Harlequin Presents--July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Natalie Anderson

  The space was naturally confined and he filled it. His masculine scent surrounded her, making her head swim and her mouth water. Every inch of him was within touching distance. His thigh was unsettlingly close to hers. If she moved even a millimetre to the left, her shoulder would brush against his. Focusing on not doing that, when they kept being buffeted about by the wind, was taking every drop of strength she possessed, as was keeping her eyes off him.

  It was so hard not to stare at his profile and linger on the scar and the slight bump in his nose which gave him the hint of badness that she found so attractive. So hard not to look at his fingers wrapped around the stick that he was using to fly this thing and not remember them in her hair and on her skin. She’d always had a penchant for competence, and it was even harder not to melt into a puddle of lust at just how skilled he was at the controls.

  But not impossible.

  Because of far greater importance than any of that was the clock counting down her time in Italy, which was ticking louder and louder with every passing second. Patience while waiting for seeds of suggestion to take root was all very well but in this situation she needed to get a move on.

  Last night’s attempts to lull Rico into a false sense of security hadn’t exactly worked, so quid pro quo was how she was going to proceed, she decided, blocking out the infuriatingly unsettling effect his proximity was having on her and focusing. A back and forth of information that she’d start and force him to follow.

  This time, she was going to control the conversation and she might have to dig deeper than she’d have ideally liked, but by carefully revealing to him layers of herself no one else apart from Georgie had ever seen she’d show him he had nothing to fear. She certainly didn’t. She had no doubt that Rico wouldn’t respond in an emotional sense to whatever she told him. Her revelations would bounce right off the steel-plated armour he surrounded himself with. He didn’t let anyone close and she saw no reason he’d ever decide to make an exception for her. Apart from the sensational chemistry they shared, which this morning he was ignoring in the same way she was trying to but with a greater degree of success, he simply didn’t have a sufficient level of interest to bother. Or any, in fact. Which was totally fine with her.

  There was no point in waiting until another monosyllabic meal, she told herself, mentally unlocking the past and bracing herself for the reality of laying it out in front of this man. If she really was going to do this—and for the sake of her best friend she absolutely was—she had to strike while the iron was hot. And that meant implementing her plan as soon as they landed.

  * * *

  Generally Rico got a massive kick out of flying his helicopter, but as he landed the machine at Linate Airport and switched off the engine he thought he’d never been so glad to see the back of it.

  The trip to Milan had been nothing short of torture. He’d been agonisingly aware of Carla sitting beside him, close enough to touch, close enough to pull onto his lap and kiss the living daylights out of again, so damn affecting that he might as well not have bothered with the numerous cold showers he’d taken throughout the very long night.

  The tension in his muscles was excruciating. His jaw was so tight it was on the point of shattering. The restraint he was having to exercise, a novel concept he had no intention of repeating ever again once she’d gone, was intolerable.

  Why was it so hard to control his response to her? he wondered darkly as he jumped down and then strode around the front to help her alight too. Was this yet another effect of his accident? Another weakening of the defences he’d always considered impregnable?

  Whatever it was, he didn’t like it, any more than he liked the strength of his desire for her. He’d experienced need before, many times, but the intensity and the wildness with which he wanted her was new. What was it about her that was different? Why did she and she alone affect him in this way?

  Releasing her hand as soon as she was on solid ground as if it were on fire, Rico turned on his heel and made for the car that was waiting for them on the tarmac. With a nod to Marco, his chauffeur in Milan, who was opening the door for Carla, he climbed in and slammed the door shut. Once she was in too it hit him that, since the car was as spacious as the helicopter, the journey to the consulate was going to be equally torturous. Possibly even more so, since now he didn’t have the distraction of flying, which was why he had to stop thinking about both the incredibly passionate way she’d responded to him last night and the astonishingly good feel of her beneath his hands.

  ‘So,’ she said, making herself comfortable before taking off her sunglasses and turning to face him, something about the set of her jaw and the determined look in her eye raising the hairs on the back of his neck. ‘Milan.’

  ‘What about it?’ he said, aiming for the cool nonchalance that so often eluded him when she was in his vicinity, and, for once, just about nailing it.

  ‘It’s where you started on your journey to fund management world domination.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

  ‘Then how would you put it?’ she asked. ‘The article I read described you as mysteriously elusive, but a man with the Midas touch, which I guess would explain the island, the private jet and the helicopter.’

  ‘The jet and the helicopter do save time,’ he said, reflecting that the description of him was apt, although none of his success had been by design. He’d had no ambition to make a fortune when he’d been given a chance to escape a life of crime and despair. He’d had no plans at all and nothing to lose, so he’d taken risks with little care for the consequences. In a fairer world he’d have squandered everything several times over, but his world had had other ideas and rewarded every reckless move he’d made, as if making amends for everything he’d once had and lost.

  ‘And what do you do with the time you save?’

  ‘I manage to keep myself entertained.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ she said smoothly. ‘So tell me what led you into it.’

