by Tara Pammi
Alex didn’t miss his obvious affection for the paragon Anna.
The quaint village of Bellagio welcomed them with its narrow, cobblestoned streets and charming alleyways, the Aventador roaring through. “Who’s this VIP we’re meeting anyway? Another backstabbing board member of BFI who wants more of its profits? Another man who has some kind of vendetta against Leo and Massimo?”
“We’re meeting an old friend of mine. Antonio is...he’s very dear to me. And despite my many warnings, he and some other friends have arranged a surprise party for us in his house, to celebrate our marriage. I would appreciate it if you can put aside our differences for a few hours and treat him with the respect he deserves.”
His gruff request took Alex by surprise. “I’ll act as if you were my sun and moon. As if you were the answer to my every romantic fantasy.”
“Alessandra, this is important to me.” His sigh rattled in the silence. “I wanted to give both Antonio and you a chance to meet outside of what will definitely become a media circus once I take over BFI. I don’t want us talking about how you abandoned our marriage on our honeymoon or how you only returned to make a deal with me for your brother’s sake. Antonio’s a very traditional man.”
“Shall we also not talk about how you kept your biggest ambition a secret from me? And how—”
“Antonio knows my background. My goal all these years. All the things I’ve done.”
All the things he’d done...
Suddenly, Alex felt as if she was being given a key to unlock this man. To understand him better. To find some way to stop him. To figure out if her first instinct about their marriage had been right, that there was something to salvage from this mess.
Vincenzo stopped the car near the lakefront. A row of pretty, colorful houses opened up the narrow winding street. When Alex reached for the door, he swung an arm across her torso toward the handle, locking her in place. The corded strength of his forearm pressed between her breasts, sending pulses of awareness jerking through her.
The sun had set during their drive and the interior of the car was faintly lit.
“We have been on display for three whole weeks now, ever since the news broke. I thought a quiet night would do us some good. There’s no pressure to be in the spotlight tonight.”
“I would like advance notice about these things. Especially if I’m to appear in good humor.”
“I asked you for one evening, Alessandra, for an important thing.”
“It would be nice if things that were important to me were valued just as equally by you.”
“Cristo! What the hell’s bothering you?”
“There are certain things I can’t forgive, Vincenzo. I just can’t.”
“Yes, cara. And we’re both constantly testing those certain limits, aren’t we?”
“Everything you do with me is for the media—I understand that. Your damned PR team used that kiss at the nightclub to its full extent. To put a romantic spin on the whole thing. Used it to cloud the very real threat you pose to Leo and Massimo.”
“This whole charade was your plan. Do you think that I forget for one moment that you came back to me for your own damned reasons, however noble they are? That not for a single hour will you forget your ties to that blasted family? You’re the one who wanted to show the world that you’re settling down into a life of domesticity and stability, bella.”
“Yes. And it’s enough that we’re parading ourselves in front of this media circus. That we pretend as if we can’t keep our hands off each other. But some things are not for public consumption. Some things are not...”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The picture of our wedding. The only one we have. The one I asked that passing local to click. Neither your PR team nor your wonderful assistant asked me for permission before they released that picture to the press.”
His disbelief showed in the jerk of his head. “Alessandra—”
“You entered this marriage for God knows what reasons of your own. I have tried to put those behind me. I’ve convinced myself that what I want doesn’t matter anymore. That this is all for Charlie. I have tucked away my foolish hopes.
“But that picture...it’s precious to me. That moment was real, at least it was to me. In fact, it was the most real moment of my life, and you used it to manipulate the world.
“You stole it from me.”
* * *
“You stole it from me.”
Alessandra’s words echoed inside Vincenzo’s head as he made the rounds on the beautiful, moonlit terrace of Antonio’s small house and greeted acquaintances and friends he hadn’t seen in a long time. Even in the dark of the car’s interior, he’d seen the glint of hurt in those beautiful eyes. The catch in her words.
Reminding him that beneath the fiery woman who’d strutted so confidently across the runway, beneath the woman that challenged him at every step, beneath the mantle of responsibility she’d put on for her half brother, his wife was vulnerable.
To him, his actions, his words.
And that very quality he’d wanted to see in her sat uncomfortably in his chest. Weighting him down.
It made him want to banish the hurt from her eyes. Made him want to protect her from anything in the world that could cause her pain. Including him.
Dio santo! If that wasn’t messed up, he didn’t know what was.
He turned to look at the tall, elegant figure of his wife, standing amidst a group of people, a soft smile playing around her lips. The same lips that had whispered such provocative words in his ear, pushing him to the edge of his control.
She was tallest of the group, and the most beautiful, by a wide margin. And yet when one of the teenagers Vincenzo had known for a while, Marco, approached her and said something, she nodded and laughed. Boxing, they were talking about boxing, he knew.
She handed off her wineglass to someone else, got into position with an animated smile and showed Marco her mean right hook. The toned curve of her arm, the flash of thigh as she pulled the inner skirt up to stretch her legs into a fighting stance, the utter joy in her eyes as she ducked Marco’s left fist... She looked incredibly sexy.
