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He forced his gaze to her face, trying to work out why her pretty, but not particularly striking features were impacting him so deeply. The women he usually went for were socialites. They wore layers of makeup that enhanced their features to the highest degree, and invited him with seductive smiles. They oozed sophistication and a desire to please.
This one was a natural beauty with lovely arched brows and a tipped-up nose. Her bare face made her look rather innocent while her eyes were a pedestrian hazel arranged in a starburst of brown within a circle of gray-green.
When had he ever looked so closely at anyone’s eyes before?
When had he ever seen such a gamut of emotion? On her, they truly were windows to the soul. He read intimidation and bravery and something that made him think of butter and honey melting on his tongue.
He had an urge to laugh, not in dismissal, but enjoyment. So few people challenged or excited him these days.
“Let’s go into my office.” He waved at what would be the manager’s office after he was satisfied this investment would turn a profit. His cousin, Arturo, was quite the vulture for deals like this, and usually handled the transition of a buyout. Once Arturo had heard their grandmother wished to tag along, however, his calendar had suffered a conflict.
Dante hadn’t thought much of Arturo’s priorities, but rather than scold him, he’d opted for taking the opportunity to spend a few days with the woman who had raised him—a woman he reluctantly acknowledged wasn’t immortal.
She was supposed to be here soon, for a tour and lunch he recalled with distraction, glancing at the clock and feeling a pull of priorities. In this moment, this younger, nubile woman captured nearly all of his attention.
He closed the door. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He held out his hand, palm itching for the feel of her in his grip. He might never let her go.
Her chin set and she took his hand in a firm, no-nonsense shake that was surprisingly powerful, sending a thrill rocketing through him. He wanted to tighten his grip and hang on. Pull her in and race to the inevitable.
When she spoke, he was too nearly lost in the clear, engaging tone of her voice to make sense of the words.
“I’m Cameo Fagan. Your new manager.”
Her name ricocheted inside his skull, tearing holes in his psyche. All of his assumptions about her, where they might be going and how their association would progress, became a tattered mess. In the blink of an eye, ten years dissolved. He was watching his competitor announce a self-driving car that bore shocking resemblance to the one Dante was creating. All the money and time he had invested evaporated. The shock of the loss put the final stressor on his grandfather’s heart, and it gave out.
Dante was left with an enormous hole in the family finances, extensive dependents looking to him to take up the charge and a bitterness of betrayal that sat on his tongue to this day.
He dropped his hand, so appalled with the way her soft heat left an imprint in his palm he brushed it against his thigh.
She flinched, and her erotic mouth trembled briefly before she firmed it, setting her chin a notch higher.
He waited for his sexual interest to fizzle. And waited. But the No that screamed through him was his inner animal, howling in protest at being denied. His libido wanted her. The rest of him recoiled in disgust. How could he be the least bit attracted to a Fagan?
“You’re not to be on this property.” He had made that clear after seeing her name on the list of new hires. One email to his office in Milan had confirmed she was related to the Stephen Fagan. That had been that. Her father had betrayed him. He wouldn’t trust another one of them ever again.
He reached for the door latch, ready to expel her, distantly anticipating the physical struggle if it came to that.
She didn’t move, only folded her arms, which plumped her breasts. “I don’t know how they do things in Italy, but this is Canada. We have laws against wrongful dismissal.”
He left the door closed, frustration morphing into fury. A desire to crush. He’d never met anyone who had lit his fuse as quickly or made it burn so hot. White and blistering. But he kept his tone icy cold.
“Italy has laws against theft. Most go to jail for it. Some, apparently, escape to Canada before they’re convicted. Perhaps I should take that up with your government.”
Her breath sucked in and her pulse throbbed rapidly in her throat. Her eyes were hot and bright. Tears? Ha.
“You’re being paid back,” she said through clenched teeth. “That can’t happen if I don’t have a job, can it?”
“Even if that were true, it wouldn’t make sense for me to give you money so you could give it back to me, would it? No gain in that for me.”
“What do you mean, ‘even if it were true’?” She dropped her fists to her sides.
“Let’s pretend such a thing as compensation is even possible, since the design of my self-driving car had potential to earn indefinitely, but I’ve never seen a red cent from anyone, so—”
“Where has it been going, then?”
The sharpness of her tone sent a narrow sliver of doubt through him, thin as a fiber of glass, but sharp enough to sting because he almost fell for her outrage. He very nearly wanted to believe her, his body was that primed for her on a physical level.
But that was a Fagan for you. They could make you believe anything.
He shook off his moment of hesitation with a snap of his head. Trust led to treachery. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, trust her.
“Don’t pretend your father has made any effort to compensate me. He hasn’t. He can’t.”
That took her aback. Her complexion faded to gray, sending a brief shadow of concern through him.
