Opposites Do Most Certainly Attract!

More Serious Than I Had Thought...

"Your excellency, the lines we were using previously have been changed. All calls are now being forwarded to a different line, in Manhattan." the duke's personal assistant reported with a look of pure desperation on her face, almost fainting when he slowly raised an eyebrow in displeasure and a bid for her to continue. "And, and, it's not being answered, your excellency... We've been trying since Wednesday..."

Dante Marcellus Valenti, eighteenth duke of Monte Isola, CEO and head of the renowned Valenti Bank and group of companies, and multi billionaire, raised his head at the last statement, "Since Wednesday and I'm finding out now?" he asked with such a deep, rich and cultured baritone, pushing his paperwork away from him and sitting back to hear his personal assistant's explanation. Nobody ever wanted to do that - offer an explanation to the boss. It was such a nerve-wracking experience.

Faced with such a domineeringly tall, filthy rich, strikingly handsome and powerful man, Rosita didn't know what to start with in her explanation. She had been at Valenti Inc. for only a week and she was certain she'd never get used to her boss. Why did she think she could do this again?

"Sir, we believed whoever was supposed to pick was busy and we gave it some time..." she offered with reproach.

"To whom does this line belong?" he asked softly, dropping his pen and fully concentrating on his personal assistant. He would make sure whoever it was and the Whichams would be fully compensated if need be - that house belonged to his family and they knew it!

" A Scarlett Kane, your excellency - a formidable lawyer in Manhattan... " the assistant answered while twisting her fingers with nerves.

Dante couldn't believe this. They already had a lawyer on things?! The entire time he was thinking of meeting with them and talking, they were hiring a lawyer! Bad move. Bad bad move. "Get me, Marcus Lombardi immediately." he instructed as he went back to his papers and continued as if nothing had happened. Because he never let things get to him. Not even those really irritating foreigners! So they thought by not picking his calls and hiring a lawyer the problem would go away! Not happening. Come rain -

Ring ring!

Dante looked at his desk phone in even more irritation, "What is it?"

"Sir, Señora Carmella Giorgio is here to see you - " the agitated voice said over the phone.

"You didn't tell her I wasn't in?!" he asked with deep annoyance in his voice, turning the sheet of paper he was reading over and frowning at the figures he was seeing. What kind of man hid from his fiancé so early in a future marriage, he asked himself. No answer.

"Sir, she somehow already knew you were in, I'm so sorry -"

"Send her in." he answered and cut the line. What did Carmella want at 9am in the morning?! Everybody he knew was working at the moment and the last thing he needed was the distraction of his fiancé! She was starting to get on his nerves with her frequent and unexpected visits! He still had to deal with the Whichams and their lawyer - Scarlett Kane! Scarlett! What a name! Most women he -

"Caro! Darling! What a pleasant surprise to be able to catch you at this time!" squealed a short, curvaceous pixie like woman who resembled a Botticelli angel with her blonde hair in a sharp and edgy bob. She smelled of eerily expensive perfume, had on a purple haute couture dress that she filled out perfectly and screamed high fashion, and high heels so tall she had at least, two more inches to her.

For his thirty two years, Dante Marcellus Valenti had never met a woman who didn't try too hard in his presence. And no, he wasn't going to pretend he didn't know why. It was the fatalistic combination of his looks, money and power - power being the first on that list.
He wasn't going to pretend he didn't know women went crazy over his 6'4ft frame of hard toned muscle, wide shoulders and a chest that spoke of his physical strength and days at the gym.
His face had been on several occasions called beautiful - which annoyed him immensely because in no way did he want to be thought of in such a feminine way!
But then, his thick dark chocolate hair that sprang to one side of his forehead and down his neck, his ever-brooding deep blue eyes surrounded by those ridiculously long and thick eyelashes, that aristocratic Roman nose that told tales of his ancestry, a mouth that belied his brooding demeanour because it screamed 'sexy' and those Greek god cheekbones that belonged on the cover of a glamorous magazine, all said one thing - beautiful! It was once reported somewhere that when he smiled, which was a next to nonexistent occurrence, it was very possible for those looking at that smile to suffer heart attacks. In short, he was perfect.

