Bought With The Italian's Ring
Tara Pammi
His life-long legacy is at riskBuying a bride could save it…CEO Raphael Mastrantino has absolute power—until a shock heir to his billion-dollar empire emerges! He initiates a calculated seduction to rob Pia Vito of her inheritance, and inescapable hunger soon engulfs them. But Pia’s innocence unravels his plans to acquire her. Now, to make her his, Rafael must give her more than a diamond ring!
His lifelong legacy is at risk
Buying a bride could save it...
CEO Raphael Mastrantino has absolute power—until a shock heir to his billion-dollar empire emerges! He initiates a calculated seduction to rob Pia Vito of her inheritance, and inescapable hunger soon engulfs them. But Pia’s innocence unravels his plans to acquire her. Now, to make her his, Raphael must give her more than a diamond ring!
TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!
Also by Tara Pammi
The Sheikh’s Pregnant Prisoner
Married for the Sheikh’s Duty
The Legendary Conti Brothers miniseries
The Surprise Conti Child
The Unwanted Conti Bride
The Drakon Royals miniseries
Crowned for the Drakon Legacy
The Drakon Baby Bargain
His Drakon Runaway Bride
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Bought with the Italian’s Ring
Tara Pammi
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07173-4
BOUGHT WITH THE ITALIAN’S RING
© 2018 Tara Pammi
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#uc2537d26-fa66-5166-ab2e-855afccf8aee)
Back Cover Text (#ubf1417dc-ed71-5f77-94a8-1967158ada9b)
About the Author (#u45c405f3-4d19-5b55-af3c-d433b0830841)
Booklist (#ua569b136-1cb9-583b-ab67-6f00744c7700)
Title Page (#u1f7989f1-a5a9-52e4-8b38-baa841ff49c9)
Copyright (#u2f900ea1-9852-517e-a0f8-6d6289c8b04c)
CHAPTER ONE (#udf5801dd-0c24-511f-b239-1581217ee196)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0f33e324-fff7-50e7-b394-3d847ac1525a)
CHAPTER THREE (#u0c668a0f-8275-5155-ac9a-f886fdc7b290)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue66e8ab9-e069-554a-9b00-e8ccf3371761)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucb8867c1-7b3b-5df9-b46d-1c2fd03eca3c)
HER SKIN PRICKLED. Her body, even though overheated from two hours of dancing, suddenly tingled.
Pia Vito could almost pinpoint the moment the piercing awareness claimed her, the moment a sudden chill replaced the warm breeze coming in through the wide doors of the vast ballroom on her grandfather’s estate.
It was the moment he walked in.
Raphael Mastrantino.
Her grandfather Giovanni’s godson and protégé.
CEO of Vito Automobiles.
The man Milanese society seems to be in awe of.
The women around her went into a quiet frenzy, sending longing looks his way, detailing his finer points to each other.
From the moment she had discovered her long-lost grandfather Gio, and he had accepted her as his granddaughter at the beginning of the summer, all Pia had heard from him was stories about Raphael Mastrantino.
And her drama-prone grandfather hadn’t exaggerated for once.
No other man could have prowled inside the ballroom with such arrogant confidence, as if he owned the estate and all the people in it.
No other man would look that striking in a plain white shirt while making the rest of the tuxedo-clad men look overdressed.
No other man could have commanded the attention of an entire ballroom by his mere presence.
Piercing eyes met hers across the ballroom, held hers, as if determined to see through to her soul.
It was as if an electric arc had built up between them—the very concept she’d been explaining to her fifth grade students back home.
No adjective she knew could describe the sheer masculinity of him. Broad shoulders tapered to a lean waist, long legs. The ruthless planes of his face, the stark angles were those one only saw in sculptures.
It took every ounce of energy she possessed to keep her smile in place.
Not even a facsimile of a greeting appeared in his hard face. With his cynical and appraising expression, even from a distance Pia felt his derision to the tips of her toes.
Any warmth she’d felt amidst the dancing crowd dissipated as realization struck.
Her grandfather’s godson didn’t approve of her? Why?
Which was why she had felt his gaze on her back like a concentrated laser beam.
Ignoring his presence—which was like the earth trying to ignore the sun—her movements awkward and stilted, she adjusted her path exiting the dance floor and kept moving, head down.
She ran straight into something so solidly male her breath jumped into her throat. Cursing herself, she looked up. And was caught in the darkest eyes she had ever seen, draped by the lushest lashes no mascara could ever reproduce.
When had he moved so close?
His fingers had landed on the patch of bare skin that her dress and gloves left on her arms. The pads of his fingers pressed into her flesh, not quite hard but not gently either. As if he knew of her intention to escape him.
The scent of him, warmed by his skin, drifted up toward her nostrils and she breathed in deeply. A furious flush began to work its way from her chest to her neck and upward at his continued scrutiny.
She had never been comfortable with men, had no idea of that subtle, sophisticated flirting language all her fellow teachers, at least the young ones, seemed to know. Even with Frank, it had taken her two months to put a sentence together.
But this felt as if she were naked, as if her worst fears—her loneliness after her grandmother’s death, her overwhelming need to belong somewhere, anywhere—as if it were all on display for his eyes.
“You are not running away from me, are you, cara mia?” came a taunt in the deep, silky voice that let loose butterflies in her stomach.
When she’d banged into him, she had braced herself with her hands and there they rested now. On him. His abdomen, to be precise. He was a granite wall under her hands. She fluttered her fingers over him, curious to see if there would be softness, if she could find more give...
The pressure of his fingers increased over her wrists, arresting her explorations. “Do you not speak then?” This time, he sounded coldly angry. “You communicate instead by touching men?”
Pia pulled back as if burned.
This was ridiculous. She managed twenty eleven-year-olds every day in the classroom! How dare he give voice to something so embarrassing, something she’d only done as a reaction to stress?
“My head hurts,” she somehow managed to say and it was partly true. “I’m not used to so much jewelry. The designer heels I’m wearing are killing my feet. Please excuse me.”
“How charmingly you lie, Ms. Vito.”
He delivered the insult in such a smooth voice that it took her a few seconds to realize it.
“Next, you will tell me you hate these kinds of parties and you were just putting on a good show for Gio’s sake. That the jewelry and dress and shoes—the ones that incidentally proclaim you as a walking fortune—are not really your thing.” He twisted the last two words into a mocking American twang. “That you didn’t really enjoy dancing with every man who asked you with that innocent invitation in your eyes. That this whole evening is an elaborate charade you’re suffering through like a good sacrificial lamb.”
That was exactly what she had been doing.
The dress, the shoes, the jewelry, even the complicated updo her hair was twisted into, none of it was her. But she had kept quiet.
Because she’d wanted Giovanni to be proud of her.
Because she’d wanted to be someone else, even for one night. Sophisticated and charming and polished—not a woman who fell for lies and found herself in crushing debt.
Yet this arrogant man made it sound as if the idea of Pia not wanting the attention, not liking being on display were impossible.
“You’ve already drawn your conclusions, Mr. Mastrantino.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Gio told me you’d be the most handsome, the most powerful and the most arrogant man I’ve ever met. He was right.” Heat climbed up her chest as he raised a brow.
