cannot possibly be making this personal,” he grated. “This is a fifty-million-dollar deal. It would be the height of stupidity.”
“He wouldn’t be the first man to let his pride get in his way,” Santo observed drily. He arched a brow. “You want to solve your problem? Come play in La Coppa Estiva next week. Gianni is playing. Bring a beautiful woman with you to convince him you are off the market and use the unfettered access to him to talk him straight.”
Lazzero considered his jam-packed schedule. “I don’t have time to come to Milan,” he dismissed. “While you’re off gallivanting around Italy, wooing your celebrities, someone needs to steer the ship.”
Santo eyed him. “Gallivanting? Do you have any idea how much work it is to coordinate a charity game at this level? I want to shoot myself by the end of it.”
Lazzero held up a hand. “Okay, I take it back. You are brilliant, you know you are.”
La Coppa Estiva, a charity soccer game played in football-crazy Milan, was sponsored by a handful of the most popular brands in the world, including both Supersonic and Fiammata. The biggest names in the business played in the game as well as sponsors and their partners, which made for a logistical nightmare of huge egos and impossible demands. It was only because of his skill managing such a circus that Santo had been named chairman for the second year in a row.
Lazzero exhaled. Took a pull of his beer. Santo was right—he should go. La Coppa Estiva was the only event in the foreseeable future he would get any access to Gianni. “I’ll make it work,” he conceded, “but I have no idea who I’d take.”
“Says the man with an address book full of the most beautiful women in New York,” Nico countered drily.
Lazzero shrugged. “I’m too damn busy to date.”
“How about a summer shag?” Santo directed a pointed look at the strategically placed females around the room. “Apparently, they’re all the rage. According to Samara Jones, you keep them around until you’ve finished the last events in the Hamptons, then say arrivederci after Labor Day. It’s ideal, perfect actually. It might even put you in a better mood.”
“Excellent idea,” Nico drawled. “I like it a lot. Particularly the part where we recover his good humor.”
Lazzero was not amused. Acquiring himself a temporary girlfriend was the last thing he had the bandwidth for right now. But if that’s what it took to convince Gianni he was of no threat to him, then that’s what he would do.
Making that choice from the flock of ambitious types presently hunting him and ending up in Samara Jones’s column, however, was not an option. What he needed was an utterly discrete, trustworthy woman who would take this on as the business arrangement it would be and wouldn’t expect anything more from him when it was done.
Surely that couldn’t be too hard to find?
* * *
Friday mornings at the Daily Grind on the Upper West Side were a nonstop marathon. Students from nearby Columbia University, attracted by its urban cool vibe, drifted in like sleepy, rumpled sheep, sprawling across the leather sofas with their coffee, while the slick-suited urban warriors who lived in the area dashed in on the way to the office, desperate for a fix before that dreaded early meeting.
Today, however, had tested the limits of even coolheaded barista Chiara Ferrante’s even-keeled disposition. It might have been the expensive suit who’d just rolled up to the counter, a set of Porsche keys dangling from his fingertips, a cell phone glued to his ear, and ordered a grande, half-caff soy latte at exactly 120 degrees, no more, no less, on the heels of half a dozen such ridiculous orders.
You need this job, Chiara. Now more than ever. Suck it up and just do it.
She took a deep, Zen-inducing breath and cleared the lineup with ruthless efficiency, dispatching the walking Gucci billboard with a 119-degree latte—a minor act of rebellion she couldn’t resist. A brief lull ensuing, she turned to take inventory of the coffee bar on the back wall before the next wave hit.
“You okay?” Kat, her fellow barista and roommate asked, as she replenished the stack of take-out cups. “You seem off today.”
Chiara gathered up the empty carafes and set them in the sink. “The bank turned down my father’s request for a loan. It hasn’t been a good morning.”
Kat’s face fell. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard for him to make a go of it lately. Are there any other banks he can try?”
“That was the last.” Chiara bit her lip. “Maybe Todd can give me some more shifts.”
“And turn you into the walking dead? You’ve been working double shifts for months, Chiara. You’re going to fall flat on your face.” Kat leaned a hip against the bar. “What you need,” she said decisively, “is a rich man. It would solve all your problems. They’re constantly propositioning you and yet you never take them up on their offers.”
Because the one time she had, he’d shattered her heart into pieces.
“I’m not interested in a rich man,” she said flatly. “They come in here in their beautiful suits, drunk on their power, thinking their money gives them license to do anything they like. It’s all a big game to them, the way they play with women.”
Kat flashed her an amused look. “That’s an awfully big generalization don’t you think?”
Chiara folded her arms over her chest. “Bonnie, Sivi and Tara went out the other night to Tempesta Di Fuoco, Stefan Bianco’s place in Chelsea. They’re sitting at the bar when this group of investment bankers starts chatting them up. Bonnie’s thrilled when Phil asks her out for dinner at Lido. She goes home early because she’s opening here in the morning. Sivi and Tara stay.” She lifted a brow. “What does Phil do? He asks Sivi out to lunch.”
“Pig,” Kat agreed, making a face. “But you can’t paint all men with the same brush.”
“Not all men. Them. The suit,” Chiara declared scathingly, “may change, but the man inside it doesn’t.”
“I’m afraid I have to disagree,” a deep, lightly accented voice intoned, rippling a reactionary path down her spine. “It would be a shame for Phil to give us all a bad name.”
Chiara froze. Turned around slowly, her hands gripping the marble. Absorbed the tall, dark male leaning indolently against the counter near the silver bell she wished fervently he’d rung. Clad in a silver Tom Ford suit that set off his swarthy skin to perfection, Lazzero Di Fiore was beautiful in a predatory, hawk-like way—oozing an overt sex appeal that short-circuited the synapses in her brain.
The deadpan expression on his striking face indicated he’d heard every last word of her ill-advised speech. “I—” she croaked, utterly unsure of what to say “—you should have rung the bell.”
“And missed your fascinatingly candid appraisal of Manhattan’s finest?” His sensual mouth twisted. “Not for the world. Although I do wonder if I could have an espresso to fuel my overinflated ego? I have a report I need to review for a big hotshot meeting in exactly fifty minutes.”
Kat made a sound at the back of her throat. Chiara’s
