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Rocco stared at him. He was serious. Dio. Not ever happening. He’d seen what losing his mother had done to his father, what losing Rosa had done to Giovanni. He didn’t need that kind of grief in his life. He had enough responsibility keeping this company, this family, afloat.
“I would not hold my breath waiting for the silk-covered invitation,” he advised drily. “Do you have any more bombshells for me, or can I pay Renzo Rialto a visit?”
“A few more items of note.”
They went through the immediate to-dos. Rocco picked up his messages after that, went to his car and headed to Rialto’s offices. The retired former CEO of a legendary Italian brand was a thorn in his side, but manage him he would.
He swung the yellow limited edition Aventador, his favorite material possession, onto a main artery, attempting to corral his black temper along the way. He would deal with Rialto, then he would take care of the other complication in his life. Olivia Fitzgerald was about to find her very fine rear end out on the streets of Milan. Just as soon as he found out what kind of game she was playing.
CHAPTER TWO
ROCCO HAD EXPECTED Olivia Fitzgerald to be beautiful. She had, after all, a face that had launched a dozen brands to stardom. A toned, curvaceous body that regularly graced the cover of America’s most popular annual swimsuit magazine. Not to mention a tumbling swath of silky golden hair that was reputed to be insured for millions.
But what threw him, as he sat watching her share drinks with her girlfriends at a trattoria in Navigli in the southwest of Milan as dusk closed in over the city, was his reaction to her.
He was seated at a tiny round table close enough that he could hear the husky rasp of her voice as she ordered a glass of Chianti, the textured nuance of it sliding across his skin like a particularly potent aphrodisiac. Close enough that he could see her catlike, truly amazing eyes were of the deepest blue—the color of the glacially sculpted lakes of the Italian Alps that met his eyes when he opened his curtains in the morning.
Close enough to observe the self-conscious look she threw back at his stare.
And wasn’t that amazing? Surely a woman of such world-renowned beauty knew the reaction she elicited in men? Surely she’d been well aware of it when she’d ensnared Giovanni and had him purchase a three-million-euro luxury apartment for her in the hopes of continuing within the style to which she’d become accustomed?
Surely she knew the combined effect of it all was somewhat like a sucker punch to the solar plexus of just about every man on this planet, which he, to his chagrin, was also not immune to.
His mouth twisted into that familiar scowl of late. Olivia Fitzgerald—the Helen of Troy of her time.
Her girlfriends, two beautiful dark-haired Italian girls, giggled and glanced his way. He pulled his gaze back to the menu, sighed and ordered a glass of wine from the cameriera. The private investigator who’d helped Adamo uncover who was living in the apartment in Corso Venezia had been a gold mine of information on Olivia Campbell, as she’d been calling herself. She didn’t socialize much, spent most of her days holed up in her luxury abode, but she did have a faithful yoga date with her girlfriends on Thursday nights, followed by drinks at this popular spot on the canals in Navigli.
It had been a stroke of luck that the café that sat on the water of the picturesque canals was owned by an old family friend of the Mondellis... No problem obtaining a prime location to study the flaxen-haired sycophant.
He had thought of waiting until she was at the apartment to confront her, but in his current black mood, he wanted the woman who’d taken his grandfather for a ride out on the street. Yesterday.
He sat back and crossed one long leg over the other. Watched as the three women engaged in animated conversation. She hadn’t, he observed grimly, been struck down with grief at the loss of her lover. Was she even now out hunting her next conquest before her life of luxury was unceremoniously cut off? Was that what the self-conscious looks were about?
A wave of hostility spread through him, firing his blood. He forced out a smile as the cameriera set his drink down in front of him, wrapped his fingers around the glass and took a long swallow. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, hunting Olivia Fitzgerald down when his emotions were so high. His meeting with Renzo Rialto had not gone well. The arrogant bastard was convinced Rocco was a loose cannon without a guiding force now that Giovanni was gone, and had suggested exactly what Adamo had anticipated. “Settle down, Rocco,” he’d encouraged. “Show me you are ready to take on the full responsibility of Mondelli and I will give it to you.”