  Not a chance. ‘Only if you tell me first what took you into crisis management,’ he countered with a wide, easy grin, confident that she’d back right off since when it came to personal information she dodged and feinted as much as he did.

  ‘All right.’

  What? As the word exploded between them like some kind of bomb, every cell of his body froze and his stomach roiled. Damn. ‘I was joking.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ she said calmly and he realised with a stab of alarm and a jolt of panic that she really wasn’t. ‘And I’m going to hold you to it.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘There’s every need.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about your favourite band instead?’ he said, never more regretting the fact that they were speeding along a motorway and therefore unable to screech to a stop so he could get the hell out.

  ‘The main reason I went into crisis management,’ she said, clearly deciding to give that absurd question the consideration it deserved, which was none, ‘was to put something bad that happened to me to good use.’

  At that, Rico snapped his head round and went very still, his heart giving a great thud. And even though the very last thing he wanted to be having was this conversation, even though he knew he ought to respond with something flippant designed to shut her down and maintain the distance, instead he found himself saying, ‘Something bad?’

  ‘When I was fifteen, I was groomed.’

  What the hell? What did that even mean? ‘What happened?’

  ‘As I told you, my parents are hippies and I was raised on various communes. They were too busy smoking weed and chanting to pay me any attention, so I went in search of it myself. One afternoon I was hanging out in an internet cafe and I got chatting online to someone I thought was a boy my age.’

  ‘But he wasn’t,’ he said as sickening realisation began to dawn.

  ‘No,’ she said w
ith a slow shake of her head. ‘He very definitely wasn’t. But he was clever and patient. He asked me all about myself and I told him everything. He took the ammunition I gave him and used it on me quite calculatingly. He knew exactly which buttons to push and how to shower me with the affection and love I craved so desperately. And he knew that when he withdrew it I’d beg him to give it back, which I did.’

  Bastardo.

  ‘Within weeks I was addicted to his messages and started skipping school early to get to the cafe. He sent me a phone so we could actually talk and I used it to send him the photos he asked for. When he came clean and told me he was thirty to my fifteen I didn’t care. I was in far too deep by that point. It was our secret and it was thrilling and I was obsessed. Before long I stopped hanging out with my friends or talking to anyone but him, really. Georgie tried, but he gave me some great excuses to use and my parents weren’t paying any attention to what was going on anyway. When he suggested we meet, I didn’t hesitate for a single second. I packed a bag, took the money he’d also sent me and was off.’

  ‘Where did you go?’ he asked, his head spinning so fast he was barely able to comprehend what she was telling him.

  ‘I met him in a hotel in east London.’

  ‘Separate rooms?’

  ‘One room. Double bed.’

  His jaw clenched so hard it was on the point of shattering. ‘And you were fifteen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  And he thought he knew the depths of depravity people could sink to. He’d been wrong.

  ‘We spent three days there,’ she continued, clearly oblivious to the rage beginning to crash though him. ‘The plan was to run away to France but I didn’t have a passport, so it was then Scotland, but before that could happen the police turned up.’

  ‘How did they find you?’

  ‘I couldn’t resist sending Georgie a photo of the hotel, even though by that point I wasn’t letting her speak to me. I thought I was so grown up,’ she said with a tiny frown, as if she thought she was somehow to blame, which was staggeringly wrong. ‘I was showing off. She called the police. I owe her big time. I still can’t believe she didn’t cut me off completely. I was vile.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘No, I know that,’ she said that with a nod that, thank God, suggested she not only knew it but also believed it. ‘None of it was my fault. It was all his.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He went to jail, came out, did it again, and went back. As far as I know he’s still inside.’

  ‘He’d better stay there,’ he muttered, thinking it was for his safety because if he ever got his hands on the figlio di puttana he wouldn’t be responsible for the outcome.

  ‘He will. For a while, at least,’ she said, frowning faintly before rallying. ‘So, back to the original question, that’s why I went into crisis management. I know how powerful manipulation can be. I know its effects and the way in which it can be used to change people’s behaviours and make them believe whatever you want them to believe. It felt like a good fit. I realise it might sound strange, but channelling what happened to me into a successful career has been cathartic. So there we go,’ she finished with a quick smile that frankly defied belief. ‘That’s me. It’s your turn now.’

  She sat back, regarding him expectantly, while inside he reeled. His turn? He could barely think straight. How could she be so composed when he wanted to hit something for the first time in years?

  And how the hell could he not reciprocate after all that? How could he not answer her questions when she’d answered his with such frankness and honesty? He didn’t want to simply brush aside what she’d told him, as if it meant nothing. It didn’t. Not to her.

  He’d never told a living soul what he’d been through, but how much of a risk would it really be to share with her some of it the way she had with him? In one sense at least, her experiences hadn’t been all that dissimilar to his. They’d both been used, manipulated and exploited for the benefit of others. She had to know some of the disillusionment he’d once felt, the shattering of hopes and dreams and the determination to never allow it to happen again. Any revelation he chose to make would therefore be safe with her. He had nothing to fear. He hoped.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he said, and the look of relief that filled her expression, as if she’d fully expected him to refuse to stick to his side of the bargain despite everything she’d told him, was like a blow to the gut. He might have many flaws, but a lack of integrity wasn’t one of them nowadays.