She looked around the ballroom and every pair of eyes was trained on them. Locating her grandfather’s silver hair, she sent him a please-rescue-me look.
As if he hadn’t even seen her, Gio carried on his conversation.
A pulse of panic drummed through her. It was as if Mr. Mastrantino, Gio and even the guests were playing a game, but no one had told Pia the rules.
“Then you have the advantage, for he told me nothing about you. Until I saw the invitation, I didn’t even know you existed. A ball in honor of Pia Alessandra Vito.” He was a few inches taller than even her uncommon height and for the first time in her life, Pia felt dainty, even fragile. “Giovanni’s long-lost granddaughter, finally returned to the bosom of her loving family, his legacy displayed like a crowning jewel to society.”
Why was he so ticked off with her?
But his possessive touch stilled everything within her. Her breath hitched, and her insides seemed intent upon some kind of rearrangement. Like molecules under heat.
“The Cinderella story of the year,” he continued, a hardness in the curve of his sensual mouth. “I assume Gio has already also bought a prince for you to dance with before the stroke of midnight too, si?”
Bought a prince for her?
As if a man had to be paid to be with her! Pia could feel the color leaching from her face.
Raphael had no idea how deep his thoughtless comment dug into her. How much it hurt.
“Gio knows I don’t want a...” The words stilled as she tallied all the men that had been hounding her tonight.
Why had Gio invited so many young, eligible men? Why had each and every one of them made a beeline for her? True, she was the guest of honor, but still. There were other women at the ball.
A shiver curled around her spine.
“Non?” Raphael inflected it enough to tell her he didn’t believe her. “Why do you think all these men have been falling over themselves to dance with you? Your great beauty?” His gaze raked her, and then dismissed her. “Your charming conversation? Your magnetic presence?”
With each derogatory question out of his mouth, Pia knew he had it right. But she was damned if she would stand there another moment and let him mock her.
She turned and stumbled. A pained gasp fell from her mouth.
Strong arms wound around her waist from behind before her bottom kissed the black-and-white marble floor. His muscular forearms brushed the undersides of her breasts, pushing them up. A burst of heat filled her lower belly.
Pia clung to him, her breath in disarray. It was too much sensation, too raw.
Slowly, gently, as if she were a newborn calf, he turned her around. In a movement that was as fluid as it was economic, he knelt in front of her.
Her heart pounded.
A pin could have dropped in the ballroom and it would have been an explosion.
His trousers stretched tight over his thighs, his austere face raised to her, he cradled her foot in a tender clasp. A lock of his thick black hair fell forward on his forehead. Those dark eyes moved over her face, down her throat, where her pulse pounded violently, to the sight of the upper curves of her meager breasts plumped into fullness by the bodice.
A tightness emerged in his face.
Tilting his head down, he placed her right foot on his left thigh. The tips of her fingers rested on his shoulders and she felt the muscles there shift and clench.
With uncharacteristic malice, she hoped the pointed heel would bruise his rock-hard flesh.
His fingers unbuckled the small belt of her sandal with a nimble touch. He plucked the heel off her foot, and fingers wrapped around her bare flesh.
Pia flinched as pain and awareness mingled, spreading up from her ankle.
His nostrils flared, his mouth pinching into a stiff line. Long fingers rubbed the small ridge the strap had dug into her skin. Back and forth, softly, slowly, until a soft moan—a raw, unrestrained sound—fell from her mouth.
Holding her gaze, he touched her more boldly, more purposefully.
A strange, forbidden craving released in her lower belly, warmth pooling there. Her heart beat in rhythm to those fingers. When he moved one finger upward, almost reaching her knee, Pia jerked her foot back.
And then, because of the uneven balance, toppled onto him.
With a curse, he caught her. But he was still so tall that when she fell, his face was buried scandalously against her belly. The warmth of his breath against her soft muscles set off such a deep clench in her sex that Pia whimpered.
His hands on her waist, he gave her a gentle nudge. Her entire body was a shivering, needy pulse. Pia looked down at his hands. “Let me go.”
He shrugged those broad shoulders, an innocent look in his eyes. “You will fall if I let you go.”
This man was dangerous. What he so easily made her feel—this hitch of her breath, this nervous knot in her belly, the warmth unspooling in every muscle—every forbidden sensation was dangerous.
This time, instead of putting her foot on his thigh, she put her hand on his shoulder, balanced herself and shed her other sandal. Then she picked them up with her left hand, muttered a rushed thanks at his shoulder and straightened.
She moved no more than a couple of steps when he stood in front of her again. “It is not the stroke of midnight yet, so surely it is not time for you to disappear, is it?”
Pia faced him, still shuddering after that intimate slide against him. Hard and lean and unforgiving, his body had left an imprint on hers. “You’re no prince. More like the devil.”
A white smile flashed in his dark face.
Pia sighed. The man’s will was unbending. Her feet hurt, her head was throbbing, she really was tired. But of course, her grandfather’s godson had come to the ball with an agenda.
He turned her around with his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her to the center of the dance floor. One arrogant nod of his head and the orchestra began playing a classical waltz.
One large hand spanned her waist while the other clasped her fingers. Her body stretched tight and stiff to resist gliding against his. For a few minutes, they moved around the floor seamlessly, yet she couldn’t relax, couldn’t muster a single calm breath. His scent weaved around her. He was hard and lean everywhere she touched him.
“My ego would suffer if I didn’t already know that you are just as stiff and awkward with other men,” he whispered against her ear while his arm rested around her waist.
Pia found herself sinking into the depths of those black eyes. She was plain and awkward, yes, but no coward. “I’m sure I could hardly dent that humongous ego.”
His laughter, a deep, husky sound startled the life out of her.
Of course, graceful dancer that he was, he didn’t let his own steps falter.
Long fingers fluttered near the underside of her breast making Pia aware of every inch of her skin. “Tell me about yourself.” For all her supposed resistance, he had somehow pulled her closer. On a side step, her hip rubbed against his thigh. Pia shivered. “About your dreams and aspirations,” he continued, as if he felt nothing of the torture he put her through. As if he felt nothing period. “Maybe your favorite ice cream or your favorite Italian designer. Or what you’re planning to ask Gio to give you for your birthday present.”
“Birthday present?”
“You know, to make up for all the years he missed. A yacht? Are you fond of sailing? A condo in Venice?”
“I’ve no idea—”
Another turn around the hall, but this time with the sensation of his palm covering her upper back. She couldn’t take much more of this heightened awareness. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Quite an accomplishment for one so young.”
Her body was so aware of him that her mind couldn’t grapple with the intent in his words. “Please, stop. Just stop. I’m not...good at this.”
His thumb traced the veins over the back of her hand almost absently. “What is the this that you’re not good at?”
“Dealing with men like you. Playing ridiculous games. I’m not like other women you probably know. I’m nothing like the women I know.”
His gaze swept over the tiara in her hair, the diamonds at her throat. “I would say you’re doing just fine. From everything I see, you have Giovanni wrapped around your finger.”
