by Tara Pammi
The look in her eyes, longing and something more, arrested him. “With your kindness, and your charm, your laughter and your warnings. Your second chances. Your innate goodness. Your kisses. Your...” She looked down, dashing her gaze away. “But remember this, Massimo. When I could’ve freed myself from this dangerous game, when I could’ve protected myself—the only thing I know how to do—I chose instead to keep your trust.
“When I could’ve, should’ve, escaped, I chose to stay. With you.”
CHAPTER TEN
MASSIMO STOOD IN the study that he and Leo used sometimes, a drink in his hand, his mind drifting from thought to thought, landing on the woman in the guest suite upstairs.
What would you do with me if I were all yours?
Maledizione, he couldn’t forget that line or the vulnerability in her face when she’d said it. Still couldn’t wrap his mind around what she’d done tonight.
He verbalized his frustrations into a pithy curse as he heard the door open and close behind him, knowing who it was.
Leo’s laughter had such a shocking mirth to it that he turned. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”
“I was just remembering Giuseppe’s and Gisela’s expressions earlier. I think you erased any doubt as to where your...interests lie, back in that elevator.”
“And you’ve come to congratulate me about it?”
“Are congratulations in order? That didn’t look like a fake engagement.”
He scowled. “Cut to the chase, Leonardo.”
“The way you spun it with Giuseppe—that the hacking attack and the security breach was something you had planned to find flaws in the system, that you brought her on for that express purpose—Silvio and I can use that same logic successfully to calm the board’s considerable doubts and questions at the gala. Thanks to your quick thinking, we’re in a good place.
“But it is imperative that we do something aggressive about stopping this...man, Massimo. Before we sign on with Giuseppe Fiore. Even a whiff of scandal like this again—”
“Could ruin that project before it even begins,” Massimo finished, giving voice to his greatest fear.
Relief filled Leo’s eyes and Massimo laughed. “You think I do not see the risks? You think I’m that far gone?”
Leo shrugged. “Women, and relationships for that matter, this family, this legacy, have never been an important part of your life before, Massimo. Even with your mama, you hardened yourself, letting her go so completely. You...simply decided Silvio had tortured her enough, decided that you were a weakness dragging her down. I’m not quite sure I’d have been able to do that. You decided you’d focus on your career, your ambition, you decided you would conquer whatever demons you had, and you did it. For a decade, I’ve watched you work crazy hours, go from strength to strength.”
Massimo frowned. He had never looked at it quite that way.
“But with Natalie, you went rogue, completely off script, from the minute you met her.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think. I can’t help but think maybe you’ve lost your edge for...this.”
His brother’s perceptiveness rendered Massimo so shocked that he could barely muster a response. “I haven’t.”
“And maybe you need to be told that it’s not a—”
“Leonardo! All I will say is that yes, Natalie disarms me like no one else.”
“I have to admit that to prove to you that she could steal it but not actually do it... I still don’t feel comfortable that she could so easily ruin everything you’re working toward, but I have to admire her guts. I can admit to seeing the lure she holds for you.”
Massimo’s problem was that he was beginning to admire a lot more than just her guts. Was beginning to lose his control, his path. “The Fiore contract is still my first priority, Leo.”
“Bene.” Leo nodded. And his vote of confidence meant something to Massimo. “I will not waste time and energy worrying over you, then. Greta and Silvio are far too much already. What did you find out from her?”
Massimo looked away. He’d never been so conflicted in his life. And he didn’t like it one bit that she did this to him.
He walked across the study, taking in the expansive room that had been the seat of his father’s power when he had ruled most of Milan as the CEO of Brunetti Finances.
Usually, he preferred to not step foot inside here, since all the memories he had of this room were of being summoned by Silvio at all hours while he was recovering from another asthma attack or a fright induced by an approaching one or when he had failed to exhibit great athleticism or when he saved a kitten. There had been countless things, and then being shouted at that he needed to let go of his mama and grow up and be a man.
That she was coddling him too much. That she was making him soft and spoiled.
That he would never be man enough or strong enough or ruthless enough like Leonardo. Never good enough to be a Brunetti.
Today it seemed like the two parts of him—one with an unending thirst to prove himself to Silvio and Leo, the entire world and to himself, and the second, the weak boy whose mother had tried so hard to teach him right from wrong, who had told him to define himself in a different way, his own way, who tried to negate the harmful narrative his father had perpetuated in the house for so long—clashed violently.
Dios mio, his mother had put up with Silvio for so long for Massimo’s sake. She had tried so hard to stop Massimo from thinking that he had to be cruel and ruthless to be powerful and successful. In the end, she’d found love with another man, forced to choose between a new life and Massimo.
Massimo had bid her goodbye happily at the age of fifteen, desperate for her to find a little happiness, desperate for her to stop sacrificing herself for him. But there had been selfishness on his part, too. He’d been determined to prove that he could survive without her shielding him from reality.
