RENO AND TRINA
GETTING BACK TO LOVE
By
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2014 Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.
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MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MALLORY MONROE:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
SERIES IN ORDER:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:
HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE
DUTCH AND GINA:
A SCANDAL IS BORN
DUTCH AND GINA:
AFTER THE FALL
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE POWER OF LOVE
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
DUTCH AND GINA:
WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE
THE MOB BOSS SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS
MOB BOSS 2:
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MOB BOSS 3:
LOVE AND RETRIBUTION
MOB BOSS 4:
ROMANCING TRINA GABRINI
A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:
THE PREGNANCY
(Mob Boss 5)
MOB BOSS 6:
THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI
RENO’S GIFT
BOOK 7
RENO GABRINI:
A MAN IN FULL
Book 8
THE GABRINI MEN SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI
ROMANCING SAL GABRINI
TOMMY GABRINI 2:
A PLACE IN HIS HEART
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
FROM MALLORY MONROE:
DANIEL’G GIRL:
ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN
ROMANCING MO RYAN
ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR
ROMANCING THE BULLDOG
IF YOU WANTED THE MOON
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KATHERINE CACHITORIE:
LOVERS AND TAKERS
LOVING HER SOUL MATE
LOVING THE HEAD MAN
SOME CAME DESPERATE:
A LOVE SAGA
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:
A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
YVONNE THOMAS
AND
BACK TO HONOR:
A REGGIE REYNOLDS
ROMANTIC MYSTERY
JT WATSON
ROMANTIC FICTION
FROM
AWARD-WINNING
AND
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON:
DINO AND NIKKI:
AFTER REDEMPTION
AND
AFTER WHAT YOU DID
COMING SOON
FROM
MALLORY MONROE:
DUTCH AND GINA
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND SERIES
BOOK EIGHT
ROMANCING SAL GABRINI
BOOK TWO
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI
BOOK THREE
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CHAPTER ONE
With the French Alps in the backdrop and the blustery snow whipping across its windshield, the limousine drove through the high-arching gates of the mountainous Montavon estate, along the twisting driveway, and stopped at the steps that led to the main entrance. Reno Gabrini stepped out before his driver could let him out, and buttoned his double-breasted suit. He was tired of this shit. He’d been in Europe for nearly a week now, renegotiating a contract he thought was already settled before he made the trip, and now there was yet another sticking point. Yet another deal breaker. Yet another fucking demand.
Belinda Montavon, the billionaire heiress to a diamond fortune, had agreed to partner with Reno’s company in his efforts to bring his PaLargio Hotel and Casino to the French Riviera. Now she wanted a face-to-face before she would even allow further negotiations. Not that negotiations were going great to begin with. They were already in free fall. They were already off-track. This meeting would either revitalize talks, or end talks altogether. But that was her new demand. To meet Reno himself. To decide, at this late date, if he was the kind of man she wanted to do business with. Reno already had it up to here with this woman and her demands, but he knew it was too sweet a deal for his family, and for the PaLargio, to back out now.
He headed up the behemoth set of steps, taking them two at a time, until he made it to her front door. His people had already warned him that this Montavon lady was crazy as goat shit and could easily rub him the wrong way. But that was ridiculous to Reno. She’d already rubbed him the wrong way! All of these delays and new demands and renegotiations rubbed him wrong when he first arrived in France. There was nothing more she could do, he thought, for him to regard her any less.
He thought wrong.
He realized his error when he was escorted into her mansion and led into the parlor where she was waiting for him. And there she was, stretched out on her French Provincial armchair with her long, flowing red hair flapped around her shoulders, with her pasty pink skin plump and ripe, naked as the day she was born. Reno almost smiled at this amateurish, ludicrous display, but he kept it together, for the deal’s sake.
She was right around his age, which meant she was in her late thirties, and was still sexy as hell. He’d admit that. But she was one fucked up female if she thought this ploy of hers was going to intimidate him in any way. He knew how the restless rich behaved. He knew how they loved to catch you off guard, to shock you, to send your sensibilities reeling. They got their jollies that way. But Reno didn’t have any sensibilities, and nobody was getting off on him. And shocking him? She was wasting her time.
“So we finally meet face to face,” she said with a pleasant smile as he stood in front of her. “The infamous Dominic Gabrini. Or Reno, as they more often refer to you, correct? I’ve heard a lot about you, Reno.” Then she waved her hand. “Sit. Please.”
