“It’s like I’m two people. The innocent model from Montana everyone knows by day, and the seductive bad girl at night who says ‘yes, sir’ and is willing to do anything he commands. I want to say no but I can’t. I need to please him. Need it more than I need air to breathe. And that scares me because, in my heart, I know he is the most dangerous of men. If I’m not careful, he will destroy me.”
The heat burning my skin cooled as I remembered the rest of Laney’s words, and I shivered even though the temperature in the park was close to ninety degrees with high humidity.
“Are you cold, bella?”
“No.” Covering quickly, I shook back my hair. “I was just thinking about Iceland. Must be frigid there.”
“It is.” His eyes sparked with an energy I felt across the bench. “But there are all kinds of ways to stay warm. If you become my assistant, I’ll show you each and every one.”
He was flirting with me. Blatantly. Enticing me with the unspoken promise of pleasure. And my body was responding even though I didn’t want it to, warming in all the right places. Had he flirted with Laney this way? I didn’t know. All I knew was that he was gorgeous and he held the key to the answers I needed inside Covet.
He could also be dangerous…
He might be. I couldn’t ignore that possibility. But, as he’d pointed out, I was a smart girl. And whether he was the him Laney had written about or not, I wouldn’t fall into the same trap Laney had. I was determined to spring my own.
“Are you offering me the job, Mr. Salvatici?”
“Would you accept if I did?”
“Yes.”
A broad smile spread across his handsome face “Then, bella, I am offering.”
Relief whooshed through me like a hurricane. I had my in. Now all I had to do was keep my real reason for being here secret and figure out who’d killed my best friend. “Then I am accepting.”
“I’m so pleased, bella.” Gio pushed to his feet, reached for my hand, and brought it to his lips for a hot, lingering kiss. “I’ve a feeling this is the beginning of a long and pleasurable relationship.”
Tingles spread all across my spine as I looked into his sinful eyes. But they weren’t all good tingles. They were laced with a warning that echoed like a blaring beacon in my blood.
“Come.” He lowered my hand but didn’t release it. “Let me take you back inside so you can fill out all the boring business paperwork. Then”—his eyes sparked with a heat as wicked as any Roman god’s—“we can finally get down to all the sweaty work. And trust me, bella. It will be very sweaty work. Long hours when you’re begging me to stop. Only I won’t stop. I’ll push you to the limit. But in the end, you will have the most satisfying of rewards.”
My heart raced. He wasn’t talking about work. He was talking about sex. Sizzling, sticky, no-holds-barred sex. The kind I’d never had. The kind I’d only read about in books and dreamed about in the dead of night. The kind that scared me more than never learning the truth about Laney because I sensed it had the power to consume me if I dropped my guard.
Laney’s voice echoed in my head again. Only this time, her words were mine. And a shiver rippled down my spine because I had no idea which Salvatici man they were warning me away from.
“He is the most dangerous of men. If I’m not careful, he will destroy me.”
Chapter Two
Luc
Standing at the wall of windows in my office, I watched from high above as the traffic on Fifth Avenue stopped, and a long-haired man pulled a woman dressed in a slim black suit and low heels across the road and into the Covet building.
I knew Giovanni’s walk. And I had a strong hunch I knew exactly who he was dragging behind him.
My jaw clenched and unclenched with simmering fury as traffic filled the street once more. Moving to my desk, I lifted the phone, fighting the urge to find my brother and slam him up against a wall. Maybe break his jaw again, just for the hell of it.
My secretary’s clipped voice echoed in my ear. “Yes, Mr. Salvatici?”
“The woman I just interviewed—Ms. James—listed Idaho on her application as her place of residence. She’s staying somewhere in the city. I want to know where.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll find out right away.”
The line clicked dead, and I replaced the receiver in its cradle, my fingers twitching with indecision. As acting CEO, every last decision regarding the operation of Covet was ultimately mine. Unless that decision involved that of another ranking member of the Salvatici family. And Giovanni, the sonofabitch, knew that.
Giovanni also knew that if I came for him, I would have to do so without the backing of the family. I might be the chosen son, but I was also the outcast. The transgressor. The sinner who’d yet to repent. Nothing would make Giovanni happier than watching his loathsome older brother tumble hard and long from his newly reappointed tower. Which was exactly why he was taunting me.
My phone beeped. I snatched the receiver out of its cradle, lapsing into Italian before I could stop myself. “Sì?”
“The taxi picked Ms. James up at 520 East 11th Street,” Ms. Pascal said.
A chill swept down my spine. I knew that address. Knew it well. And Giovanni would know it again too—if the bastard didn’t already. “Find out if she’s staying there alone or with someone. Then get me everything you can on the woman. I want to know why she’s really in New York. And don’t tell me she’s here for a job interview.”
“Yes, Mr. Salvatici. Right away, sir.”
I replaced the receiver, my mind a whir of moves and countermoves in a life that was nothing but a never-ending chess game between destiny and desire. One I could never win, only hope to outmaneuver. And survive.
Save the ones you can.
It had become my motto. And the only person I’d ever been able to save was myself.
