CHAPTER ONE
AVA CASSEVETI STUDIED her reflection in the mirror and tried out her trademark smile. Fake it till you make it. It was a mantra that had always served her well, had got her through an outwardly gilded life, and one that she now relied on to manage the trials and tribulations that had multiplied on a daily basis since her father’s death.
Another look at herself and she reached out for her reddest lipstick, a fire-engine red, completely suited to the day ahead. With any luck people would be distracted from the tiredness in her eyes, the pallor of her skin that even her super-expensive, perfectly matched foundation couldn’t completely conceal.
But she would keep it together, present the façade, convince the world that she was in control, a competent businesswoman able to hold the family company together.
Family. The word boomed around her head, clanged with irony as the complications of her family tree threatened to tangle her mind.
Why did you do it, Dad?
She closed her eyes, pictured her father, the bluff good looks, the boyish cheek he had maintained even into his sixties, the youthfulness that had survived his first heart attack four years before. His presence, his aura, her belief in him, all shattered when she’d learnt the contents of his will, her grief at losing the man she adored darkened by the confusion and hurt over his betrayal, wrapped in the legalese of his last will and testament.
Because instead of leaving Dolci, the dessert company he had founded, to Ava—the company she had put her heart and soul into for the past five years—he had left it to Ava and her two half-siblings, Luca and Jodi. Remembered shock, disbelief and the ice-cold stab of betrayal hit her again.
Luca and Jodi Petrovelli, children from his previous marriage, from his past, who had never been part of the Dolci venture. Children who hadn’t even kept the Casseveti surname, instead had taken their mother’s. Luca and Jodi, adults now, whom Ava had never even met. Though she had known of their existence, the shadowy threat of her childhood nightmares. Little surprise really—even now she could hear her mother’s dire warnings.
‘We have to be careful, Ava darling. Always. Those people would do anything to get Daddy back. And we won’t let that happen, will we, sweetheart?’
Three-year-old Ava had shaken her head vigorously, her mouth dry with fear as she’d imagined Luca and Jodi kidnapping her father.
‘So we’ll be perfect, darling. A perfect family for Daddy. We have to be perfect.’
And Ava had watched Karen Casseveti reach for her make-up.
So that had become Ava’s mission: achieve perfection to ensure a perfect family so the perfidious Petrovellis wouldn’t take her father away. Her understanding was hazy but absolute as she grew into an implicit alliance with her mother—a joint determination that James Casseveti would stay with this family. Though there was always that doubt—after all, he had walked out on his previous wife and children, the precedent set. The doubts were worsened by the overheard conversations that permeated her consciousness as she grew older, the tears and recriminations from her mother.
‘You never loved me. You still love her. Would you have married me if I didn’t have money?’
Her father’s muted, soothing answers that eventually culminated in exasperation and finally into goaded admission.
‘I did love her and Luca—of course I did. They were my family. But now you’ve got me, we have a marriage, we have a daughter. Why can’t that be enough? This is our life.’
And Ava had come to realise that her father had loved his first wife, but had left her regardless, had decided that wealth and connections trumped family. She’d wondered if he ever regretted it, wondered if she and Karen were second best, if the riches and success could compensate.
So she’d redoubled her efforts. Ava always looked perfect, acted perfectly, danced to the tune her mother played. In truth there was no need for complaint. Her life had been one of privilege and she knew how lucky she was.
Yet there had been times when the constraints had stifled her individuality, whe
n she’d felt almost like a parody of her own creation—an impeccable mix of English aristocracy and Dolci heiress. She’d wanted a life where she could follow her own dreams, not those concocted for her, a life not governed by press and publicity and the need to be flawless.
Yet in the end, despite everything, Luca and Jodi had indeed been a threat to be feared; Ava had not been perfect enough and now her half-siblings once more threatened her peace. Two shadowy figures who refused to meet her, refused to communicate except through lawyers.
Ava pulled open a drawer on her dressing table, took out the letter she had read and reread so many times in the past months. The letter of explanation her father had left her.
Dear Ava
I know you must be hurt and angry, and I hope this letter will mitigate that in some way. Please believe that I love you. You have been the most precious thing in my life these past years. You showed me, proved to me, that I am capable of being a good father. You have done nothing wrong.
You did nothing wrong, Ava, but I did. I left behind another family, a wife I loved, a son I loved. Luca was five when I left and my wife Therese was pregnant with a daughter I have never met, Jodi.
However much I try to justify my decisions now, towards the end of my life, I know that they were wrong. I left my life with them to live a life of wealth and plenty, to achieve the success I craved. But Luca and Jodi are my family, my children, and as such they deserve a part in this family company. They should have been given that opportunity a long time ago.
I hope you can accept this and forgive me.
Ava placed the letter down and resisted the urge to rub her eyes, knew tears would simply necessitate a touch-up of the carefully applied eye shadow, the mascara that enhanced her already long eyelashes.
Her gaze flicked to her father’s familiar scrawl and she sighed—talk of acceptance and forgiveness was all very well but that wasn’t how real life was panning out. For a start Karen Casseveti had no intention of doing either. Her whole life was focused now on revenge for her husband’s betrayal. All she wanted to do was overturn the will and oust the Petrovellis. Ava’s refusal to do that had caused a rift between them. Karen could not comprehend her daughter’s ‘defiance’. Guilt touched Ava—she understood how her mother felt but knew that legally they didn’t stand a chance. Knew that morally it wasn’t the right thing to do. Yet she hated seeing her mother’s bitterness and grief, even as she understood it. All through her marriage Karen had known that her husband still loved his first wife, but she’d concealed the knowledge, spun it into a sugar-coated illusion. In death James had torn that down, ripped away the gossamer strands to reveal the stark ugly truth.
As for Luca—who owned his own incredibly successful chocolate company—he seemed set on demonstrating just how little Dolci meant to him. He was refusing to engage, claimed that his sister was unsure of how to proceed and until she made up her mind, he would do nothing. In the meantime that left Dolci floundering in a mire of uncertainty, the Casseveti ‘family’ brand indelibly tainted, negative publicity and salacious gossip everywhere Ava looked, along with the damning verdict of the business world: that Ava Casseveti didn’t have what it took. She was an ex-model, given a role in the company due to nepotism not ability. Otherwise why would her father have left the company to children he didn’t even know?
Her perfectly manicured and painted nails curled into her palms as determination to prove everyone wrong clashed with the cascade of self-doubt. After all, it was a valid point—whatever he claimed in his letter her father wouldn’t have left two thirds of Dolci to his other children if he truly believed in Ava.
But this morning wasn’t about that.
Today was about the next part of her father’s letter.
There is another wrong I did, Ava. One I haven’t had the courage to rectify myself and so I ask you to do it for me.
Many years ago, when I was still with Therese, I had a friend and colleague named Terry Rourke, and it was he and I who came up with the idea of Dolci. It was a pipe dream, discussed over a pint of beer or a Sunday barbecue. I had no legal obligation to bring him in on it but I did have a moral one.
I believe Terry has passed away, but he leaves behind a son—please do something for him in my name.
Thank you, Ava. I ask you to show understanding to your siblings and support to your mother.