by Tara Pammi
Giuseppe and Leo sat on the opposite sides of the long conference table with Franco next to Giuseppe and... Natalie next to Leo.
His heart thumped so hard against his rib cage that Massimo dropped the bottle of water. It hit the carpeted floor with a soft thump, rolling away with a swish. And he had the most ridiculous notion that it was his heart and he wanted to groan and laugh and share it with her, but he had hurt her with his cruel words.
Perversely, he’d never been so cruel to anyone else in his life, only the woman he loved. If that didn’t tell him everything that was wrong with him...
He wanted to tell her he had all the time in the world to listen to her now but only silence was left. She’d taken joy and light with her.
Dressed in a white dress shirt that hugged her slender frame and black trousers, and hair—Dios mio, that wavy, thick hair, bunched into a sophisticated knot at the top of her head—she looked like composure, and sophistication, and brilliance and beauty and heart, all combined into a complex woman.
The woman he adored with every breath in him. The woman he’d go down on his knees for. The woman who could strip him to his soul with one look, one word, one kiss.
The woman who refused to shift her gaze from the laptop screen in front of her and spare him a look. The woman who was even now digging those misaligned front teeth into her lower lip.
“Massimo, take your seat,” Leo said. Massimo covered the distance to Natalie, his chest such a tight knot that it was a miracle he could breathe. The scent of her, so familiar, made him shake.
Somehow, he kept his head as Leo began the meeting and Franco asked questions about the recent leak of the security designs while he made copious notes, and in between, there was Natalie, pulling up schematics for a new multilayer security design on the projector, addressing Giuseppe’s and Franco’s questions, and Massimo went from dumb disbelief to utter amazement.
She had come up with a new set of security designs? She’d been working with Leonardo? Giuseppe—who apparently appreciated Massimo’s proactive backing out of the contract because of the security leak, whose CTO had been smart enough to recognize Natalie’s unusual talent—had persuaded his board to give BCS another chance.
Natalie’s frantic, almost feverish movements in collecting her laptop, her handbag.
He moved his body into her space and she stilled. “I’ve been to New York to see you. I’ve seen Frankie.” When she turned her stunned gaze at him, he nodded. “He’s good. He’s excited to see you soon.”
“Thanks, but I’ll see him in a day. I’ve tried to repay any damage I’ve done to the project. You have it, Massimo, everything you ever wanted.”
She hitched her bag over her shoulder, calmly dismissed Massimo and moved to Leonardo. There was no spark in her, no fight, no laughter, no joy. Just a...pale imitation.
“Thank you for letting me fix this. I’d prefer to work from home if you still want me on it. If you arrange for a ride to the airport—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Massimo bit out.
“Massimo—”
Fury burned through him as he met Leo’s gaze. “You know I’ve been going mad trying to find her.”
Leo shrugged. “That day, you weren’t in a place where you’d hear a word I said. No chance for rational talk. You persuaded me that she was brilliant. I saw no reason to not use her. Later, after I convinced her to fix it, her condition was that I not tell you.”
Had she written him off completely? Had he lost her before he had realized what he’d had?
Leo closed the door behind him. When Natalie moved to follow his brother, Massimo waylaid her, trapping her between the table and his body.
“Let me go.”
“No! Tell me why you helped.” He wanted to touch her so desperately, more than he needed his next breath.
“Because that project meant something to me. Being on a team that created cutting-edge technology, being on a team with you and Leonardo and all those men and women, discussing strategies with you, building something real out of all those years of dreams...it meant something to me.
“More than money. More than the power or prestige of it. More than...” She looked away. “All my life, I’ve never been a part of a community like that. I wanted to finish what I’d started.”
“Then stay. See it through.”
“I can’t stay near you.”
He placed his hands over her shoulders, bracing himself against the waves of pain crashing through him. “Natalie mia, will you please look at me?”
He fell for her all over again when she leveled those beautiful eyes at him and gazed steadily.
“Where do I start, cara mia?”
“There’s nothing to start, Massimo. Nothing to say...”
He clasped her jaw with his hand, his heart bursting with all the things he wanted to say. “First, I beg for your forgiveness, tesoro. Please, Natalie, if you ever thought that there was something worth knowing in me, loving in me, please, cara mia, you will stay a minute and you will listen, sì?”
She looked up at him then, meeting him square in the eye. Gaze filled with tears. “You shamed me. You... You gave me everything...everything I never asked for, everything I never expected to have in life. Everything I had never even dreamed of...and in one moment, one moment, you took it all away, Massimo.
“I’ve never felt so alone. More alone than that night when my dad didn’t return. To not have known you would have been okay.
“But to know you and love you and love the best of you and then...” She looked down, and her tears poured onto her chest, dampening her white shirt. Massimo pulled her into his arms, unable to bear her pain, hating that he’d done this to her. “You made me doubt myself. As if I was less. As if I didn’t deserve you. I only went to him to talk about—”
“No, look at me, Natalie! I don’t care why you went. I don’t give a goddamn about him. Cara mia, all I care about is you. About you and nothing else in the world.” He tilted her chin up to look at him and the pain there skewered him. “Cristo, you’re the most wonderful thing that has ever come into my life. The most joyful thing. The thing that Mama hoped I would find and nurture.”
