Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  Did he lie to me?

  All this time she’d just taken it for granted that her father was an honorable man, who always spoke the truth. She’d have defended him until her final breath. But had she been wrong about him?

  No. That is not possible.

  But she’d caught a glimpse of worry in his eyes before he’d moved to confront her husband. She didn’t know what to believe.

  She wanted to go after him and have it out, but she resisted. She vividly remembered the doctor’s stern warning about avoiding undo stress.

  Hurt and angry, she turned to Franco with an accusing glare. “How dare you speak to him like that?”

  “Me?” He pressed a hand to his chest. “What about him? He’s the one throwing around insults.”

  She crossed her arms and frowned at him. “And you’re the one that kept egging him on.”

  “Why are you mad at me? He’s the one that barged into your office—an office that had the door closed, I might remind you—and yet you’re attacking me.”

  “Because you’re strong and healthy. He’s not.” With each word uttered, her emotions rose, as did her voice. “He needs to be taken care of. He doesn’t need you yelling at him—”

  “I didn’t raise my voice, but if he’d kept it up—”

  “You’d what?”

  Franco huffed out a breath as he raked his fingers through his hair. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, it was something, all right.” She tapped her foot. “And I want to know what you were going to do if he hadn’t left.”

  His intense glare met hers. If he thought she was going to back down, he had another thought coming. Because as fiery as their passion could be, it appeared their tempers ran just as high. “I wasn’t going to just stand by quietly while he insulted me, my family...and most especially you. I had to speak the truth. I’m sorry you ended up getting hurt. That was never my intention.”

  “Is that why you kept this secret all this time? Why did you let me make a fool of myself defending him?”

  He glanced downward. “I know what it’s like to have a distant relationship with my father. I didn’t want to say anything to cause trouble between you and your father.”

  She paused as she took in his words. And suddenly the fire went out of her temper. But she refused to get swept off her feet by his chivalry. Still, she wanted to be sure she heard him correctly. “You were coming to my defense?”

  He glanced away as he shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. I guess. Now can we move on?”

  It wasn’t the strong affirmation that she’d been hoping for, but it definitely wasn’t a denial. “You were lying when you told my father there was proof, weren’t you?”

  She really needed him to say yes. Because if he said something else, that would mean what she believed about her father—being an honest, loyal and respectable man—wasn’t true. And...and that just couldn’t be so.

  Franco turned his back to her as he bent down to start gathering the evidence of their moment of reckless passion. That exquisite moment seemed so long ago now. If her father had set out to drive a wedge between her and Franco, he’d succeeded.

  “Franco, answer me.” Her voice wavered ever so slightly with emotion. “Do you have proof?”

  He didn’t answer her as he continued to pick up papers and pens from the floor. Once everything was placed on the side of the desk, he straightened. And then he turned to her. “We should drop the subject. I shouldn’t have said anything to your father. I’m sorry. It’s just that he got to me.”

  “My father is good at pressing people’s buttons. But that still doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters very much.”

  Franco blew out a deep sigh. “There’s a video of your father cheating at a high-stakes poker game.”

  Her gaze searched his. Nothing in his demeanor said he was lying or in any way out to get her. Instead, sympathy reflected in his eyes.

  She pressed a hand to her mouth as she gasped. It was true. Her father had cheated at cards and then publicly shamed Franco’s grandfather by calling him a liar to friends and business associates alike.

  Her vision blurred. How could he have done such a thing? The man that she’d looked up to her whole life—the man that she’d given up her dreams for—had lied to her. He had told her that her sweet, kind husband was a liar—he’d insisted on it—and all along he was the liar, the cheat.

  Her heart ached. Her father hadn’t respected her enough to tell her the truth. Did he think she’d stop loving him? That would never happen. But she was hurt and disappointed. A tear splashed onto her cheek.

  The next thing she knew, Franco was drawing her into his embrace. He held her and stroked her hair. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

  Her tears spilled onto Franco’s blue dress shirt. It was only then that she realized she was crying. She hated to cry. She wasn’t this weepy person. She was strong.

  But hearing that about the one person in her life whom she thought she could trust thoroughly had broken something within her. Maybe it was the childhood belief that her father could do no wrong. Maybe it was losing her mother so quickly and far too soon that had her putting her father up on a pedestal. Whatever it was, she’d never look at him quite the same way again.

  Drawing on the strength she knew lurked deep down inside her, she pulled back from Franco. She swiped at her eyes that must be a smear of mascara by now. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be.” His voice was soft and warm like a giant hug. “I’ll take any excuse to hold you in my arms.”

  Her gaze dipped to his lips. And then, throwing caution to the wind, she leaned forward, pressing her mouth to his. At first, he didn’t move, as though he was totally caught off guard by her boldness.