“I don’t know how to decipher your words. I don’t understand why you’re determined to make a spectacle of me in this crowd. I don’t know why you’re—”
Her attraction to Gio’s godson was the last thing she needed. Especially when, clearly, he bore no goodwill toward her.
A finger under her chin, he tilted her face up to look at him. The stark beauty of him hit her hard again. “Why I’m what?”
“Why you’re even touching me like this... I don’t know why I’m reacting to you like this. Why my heart is beating so hard I feel like it might rip out of my chest. Why there’s this...” His eyes flared and Pia caught the words that were bent on pouring out of her mouth. “And why you’re so intent on proving that you affect me like that even as your eyes are full of contempt.”
His mouth lost that cynical curve; his eyes became searching, intent. It seemed she had finally shocked him.
His hold gentled and Pia slipped away. The marble floor was cold against her bare feet reminding her she had left her heels behind.
But she was no more Cinderella than Raphael Mastrantino was a prince.
* * *
Raphael ran a finger along his collar, his body humming with awareness, with unspent energy as if he were a randy youth.
His attraction to Pia—instant and all consuming—defied logic. She was not beautiful, not in the conventional sense, not sophisticated for all her dress and jewelry—and yet there was something irresistibly alluring about her.
Which woman among the society he lived in would so openly admit what she felt for him? And with that artless dismay that she was attracted to him?
No, first there were games, games that every woman played. Even his mother played them when Raphael refused to buy her the latest model of the Vito Viva. Either she cooked his favorite food every night or she shed phony tears over his father’s death—an entire episode meant to guilt him and remind him that he should be a good son who granted each and every one of her expensive wishes.
Even his four sisters played games, with Raphael, and with their boyfriends who had inevitably turned into husbands.
No one admitted in that raw, unsophisticated way what a man made her feel. No one moaned like that—as if she were sinking into a whirlpool of pleasure when a man touched her ankle. No woman that he knew stared at a man with those big, luminous eyes as if he was the answer to her every fantasy.
Coy looks, innuendoes laced with sexual tension, teases, throwing herself at other men to make him jealous—the list of things his ex-wife, Allegra, had tried on him a few years ago were innumerable.
I’m not good at playing games.
There had been a genuine quality to her distress, to her confusion. As if her body was betraying her and she didn’t know what to do.
Either she was truly naive—an anachronism with her faint blushes and her trembling mouth—or she knew just how to appeal to a man as jaded and cynical as he was. Perhaps she had decided that the right way to court his attention would be to cater to that traditional man in him, the Neanderthal that Allegra had called him so many times.
Was that it? Had she thought to counter his distrust by catering precisely to his tastes?
A chill ran down the length of his spine as he made his usual rounds through the mansion as he usually did when visiting.
He had no doubt about how much Gio would have talked about him over the last month. As his godson and his protégé, he was Giovanni’s pride and joy. Raphael had turned the small spare automobile parts company that Gio had handed him into Vito Automobiles, a leading manufacturing company.
Giovanni had been his lifeline when he’d been sinking as a seventeen-year-old. He’d been a light in a long, dark tunnel that Raphael’s weak father had plunged them all into.
Not that it stopped Giovanni from also being manipulative as hell. Throughout the evening, he had stood on the periphery of the crowd, watching, with a satisfied smile on his face. Like a puppeteer intensely delighted with the results of his string pulling.
Whatever the old man was up to, it would eventually fall to Raphael to clean it up. Just as he kept Giovanni’s hounding relatives at bay. Just as he ensured that the leftovers from Gio’s time on the board—men who would stab Raphael in the back before he could blink—didn’t leach away the gains he had made.
Just as he took care of the various and sundry branches of Mastrantino families without any expectations in return.
And yet, as he questioned one of the staff members about Pia, Raphael was suddenly aware that this was unlike any other responsibility he shouldered.
For no bickering ex-wife of Gio’s or grasping cousin of his mother had ever caused his blood to pound like this.
No woman had ever called to his baser instincts like this supposedly innocent granddaughter of his godfather.
CHAPTER TWO (#ucb8867c1-7b3b-5df9-b46d-1c2fd03eca3c)
COOL WATER SLUICED off her back and limbs as Pia swam lap after lap in the indoor pool on Gio’s estate as if the very devil were after her.
Raphael Mastrantino was very much the devil.
The man’s arrogance!
She worked off her fury in the water.
Of all the men to be attracted to.
She groaned and dunked her head in the water. He’d been so warm and solid around her. She could still feel the languorous weight of his hands on her waist. The length of his hard thigh rubbing against hers...
The only satisfaction left to her was that she’d surprised him even as he had mocked and taunted her.
She and Raphael Mastrantino lived in different orbits of life. He wouldn’t have even looked at her, much less danced with her, if she hadn’t been dressed up to the nines and if she wasn’t Gio’s granddaughter. What she didn’t understand though was why. Why had he pounced on her like that?
Her arms lagged on her strokes as her thoughts whirled. Just as she decided to get out of the pool, she saw Raphael standing at the edge.
The floodlights cast an outline along his broad frame.
His white shirt was unbuttoned to the middle of his chest giving a glimpse of ridges of tight muscle with sparse black hair. Her belly swooped. The raven’s wing of his hair had a distinctly rumpled look.
What would it take to shatter that arrogant cynicism, to bring a man like Raphael to his knees?
She shivered at the direction of her thoughts.
A bottle of Pinot Grigio and two wine flutes hung from his fingers. “I had to bribe one of the staff members for your location.”
“I don’t like you, Mr. Mastrantino.”
“I think you like me a little too much. Which is why you’re hiding.”
The gall of the man! Pia had never met a more annoying man in her life. “Just because my body thinks you’re a prime male specimen and is attracted to you—which, by the way, is based on millions of years of evolution and a chemical reaction that drives a woman to choose the strongest man as her mate—it doesn’t mean my mind agrees.”
His black eyes gleamed. The thin line of his lower lip curved with mocking amusement. “So you’ve dropped the act of trembling mouth and soft gasps then?”
He almost sounded disappointed. Pia sighed. “Distance helped me remember the hormones part of it. It’s when you’re close that I...” She shrugged, trying to go for casual, which her stutter totally ruined. “That I’m unable to handle my reaction.”
Just looking at the darkly sensual face stretched her skin tight over her body. And other parts. Parts that had never clenched and tightened with such wanton awareness.
“You should call me Raphael.”
“Not necessary.”
He placed the bottle and glasses on a table then settled on a lounger, propped his elbows on his knees and returned to his intense scrutiny of her. “Because you’ll run away every time I’m around?”
“I’ve been suitably and repeatedly impressed with what an important, powerful and wealthy man you are. You run a multinational automobile company in the city, apparently control and manage not only Gio’s finances but your mother’s family’ finances and your father’s and all the numerous cousins thereof.
I, on the other hand, mean to spend the summer getting to know Gio. I let him railroad me into this ball because it meant a lot to him. So the chance of you and me spending time in each other’s company is pretty low.”
“When the summer is over?” he shot back instantly, picking the one thing Pia didn’t want to discuss.
“This summer is just holiday. I wasn’t even sure if Gio would believe me. But I do have a life elsewhere.” A life without her grandmother, a life without any close friends. A life where no one really cared about her.
