rumoured to keep homes in Monaco, St-Tropez and the Maldives. When her response was met with even more silence, she continued. ‘Our business won’t take more than a few hours, half a day at the most.’

‘Very well. My private jet is currently hangared at Teterboro Airport. It’s returning in two days. I’ll have my people arrange for you to be on it.’

Allegra’s mouth twisted. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’m perfectly okay with taking a commercial flight.’ She couldn’t quite keep the censure from her tone.

‘Shall I make my own inference from your tone or do you wish to tell me why the offer of my jet offends you?’ he rasped icily.

‘There’s the very small matter of concern about my carbon footprint.’ It was a position she felt strongly about, even though it earned her ridicule from her brothers, who made use of private jets when they pleased.

‘Very well. I’ll leave you to discover for yourself the many connecting flights you’ll need to take to reach Dar-Aman from New York. You might also want to bear in mind that the half a day window might be reduced to mere minutes if you arrive late. If you change your mind about my offer, let my secretary know. Your time is up and I have other pressing matters to attend to. Goodbye, Miss Di Sione.’

‘Wait!’

‘Yes?’

She clicked on her diary and scrutinised it quickly. The earliest she could get to the Kingdom of Dar-Aman were she to leave tonight—which was impossible because she had a dinner appointment with a UN ambassador—would be the early hours of Thursday morning after three flight changes. She would be in no state to have a coherent conversation with the sheikh, never mind attempt to make him a fair offer for the Fabergé box. Her grandfather’s request was too important to arrive in Dar-Aman tired and ill-prepared.

‘I... I accept your offer.’

‘Good choice, Miss Di Sione. I look forward to welcoming you to Dar-Aman.’

* * *

Sheikh Rahim Al-Hadi perused the in-depth report his aide, Harun, had put together for him. After a second read, he closed the file and sat back from the large, polished antique desk hewn from one of the oak trees said to have been planted by the first man to have set foot on Dar-Aman. That man had been his direct ancestor, the first Sheikh Al-Hadi.

The responsibility ingrained into that desk wasn’t lost on Rahim. Each time he sat down he felt its oppressive weight. Each time he made a decision that drew a frown, or a protest from a council mired in the old ways, the weight of that frustrating responsibility pressed down harder on him.

He smiled wryly.

There had been a time when he’d gladly have tossed the desk onto the pyre and gleefully watched it burn in an all-night bonfire. Preferably surrounded by three dozen sycophants and an endless supply of willing females.

Unfolding his arms, he touched the left side of his chin, where a remnant of his old ways resided in the form of a scar earned while abseiling down a sheer cliff face on a stupid dare.

That adrenaline-fuelled, life-endangering roller-coaster living had come to an abrupt end with the death of his father six months ago.

Then he’d been forced to return home. Forced to face the path his life had taken...

Cutting that mental road trip short, he pressed the intercom.

‘Harun, have the state guest rooms in the east wing prepared. And delay my trip for another three days.’

‘But... Your Highness...are you sure?’ the middle-aged man enquired.

Rahim suppressed a sigh. He was sick to the back teeth of his chief aide’s second-guessing. If the man weren’t a veritable mine of information on everything to do with Dar-Aman, Rahim would’ve fired him a long time ago.

Rahim hadn’t needed palace spies to tell him that Harun didn’t want him in Dar-Aman. Had the decision been left to Harun alone when the council had presented Rahim with the ‘Rule or Abdicate’ choice, Harun would’ve preferred Rahim abdicate, so Harun’s own son, Rahim’s distant cousin, could take the throne.

But despite being presented with a decision he hadn’t been expecting until he was well into his fourth or fifth decade, Rahim had known he had only one choice. Dar-Aman was his home. His ancestors had fought and sacrificed to keep this their home. Rahim wasn’t about to turn his back on it because of hurt feelings or the sentimentality of youth. If anything, his eyes had been opened to the fact that love and fairy tales existed in the minds of the weak and foolish.

He’d thrived without those ephemeral emotions and there was certainly no room for that in the future of Dar-Aman. Just as there was no room to cater to Harun’s sense of entitlement. But for now, Rahim needed him. Because until he wrought the changes he desperately needed to bring to his kingdom, his hands were tied. In so many ways that he’d lost count. And with each knot he unravelled, it seemed several more sprang up elsewhere.

‘I also want a banquet held on Friday night. Make sure all the necessary dignitaries and ministers and their wives are invited,’ he added.

‘Of course, it will be done as you wish’ came the reluctant reply. ‘Do you require anything else, Your Highness?’

‘If I do, I will let you know.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.

He disconnected, and strode back to the window. The view that greeted him was the same. Verdant grass rolled for almost a quarter mile from the grounds of the royal palace, interspersed in several places by shining mosaic fountains, majestic in stature and elaborately pleasing in their water displays. Much like everywhere in the royal palace, each facet of the landscape had been created with pleasure in mind. Everything his father had done had been first and foremost to please the wife he’d loved above everything and everyone else. Therefore his late father had spared no expense in providing the palace to rival the most magical and luxurious fairy tales, in order to please his mother.