  As his mouth began to move over hers, she felt careless, reckless. It was as if by finding out her father wasn’t the man she thought him to be that she no longer had to hold herself back and play by the rules.

  “Hold that thought,” she said. And then she lifted her phone and dialed her assistant. She sent her home early. Then she locked her office door.

  When she turned back to Franco, his eyes lit up with interest. “Should I be worried?”

  She kicked off her heels and slowly approached him. “That depends. What are you worried about?”

  A smiled toyed at the corners of his mouth. “With the way you’re eyeing me up, I have a feeling you’re about to take advantage of me.”

  She felt freer than she’d felt in a very long time, which was funny because she was married and not free at all. And in this moment, being married to Franco was all right with her. “Do you want to be taken advantage of?”

  When she came to a stop in front of him, he gazed deep into her eyes. “Oh yes, I do.”

  That’s all she needed to hear. She once again tugged at his tie, loosening it. And then her fingers fumbled with the shirt buttons. This time there were no reservations, no doubts about her actions.

  In this particular moment, all she wanted was Franco—all of him. She loosened two buttons before he swept her up into his strong arms and carried her to the couch. He laid her down and then joined her.

  His lips pressed to hers. It was like a balm upon her broken heart. As the kiss intensified, she momentarily forgot about the lies, the pain and the disappointment. In this moment, she felt wanted and cared about. She didn’t want this moment to end.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CARLA WASN’T GOING to be outdone.

  Three weeks of working practically nonstop and they were making great strides. With all the pressing matters to be resolved, she hadn’t had time to visit her father. She still phoned each day, but their conversations were short and stilted. However, she made sure to send over updates on this new venture with Marchello Spices out of courtesy.

 
; Oh, who was she kidding? She’d purposely been avoiding seeing him or having any meaningful conversation. She knew the subject of the infamous poker game would inevitably come up, and she wasn’t ready for what he would say.

  Because even though she’d denied the truth as long as she could, she knew the one man she’d trusted most in this world had lied to her. But hearing him admit it...it would change their relationship forever.

  When he called, she always rushed off the phone. And when he’d invite her over for dinner, she said she had work to do on her big project. She noticed that he was going out of his way to be nice to her, but she wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  She knew she couldn’t avoid him or the subject forever. But she told herself that she’d deal with it when the time was right. She just wasn’t certain when that might be.

  Right now, she had other matters on her mind. In exchange for putting Marchello Spices in all of the Falco restaurants, Franco was advertising their restaurants on their website and print ads, as well as adding a “Now featured in Falco Fresco Ristorantes” to their spice labels.

  Their joint staff had pushed for promoting their marriage as a marrying of the restaurants and the line of spices. And under normal circumstances it would be an ideal PR campaign with the two heirs marrying, but they both knew this marriage would soon end, and they didn’t want their divorce to tarnish all their hard work.

  The staff had been disappointed, as they’d already brainstormed all the ways their marriage could be used to promote their family businesses. Carla and Franco explained away their reluctance to make the campaign personal because the businesses involved more people than just themselves.

  Monday morning, Carla had been up before the sun—in fact, she’d been up before Franco—and out the door. At every meeting so far, it felt as though he was always a step ahead of her. And that wasn’t good.

  This deal had been her brainchild. She should be the one leading the way through this new collaboration. As such, she’d called an upper management meeting. She’d told them she didn’t care if it took overtime, she wanted new material for this collaboration from additional product placement to innovative advertising targeted at the young crowd. She wanted everyone to know that this wasn’t just their grandparents’ and parents’ place to eat but a destination for first dates and engagements.

  She didn’t care what part of this venture it was, she wanted fresh ideas. And lately she’d found herself quite distracted between her sexy new husband—erm, her partner, and worrying about her father, who in turn was worried about her.

  Carla glanced at the time on her computer monitor. Less than an hour and Franco would show up. He liked to show up early, looking all prepared, while she was scrambling to put out fires before pulling together her latest developments on the project. She seemed to think that people who showed up early didn’t have enough work to do. She definitely had enough work to do and then some.

  Knock. Knock.

  She glanced up at her open office door to find Stu Phillips, the head of publicity, standing there. The man was in his sixties. His white hair was trimmed short. His black-rimmed reading glasses sat low on his bulbous nose. His gray eyes peered at her over the rims. He still wore his dark suit and tie, even though a few years back she’d talked her father into implementing a business-casual policy.

  In his hands were a stack of papers. Oh, good. This is just what I need.

  Carla waved him inside the office. “I was hoping to have something to present at our meeting today. What do you have for me?”

  “We’ve worked on some new labels for the spices.” Stu was polite, but he wasn’t overly enthused that she was now in charge. He was part of the old guard, personally hired by her father. “I honestly don’t know why we have to change all our labels just because we’re going to add a couple of spices from that Marchello company.”