Which was why she’d been such an easy mark for Frank.
“Is Gio aware of your supposed intentions?”
“No, and they’re not supposed,” she said, losing her temper. Would nothing please the man?
The water lapped around her silently. “You’re staring,” she said softly.
“You look like a different woman.”
“I was terrified all evening that I’d spill something on that gorgeous, expensive gown. I have a habit of getting into worse messes than my students. I’m not used to wearing contacts. Now there is no war paint on my face. And my hair is back in its natural, uncontrollable state.” She pulled a coiled curl that was already dry.
He followed the action as if he was transfixed. “Your students?”
“I teach Science to fifth graders.”
Surprise dawned in his gaze. It tracked her wet face, lingering far too long than was proper over her mouth, and then the slope of her shoulders, visible over the water’s surface. A shiver snaked down her spine.
“An elementary teacher? I find I’m overwhelmed by curiosity about you. A rare occurrence.”
Pia stared, wishing she’d misheard him. But the world was quiet around them. Only a slight breeze and the whispers of the trees all around the pool. It wasn’t just curiosity that made his voice deepen, that made his mouth tighten.
“What do you have against me?”
Moonlight caressed the dark column of his throat, the smooth velvety skin pulled taut over a lean chest. He tilted his head down, a devilish twist to his mouth. “Other than the fact that you’re manipulating an old man’s misguided affection for you?”
His words shocked Pia so much that she dropped her hold on the tiles, sank in, and then came up sputtering water out of her nose and mouth.
He thought she was after Gio’s fortune?
He frowned at her chattering teeth. “Get out of there before you freeze.”
“No,” Pia said stubbornly, a rush of anger heating up her still muscles. “You leave.”
His hands went to the buttons on his shirt. Taut skin stretched over lean muscles appeared as he unbuttoned. “Either you come out or...”
Glaring at him, Pia walked up the steps.
The moment she was out, he wrapped the huge towel around her. Heart thundering in her chest, Pia pushed her wet hair off her face with trembling hands.
As if she were a child, he gave her a brisk rubdown, up and down her arms. Throat dry, Pia stared at his chest. Her cheeks burned when he repeated the movements over her chest, hips and back. Those large hands didn’t linger anywhere and yet warmth began to pool in her belly.
“You stayed too long in there.” His voice had gone husky, deep.
She shivered again.
“Sit,” he commanded, and Pia obediently sat on the lounger. He handed her a glass of wine and it was exactly what she wanted.
Silently, she took a sip.
For a few minutes, they sat like that, side by side on loungers, not talking. Not even looking at each other. But that awareness that had consumed her in the ballroom thickened the air around them. His touch, impersonal, still lingered.
Her attraction to him was natural.
He was the most strikingly handsome man she’d ever met.
She refused to be ashamed by it. But neither did she want to keep confronting it, to keep thinking that she was somehow less than him because she wasn’t sophisticated or beautiful or polished enough. She’d had enough of Frank manipulating her insecurities. “All I want is to spend the summer with my grandfather. I really don’t see why that should be any of your business,” she said softly.
“I am Giovanni’s friend. I am more friend than all of his useless, bickering, social climbing family put together. I would do anything to protect Giovanni and his interests. It is my business if you put one step wrong with him.”
“What have I done that offends you so much?”
“You seem to have no scruples about cheating an old man who has done nothing but welcome you into his life with open arms without even checking if you truly are who you claim to be.”
“So now I’m not only a gold digger of the worst kind but also an impostor?”
“All evidence points to it, si.”
Pia fisted her hands, the urge to strike that smug condescension from his face burning through her. “Gio’s lover, Lucia, was my nonna. She left him after they had a huge row and settled in the States. My parents died when I was three and she raised me.” She stood up, her pulse skittering all over. “I found Lucia’s letters to him after she died and called him. That’s the truth.”
“It’s also true that he’s given you thousands of dollars in the one month you’ve been here.”
If only the ground could open up and swallow her whole! Mortification filled her cheeks.
She couldn’t even be mad at Raphael, because from his point of view it looked like she was a grasping, greedy woman. But to be so cynical as to question her whole motive for visiting Italy...? “Gio wouldn’t have told you,” she mumbled half to herself.
“I keep an eye over Gio’s finances. His three ex-wives learned it was better to live with what he provides them than to take me on.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. “You’re making assumptions based on one transaction and out of context.”
“I assume based on facts and not feelings. I learned to do so a long time ago.”
The towel slipped from her shoulders so her hair was dripping onto her back. And the one-piece she wore was not the most convenient costume when wet. But Pia was determined to make him see. Even if it meant admitting the most humiliatingly painful episode of her life. Even if it meant giving voice to her foolishness. “Giovanni gave me that money to pay off...credit card debt.”
“So you did your research before you contacted him,” he said in a silky, almost bored voice.
Her grip far too tight on the stem of the wineglass Pia stared at him. “This is pointless if you won’t even give me a chance.
“You have to protect Giovanni, true, but one would think you’d at least give me a chance when his happiness is involved.” She wouldn’t beg him to believe her. Shaking with hurt and humiliation, she stood up.
He reached out and caught her wrist. A jolt of fiery sensation raced from her wrist to her breasts, to the spot between her thighs. Pia jerked her hand away, breath coming in hard and fast.
“Stay.” Tension radiated from him, confusing her. “I will listen, si? Whether I will believe...”
She sat down and looked at her hands. Words came and fell away again. Taking a deep breath, she blurted it out. “I racked up that debt because I was foolish enough to fall for a con man.”
His expression instantly turned thunderous. “Fall for a con man? What do you mean?”
“I believed a colleague when he said he loved me. I went back to work after nursing Nonni for two years and he was the new gym teacher at the school where I worked. He...cultivated a friendship with me for weeks, then asked me out. After a few months, he...told me he’d fallen in love with me.
“I trusted him and loaned him money when he said he was in trouble. Again and again. I gave him the little Nonni had left me, and then when that was done, I...” The words stuck like glass in her throat. “I emptied my savings, and took a loan on my card when he said he desperately needed money to avoid a loan shark.”
His expletive punctured the silence around them. Did that mean he believed her? Pia found she didn’t give a damn. Frank had deceived her in the worst possible way. Nothing Raphael said or believed could be any worse.
There was a strange strength in the fact that she’d already been through the worst.
“So you’re as naive and meek as you look? How could you trust any man so much that you risk everything you have?”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. Tight lines emerged around her mouth and she blinked rapidly. Moonlight flickered on her delicate jawline that was clenched taut.
Raphael killed the thread of regret that hit him. He wasn’t going to coddle her.
She looked down at her hands and then around her. When she spoke, her voice had lost that husky timbre. It was as if she was forcing herself to say the words. Just for his benefit.
“I was lost, lonely after Nonni passed away. I hardly had any friends after being her full-time caregiver for two years. He was charming, attractive. He singled me out almost immediately after I went back to work. He even did me the favor of explaining to me that he had done his research and picked me as the prime target. The other teachers had unwittingly given him enough ammunition.”