He growled and slapped the glass back down on the table. It was going to take more than an overblown bag of wind to make him say, “I do.” Hadn’t the Columbia Four vowed “single forever?” Weren’t women the source of every great man’s downfall? Wasn’t it far more rewarding to have your fill of a female when you craved it, then leave her behind when you were done?
He thought so.
In a salute to the missing three, he lifted his glass and downed a healthy gulp of the dark, plum-infused wine. His gaze moved over Olivia Fitzgerald, registering the rosy glow of attraction in her perfect, lightly tanned skin as she stole another look at him.
A plan started to form in his head. He liked it. He liked it a lot. It was perfect for his reckless, messy mood.
* * *
He was watching her. Flirting with her.
Olivia tried to smother the butterflies negotiating wide, swooping paths through her stomach, but it was impossible to remain unaffected by the Italian’s stare. It was like being singed by a human torch. Hot. Focused. On her. And why? He was undoubtedly the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her life, and given she’d traveled the world working with beautiful men of all backgrounds, that was saying something. She, on the other hand, was dressed in jeans, a scrappy T-shirt with a zip-up sweatshirt over it, had no makeup on and had thrown her sweat-dampened hair into a ponytail after her yoga class—virtually unrecognizable as the top model she’d once been.
She averted her gaze from his rather petulant pout, sure women threw themselves at his feet at the slightest hint of it. For the whole package, really. But the impression he made lingered. He seemed familiar, somehow, the broad sweep of his high cheekbones framing lush, beautifully shaped lips, a square jaw and an intense dark gaze.
She frowned. Was he a model she’d worked with? Had he recognized her? But even as she thought it, she knew she would have remembered him. How would you ever forget that specimen of manliness? Impossible. His utter virility and overt confidence were of the jaw-dropping variety.
Violetta yawned, threw her hair over her shoulder and drained her wineglass. “I need to go home and study. And since he,” she lamented, giving the gorgeous stranger a long look, “is eating you up, I might as well go home and pout.”
“That’s because Olivia is stunning.” Sophia sighed. “She is blonde and exotic.”
“I wish I had your olive skin,” Olivia pointed out.
“We trade,” Sophia said teasingly, reaching for her bags. “I bet the minute we leave, he’s over here, Liv. And about time, too. You haven’t even looked at a man since we met.”
Because she’d been treasuring her stress-free escape from reality... Because she was only just now feeling like herself again...forging a new identity. Because getting close to a man had meant he might recognize her, and she didn’t want to be Olivia Fitzgerald right now.
Also, because none of them had made her pulse flutter like it was at this moment.
Violetta got to her feet and threw some euros on the table. Sophia followed suit.
“You can’t leave me here,” Olivia protested.
“We live on the opposite side of town,” Violetta countered cheerfully. “And honestly, Liv, if we don’t go soon, he’s going to glare the table down.”
“He could be a criminal,” Olivia muttered. “I’ll only leave.”
“A criminal who wears a twenty-five-thousand-euro Rolex,” Violetta whispered in her ear. “I don’t think so. Enjoy yourself, Liv. Call with the juicy details.”
Olivia had no intention of offering up any details, because she wasn’t staying. The only reason she was out tonight was to take her mind off Giovanni and how much she missed him. She felt completely adrift without the one person who had been her anchor in this new life, where she was truly alone. Without the mentor who had spent the past year working on her fashion line with her, teaching her. And now that the girls had lifted her spirits a bit, it was time to go.
Violetta and Sophia ambled off in the direction of the metro. Olivia fumbled in her bag for money, the meager amount in there reminding her how desperate her situation was. Her job at the café paid for her spending money, but it would never be enough to afford her own place, let alone the stunning apartment Giovanni had lent her.
Biting her lip, she dug around her change purse for coins. She would figure it out. She always did.
A shadow fell over the table. She registered the rich gleam of the handsome stranger’s impeccably shone shoes on the pavement before she lifted her head to take him in.
“Ciao.”
He was even better looking up close, his deep brown eyes laced with a rich amber the candlelight picked up and caressed. Big. Six foot two or three, she’d venture with her model’s eye. Well built—with more hard-packed muscle than the average Italian she’d seen on the streets. Heavenly.
