Bought with the Italian's Ring

by Tara Pammi

  What, or rather who, she really wanted was Raphael. They hadn’t seen each other for a fortnight and Pia felt quite a juvenile resentment that his business always seemed to take him away when she needed him the most.

  Just as he’d been unavailable the day she’d realized her period was three weeks late and had freaked out. After the first night with Raphael, she’d immediately gone on the pill. He was the one she wanted to freak out and panic with, since he partly shared the blame if she were pregnant. But no, Raphael had been in blasted Tokyo negotiating a new trade agreement between Vito Automobiles and a Japanese manufacturing company.

  Instead, she’d had to beg Emilio to drive her to a pharmacy at least twenty kilometers from Gio’s estate and Como where Raphael lived, to buy a pregnancy test. And then she’d performed the test in secret, because she was terrified of a servant finding out and telling Gio before she’d had a chance to process it and told Raphael.

  Fortunately, the test had been negative.

  Yet Pia had sat in the restroom for half an hour, feeling an inexplicable but violent urge to cry.

  What she’d wanted then was the solid, comforting presence of the man she loved. The man who it seemed took care of every small thing for her.

  On his return from Japan, Pia had broached the subject of his cutting down at work, and had received the most piercing stare leveled at her. He hadn’t shut her down as he usually did but he hadn’t responded to her suggestion either. Even Gio had backed her, saying he could delegate more.

  “My father delegated, he trusted people he shouldn’t have and his business sank within two years,” had been his reply.

  Since she didn’t want to hurt him, and his father had always been a touchy subject with Raphael, Pia had left it at that.

  She had let a lot of things slide, she realized now, but weren’t those the growing pains of a new relationship? Pia had learned that Raphael, even after being married once, rarely, if ever, shared his thoughts with anybody. He was used to going it alone, used to that role of problem solver so much.

  But the more they saw of each other and the more they had planned their engagement, the more Raphael had begun retreating from her. He’d become the stranger she had met that first night, brooding and unapproachable, except for the fact that she was allowed to sleep with him now.

  Like clockwork, he either brought her to his apartment, kept her up until dawn—not that Pia wasn’t just as voracious for his touch, for his possession—or he came to her at Gio’s house, long after Gio and the staff had gone to bed. Usually, he found Pia studying or working on her toys.

  When she was, he shed his shirt and shoes and waited for her to finish—as if she could make sense of a single line when his mere presence fried her brain. And then he took her to bed.

  And every time, he made love to her—whether tenderly or with a fierce passion that left her sore for hours later—Pia couldn’t stop the words of love tumbling from her mouth. Because it was only there she found the Raphael she had fallen in love with. Only there that he opened up to her. Only there was he not a stranger.

  Three weeks later now, her period had started, and then stalled after a day. Pia had no choice except to ask one of Raphael’s sisters to recommend a gynecologist and claim a ghastly yeast infection to silence the instant speculation written on all four of his sisters’ faces as well as on Portia Mastrantino’s.

  Raphael was out of town. He wasn’t flying in until a couple of hours before their engagement party. And again, Pia found herself battling the most inexplicable urge to cry.

  No, not inexplicable anymore, if she were honest with herself.

  Something had changed, she now realized since the night at the opera. Since Raphael had received that phone call? Since she’d agreed to marry him?

  No, since she had told him that she had fallen in love with him.

  It clicked like the missing piece of a puzzle that had been tying her up in knots.

  That was it, the moment when everything had changed. The moment Raphael had begun withdrawing from her.

  Why? She hadn’t demanded anything of him. She had never said it with an expectation that he would reciprocate. She had only said it because she loved him. God, she loved him with everything in her and she wanted him to know it. She wanted him to know that she appreciated him, that she understood why he would probably never say it back. That she loved him just as he was.

  Had he lost interest in her because of that? Had her appeal dimmed as a result?

  She had heard talk among his mother and sisters that Allegra was back in Milan. That he’d been seen with her at a new restaurant. For a split second, Pia’s faith in him had wavered. Even when she prodded, he barely said two sentences to her about Allegra.

  Did he want to be back with his ex? Had she paled in comparison to the famed beauty?

  No, something in her whispered.

  Raphael was not some fickle boy she had a crush on. Raphael would never break her trust in that way. He thought her naïveté, her lack of sophistication was attractive. That it made her unique.

  Yet, all afternoon, the question of his withdrawal gnawed at her soul.

  Her fingers burning, her stomach in a constant knot, Pia watched in dismay as a small battalion of workers arrived in the huge open area in front of the house and began putting up a snow-white marquee of humongous proportions.

  Fifteen minutes later a party organizer, an army of catering vans and then another crew of workers to decorate the tables arrived.

  She hurriedly called to Portia, who had put the party together, that there must be some mistake. Only to be informed that there wasn’t. Two hundred and fifty guests were arriving to celebrate Raphael Mastrantino’s engagement to Giovanni Vito’s granddaughter.

  The board of Vito Automobiles and all of their families, major shareholders, Gio’s extended family, all of the million Mastrantino cousins and their families—it seemed the entire world wanted to see Raphael and his new fiancée.

