Bought by Her Italian Boss (12 page)

Licking her lips, she turned back to Travis. “I’m
sorry
,” she said with deep sincerity. “It’s true, I was avoiding you and Henry. This whole thing has been very humiliating. I feel horrible for what Henry and you must be going through.”

Vito made a noise that she knew was an admonishment against apologizing for something that wasn’t her fault.

“Is that why you haven’t come home? Because you were embarrassed?”

She shrugged, as disconcerted by his forcefulness as by the implication that what she considered “home” was her home in his eyes, too.

“Is it?” Vito demanded from his position on the far end of the table. His hot glare was equally unnerving because he looked so stunned.

Hurt, even?

He must know she’d stayed for him. She swallowed, sending him a reassuring look before she turned back to her stepbrother.

“I stayed here for a lot of reasons, but I knew you must be furious—” she began.

“I’m furious because I’m worried, Gwyn!” he cut in. His dark face reddened with deep emotion and his hand waved in the air. “None of this is like you except the part where you refused to pick up the phone and ask me for help! Instead, you’re relying on...”

His gaze tracked Vito as he came down the side of the table to where Gwyn stood, closing in behind her in a silent message that might have been a warning to Travis to mind his tone. There was such an air of menace as he looked at the man.

“What the hell is going on here?” Travis asked, shifting his disbelieving gaze to hers. “I mean, I know what it was supposed to look like. Anyone with half a brain can see you were backing Jensen into an admission that he set up the photos, but why are you still here now that that’s accepted fact? Why didn’t you come home after he was charged?”

“I—” She didn’t know what to say. Somehow she was in Vito’s grasp, her back against his front, one of his heavy hands on her hip, the other curled around her upper arm.

“Why do you care?” Vito remarked in a dangerous tone.

Travis lifted his gaze to a point past her shoulder, his eyes so cold and deadly, Gwyn tensed and held her breath.

“We’re family,” Travis said through lips that barely moved. “Maybe we’re not related by blood, but we’re family. Do you get me? She’s not without connections. So whatever the hell you think you’re doing with my sister, it ends now.”

Family?

Gwyn was dumbfounded by Travis’s reaction.

The whole moment was so supercharged with emotion, she almost couldn’t speak, thoughts scattered. But these two pitbulls were about to take each other apart, so she covered Vito’s hand on her arm and tried to ground out his aggression.

“It’s okay,” she told him, then turned to Travis. “Your worrying about me is really nice, but it’s not necessary. I’ve been in good hands this whole time.”

In her head that had seemed like a sensible thing to say, but the hands upon her tightened and Travis choked out, taking on a thunderstruck expression.

“Have you? Have you really?”

“Yes,” she insisted, shifting enough so she could see Vito’s stony expression over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see there, but not that cast of iron. For some reason it undermined her confidence in what she was saying. “Paolo and Vito have had my back this whole time.”

“That’s odd,” Travis said, tone dripping sarcasm. “Because what it looks like to me is that a man in a position of power took advantage of a woman who was already in trouble, used her to keep his bank from taking a kick to its reputation, hung on to her to influence the settlement that was being negotiated—” he nodded at the folders on the table “—and
if
he keeps you here, will be using you for reasons that have become far more basic.”

“Travis,” she gasped, stabbed by his cruel assessment.

“I’m sorry, did I miss a wedding announcement?” Travis asked, flicking his gaze to Vito’s. “Are your intentions honorable?”

Vito’s hands fell away from her body and stripped her of her skin at the same time.
No.
She wouldn’t let Travis ruin this. Why wasn’t Vito explaining this wasn’t cheap, physical gratification but something so much more?

Public humiliation was a cakewalk compared to losing the regard of people you cared about, she realized, as one man looked at her with pity and the other didn’t meet her gaze at all.

“You’ve always thought I was a gold digger, Travis. Why are you upset to find me exactly where you expected me to be?” she threw out.

“Gwyn,” Vito growled in protest while Travis’s head snapped back.

“When did I ever call you that?”

“The wedding day. You said Mom and I—”

“I barely knew you!” No apology or denial, she noted. He just railed on. “Now I do and you’re as green and idealistic as they come. He’s taking advantage of you, Gwyn.” And he looked genuinely outraged by it. If she wasn’t so furious with him for ruining a good thing, she’d be touched.

