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* * *
Olivia was chatting over some designs with a gregarious Mario Masini when her fiancé deigned to make an appearance in the design studios. He had pretty much disappeared since they’d returned home from New York, thrown himself into his ridiculous fourteen-hour days and communicated with the short verbiage of a man too busy to converse when they eventually sat down at the dinner table together at the villa.
She was aware he was deliberately putting space between them after their close encounters in New York, and she got it. She was glad for it. So why did she feel barefoot and rejected? Because for one second there, a voice in her head jibed, she’d thought he actually cared. Some delusional part of her brain had conjured that up. When what she really was was an asset to be managed. That was all.
Mario moved to embrace Rocco, his lined old face softening. Her fiancé was drool worthy again today in a silver gray suit and blue tie that never seemed to wrinkle. Elegant and earthy all at the same time, he was a man with so much sex appeal he was drowning in it.
“Ciao,” she murmured as casually as she could, waving a hand to the designs spread out on the table. “Mario and I were just chatting over fabrics. Is it that time already?”
His mouth curved. “Thirty minutes past. It isn’t a problem. We’re eating in tonight. Take your time.”
She almost wished they were staying at Villa Mondelli, where she could put a literal and figurative distance between them at the formal dining room table. Instead, they were staying at the apartment so she could make her 7:00 a.m. photo shoot with Alessandra tomorrow without getting up obscenely early.
Mario pointed at the designs on the table. “She is brilliant, this woman of yours. It’s as if she brings the light inside with her.”
Rocco nodded. “That’s a very apt description.”
Mario smiled broadly. “We are going to make her a star of the design world.”
Olivia’s heart swelled. Instead of accepting her warily into the fold, Mario had seemed incredibly enthusiastic over her designs, as if he, too, welcomed the infusion of creativity as Giovanni had.
She couldn’t help the smile that stretched her lips. It was happening. Her dream was actually happening.
Rocco flicked a look at her. “Do what you need to do. I’ll answer some emails.”
But he didn’t. She tried to concentrate on her conversation with Mario, but with Rocco roaming the room, pulling her pieces off the rack, flicking sketches apart and staring at them with that trademark intensity of his, she was hopelessly distracted. A few minutes later, Mario made an amused comment about her attention span and “young lovers” and announced they were done for the day.
Rocco waited until the older man had left the studio before his gaze slid over her face. “Either your acting skills have kicked in, or my presence is making you nervous.”
She lifted her chin. “You’re looking at my designs properly for the first time. My future rests in your hands... Wouldn’t you expect me to be heart in mouth?”
His mouth twisted. “I thought that was just the general effect I had on you, bella.”
She rested her hands on her hips. “I’m not the one working until 1:00 a.m. to avoid being in a bedroom together. Are your control-freak tendencies on red alert?”
His ebony gaze darkened. “As a matter of fact, they are. Your little stunt in New York wasn’t exactly a cure for a man practicing abstinence. Nor is the provocative way you sleep splayed across my bed.” He shrugged an elegant shoulder. “I keep thinking maybe it’s just easier to get it over with. How simple it would be to slide a hand under the small of your back, tempt you with what I know you’ve been dying to have, then take you long and hard until all you’d be doing is begging me to come to bed. Then maybe we could snuff this out.”
Her insides dissolved into a river of fire, his taunt sending the intimate flesh at the heart of her into an excited, heated pull. She could not believe he’d just said that.
A hard glitter entered his eyes. “But of course, that will never happen.”
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip as her brain crashed rapidly back to earth. Turning, she stacked the designs on the table into neat piles, anger pulsing through her. “Oh, I get it, Rocco. You won’t put a hand on me because you think I was your grandfather’s lover, that I am soiled goods. But you want to, so you use your shock value to send me running.” She straightened the last pile, leaned back against the table and looked up at him. “Have I got it right?”
The in-your-face arrogance faded from his face. “I owe you an apology.”
That caught her off guard. “For what?”
“For assuming things that were not true. I was angry and I made accusations I shouldn’t have about your and Giovanni’s relationship. But the facts were staring me in the face.”
Antagonism replaced her confusion. “What facts? The fact he’d loaned me an apartment?”
“Bought it for you. The fact that he was writing you checks for large sums of money. That he never mentioned you at all. It was not normal behavior for Giovanni. Even your neighbors thought you were lovers.”
“Because he would come visit me at night to work?” She sank her hands deeper into her hips and glared at him. “You assumed a great deal of things, Rocco, and you were dead wrong on all of them.”
He inclined his head. “I was angry. Grieving. To accept that the Giovanni I knew would have cheated on Rosa, that he could be anything but the intensely loyal man I knew him to be, was exceedingly difficult.”