  “They all want to make their nods to Raphael. I mean, they always knew this would happen, but now it is more...definite, si?” Portia had said over the phone.

  When Pia had whispered that she didn’t actually understand, Portia said “When Gio declared you his granddaughter and his heir, it created problems for my Raphael.”

  “But why?”

  “Because Giovanni and Raphael both own thirty-five percent each of VA’s stock. With your appearance, it became clear that whoever married you would inherit that stock. So there were some who thought Raphael would not remain CEO for long. My son is a ruthless businessman and not everyone likes his principles, his practices. Some thought they would betray him and make good with the man Gio chose for you.” Knuckles white, Pia gripped the phone, nausea rising through her throat. “But now that Raphael is marrying you, everyone wants to cook favor with him again.”

  The phone dropped from Pia’s hand and clattered to the ground while she grappled with the truth.

  Pia heard Portia’s stilted English still coming from the phone, saw the decorators pull out rare orchids in droves, and it was all a haze as she walked back to her bedroom.

  Now that Raphael was marrying Pia, there would be no contest for the CEO position. With 70 percent of the controlling stock in his hands, no one would ever again rival Raphael’s powerful position. No one would ever take away the most valuable thing from Raphael—his wealth, his status and more than anything, his power.

  For that was the only thing that defined Raphael Mastrantino.

  And that power was the only reason he had proposed to Pia.

  Because, she knew without doubt, Giovanni would have given Raphael Vito Automobiles for only one thing in return.

  A ring on her finger.

  * * *

  With Gio nowhere to be seen, and family members—both Vitos and Mastrantinos—arriving as early as four, Pia found no respite anywhere in the house. Not that she could escape the misery of her own thoughts if she were alone.

 
; At the risk of seeming churlish to Portia and Raphael’s sisters, she had refused to dress for the party. At least not until she saw him. Not until she cleared up this matter with him.

  Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt of Raphael’s that she had borrowed from his apartment one night, she was about to bolt to a café in the village when someone grabbed her and pushed her into Gio’s study, thankfully empty of well-meaning relatives.

  Raphael stood leaning against the door, devouring her as hungrily as she did him.

  The sight of him hit her hard, sending such a pulse of longing through her that she swayed. His clothes for once weren’t perfect, his eyes sported dark circles.

  And yet he was so dear to her heart. An extension of herself.

  Other things were more important to him than her. Even that she had accepted. But if the very foundation, the existence of their relationship was because she was Gio’s heir—could she live with that?

  “Ciao, bella.”

  “Did you just get back from Tokyo?”

  “Not ten minutes ago.”

  “Raphael, we have to—”

  Not a word emerged from her mouth before he slammed her into the door none too gently and his mouth covered hers. All her misery evaporated under the hungry onslaught of his lips.

  “Dio, I have missed you, I have missed this body and now the bloody house is crawling with cousins and aunts.” His lips fused to hers, his hand crawled under the sweatshirt that she was wearing.

  Filling his hands with her breasts, he growled his approval at her braless state. Past the point of no return, even knowing that this passion would only make things worse when she confronted him, Pia couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop herself from mindlessly rubbing up against him. Couldn’t stop herself from stealing this incredible pleasure, this closeness with him.

  “I missed you too.” She pulled at his hair and bit his lower lip, frustration making her reckless. “I needed you, Raphael, God, how I needed you.” A strangled cry escaped her when he rubbed his whiskers against her nipple, and then ensconced it in the wet warmth of his mouth. “I hate your job. I hate that you’re never there when I need you. I hate that—”

  His teeth tugged gently at her nipple and Pia lost rational thought.

  As if sensing her own edgy need for him, a torrent of Italian fell from his mouth. He praised her, he told her in elaborate detail how much he had missed her, how he had taken himself in hand one night in his hotel room imagining it was her mouth again. Pia was sobbing by the time he unzipped her jeans and then his trousers, begging shamelessly for him to do all the things he was promising by the time he lifted her up against the door.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips and he drove into her wet heat.

  Guttural groans colored the air.

  Head thrown back, arms vined around his neck, Pia gave herself over to the incredible sensation spiraling through her pelvis as Raphael plunged and withdrew with sure, fast thrusts.

  And lost in the indescribable pleasure, lost to the magic he wove, she couldn’t stop the words. “I love you, Raphael...and I hate you for what you’re doing to me.”

  His sweat slicked body stilled around her, his dark eyes staring at her with shock. Tense muscles jutted out of his shoulders.

  “Pia?”

  But far too gone now, Pia buried her mouth in his neck and bit him, urging him to move.

  On the next thrust up, he kissed her. Tongues tangled, teeth bit. And he moved inside her, with desperately hard thrusts, without the finesse she had come to know from him.

  They exploded together within seconds of each other, their harsh breaths a symphony in the silence.

  With her body’s utterly explosive climax came Pia’s tears, releasing everything she had been holding on to so tightly for weeks, afraid that if she voiced it, it would all fall apart.

  She pushed at his shoulders and Raphael pulled out of her and slid her down to the ground gently. If he hadn’t held on to her, Pia would have slithered into a heap on the floor.

