Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynne Graham

  Vincenzo frowned at the quiet question. “You know me better than that, Antonio. She’s a small part of my life. An indulgence I allow myself.” He didn’t say she was fast becoming an obsession he craved. When she looked at him with that vulnerability in her eyes, he wanted to promise her the world. He wanted to promise her anything just to make her smile again. “Alessandra is a prize. A worthy wife for a man building an empire. She’s the final reward for all the fights I have won and for the ones I’m still waging.”

  “And yet you watch her with such hunger in your eyes. As if you don’t already own her. As if you want…more.”

  More… Did he want more from Alessandra? More of what?

  Vincenzo refused to betray how accurate Antonio’s words were. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it is to look at a woman you want, Antonio. I do not deny that she’s got a hold over me.”

  “That bothers me. About how powerful her hold is on you. About how much you will forgive her, how much you will forget in order to please her.”

  “Speak your mind plainly, Antonio.”

  “I’m not so old that I do not keep up with the news. She set you back a few steps with that leak about who you really are. The financial world is still wondering where you come from, how you’ve amassed your fortune and with what intentions. You lost the support of two men who were almost in your pocket. Now you have to begin the hunt anew to find other candidates who will stand against the combined might of Leonardo and Massimo Brunetti.”

  “My PR team has been doing a lot of damage control since then. But it’s not Alessandra who leaked that information.”

  “And you believe her?” The older man’s softly spoken words resonated with doubt and disbelief.

  “Yes,” Vincenzo replied firmly.

  “We’ve worked far too hard, for far too long to bring the Brunettis down. This marriage of yours could derail everything. Worse, it could—”

  “I want to build what I have been denied all my life—a standing in society, a home to return to, a dynasty. What will stand in its place when the past is brought to its knees?” Vincenzo demanded, angry and tired and resentful in a way he’d never felt before. “For the first time in my life, I acted selfishly. It is neither a mistake nor a strategic move.”

  Did Antonio see him as nothing but a device for vengeance? Was there anything left of him that wasn’t a weapon to fuel him toward his goal? This restlessness… He realized it had been growing in him for a while. A small crack that threatened to expand into a yawning void every time he visited his mother.

  And then he had met Alessandra.

  A breath of fresh air. A woman who had filled his days with laughter and warmth reminded him that he was a man who wanted more. A woman who made him think of the future.

  “As long as it doesn’t distract you from your mission,” added Antonio, his expression implacable. That implacability had once been the backbone that had built Vincenzo’s confidence sky-high. Antonio’s belief had goaded him to the heights of success and through dark nights of self-doubt. And yet now, it felt like a painful echo from the past he couldn’t outrun.

  “It does not mean that I’ve forgotten.” He ran a hand through his hair, tension swathing his frame. “I cannot, even if I wished it. Every time I see Mama…” He swallowed and looked away. His wound would never heal. Because every time he saw his mother, it was gouged afresh. “Keep your trust in me, Antonio.”

  The old man gripped Vincenzo’s shoulder. “I do. Maybe this is not a bad move. Maybe you can use your wife to move even faster toward your goal.”

  Everything in Vincenzo rebelled against the idea. “What do you mean?”

  “You and Leonardo Brunetti are in a deadlock now for majority on the BFI board, si?”

  “Si.”

  “The matriarch, Greta Brunetti, still holds stock in BFI, doesn’t she? If your wife is truly important to her, maybe she could be persuaded to jump ship in your favor.”

  Shock pulsed through Vincenzo. “I’ll be damned before I let you use me against them,” Alessandra had vowed.

  “You want me to persuade Greta Brunetti to betray her own grandsons if she wants Alessandra’s happiness?”

  “There must be some substance to your wife’s devotion to the old woman and that family. Test that connection. See how far you can push them with it.

  “Think of it this way, Vincenzo. The faster you win this war, the faster you break up BFI into parts, the sooner you can settle into a blissful wedded life.”

  Vincenzo couldn’t muster a reply. To use Alessandra and her happiness as a bargaining weapon against Greta Brunetti… The very thought filled him with distaste. What kind of a man would he have become then?

  * * *

  “I’d like to go home now, please. If you’re done for the night,” Alessandra whispered with a polite smile pasted on her mouth the moment Vincenzo reached her.

  “That picture of us on the morning of our wedding…leaking it to the press… I never gave a direct, specific instruction to do that.” He pressed his fingers to her mouth when she’d have protested. “Hear me out, please, Alessandra.

  “And before you shred my team into pieces, they only followed my order—to a T—that they improve my image in the media.

  “So, yes, the ultimate responsibility is mine, but it was a thoughtless, general action rather than a deliberate, strategic one to hurt you, or to lessen the significance of that day for you.”

  Her beautiful brown gaze mirrored her disbelief and hurt.

