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Bought With The Italian's Ring
Tara Pammi
His life-long legacy is at riskBuying a bride could save it…CEO Raphael Mastrantino has absolute power—until a shock heir to his billion-dollar empire emerges! He initiates a calculated seduction to rob Pia Vito of her inheritance, and inescapable hunger soon engulfs them. But Pia’s innocence unravels his plans to acquire her. Now, to make her his, Rafael must give her more than a diamond ring!
His lifelong legacy is at risk
Buying a bride could save it...
CEO Raphael Mastrantino has absolute power—until a shock heir to his billion-dollar empire emerges! He initiates a calculated seduction to rob Pia Vito of her inheritance, and inescapable hunger soon engulfs them. But Pia’s innocence unravels his plans to acquire her. Now, to make her his, Raphael must give her more than a diamond ring!
TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!
Also by Tara Pammi
The Sheikh’s Pregnant Prisoner
Married for the Sheikh’s Duty
The Legendary Conti Brothers miniseries
The Surprise Conti Child
The Unwanted Conti Bride
The Drakon Royals miniseries
Crowned for the Drakon Legacy
The Drakon Baby Bargain
His Drakon Runaway Bride
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Bought with the Italian’s Ring
Tara Pammi
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07173-4
BOUGHT WITH THE ITALIAN’S RING
© 2018 Tara Pammi
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#uc2537d26-fa66-5166-ab2e-855afccf8aee)
Back Cover Text (#ubf1417dc-ed71-5f77-94a8-1967158ada9b)
About the Author (#u45c405f3-4d19-5b55-af3c-d433b0830841)
Booklist (#ua569b136-1cb9-583b-ab67-6f00744c7700)
Title Page (#u1f7989f1-a5a9-52e4-8b38-baa841ff49c9)
Copyright (#u2f900ea1-9852-517e-a0f8-6d6289c8b04c)
CHAPTER ONE (#udf5801dd-0c24-511f-b239-1581217ee196)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0f33e324-fff7-50e7-b394-3d847ac1525a)
CHAPTER THREE (#u0c668a0f-8275-5155-ac9a-f886fdc7b290)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue66e8ab9-e069-554a-9b00-e8ccf3371761)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucb8867c1-7b3b-5df9-b46d-1c2fd03eca3c)
HER SKIN PRICKLED. Her body, even though overheated from two hours of dancing, suddenly tingled.
Pia Vito could almost pinpoint the moment the piercing awareness claimed her, the moment a sudden chill replaced the warm breeze coming in through the wide doors of the vast ballroom on her grandfather’s estate.
It was the moment he walked in.
Raphael Mastrantino.
Her grandfather Giovanni’s godson and protégé.
CEO of Vito Automobiles.
The man Milanese society seems to be in awe of.
The women around her went into a quiet frenzy, sending longing looks his way, detailing his finer points to each other.
From the moment she had discovered her long-lost grandfather Gio, and he had accepted her as his granddaughter at the beginning of the summer, all Pia had heard from him was stories about Raphael Mastrantino.
And her drama-prone grandfather hadn’t exaggerated for once.
No other man could have prowled inside the ballroom with such arrogant confidence, as if he owned the estate and all the people in it.
No other man would look that striking in a plain white shirt while making the rest of the tuxedo-clad men look overdressed.
No other man could have commanded the attention of an entire ballroom by his mere presence.
Piercing eyes met hers across the ballroom, held hers, as if determined to see through to her soul.
It was as if an electric arc had built up between them—the very concept she’d been explaining to her fifth grade students back home.
No adjective she knew could describe the sheer masculinity of him. Broad shoulders tapered to a lean waist, long legs. The ruthless planes of his face, the stark angles were those one only saw in sculptures.
It took every ounce of energy she possessed to keep her smile in place.
Not even a facsimile of a greeting appeared in his hard face. With his cynical and appraising expression, even from a distance Pia felt his derision to the tips of her toes.
Any warmth she’d felt amidst the dancing crowd dissipated as realization struck.
Her grandfather’s godson didn’t approve of her? Why?
Which was why she had felt his gaze on her back like a concentrated laser beam.
Ignoring his presence—which was like the earth trying to ignore the sun—her movements awkward and stilted, she adjusted her path exiting the dance floor and kept moving, head down.
She ran straight into something so solidly male her breath jumped into her throat. Cursing herself, she looked up. And was caught in the darkest eyes she had ever seen, draped by the lushest lashes no mascara could ever reproduce.
When had he moved so close?
His fingers had landed on the patch of bare skin that her dress and gloves left on her arms. The pads of his fingers pressed into her flesh, not quite hard but not gently either. As if he knew of her intention to escape him.
The scent of him, warmed by his skin, drifted up toward her nostrils and she breathed in deeply. A furious flush began to work its way from her chest to her neck and upward at his continued scrutiny.
She had never been comfortable with men, had no idea of that subtle, sophisticated flirting language all her fellow teachers, at least the young ones, seemed to know. Even with Frank, it had taken her two months to put a sentence together.
But this felt as if she were naked, as if her worst fears—her loneliness after her grandmother’s death, her overwhelming need to belong somewhere, anywhere—as if it were all on display for his eyes.
“You are not running away from me, are you, cara mia?” came a taunt in the deep, silky voice that let loose butterflies in her stomach.
When she’d banged into him, she had braced herself with her hands and there they rested now. On him. His abdomen, to be precise. He was a granite wall under her hands. She fluttered her fingers over him, curious to see if there would be softness, if she could find more give...
The pressure of his fingers increased over her wrists, arresting her explorations. “Do you not speak then?” This time, he sounded coldly angry. “You communicate instead by touching men?”
Pia pulled back as if burned.
This was ridiculous. She managed twenty eleven-year-olds every day in the classroom! How dare he give voice to something so embarrassing, something she’d only done as a reaction to stress?
“My head hurts,” she somehow managed to say and it was partly true. “I’m not used to so much jewelry. The designer heels I’m wearing are killing my feet. Please excuse me.”
“How charmingly you lie, Ms. Vito.”
He delivered the insult in such a smooth voice that it took her a few seconds to realize it.
“Next, you will tell me you hate these kinds of parties and you were just putting on a good show for Gio’s sake. That the jewelry and dress and shoes—the ones that incidentally proclaim you as a walking fortune—are not really your thing.” He twisted the last two words into a mocking American twang. “That you didn’t really enjoy dancing with every man who asked you with that innocent invitation in your eyes. That this whole evening is an elaborate charade you’re suffering through like a good sacrificial lamb.”
That was exactly what she had been doing.
The dress, the shoes, the jewelry, even the complicated updo her hair was twisted into, none of it was her. But she had kept quiet.
Because she’d wanted Giovanni to be proud of her.
Because she’d wanted to be someone else, even for one night. Sophisticated and charming and polished—not a woman who fell for lies and found herself in crushing debt.
Yet this arrogant man made it sound as if the idea of Pia not wanting the attention, not liking being on display were impossible.
“You’ve already drawn your conclusions, Mr. Mastrantino.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Gio told me you’d be the most handsome, the most powerful and the most arrogant man I’ve ever met. He was right.” Heat climbed up her chest as he raised a brow.
She looked around the ballroom and every pair of eyes was trained on them. Locating her grandfather’s silver hair, she sent him a please-rescue-me look.
