Kitabı oku: «A Deal To Carry The Italian's Heir / Christmas Contract For His Cinderella»

CHAPTER ONE

“ARE WE REALLY supposed to think he’s given up his twisted revenge scheme?”

Leonardo Brunetti, CEO of Brunetti Finances Inc., asked the question of his younger brother, Massimo, about the man who had done too much damage over the last few months to both BFI and Massimo’s brainchild, Brunetti Cyber Securities.

Contracts had fallen through at the last minute, their father Silvio Brunetti’s embezzlement from BFI and his corruption—everything Leonardo had cleaned up in the last decade since he’d taken over as CEO of BFI—was being recycled in the news again and again, and even worse, Vincenzo Cavalli had hired a consortium of hackers from the dark net to hit Massimo and his wife Natalie’s multilayered security design for a billion-dollar contract for BCS.

They had almost lost that contract, too, except Natalie’s genius had saved it at the last minute. And now, Vincenzo had disappeared. They both knew better than to think the man was done, not after his brutal tactics to bring everything related to the Brunettis down.

“What happened to the financial trail that Natalie gave us?”

“The investigator found only one small nugget of information. That account has ties to Mario Fenelli.”

Mario Fenelli was one of the oldest members on the board of BFI, one of the old guard, a relic left over from when their father, Silvio, had ruled the board, and the staunchest, most vocal opponent of Leo.

While Leo, with his grandmother Greta’s and Massimo’s help, had cleaned up Silvio’s corruption and ousted him from the board, BFI’s founding board were members of Milan’s upper echelons of society. Old money, old power—men who didn’t want to give up what they had in the name of Leo’s financial reform and ethics that he’d brought to the firm.

Vincenzo’s actions had already had far-reaching consequences.

Contracts falling through, the cyber-attack on financial information of BFI’s clients, leaving BFI’s and BCS’s cybersecurity vulnerable, and then leaking the information to the board—Mario had been one step behind with his accusations that Leonardo was following in Silvio’s footsteps, creating an atmosphere of doubt and confusion among their clients, breathing rumors that Leo was just as corrupted.

It was because of the unprecedented growth and revenue BFI had seen under his leadership and the fact that the Brunettis—Greta, Leo, Massimo and their father, Silvio—still held the majority of stock in BFI that Leo hadn’t been forced to step down.

With the financial connection between Mario and Vincenzo, it was clear that Mario had been bought.

“Mario Fenelli is a greedy bastard,” said Massimo with a bite to his words.

“There has to be something in the old man’s history that we can use against him,” Leo said. “And if we can find Vincenzo through him, we can finally put an end to this.”

“Ms. Fernandez is here,” came his assistant’s voice through the intercom.

“Neha is here to see you?” said Massimo, his brow tied. Neha Fernandez, Leo’s oldest friend, was Mario’s stepdaughter. “You’re not involving her in this thing with Mario, are you?”

Leo wasn’t insulted by Massimo’s accusation. If he’d turned into the man that Silvio had brainwashed him to be, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use Neha.

Massimo and he had made a pact to run BFI with ethical and clean practices—basically, to be the opposite of what their father had been.

But Massimo had had the influence of a mother who had tried her hardest to fight their father’s corrosive and toxic influence on her weak son. A mother who’d strived to make sure that Massimo understood what was right and what was wrong. A mother who’d put up with an abusive husband because to leave would’ve been to give up on her son. Massimo’s ill health, while making him the subject of Silvio’s vicious rants, had also kept his father away.

Leo, on the other hand, had worshipped his father until he’d learned what Silvio was capable of. His mind had been filled with bitter poison against the woman who had walked out on her young son in the middle of the night by an infuriated Silvio.

“No, I’m not,” he finally said.

Neha was the one woman with whom Leo’s association spanned the longest. The one woman he respected and admired. The one woman he’d always been intensely attracted to but hadn’t pursued because he wasn’t a relationship kind of man.

The tentative friendship had built the first day when Mario, a new board member of BFI, had brought Neha with him on his trip to Milan, and Silvio had brought Leo.

While her mother and stepfather had postured about their wealth and connections, Neha—even then a quiet, sharp, pretty girl—had arrested his attention. She’d already been running her late father’s bakery single-handed, and had been full of ideas for new branches. Leo, meanwhile, had been roiling with anger and rage—he’d discovered that week that not only was BFI in ruins, but that Silvio had been abusing Massimo emotionally for years, and that the man he’d worshipped for all his life was nothing but a bully all around.

Neha had listened to him rage about his father, the devastation he’d felt. She’d clasped his hand shyly and said, “But all you have to do is tell your brother that you’re sorry. That you do care about him. That... You love him.” He’d vowed that when he returned home with Silvio, he’d do just that.

