by Tara Pammi
Her hands clasped his tightly, her silence saying more than words ever could. He didn’t know why he held on to her fingers as if she were a lifeline. He didn’t know what magic she wove but something shifted in his chest.
“Was he a good man, Raphael?” she asked in a soft voice. It was a question no one had ever asked, and it burrowed through his flesh and blood like an arrow, lodging deeply and painfully.
“He was a coward,” he said harshly. And flinched, for his own words hurt him. Still. After all these years.
“You...how old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Raphael, you don’t think—”
He pushed away from her, loath to discuss his father and the past any longer. “I owe Giovanni everything but I’ll be damned if I let Stefano’s shadow touch Vito Automobiles. What was your answer to Enzo?”
Her gaze turned searching, and then she sighed. “I refused him. Enzo is sweet. And this offer...it will get everyone off my back, and maybe provide a measure of relief to Gio too. But marriage is sacred.”
He snorted. She glared at him. “It is for me. I could no more marry Enzo as a convenience than I could marry...you to make Gio happy.”
“There’s one point in my favor over Enzo, si?” That she distracted him enough to joke less than a minute after thinking of Stefano Castillaghi said something about his attraction to her.
“Fat good that does me,” she mumbled.
“What does that mean?” he asked, genuinely curious now. Dio, no woman sent him on a roller coaster as she did.
Color stole up her cheeks. “Can I finish telling you what happened?” she said tartly.
He grinned, liking her all riled up like this. “Si.”
“After they left, Gio told me I should accept Enzo, that he would be a kind husband. When I said I had no intention of marrying in the near future, he got...agitated. I told him I’d had enough of him manipulating me. He said it was his right to select a husband for me, to make sure another man didn’t cheat me like Frank did.
“We yelled at each other some more and I said if he kept pushing me like that, if he... I’d leave and never return, like Nonni had done.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes, but the tears fell anyway. “His face went white...he couldn’t speak. One of the staff called his physician.
“This was not like one of his usual temper tantrums, Raphael. The doctor took ages to get there and I thought—God!” Her tears turned into soundless sobs and Raphael pulled her into his arms.
She came to him as if she had no strength left. Arms vined around his neck, she buried her face in his chest.
A strange sort of weight seemed to lodge in his own throat. He wasn’t worried about Gio. The mean old bastard would live to a hundred and torture Raphael and Pia in the process.
No, it was the sound of Pia’s wretched grief that shook him.
He had never seen anyone grieve like that. With everything of themselves poured into it. His belief that all she wanted was easy money from this trip—suddenly, his cynicism, his hard shell, felt dirty near her.
Her back was slender against his broad palm; even now he was unable to stem the awareness of her soft body against his. “Pia, nothing will happen to Gio.”
“We don’t know that. I can’t lose him. Not when I’ve only just found him. To see him lying on the bed, helpless like that... All I could think of was my Nonni. I can’t... I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to him. I can’t let him go on worrying about me.”
“You can’t marry a gay man however decent you think he is,” he added softly, just to make sure they were on the same page. Right now, he couldn’t even try to fathom the underpinnings of his godfather’s Machiavellian mind.
She sniffled elegantly and wiped her cheeks. “No, I can’t. I couldn’t sleep. I was working on a toy and finally I hit on the perfect solution.”
Raphael pulled her hands away from his neck because the graze of her breasts against his chest was more than he could take in his current mood.
And because, while she was obliviously dwelling on her worries over Gio, his attention had wandered from her grief, from Stefano, to the pressing weight of her thighs against his. To the span of her tiny waist and the flare of her hips in his hands. To how soft and sweet she smelled.
To the semi hard-on that was fast swelling into something else.
He only meant to create some distance between them.
But the moment she realized what he’d done, her eyes widened. Furious color rushed up her neck and she sidled off his lap as if she were on fire. Or maybe it was he who was on fire.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... I just...”
Pretending a calm he didn’t feel, Raphael poured a glass of water and handed it to her.
Did the woman still not realize how close he had been to kissing her again? Was she really that naive? Did she not realize her appeal, as unconventional as it was? Had the lowlife she’d mentioned shattered her confidence completely?
It was still nowhere near what Enzo with his kindness and Stefano with his schemes would do to her.
The thought shattered his desire. He couldn’t let Stefano get his dirty hands on the company he had made into a global leader. But he was also running out of options.
Options that didn’t involve Pia. And getting involved with Pia, his gut told him, was not a path from which he could turn back. Even if he wanted to.
He felt as if there was an invisible noose tightening around his neck.
It made his voice harsh when he said, “What is your solution, Pia?”
“You should pretend... I mean we should pretend to be interested in each other.” When his frown morphed into a scowl, Pia hurried on. “As if we were dating each other. As if we were...violently attracted to each other and nothing else, no one else would do. It’s the perfect solution,” she added when he just stared at her.
“How?”
She folded her hands, realized how defensive she looked and dropped them. Did the man have to look so displeased just by the notion of them dating? “Gio thinks the world of you. If you weren’t so utterly out of my league, I think he would have pushed you and me toward each other.”
“What?”