“Of course he can’t.” Her brows pulled into a distressed knot. “He’s dead.”
She looked from one of his eyes to the other, expression twisted in confusion, as if she thought he ought to know that.
He didn’t keep tabs on a man who had cost him a fortune and set his family back, leaving him at his most vulnerable. Dante was so furious at her temerity, at her attempt to work another con on him, and with himself for being momentarily drawn by her, he let one vicious word escape.
“Good.”
It was far below him. He knew it even before her lips went white. Her mouth pulled at the corners as she tried to hold on to her composure, but those wide, far from plain Jane eyes of hers grew so dark and wounded, he couldn’t look into them.
“You’ve done me a favor,” she said with a creak in her voice. “I’d rather starve than work for someone who could say something like that.”
She moved to open the door, but his hand was still on the latch. Her body heat mingled with his own, charging the air. The scent of fresh mountain air and wildflowers filled his brain, making him drunk.
“Let me out.”
He saw the words form on her pink lips more than heard them. They rang in his head in a fading echo. He didn’t want to. The encounter had become so intense, so fast, he was reeling, not sure if he’d won or lost. Either way, it didn’t feel over.
Cold fingertips touched the back of his hand. Her elbow caught him in the ribs before she pushed down and pulled the door open, head ducked. Her body almost touched his. He thought he heard a sniff, then he was staring at her ass—which was even more spectacular than he’d imagined.
She escaped.
He slammed the door closed behind her, trying to also slam the door on his impossible desire for her. On the entire scene.
There was no reason he should feel guilty. The wrong her father had done him had been malicious and far-reaching. Dante had foolishly dropped the charges in exchange for an admission of guilt and a promise of compensation, letting the man escape because, at the time, his life had been imploding. His grandfather’s sudden death had meant Dante had to set aside his own pursuits and take over the complex family business. Its interests ran from vineyards to hotels to exports and shipping.
All of that had been put in jeopardy by the loss of the seed capital his grandfather had allowed him to risk on his self-driving car dream. The consequence of trusting wrongly had been a decade of struggle to find an even keel and come back to the top—yet another reason he wanted to give his grandmother some attention. He had neglected her while he worked to regain everything she and her husband had built.
Cami Fagan ought to be grateful all he had done was refuse to hire her.
Nevertheless, that broken expression of hers lingered in his mind’s eye. Which annoyed him.
Someone knocked.
He snarled that he didn’t want to be disturbed, then flicked the lock on the door.
* * *
Cami was shaking so hard, she could barely walk. She could barely breathe. Each pant came in as a hiss through her nose and released in a jagged choke.
Get away was the imperative screaming through her, but she could hardly see, she was so blinded by tears of grief and outrage. Good? Good? Had he really said that? What a bastard!
She was so wrapped up in her anguish, she almost missed the faint voice as she charged past an old woman sitting on a bench, half a block from the Tabor’s entrance.
“Pi fauri.”
Despite drowning in emotion, Cami stopped. She and her brother always stopped, whether it was a roadside accident or a panhandler needing a sandwich.
Swiping at her wet cheeks, she raked herself together. “Yes? What’s wrong?”
“Ajutu, pi fauri.”
Cami had a few words in a dozen languages, all the better to work with the sort of international clientele who visited destinations like Whistler. In her former life, she’d even spent time with Germans and Italians, picking up conversational words, not that she’d used much beyond the very basics in recent years.
Regardless, help was fairly universal, and the old woman’s weakly raised hand was self-explanatory.
“I’m sorry, do you speak English? Qu’est-ce que c’est?” No, that was French and the woman sounded Italian, maybe? “Che cos’ è?”
The woman rattled out some breathless mumbles, but Cami caught one word she thought she understood. Malatu. Sick. Ill.
She seated herself next to the woman, noting the senior was pressing a hand to her chest, struggling to speak.
“I’m calling an ambulance. We’ll get you to the hospital,” Cami told her, quickly pulling out her mobile. “Ambulanza. Ospedale.” One didn’t race with champions down the Alps without hearing those words a few times.
She could have gone back into the Tabor and asked Karen to call, but she had her first-aid certificate, and this was exactly the type of thing she’d been doing since her first housekeeping position at a motel. The woman was conscious, if frightened and very pale. Cami took her pulse and tried to keep her calm as she relayed as much information as she could to the dispatcher. With the woman’s permission, she was able to check her purse and provide the woman’s name along with some medication she was taking.
“Do you have family traveling with you? Can I leave a message at your hotel?”
Bernadetta Ferrante pointed toward the Tabor, which sent a little shiver of premonition through Cami, but what were the chances? Dante Gallo seemed to be traveling with an entourage. Bernadetta could be related to anyone in there.
She asked a passerby to run into the hotel to find Bernadetta’s companion, then pointed into the sky as she heard the siren. “Ambulanza,” she said again. “It will be here soon.”