My gaze drifted back to the wall of windows and the view of the New York skyline as I thought of the brunette with the wild curls who’d only just barely restrained herself from calling me an ass to my face. Sadly, for her, she’d stumbled into the wrong family. If she didn’t know she was a pawn about to be played, she would soon.
* * *
By the time I made it home that evening, I was ready for a few stiff drinks. After reading the report my secretary had pulled together on Natalie James, I was ready for a whole damn bottle.
I tossed the report onto the coffee table and stared out at the twinkling view of the city from my living room on Central Park West. Well, not my living room, exactly. Up until two months ago, it had belonged to my uncle Salvatore, and before him, a long line of Salvatici men had lived here. Keeping a presence in the city was important to the family name, and I knew that. But I hated every moment I was here. Hated and resented it because being here was not my choice. It was an order I’d finally been forced to follow.
Irritation pulsed in my veins as I rose from the couch, moved through the library in the apartment that encompassed the entire thirty-fifth floor of the building and wove into the kitchen, where I poured myself another Glenlivet and downed the scotch in one swallow.
Natalie James was a problem I didn’t want to deal with but, again, was forced to confront. She was in New York because of her dead friend. She was staying in Elena McCabe’s apartment. She’d weaseled her way into a job at Covet by going through Giovanni when I’d specifically told her she wasn’t welcome. And she was—I didn’t doubt—with my depraved brother right this fucking minute, doing the devil only knew what.
The girl didn’t belong in New York City. She didn’t belong anywhere near Covet. If I hadn’t known it by looking into her naïve blue eyes in my office earlier today, I knew it now after reading that damn report. She might have spirit—I snorted at the word might—but she was as innocent as a lamb. Twenty-four years old, from some tiny town in Montana that barely registered on a map, no siblings, her father dead, her stepfather a rancher, her mother a rancher’s kept woman. She was smart, that was clear from the report??
?she’d breezed through college with honors—and she worked hard judging by the hours she put in at her little boutique in Boise. But she didn’t travel. Aside from drinks with her girlfriends now and then, she didn’t really party. She had no record, nothing that even hinted of a dark or questionable past. And she’d been a lifelong friend of Elena McCabe going all the way back to kindergarten.
That friendship was what bothered me. Made me wonder just what Elena had told the naïve and innocent Natalie James about New York and Covet. And every time I thought of a girl like that holding Giovanni’s hand as they’d crossed the street earlier in the day…
The empty glass cracked in my hand, and I frowned as I looked down at what I’d done. “Dio dannato.”
My mother would slap me upside the head if she heard me use the blasphemous swearword. Ironic, I thought as my frown deepened, considering the much worse things she didn’t give a fuck that I or the other men in our family did.
The phone in my pocket buzzed, distracting me from thoughts of my mother. Setting the glass on the counter, I pulled the cell out of my slacks, then swore again as I read the name flashing on my screen.
My day was getting worse by the fucking second.
“Papà,” I said into the phone, biting back my anger at both the interruption and the call. “It’s late in Tuscany. Having trouble sleeping?”
I purposely spoke in English because I knew it would piss the old man off. Antonio Salvatici answered in Italian for the same damn reason.
“No, I’m fine, son. Wanted to catch you before you turned in for the night.”
Considering everything I was dealing with, I wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon, but I didn’t tell him that. “Well, you caught me. How is Mamma?”
“She’s well. Helping your uncle Salvatore reacquaint himself here at home. He’s being difficult for your mother and your aunt.”
I nearly snorted at that. My uncle Sal was as bullheaded as my father. He’d insisted his heart attack was no big deal and that he could still run Covet without help. My father had disagreed and ordered him home. Then, instead of handing Covet off to my cousin, Sal’s son Benito, my father had ordered my ass to New York to take over running a business I’d never wanted a hand in.
Benito Salvatici would have been a terrible choice as CEO. He was as depraved and immoral as any Salvatici man had ever been, completely unreliable, and fucking foolish. I knew that. But I still resented every miserable second I had to give up my life for the worthless men in my family.
“How are things at Covet?” my father asked.
My jaw clenched hard. Covet was a façade. A way to suck young, unsuspecting girls into our sick world. I knew it, my father knew it, everyone in the damn family knew it but refused to speak the words—especially my mother. I was expected to ignore that fact and act like I gave a fuck about the magazine.
“Fine,” I said, playing the part, my stomach rolling with a familiar nausea. “Just settling in.”
“Good, good. Will you be coming home for the Rome Fashion Week?”
No fucking way in hell. “I’m not sure,” I hedged, because saying no would only start a war I didn’t have the energy to fight. “We’ve got a new online interface rolling out soon. It’s monopolizing a lot of my time.”
“I see. Your mother will be disappointed.”
A twinge of guilt twisted through my chest, but I ignored it. My mother wasn’t innocent, and I harbored a shitload of anger at her for sitting back and standing silent in the face of my father and the entire Salvatici family.
“Did you receive the invitation for the masquerade?”
My guilt morphed to a rolling rage that flexed my fingers around the phone. “I got it.”
“You’ll be attending.”