" I don't understand, Carmella. You know I'm working at this time." he said, not looking at her but still, at his sheets of paper.

Carmella sashayed to the side of his humongous desk, big and strong looking like himself, "Yes, darling but, I knew I'd not catch you any later so I decided to come at this time and surprise you! And I can see you're surprised!" she smiled and leant a hand on his desk while looking at him.

Dante looked at his future wife and for the hundredth time wondered why he'd allowed himself to make it permanent with her. Carmella was beautiful, yes, educated from the best schools in Europe and born from a wealthy family and the best socialite any husband or fiancé could ask for. That was it though from Carmella, and Dante wasn't complaining but, she was starting to get on his nerves with her deliberate maneuvers to get more than he could give her.

"Carmella, am I to believe you couldn't wait to see me at the time you can see me? And, when did we start intruding on each other's working time?" he asked, putting his papers down, sitting back in his 'ruler of all' chair and popping a few buttons on his jacket open. He had no idea how sexy that action alone was, if only he wasn't so serious, Carmella thought. And no, she hadn't forgotten he didn't like displays of affection or gestures like the one she'd made, it's just, she wanted to be more to him than just a slot in his very busy schedule. She wasn't stupid, she knew he'd looked upon her with favour and decided to marry her because it seemed like the right thing to do. If only he wasn't such a robot! Outside the bedroom of course. Never there...

"Dante, you're my fiancé and I haven't seen you for three weeks because you always have all these commitments - " she argued with a frown he'd come to dislike because whenever he saw it, it dawned more that he'd made a mistake to ask her to marry him - she'd always bore way too many expectations from a relationship with him. She clearly fancied herself in love with him - bad bad news.
It was his fault, he'd not made it clear enough he didn't want or expect love from her, emotional entanglement was so distasteful to him it made him shudder. And now, she was disrupting a carefully planned out day with romantic notions of 'not seeing each other enough'.

Dante leaned back even more in his chair and stared at the woman who'd soon have his last name "Carmella, I've come to realize I haven't been clear about certain things -" he'd hardly started when the phone rang interrupting him. What was it with him being interrupted that day?! He pushed the answer button with irritation, "What is it?"

"Sir," the voice said hesitantly because it probably knew he hated such interruptions, though not for the reasons she thought. "Sir, Ms. Kane is on the line... "

Dante's entire focus went to the phone as if the 'formidable lawyer' herself had materialized right before him. He hadn't even contacted Marcus Lombardi yet -

"Ask her to hold, give me a minute." he instructed as he looked at Carmella with a significant look which she clearly understood, it was time for him to get back to work. "Can we continue this later, dinner?" he asked but she could tell he was already thinking about the call he'd just received and not her.
Well, it didn't matter, she was the one marrying him and no other woman, Carmella convinced herself as she smiled, walked over to offer him a kiss which he wasn't even aware he was receiving and walked out of his office.

The moment she was out, he pressed a button to put Ms. Kane through, or was it Scarlett... Red, Dante thought. A bright, sinful red -

"Good morning, Mr. Valenti. It's Scarlett Kane about the house in Cheshire county, we need to talk." Dante for all his focus and concentration, had stopped listening at 'Good morning'. This sexy voiced woman was the lawyer in charge of his inheritance?! That made a lot of sense - the name Scarlett suited her! Her breathy, husky but brief voice was very misleading and Dante had almost thought she was calling about something more-

"Mr. Valenti? Hello? Mr - " she was about to call out again when he interrupted her with a terse, "I can hear you." he couldn't believe he'd been caught getting hard over a woman's voice, a woman whom he'd never even seen!

"Can you? Because I get the sense you're not listening to me - " the lawyer said with such irritation Dante felt it all the way through the phone. Why were Americans so impatient? Obviously, she didn't know to whom she was talking. Not yet, anyway.

"You make it very hard not to be listened to -you got straight to the point. So, may I know why the Whichams got a lawyer to contact me?" he asked in a forbidding tone that spoke of his own irritation and disguised his little hitch back there with her voice. "Are they afraid of something?"

The image is a picture of Dante's office.