“I’m an adult,” she asserted. “Perfectly capable of deciding when and with whom I want a relationship.”

“Oh, tell yourself that, but this isn’t a ‘relationship.’ It’s an arrangement. The most rudimentary kind. He’s miles ahead of you and it’s all calculated for his best interests, not yours. You will come away with some very pretty material items that I know will mean nothing to you because you are a woman looking for love, not lucre. You’re better than this, Gwyn. Don’t let him turn you into something you’re not.”

“You don’t know anything about what we have,” she said hotly, half turning to snag Vito with her glance, urging him—
insisting
—he defend himself.
Them.

His jaw pulsed and he stared at Travis, not with heat, not with guilt. Blank.

It hurt. His silence gutted her and his refusal to appear insulted and furious shook her to the core.

“If you have any decency at all, you’ll send her home with me,” Travis said flatly. “She’s better than this.”

No, I’m not
, Gwyn wanted to say. Maybe she even said it aloud. She knew she argued, “That’s a stupid ultimatum. He doesn’t have to prove anything to you.
I
decide whether I stay with him or not,” she declared.

“Sign the papers when you’re satisfied, not before,” Vito said, more to Travis than to her, reaching to square one of the folders against the edge of the table, then sending a second look, this one blistering, back to Travis again. “You’re wrong about my interfering in this. It’s all been negotiated at arm’s length, but I’ll leave so I’m not a distraction while you finalize it.”

“Vito!”
Panic edged into her voice as she watched him circle toward the interior door. This wasn’t really happening was it? “You’re— This isn’t—”
Over.
Was it? She couldn’t finish the question, afraid she already knew the answer.

He paused, but he didn’t turn around. “This was always going to happen,
cara
,” he said gently. “You knew that.”

She thought of the day when she’d been prepared to leave and had likened it to tearing off a bandage. But genuinely facing The End was a kind of pain she couldn’t describe, like her soul was wrenched from her body. Her heart beat outside her chest.

She did the only thing she could. She turned on Travis, the man who had marched in here talking like he cared about her and was destroying her life.

“Why would you do this to me? Do you resent me so much for taking some of your father’s precious attention—”

“Gwyn,” Vito said sharply, hand gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, face grim. “
This was always going to happen.
Go home with your brother. Let him take care of you. I want to know you’re safe there, not being harassed by the press or anyone else.”

“Oh, do you?” she jeered. “What am I now? Not just a pawn, but a marble that gets picked up and taken home?
I
decide what happens to me!”

“Do whatever you want,” he commanded. “But you’re not coming home with me.”

He might as well be throwing rocks at the dog that threatened to follow him. His words landed like sharp stones in her throat and her eyes and her glass heart, chipping and cracking it, leaving it in jagged broken pieces as he disappeared through the door and closed it with finality against her.

“Gwyn, I’m sorry,” Travis said, touching her elbow.

She shook him off, distantly supposing she looked like someone had died in front of her because that’s how she felt.

She had been miserable, absolutely devastated, when her nude photos had appeared. Vito had questioned her like a criminal and she had thought her life couldn’t get any worse. Then he’d made everything better. He’d charmed and soothed and ignited her. He had made her fall in love with him. She had trusted him in ways she’d never let herself trust anyone, especially a man. She had offered her heart on a platter, let herself believe he cared for her at least a little...

But she meant nothing to him.

She hated him with everything in her. He was a bastard and she
hated
him.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

* * *

The door he’d used to exit the conference room led into Paolo’s office. His cousin stood up from his desk. “They’re ready for us?”

“All I could see was your father,” Vito told him numbly, trying to laugh it off, but ghosts were skimming across his skin, leaving it covered in gooseflesh. His chuckle came off his heart like a dry leaf. A kind of pain, the kind he would never let anyone, for any reason, inflict upon him, coursed like poison through his veins. “I can’t be like mine, stealing something I’ll end up destroying.”

Incomprehension crystalized into understanding in Paolo’s expression, maybe even something that might have been a protest, but Vito was already on the move again. If he didn’t get out of here, he wouldn’t be able to leave her.

“Finish without me. Give her whatever she wants.”

