Italian Marriage: In Name Only Read Free Page A

quickly as possible.’ His voice was curt.
    ‘Yes…yes, of course.’ Pulling herself together she hurried across to place his order with the kitchen.
    It was quite a relief being within the warm busy hustle of the kitchen.
    ‘Everything all ready for your meeting with the bank, Victoria?’ Berni, the head chef, asked her as he put two plates down on the counter top, ready for one of the waitresses to collect.
    ‘Yes, all the paperwork is in order.’
    He nodded. ‘You’ve been running a highly successful business here for the past few years. They can’t say that you don’t know what you are doing.’
    ‘No, they can’t say that.’ Victoria smiled. When Berni had first come to work for her a year and a half ago he’d treated her with a kind of wary disdain. Then one day a few members of staff hadn’t turned in and she’d rolled up her sleeves and worked alongside him. Since then they’d rubbed along togethervery well. And telling her she knew what she was doing was indeed an accolade coming from the temperamental chef.
    ‘I’m sure it will all be fine,’ he said blithely now.
    The words made the tension that had been escalating inside her all morning twist. She didn’t want to tell Berni that she wasn’t quite as optimistic as him. His wife had just had a baby and he needed this job—but then so did all the other members of her staff. Not that the bank would care a damn about that. Neither would they care that she was a single mother of a two-year-old little boy and that she would be practically destitute if the business went under. All she was to the bank was a number on a sheet of paper.
    Berni was right, her business had been very successful, and the bank had got more than their pound of flesh out of her in bank charges and interest over the years. But all they would look at now was the fact that her takings were down and her expenditure was significantly up, thanks to her new landlord—Lancier. So she had a horrible feeling that her visit to the bank today wasn’t going to be pleasant. And given the present economic climate the odds were against them extending her loan.
    Which meant she either sold up to Lancier or went bankrupt.
    The very thought made her feel sick. She’d rather have sold to a flesh-eating monster than to the company who had deliberately tried to squeeze her out. But if the bank said no, then Lancier’s offer was her only alternative.
    Unless .
    She moved back to the kitchen door and glanced out of the round porthole window towards Antonio Cavelli’s table.
    He could be her salvation.
    She’d devised a whole new business plan around the fact that the Cavelli hotel was opening up next to her. The simple fact was that her premises would be an ideal access point for his hotel. She got a lot of passing trade on the busy main road, whilst his hotel was set back in secluded gardens. She’d beentrying to get in touch with Antonio Cavelli for the past three months to tell him this and to run a few ideas by him—ideas that would give his customers a side access to his hotel, in return for her still being able to operate her business under the umbrella of his. They wouldn’t even need to make any structural changes; there was already a connecting small patio garden off the back of her restaurant. They could just open the doors and walk through.
    She’d emailed both him and the chairman of the company, Luc Cavelli, practically every week. Had even sent spreadsheets and business projection figures. But to no avail—they hadn’t replied to one of her emails.
    But now here he was, sitting in her restaurant about to have lunch.
    Maybe it was fate. Or maybe he’d read her ideas and liked them. After all, he had enquired about the owner of the restaurant— he had known her name.
    ‘Berni, take special care with the order for table thirty-three, will you?’ she murmured absently as she moved to get a jug of ice water. Berni glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow.
    ‘I take