Even as he’d cruelly called her weak, she was anything but in that moment. He knew that it took guts to pull yourself up when everything was lost. And yet, she’d not only done it, but she was facing him down too. “How?”
“They told him that I was...shy, and inexperienced. That they thought I needed to start living now that Nonni had passed away. They told him I’d never had a boyfriend and would probably be grateful for his attention.” When he growled, she hurried on. “I think they meant well. They couldn’t have known he would prey on all my insecurities.”
“This man? Is he following you here?”
“No.” Conviction resonated in her tone. “When he realized I didn’t have any more money, he couldn’t dump me fast enough. Making it very clear that the only reason he’d been with me was because I was such a pushover.”
“So you didn’t tell him about how your new grandfather was wealthy beyond imagination? No surprise visit from this lover of yours to play upon Gio’s heartstrings a little more? Have you already figured out that Gio’s an old fool who would love to see a little romance?”
“Stop, please. He’s not coming here. Frank’s out of my life,” Pia replied, a sick feeling in her stomach. She could see what Raphael was getting at. And that his suspicions had basis only increased her shame. “For one thing, I didn’t know until I got here that Gio was wealthy. I don’t care whether you believe that or not,” she pushed on, when she sensed he would interrupt again. Blasted man! “I was just happy to know that I had family. That I wasn’t alone...”
How could she make him understand how lonely she had been after Nonni’s death? How much Frank had played on that loneliness?
Or what Gio’s affection, his kindness meant to her. “And, yes, I’ll even admit that if Frank had learned that Giovanni Vito is Vito Automobiles, he probably would’ve—” she forced herself to say the horrible words “—married me and sealed off the deal so that he could suck the blood and marrow out of Gio.”
She shivered violently. Raphael silently draped another plush towel around her shoulders.
Pia thanked him, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. She didn’t want his kindness. She didn’t want anything from this man.
“I need details about this Frank person.”
She nodded. “Will you leave me alone then?”
“What Giovanni did—”
“The money he gave me, it’s a loan. I didn’t take a dollar more than the debt. And I intend to pay off every single cent.” She pulled her towel snug around her chest. “Your relationship with Gio, his affection for you, that’s the only reason I told you. You and I have nothing to do with each other, Mr. Mastrantino.”
* * *
She was wrong.
Whether she was Gio’s granddaughter or not, whether she was disconcertingly naive or a cunning con woman, Pia was going to be his problem.
Lashes spiked with small water drops, her damp hair curling wispily against her face, she looked incredibly young. And even with her declaration that she’d learned her lesson, there was still something very naive about her.
It was disconcerting how much he wanted to believe her.
There was grief in those big luminous eyes of hers, an earnestness that beguiled him.
But more than that, he wanted to taste that trembling mouth. He wanted to wrap her tiny waist with his hands and bring her closer until he was wet along with her; until her soft curves brushed up against him.
Until he could kiss away the trouble caused by another man.
He wanted to wrap her in some sort of protective cocoon so that nothing deceitful could touch her.
Dio mio, he had met her five hours ago and even he was already lured in by that innocence. Giovanni would do anything for this creature.
But the fact that she could be telling the truth only made the problem worse.
Not only had Gio had her decked up in diamonds and couture, he had released her into a hungry horde of Milanese social climbers.
At least if she’d been a con woman, she would have been able to handle herself.
He reached for her when she walked by him to leave. Feeling the calluses in her palm, he pulled up her hand.
Her fingers were long and bare, with calluses at the tips of most. He had a sudden flash of Allegra’s perfectly manicured nails with baby-soft skin.
“Why do you have calluses?” All this was just to know her, he reminded himself. To create a picture of her life for himself. To see if there were any holes in it. To see if a lie would crack through her elaborate pretense.
Or it’s because, for the first time in years, you can’t stop yourself from touching a woman. Because the need to touch her, to taste her, is pounding in your blood.
Fingers tracing his palm, sending pulses of heat through him, she frowned. He felt as if he had been earthed. “I could ask you the same. I thought CEOs had pampered, manicured hands and wore tacky, gold bracelets.”
A strange, masculine satisfaction whirled through him.
“I’m an automobile engineer first, a CEO second. I restore vintage cars when I find time.” He was already stretched superthin as it is and now this—her. “Which is very little. Now tell me, why do you have calluses?”
“I carve wooden toys in my free time. A hobby really. Frank—” a stiffness thinned her mouth “—set up an online shop for me. The cash always came in handy and my students’ parents provided good word of mouth.”
The man’s name on her lips pulled Raphael back to the matter.
She blinked owlishly, as if trying to keep him in focus. He clenched his jaw tight. More pieces were falling into place.
If she was conning all of them, he would see her in jail. But Raphael was forced to rethink his misgivings, to consider Gio’s trust might not be misplaced. She knew things about Lucia and Gio that no one did, at least, that was what Gio had told him.
Also, he was a good judge of character.
He’d been forced to be after his father’s suicide. He’d had to learn on his feet which creditor could be counted on to wait, which creditor was loyal to his father’s tarnished memory and which one would revel in humiliating his mother and sisters if Raphael came up short.
If she was innocent... He could hardly bear thinking about the hordes of hungry, young, single Milanese men that would descend on her... Just tonight, it had taken every ounce of the force of his ruthless reputation to beat off the men who had wanted to follow her.
Men who’d have stood in his place right now and watched moonlight sparkle in her eyes, seen the wet swimsuit cling to her toned, lithe body, seen the artless display of grief and joy that came into her eyes when she spoke of Lucia and Giovanni.
“If I have to carve a million toys to pay Giovanni back, I will,” she said with a fierce pride shining in her eyes.
He hardened his tone. “Even if you’re telling the truth, I can’t just let you walk away without making sure that you’ve not crushed his heart,” he added for good measure.
Her soft sigh pinged over his nerves. Did she know how arousing that was? Did she even realize that the sight of her big, searching gaze, the way she stared at a man as if she meant to see through to his soul, could do things to a man she might not want?
“Why do you think I agreed to that—” she pointed to the house now cloaked in dark shadows “—ridiculous show? Telling Gio about Frank probably wasn’t a good idea. All those men he invited, the way they were crowding around me... I didn’t realize his intentions until you pointed out how much attention I was getting. Clearly, he thinks I can’t take care of myself.”
He’d been cruel to taunt her like that. Not that he was off the mark. But there was also an attraction to her that was rare. It was disturbing to think of her coming up against the men who only saw her as a ticket to their life’s fortune. “Can you?”
“Even if I can’t, the last thing I want is help from a man like you,” she bit out, stepping back from him.
He raised a brow. “A man like me?”
“My experience with Frank taught me a valuable lesson. My so-called boyfriend that couldn’t dump me fast enough when the money dried up. You’re just like him—gorgeous, confident, arrogant—except a million times more. The women—they couldn’t get enough of you even when you barely glanced in their direction. And the men were so eager to please you, wanting to be like you.
“You...exert your power or charm, or whatever the hell it is, over everyone you meet. You wield it to bend people to your will. Someone like me, you’ll use my attraction to you to put me in my place, to prove that you’re right no matter what the truth is. To prove that I’m somehow less because I’m not everything you are. Accusations that have no basis in truth, I can handle. But you mock who I am and that I won’t forgive.”