“Do you need me to spell it out? It’s all I’ve been hearing from Gio, from everyone’s mouths since I arrived in Milan. About the kind of women you go for. Even Gio isn’t foolish or stubborn enough to wish for something between us. Which, perversely, makes it the perfect solution.”
“I have to admit your scheming does prove you have Vito blood.”
“Most of the men I’ve met over the last few weeks, Enzo included, wouldn’t dream of coming near me if you made it clear that I belonged to you. They are all in awe of the force that is Raphael Mastrantino,” she added caustically.
His lips twitched. “Are you mocking my reputation?”
Pia smiled. His eyes lit up; he looked incredibly gorgeous. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“And you would be okay belonging to me?”
She shuddered. “It’s archaic, but nothing else, I fear, would keep them away. This way, you can rest easy that I won’t get my hands on Gio’s fortune. Gio would be thrilled that I have somehow enthralled you and I... I can make plans. As much as I’m making a deal with the devil.”
“I am the diablo?” he said in a soft croon that sent shivers down her spine.
“Si,” she replied.
But Raphael was no devil. Nor Prince Charming either. He was more like the big bad wolf. But sometimes it was the wolf that provided the most protection. It was the wolf you could trust to keep others at bay.
How she would survive a fake relationship when she couldn’t even look at him without melting on the inside she didn’t know. But this was the only way.
For Gio and for her own peace of mind.
He reached out to her and tilted her chin up. “What plans would those be?”
“Plans that don’t concern you.”
“If we start this
charade, I will know everything about you, Pia.”
Why did that sound like a declaration of possession? “What does it matter when you can keep me away from the till?”
Just silence. And those intense black eyes. Pia squirmed like a fish on a line.
“I... I’ve been thinking about staying beyond summer. Last night, seeing Gio’s reaction... I realized I was just fooling myself about returning. There’s nothing there for me. Not anymore.
“At the risk of confirming your worst suspicions, I want to stay here and take care of him. The thought of leaving him alone, with all his relatives who really don’t care about him, leaving him with hired help, it twists my stomach.”
A tightness emerged around his mouth. “Taking care of Gio, or any old man, is a full-time job, Pia.”
“I know that. When Nonni was ill, it was just me and her. I took a long leave of absence and I looked after her for two years. I can—”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty. I had been working only for a few months.”
“Didn’t you miss having a life? The excitement of your job and friends?” His disbelief was apparent in his voice. As if he had personal experience to negate her claim.
“All we had was each other. I know Gio has you but you’re always so busy.”
“I see the logic in your plan. It serves both our purposes, si? But whether it will work, whether Gio and the world will believe that I would be violently attracted to such a—” he let his gaze roam over her with a thoroughness that both excited and embarrassed her “—what did you say? Shy, plain, boring elementary science teacher, that I’m not sure about.”
In the process of tugging her bag over her shoulder, Pia stilled. Smoke should’ve been coming out of her ears. The gall of the man! She turned to face him, and his warm, wicked smile carving deep grooves in his cheeks, stole her indignation.
It changed him, that smile. The way he had held her when she’d cried—that was a Raphael she could like. “Just as it’ll be hard for me to act as if you’re God’s gift to women,” she said with a put-upon sigh. “But I’ll do anything for Gio.”
He took her hands in his and tugged, a devilish twist to his smile. “Simply liking will not be enough, cara mia. First, you have to stop being so nervous and jumpy around me. Then you have to act as if you adore me.”
He dipped his head while locking Pia against the door with his arms on either side of her, “And then—” his breath stroked her neck while the scent of him enveloped her “—as if you can’t keep your hands off me.”
“No,” she whispered, her entire body languorous as if someone had replaced the blood in her veins with warm honey.
A feral smile curved his mouth. “Si. Didn’t the gossip mill tell you the last bit about me?”
Pia couldn’t move her gaze from his mouth. The defined upper lip and the lush lower lip. No man should have lips like that. The need to taste that sensual mouth, the need to press her body against those hard muscles was like a physical ache. How could she feel an attraction this strongly when it was one-sided?
“That you never have a girlfriend, only lovers,” she forced herself to say, remembering the tidbit. And yet, apparently, it didn’t put off most of the women.
“If we have to make the entirety of Milan believe that we’re together, I can’t be seeing other women on the side, si? So it’ll be up to you to keep me in—”
Pia slapped her palm over his mouth, a thrill running through her.
If she wanted to live in Italy, if she wanted to be a part of Gio’s life, it meant Raphael would forever be a part of it too, in some way.
Was she forever going to spend it shying away from him? Twisting inside out because of her attraction to him? Letting him mock her like this?
Something within her rebelled, made her say, “Maybe it won’t be so bad pretending to be your girlfriend.”
His eyes widened. “I realized something about Frank and me in the last few days. He singled me out for his attentions for a reason. I... I wouldn’t have been taken in by his sweet words if I’d had more experience with men, si? Both emotionally and...sexually.” It was one thing to want to take down his arrogance a notch, and completely another to do it with his mouth against her palm, his stubble scraping her fingers.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged it back, his face so close to hers now that she could see the slight widening of his pupils, the flare of his nostrils. He wasn’t just playing with her, something whispered at the back of her mind.