He could see the people he worked with reassess their opinion of her. Could sense their shock as they realized there was so much more to Alessandra than her looks.
“She’s not what I expected from you,” Antonio said, handing Vincenzo a glass of the bubbly champagne that they had been toasted with earlier.
Vincenzo looked at the man who had given him a sense of purpose when he’d been lost. Not just moral support. Antonio had provided seed money when he’d been starting out. He’d helped Vincenzo go from strength to strength. He owed everything he had to the older man. But... Some things, Vincenzo considered private. Off-limits. Even to Antonio.
It was the most real moment of my life.
Suddenly, he understood what Alessandra meant by that, and regret filled him.
He took a sip of his champagne. Laughter and shouts surrounded him as Alessandra’s fist gently connected with another youth’s angular chin. “What did you expect?”
Antonio shrugged, his weathered face splitting into a smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “An international supermodel, Vincenzo! Parties, and designer dresses and the high life...all sparkle and no substance.”
Vincenzo didn’t like hearing Alessandra reduced to being some one-dimensional bimbo. “Alessandra’s more than just a supermodel. Give her a chance, Antonio.”
“All of us fall victim to stereotyping, si?” The older man laughed at his own joke. “Hearing that you married is shocking in itself. You never even hinted at wanting to settle down in all these years.”
“No, it was never on my mind.”
“If I had known, I might have suggested a better alternative,” Antonio said, his gray head nodding in another direction. Vincenzo t
urned and saw his assistant Anna, standing stiffly to one side, a frosty smile fixed in place. What the hell did Antonio mean by that? “You need a strong, steady woman who can stand by you like a rock, Vincenzo. Who knows her place in your life. Not this...frothy creature from some fantasyland.”
“She’s my wife, Antonio. And I never gave Anna the idea that she meant anything more to me.”
“After all, you’re a man too,” Antonio added with a shrug. His gaze shifted back to Alessandra, who was now talking to Anna. “Ah...so the woman is as irresistible as she looks, then, si?”
Vincenzo shrugged. Even with Antonio, he didn’t want to admit to the complete truth.
Which was that he had completely lost his mind over Alessandra. Continued to, in fact. Her loyalty to the Brunettis amazed him. Her determination to do right by her half brother resonated deep inside him. Her vulnerability when it came to himself... Shook him. At a level he hadn’t thought possible.
“Her Brunetti connection is an unnecessary headache you don’t need right now. A distraction from your true purpose,” the older man insisted.
“It is a headache. She—” Vincenzo swallowed the word hates “—does not like what I intend to do to them. In fact, she’s waging a quiet campaign to shift me from my plans, I believe.”
The warm glint disappeared from Antonio’s dark eyes. “And? Do you think she will succeed?”
Vincenzo frowned at the quiet question. “You know me better than that, Antonio. She’s a small part of my life. An indulgence I allow myself.” He didn’t say she was fast becoming an obsession he craved. When she looked at him with that vulnerability in her eyes, he wanted to promise her the world. He wanted to promise her anything just to make her smile again. “Alessandra is a prize. A worthy wife for a man building an empire. She’s the final reward for all the fights I have won and for the ones I’m still waging.”
“And yet you watch her with such hunger in your eyes. As if you don’t already own her. As if you want...more.”
More... Did he want more from Alessandra? More of what?
Vincenzo refused to betray how accurate Antonio’s words were. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it is to look at a woman you want, Antonio. I do not deny that she’s got a hold over me.”
“That bothers me. About how powerful her hold is on you. About how much you will forgive her, how much you will forget in order to please her.”
“Speak your mind plainly, Antonio.”
“I’m not so old that I do not keep up with the news. She set you back a few steps with that leak about who you really are. The financial world is still wondering where you come from, how you’ve amassed your fortune and with what intentions. You lost the support of two men who were almost in your pocket. Now you have to begin the hunt anew to find other candidates who will stand against the combined might of Leonardo and Massimo Brunetti.”
“My PR team has been doing a lot of damage control since then. But it’s not Alessandra who leaked that information.”
“And you believe her?” The older man’s softly spoken words resonated with doubt and disbelief.
“Yes,” Vincenzo replied firmly.
“We’ve worked far too hard, for far too long to bring the Brunettis down. This marriage of yours could derail everything. Worse, it could—”
“I want to build what I have been denied all my life—a standing in society, a home to return to, a dynasty. What will stand in its place when the past is brought to its knees?” Vincenzo demanded, angry and tired and resentful in a way he’d never felt before. “For the first time in my life, I acted selfishly. It is neither a mistake nor a strategic move.”
Did Antonio see him as nothing but a device for vengeance? Was there anything left of him that wasn’t a weapon to fuel him toward his goal? This restlessness... He realized it had been growing in him for a while. A small crack that threatened to expand into a yawning void every time he visited his mother.