Reno almost refused to sit until she put some clothes on her naked ass, but he knew that was exactly the kind of rise she was trying to get out of him. It wasn’t about sex with her. It wasn’t about flaunting her curvaceous body. It was all about his reaction to her outrageousness and how she foolishly figured it would give her some kind of an edge.
He sat down in the wingback chair that had been placed, apparently for him, in front of her. He didn’t cross his legs the way he knew she expected him to, because he wasn’t hiding anything. He wasn’t going to pretend she wasn’t sexy or that he wasn’t turned on in some reflex way. If he got hard, tough. He didn’t give a shit. He just wanted this weeklong n
ightmare over and done.
“I understand you needed to see my face before you could finalize this deal,” he said to her.
She smiled. “And a magnificent face it is. I am impressed. You look better than your photographs, which is usually the reverse for most people. But life is still young, eh,” she added.
“I’ve been here for a week. I’ve met with your people repeatedly. Yet there’s still no deal. What do I have to do to get this settled today? Time is money and I’m losing both.”
“You are not losing time. That is not possible. Everybody above ground, my friend, has time. Money, maybe not. But plenty of time.”
“Do you want to make a deal, or don’t you?”
She smiled again. “You look even prettier when you are upset, no? You look fierce.”
Reno leaned forward. Enough of this shit. “Look, Miss Montavon, I don’t know what game you’re playing at, and I don’t know who you think you’re playing with, but you’re wasting your time with me. We had a deal before I got on my plane and came here.”
“A deal, a deal, what’s a deal?”
“We had a deal!” Reno blared so loudly that it gave her a start. She actually winced. “This trip was supposed to be formality only, to sign that deal. You think I have time for this? Your people set this up, not mine. Your people contacted me, I didn’t contact them. They said you desperately wanted in and you were ready to get in. This was supposed to be final. Signature time only. But I won’t hesitate to get back on my plane without signing anything, and I’ll never look back. And when the PaLargio becomes the rave of the Riviera, it’ll be your lost lady. And your lost because of some butt-ass bullshit!” He said this and sat straight back in his chair.
At first, she just sat there, as if he was the one who had shocked her. Then she laughed. “Wow,” she said. “What a temper you have. But they told me about you. He’s a hard-charging man, that one, they told me.” Then she turned serious. “I laughed then too.” She snapped her finger. “No man, I said, is that hard-charging.”
A young man, who couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, came into the parlor as if he’d heard her finger snap. Reno realized it wasn’t in the hearing, but the fact that he was probably watching her crazy ass on some video monitor outside of the room and came in on cue. What surprised Reno, however, was when Montavon flapped one of her legs over one arm of her chair, and the other leg over the other arm of her chair, revealing all. His dick throbbed so hard even he couldn’t believe it. And when the young man, without asking, knelt down and began eating her, Reno’s dick tented his pants, and he thought he was going to cum.
But he didn’t cum. He continued to stare at her. She was getting a good laugh because of his obvious reaction, and he hated that he had reacted so decisively. But once that contract was signed and he had seventy percent share of this Riviera project, giving him undisputed controlling interest with no possible threat of takeover from her crazy highness or anybody else, she could laugh until her belly ached. He would have achieved exactly what he came for. He’d get the last laugh.
“Do we have a deal, Miss Montavon? Are you going to sign the contract?” He asked her this as if nothing was going on right in front of him.
But she wasn’t about to let him get away that easily. “I see you are, shall we say. . . interested?” She said this with what he could only describe as a grin as she looked at his tented midsection. “Care to join us, Mr. Gabrini?” she added.
“No,” Reno said flatly. “Do we have a deal?”
She placed her hand on the young man’s head, pushing his face further between her legs, guiding him to her sensitive spots. “It’s a good deal for me,” she said. “Yes, I will say unequivocally it is a good deal for me. I always wanted to own a great hotel with a reputation already established.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Reno asked.
“It is a good deal for me, but it is a fantastic deal for you. That is the problem. I am not accustomed to being on the mere good end of a fantastic deal. Not ever. We can change the terms, no?”
“No,” Reno said. “It will remain seventy/thirty with your majority capital up front. That’s what you bring to the table, your cash. I bring the name and reputation of the PaLargio to the table. I’m bringing more by virtue of that name alone. Seventy/thirty. Take it or leave it.” His original offer had been a seventy-five/twenty-five split. He’d already come down five percent since his plane landed a week ago. That was the only percentage concession he was giving.
