I stopped at the top of the stairs when I saw a door closed at the bottom. I turned to face Luca. “How did you get your own room?”
He shrugged. “It’s one of the perks of being president.”
“All you need is a kitchen and a fire escape, so I can leave here with my dignity intact.”
His hands cupped my shoulders, and he let out a throaty laugh. “What am I going to do with you? Beautiful, witty, and curses at me in Italian. It’s like hitting the trifecta.”
A momentary lapse in judgment led me to lean back into his arms. My God, he smelled amazing, and my mind failed me as he pressed his lips to my neck, a shudder ripping through me.
“Why is this so hard for me, Luca?” I mumbled the words between ragged breaths.
“Because you like me. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
I turned around, so we were facing each other, and I slid my hand over his muscular stomach. “You know we’re the worst possible combination, right? Like vinegar and oil.”
He flashed one of those crooked smiles I couldn’t get enough of and wrapped his arms around me. “I happen to like the taste of them together.”
“Me, too.” I sighed.
He kissed me before I could finish my train of thought.
The kiss lasted less than a minute, but it left its lingering effects on me. He didn’t speak a word of it as we headed downstairs. I noticed he’d sucked in a shallow breath with his eyes focused on the hardwood floor. Unable to function with the heat radiating between my thighs, I welcomed the silence. My body still trembled from his touch, accompanied by a massive hangover.
On our way to the first floor, I suddenly felt sick, the endless stairs making my head spin.
Half-naked bodies lay on the sandy floor, on couches, and even on top of tables. The house looked like a tornado had rolled through, disrupting beer cups and liquor bottles.
Mark and Hunter were sitting at one of the six long dining room tables. Cereal almost fell out of Hunter’s mouth when he saw me. None of the boys had shirts on—with the exception of Hunter, who was way out of shape. Waking to six-packs and handsome faces, I thought I’d died and gone to hottie heaven.
Mark glanced up from his plate and shook his head. “Wow, you must be special. Made it all the way till the next day.”
Luca clenched his teeth. “Fuck off, Mark. Quit being a dick! Izzie is my friend.” The words came out as rough and vicious as a bark.
The word friend hurt, but at least he understood this could not work. In some ways, his acceptance of our relationship made it easier for me to be around him. Knowing he would stop the constant advances and wisecracks reassured me.
Friends. I could handle that.
“Oh, she’s your friend now?” Mark chewed a piece of toast and mumbled between bites, “My bad. Sorry, bro.”
Luca shot him a look of death, and Mark held up his hands, laughing.
I reached over and shoved my hand in Mark’s auburn hair, messing it up. “You’re just mad I’m not wearing your clothes, big guy.”
He grunted as I took a step back. “And you’re lucky you’re a total smoke show.”
I rolled my eyes and threw my hip into his arm. “Whatever!”
Luca ushered me into the kitchen, commanding me to sit at the breakfast bar. He sifted through the cabinets, which were much nicer than I’d expected.
If you could overlook the lingering smell of men, beer, and a bunch of mystery scents, the house was gorgeous. Last night, I hadn’t stopped to notice how impressive the house was, not with all the girls and beer cans on the lawn. The sheer size of the place overwhelmed me. But nothing compared to Rinaldi Manor, my childhood home.
I watched as Luca stirred pancake batter. He looked good in the morning, even more so in black boxer briefs and his untamed hair. I wanted to twist my fingers through his wavy dark locks. Parts of last night came back to me in slivers. I closed my eyes, imagining his hands massaging my breasts.
When I opened my eyes, Luca was staring back at me. He didn’t speak, but I could tell I had piqued his interest.
He reached across the bar and stroked my cheek. “You okay, babe?”
“Oh, yeah…sure. I’m fine.” Those two words screamed, Liar. I straightened my back against the barstool until the metal frame dug into me. “Do you normally cook breakfast for the house?”