Bernadetta nodded and smiled weakly, fragile fingers curling around Cami’s.
“What the hell have you done?” The male voice was so hard and fierce, it made both of them jump.
Cami briefly closed her eyes. Of course it was him. What were the chances of two head-on collisions in a row?
Bernadetta put up a hand, expression anxious.
Dante said, “Non tu, Noni,” in a much gentler tone, before he returned to the gruff tone and said, “I’m speaking to her.”
The ambulance arrived at that moment. Cami hovered long enough to ensure she wasn’t needed to give a statement, then slipped away. Bernadetta was already looking better, eyes growing less distressed as she breathed more easily beneath an oxygen mask, while Dante left to fetch his car and follow to the hospital.
Cami trudged through the spitting spring rain to the next bus stop, only wanting distance from that infernal man. At least the crisis had pulled her out of her tailspin. Tears never fixed anything. She had learned that a long time ago. What she needed was a new plan. While she waited for the bus, she texted her brother.
My job fell through. Can I sleep on your couch?
CHAPTER TWO (#u9f8d3373-906b-58d9-ac67-306c1982935a)
MAKING COOKIES WAS the perfect antidote to a night of self-pity and a morning of moving boxes. Besides, she had a few staples to use up and a neighbor to thank.
When the knock sounded, she expected Sharma from down the hall. She opened her door with a friendly smile, cutting off her greeting at, “Hell—”
Because it wasn’t Sharma. It was him.
Dante Gallo stood in her doorway like an avenging angel, his blue shirt dotted by the rain so it clung damply across his broad shoulders. He was all understated wealth and power, with what was probably real gold in his belt buckle. His tailored pants held a precision crease that broke over shiny shoes that had to be some custom-crafted Italian kind that were made from baby lambs or maybe actual babies.
Oh, she wanted to feel hatred and contempt toward him. Only that. She wanted to slam the door on him, but even as her simmering anger reignited, she faltered, caught in that magnetism he seemed to project. Prickling tension invaded her. Her nipples pinched, and that betraying heat rolled through her abdomen and spread through her inner thighs, tingling and racing.
Woman. Man. How did he make that visceral distinction so sharp and undeniable within her? Everything in her felt obvious and tight. Overwhelmed.
Claimed.
Hungry and needy and yearning.
She hated herself for it, was already suffering a kick of anguish even as his proprietary gaze skimmed down her, stripping what little she wore. The oven had heated up her tiny studio apartment to equatorial levels, so she had changed into a body-hugging tank and yoga shorts. Her abdomen tensed further under the lick of his gaze.
Stupidly, she looked for an answering thrust of need piercing his shell, but he seemed to feel nothing but contempt. It made that scan of his abrasive and painful, leaving her feeling obvious and callow. Defenseless and deeply disadvantaged.
Rejected, which left a burn of scorn from the back of her throat to the pit of her belly.
She should have slammed the door, but the timer went off, startling her. With emotion searing her veins, she made a flustered dive toward the oven and pulled out the last batch of cookies, leaving the tray on the stove top with a clatter.
Pulling off the mitt, she skimmed the heel of her hand across her brow. What was he even doing here? Yesterday’s interaction had been painful enough. She didn’t need him invading her private space, judging and disparaging.
She snapped the oven off and turned to see him shut the door as if she had invited him in. He stood behind the door, trapping her inside the horseshoe of her kitchenette.
Her heart began thudding even harder, not precisely in fear—which was frightening in itself. Excitement. How could part of her be thrilled to see him again? Forget the past. He was a cruel, callous person. Good. She hated him for that. Truly hated him.
She didn’t ask how he’d got in the building. She wasn’t the only one moving this weekend. The main door had been propped open the whole time she’d been loading boxes into Sharma’s car and taking them to the small storage locker she’d rented.
This felt like an ambush nonetheless. What other awful thing had he said to her yesterday? She set aside her oven mitts and said, “You’re not welcome on this property.”
He dragged his gaze back from scanning her near empty apartment. His eyes looked deeply set and a little bruised, but she didn’t imagine he’d lost sleep over her.
A weird tingle sizzled in her pelvis at the thought, though. She’d tossed and turned between fury and romantic fantasies, herself. He was ridiculously attractive, and this reaction of hers was so visceral. In her darkest hour, she hadn’t been able to resist wondering, if they didn’t hate each other, what would that look like?
Tangled sheets and damp skin, hot hands and fused mouths. Fused bodies? What would that feel like?
Not now. Definitely not him.
She folded her arms, hideously aware she only had a thin shelf bra in this top, and her breasts felt swollen and hard. Prickly. If she had had a bedroom, she would have shot into it and thrown on more clothes. Her chest was a little too well-endowed to get away with something so skimpy anywhere but alone in her apartment, especially when her nipples were standing up with arousal.