  Vincenzo took her fingers in his and pressed. A harsh exhale left him when she didn’t pull away. “I should have realized it was so important to you. I should have—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Si! It does matter. What you think of all this, it does matter.” He’d been about to say What you think of me, but held it back, “I’m beginning to understand how much what I did hurt you. But my intentions for you, for this marriage have always been the same. From the beginning.”

  She held his gaze, as if she could hold him to his word like that. As if she could see into his heart.

  “Just promise me that you won’t use me in this battle of yours,” she said.

  “I won’t. I have already said our marriage will stand outside of it. Come now, Princess. Dance with me.”

  She said nothing. Didn’t move.

  “It’s a beautiful night. And I want to dance with my beautiful wife. I want to show all the men salivating over you that you’re mine. Only mine.”

  Vincenzo waited. For all of Antonio’s disapproval, he knew in his heart that she was the one he wanted when he finally reached the end of all this. She was the one who had birthed the future he hadn’t even realized could be his.

  He left his hand outstretched. Finally, with a soft sigh, she came to him. And everything else ceased to exist for Vincenzo. The crowd around them, the soft music, the moonlight, everything became secondary to the sensation of having Alessandra in his arms.

  She was like liquid silk poured over taut, warm limbs, her face hidden in the curve of his shoulder. Her fingers a brand on the nape of his neck. Her breaths a soft whisper against his skin. For long minutes, they just moved to the music, their bodies easily swaying in a matching rhythm.

  “You stole it from me.”

  “Have you forgiven me yet?” he whispered. “For making that picture public.”

  “You’re who you are.” The defeat in those words slayed him.

  “I…there was something between us on the island, si. But I think, in the real world, we’ve broken that trust. Both of us.”

  She lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes. And nodded slowly. She pulled away from him and leaned against the balcony. The chitchat around them carried on, but everyone was giving them a wide berth.

  She looked around, her gaze thoughtful. “All these pe
ople…they worship the ground you walk on.”

  “That’s a bit dramatic.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “They have known me for a long time, si. When I had nothing to my name, when I was nothing but a boy with big dreams. Even from a young age, I had a way with numbers. The stock market was an easy pattern for me to predict.”

  “Like Massimo is brilliant with computers,” she interjected.

  He let it go. “Antonio saw my talent and nurtured it. When I started playing the market, these people trusted me with their savings. When I started my investment firm, they were my first clients. They trusted me to do right by them. Now that I have a million times more, I try to remember them. I try to give it back.”

  “I’m glad you were not all alone. But it’s still not family.”

  He shrugged.

  “She’s in love with you, you know.”

  His head jerked to her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, her wide mouth pinched. “Your assistant, Anna. It’s obvious. She thinks…they all think I’m a backstabbing witch who doesn’t deserve you.”

  “What?”

  “Were the two of you ever together?”

  Vincenzo blew out a breath, looking out at Alessandra and then back toward a small group where Anna stood talking.

  Antonio’s remark had suddenly made him see Anna’s frosty reception toward Alessandra clearly. “A long time ago. Years before I met you. And it was only ever a brief fling that I put a stop to as soon as we started working together.”

  “And yet she had hopes that it would eventually be rekindled.”

  He didn’t discount the truth of it now he understood. “Then it is my fault for not making myself clear to her. I never even realized until… Alessandra, I never led Anna on.”

  “I believe you.” Said with such simplicity that he stared at her, stunned. “She told me that you have had an architect draw up plans for the Brunetti Villa. That you intend to pull it down and build something else in its place. That you mean to take over BFI by the bicentennial celebrations.”

  Shock pounded through him. “Anna would never be so unprofessional as to betray my plans.”

  “How else do you think I know about them? She hates my guts, because she thinks I stole her man, and she wants me to leave you. They couldn’t be more shocked if you had suddenly taken up farming, V.” Her gaze turned thoughtful. “Apparently, you went full on rogue in this operation by marrying me.”

  “My life is not a democracy for them to vote on.”

  A frown tied her brows. “It sure sounds like it is.”

  “You’re my wife, Alessandra. If Anna can’t realize how important that is, she will have to be let go. I’m sorry she made you uncomfortable tonight.”

  “How about you’re sorry for all the things you hide from me? How about you’re sorry that you ever conceived those plans in the first place?”

  “Again, they were in place long before I met you. These people have been in my life for many years while you…”

  “While I what, V?”

  “While you flit in and out of it. While you run away from me the moment the fantasy falls apart.”

  “And if I do stay in this marriage? When you take over BFI and break it down into parts, when you raze that villa to the ground and build a new one in its stead, is that where you expect me to live?

  “Is that where we’re supposed to start our new family? Our new life?”

  “Si.”

  “Leo and Massimo will never give up their home.”

  “We shall see about that.”

  “Love cannot grow where there’s so much hate, V.”

  “But I’ve never asked you for love,” he bit out, and she flinched. A wet sheen coated her eyes and Vincenzo wanted to believe it was caused by the suddenly cold breeze. “Is that why you married me, bella? Because you fancied yourself in love with me?” Neither could he take the bitter edge out of his words.