“I see,” she said. “Hard charging and unbendable. Don’t think I like that.” Then her eyes turned hooded as the young man was apparently hitting her spot the right way now. “I also heard you were quite the stud in bed,” she added, “and you like to pass it around. You have quite the reputation for that too, no? One round with us, and you have a deal. Or, at least, you will have a counteroffer to your offer.”
Reno stood up. He was done. A week of negotiating for this? What was wrong with these people? Why did they keep fucking with him? “Have a nice life lady,” he said, and began heading for the exit.
And just like that, her eyes opened wide. She was obviously surprised. “You’re leaving?” she asked him.
“I’m leaving,” Reno said as he continued to leave.
“But . . . wait. Wait. Will you wait?”
Reno finally turned around and looked at her.
She smiled, although it was clear she was a little shaken and had lost that edge she thought her outrageousness would give to her. “Let us calm down. Let us be sensible here.” Then she pushed the young man away from her. “All work and no play make Reno a dull boy.”
“All play and no work makes Reno a fool,” Reno said. He found his eyes roam down the length of her when the young man stood up.
She noticed Reno’s appraisal, which caused her to smile again. “I’m sexy and you know it.”
Actually, with her legs flapped over each arm of the chair, and her small head on her rather thick neck, she looked like an aging crab to him. But he didn’t go there. He, instead, turned back around and kept on walking.
His lack of flexibility surprised her yet again. That man, she thought. But she wasn’t so thrown that she couldn’t nod to her own young man, who complied by dropping his pants. Then she yelled to Reno. “The counteroffer,” she said, “is in the foyer.”
Reno looked back, stunned that she would play that kind of juvenile game with him. Her counter had undoubtedly been in the foyer when he first arrived. He looked at her, ready to set her ass straight, but she wasn’t thinking about him. She was no longer trying to get a negotiation edge, but a purely sensual one, as her young man was pushing his thin young dick inside of her and jerking his long, blonde hair back as he did. He looked like a girl and probably fucked like one too. A kid like that wouldn’t know what giving good sex meant.
And Belinda Montavon, he thought, as he watched her. She probably didn’t know good sex either. But if Reno got a hold of her she’d no longer need to play games to get off, that was for damn sure. And there was a time, he thought, when he would have tried it. He would have done her just to see for himself that he could blow her mind.
But those days were gone, he reminded himself, as he walked out of that den of iniquity. He grabbed the thick folder from her man in the foyer, and left her house. This was probably the latest new demand in what was already too many demands tossed, but at least a counter meant that the talks were back on track. He and his people would review it, they would discuss it further, and he could hopefully get the hell out of France by week’s end. Deal or no deal.
But when he finally made it back to his hotel suite, and stepped into that old world lap of luxury the south of France was known for, the last thing he was thinking about was some crazy heiress. Sleep was what he was after, and making it to his bed to get some hard-earned rest before he even thought about reviewing her counter. He didn’t realize somebody was in his room until he closed the door, dropped his keys on the s
ide table with a thump, and was heading for that bedroom and that very bed he dreamed of.
He saw movement in his peripheral vision, even against the bright lights shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, causing him to turn quickly. Then he frowned. He couldn’t believe it.
“Tommy?” he asked, astounded. But not just his cousin and best friend Tommy Gabrini was standing inside his suite, but Tommy’s younger brother Sal was there too. Which floored Reno.
“Bet you didn’t expect to see us,” Tommy said with that wonderful smile of his.
“Bet your ass,” Reno agreed, with a smile of his own.
“Where were you?” Tommy asked as he and Sal began to move across the large suite toward Reno. “We’ve been waiting for hours.”
“I had a meeting. Why didn’t you call me?”
“With Belinda?”
“Yeah, so? You know her?”
“Crazy, isn’t she?”
“Bat-ass crazy,” Reno agreed. “You know her?”
“By reputation only. Fortunately.”
When his cousins made their way to Reno’s side, he and Tommy warmly embraced. Sal, however, abstained. He and Reno had each other’s backs, and loved each other like brothers, but were too much alike to ever be close. They shook hands instead.
“How are you, Ree?” Sal asked as they shook.
“I was good before I saw your ugly mug,” Reno replied, still smiling.
RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series) Page 1