She had been integral to the rebranding three years before and while the board had raised objections Gio had seen the sense in her plan. Gallo Group’s global perception skewed towards older males and while that had worked in the past, women were the future. And it was time for the Gallos to damn well catch up.

  Frowning when she realised that the receptionist was not at her desk, she checked her watch. It was, she realised, after six in the evening, but it was strange that Micha’s secretary would have left already.

  She made her way on thickly piled carpet towards the regional CEO’s office. The doors were wide open and unable to help herself, she entered and—just like the previous times she’d been here—immediately gravitated over to the window that stretched from floor to ceiling across one entire side of the huge office.

  Many others might have boasted three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views. But what did that matter, when the one window of this office showed the Eiffel Tower in its entirety? Even as a little girl, she’d loved Paris. And her heart sighed just to see the most famed image of France stretched out before her.

  For a moment, she wondered what it would have been like to be here under different circumstances, but before that half-formed fantasy could even take hold, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise.

  ‘What are you doing here, cara?’

  ‘You don’t get to call me that,’ she said, her words filled with the poison she wished she could use to hurt him the way that he’d hurt her.

  Micha saw her flinch at his words, at how the muscles tightened all the way across her shoulders and back. He clenched his jaw, instantly regretting the word that had slipped past his usually ruthless self-control.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ he demanded, raising the armour that had broken at her shocking and surprising appearance in his office. He stalked over to his desk to put down the folder he had in his hands. And to buy himself some time to get over the impact of the sudden and perturbing sight of Maria Gallo.

  He had seen her only a few weeks before at Alessina Gallo’s party. Antonio’s mother was trying her best to keep the disparate threads of the family together in her father’s absence. The man’s will had left more than the company without leadership, and both the family and the business were at risk of breaking apart because of it.

  ‘I walked.’

  ‘Oh really? I thought you might have flown in on your broomstick,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘How original, Micha. Calling me a witch.’

  Maria’s words lashed across his skin and he winced. He knew how often she was belittled by family members who were half outraged that she dared to be more than just a pretty face. And while she and he had a somewhat fractious—okay, downright toxic—relationship, he was nothing like those who called her names like the one he had just used.

  ‘You know I meant it differently,’ he growled.

  And her lack of response told him that she did know it. Otherwise, she would have nailed his balls to the wall.

  ‘Where is your secretary?’ she asked and he looked up to find her standing behind the chair opposite his desk, her hands gripping onto the back.

  ‘Why? Afraid to be alone with me?’ he couldn’t help but taunt.

  ‘From what I remember, there is little to be afraid of,’ she bit back.

  Ouch. How could he have forgotten that her tongue was quick and that her wit was harsh?

  He locked his jaw before he could say anything that would take them further down a road neither of them wanted to travel. Frankly he didn’t have time for this, for her. While the rest of the Gallos were playing games he seemed to be the only person with sense trying to keep the ship afloat, rather than deciding—or caring—who steered her.

  ‘She’s at a training seminar,’ he said, lying about his secretary’s whereabouts. The poor woman had been driven to the edge by the hounding the various outliers of the Gallo family were giving her, so he had let her go home early. Not everyone was privy to the contents of the will and it was causing problems.

  Not that Maria would have cared about that. Oh no. All she probably cared about was that she would finally get her hands on the company that she—in all honesty—deserved. And if she did? She’d probably sack him. Perhaps that’s why she was here. Perhaps—

  That pulled him up short.

  So much so that she caught him staring at her.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  Micha shook his head, not willing to put the idea in her head if it wasn’t already. Which he doubted. He cursed under his breath.

  ‘Out with it, Maria. I have things to do. Contracts to secure.’

  She laughed, as if it were genuinely amusing to her that he actually worked here. He wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, but that would give away his frustration. And it pleased him no end that it was her inability to ruffle him that caused her the greatest irritation.

  ‘Sure. Why not. The last act of a drowning man. Have at it, Rufina.’

  He nodded, shooing her away with his hand, until he realised the subtext beneath her words.

  Last act.

  Why not.

  Cristo, she was going to do it. She was going to marry Antonio to get her hands on the company.

  His hands, fists, pressed into the table, concealing the white knuckles betraying his feelings, and for one single heartbeat—nothing but blind fury, masked, leashed and utterly denied by the next pump of blood around his body.

  Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers, inch by inch, covering the cream shirt and trousers she wore, luxurious, rich, expensive. The pearls at her neck, the free-falling thick curls that dropped over one shoulder. She’d probably dressed just to remind him that he’d once been nothing more than a street urchin, while she’d always been an heiress.

  By the time he’d reached her face, her expression told him that his guess had been true. The gleam of satisfaction shone like a north star that would never point to a home for him. He thought…minchia! He didn’t know what he thought.

  Unlike the rest of the family, who had never even heard of Ivy McKellen, Micha knew all about the convenient marriage that took place six years ago between Ivy and Antonio, meant solely to circumvent the pressure piled on by Gio Gallo for Antonio to marry Maria. But their relationship was a lot more complicated than Maria knew.