In the meantime, he’d distracted himself by offering Neha ideas about how to raise seed money to expand her business.

And through the meteoric rise of her fame, from winning a local English village baking show contest at sixteen to transforming a chain of baking goods she’d created into a multi-million-pound business, Neha had come to him for advice and Leo had given it to the best of his ability.

Mario had spotted the extraordinary talent and work ethic his stepdaughter had possessed even at that young age and monetized it so fast that within just a few years of Neha winning the contest and creating the first line of confectionary goods, Mario had launched her as a child prodigy that created delicious confections. He’d made her into an international brand, franchised her talents so far and so wide that So Sweet Inc. had become a world-renowned business.

“Why is she here, then?” Massimo asked, pulling Leo from the past to the present.

“She asked to see me. As soon as possible.”

Massimo waggled his brows, doing quite a good imitation of a schoolgirl. “Is it really business, though? I’ve always sensed something more between you two.”

Leo kept his expression implacable. Neha was forbidden to him, would always be. “It’s pathetic to see you act like a matchmaker just because you are blissfully in love.” He strode to the door and opened it. “Now, go back to Nat and leave me to my business.”

Mouth twitching mischievously, Massimo walked over to where Neha waited, and hugged her with all the easy energy of a man who didn’t have the complication of wanting her and keeping her at a distance, as Leo had done all these years.

Through the open doorway, Leo could only see the clean lines of Neha’s profile: her long neck, her brown hair tied back in a braid that highlighted those cheekbones, the elegant white sheath dress draped over her curvaceous body and the yellow pop of her pumps. It was her public persona. White dress, yellow pumps and a strand of pearls at her neck. Red lipstick that made her lush mouth look like one of her delicious creations. A dimple in one cheek and laughter in those light brown eyes.

All that creativity and passion wrapped in unruffled composure, all those voluptuous curves with the hidden sensuality buried in the elegant, girl-next-door package she presented to the world. That subtle lure of wanting to delve beneath the elegant persona she showed the world, to ruffle all that composure... It had started on the eve of her twenty-first birthday party.

Overnight, she had transformed from a shy, pretty teenager into a gorgeously sexy woman. The urge to undo all that elegance, to reach the woman beneath, was as fresh and urgent and intense as it had been that day. For a man who went after his goals with single-minded ruthlessness, Neha was the one thing Leonardo had had to deny himself.

Their relationship, as much as it had stayed inside the unsaid boundaries they’d both set, and as much as it defied the media’s incessant efforts to label, was important to him. Against all the odds for a man who had problems with trusting the opposite sex, Neha had become the one genuine friend he possessed.

He could never risk that.

Massimo asked her how long she meant to stay in Milan, because he wanted to introduce her to Natalie. Neha’s gaze flew to his.

Leo stilled; every bit of his attention arrested at something inexplicable that flashed in her eyes. He frowned.

She turned back to Massimo. And gave him a circular non-answer. Thanked Massimo with a graceful smile before saying goodbye.

Leo’s curiosity deepened as he drank the sight of her in with a greed he knew was useless to try to curb. She stood there, framed by the arch of his door, her lower lip caught beneath her two front teeth.

Afternoon sunlight from the high windows behind him gilded her in golden light, tracing the curvy contours of her body with the same delight and thoroughness that he wanted to. He’d seen her in a million variations of the same color scheme and makeup. And yet the white dress ending a couple of inches above her knees, the high-necked bodice that showed off the swell of her breasts, the tight dip of her waist...everything that was familiar about her spiked his awareness.

So thoroughly mesmerized was he that it took him a few moments to notice the hesitation in her gaze. The rigid set of her shoulders. The tension emanating from her.

“Neha...” he said softly, and she snapped into the present. “Do you plan to stand there for the rest of the day?”

She entered his office without answer, closed the door behind her, still not quite meeting his gaze.

In the wake of Massimo’s jokes, the silence was thick, awkward.

She walked toward the sitting area of his office, poured herself a glass of water from the carafe. Her knuckles showed white on the glass while her gaze stayed on the streets of Milan’s business district rendered colorful on a bright afternoon.

They had always been courteous to each other through the years, close without getting personal. He’d been there when she’d called her wedding off eight years ago—calm, quiet and yet somehow devastated. He’d never asked her why, only given his support when she’d asked for his help to curtail the media swarming in like locusts at the prospect of drama and tragedy beneath the elegant, sweet public persona of hers.

He’d never let on that she was the one woman he wanted with a desire that seemed to span years, when usually his lovers had a shelf life of maybe six months.