And then he had met Alessandra.
A breath of fresh air. A woman who had filled his days with laughter and warmth reminded him that he was a man who wanted more. A woman who made him think of the future.
“As long as it doesn’t distract you from your mission,” added Antonio, his expression implacable. That implacability had once been the backbone that had built Vincenzo’s confidence sky-high. Antonio’s belief had goaded him to the heights of success and through dark nights of self-doubt. And yet now, it felt like a painful echo from the past he couldn’t outrun.
“It does not mean that I’ve forgotten.” He ran a hand through his hair, tension swathing his frame. “I cannot, even if I wished it. Every time I see Mama...” He swallowed and looked away. His wound would never heal. Because every time he saw his mother, it was gouged afresh. “Keep your trust in me, Antonio.”
The old man gripped Vincenzo’s shoulder. “I do. Maybe this is not a bad move. Maybe you can use your wife to move even faster toward your goal.”
Everything in Vincenzo rebelled against the idea. “What do you mean?”
“You and Leonardo Brunetti are in a deadlock now for majority on the BFI board, si?”
“Si.”
“The matriarch, Greta Brunetti, still holds stock in BFI, doesn’t she? If your wife is truly important to her, maybe she could be persuaded to jump ship in your favor.”
Shock pulsed through Vincenzo. “I’ll be damned before I let you use me against them,” Alessandra had vowed.
“You want me to persuade Greta Brunetti to betray her own grandsons if she wants Alessandra’s happiness?”
“There must be some substance to your wife’s devotion to the old woman and that family. Test that connection. See how far you can push them with it.
“Think of it this way, Vincenzo. The faster you win this war, the faster you break up BFI into parts, the sooner you can settle into a blissful wedded life.”
Vincenzo couldn’t muster a reply. To use Alessandra and her happiness as a bargaining weapon against Greta Brunetti... The very thought filled him with distaste. What kind of a man would he have become then?
* * *
“I’d like to go home now, please. If you’re done for the night,” Alessandra whispered with a polite smile pasted on her mouth the moment Vincenzo reached her.
“That picture of us on the morning of our wedding...leaking it to the press... I never gave a direct, specific instruction to do that.” He pressed his fingers to her mouth when she’d have protested. “Hear me out, please, Alessandra.
“And before you shred my team into pieces, they only followed my order—to a T—that they improve my image in the media.
“So, yes, the ultimate responsibility is mine, but it was a thoughtless, general action rather than a deliberate, strategic one to hurt you, or to lessen the significance of that day for you.”
Her beautiful brown gaze mirrored her disbelief and hurt.
Vincenzo took her fingers in his and pressed. A harsh exhale left him when she didn’t pull away. “I should have realized it was so important to you. I should have—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Si! It does matter. What you think of all this, it does matter.” He’d been about to say What you think of me, but held it back, “I’m beginning to understand how much what I did hurt you. But my intentions for you, for this marriage have always been the same. From the beginning.”
She held his gaze, as if she could hold him to his word like that. As if she could see into his heart.
“Just promise me that you won’t use me in this battle of yours,” she said.
“I won’t. I have already said our marriage will stand outside of it. Come now, Princess. Dance with me.”
She said nothing. Didn’t move.
“It’s a beautiful night. And I want to dance with my beautiful wife. I want to show all the men salivating over you that you�
�re mine. Only mine.”
Vincenzo waited. For all of Antonio’s disapproval, he knew in his heart that she was the one he wanted when he finally reached the end of all this. She was the one who had birthed the future he hadn’t even realized could be his.
He left his hand outstretched. Finally, with a soft sigh, she came to him. And everything else ceased to exist for Vincenzo. The crowd around them, the soft music, the moonlight, everything became secondary to the sensation of having Alessandra in his arms.
She was like liquid silk poured over taut, warm limbs, her face hidden in the curve of his shoulder. Her fingers a brand on the nape of his neck. Her breaths a soft whisper against his skin. For long minutes, they just moved to the music, their bodies easily swaying in a matching rhythm.
“You stole it from me.”
“Have you forgiven me yet?” he whispered. “For making that picture public.”
“You’re who you are.” The defeat in those words slayed him.
“I...there was something between us on the island, si. But I think, in the real world, we’ve broken that trust. Both of us.”
She lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes. And nodded slowly. She pulled away from him and leaned against the balcony. The chitchat around them carried on, but everyone was giving them a wide berth.
She looked around, her gaze thoughtful. “All these people...they worship the ground you walk on.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“They have known me for a long time, si. When I had nothing to my name, when I was nothing but a boy with big dreams. Even from a young age, I had a way with numbers. The stock market was an easy pattern for me to predict.”
“Like Massimo is brilliant with computers,” she interjected.
He let it go. “Antonio saw my talent and nurtured it. When I started playing the market, these people trusted me with their savings. When I started my investment firm, they were my first clients. They trusted me to do right by them. Now that I have a million times more, I try to remember them. I try to give it back.”