“Even I didn’t realize how perfect we are for this pretense. It’s clear that I’m not the type of woman who could interest you in a million years.” The sound of his choking laugh made her glare at him “And... I could never have a relationship with a man like you.”
“Non?”
“No. You’re arrogant, cynical and...far too gorgeous for me. I’d have to beat off women for the rest of my life. I’d be reminded every day how fortunate I was to have you. Things would always be unequal between us. Love or not, I’m determined not to be with a man who looks down on me, who thinks he’s doing me a favor by being with me.”
A faint flush appeared under his cheekbones. “Pia, whatever that lowlife said—”
“Let’s not forget the whole you despising marriage thing,” Pia cut in, refusing to let him finish. The last thing she needed was Raphael’s pity.
“You still want to marry?”
“Of course I do. I refuse to let Frank break my beliefs that’ve been a part of me much longer.” Though he had come pretty close. “My parents, from what I remember of them, were devoted to each other. I want a man who’ll respect our relationship, a man who’ll trust me, a man who wants to spend his life with me. And in the meantime, I can hone myself on you, can’t I?”
“What would this...honing yourself on me entail exactly?” He made the words sound so utterly debauched, so wickedly filthy that Pia could feel heat burning up her neck.
Turning the handle behind her, she slipped out without answering. But his laughter, a deep, sexy sound, a sound that rendered his assistants awestruck, a sound that sent tingles up her spine, stayed with her all the way through the ride home.
Making her wonder what she’d signed up for.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dress for me tonight.
RAPHAEL’S TEXT THAT very evening, just as she had been getting ready to leave with Gio, mere hours after they’d made their deal, stopped Pia in her tracks.
Dinner at his sister’s house. It was the perfect occasion to advertise their new relationship. She could just imagine the arrogant gleam in his eyes, the roguish curve of his mouth as if he were standing in front of her.
That’s how Gio caught her, standing in the hallway, looking at her phone, first baffled, then furious and then with a goofy smile on her face. Because the arrogant Italian would’ve known how much it would rile her to get that command from him.
And he couldn’t have orchestrated it any better if he had stood there and kissed her.
When Gio had inquired who had made her smile, Pia had instinctively ducked the phone behind her. Realizing Gio was exactly why she’d begun this, she’d reluctantly shown him the phone.
Her grandfather had stared at the phone for a long while. Which had caused her to wonder if she’d made a horrible mistake. When he had finally looked at her, Pia had expected a hundred questions, meddling, plans. Gio, she’d begun to realize, could be like a little boy sometimes—temperamental, impulsive.
But Gio had said nothing. Asked nothing.
She’d have thought he didn’t approve if he hadn’t uttered, “He is a good man, but hard. Do not let him break you like I broke Lucia, si?”
He’d been worried at her revelation, but on the drive to Raphael’s sister’s house, Pia had sensed Gio’s relief too. Almost as if he had known this would happen.
As if it was what he’d wanted.
The growing unease that she’d started something that had no exit stra
tegy only deepened as Pia smiled at, shook hands with and exchanged air-kisses with a crowd of curious, but mostly friendly faces as soon as they arrived at his sister Teresa’s house—a posh Mediterranean-style villa with colorful ivy climbing decoratively up its white walls.
Golden sunlight washed over the villa. The early dinner was al fresco with people spread all over the house and the immense backyard with white tables spread around. A festive atmosphere reigned with kids chasing each other and people talking in groups. But the moment Gio and she had walked in, a hush fell over the smiling faces.
She tried not to cringe as attention focused on her. More than a few faces were familiar, even a couple of men who had attended her ball. Suddenly, her plan sounded ridiculous, even stupid.
She was going to pretend to be familiar with Raphael in front of all these people? Pretend like just the thought of being romantically involved with him didn’t make her feel plain and dull? Didn’t make her want to hide and do something wildly exciting at the same time.
And where was the dratted man anyway?
Pia met Raphael’s four sisters and their husbands, scores of his nieces and nephews—they were a fertile bunch, apparently—a host of his cousins and their spouses, two aunts, one uncle and finally his mother Portia Mastrantino.
That same distrust she’d seen in Raphael’s eyes showed in his mother’s eyes.
Noting the white shorts and skirts paired with spaghetti tops and the humidity that was making her hair wild, she was glad that she’d dressed in a plain cotton navy blue top and printed shorts with her favorite Toms wedges, whatever Raphael’s imperious command.
After more than an hour of blank smiling, Pia sneaked into the house, needing quiet.
Sitting on a chaise longue in cargo shorts and a navy blue T-shirt that exposed corded arms and hair-sprinkled wrists, Raphael looked utterly different and yet just as magnetic. Floor-to-ceiling glass dipped him in sunlight. His olive skin looked darker, his shoulders broader with the fabric stretched over his lean chest.
He was bouncing the most adorable little girl on his knee.
The little girl screamed and laughed as Raphael pretended to lose his grip on her while she slid down his long legs to the floor. Every time he caught her at the last second, she squealed, shuddered, scampered over to his knee, climbed over his chest and wrapped chubby arms around his neck and slobbered a wet kiss over his cheek.