Undoubtedly. Her mouth flattened. “It still didn’t give you the right to treat me like you did.”
His face tightened. “I am apologizing.”
She’d bet he rarely, if ever, did it. It probably made him want to choke. But the relief flaring through her was undeniable. That finally he believed her. It had been like a palpable force between them, stirring mistrust on every level.
She eyed the conflicting emotions shimmering in his eyes. He needed to understand.
She crossed her arms over her chest and held his gaze. “Giovanni told me Rosa was his first love. That he couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else. Then he met my mother and he was blindsided. She did one of his breakthrough shows in New York. He was on a high from his success, higher than he’d ever been, and my mother was the glittering jewel he couldn’t resist.”
“He should have,” Rocco growled.
“He knew that. He said being with her was like some inescapable force he couldn’t resist. And he wondered if he’d married too early.”
“Rosa was pregnant with my father at eighteen. They had no choice but to marry.”
She nodded. “It was a very different kind of love he had with Rosa—the inviolate pureness of it. What he felt for my mother was passionate, intense. And he was torn.”
“Because he was married,” he ground out, eyes flashing. “Because my grandmother lived for him.”
Her heart constricted. “Giovanni seemed like some mystical force, but he was human, just like we all are. I get how you feel, I do. I watched my father fall apart because his wife was in love with someone else. I lived through it. I hated my mother for my entire teenage years for doing that to us. I still hate her a bit for it. And I wanted to hate Giovanni, too... But when he explained how it was between them, I finally got it. It was never about them deliberately trying to hurt other people. It was about feelings beyond their control.”
His lip curled. “A lovely reiteration of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story, Liv. Believe me, I do get it—the idea of temptation, how that temptation, that depth of love, can destroy everything around you. It is my father’s life. It’s why I go to such lengths to never let it rule me. It’s a weak man’s poison.”
She frowned. “Giovanni was not weak.”
“I don’t know what he was anymore.” The admission was torn from him in a low, gravelly tone. “But I know he couldn’t have been your lover. That was me projecting my anger onto you.”
She expelled a long breath.
“Who ended it, then?” he asked abruptly. “How did he choose?”
“Rosa. She found out about the affair, told Giovanni he had to choose and, when he did, forbade him ever to see my mother again.”
“It was never in his head to go back to your mother once Rosa died?”
A poignant smile twisted her mouth. “I asked him that. He said once you travel through some doors, you can never go back.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then he walked over to the racks where her designs hung and pulled a couple out. “Mario is right. You are insanely talented.”
For a moment she actually didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” she said finally.
He came back to lean against the table beside her. “There is a change we have to make in the deal.”
Her heart stuttered. Being so close to her dream and having it be plucked away from her would kill her.
“I met with the chairman of the board today. There is a general sentiment among the board and shareholders that I am a wild card in the wake of Giovanni’s death. My tendency to want to do things my way ruffles feathers. My bachelor persona fails to keep those invested in the company tucked securely in their beds at night with sweet dreams of dollar figures running through their heads. They want to see me stable. Married.”
A flicker of unease slanted through her. This made the reasons for their engagement clear. Given the Columbia Four’s rather wild reputation, she could understand why the board might be uneasy with such a young, strong-minded CEO.
“We just announced our engagement,” she said haltingly. “How much more could they want?”
A cynical smile twisted his lips. “They want a date. A marriage.”
Her knees went weak. “As in us walking down the aisle?”
“Exactly like that, cara.” She didn’t like the premeditated look that stretched his olive-skinned face as he turned the full force of his will on her. “Nothing changes, except we tie the knot in six weeks. Our one-year agreement is still in place and Mondelli brings your designs to market just as we said.”
“Six weeks?” The words came out as a high-pitched squeak.
He shrugged. “You told me yourself you never planned to get married. A quick, uncontested divorce with all the terms outlined will be painless.”
Painless? Her fingers caught the side of the table in a death grip. So this was why he’d been softening her up. Complimenting her designs...
She shook her head. “Oh, no. You are not bullying me into this, Rocco. I am not walking down the aisle with you, lying to the world in six weeks. It’s too much.”
“Ah, but you are, sweet Liv.” The smile that curved his lips was far from reassuring. “It’s inconvenient, I agree. The last thing either of us needs to be doing right now is planning a wedding. But it is what it is. And we both continue to get what we want.”
The media circus of last week’s press conference flashed through her head. The horrible, paralyzing, naked feeling of being in the spotlight again. Her stomach swirled with nausea at the thought of it—ten times worse.