As she grew older, she’d become even more irresistible. More beautiful, more elegant, more composed, which taunted his base impulses because he wanted to see beneath that perfection. He wanted to see her undone. In his hands.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice. I know how busy you are,” she finally said, turning to him.

“Why are you being so formal?” he countered. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” she said, raising her brown gaze to his, not quite smiling, not quite serious. She studied his features with something almost bordering on desperation, searching, as if she meant to see through to his soul. It was unnerving, and yet not...unwelcome.

“Sorry, I’m just... I don’t know where to begin.”

“Take your time, then.”

She put away the empty glass, dropped her white clutch down on the coffee table and then rubbed her palms up and down her hips. Inadvertently calling his gaze to the thoroughly feminine swell.

His gaze traveled from where her hands rested, up, up, up her hips, to the thrust and fall of her breasts, the pulse beating away at her neck to the plump, glossed lips, to collide with her stunned brown gaze.

A sudden shimmer of awareness—bright as a bolt of lightning in a dark sky, sizzled through the air around them. Condensing the expansive room, the world, to just the two of them. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, for an infinitesimal second, before she pulled it back up. The moment was weighted, tangible, as if she’d pressed her mouth to his. But it was enough.

Enough for him to know that the attraction he’d denied for years wasn’t just one-sided. Enough for his muscles to jerk and tighten in anticipation, in need. Enough for the rational side of him to issue warnings.

“I came to ask you something. Something very important.” The words rushed out of her. “It’s a big thing.”

“Bene,” he said, reaching for her, but she jerked back.

“No, it’s a huge thing. Don’t laugh at me, yeah? No, wait, I don’t care if you laugh at me. Just don’t dismiss it immediately, okay? Please, Leo.” Desperation filled her words. “I went through every means available to me and I come to you after a lot of thought. Please promise me you will consider it.”

“Neha...”

“I mean, you know me, yeah? For what? Sixteen... No, seventeen years! I’ve never done anything impulsive or rash or reckless. Head down, I worked just as hard as you. Harder even, because life’s not easy for women in the business world. I’ve never...” When her breath became shallow and her eyes filled with an alarming combination of panic and fear, he grabbed her hands and tugged her toward him.

“Calm down, bella,” he said, keeping his own tone steady.

She was the most levelheaded woman he knew. This panic, this anxiety...was bizarre. Alarm bells went off in his head. Was she in some kind of trouble? Not financial, because he would’ve heard of it. He had a huge stake in So Sweet Inc.

Was it...a man? The thought jarred him on too many levels.

“Make me that promise first,” she said in a demanding, petulant, possessive voice that was completely uncharacteristic of her.

“I can’t make a promise without knowing what you’re asking me for.” His words were clipped, curt, tangled up in his own reaction. It had always surprised him that after her broken engagement, Neha had never been involved again with another man. Or at least he hadn’t heard about it. He shouldn’t be this shocked that she was involved with a man now.

“All I’m asking is for you to consider my request first. I have gone over all of my other options. Coming to you is the right choice.” She sounded like she was convincing herself, too. “This is what I want.”

“Fine, bella. I promise to consider your request. Now, out with it. All the suspense is giving me a headache.”

“Whatever your answer, will you please keep this whole thing from Mario? This is personal, this is about my future.”

Leo nodded, shoving away the flicker of distaste.

It was about a man.

Why else would she not want her mom or stepfather to know? Was he good enough for her? Had he already deceived her? Did she know what kind of fortune hunters her wealth could attract?

She slumped down onto the sofa with a harsh exhale. The afternoon light caught glints of copper and gold in the thick, silky strands of her hair. Fingers, clasped tightly together, rested in her lap. “I thought it through, looked at it from all sides, and I’ve decided that this is the right thing for me. For my life. For the life I want.” She licked her lips, a fine line of sweat beading about her upper lip. Then she looked up with the defiant tilt of her chin. “I’m going to have a child.”

It was the last thing he’d expected for her to say. For a few seconds, he stared at her, his brain trying to catch up.

She was pregnant? Had the man ditched her?

“What is it that you want from me, then?” he said, shock making his question curt.

Her teeth dug into that plump lower lip, her tongue flicked over it, demanding, and getting an unbidden reaction from his tense body. She tucked a wayward lock from her braid behind her ear, each movement so feminine, so utterly taunting.

“Out with it, Neha,” he said, corralling his own rioting reactions with a ruthless warning. He’d wasted enough time indulging an unlikely scenario between them that he would never turn into a reality.

She stood up and met his gaze head-on. “I would like you to father my child.”