a pretense too?
“No one will come near her again. At least no one that cares about her and not her wealth. In the last month, all of Milan has seen how possessive you are of her. Do not think I have not seen you look at her like a starved dog stares at meat.”
“Christo, Giovanni. Do not be crude. That is your granddaughter you speak of.”
“See how protective you get of her? You might as well see the pretense through and marry her, Raphael. You want the company? It’s yours. You want my share of stock that would rightfully be hers? It’s yours. All I ask is that you take care of her. You watch over her when I’m gone. Marry her, Raphael.”
All his bluster had been leading to this. Every move he’d made since the night of the ball had been toward this. “You know I’ll never marry again.”
“Pia is different from Allegra, from any other woman you’ve known.”
“She’s not my type,” he said, even as the idea took root, digging into him and settling down. He forced a harshness into his voice. “She’s neither beautiful nor sophisticated. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She sees too much where there’s nothing.”
He hadn’t thought of her as anything less than intoxicating for so long. He was always on edge because his only satisfaction came from his imagination and his hand, while seeing Pia every day. While touching Pia. While her subtle perfume and body heat sneaked into his bloodstream.
Worse was the bruised look in her eyes after what he’d done at his mother’s house. She barely even met his eyes anymore.
Gone was the laughter, the teasing wit, the endless questions about his past, his mother and sisters, and even Alyssa.
With one ruthless move, he’d shattered her rose-tinted glasses but he hadn’t realized how much it would disturb him that he’d become less in her eyes too. He’d thought it was better to alienate her but it had backfired. And he hated himself for what he’d done to her.
“A girl with more substance than glitter is not your type, si.” Giovanni snorted with that proud wisdom that the old thought they had over the young.
Raphael could not say it was not justified. This one time.
He had gone for the glitter once before, had come away burned. Allegra was all polished veneer with no strength beneath. His mother had once been called the beauty of Milan. She was not cruel or fickle like his Allegra had been. She even loved him and his sisters, in her own way. But Gio was right, she possessed nothing of substance. She had had nothing to offer his father when he’d needed her the most.
And Pia was as different from his mother or Allegra as he himself was from his father. He would never trust anyone like his father had done. He would never need a woman’s strength like Marco had done. He just didn’t have that kind of vulnerability.
Would it be so bad though?
Giovanni, sensing victory, went in for the kill shot. “You’re a fool if you don’t see that I offer everything you want, Raphael.” He stood up, and again, Raphael was hit with how old and frail—no, how ill Gio looked. “But I’ll not have you chasing her away.”
Shock hounded away concern. Damn it, his priorities were all skewed. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s talking of returning to the States for a short trip. That she...whatever it is, it’s because of you. You owe me this, Raphael. You owe me the peace I would get knowing that Pia is safe in your hands. Before—”
Raphael never got a chance to reply, for Giovanni collapsed midway through the sentence. Heart jumping into his throat, Raphael barely caught him before Gio hit the ground.
And while he watched the paramedics carry Gio out, Raphael knew everything had changed. With his attraction to Pia getting out of hand every single day, with Giovanni’s mad schemes spilling over into his health, with the sharks that would forever circle Pia whatever measure he took, there was only one solution.
His fate was sealed and so was Pia’s and he would be the one to make the stars fall from her eyes.
Because he could never give her what she wanted, and now he would be preventing her from finding it with anyone else.
RAPHAEL’S APARTMENT WAS located in a trendy, upscale area of Milan’s fashion district. The lights and fanfare of the canal district were visible from the tenth-floor apartment. Yet there was utter privacy too.
After the harrowing week at the hospital with Gio, the quiet and the ultraluxury didn’t sit well with Pia. Both of them had spent the whole week in the hospital, keeping a silent vigil by the side of the man they adored.
She hadn’t argued when he had commanded that she would rest at his apartment for the night.
They both knew she needed the break. At least they’d learned that the heart attack had been a mild one, and that Gio’s diet was the primary culprit.
She poured herself a glass of Chianti from the wine rack and walked through the open, contemporary plan. She wished Raphael had stayed but he’d barely showed her to a room before he’d made his escape.
Maybe he was afraid she’d pounce on him again.
A harsh laugh escaped her as she remembered asking him if he was also afraid that she was stealing his share from Gio’s wealth. Clearly, Raphael had his own fortune to manage and didn’t need Gio’s. She explored the steel and chrome kitchen, the state-of-the-art gym, two balconies, a humongous study with a dark mahogany table in the center with a picture of Alyssa and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with mostly books on automobiles and engineering, a sitting room and two guest bedrooms.
She took a long shower in the attached bathroom of the guest room, only realizing then that she didn’t have any fresh clothes. Delving into the closet provided a white dress shirt, pressed and folded and a couple of packages of women’s new underwear. The bra was two sizes two big. Trying hard to rein in her riotous curiosity, Pia donned the underwear and the shirt which fell to her thighs. And knew it was Raphael’s.
Instant comfort surrounded her at the faint scent of him. But it was unbearable too. Because nothing had changed.
She still wanted him. And not just for a quick screw, as he had called it. Even with things awkward between them, she couldn’t help but soak in the warmth and strength of his presence over the last week.
Efficient and ruthless as ever, he’d chased away the hordes of Gio’s relatives that had descended on the hospital with one look. When one had called him a backstabber, Raphael had simply shrugged it away.
He’d been fierce, as if he could hold Gio to this earth by the sheer force of his will. He had let her borrow his strength, his conviction. He’d even made her smile when he’d snarled that the old goat was far from done manipulating the pair of them.
But Pia knew him now. She saw what no one else did under that ruthless exterior. Gio’s attack had shaken him. She could feel something eating away at him, not that he would talk about it. And least of all with her.
He’d made it perfectly