“You are out of your mind,” she breathed. “Tell the board I won’t hurry my wedding for them. Tell them whatever you like. But this is not happening.”
This time he wasn’t getting his way.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u2f038bdc-aa8b-55ce-8958-6eda5adf9691)
FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS WEREN’T known to be the most subtle of breeds. The ones Olivia had worked with in the past had ranged from sophisticated persuaders, like her former lover Guillermo, to the completely indifferent, to full-out beasts who yelled at you and told you you had half the talent the last model had.
In this regard, Alessandra was a breed apart. She was incredibly patient, encouraging and had an amazing eye for the composition of a great shot. Unfortunately for the talented young photographer, Olivia hadn’t given her anything to work with over the morning, and they both knew it. She was stiff, awkward and without her usual grace, struggling to find her groove.
Close to lunchtime, Alessandra finally pulled her camera over her head and set it on a table. “Let’s take a break,” she suggested. “We’ll start again in fifteen.”
Come back when you’re able to give me something to work with. Alessandra didn’t say it, but her eyes did. Olivia’s shoulders sagged. The shot Alessandra wanted for the fall/winter catalog was one of her leaning on a fence in a fabulous crepe dress, reeking of dreamy impatience as she waited for her lover to pick her up.
The mood just wouldn’t come. Maybe because the last kiss she and Rocco had shared was that almost one in the New York apartment when she’d nearly made a fool out of herself over him. Again.
Not inspirational.
“I’m assuming my brother has something to do with the shadows under your eyes,” Alessandra guessed mischievously. “For any number of reasons.”
True, but not when it came to the wild romps in the sack Alessandra was undoubtedly referring to. Rocco’s outrageous suggestion they get married had kept her awake until the early hours of the morning.
She frowned. “Is he always such a browbeating autocrat?”
Alessandra laughed. “A well-meaning one, yes. He gets what he wants.”
“He wants us to get married in six weeks.”
“Six weeks?” Alessandra looked horrified. “Why so soon?”
“The board is asking us to speed up our wedding. They want to see Rocco married before they put their full confidence behind him.”
Rocco’s sister pursed her lips. “I guess it makes sense given Giovanni didn’t leave him a controlling stake in Mondelli. Rocco’s bachelor behavior has always antagonized the board, but without a controlling stake, they can dictate what they like and tie his hands.” Her gaze turned sympathetic. “Not that you should have to speed up your wedding because of it.”
Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Mondelli is your family’s business. How could Giovanni not have left Rocco a controlling stake?”
“Giovanni put Renzo Rialto, the chairman of the board, in charge of the controlling ten percent of Mondelli to give Rocco some time to find his feet without him. My brother is brilliant and responsible for building Mondelli into a global powerhouse, but Giovanni was always there to keep him in check.”
Olivia rocked back on her heels. It all made sense now. Why Rocco hadn’t told the board to go to hell with its demands. Because he couldn’t.
She shook the haze out of her head. “I think I’ll get that air.”
* * *
Rocco told himself he wasn’t checking up on Olivia, but he knew he was. She’d been so tight-lipped and unapproachable this morning, he actually wondered if she was going to refuse to marry him. And since that couldn’t happen, since Mondelli’s fall/winter Vivo campaign for which Alessandra was shooting today was worth ten million dollars, here he was at her shoot when he should be going over the monthly numbers with the CFO.
Alessandra gave him a warm hug. “Couldn’t stay away?”
“You could put it that way. How is she doing?”
“She’s been a bit of a stiff mess.” She frowned up at him. “That isn’t the same woman I shot two years ago, Rocco. What happened to her?”
He lifted a shoulder. “She won’t talk about it. To anyone. I have tried, believe me.”
“Can you go talk to her? Nothing we’ve taken this morning is going to work. If this continues, it’s going to be a total waste of a day.”
He nodded and made his way out onto the terrace, where Olivia was standing at the railing staring down at the courtyard below. She looked like an exotic bird perched for flight.
The guilt inside him ratcheted a layer deeper. Per l’amor di Dio. He did not need to be walking around with a living, breathing case of remorse. They were both getting what they needed out of this.
He joined her at the railing. Surprise wrote its way across her beautiful face. “I thought you had a packed day.”
“I wanted to check on you. You seemed off this morning.”
She turned to face him, blue eyes flashing. “You are railroading me into marrying you. You are asking me to stand in front of a priest and lie about my feelings for you. Forgive me if I think this is taking things a bit far.”
He inclined his head. “I agree that part isn’t easy. But it’s necessary.”
“Necessary for you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You are right about my dream, Rocco. I want it badly. Badly enough to marry you. With one condition.”
He lifted a brow.
