The Consequence She Cannot Deny by Bella Frances

Author:Bella Frances
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

RAFFAELE STOOD IN the boardroom of this tiny but very precious jewel in his publishing crown and waited. It was almost eleven o’clock. Almost time for this gnawing mystery to reach its conclusion. Either she was Giancarlo’s daughter or she wasn’t. Either she was going to sue for her share of the estate or she wasn’t. But, no matter what, he was taking the fight to her. He was tired of waiting for her to make a move. Because if he was sure of anything in this world it was the fact that he hadn’t heard the last of Coral Dahl.

He poured another coffee and walked over to the glass walls. He’d had a busy, productive morning with the senior staff, talking about his plans for the business, reassuring them that there would be very few changes to the old titles, that his buy-out was not a wipe-out. All he wanted was to preserve what had brought him to the company in the first place: the weekly comic he’d read as a boy—the one constant in his life, devoured in secret while his world fell apart around him.

He sipped the coffee and looked down on the floor below. Cold November light flooded in through the stained glass onto the staff, scattering coloured light like confetti on the desks below.

At the back of what had once been the altar, above two empty sofas, hung huge illustrations from that comic—the ten-year-old super-sleuth Stefano and Petra, his faithful German Shepherd—pictures that he could draw himself from memory. Just staring at the inked lines took him all the way back to those hours under his bed, with his books and his comics, hidden away from a world he didn’t understand, craving comfort in all that pain.

If even one boy got the same comfort he’d got, it would be worth it. Not everything in life was about making money. Eight-year-old orphans didn’t care about that. All they wanted was to feel again the love, the warm body, the safety that had been ripped from their life. And when that wasn’t there they’d look for it in other things—in dogs, books and in weekly comics that would transport them to other worlds.

That was why it meant so much to him that MacIver Press should be kept alive. The staff here understood. Fiercely loyal to the old characters and their art, they were more than happy to keep it going. But their business couldn’t survive on the comic alone. He’d told them the price was a new celebrity weekly. None of the current staff had any experience or interest in this market, but they understood that it would balance the books. No one would lose their jobs and the brand would be intact.

All he needed was some competent staff to launch the new publication.

And, right on time, here came the woman who thought she might be one of them.

He stared down as she followed the receptionist through what had been the nave of the church to the rear offices.

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