CHAPTER TEN

N
OT
LONG
AFTER
her mother had married Henry, he had said to Gwyn, “Travis can teach you to drive.”

Already far behind her age group in getting her license, Gwyn had declined, not wanting to look stupid in front of him, choosing instead to spend her hard-earned tip money on a couple of private lessons. She couldn’t count the number of times Travis had offered to buy dinner over the years, but she’d always insisted on cooking. When she tried, she could think of four distinct times when he had asked whether she was looking for work because he’d heard about a particular position and was willing to recommend her. She’d always taken it as a criticism of the work she was doing or a favor that would make her indebted to him.

Not once had it ever occurred to her that he might give one solid damn about her.

He did. He might have blown up her relationship—
arrangement
—with Vito, but he was sorry. He was treating her like she was made of butterfly wings and soap bubbles, barely touching her, moving her with the gentle cadence of his voice. He told her that he shouldn’t have waited for her to ask for help, but that he knew how important her independence was to her. He had wanted to respect her choices, but he couldn’t watch her get hurt. He told her she could do better.

“I thought he cared about me,” she finally broke her silence to say, as they flew first class back to Charleston.

“I know,” he said after a surprised pause. She hadn’t spoken since Vito had left the conference room, afraid her voice would crack and the rest of her control would follow. “And there are times when an affair like that is harmless. But you weren’t coming into it as his equal. By that I mean the position you were in at the time, life experience, money, influence,” he said with a glance from the corner of his eye. “You’re a helluva better person.”

“You don’t know him,” she mumbled into the drink he’d ordered her.

“I know him,” Travis snorted. “It’s like looking in a mirror.”

For some reason that made her laugh, jaggedly and with fraught emotion, but as powerful and intimidating as she’d always found Travis, Vito was so much more. Everything she felt about him was massive and angsty and not the least bit brotherly.

Travis twisted his mouth and said, “Why is that funny? Shut up.”

Which made her laugh more. Because the alternative was to cry and she’d wait to do that when she was alone.

He took her to Henry’s and she really only meant to stay a week or so while she sorted out her life and got a job, but Henry practically begged her to stay. Then Travis walked her into an office a few blocks away and told her she was the comptroller for his friend’s chain of high-end restaurants.

“Nepotism?” Her ego really needed to earn something on her own merit.

“Don’t be like that. You’re
over
qualified. But it’s close, the money is good and no one will bother you. It’s an excellent stepping stone,” Travis urged. “It reestablishes you in the field which is something you need. He really needs someone who can upgrade his system and train the team to use it. You’ll be doing him a favor.”

“Right,” she mumbled, but took the job.

It was awkward at first. Not so much at work. Everyone there was quite nice to her, but as she began moving around in public some people had the audacity to stare. Sometimes they asked outright if she was
that
woman. Usually if she replied, “Yes. Why?” it shut the interest down to a startled, “Just wondering.”

Then there was the one day when she was feeling really thin-skinned and went off with the kind of fury that Vito had always warned her against.

It happened to be her mother’s birthday. Her period had arrived that morning, severing any crazy illusions she had been nursing that she’d have a lifelong tie with Vito. Then a knock at the door had announced her things from Italy. Not just the boxes from her flat that had gone into storage.
All
her things. Gowns that had hung next to Vito’s suits. Scarves and scent and sandals.

Her gaze had scanned the entire inventory list, from eyebrow tweezers to toe rings, seeing novels and anklets and flower vases, but no mention of “Vito’s heart.”

She had asked the men to stack the boxes in the den, closed the door on them, made a huge breakfast for Henry, ate none of it herself and had cried in the shower before forcing herself to leave for work, already thirty minutes late.

So when she parked her car outside her new job and saw the cameras running at her like laser-shooting weapons in a sci-fi movie, she was already on her last nerve. A million babbled questions washed over her, all of them prompted by some shred of news in the Jensen case that she no longer cared anything about. But when one of the voices said, “We deserve to know everything that happened between you and Vittorio Donatelli,” she lost it.

“You
deserve
to know? I’m supposed to betray his confidence and my own right to privacy and tell strangers about our personal relationship? What is wrong with you people? Do you understand what a relationship is? You rely on the other person
not
to talk about you. That’s why humans make connections, so we have a safe place to be ourselves. Vito Donatelli gave me that. That’s what happened between us, okay?
Trust.
What a kinky, filthy concept, right? I’m sure it is to you!”