And he had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
He had carved his own path, found his own empire. His cyber security business had infused much needed capital into other branches of Brunetti Finances, a dynastic multigenerational financial institution, when it had been limping along on its last leg. His brainchild, BCS, was the only reason they stood irresolute and unshakable today when most of Europe—and Italy, in particular—were floundering and falling into financial crises.
And when they signed this hundred-billion-euro contract with Giuseppe Fiore...there would be no looking back.
Yes, Leonardo was right that they still needed to find the man who was targeting them. But no, he didn’t need to hold Natalie’s freedom over her head to achieve it.
It was not a weakness to grant her her freedom. Not a weakness to achieve his goal, realize his ambition without crushing the one powerless person in all this. Not a weakness to grant her that desperate sense of control she needed over her life.
I chose you, Massimo.
That constant knot in his gut slowly relented, a sense of rightness settling his breath.
He saw the study with new eyes. Leonardo had decided to redecorate the space. The transformation had been fantastic—it had gone from a cloying, ghastly room with so-called precious antiques to an open space with contemporary art and clean lines.
Greta had put up a dirty, vicious fight carping on about legacies and dynasties but Leo had shut her up. But it had been a new direction for Brunetti Finances, and even better, it had been a new direction for the Brunetti brothers to take the company, their legacy.
“She told me enough about this man to give us a trail to follow. A money trail. He transferred her money when she turned eighteen so that she could get off the streets. I’ll dig down to the exact dates once I get out of here. All we need is to trace her bank account to see where the deposits came from.”
“And his name?” Leo prompted, clearly not satisfied with what Massimo gave him.
“There isn’t one.”
“Massimo, you have to make her tell you—”
“Nessuno! I will not,” he said softly, “coerce her or threaten her with imprisonment. That’s my final decision. She has too much stake in this now, Leo. I need her by my side to keep Gisela in line, with Giuseppe so close to signing. I need her to work by my side on the security designs. You saw how impressed Giuseppe’s CTO was with her tonight.”
“You’re basing a lot of important things—things we’ve worked years for—on the fact that you trust her. Her loyalty—”
“Is not something that can be bought or forced. The way Silvio got things done, we swore we would be different. We swore we’d build our fortunes the right way.
“Natalie will be an incredible asset to not just BCS but Brunetti Finances in the long run.
“It’s plain, pure business sense.”
Leo finally nodded. “Bene. As long as you’re sure that’s your guiding principle, I will follow your lead.”
“It is. It has to be,” Massimo reiterated to an empty room long after Leonardo left.
* * *
Natalie let the stylist use her like a fashion doll. She let the makeup artist pull and prick her scalp, straighten her hair to an inch of its life, probably burning away most of it, in the process of making her good enough to be the fake fiancée of the Brunetti scion.
A week since the disastrous and most spectacular night of her life, Massimo hadn’t decided her fate. Still. Despite her throwing herself at his mercy. Despite puking her guts about how much he was coming to mean to her. Worse, her emotional outburst seemed to have only pushed him away. Filled the space between them with an awkward kind of tension she couldn’t disrupt.
Excusing themselves to a curious audience, he had dragged her home that night. Warning her to do nothing for once, if she knew what was good for her. Closeted himself in the lab. The next morning, he’d shown up at her door again at the crack of dawn, like clockwork. For a whole foolish minute, she’d hoped he’d come for...personal reasons.
Nope, the workaholic that he was, it had been back to business. At least he hadn’t revoked her electronic access to his lab. He had made her sign what felt like a hundred contracts, officially bringing her on the payroll for the Fiore contract, including confidentiality agreements and waivers and whatnot.
Making it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.
Once she’d started thinking straight again and not out of a desperation born of lust and longing, she realized Massimo couldn’t simply tell the world that his fiancée was a criminal or send her to jail.
There was the little matter of their fake engagement. She couldn’t contest the fact that he needed her—at least as his fiancée—to keep Gisela in line. Especially since it looked like Giuseppe had been more than impressed with Massimo’s initial design and, with his reassurance about bringing Natalie on, more than ready to sign off the contract to BCS.
Now, he had officially tied her to that contract, too, by bringing her on as a consultant. Her future was secure. Not just secure. Better than ever before. Because Massimo Brunetti was a generous employer. She could put away so much for Frankie’s college. She could save for a future.
He’d even let her Skype with Frankie. More than once. Forced her to introduce him, too, since he kept hanging around during the call.
He hadn’t asked her a single question again about Vincenzo.
All this generosity was beginning to choke her since he didn’t even...really look at her anymore. She much preferred his accusation that she’d been trying to distract him while she deceived him rather than this polite distance, this courteous withdrawal. He didn’t laugh with her, he shared no horrible hacker jokes that he found on the internet, he didn’t tease her into kissing him.
A week since that night—the night her body had come alive in his hands so violently that when she went to bed every night, she closed her eyes and touched herself, trying to recall his warmth and scent and his desire. But her fingers were poor substitutes to his wickedly clever ones. So she tossed and turned, feeling a restless hunger after being cooped up with him in the lab for the whole day. Being near him, touching him accidentally, breathing the scent of him until he was a part of her.