  ‘What made you go into fund management?’

  ‘I was given an opportunity and took it,’ he said, silently vowing to at least try to be as open and honest as she’d been in an effort not to disappoint her.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I was sixteen.’

  Her eyebrows lifted. ‘That’s young.’

  To some, perhaps. But not to him. He’d lived two brutal lifetimes by that age. ‘I started off at an investment bank working as a clerk. In a year I’d acquired the qualifications necessary to trade on La Borsa.’

  ‘The Italian stock exchange?’

  ‘Corretto. It’s here in Milan. I told you I was good with numbers. Well, I was also good at spotting opportunities no one else could see. I took risks and they paid off. I made my first million at eighteen. When I was twenty-four, I left to set up my own fund. I had no trouble picking up clients. I now have six billion euros under management.’

  ‘All on your own?’

  ‘With the exception of some back office support, yes.’

  ‘That’s quite an achievement.’

  ‘As is yours.’

  ‘We’re not quite in the same league,’ she said with a wry grin—a real one—that lit her eyes and stole his breath, before it disappointingly disappeared and her expression sobered. ‘So where were you for the six years between your parents’ death and starting work at this investment bank?’

  He tensed, every fibre of his being demanding that he shut up, but he wasn’t going to. He’d agreed to this and he didn’t go back on his word these days, no matter how great the temptation. ‘Initially I went into foster care,’ he said, forcing himself to relax while telling himself it would be fine.

  ‘You had no other relatives?’

  If only. ‘No. I lived with four different families in two years. Every time I thought I was settled I got moved on like an unwanted parcel. Eventually I decided that I’d be in charge of where I lived. I ran away. Frequently. At first I was caught and returned, but after a while they simply stopped looking.’

  She stared at him, her eyes wide and filling with an emotion he couldn’t begin to identify. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Pretty much. I was very good at hiding.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I lived on the streets for a while, sleeping in doorways by night and scavenging for food by day. But then it started getting colder. One night I broke into an empty building, only to discover that it wasn’t an empty building. It turned out to be the headquarters of I Picaresqui, which was then one of the most notorious street gangs in Veneto. They thought I might be a spy for the police.’

  ‘Oh, my God. What happened?’

  ‘You saw the scars,’ he said, remembering the way the fire had scorched his skin, the panic and the terror that had scythed through him.

  A flush bloomed on her cheeks for a moment. ‘The two on your upper chest looked like cigarette burns,’ she said, her voice strangely husky and tight.

  ‘They are.’

  ‘And the others?’ she asked, her gaze lifting to the scar at his temple and the bump in his nose.

  ‘A fight with a rival gang member over territory a year or two later.’

  Her eyes jerked back to his, the shock he saw in them sending a dart of what felt like shame shooting through him. ‘You joi
ned them?’

  ‘Si,’ he said, stamping it out since he didn’t need judgement. From anyone, least of all her. He’d judged himself plenty.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It felt like a good idea at the time.’

  ‘What sort of things did you have to do?’

  ‘I started off by fleecing unsuspecting tourists,’ he said, sticking to the facts and the facts alone. ‘Pickpocketing and coin tricks were my speciality, but anything really that made money quickly. You asked me why my English was so good.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It is the language of business and I do have an ear for it, but I also spent a lot of time watching films and reading books in order to be able to scam tourists better.’

  ‘I bet you were good at it.’

  ‘I was. Very.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Once I’d earned the respect of the leaders, I moved into the accounting side of the business.’

  There was no need to tell her some of the other more brutal things, more shameful things he’d had to do to prove himself loyal—the fighting, the righting of perceived wrongs, the collecting of debts. Or about the complex tangle of feelings he’d once had about it all.

  ‘Did you ever get caught?’

  ‘I spent more nights in the cells than I care to remember.’

  ‘No wonder you have a thing about police stations,’ she said, which proved once again how sharp she was. ‘You were tense,’ she said in response to the quizzical look he gave her. ‘I noticed.’

  ‘You fainted.’

  ‘It brought back painful memories for me too,’ she said, her eyes clouding for a moment, and he had to fight back an urge to demand more. He didn’t need more. He’d never need more.

  ‘So how did you get out?’ she asked, yanking his thoughts back on track. ‘How on earth did you go from being part of a gang to working at an investment bank in Milan?’

  ‘I was arrested on money-laundering charges and hauled in front of a judge. I confessed to nothing, but during the course of the trial my skill with money and numbers kept cropping up. It was never clear quite what the judge saw in me, but one morning she told me she had a contact here and gave me a choice. Jail or a job. I chose the latter and now I exploit the markets, which when I think about it is as ironic as you manipulating perception for your job. What?’ he finished with a frown, not liking the strange look that was appearing on her face one little bit.