  Micha had met Ivy. He’d seen the grit and determination that drove her, even in her darkest hours. And more than that, Micha had liked her. Whether Antonio knew it or not, Ivy was a near perfect match for him and Cristo, if he had even an ounce of intellect, he wouldn’t let her slip away. Certainly not for the sake of a damn company—no matter how many billions it was worth.

  And it was most definitely worth billions.

  ‘What have you done, cara?’ he demanded, his voice low to his own ears with a warning that he knew she wouldn’t heed.

  ‘What I had to do,’ she shot back just as hard and just as low, and damn it if it didn’t turn him on.

  As a girl, she’d been all soft curves and sighs, giggles and curiosity. As a woman? She would be something else altogether. For a moment, the apocryphal sight of her entwined in Antonio’s embrace rose in his mind, making him nearly want to retch.

  ‘Antonio and I will be married by the end of the month,’ she declared.

  He barked out a laugh. ‘That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t love you like that.’

  ‘Who said anything about love?’

  ‘Dio mio, are you so desperate for this company that marriage means nothing to you?’ he accused. ‘Vows before god, your family, your mother?’

  * * *

  Maria felt her cheeks heat with anger and her pulse pick up beneath her skin.

  ‘My mother?’ Maria scoffed. How dare he talk about her mother? About marriage. About vows. ‘I’m surprised you managed to say all that with a straight face, Micha. Or is this just another little ploy to shame me, to manipulate me, distract me? “Look over here, Maria,” all the while, you’re over there…playing another game entirely.’

  Bitterness dripped like poison between them.

  ‘Well, I won’t fall for it. Not this time,’ she said, ignoring the way dark red slashes appeared on cheekbones she’d known both women and men to swoon over. ‘My marriage to Antonio will happen,’ she insisted. ‘The company will be mine. And you will be gone.’

  Micha’s only response was the slight narrowing of his eyes.

  Oh, damn this man! She was trying to have an epic, victorious moment and he wasn’t doing what she’d spent years, a near decade, imagining. He was supposed to be on his knees, begging for mercy.

  She turned away from him, wanting to hide her reaction to his words. He knew. He knew what her parents’ marriage had been like. How distant and cold, and unbearable it had been for her. The endless sniping and degrading, demeaning and belittling from her father—the near horrific silence of her mother. She’d once begged and pleaded with them to get a divorce, hoping that perhaps then she might be able to find space to breathe from the suffocation she had grown up with. And ironically, it had been the one single thing in their entire marriage that they agreed on.

  There would be no divorce.

  Throughout her childhood she had sought sanctuary with Antonio and, yes, even at one point, Micha. At many points even—but she refused to dwell on those times. Together the three of them had run amok throughout Tuscany and it had felt as if the entire world was at their feet. They had been the only family her age or near enough—distant cousins removed more than once were either older or not yet born. As for siblings, for her father, her mother’s inability to bear a second child only furthered the distance between the wife who had failed him and the daughter who would always be a disappointment instead of the heir apparent he’d always wanted.

  Antonio and Micha had been her salvation. They had protected her, distracted her. Antonio’s mother had called them the Three Musketeers, and they had imagined playing with swords, attacking their enemies and cutting down their foes.

  Well, she was still doing that. Only now, her weapon of choice was marriage. Marriage to Antonio. Not marriage to the boy she had once given her sovery-precious heart to. She braced herself before turning back to where Micha was riffling through some pages on his desk, still standing.

  And oddly, she knew that he would stand for as long as she did. Something gentlemanly that he had inherited from her grandfather. He might not have been related to her by blood, but Micha carried some things from Gio Gallo that were instinctive. The way he held himself. His manners. It was perhaps a goddamn relief that he hadn’t inherited the man’s morals. Micha was ruthless enough by himself. He didn’t need that in his blood too.

  ‘It will, perhaps, be a little harder than you think to get rid of me,’ he said, without bothering to look at her. It made her feel small. It made her feel dismissed. But she was done allowing Micha Rufina to make her feel those things. She’d had enough of that when she was sixteen.

  ‘On the contrary. I think you’ll find it quite expeditiously done with two little words. You’re fired.’

  ‘You underestimate how much I do for this company, Maria.’

  ‘And you overestimate how much I care,’ she shot back, recklessly. Because no matter what had passed between them, no matter where in the world they were, he had always made her reckless.

  ‘You’d do it, wouldn’t you? You’d fire me, and damn the consequences?’ he asked, a strange light in his eye.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘No questions?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘I have one,’ he said, surprising her a little.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Do you really believe that you hate me?’

  She stilled, sensing the danger in his question.

  ‘Your arrogance is truly exceptional, Micha,’ she fired back.

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘Believe? I don’t believe. I know how much I hate you, Micha. Much as that might shock you. If the rumours are true, you’ve built quite the dance card from the women here in Paris.’