He felt as if she’d punched him, because it was exactly what he had thought of her. “Someone like you?” He repeated her words to hide his reaction.
Pain streaked through her eyes. The depth of her emotions, the sheer transparency of them was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
“A shy, plain, boring elementary teacher who knows nothing about men.” She repeated the words as if by rote, and suddenly he knew in his bones who had said them to her. “First you’ll use it to dig into me to figure out if I’m telling the truth.
“Then you’ll use my lack of sophistication to persuade Gio that he’s right and that I need to be wrapped up in bubble wrap because I’m too naive, too foolish. That I’ll somehow bring someone like Frank into this...kingdom of yours.
“I don’t care whether you believe me or not. Just stay away from me. We don’t have to see each other for you to make sure that I’m not fleecing Gio, do we?”
Her slender shoulders straight, the line of her spine a graceful curve, she looked like a water nymph. Leaving Raphael spellbound in more than one way.
If she was a con woman, he’d see her in jail. But if she was indeed Gio’s granddaughter, she was absolutely forbidden to him.
Even if it was the most real conversation he’d had with a woman. Ever.
CHAPTER THREE (#ucb8867c1-7b3b-5df9-b46d-1c2fd03eca3c)
STAY AWAY FROM ME.
Pia’s words followed him as Raphael walked around the estate and made sure the staff put every last inebriated or otherwise high-flying guest into their vehicles. He bid the tired staff to their beds after they put the ballroom to rights.
He didn’t know if Gio thought the ball successful but Raphael thought it had been sensational.
Whoever Pia was, she’d meant those words. His accusations had hurt her, but it was the other thing she’d said that pricked him even now.
You mock who I am.
Had he mocked her because with her naive views and long sighs she’d seemed like an impossibility? Or had he mocked her because he resented that innocence, those stars in her eyes?
Because he’d never had a chance to be like that.
He was about to call it a night and settle into one of the spare bedrooms, as he sometimes did, when he spied the master of puppets.
Scowling, he followed Giovanni into his study and closed the door behind him with a loud thud.
Giovanni handed Raphael a glass of red. As if he’d known that his godson wouldn’t leave without this talk.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Raphael said as Giovanni plopped down onto the sofa with a long sigh. Because of his agile mind and his penchant for playing games, Raphael sometimes forgot that Gio was old. His wrinkled hands shook as he lifted the glass to his mouth.
“You’re far too excited, Giovanni. This is not good—”
“What do you think of my new granddaughter?”
Knowing that he wouldn’t get a word in until they talked about Pia, Raphael shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d custom ordered her at a store.”
The old man frowned. “What? Why?”
Raphael stared into his drink. But it was the long fluid line of Pia’s back, the drop of water that had run down her damp skin that he saw. The outrage in her eyes when he’d accused her. The hurt when he’d called her naive and meek.
“Raphael?” Gio prodded.
“She fits your requirements for a granddaughter a little too perfectly, don’t you think?”
A sneaky smile twitched around Gio’s lips. “So you admit that she is perfect.”
Raphael raked his fingers through his hair, frustration and something else—no, not something else. It was lust pounding at him. Lust that had never seemed so complicated or so fierce before. And the last thing he needed was for Gio to scent how attracted he was to Pia.
“I don’t mean it that way. An innocent, shy, clearly out of her depth orphan who travels across the world searching for her legacy, searching for her grandmother’s lover... Damn it, Gio, you’ve always been desperate for a child, for someone to love. She’s the perfect lure to tug at your heartstrings.”
“She’s nothing like my fiery Lucia—”
“Or her manipulative grandfather, if you’re truly that,” he added.
“Si. She’s young and sweet. I feel as if the burden of looking after Lucia was too much for her. No wonder that man preyed on her.”
Raphael scowled. “Did you even check the legitimacy of her claim before you advertised her to all of Milan with her inheritance hung around her neck like a sign?”
Gio frowned as the meaning sank in. “I have no doubt that she’s Lucia’s and my granddaughter.”
“Excuse me if I save my teary-eyed approval for later.”
“You have become a hardened ass, Raphael. Mistrustful of your own shadow.”
“I’m realistic. After three marriages, one would think you would be too. One would think you’d see beneath the wide-eyed innocence and the fragile naïveté.”
Silence met Raphael’s outburst. A pounding was beginning behind his eyes. Something was very wrong with this talk and yet he couldn’t place it.
Giovanni studied him over the rim of his wineglass. “I watched you watch her tonight. I heard some of the things you said to her. You were exceptionally cruel.”
Raphael blanched at the matter-of-fact words. He had been, and that was not counting the stuff he’d said later, at the pool. He didn’t like losing control of situations around him. He loathed losing control of himself. Thanks to her, both had happened tonight. And it had erased the little charm he usually had.
He’d aimed where it would hurt most and shot. He prided himself on his reputation for ruthlessness, and yet tonight it sat like acid in his mouth.
“And you didn’t come to her rescue, knowing what I would do. What the hell are you playing at, Gio?”
“I knew you would grill her, that you would try to poke holes in her story. I didn’t know you would dance with her, or hound her until she ran away from you. I didn’t know you would lose your legendary control.” He said it as if he was calculating a complex puzzle. “What did she say when you cornered her by the pool?”
A chill climbed up Raphael’s spine. He’d been so close to kissing her. If Gio had heard of it... “Christo, did you have the staff spying on us?”
Suddenly, the frown cleared. His eyes twinkled, in that satisfactory way that raised every hackle Raphael had. “You were more ruthless than usual. You are attracted to her...” His gruff voice deepened. “You want her.” Raucous laughter burst out of him, and he slapped his thigh hard.
Raphael scowled. He had a feeling this was what Giovanni had waited and watched for. “I’d like to remind you that the woman you’re talking about is your granddaughter.”
“She got behind your...defenses, isn’t that what they say? And you don’t like it. Tell me, Raphael, are you interested in Pia?”
Raphael sat back, something about that question sending a chill wave through him. “You talk as if she were cattle you’re trying to sell,” he evaded.
All he wanted to do was walk away. From this discussion and from that woman.
Of all the people in his life, Giovanni was the one person who could see through his ruthlessness, who’d known Raphael before he’d become hard and cynical. Who knew that Raphael didn’t like even a bit of weakness, any trace of vulnerability. And being attracted to a woman in a way he didn’t understand was a weakness.
But he couldn’t leave. Not until he knew what Giovanni was up to.
“Answer the question.”
“I’m rarely interested in any woman for more than one night.” He made his voice harsh. “And definitely not in a woman who flees if I so much as touch her hand.”
Finally, he saw a flash of his godfather’s infamous temper in his eyes. His mouth lost that arrogant twist that always meant Gio was up to no good. Since he usually reserved that for his parasitic relatives or money-hungry exes, Raphael didn’t much care.
“Do not cheapen her.”
“I’m the one cheapening her?” He took a deep breath, modulated his tone. “Tell me, Giovanni. What does it mean if she’s your granddaughter?”