And now this engagement party... It wasn’t too much of a reach to think Greta was doing this to punish her.
She sighed when the stylist finally finished with her hair and the two too-cheerful assistants plonked a full-length mirror in front of her.
Despite her glum mood, Natalie’s attention stirred.
Her hair straightened into a silky curtain fell past her shoulder, giving her the sleek sophistication she’d always wished she possessed. The white strapless gown that had been chosen for her fell a few inches past her knees, its beauty lying in the clean, classic A-line cut. It hugged her small breasts, clinging to the dip and rise of her waist and hips, ending in a big ruffle at the end, a beautiful feminine touch to contrast the severe cut of the bodice.
Pale gold powder accentuated her cheekbones and brow, and a glossy pink lipstick subtly enhanced her lush mouth. This look was night and day different from the one last week. Of course, that afternoon, she’d explicitly asked Alessandra for the kind of look that arrested Massimo’s gaze, in her desperation to be worthy of him.
Tonight, about to be presented to Milan’s Who’s Who on the Lake Como estate, which was the home turf for the Brunettis, the stylists seemed to have been instructed that she needed to look classy, elegant. Instead of resenting the high-handed approach, Natalie decided to embrace it. Really, she had disadvantages enough when it came to Massimo without falling into a pit of insecurities about how she looked.
She’d just pushed her feet into bright pink pumps the stylist said would add a pop of color to her outfit when Massimo walked in.
His gaze swept over her, a soft smile playing around his mouth. The first one in a week. “You look...beautiful, bella.”
In a black tux that highlighted his wide shoulders and lean waist, he looked absolutely gorgeous. Divine. “You look good enough to eat,” she retorted, and he laughed.
“Well, it’s the truth.”
“I’m glad the true you hasn’t been buried beneath all the primping, cara mia.”
And just like that, her heart fell right into his clutches. God, she was really tired of the impasse between them. “Massimo, can we please not...”
She closed her mouth when he pulled out a small velvet box. Without asking her, he reached for her hand and pushed the princess-cut diamond ring in white gold onto her ring finger. “I... I have been remiss about that. Appearances must be maintained, sì?”
Natalie folded her lips inward, stalling the pinch of hurt. “Of course,” she added, pasting on a fake smile. This was getting harder day by day. “Appearances are the most important. Even for fake Brunettis,” she couldn’t help adding.
He smiled, as if he were delighted by her snark. “Your bot program was brilliant. I didn’t think you could take down the encryption around that directory, truly.”
“Your ego is not dented?”
His mouth twitched. “You know me better than that, Natalie. I’ve never asked you to hide what you are capable of, from me. I never would.”
Feeling like a fake of the worst kind, she nodded. What would he do, however, if he knew the extent to which she’d used those capabilities to survive her life, she wanted to say. She swallowed the question, struggled to push away the niggle of shame. Her past was just that. The past.
And then he was pulling out something else from his pocket, and Natalie’s breath stuttered in her chest. Palm up with it in the center, he looked at her. “I went the old-school route. I saved it on a flash drive. And the directory you found... I’ve scrubbed it permanently.”
Her knees threatened to buckle from under her. “What?”
/> “The files are gone. The trail is scrubbed. This is the only remaining copy of everything I put together to find you.”
“You’re giving it to me,” she finished lamely, her throat aching, tears gathering like a storm.
Only a nod.
“With no conditions?”
“Sì. You’ll never have to worry about ending up in jail. As long as you don’t do anything criminal again, that is,” he said, the corner of his mouth tilted up, a glimmer of that teasing Massimo in his eyes.
She swallowed, but the boulder-size lump in her throat wouldn’t budge. She wanted to grab the flash drive and run away. Far from this man she couldn’t seem to dislodge from under her skin. Far, far away from her own heart’s stupid longings.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m trusting you. Isn’t that what that stunt was about?”
“It is. And I’m glad. But...where do you and I stand, Massimo?”
The warmth disappeared from his eyes. “We still have an agreement. You’re clever enough to understand that you can’t just up and leave. Not now when you’re an official employee of BCS. Not when Giuseppe is ready to sign on the dotted line. Having heard of her unstable reputation, I shouldn’t have messed with Gisela. Even if she knew the rules of the game. I’m afraid she’s fixated on me.”
She nodded, agreeing completely. “I won’t let you down. I promise. I’ll play the part of your perfect fiancée as if I was born for this role. I’ll be nice and sweet to your family and in public—”
He laughed so loudly that his brother and Greta looked up from the foyer where the first guests were beginning to arrive. “Do you know the meaning of the words nice and sweet, Natalie?”
“I do,” she replied, basking in the warmth of his laughter. She loved it when he was like this—smiles and teasing—and...she loved that he understood her so well, and that he...
A wave of shock rolled over her.
No, she didn’t.