  ‘Careful, Maria. Sounds a little like jealousy to me.’

  Maria scoffed. ‘It’s not jealousy, Micha,’ she said sweeping her gaze over him, ‘it’s disgust.’

  He threw his head back and barked a laugh, dismissing her put-down. The long column of his neck was stubbled with the shadow of a beard she knew he’d shaved that morning.

  Dressed in a three-piece suit, he should have looked all business and boring. But damn it, he looked anything but. The grey superfine wool of the suit was cut to fit him perfectly, with a white shirt made from Egyptian cotton. He filled it all out to perfection.

  ‘See, I don’t think that you hate me,’ he said circling back round to his earlier question, his tongue sweeping out for barely a second before his teeth plunged into his bottom lip, as he looked at her in a very dominant and utterly unbusinesslike way.

  No. This? Here? Right now? He was pure alpha male. A predator stalking its prey.

  And she was the prey.

  He shrugged off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, before coming around from behind the large ornate table that had once been used by her grandfather. He came to stand in front of her as he unhooked his cufflinks and pocketed them, before rolling back the sleeves of his shirt, something she found inexplicably fascinating.

  He leaned back against the desk, arms folded across his chest—pulling the shirt tight across his chest and biceps beneath the matching grey waistcoat—his gaze running up and down the length of her body insolently, carelessly, heating every single place it touched.

  And he knew it too.

  * * *

  Micha took his time, and his fill. Oh, he was aware how crass it was, but at this point he realised that he had very little to lose.

  For years, he’d behaved himself. He’d done as Gio wanted, confined himself to the little box that Gio Gallo had put him in, safely away from the proximity of his favourite female grandchild. The gender qualifier wasn’t important to him, but it had been to Gio. Gio, who had all but been near maniacal about who his business empire went to after his death.

  Gio had been obsessed with it going to a male of the family—but Antonio wasn’t a Gallo by blood, his adoption by Alessina apparently not enough to satisfy the old man. But a marriage between Antonio and Maria—an adopted grandchild and a female grandchild?—that had seemed just about enough in Gio Gallo’s mind.

  And Micha? Oh, he’d been used as the stick to beat or threaten the Gallos with for years and Gio’s death had not changed that. Micha would inherit the entire company, lock, stock and barrel, if Antonio and Maria didn’t marry.

  No one, not even the two people he’d once considered friends, more even, had ever once thought that he might actually be good at what he did here. That he might actually have added to the wealth of the Gallos—heaven forbid, that he might actually even deserve it. But then…not even Gio Gallo had truly thought that of Micha.

  ‘I do hate you,’ she ground out from between perfect white teeth, bared at him in a silent growl. ‘And this? This is the last time you’ll ever see me,’ she announced with a flourish.

  He smirked, unable to help himself.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded, furious that her threat hadn’t been met with trembling knees and chattering teeth.

  She must have forgotten that he was built differently than the simpering, pathetic members of the Gallo clan on whom her ire would have worked.

  ‘You. Threatening me.’

  ‘It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, closing the distance between them in just a few short strides.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, backing up, startled when her legs hit the back of the chair behind her.

  ‘Whatever I want,’ he replied, unable to take his gaze from her. His eyes searched, scored, imprinted every single moment of her onto his soul. The way that the silk of her shirt shivered when she breathed, the superbly fitting palazzo trousers, pressing against skin and curves he’d never once forgotten.

  Oh, they’d not done much as teenagers, no matter what Gio Gallo had thought. No matter what anyone had thought. Heavy petting, the Americans might have called it. But it hadn’t mattered. He’d know her in one hundred years. Blind, deaf and unable to speak, he’d know her.

  But she’d never really known him, had she?

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, trying to back up again.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, cocking his head to one side. ‘What are you going to do? Fire me?’ he taunted.

  He pressed closer to her, knowing that he was invading her space, obsessively hunting the flush that started from the sliver of skin he could see in the V of her shirt and crept up her throat. The pulse that flickered at the base of her jaw. The tremble to her lips she tried to stop by pinning one beneath her teeth.

  ‘Maria,’ he warned.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That is not helping.’ His voice was a growl.

  She clenched her teeth together.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ she said, putting her hands on him. His heart thundered at the press of her palm over it, and he finally gave in to the need that was coursing through his veins. The one he had spent years hiding, denying, destroying.

  He’d been fooled into thinking he had it under control. But he was wrong. So wrong.

  Maria looked up at him with huge dark brown eyes, her hair cascading in tumbled curls down her back, her lips parted as if on a gasp.

  ‘Then stop me,’ he commanded.

  He waited.

  He waited for the hands on his chest to push him away in disgust, the way he’d imagined her doing time and time and time again in the deepest, darkest dreams of half-formed memories and damaged desires.

  He waited for her to turn her head to the side, to snub him as she so often did in public, their hostilities as much a spectator sport for the families as not.

  He waited for her to hiss and spit and curse his name, to damn him to hell and back.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19