She used her elbows to get through the crowd, rather pleased when she heard grunts of startled pain and anxiety for their precious equipment.

“You don’t deserve one damned thing.”

* * *

Vito started to replay the moment where Gwyn gave the paparazzi a piece of her mind, but heard a squawk through the closed doors to Paolo’s office.

He rose, not getting any work done anyway, and went through to find Lauren pacing in a light, bouncing step, patting the back of her fussing son.

“Hi,” she said with a warm smile, coming across to kiss his cheeks. “Paolo’s meeting me here with the other two, but I’m early. Sorry if we disturbed you. This one’s fighting sleep even though he’s overtired and grumpy.” She wrinkled her nose at her son, then kissed his crinkled little chin.

Vito took him and settled him into what he privately labeled The Sleeper Hold. He’d learned it from watching his many relatives comfort his many infant relations. If a baby didn’t take to the shoulder or a cradle hold in the arm, they wanted to lie on their stomach across a forearm, head pillowed in the crook of his elbow, limbs dangling.

Arturo made a stalwart effort to keep up his complaints, but settled in short order with one discontented kick of his leg and a weary sigh. Vito kept rubbing his back, pacing laconically to the window and back. Moments later, he held a warm, limp, sleeping baby.

“You’re such a natural,” Lauren said, stroking her son’s hair, stopping short of the words he’d heard from countless women in his family.
Don’t you want children of your own?

“Paolo was visiting the old bank today,” Vito said. “He took Roberto and Bianca?”

Lauren nodded. “Your aunt was meeting them there with a photographer.”

Erecting this modern building and moving the Donatelli fortune into it had been a massive decision into which the entire family had weighed. While no one could dispute the practicality of bigger rooms and proper air-conditioning, or the SMART Boards and Wi-Fi and improved security, there was something to be said of the old financial district. The community was a tight one there. It had relied for centuries on old-fashioned networking in the narrow, cobbled streets of the city center.

It was how a young, beautiful daughter of an Italian banker had wound up catching the notice of a mafioso’s son looking to launder his own father’s ill-gotten gains.

“I’ve read there are hidden passageways under those old banks where secret deals were arranged back in the day. Paolo won’t tell me if it’s true.”

“If he did, we would have to kill you,” Vito said casually. It was a myth that all of Milan enjoyed perpetuating.

“You bankers,” she said, with a teasing grin. “You pretend to be so boring, but you’re walking secrets, aren’t you?”

Vito glanced down at the sleeping baby to disguise his reaction. “Hardly. What you see is what you get,
cara
.”

“So you won’t tell me yours,” Lauren said after a brief, decidedly significant pause.

“Secrets? I have none to tell,” he said, lifting his head and looking her in the eye as he spoke his bold-faced lie.

She tilted her head, but her gaze was soft with affection. “I’ve always imagined you fell in love with someone you couldn’t have. That’s why you won’t marry and have children when you would make such a wonderful husband and father—”

“Lauren,” he said gently. “I adore you. Let’s keep it that way. Stop now.”

“But then I saw you with Gwyn.” Here was the woman who was strong enough to be Paolo’s match. She rarely had to show this sort of steel because her sweet nature inevitably paved smooth streets wherever she went. But Paolo was not as domesticated as he appeared. A weak woman would not have fared well as his wife.

“Take him,” he said, rolling Arturo into her arms. “We’re not having this conversation.” He started back to his office.

“I spent five years married to a man who didn’t love me because I was afraid of what I felt for Paolo. Five years sleeping with the wrong man,” she said to his back. “She’ll find someone else you know.”

He was at the door, feeling the latch like a knife hilt against this palm. A pain in his chest was the blade. He twisted it himself.

“She’ll try to make babies with him,” her voice continued in brutal purity behind him. “I did. Because she’ll think that any man’s baby is better than no baby at all...”

He almost had the door shut on her. Rude, but necessary.

Her voice elevated. “If you won’t tell me, at least tell
her
why you’re breaking her heart.”

He pulled the door closed and turned the lock for good measure. Then he leaned his forehead upon it, blood moving like powdered glass in his arteries, the baby’s body heat still imprinted on his aching arm.