“May I sit down?” he asked in perfectly accented English, taking advantage of her apparent inability to speak.
“Actually,” she muttered, “I was just on my way home.”
“Surely you can stay for one more drink?” He flashed a bright, perfectly white smile that drew her attention back to his amazing lips. “I stopped to enjoy the lights and a drink and found myself staring at you instead. A far worthier pursuit, I would say.”
Her chest heated, the flush that started there traveling slowly up to her cheeks. It was a line, to be sure, but the best she’d ever been handed. And somehow in her vulnerable state, because he was just that attractive, it was difficult to say the words she knew she should.
She forced herself. “I really should go... It’s getting late.”
“You really should stay,” he murmured, his sultry brown eyes holding hers. “Nine o’clock is early in Italy. One drink, that’s all.”
Perhaps it was the way he stayed on his feet and gave her the space to say no. Or maybe it was the fact she just so very much wanted to say yes, but she found herself nodding slowly and gesturing toward the seat across from her.
“Please.”
He sat, lowering his tall frame into the rather frail-looking chair. The waitress fluttered to his side the minute he crooked a finger, as if sent from above. He ordered two glasses of Chianti for them in rapid-fire Italian accompanied by one of those wide smiles, and the waitress almost fell over herself in her haste to do his bidding.
“Are you a regular here?” Olivia asked, amused, his behavior oddly relaxing, as if that type of confidence simply had to be obeyed and she might as well go with it.
“The café belongs to an old family friend of mine.” The words rolled off his tongue, smooth as silk as he leaned forward and held out his hand. “Tony.”
“Liv.” She allowed her fingers to curl around his. The fact that he had not recognized her sent a warm current of relief through her. Or perhaps that was more a by-product of the heated, somewhat electric energy he imparted through his strong grip.
“Liv.” He repeated the word as if trying it on for size and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your friends left rather suddenly. I hope I didn’t chase them away.”
A smile curved her lips. “You meant to chase them away.”
He spread his hand wide. “Caught in the act. I so appreciate that about you Americans. So direct. It’s refreshing.”
“The New York accent is that obvious?”
“Unmistakable. I lived there for four years doing my business degree at Columbia.”
The reason his English was so perfect... She gave him a long look. “If we’re being direct, I’d ask you what you’re doing here alone without a beautiful woman on your arm. Asking a complete stranger to have a drink with you.”
His gaze darkened with a hint of something she couldn’t read. He flicked a wrist toward the lights glimmering on the water. “I was looking for a little peace. Some answers to a question I had.”
That intrigued her. “Did you find them?”
His mouth quirked. “Maybe.”
She felt the inquisitive probe of his gaze right down to the lower layers of her dermis, the indolent way he looked at her suggesting he had all the time in the world to know her. “So what do you do, then, beautiful Liv, when you aren’t sitting here?”
She couldn’t help but feel like she was being led somewhere he wanted her to go, but the casually issued compliment had a much more potent effect than it should have.
“I’m a designer.” She called herself that for the first time since she’d come to Milan a year ago to pursue her dream, somehow tonight needing to assert it as fact in the wake of her mentor’s demise. “I’m working on my debut line.”
Which hopefully would still see the light of day with Giovanni gone.
He lifted a brow. “You will partner with one of the design houses here?”
“That is the plan, yes.”
“Did you study fashion in school?”
“Yes, at Pratt in New York.”
His gaze turned inquisitive. “Why not stay there and start your career where you have roots?”
Because she was running from a life she never intended to return to.
“I needed a change...a fresh start.”
“Milan is certainly the place to do that if you are a designer.” He smiled at the waitress as she arrived with their drinks, then waited until she’d left before raising his glass. “To new...friendships.”
Her pulse skittered across her skin like hot oil in a pan. She lifted her glass and pointed it at him. “And to you finding answers.”
A slow, easy smile twisted his lips. “I think maybe meeting you was exactly what I needed.”
