one point in my favor over Enzo, si?” That she distracted him enough to joke less than a minute after thinking of Stefano Castillaghi said something about his attraction to her.
“Fat good that does me,” she mumbled.
“What does that mean?” he asked, genuinely curious now. Dio, no woman sent him on a roller coaster as she did.
Color stole up her cheeks. “Can I finish telling you what happened?” she said tartly.
He grinned, liking her all riled up like this. “Si.”
“After they left, Gio told me I should accept Enzo, that he would be a kind husband. When I said I had no intention of marrying in the near future, he got...agitated. I told him I’d had enough of him manipulating me. He said it was his right to select a husband for me, to make sure another man didn’t cheat me like Frank did.
“We yelled at each other some more and I said if he kept pushing me like that, if he... I’d leave and never return, like Nonni had done.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes, but the tears fell anyway. “His face went white...he couldn’t speak. One of the staff called his physician.
“This was not like one of his usual temper tantrums, Raphael. The doctor took ages to get there and I thought—God!” Her tears turned into soundless sobs and Raphael pulled her into his arms.
She came to him as if she had no strength left. Arms vined around his neck, she buried her face in his chest.
A strange sort of weight seemed to lodge in his own throat. He wasn’t worried about Gio. The mean old bastard would live to a hundred and torture Raphael and Pia in the process.
No, it was the sound of Pia’s wretched grief that shook him.
He had never seen anyone grieve like that. With everything of themselves poured into it. His belief that all she wanted was easy money from this trip—suddenly, his cynicism, his hard shell, felt dirty near her.
Her back was slender against his broad palm; even now he was unable to stem the awareness of her soft body against his. “Pia, nothing will happen to Gio.”
“We don’t know that. I can’t lose him. Not when I’ve only just found him. To see him lying on the bed, helpless like that... All I could think of was my Nonni. I can’t... I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to him. I can’t let him go on worrying about me.”
“You can’t marry a gay man however decent you think he is,” he added softly, just to make sure they were on the same page. Right now, he couldn’t even try to fathom the underpinnings of his godfather’s Machiavellian mind.
She sniffled elegantly and wiped her cheeks. “No, I can’t. I couldn’t sleep. I was working on a toy and finally I hit on the perfect solution.”
Raphael pulled her hands away from his neck because the graze of her breasts against his chest was more than he could take in his current mood.
And because, while she was obliviously dwelling on her worries over Gio, his attention had wandered from her grief, from Stefano, to the pressing weight of her thighs against his. To the span of her tiny waist and the flare of her hips in his hands. To how soft and sweet she smelled.
To the semi hard-on that was fast swelling into something else.
He only meant to create some distance between them.
But the moment she realized what he’d done, her eyes widened. Furious color rushed up her neck and she sidled off his lap as if she were on fire. Or maybe it was he who was on fire.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... I just...”
Pretending a calm he didn’t feel, Raphael poured a glass of water and handed it to her.
Did the woman still not realize how close he had been to kissing her again? Was she really that naive? Did she not realize her appeal, as unconventional as it was? Had the lowlife she’d mentioned shattered her confidence completely?
It was still nowhere near what Enzo with his kindness and Stefano with his schemes would do to her.
The thought shattered his desire. He couldn’t let Stefano get his dirty hands on the company he had made into a global leader. But he was also running out of options.
Options that didn’t involve Pia. And getting involved with Pia, his gut told him, was not a path from which he could turn back. Even if he wanted to.
He felt as if there was an invisible noose tightening around his neck.
It made his voice harsh when he said, “What is your solution, Pia?”
“You should pretend... I mean we should pretend to be interested in each other.” When his frown morphed into a scowl, Pia hurried on. “As if we were dating each other. As if we were...violently attracted to each other and nothing else, no one else would do. It’s the perfect solution,” she added when he just stared at her.
“How?”
She folded her hands, realized how defensive she looked and dropped them. Did the man have to look so displeased just by the notion of them dating? “Gio thinks the world of you. If you weren’t so utterly out of my league, I think he would have pushed you and me toward each other.”
“What?”
“Do you need me to spell it out? It’s all I’ve been hearing from Gio, from everyone’s mouths since I arrived in Milan. About the kind of women you go for. Even Gio isn’t foolish or stubborn enough to wish for something between us. Which, perversely, makes it the perfect solution.”
“I have to admit your scheming does prove you have Vito blood.”
“Most of the men I’ve met over the last few weeks, Enzo included, wouldn’t dream of coming near me if you made it clear that I belonged to you. They are all in awe of the force that is Raphael Mastrantino,” she added caustically.
His lips twitched. “Are you mocking my reputation?”
Pia smiled. His eyes lit up; he looked incredibly gorgeous. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“And you would be okay belonging to me?”
She shuddered. “It’s archaic, but nothing else, I fear, would keep them away. This way, you can rest easy that I won’t get my hands on Gio’s fortune. Gio would be thrilled that I have somehow enthralled you and I... I can make plans. As much as I’m making a deal with the devil.”
“I am the diablo?” he said in a soft croon that sent shivers down her spine.
“Si,” she replied.
But Raphael was no devil. Nor Prince Charming either. He was more like the big bad wolf. But sometimes it was the wolf that provided the most protection. It was the wolf you could trust to keep others at bay.
How she would survive a fake relationship when she couldn’t even look at him without melting on the inside she didn’t know. But this was the only way.
For Gio and for her own peace of mind.