“It means she already owns a piece of my heart and I will do everything in my power to do right by her. It means she inherits everything I own. Including my stock in VA.”
Dio, he was going to give her the stock in VA?
The stock that Raphael wanted. He could have bought Gio out ten times over in the last few years. Could have established his exclusive ownership of the company.
For reasons he refused to share, Gio had always denied Raphael’s request. Even though Raphael was the only one with executive and operational powers at Vito Automobiles, Gio refused to leave the board. In short, the old man had always loved playing games.
“So now all that stock will rest in the hands of a woman who, by her own admission, was so desperate to be loved, to be wanted, that she fell for the sweet words of a lowlife? Who not only signed away the little money she had but actually racked up a credit card debt because she couldn’t bear to lose him?
“That is the woman who’ll inherit your wealth? Do you know what the jackals will do to her?”
“Which is why I want to ensure her well-being. If I died tomorrow, Pia would be all alone in the world.”
“And so you have advertised her to all of Milan with the size of her inheritance hanging around her neck like a bloody flashing neon sign. By tomorrow morning, the vultures will be circling, determined to get their hands on Pia.”
“I didn’t advertise her, Raphael.” A shadow of pain crossed Gio’s usually animated features. “I celebrated her presence in my life. After years of wondering about Lucia, I finally have someone to call my own. I want to give her everything she could ever want. I want to cherish her, pamper her, protect her.
“That child is... Her innocence, there’s something so fragile about her.
“Would you deny me the chance to right my wrongs? Would you deny me the pleasure of showing off my granddaughter to the world? The chance to find a man worthy of her among the vultures?”
By sheer dint of his will, Raphael kept his shock to himself. He’d been right. Giovanni intended to buy a prince for Pia. And hand her over lock, stock and barrel. Along with his shares.
He couldn’t care. He didn’t.
“That’s up to you. Just...don’t give her any more money. Not until I confirm her claim.”
“You do what you have to do, Raphael. Who knows, maybe she’ll take my seat on the board?”
He wouldn’t, however, watch years of his hard work being thrown away. “She’s an elementary school science teacher and you want to throw her into the shark-infested pool that is the VA board? They’ll pick the meat off her bones.”
“She will have you to advise her and guide her.”
He stood up, and put away his wineglass. “I have neither the time nor the patience to teach that woman anything. I have enough on my plate with Alyssa, with the company, and now I find out that—” he bit off the last part. Giovanni had always had a soft spot for his stepdaughter, who happened to be Raphael’s ex-wife and Alyssa’s mother. He didn’t want Gio sticking his head in Raphael’s business just as he wanted nothing to do with Pia.
“As long as you keep her away from VA, I don’t care if you sign away your entire fortune to her.”
Giovanni watched as his godson walked out. His breath left on a sigh of satisfaction.
By the time he was through, neither Raphael nor Pia would like him very much. But he didn’t care. There was only one man to whom he would trust his granddaughter’s well-being. Just as he had trusted only one man with his precious company.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ucb8867c1-7b3b-5df9-b46d-1c2fd03eca3c)
PIA STOOD OUTSIDE Raphael’s imposing set of offices on the tenth floor of Vito Automobiles in front of his assistants’ desks—apparently Raphael required two assistants—and fought the urge to turn tail and run.
She would have to run a long way though, for the stretch between the bank of elevators to the wide swath of those desks was an ocean of gleaming marble.
Stay away from me.
She cringed at the words she’d thrown at him a mere ten days ago. If only she could somehow manage a semblance of sophistication in his presence. If only her insides didn’t turn to jelly the moment he was near.
But she’d never experienced anything like her attraction to him, and she didn’t know how to control it.
She was still debating whether she should just cut her losses when the door to his office opened and he stepped out.
His suit jacket was gone, and he seemed to have carelessly pushed the sleeves of his white dress shirt back, revealing hair-roughened forearms and a gleaming Rolex. His hair needed a trim, and there were dark shadows under his eyes.
He was so painfully gorgeous that he took her breath away.
“Pia? How long have you been waiting?”
His frown cut through the light-headedness.
The two assistants’ gazes swung to her. They shot to their feet, a torrent of Italian volleying out of their mouths.
Pia forced herself to move toward him. “I just arrived and I... I hadn’t even had the chance to inquire if you were around.”
He scrutinized her, from her wild hair to her summery blouse and her denim shorts—which suddenly seemed far too short—even down to her wedges, cataloging, it seemed to her, every detail before returning to meet her eyes.
There was that intensity again, that displeasure—as if there was something about her he didn’t like. “Come in.”
She clutched the strap of her purse tight. “It’s nothing...important. Relevant even.” Her idea was ridiculous. Outrageous. “I’ll talk to you when you see Gio...whenever.”
She hardly turned on her heel before he was there, next to her. The warm, male scent of him buckling her knees. His fingers wrapped around her bare arm sending a shocking pulse of awareness through her.
He didn’t really pull her, yet Pia found herself drifting alongside him. “No interruptions,” he warned the gaping assistants before closing the door.
Pia looked around his huge office, more to avoid looking at him than with real interest. A dark mahogany desk took center stage with a sitting area to one side, and a walkthrough to a bedroom and walk-in shower.
She retreated to the other side of the desk while he leaned against the closed door, all casual elegance. “You should not roam by yourself in a strange country.”
Some heretofore-unknown imp goaded her. “Worried about my safety?”
He rolled his eyes, which in turn made her smile. “Giovanni Vito’s American granddaughter is quite the sensation right now.” His gaze skimmed her face for an infinitesimally breathtaking moment. “You’re a shiny target for any number of men.”
He called her the vilest of things, took offense to her presence in Gio’s life and yet, something in his expression made her wonder if he actually was worried about her.
Or maybe she was beginning to delude herself.
She sighed, helpless against the longing that, for one moment, he would see her. Pia. Not Giovanni’s scheming granddaughter. But then, if she weren’t, he’d probably not even look at her at all.
“I begged Emilio to give me a ride since he was coming into the city anyway. Gio is visiting his sister.”
His gaze lingered on her mouth. Just for a fraction of a second, but there. Luckily, the desk hid her trembling legs. “Which one?”
“That mean old dragon Maria.”
One brow shot up.
She colored. “She’s the one who created the rift between my grandmother and Giovanni. Filled both their heads with lies. Turned their young love bitter.”
He scoffed. “Don’t you think their love should have stood against Maria’s meddling? It shouldn’t have sent Lucia running across the ocean and Gio to marry three different women just to mend his broken heart.”
“I know what my Nonni felt each and every day of her life. And I’ll... I’ll thump you before I let you poison the memory of their love.”
He pushed off from the door with a feline grace that sent her pulse speeding. “And Giovanni keeps assuring me that you are a sweet, too-good-to-be-true young woman who likes everyone in the world.” He spoke as if her very existence was an impossibility.
Tracing the edge of the desk with her fingertip, she walked around it before he could reach her. “I usually don’t hold grudges.”
“Is that a warning, Pia?” he said softly behind her. She hadn’t realized how close he was. “You will only let me accuse you of so many things before I become unforgivable?”