  This wasn’t the first time he’d voiced his complaint. He must have thought that repeating himself would make her agree with him. He was wrong. “You’re doing this because I told you to.”

  “But when your father comes back—”

  “My father will back my plans.” Her unwavering gaze met his. “But in the meantime, I’m here and I’m the boss. So we’re going to do this my way.”

  Redesigning the in-house labels perhaps wasn’t where she would have started. She’d have probably worked on the macro vision for this project and then worked her way down to the micro images. But she wasn’t one to tell people how to do their jobs, so long as they got good results. “Let’s see what you have.”

  She held out her hands for the printouts. He glared at her, and she mentally dared him to continue to argue with her. She wasn’t in the mood to take any flak. She had more important things on her mind.

  He wisely chose to hand over the papers quietly.

  She glanced over the new labels, taking in the choice of words, the font used and the colors selected. None of it was what they’d discussed. They greatly resembled their current labels.

  She set the pages on the desk and lifted her gaze to meet his. “Were you in the same meeting as I was when we discussed the new look?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts. This is not what I want. None of this is going to work. Go back and do better.”

  His gray brows drew together as storm clouds gathered in his eyes. He hesitated to move as though he was ready to tell her that he knew better. He didn’t. The truth of the matter was that he was costing her time—time she didn’t have.

  “You know what,” she said, “I’m going to accompany you back to your department. We’re going to review what I expect so there are no further misunderstandings. And definitely no more delays.”

  Not waiting for Stu to disagree, she got up from her chair and headed for the hallway. She didn’t have much time before Franco showed up, but this was critically important to the launch of their plan. Franco would understand if she wasn’t sitting here waiting for him. At least she hoped so.

  * * *

  He was early.

  Franco liked to make it a habit to be early to meetings. He supposed that it was a bit of his grandfather coming out in him. He had been taught that a person who took his work seriously made time for it and didn’t use excuses to explain being unprepared.

  Promptness showed a person’s character. He liked to think that his early arrivals showed everyone around him that he was very serious about his business and that there wasn’t anything more important to him.

  He moved with long strides down the hallway until he came to the outer area of Carla’s office. They’d planned to meet privately before the committee meeting in the conference room. The inner door to Carla’s office was open, but she wasn’t inside. When he turned his attention to her assistant, she was on the phone. Rosa held up a finger, indicating that it’d just be a moment.

  He backtracked into the hallway, not wanting to lurk about and overhear her conversation. He was hoping to catch sight of Carla. They’d missed each other that morning.

  What had her up and out of the penthouse so early? He couldn’t help but feel that it had something to do with their collaboration. Right now, it was the main focus for both of them, because they were both working within shorter time constraints. And lately they’d been hitting one stumbling block after another.

  “Signor,” Rosa called out to him.

  He stepped into the office. “Sorry to bother you. I was supposed to meet with Carla.”

  Rosa nodded in understanding. “She said you would be stopping by. She had to step out of her office for a moment. She said you could wait inside for her. She shouldn’t be long.”

  “Grazie.” He smiled at the woman before stepping into the office.

  He sat down in one of the black leather chairs facing her desk. He lifted his briefcase to his lap and pulled out some papers he’d brought to show her.

&
nbsp; Carla’s desk was filled with binders and folders, so he stood and walked around to place the printouts in the center of her desk where she could see them right away. As he turned away, he noticed the image of a spice container.

  He recalled her mentioning that they were going to work on the product labels. He picked up the papers and looked over it, finding that it said nothing about the Marchello brand. If it weren’t for the name of the blend, he would think this was an old printout, but Harvest Zest was a name for a blend that had been developed at Marchello. He and Carla had discussed that particular blend at length.

  And yet as he flipped through the pages of images, they all had the Falco name in large letters at the top as though the spices were theirs. Franco’s jaw tightened. This couldn’t be happening.

  Had he trusted Carla too much? Had she found a loophole in their contract? Was she planning to take their ideas and run with them on her own?

  He’d trusted Rose in the beginning, and she’d stared straight at him as she lied about her supposed pregnancy. Unease churned in his gut. Had Carla just done that with their business arrangement?

  His back teeth ground together. This couldn’t be happening. And he had no one to blame but himself, because his grandfather had warned him that the Falcos were cheaters. Foolishly, Franco had thought it was just Carla’s father that couldn’t be trusted, but now he had to wonder about her, too.

  Knock. Knock.

  Rosa stood in the doorway. “Excuse me. Carla just called and asked if you’d meet her in the conference room.”

  Franco placed the papers back on her desk just as he’d found them. “Thank you. I’ll do that. I just need to place a quick phone call.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Rosa closed the door, giving him some privacy.

  He quickly dialed his legal team. He alerted them to his concern that Carla might try to write Marchello Spices out of the deal. He didn’t like to think he’d married someone who would turn on him, but he couldn’t afford to take anything for granted.