your ambition. What did you say in the café? You do what it takes to make your dreams come true?”
Some of her newly found color drained from her face. “You’re taking that way out of context.”
“I think I’ve got it just right. You have a drink with a complete stranger, a man with an expensive watch who clearly does well, you see your opportunity for another rich benefactor and you make your move.” He tossed his head in disgust. “I could have had you against that door. You were ready to replace Giovanni seven days after his death.”
Her pallor took on a grayish tinge. “You set that all up tonight to see if I was a gold digger?”
“And wasn’t it telling?” He gave her a mirthless, half smile. “The idea actually didn’t come into my head until I sat there watching you and your fidanzate laughing and giggling as if your lover hadn’t just passed away. I wanted to see what kind of a woman you were before I tossed your beautiful little behind out on the street and now I know.”
Her head reared back. “I was out tonight to try to take my mind off Giovanni. I can’t expect to understand how much you must be grieving him. I know you were close. But I am grieving him, too. I cared for him. And I will not permit you to sully what we had with your wild accusations.”
“It’s the truth,” he gritted.
“It’s far from it.”
“Then spit it out. I am craving a little honesty here.”
She took a deep breath. Pushed stray strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her face. “Your grandfather was in love with two women. Madly, fully in love with two people. One of those women was my mother, Tatum.”
He stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “When my mother modeled for Mondelli in the eighties, she had an affair with Giovanni. Giovanni was torn between her and Rosa, agonized over the decision, he said. In the end, he chose Rosa and severed all ties with my mother. Rosa knew about the affair, but neither she nor Giovanni spoke of it afterward.”
He gave her a look of disbelief. Giovanni in love with Tatum Fitzgerald? While he’d been married to his grandmother? He may not have much of a belief in the concept of true love, but the one person he’d seen have it was his grandfather with Rosa. They’d conceived Sandro when his grandmother was just eighteen, had been each other’s first loves and had remained deeply enamored until Rosa had passed away.
An affair? It was inconceivable.
He leveled a gaze at her. “How do you know all this?”
A nerve pulsed in her cheek. “I was going through a rough time in my modeling career. Giovanni approached me at an industry function in New York. I think he felt guilty about what happened to my mother’s career after he ended things. She fell apart after he left her. She went on to marry my father, but she never got over Giovanni and they divorced. Giovanni told me the whole story that night.”
He attempted to absorb the far-fetched tale. “So he decided to befriend you? Put you up in a luxury apartment in Milan and mentor you because he felt guilty over a relationship that ended decades ago?”
She lifted her chin. “He knew I needed a friend. Someone I could count on. He was there for me.”
“What about your own family and friends?”
“They aren’t something I can turn to.” Her gaze dropped away from his. “I left my whole life behind when I came to Milan.”
Because she’d known she had a free ride. He smothered a frustrated growl and paced to the window. “So Giovanni is just your friend, you were out tonight missing him, and that thing with me just now was what? The way you treat all men who chat you up in a café?”
“You deliberately tried to seduce me.”
He swung around. “And how seducible you were, bella. You made it easy.”
Her expression hardened. “If you choose not to believe a word I say, you can leave. I’ll be out within the week.”
“Tell me the truth about you and Giovanni and I’ll give you a month. I’m not an unreasonable man.”
Her eyes flashed. “Get out.”
He thought that might be a good idea before he lost what was left of his head. Putting his hands on Olivia Fitzgerald, coming here, had been a mistake driven by his grief and his desire to know what had been in Giovanni’s head these past months. And now it was time to rectify it by getting the hell out.
He swept his gaze over the racks of clothes. She was going to have an issue finding a place she could afford that could accommodate all of this without Giovanni bankrolling it. And even he wasn’t without a heart.
“I’ll give you a month. Then I expect the keys delivered to me.”
She followed him to the door, looking every bit the angelic blonde damsel in distress that she was not. He walked through the door and didn’t look back.
Giovanni had always been a bit of a romantic. Good thing Rocco was nothing like him.
ROCCO STOOD ON the tarmac of Milan’s Linate Airport, Christian Markos at his side. The last of the Columbia Four to depart following Giovanni’s funeral, Christian was headed to Hong Kong and a deal that couldn’t wait. As always, when Rocco parted from his closest friends, there was an empty feeling in his heart. They had become so tight during those four years at Columbia. Watched one another grow into manhood and cemented their friendships as they took on the world.
Together they were an impenetrable force, greater than the sum of their parts. It was always difficult to return to their respective corners of the world, but they did so with the knowledge they would see one another soon—their four-times-a-year meet-ups a ritual none of them missed.
Christian wrapped an arm around him. “I may have a weekend off midmonth. Why don’t we take your boat out? Catch up properly?”
Rocco smiled. “I’ll believe it when we’re drinking Peroni on the deck, fratello. Some big deal will come up and you’ll be gone again.”
Christian gave him an indignant look. “That last one was a megamerger. Out of my hands.”
“And the brunette that came along with it?”
“Opposing pain in my behind,” Christian grumbled. “Who was the blonde today by the way? Looked like a heated conversation.”
It had been. Olivia Fitzgerald showing up at his grandfather’s funeral had been an event he hadn’t anticipated. Despite his objections, she’d insisted on staying. Not something he’d been willing to risk a scene over, particularly when his father had just made his own notable appearance, reeking of alcohol.
He looked at Christian. “Olivia Fitzgerald. She was not invited. I had an issue with it.”
His