He poured batter onto a searing hot griddle and set the bowl on the counter. “It depends how hung over I am. If we have enough beer left over from the night before, we usually have kegs and eggs. It’s sort of a tradition in our house. Mark will cook if I don’t feel like it, but today is special. It’s not every day I have the pleasure of cooking for a beautiful woman.”
“I’m sure you’ve had plenty of opportunities,” I retorted with every ounce of intended sarcasm.
He leaned on the counter, a wicked smile stretching across his lips.
Put on a shirt, I wanted to scream because I couldn’t take my eyes off his ripped physique.
Luca followed my gaze, the panty-dropping look making my hormones go apeshit.
“True, but this is the first time I’ve wanted to do it.”
“So, we’re friends?” I said, trying to gauge his reaction. “That’s what you told Mark.”
He sighed. “I don’t want to be, but before you fell asleep last night, you made it pretty clear that’s what you want.”
I wanted him to take me right there on that counter. I couldn’t trust myself around him.
Luca flipped the pancakes over and smiled, but this time, his lips stretched into a hard line. “Friends. I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
He sat in the chair next to me with two plates and set one in front of me.
“Thanks, friend.”
I smiled, but he didn’t seem too happy.
Luca focused on cutting and stuffing the dough into his mouth. Between bites, he said, “I’ve never done this before, but what do you think about friends with benefits? I wouldn’t even look at another girl, if you’d consider it.”
I set my fork down and sighed. “I don’t know.”
He moved his left hand onto my thigh, and when I didn’t stop him, he slid his fingers beneath the boxers he’d given me. I turned to face him, allowing him better access, and he shoved two fingers inside me.
“You were lying earlier,” he said.
I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath.
Luca was once again working his magic. I was about to have an earth-shattering orgasm.
“You want this as much as I do. Your pussy is so fucking wet…and I did this to you.”
I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood and gripped the edge of the bar. “Luca,” I moaned quietly. “What are you doing?”
“Changing your mind.”
He moved faster, so fast that I couldn’t think or see straight, and I clamped down on his fingers.
I disregarded his brothers in the other room because it felt so good. I didn’t care if they found us, and something about them catching us excited me. I had a sickness, one that Luca and I shared.
“Yes. But. I. Have. Some. Rules,” I mumbled each word in the crook of his neck.
My body convulsed, and the most mind-blowing orgasm ripped through me. He pressed his lips to mine to stifle the sounds I attempted to choke back. But we didn’t kiss. I could barely function.
Luca had rocked my world, all in under a minute. The boxers I was wearing were dripping wet, and my legs trembling, but I still wanted more. I could never get enough of him.
When we heard footsteps coming toward us, Luca removed his hand and wiped it on his napkin, acting like nothing had happened. As Mark walked into the kitchen, my cheeks flushed crimson, and the sound of my heart beating in my ears made the room spin.
Mark put his cereal bowl in the sink and turned around with a grin on his face. Like Luca, he didn’t miss a beat. His nose wrinkled, and he leaned his elbows on the counter, his gaze shifting between us. “It
smells good in here.”
“Yeah,” Luca said with a smirk, “I just made pancakes.”
“It’s not that.” Mark inched toward the doorway and winked over his shoulder at me. He left without another word, but he was onto us.
I slapped my hand over my mouth in an attempt to contain my laughter. Luca took my hand in his and traced circles on my skin.
“One of my rules is that you keep this a secret,” I said. “I’m guessing you’ll have to tell Mark and Hunter. Will they keep their mouths shut?”
Luca nodded. “They’re more loyal than anyone I’ve ever known. You can trust them with your life.”
I sighed, unable to peel my hand away from his. “Don’t make me regret this, Luca.”