It wasn’t a question but another fucking order. One that made the rage inside me roar. “I’m not su—”
“You are the head of the Salvatici family in America now, Luciano.” My father’s voice took on the characteristic edge that said there would be no argument. “You are required to attend the masquerade, and I will expect a full report when it is over. I do not care if you approve of it or not. Your days sailing carelessly around the world, ignoring your duties and responsibilities, are over. I’ve put up with your bullshit long enough. Soon, you will take my place as the head of the family worldwide, and when you do, you will do so with piety and fucking respect for me and each and every one of your ancestors who built this family into what it is today. No Salvatici heir in the history of our family has shirked his responsibilities. You will not be the first, do I make myself clear?”
All I wanted to do was hurl the phone at the wall, but I restrained myself and through clenched teeth managed to mutter, “Crystal clear.”
“Good.” My father exhaled a long breath, and I could just picture him lounging on the loggia of my parents’ country home, staring through the arched columns toward the rolling view of Tuscany. Bile rose in my throat, knowing he was perched in his grand estate like the king of his fucking castle…like the king of the fucking world, which he very nearly was. “That’s very good. Now, tell me about your brother, Giovanni. Is he behaving himself?”
“As well as can be expected,” I said, fighting to stay in control of my emotions. I knew better than to antagonize my father. Doing so wouldn’t just bring down his wrath, it would bring down the wrath of the entire Salvatici House, and while I hated my life at the moment, I did like living and wasn’t about to do anything to give others in our world a reason to off me.
“Good,” my father said again. “I expect you to keep him in line. We do not need another scandal right now.”
No, we certainly didn’t. Bitterness clawed up my chest. Bitterness mixed with resentment. Giovanni should know that as well. The dustup from Elena McCabe’s death was finally settling, yet my brother was already back to his old shit with the fresh-faced Natalie James.
I looked down at the cracked glass on the counter in front of me, knowing I needed to do something quick to get the girl out of New York and away from the Salvatici family before it was too late. I just didn’t like what had to be done. “I’ll take care of Giovanni, don’t worry.”
“I know you will, son.”
Pride swam in my father’s voice as he moved on to the topic of my youngest brother Dante and my sister Ariana, both still in Italy, living a life of carefree bliss because they weren’t required to do anything but marry and produce children to further the Salvatici name. I, on the other hand, was expected to become the devil himself, in all his perverse and immoral ways.
We said our goodbyes, the sickness in my belly rolling like a wave on stormy seas. Tossing the cracked glass into the garbage, I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and downed half of it, but still the bile rose in my throat over what I had to do next.
There was no way around it. If Natalie James wasn’t going to listen and my brother didn’t give a shit, then I had to take matters into my own hands. I reached for my phone and dialed.
“Paulo,” I said when the voice on the other end answered. “I have a job for you.”
“Sure, Luc. What do you need?”
Paulo was from the old country. He’d worked for the family for years, and he could always be trusted. I forced the vile words out of my mouth. “A mugging.”
Paulo chuckled. “You got someone in mind, or you just want me to run up the street grabbing purses at random?”
“A woman. Natalie James. Average size and height, dark curly hair. I’ll send you a photograph and address. I want her out of the city.”
“You think scaring her is the way to go?”
I sure the fuck hoped so. “She’s from some small town in the Northwest. The harsh realities of city life should be enough to motivate her into leaving New York.”
“And what if it’s not? You want me to rough her up a little?”
The girl’s pale skin and wide blue eyes flashed in my mind. I might be an asshole, but I wasn’t a monster. Not yet, anyway. “J
ust a mugging. I’ll call you if I need anything more.”
“Consider it done.”
The line clicked dead in my ear. Pulling the phone away from my face, I stared down at a picture on my screensaver of the first sailboat I’d ever built and sold. That life, far away in the tropics, working in the warm sunshine, answering to no one but myself seemed like a lifetime from where I was now.
I longed to go back. To forget everything and everyone in my entire fucked-up family. But my desires meant nothing anymore. My life was here now. Doing what I was told and becoming a person I despised.
I pocketed the phone before the image of the past threatened my sanity. Turning for my office, I told myself what was about to happen to Natalie James wouldn’t even come close to the shit my family could do to her. For her sake—and for mine—I wanted her gone, and tonight I was willing to do anything to make that happen.
Save the ones you can.
Chapter Three
Natalie
Brushing a wayward curl out of my face that had pulled free of the bun I’d tied my hair into, I dropped the last notebook on the pile I’d created in the middle of Laney’s living room floor and frowned.
Nothing. I’d found nothing in Laney’s notebooks. Nothing but sketches of dresses and skirts and tops, the same type of sketches Laney had done when we were kids, although these were way more intricate and showcased her design talent.
No matter how hard I’d looked over the past three days, I hadn’t found a note or a business card or even Laney’s cell phone to give me a hint. It was as if someone had already been through her apartment.
That thought sent a shiver down my spine, and my mind tripped back over Laney’s last words. He is the most dangerous of men. In a rush, I pictured both Salvatici men I’d met today. One brimmed with darkness and domination. The other oozed so much wicked sex appeal, my stomach quivered with the memory of his sinful eyes locked on me.