has very cleverly made himself appear a victim,” he said. “The moment we accuse him of wrongdoing, he’ll claim he only took advice from you and Fabrizio. Fabrizio may eventually implicate him, trying to save his own skin, but Jensen has this excellent diversion. He can say you came on to him, maybe that you were working with Fabrizio, that you sent those photos to ruin his marriage. Perhaps they were cooked up by the two of you to blackmail him into skimming funds. Whatever story he comes up with, it will point all the scandal back to you and Fabrizio and the bank.”
“I’m aware that my life is over, thanks,” she bit out.
“Nothing is over,” he said with a cold-blooded smile. “Jensen landed a punch, but I will hit back. Hard. If he and Fabrizio were in fact using you, you must also want to set things straight? You’ll help me make it clear you had zero romantic interest in Jensen.”
“How?” she choked out, wondering what was in his drink that he thought he could accomplish that.
“By going public with our own affair.”
* * *
Gwyn pinched her wrist.
Vittorio noted the movement and his mouth twitched.
She shook her head, instinctively refusing his suggestion while searching for a fresh flash of anger. Outrage was giving her the strength to keep from crying, but his proposition came across as so offhanded and hurtful, so cavalier when she couldn’t deny she was weirdly infatuated with him, it smashed through her defenses and smacked down her confidence.
“I don’t have affairs,” she insisted. She looked out the window at the rust-red rooftops below. The houses below were short, the high-rises in the center of the city gone, green spaces more abundant. They were over outlying areas, well out of Milan. Damn it.
She wanted to magically transport back to Charleston and the room where she had stayed during her mother’s short marriage to Henry. She wanted to go back in time to when her mother was still alive.
“It’s such a pathetically male and sexist response to say that sleeping together would solve anything. To suggest I do it to save my job—no, your job—” She was barely able to speak, stunned, ears ringing. Her eyes and throat burned. “It’s so insulting I don’t have words,” she managed, voice thinning as the worst day of her life grew even uglier.
“Did I say we’d sleep together? You’re projecting. No, I’m saying we must appear to.”
Oh, wonderful. He wasn’t coming on to her. Why did she care either way?
“It would still make it look like I’m sleeping my way to the top,” she muttered, flashing him a glance, but quickly jerking her attention back to the window, not wanting him to see how deeply this jabbed at her deepest insecurities.
From the moment she’d developed earlier than her friends, she’d been struggling to be seen as brains, not breasts. A lot of her adolescent friends had been fair weather, pulling Gwyn into their social circles because she brought boys with her, but eventually becoming annoyed that she got all the male attention and cutting her loose. The workplace had been another trial, learning to cope with sexual harassment and jealousy from her female coworkers, realizing this was one reason why her mother had changed jobs so often.
Her mom had been a runner. Gwyn tried to stay and fight. It was the reason she had stuck it out in school despite the cost. Training for a real profession had seemed the best way to be taken seriously. Yet here she was, being pinned up as a sex object in the locker room of the internet, set up by men who believed she lacked the brains to see when people were committing crimes under her nose.
And the solution to this predicament was to sleep with her boss? Or appear to? What kind of world was this?
She looked around, but there was nowhere to go. She might as well have been trapped in a prison cell with Vittorio.
He swore under his breath and withdrew her phone from his shirt pocket, scowling at it. “This thing is exploding.” His frown deepened as he looked at whatever notification was showing up against her Lock screen. “Who is Travis?”
His tone chilled to below freezing and his handsome features twisted with harsh judgment. She could practically see the derisive label in a bubble over his head.
“My stepbrother,” she said haughtily, holding out her hand, not nearly as undaunted as she tried to appear. Her intestines knotted further as she saw that she’d missed four calls and several texts from Travis, along with some from old schoolmates and several from former coworkers in Charleston.
All the texts were along the lines of, Is it really you? Call me. I just saw the news. They’re saying...
Nausea roiled in her. She clicked to darken the screen.
Travis had been vaguely amused with her concern over not having every skill listed in this job posting for Milan. Do you know why men get promoted over women? Because they don’t worry about meeting all the criteria. Fake it ’til you make it, had been his advice.
Really great advice, considering what such a bold move had got her into, she thought dourly.
But his laconic opinion had been the most personable he’d ever been around her. He was never rude, just distant. He never reached out to her, only responded if she texted him first. He didn’t know that she’d overheard him shortly before her mother’s wedding to his father, when he’d cautioned Henry against tying himself to a woman without any assets. There are social climbers and there are predators.
Henry had defended them and Gwyn had walked away hating Travis, but not really blaming him. Had their situations been reversed, she would have cautioned her mother herself. It had still fueled her need to be self-reliant in every way.
She had been so proud to tell Travis she’d landed this job, believing she’d been recognized for her education, qualifications and grit. Ha.
“I guess we can assume the photos have crossed the Atlantic,” she muttered, cringing anew.
It was afternoon here. Travis would be starting his day in Charleston, and the fact that he’d learned so quickly of the photos told her exactly how broadly these things were being distributed. Maybe reporters had tracked down the family connection and were harassing him and Henry?
Damn that Kevin Jensen. His headline name was turning her into a punch line.
She set her phone on the table, unable to think of anything to say except I’m sorry, and that was far too inadequate.
She swallowed back hopelessness, realizing a door had just closed on her. She could go back to America, but she couldn’t take this mess to Henry’s doorstep. He’d been too good to her to repay him like that. Travis might make her cut off ties for good.
“You’re not going to call him?” Vittorio asked.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.
“Tell him you’re safe at least.”
“Am I?” she scoffed, meeting his gaze long enough for his own to slice through her like a blade, as if he could see all the way inside her to where she squirmed.
And where she held a hot ember of yearning for his good opinion.