She shrugged. “My nonna meant everything to me. I can’t forgive someone who caused her considerable harm. Which is why, while I resent your accusations, I try my best to understand your reasons for behaving as you do.” She looked up and met his gaze. “You care about Gio.”
Shadows filled his eyes before he nodded. “He means everything to me,” he said, using her own words. “He’s the one person who always believed in me. Who never asked anything of me.”
The stark emotion in his voice, the honesty in his eyes—Pia shivered. This was the true Raphael. A man whom no one saw. A man, she was becoming sure, who didn’t appear much. A man she respected and even liked. She cleared her throat, wishing she could shrug off the increasing connection she felt with him. “Now that we’ve established a common goal—”
His arm shot out to capture hers when she would have sidled away again. “If you don’t stop being so nervous around me, I’ll give you a real reason.”
“Like what?” she goaded, pushed by his nearness.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
No, she didn’t. This was dangerous. She had no business playing games with Raphael. So she sat down.
To her immense relief, he took the opposite seat. His long legs folded along the length of her own without touching. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been avoiding the entire male population of Milan. Unsuccessfully.”
His frown deepened, while his long fingers played with a paperweight. “So Gio is still determined to find a prince for his perfect princess. Tell me, is it because you’ve been thwarted in love that you’ve decided to let Gio buy you a nice, convenient husband instead?”
She stood up so fast her head whirled. “If all you’re going to do is mock me, I’ve—”
His arm shot out and caught hers, stalling her. “Mi dispiace, si?”
“You can’t say things with every intention of cutting me, and then expect to be let off by saying sorry. The last thing I want is to involve you. I came because I’ve no choice. And because, believe it or not, I trust you.”
His gaze flared, caught hers, compelling and dominant. But it was she who held it, letting him know she might quiver at his touch but it didn’t make her weak.
A muscle flicking under his jaw, he looked away first.
Pia felt as if she had won a minor battle. She took a drink of water and watched him over the rim of her glass.
Whatever had passed between them, it was gone. Smoothed away beneath his perfect featured mask. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“You were right. Giovanni hosted that ball with the intention of introducing me to eligible men. Introducing being a euphemism.
“I haven’t had a day to myself since that blasted night.
He’s dragging me to party after party, brunch after brunch as if I were...a mule he’s determined to be rid of.” Raphael’s mouth—that sensuous mouth, twitched, and Pia glared at him. “It’s not funny.
“I can’t turn around before there’s a grandson or a son or a twice removed cousin of one of Gio’s friends visiting. There’s so many of them I can’t even keep their names straight. If I refuse to go on an outing, Gio encourages my escort to walk around the estate with me. If I refuse to accompany one of them to a party, Gio takes me there anyway and then abandons me with them.
“I know and you know and the whole damned world knows that it’s not my infinite charms or my breathtaking personality that brings them to me in droves. But Gio refuses to acknowledge it. Pretends as if he can’t hear me when I say half of them are just plain...”
“Idiots?” Raphael offered unhelpfully.
“I’ve had enough of the false attention, the warm looks, the overdone praise of my nonexistent beauty. I’ve taken to packing a picnic lunch first thing in the morning, and escaping to remote corners of the estate to avoid them.”
“No one can stop Gio when he gets an idea into his head. Why do you think he’s estranged from not only three ex-wives but also his brothers and sisters?”
“He’ll listen to you. He thinks you walk on water.”
Raphael shook his head. “I already warned him this would happen. But he’s determined to find you a...” He raised his hands palms up. The defeated gesture didn’t suit him at all. “Don’t shoot the messenger.
Why don’t you tell him to back off?”
“Every time I bring it up, he gets all teary and sentimental, starts rambling about the mistakes he made with Nonni and about leaving me to face men like Frank alone. He works himself into quite a temper.
“He raves about going to his grave knowing that you and I are all alone in the world. He feels responsible for you too, you know.”
Raphael snorted. “You do realize that your grandfather is a manipulative bastard, si?”
“That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true. Giovanni will manipulate you until you agree the sun revolves around the earth.”
She rubbed her forehead, something clicking. “Wait...so you don’t think I’m an impostor anymore?”
“My PI informed me that you’re indeed Lucia’s granddaughter. And Giovanni’s.”
* * *
Which was why Raphael hadn’t visited Gio. But four days and a million thoughts hadn’t been enough for him to figure out how to handle the fact that Pia was Gio’s granddaughter. Or to convince himself not to handle her, in any way.
There were a hundred more beautiful, more sophisticated women among his acquaintances. Women who would suit him for any kind of arrangement he wanted. Women who didn’t look at him with barely hidden longing.
Women who were not his complicated godfather’s innocent granddaughters.
He’d been waiting it out. Telling himself that she was just a novelty with her honest admissions and her innocent looks.
That he’d always preferred experienced women—both in bed and when dealing out of it.
And yet, from the moment he’d seen her standing outside his office, awareness had hummed in his blood.
Today, she looked the part of an elementary teacher with her black-framed geeky glasses, her brown hair in a messy knot precariously held together with a wooden stick, he realized with a grin, and a frilly, floral blouse and worn-out denim shorts that clung to her nicely rounded buttocks and displayed her mile-long legs.
With no makeup on, she should have looked ordinary. But he’d already looked past the surface. Knew that beneath the plain facade was a woman who felt everything keenly. Knew that if he touched her, she would be as responsive and ravenous as he was.
The summery blouse made her look more fragile than usual. He wanted to trace the jut of her collarbone with his fingers. And then maybe his tongue. He wanted to pull that stick in her knot so that her hair tumbled down. He wanted to slowly peel those shorts down until he found the silky skin of her thighs so that he could...
Fingers at his temple, he forced the far too vivid, half-naked image of her from his eyes. Christ, even as a hormonal teenager he hadn’t indulged like that. For one thing, he’d never had a spare minute.
“You had a PI dig into my background?”
He shrugged, glad that he was sitting. “Gio has been hoodwinked by three ex-wives into not only marrying them but settling fat alimonies on them.”
She got up, walked around the coffee table that separated them and sat down at the other end of the sofa he was sitting on. Tilting her chin up, she gave him a haughty look. “I’m waiting, Raphael.”
He grinned. “For what?”
“An apology. What do you think?”
“Didn’t you just tell me you don’t want apologies for things I’m not really sorry about?”
“You’re the most arrogant, annoying man I’ve ever met.”
“Tell me what brought you here, despite that.”
“Last night we had a really bad argument. He was pushing me into a corner and I... I said something really awful.” Big fat tears filled up her eyes. And just like that Raphael went from mild irritation to a strange tenderness in his chest.
Raphael leaned forward and took her tightly clasped hands in his. Even as he fought it, awareness seeped through him from her hands. The rough calluses on her hands, the slender wrists, the blunt nails—everything about her enthralled him.
He looked up and his gaze snagged on her wide mouth, pinched in sadness. “What happened?”
She tugged at her hands and he let go with the utmost reluctance. “Of all the men who have been...pursuing me, for lack of a better word, I like Enzo the best and it was easier to spend time with him than run around trying to avoid the rest of them. I enjoy his company and we’ve been pretty inseparable the last two weeks. He’s kind, genuine and he told me the first moment that—”
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