  The scent of him curled around her. Made her body and mind automatically think he was hers. That he would never deceive her.

  God, she was a naive idiot.

  With gentle movements, he straightened her clothes. Pia jerked away from his touch. A guilty flush scoured his cheeks as he took in her actions. His mouth tightened, deep grooves etched around it.

  “Please, let me go.”

  He stared at her tears, as if he were fascinated by the sight of them. And sighed. “Bene.”

  She buried her face in her hands. She was aware of every breath of his, of the shift and slide of his muscles as he pulled up his legs. She wanted to burrow into his embrace and sob like one of her students.

  But how could he erase the hurt when he was the one who had caused it?

  “Pia, was I rough?”

  The tenderness in his voice almost broke her. “No.” The aftermath of her climax still made her body clench. “Yes, but I wanted it just as much as you did. I’m not breakable.”

  His rough exhale said he’d been horribly worried about her answer. His worried gaze said he found no solace in it. “Not breakable, cara mia. Fragile.” He stared at his own hands as if looking for answers as to how to handle her there. He fisted them and she knew it was to stop himself from reaching out to her.

  That he knew something was wrong between them offered no relief to the ache in her chest. Why hadn’t he fixed it, she wanted to ask. Wasn’t that what he was good at?

  He ran a hand over his face. “Pia, whatever it is that’s bothering you, we will work through it. I... I admit that I have a problem with delegation at work. And I’m willing to find some middle ground.”

  “It might be a little late now,” she said, hating the dejection in her voice.

  He stilled. “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you tender with me only before or after sex, Raphael? Why do you hide away, closet your emotions, shut me down when we’re not engaged in intimacy?”

  This time, she definitely didn’t imagine the guilty look in his eyes. “You’re imagining things. I told you I’m not a man of sweet words.”

  She snorted. And the bitterness in that sound appalled her. Was that what he had done to her? Had he achieved what Frank hadn’t? How could it be love when it hurt so much? “Please don’t insult my intelligence. You blow hot when it comes to sex and then cold the rest of the time. You twist me in knots. I’m not allowed to comment on your work life—”

  “I just admitted that I have a problem.”

  “I’m not allowed to talk about what is going on with Allegra. I’m not allowed to mention your father. Damn it, Raphael, I know half the things that are going on in your life because of your mother.”

  He cursed hard and long. “She has upset you. I should’ve known. Pia, there’s nothing between me and Allegra. Do you have such little faith in me?”

  “She did not upset me. Your actions did. God, Raphael, when were you going to tell me that you’re using our upcoming wedding, using me to deny Allegra even visiting rights to Alyssa? You want me to be a mother to your little girl, but I’m not allowed a say in it?”

  “I will not force you to be a mother if you don’t—”

  “I love your daughter!”

  “Then what is the problem?”

  “It’s your assumption that I will play along with whatever you have mapped out for us, your inability to include me in anything important in your life. All you want from me is sex. It’s the only reason it took me this long to figure it out.”

  “Figure what out, Pia?”

  “That you began retreating from me since I told you I loved you. I guess the guilt was too much for even you.”

  “What guilt?”

  “The guilt of making me fall in love with you, the guilt you feel when I look at you with adoring eyes, the guilt of hiding the fact that you only asked me to marry you because I come with a hefty stock option in Vito Automobiles.”

  She thought he wou
ld explode with anger. But his silence only confirmed his guilt. It skewered the last ray of hope she had nourished that there would be a different explanation, that there could be another reason.

  Some fantasy that she hadn’t known she had bought into that gorgeous, powerful men like Raphael Mastrantino could fall for plain, geeky, shy nobodies like her.

  And now she was pathetically self-pitying too.

  “Pia, I was attracted to you from the first night. And you to me.” The resignation in his voice delivered the final crack against her heart. He wasn’t even denying her allegation.

  “According to your mother, you attract more than half the female population in Milan, if not Italy. But I don’t think you’d consider marrying them all.”

  “No. I admit that when Gio proposed it—”

  “Of course Nonno talked you into it.” She banged her head into the door behind her. The urge to do violence instantly died when her head pounded.

  “Dio mio, Pia! Stop acting like a child!”

  “When have you or Gio treated me like an adult? I obviously don’t inspire him to high levels of confidence in myself. Clearly, he knew that it was a facade. Was it the stock that worked finally? Or was it the fact that with the stock in hand, as the uncontested CEO of VA, you’ve reached heights that your father never could. You could prove to yourself and the world that you’re not him. That you could never be weak like him. Have you sold yourself to Gio just to prove that you’re incapable of loving, Raphael?”

  Raphael pushed up to his feet with an athletic grace she loved and hated and pulled her up with him. When she’d have pushed away from the door, he caged her there with his body. The scent of their intimacy was still thick in the air, a potent mixture that made longing rush through her. “The only thing Gio sought to do was to protect you...”

  “From the likes of Frank, si? Because I’m naive and plain and will fall for any sweet-talking rogue, like I fell for you, si? I get it. He could have just tied up the stock in your name, couldn’t he? He could have told me not to fall for anyone because it is only the Vito fortune that is valuable about me.”