He kissed her soft cheek slowly, softly, breathing in the scent of her. Looking for courage in the tension that swept through her body. “Forgive me for all the dirty accusations.” A kiss at her temple. “Forgive me for not listening.” A kiss on the tip of her nose. “Forgive me for putting the bloody contract before you.” A kiss on her forehead. “Forgive me for not trusting you.”
He dropped to his knees, anchoring his hands around her hips, burying his face in her belly. Pressed countless kisses to every inch of her he could touch and feel. He was shaking and he couldn’t stop himself because he was still afraid he would never hold her like this.
He let the fear and the joy and the warmth gush through him, let himself breathe it in. Because this was what loving Natalie meant.
Embracing this...emotional storm. Embracing the fear. Embracing the fact that she’d make him weak and strong but better for it. And he let her see all the things he couldn’t put into words in his eyes. “Forgive me, the most, for not trusting myself. Forgive me for not listening to the part of me that is worthy of you.
“Forgive me, cara mia, for not saying that I love you. Forgive me for being an arrogant bastard who couldn’t see love when it kissed him on the mouth and held him in the night and told him there was a hero inside waiting to get out. Ti amo, Natalie. You make me a better man, cara mia. If you were with me I’d be the best of them all. The best Brunetti of all. And I’d maybe start a new trend of what it means to be a Brunetti, sì?”
Natalie fell into Massimo’s waiting arms, the sob she’d been trying to bury bursting out of her chest. “I love you, too, Massimo, so much that it terrifies me. I... I’ve never loved anyone like that. I...want to trust this
but—”
“Shh...cara mia. No, there’s no place for fear or doubts between us. There’s no place for anything but love.” And then he was kissing her mouth, so softly, so tenderly, and Natalie fell into the kiss. His desperation, his relief, his warmth, his love—his kiss spoke of a thousand things and she took it all in. “Say you’ll believe me, Natalie.”
He had believed her when he had no reason to. Given her a chance to prove herself. She would give him a million chances, she realized, shaking with alarm, but whatever fear and doubts came at them, Natalie wanted to face it with him. Together. “I do believe you. I’m all in, Massimo.”
“We’ll bring Frankie here immediately. We’ll build a home for ourselves. We’ll start fresh, cara mia, with no shadows. And when you marry me—”
And just like that, Natalie fell in love a little more. “What?” Her heart thudded in her chest.
His eyes shining, Massimo slid his lips over hers in a silky caress. “When you marry me, we’ll start our own brood of Brunettis and the first thing and the only thing we will teach them is—”
“How to be courageous in love,” she finished, her eyes full of tears.
His teeth dug into his lower lip and he nodded. “So you will, sì?”
“Sì. You’re my hero.” He was so solid and warm and hard around her. “And you’re all mine,” she said, and he nodded, and when he pulled her into his lap and buried his hands under her shirt, looking for warm skin, she gave herself over to it.
He was her hero. Her man. Her entire life.
EPILOGUE
IF SOMEONE HAD told Natalie a few months ago, or even a few weeks ago, that she’d be walking down a beautifully manicured path with elegant trees and boxwood and wisteria on either side, while her little brother walked in front of her, toward a stunning vista of lakefronts and mountains in an ivory designer gown that supermodel Alessandra Giovanni had requested personally of a designer friend who never did private commissions, toward the tech billionaire Massimo Brunetti to make her wedding vows, she’d have laughed hysterically.
She’d have rolled on the floor, laughing her ass off.
No woman was so lucky to have a wedding at such a stunning location with the elements behaving perfectly as if they’d conspired to give her their best on her most important day.
No woman could be so selfish as to demand a designer gown that was yards and yards of lace and tulle that made even skinny little hackers look like a princess.
No woman would hope to have a kind, sexy, absolutely wonderful man waiting for her at the end, his heart in his eyes, looking knee-meltingly gorgeous in a black tuxedo.
No one in their right mind would at least guess that all of the above could happen to an orphan who’d never thought she was worthy of anything so wonderful.
But it was happening. Alessandra and Greta looked stunning on one side and Silvio and Leonardo on the other side, the latter with a warm smile for her that still stunned Natalie even after a month since she’d saved the Fiore project.
And then she was there, close to the man she adored with all her heart.
As she reached Massimo and he took his hands in hers and tugged her closer with a little too much enthusiasm that had the small, intimate crowd laughing, Natalie was trembling, sheer terror that it was all a dream that would disappear taking hold of her.
His fingers tight around hers, his breath whispering against her temple, Massimo said, “I have you, cara mia. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I love you so much, and whatever comes our way, we’ll face it together, sì?”