That turned her insides completely upside down. She took a sip of her Chianti, discovered it was a significantly nicer vintage than the one she’d ordered and took some extra fortifying sips.
He crossed muscular arms over each other and sat back in the chair. “Have you had success with any of the design houses here?”
“I had made some inroads, yes, until something beyond my control happened. Now I’m not so sure it’s going to work out.”
“Why is that?”
She lifted her chin, fought the burn of emotion at the back of her eyes. “Life.”
He was silent for a moment, then dipped his head. “I am sure you will find alternate avenues.”
She nodded determinedly. “I intend to. You do what it takes, right? To make your dreams come true?”
His mouth twisted, a strange light filling his dark eyes. “You do indeed.”
It was like a coldness had enveloped the warm Navigli night, the way the warmth drained from his expression. Olivia shifted in her seat, wondering when the breeze had kicked up. Wondering what she’d said or done to bring the mood change about—because everyone had dreams, didn’t they? They were good things, not bad.
She took another sip of her wine. “So,” she murmured in an attempt to lighten the mood, “you know what I do. Your turn to spill.”
He arched a brow at her. “Spill?”
“Confess. Tell me your secrets... At least, what you do for a living.”
“Aah.” His mouth tilted. “I push money around. Make things profitable. Ensure the creatives don’t bring the ship down.”
She gave him a look of mock offense. “Where would the civilized world be without us?”
“True.” His half smile sent a frisson of awareness through her. Made her hot all over again. She had a feeling he did that easily. Ran hot and cold. Turned it on and off like a switch.
His gaze probed hers. “What?”
“You do that easily.”
“Do what easily?”
“Run hot and cold.”
An amused, slightly dangerous glint filled his eyes. He set his wineglass down with a deliberate movement, his gaze on hers. “Possibly very true. Out of curiosity, Liv, which would you like me to be?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “I think I’ll abstain from answering that.”
“Forever or just for now?” he jibed.
“For now,” she said firmly. She focused on the inch of ruby-red liquid left in her glass. She hadn’t flirted with a man since the beginning of her unspectacular, long-term relationship with Guillermo Villanueva, a photographer she’d met on a job and eventually lived with. They had been finished for over a year now, and she was sorely out of practice when it came to flirting.
“Have you eaten?” He lifted an inquiring brow as she glanced up at him.
“I was going to eat when I got home.”
He picked up the menu and scanned it. Ordered a selection of appetizers without consulting her. Surprisingly, for a woman who valued her independence above all else, she found it a huge turn-on. Found everything about him a huge turn-on. And it only seemed to get worse as they chatted about everything from French and American politics to books and music. He was clearly way above average intelligence, sophisticated and seemed to have vast amounts of knowledge housed under that compelling facade.
“Why Columbia?” she asked as she snared the last piece of bruschetta. “Did you have family in America?”
He shook his head. “I wanted a change of pace like you did. To spread my wings. New York as the epicenter of it all made sense.”
“So are you a financial genius, then? Million-dollar deals and all that?”
A glitter entered his eyes. “The genius part is debatable, but yes, sometimes there are big deals.”
She found herself staring at his mouth again. It really was lush. Spectacular. What would it be like to kiss him? What would it be like for him to kiss her? Oh, God. She pushed her empty wineglass away with an abrupt movement. Enough of that.
He inclined his head toward the glass. “Another?”
She shook her head. “I should get home. I have a lot I want to accomplish tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you, then.” He lifted his hand to signal the waitress.
She wanted to say yes. Wanted him to drive her home so he could kiss her good-night. But that was utter madness. She didn’t know him. He could be a criminal. A high-end one with a Rolex and great shoes.
He looked up at their server as she took his credit card and ran it through the machine. “I would like to drive this young woman home, Cecilia. Can you offer me a reference?”
The brunette let out a husky chuckle, her gaze moving to Olivia. “He is perfectly respectable. If uncatchable.”
Olivia had no doubts about that. She got to her feet, gathered her gym bag and purse and allowed Tony to guide her through the crowded little trattoria, his hand on the small of her back electrifying. They walked a short distance down a side street to where his insanely expensive-looking yellow monster of a car was parked at the curb.