Chapter Twelve
IZZIE
Racketeering profits funded Rinaldi Holdings, the billion-dollar conglomerate founded by my great-grandfather, Angelo Rinaldi II. I lived with that fact my entire life, one my mother had never come to terms with. Our secrets were the reason for her drinking problem and her constant need to find an escape from our family. I supposed, to some extent, it’d also shaped my future, made me a little rough around the edges. On the outside, we sparkled like diamonds, but give us a quick spit-shine, and you could see the chinks in our armor.
When Angelo had met my great-grandmother, he’d moved from Florence to Calabria, thinking he could make an honest living. That was his first mistake. With his new wife’s familial ties to ‘Ndràngheta, a powerful crime syndicate in Italy, he’d soon found his place in the criminal underworld, working as a soldier for the Alvaro family. Young and ruthless, with a wife and infant child at home, he had done whatever was necessary. He’d quickly made contacts in Palermo where the Sicilian Mafiosi operated. Once the fascists had cut into their profits and, in some respects, eliminated the Mafia, Angelo and his crew had fled to the United States.
He’d made a living as a bootlegger with the help of his Sicilian friends, traveling and transporting illegal alcohol from Philadelphia to Chicago. Around the end of Prohibition, he had taken his profits and invested in Pitt Steel, a steel company with financial troubles that had worked in Angelo’s favor, making him one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. Established in 1939, Rinaldi Holdings had begun as a holding company, meaning we did not make or distribute any products or services. It existed for the sole purpose of investing money in other people’s companies and becoming rich off their successes.
My grandmother hated Grandfather’s semi-legal business arrangements, throwing the term Mafiosi out more often than I could remember. She’d said it so much, all while cursing him in Italian, that my mother thought it would be my first word. Inviting made men into our home and sitting next to them at fundraisers was a normal part of being a Rinaldi. I understood that, embraced it even. My family felt obligated to pay respects to the acting boss at the time, which now happened to be Luca’s father.
With our family’s link to ‘Ndràngheta and our close relationship with the Sicilian Mafia, my grandfathers used their connections to make Rinaldi a household name. They never wanted to become made men, and back in their day, only Sicilians were admitted into the Italian-American Mafia though the requirement lessened over the years.
The first time I had met Luca, he’d had chubby cheeks, the same crooked smile, and those blue eyes that made me melt. He’d kissed me in a wine cellar, my pink chiffon dress shoved up against a wooden cask. We hadn’t used tongue, just a simple peck that lasted longer than either of us had imagined. I had seen him a few more times before our families distanced themselves but not in the same intimate setting as our first kiss.
For years, I’d wondered what had happened to him until he’d shown up late to our freshman law seminar. When he’d smiled in my direction, I couldn’t formulate a single thought. That had worn off the second I saw a busty blonde draped over his arm like an ornament.
And, once word had gotten around about his man-whoring ways, any chance of me talking to him had gone out the window. I had no interest in being one of a thousand. A few times, I’d caught him watching me, only to brush it off as the usual look-at-the-Rinaldi-heiress glances I got all the time.
As I stared out the window of the skyscraper facing the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the people forty-nine floors below me seemed like ants running along the pavement. I thought of how many people my family had trampled over to get here. How many lives had my grandfathers ruined in pursuit of the American dream? We were just as crooked as the Marcheses, except we wrapped our transactions up in a neat package for our shareholders.
At least the Marcheses worked for the money the old-fashioned way. The Rinaldis just sat on their throne, looking down at the rest of the world, ruling it with an iron first. We had everyone fooled, somehow managing to hide the corrupt, power-hungry parts of ourselves away from the public eye.
In addition to school, I worked full-time at Rinaldi Holdings, and given my recent promotion to VP of Real Estate Acquisitions, I worked more than I slept. I’d padded my schedule over the years, taking classes during the summer breaks to lighten my load for my senior year.
Over the past few weeks, I’d spent a lot of time with Luca, and after another late night, getting out of bed on a Saturday had been difficult. On our way home from the Delta Sigma house, Silvia and I stopped for coffee and breakfast sandwiches at Broad Street Beans, the perfect cure for my hang over. Then, we drove to the office together, unprepared for the day ahead of us, wanting desperately to crawl back into bed and sleep off our hangovers.