  It was high time they discussed their expectations. High time he set the record straight that he wasn’t going to change his mind about his course of action just because she was in his life. “Was it love that made you run at the first hurdle? That made you abandon our marriage when it had barely started?

  “That makes you imagine I should give up things I’ve set into motion years before I met you?”

  He reached for her and set his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened but didn’t push him away, those gorgeous brown eyes of hers drilling into him. “Love is for fools who don’t realize how it can turn to poison in a minute. It pushed Anna into jeopardizing her position with me.

  “It drove my mother into believing falsely sweet promises from a monster and breaking the heart of a simple man who respected her and admired her.”

  “Antonio?”

  “Si. And when he demanded Silvio Brunetti do right by her, when he dared take him on, Brunetti crushed Antonio, as if he were an ant. He came for his business, for his family. He ruined everything Antonio had and anyone who dared helped him.”

  She looked around the empty terrace, her eyes widening. Comprehension twisted her features into horror. “All these people you’ve collected, you’ve surrounded yourself with…they are all—”

  “They’ve all been harmed one way or the other by the mighty Brunetti family, si.”

  “By Silvio Brunetti,” she amended. “Not by Leo and Massimo.” She stepped back from him, her mouth compressed. He’d never seen her look more defeated. “They’re all equally invested in the path of destruction they want you to take. Even if you wanted to walk away from it now, they won’t let you. That explains their chilly attitude toward me. They think I will turn your head.”

  “You won’t,” he reiterated so forcefully that she flinched.

  “Well, that’s put me in my place,” she added with an empty laugh. “But in the end, you’ll be the only one who pays the price, V. Not them. You’ll be the one who stands on the ashes of your family’s happiness, ruining any chance of a relationship with them.”

  “My family? If you think even for a moment that I will ever consider Leo and Massimo to be my family at the end of all this, that somehow we will become brothers in truth…then you’re even more naive than I’d ever thought.

  “They are not my family. They were not there for me when I struggled to fill my belly. When I saw Mama become a shadow of herself. When I had no money to pay for treatment for her.”

  “But you—”

  “This is not your fight, cara. Let it go.”

  “And if this fight ends up hurting us, V? If it ruins any chance of happiness that we might have had?”

  He stared into her eyes, the answer jolting out of him. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Alessandra had gotten under his skin. Had begun to matter to him more and more.

  But only so much. It could only ever be so much that he could give her. Only so much he could feel. He didn’t know how to be vulnerable. To remove the very defenses he’d put up for sheer survival.

  He couldn’t give voice to that yes that whispered in his chest. Couldn’t let himself become so caught up in her that he forgot all the years of loneliness and fear and pain. Forgot what he’d set out to do. To prove.

  To the world. And to himself.

  “Whether my actions hurt you is not in my hands, Alessandra. It’s in yours. In the end, we all have to make choices.

  “Whether you want this marriage only for Charlie’s sake or for yourself, you have to decide. You need to decide how much of this is just a deal and how much is real.

  “Because for me, nothing has changed. Not since I slipped that ring on your finger.”

  The stricken look in her eyes told him she more than got the message. And as much as it bothered him to leave her like that, he walked awa
y.

  A strange tension gripped him but he refused to give it a name. He could have used the attraction between them, the constant tug of awareness to nudge her over into acceptance. But Vincenzo needed her to come to him. Needed her to choose him.

  Like he wanted nothing else in his life.

  He didn’t examine the urge, didn’t rationalize it. It was just there.

  And yet as he joined Antonio and the others—people who had always been on his side, people who looked at him with respect and admiration, people who had looked to him to solve the injustices done them—for the first time in his life he felt as though he didn’t fit in with them either.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WAS THE last scene Alex had ever imagined she’d come home to when she returned to the Brunetti villa the following Friday evening after an exhausting, weeklong trip to New York to visit Charlie.

  Leo, Massimo and Greta were dining al fresco on the terrace, making the most of a beautiful late September evening. But the magnificent view couldn’t hold Alex’s attention.

  Seated by Massimo, his arrogant head jerking up at her as she walked up the last step, was Vincenzo.

  His gaze held hers over the length of the terrace, awareness stretching between them, holding her captive. For a few seconds, Alessandra forgot her exhaustion, the fresh grief that had been raked up the past week, the uncertainty of where all this would end.

  When she looked at Vincenzo, she forgot everything but him.

  “How is your brother, Alessandra?” His question, in a dry tone, pulled Alex out of her reverie.

  Alex blinked, feeing heat climb up her cheeks. “He’s okay. I wish he cried a little more though, or screamed or something. He’s far too self-contained for a seven-year-old boy.”

  “But then boys are often taught that it’s a weakness to cry,” Massimo added with a bitterness that made her heart ache.

  Alex saw the disbelief in Vincenzo’s eyes.

  “Our father verbally abused Massimo, unchallenged, for years.” This little nugget was supplied by Leonardo.