“I’m scared, Massimo. I love you so much and it robs the very breath from me when I think of our future and with—”
His finger covered her lips, the warmth of his body a comforting cocoon. “But I shall never, ever let you go. If you fall, I will always catch you. We will build our empire or take down someone else’s if that’s what you prefer, sì?” he whispered, and Natalie laughed because this man knew her so well and each day he showed her what she meant to him.
She licked her lips, knowing that everyone was waiting. But God, she didn’t want to start their life together with lies and shadows. “I wanted to tell you but I was afraid. Afraid that it would hurt you,” she added quickly when she saw the light dim in his eyes. “This...this tiara—” she touched the exquisitely delicate diamond tiara wrought in the finest white gold that had been delivered three days ago sitting on top of the elaborate coif that her hair had been beaten into “—I... I didn’t borrow it from Alessandra. I lied. Because I was worried you wouldn’t understand.
“He...he sent it to me.”
“I knew it, bella.”
“What?”
“From the moment you opened the package and tried to hide the packing material and then burst into tears when you saw the card.”
“Please don’t be mad, Massimo. I’ve cut my association with him but he was still a big part of my life. He’ll always be a big part of my past and I can’t change it and I hate that I hid this from you—”
“I have long decided to forgive him, cara mia,” he said, stealing the ground from under her. “I will help Leo find him, and stop him from causing further havoc in our lives, but how do I stay angry with a man who protected you when you were alone in the world? How long do I hate a man who gave me the most wondrous, beautiful gift of you? Ti amo, Natalie. Your past and your present, your stubborn but loyal heart, your fire and your flaws, I adore everything about you, cara mia.”
Her tears plopped down her cheeks and Natalie didn’t give a damn if her makeup was ruined. “I love you, too, Massimo. Now, hurry up,” she whispered against his mouth, “so that we can start building that empire and a brood of Brunettis.”
His eyes glittered with wicked warmth and then the priest was admonishing them and Alessandra sighed and Frankie asked Leo in a loud whisper if they were going to kiss so frequently and then in the midst of the chaos and the love and the laughter, suddenly, she was now Natalie Brunetti.
And when Massimo took her mouth in a soft, tender kiss she lost her heart all over again.
* * * * *
Coming next month
THE MAID’S SPANISH SECRET
Dani Collins
His arrival struck like a bus. Like a train that derailed her composure and rattled on for miles, piling one broken thought onto another.
OhGodohGodohGod… Breathe. All the way in, all the way out, she reminded herself. But she had always imagined that if this much money showed up on her doorstep, it would be with an oversize check and a television crew. Not him.
Rico pivoted from surveying her neighbor’s fence and the working grain elevator against the fading Saskatchewan sky. His profile was knife sharp, carved of titanium and godlike. A hint of shadow was coming in on his jaw, just enough to bend his angelic looks into the fallen kind.
He knocked.
“Poppy—?” her grandmother prompted, tone perplexed by the way she was acting. Or failing to.
How? How could he know? Poppy had no doubt that he did. There was absolutely no other reason for this man to be this far off the beaten track. He sure as hell wasn’t here to see her.
Blood searing with fight or flight, heart pounding, she opened the door.
The full force of his impact slammed through her. The hard angle of his chin, the stern cast of his mouth, his wide shoulders and long legs, and hands held in tense, almost fists.
His jaw hardened as he took her in through mirrored aviators. Their chrome finish was cold and steely. If he’d had a fresh haircut, it had been ruffled by the wind. His boots were alligator, his cologne nothing but crisp, snow-scented air and fuming suspicion.
Poppy lifted her chin and pretended her heart wasn’t whirling like a Prairie tornado in her chest.
“Can I help you?” she asked, exactly as she would if he had been a complete stranger.
His hand went t
o the doorframe. His nostrils twitched as he leaned into the space. “Really?” he asked in a tone of lethal warning.
“Who is it, Poppy?” her grandmother asked.
He stiffened slightly, as though surprised she wasn’t alone. Then his mouth curled with disparagement, waiting to see if she would lie. dpg!
Poppy swallowed, her entire body buzzing, but she held his gaze through those inscrutable glasses while she said in a strong voice, “Rico, Gran. The man I told you about. From Spain.”
There, she silently conveyed. What do you think of that?
It wasn’t wise to defy him. She knew that by the roil of threat in the pit of her stomach, but she had had to grow up damned fast in the last two years. She was not some naive traveler succumbing to a charmer who turned out to be a thief, or even the starry-eyed maid who had encouraged a philandering playboy to seduce her.
She was a grown woman who had learned how to face her problems head-on.
“Oh?” Gran’s tone gave the whole game away in one murmur. There was concern beneath her curiosity. Knowledge. It was less a blithe, isn’t that nice that your friend turned up. More an alarmed, Why is he here?
There was no hiding. None. Poppy might not be able to read this man’s eyes, but she read his body language. He wasn’t here to ask questions. He was here to confront.
Because he knew she’d had his baby.
Continue reading
THE MAID’S SPANISH SECRET
Dani Collins
Available next month
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Copyright ©2019 Dani Collins
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