He tucked her inside with a sure hand. She felt her heart rev to life as the engine rumbled beneath them, snarling like the beast it was. Pressing a palm to her throat, she gave him the directions to her apartment and tried to remember the last time she’d felt this alive. Like herself... The past year had been about finding herself again, stopping the nightmares, ending the pain.
Who was she now? She didn’t even know.
Tony was quiet in the car, his elegant, eminently capable hands guiding the powerful vehicle through the streets to the aristocratic neighborhood that bounded Corso Venezia and Via Palestro, her home for the past year. Her chest pulsed with a funny ache as they passed the stunning examples of baroque and neoclassical architecture that lined the streets, the elegant exclusive avenues of Milan’s fashion district. The beautiful palazzo that lay only a stone’s throw from her window. Every day she sat there drinking coffee, dreaming up designs and feeding the voraciously hungry birds that knew her now. It was hers, this neighborhood. She’d finally found a sense of belonging and she didn’t want to give it up.
Tony turned into the driveway of her modern building located in one of the neighborhoods tucked in behind Corso Venezia. When Giovanni had shown it to her, she’d instantly fallen in love with its wrought iron balconies and wall-size liberty windows. With its feeling of lightness after the prison New York had become...
Tony brought the car to a halt in the rounded driveway. “Do you have a parking spot? I’ll see you to your door.”
Her already agitated heartbeat sped up. She knew exactly where this was leading if he accompanied her up to her apartment, and for a woman who had never done this, never invited a man back to her apartment on a first date, it was like someone had dropped her onto one of those death-defying loop-the-loop roller coasters that promised equal amounts of terror and exhilaration.
She shook her head, dry mouthed, realizing he was waiting for a response. “It’s underground,” she told him huskily, pointing to the entrance at the end of the driveway.
He guided the car into the garage, parked in her spot and followed her to the elevators. They rode the glass-enclosed lift up to her tenth-floor apartment.
“An awfully exclusive apartment for a struggling artist,” Tony commented, leaning back against the wall.
Olivia pressed damp palms against her thighs as the cityscape came into view. “A friend was helping me out.”
His brow rose. “A friend?”
“A nonromantic friend,” she underscored, absorbing the aggressive, predatory male in him. It wasn’t helping the state of her insides.
His raised brows arced into a slashing V. “Men just don’t lend multimillion-euro apartments to a female unless they have other intentions, Liv.”
The insinuation in his words brought her chin up. “This one did,” she rasped. The elevator doors swung open. She stalked out of the car and headed down the hallway to her apartment, her head a muddled, attracted mess.
Tony caught up with her at her door. She turned to face him, confused, her stomach a slow burn. “I think you don’t know me at all.”
“My mistake,” he came back laconically, tall and daunting. “It’s a natural question for a man to ask.”
Was it? They’d only had a drink. She was so confused about the whole evening, about what was happening with this beautiful stranger, her head spun. She stood there, heart hammering in her chest. Tony put a hand to the wall beside her, keeping a good six or seven inches between them, his gaze pinned on her face. Her stomach dropped as if she was headed toward the steepest plunge on that scary roller coaster, the part where one had big, huge second thoughts.
Something glimmered in his gaze. “Aren’t you going to invite me in for an espresso to cap the evening off?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, knees weak.
“Oh, come on, Liv,” he chided, that glimmer darkening into a challenge. “Men are territorial. Would you expect a man like me not to be?”
No. Yes. Her head swam.
He closed the gap between them until he was mere inches from her. His palm came up to cup her jaw, his gaze dropping to her lips. Her own clung shamelessly to that lush pout she’d been staring at all night, had been wanting to kiss all night. And he knew it.
He lowered his head and rocked his mouth over hers. Smooth, questing, he exerted just the right amount of pressure not to frighten her away, and that mouth, that mouth, was sensational. She anchored her palms against the solid planes of his chest, her bones sinking into the hard line of the wall as he explored the curves of her mouth. He kissed her so expertly she never had a chance. All she could do was helplessly follow his lead. When he delved deeper, demanded entrance to the heat of her mouth, she opened for him.