Silvia was my secretary at Rinaldi Holdings, and as my best friend and roommate, she was always on-call. Lost in my thoughts and the people shuffling through the crowded streets below me, I barely noticed the sound of my phone beeping.
Silvia’s silvery voice blared through the intercom on my desk. “Izzie, Mr. Greenberg is on the line for you. Are you available?”
I rolled away from the windows, slid my chair behind the large oak desk, and held down the button on my phone. “Put him through, Sil.”
Silvia patched the call through, my ear burning at the sound of his deep voice. “Isabella.”
“What can I do for you, Rob?”
As lead corporate counsel for Rinaldi Holdings, Rob Greenberg was meaner than a pit bull on steroids. Grandfather had insisted no man was better for the job when he hired Rob ten years ago, and despite his terrible manners, he was an incredible attorney.
In my three years of working with him on various deals, he’d made the impossible happen. At first, he could not accept my position within the company. But once he’d realized I held my own, true to Rinaldi nature, he lowered his guard and accepted me as his equal.
“We have a new real estate acquisition I’d like you to work on with me. Angelo said you would personally handle the case now that you’ve been promoted to VP of Real Estate Acquisitions.” His husky voice had the effect of someone clawing through the earpiece and drilling into my brain. I held the receiver away from my ear as he continued, “Come up to my office around five thirty. I’ll have Cindy order us takeout from Vitale’s.”
I hesitated at first, now irritated this new deal would require us to share a meal together, but I finally said, “Sure. Cindy knows my order. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Great.” His tone softened, as if I had just accepted a date from him. He would hit on me at least three times a week or make some inappropriate comment when he thought no one was around.
I hung up without another word, dreading my dinner date from hell.
Rob had flawless skin for a man in his early forties. He had no wife and kids at home, but he had a reputation around the office. He’d wooed almost every secretary, paralegal, personal assistant, and pretty much anything else in a skirt. Grandfather thought of him as his own son, which made exposing his truths complicated. Every time I mentioned his proclivities, Grandfather would shake it off, pretending Rob walked on air and all was good in the world. On the other hand, the women would find their way ou
t the door right after Rob had bent them over his desk. The whole workplace fantasy did it for him—or so I’d heard.
As I stood in his doorway, wearing a pencil skirt and tight blouse that hugged my best assets, I wished I could forget some of the stories. His eyes traveled over my body before settling on my breasts, a devious expression crossing his face. I was used to men doing the exact same thing, but I would never get used to Rob doing it. Only Luca was allowed to give me that bend-over-and-spread-your-legs look and get away with it. Despite his handsome features and short dark hair, Rob sickened me. One glance in his direction, and my stomach revolted. As he continued ogling me, I felt as if tiny bugs were dancing along my skin.
He pointed to the brown bags on his conference table engraved with the RH logo found on everything in the office. “Please, join me. The food just arrived, so it should still be hot.”
I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, slowly making my way toward him. After I sifted through the containers, I sat at the opposite end of the table from him, as usual. The table had twelve chairs, yet I ate far enough away that I could’ve been in a different room.
“So far away, Isabella. Would it kill you to sit next to me?” Rob patted the leather cushion of the high-back chair next to him.
Our distance always bothered him, but I couldn’t stand him otherwise. Twenty years my senior—not to mention, I was the boss’s granddaughter—he’d still attempt to win me over. The first time we’d worked an all-nighter together, he’d grazed my breasts several times, pretending to reach for settlement documents. He had the grace of a three-legged dog and the manners of a homeless person. At least the man who bummed change off me while I was on my way to class would thank me. Rob just wanted to take, take, take.
“I’m fine down here,” I mumbled between bites of chicken Alfredo.
Corrupt Me Page 10
