as you continue to think about it, as I’m sure you will, I’d like you to find your way to viewing this as an opportunity.”
His mouth curved into something sardonic. “An opportunity for what, exactly?”
He was still leaning forward, and despite herself, so was she. And the room suddenly felt breathless. Fraught and tight around them, like a fist.
But Sarina didn’t sit back. She didn’t break that connection—because she refused to show him that she noticed it in the first place.
“Why, for you, Mr. Combe.” She made her voice light. Very nearly airy. “It’s your opportunity to be a better person. Once you learn how to give up control, you might find that you don’t have to struggle with concepts like toxic masculinity.”
His expression suggested that he was not overconcerned with said concepts, or indeed any kind of struggle. But he only gazed back at her, his gray eyes steady in a way that made her breath feel shallow.
“And I will be free of this struggle because my corporation will crumble into dust, as it requires my control and attention at all times? Or perhaps it will be my family that suffers, once I release my grip—as I am the only thing currently holding us together? I think you misunderstand the fundamental nature of my character, Dr. Fellows. I am not trying to control the universe. Between you and me, I do not much care about the universe. But I do like to control what I am, in fact, in control of.”
“Says the man who descended into an all-out brawl at his own father’s funeral.”
She saw it then. That blaze of pure, stark temper in his gaze that made his whole face change. Into something taut and dark. Powerful in an entirely different way.
Thrilling, something in her supplied, as she pulsed anew. But she ignored all of that.
Or she tried.
But Matteo’s eyes were smoke and ruin, and she had the oddest sense he knew it.
“Oh, Doctor.” He sounded almost pitying. Almost. “Do you think that I was goaded into punching that man? On the contrary, I very much meant to do that. And am glad I did.”
MATTEO SHOULD NOT have said that.
It was the truth, but the truth was needlessly provocative and he’d known it even as he’d formed the words.
Sarina had stood, a curious expression on her face. Triumphant, he’d thought in the moment, though he couldn’t think why. She’d smoothed her hands over her skirt as if to free it from wrinkles, though it showed none, and when she’d gazed at him her expression had been nothing short of pitying.
“I think we’ll stop here,” she had said in that way of hers, as if her word was law in Matteo’s house. In his presence. When everyone else who’d ever dared speak to him like that had been related to him by blood—and was now dead. “Before we stray too far from our objectives. And I’d advise you to take a bit of time to reflect on the opportunity you have before you for growth, Mr. Combe. But that growth will be stagnant, I fear, if you remain completely unrepentant for the unprovoked physical attack you made on another man.”
At least that time he’d had the sense to bite his tongue.
And he’d reflected, all right, but not in the way the doctor had ordered. She had refused his offer of accommodation, which was likely wise when he couldn’t seem to keep himself from looking at her in ways he knew he shouldn’t. She’d let herself out of the library and marched off, down from his preferred wing of the villa into the great hall, where she’d stood, prim and disapproving, in the midst of all his San Giacomo ancestors in their fussy portraits.
He’d reflected on the height of her heels, sharp stilettos that made her legs look longer than they were and gave rise to all manner of inappropriate images in his head. One more delicious than the next. He’d reflected on the cool intelligence in her gaze and how much he liked that, even when she clearly wished to use it against him. Maybe especially then, because he couldn’t seem to help but like a challenge. He’d reflected that, really, it was unfortunate that he found his board-appointed therapist—consultant—so mouthwatering. Intellectually as well as physically.
He spared no thought at all to Prince Ares, whose eye he’d happily blackened. And would again, with a song in his heart.
Matteo had waited quietly with Sarina until the boat was brought around to ferry her back to her hotel, and he’d murmured all the appropriate, polite things as she’d gone back out into the rain.
But he knew his first meeting with this woman had not gone as well as it might have.
And if he hadn’t, a board member who was still his ally rang up the following morning to quote Matteo’s words back to him.
“You meant to punch that prince. You said so straight out.” Lord Christopher Radcliffe sounded despairing. “Do you want them to vote you out of power, Matteo? Is that what this is about? Suicide by board meeting?”
“Of course not,” Matteo had replied,
But that wasn’t entirely true. There was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to light it all on fire and walk away.
Sometimes that part of him made a lot of noise.
It was shouting up a storm as he flew back to London two days later.
By then he’d had every member of his board on the phone to him, demanding he explain the report they’d received from the consultant Matteo had known was in their pocket—but perhaps not so deep. He’d learned a valuable lesson.
His instincts about Sarina Fellows had been correct: she wanted to take him down.
He was pleased to have that clarified, he thought darkly as his plane soared over continental Europe. He should have thought of that while he was letting her provoke him into shooting off his mouth. He should have been prepared for the woman to be a weapon, and he hadn’t been—because he’d been far more intrigued by the gut punch of his attraction to her.
And as entertaining as it was to imagine the fun he might have had with a woman like Sarina if he’d met her under different circumstances, Matteo couldn’t actually let her take him down. He had felt compelled to allow his board to subject him to this consultation, and thought submitting to it as his own father wouldn’t have made him look far more reasonable and biddable than Eddie had been, but he couldn’t let her plant her seeds of doubt and dissension. It would never be a good time for such things, but this was particularly bad timing all around. He needed to prove to a set of disapproving old men that he could take the helm of the company he’d already been running for years. He needed to cater to his family’s legacy and make sure Combe Industries didn’t die on his watch. And while he was at it, he needed to handle all the unpleasant revelations of his parents’ wills.
No matter how much the consultant his board had selected got to him.
He might have the odd daydream of walking away from it all, but he never would. That wasn’t who he was.
Matteo was the eldest son—or he’d spent his life thinking he
