LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You can’t do what?”

      “I can’t pretend to be your bloody girlfriend. Frank was right. I’m not sophisticated enough for these kinds of... Find a way to call this thing off. Find a way to protect your bloody company from Giovanni’s meddling. But I’m done with this, with you.”

      She turned and angrily swiped at her cheeks. Damn it, she refused to cry in front of him. His pity would kill her.

      But she got no more than a few steps before he slammed his palm on the door. She couldn’t turn. She couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. “I don’t understand you at all. Foolishly, I thought I was beginning to. That you were more than the ruthless, ambitious businessman that everybody calls you. What you’re thinking, it’s horrible, clinical.”

      The warmth of his body, the scent of him seeped into her back. One more step and she would be in his embrace. Oh, how she wanted to take that step, how she wanted to lose herself in him...

      “You, this pretense, it’s driving me crazy, don’t you get it? I’m wound up so tight I can’t sleep. I can’t work. You’re—” But she cut him off before he could say the horrid words.

      “I’m ruining your life—yes, I know,” she said loudly, tears knotting in her throat. “You think it’s easy for me? The whispers I hear, the snide innuendoes, that the only reason you’re with me is because of what Gio has. That Gio’s wealth compensates for what I lack.

      “It’s like reliving the episode with Frank. Only, this time, I know the truth beforehand.”

      “Damn it, I’ll knock the bastard’s teeth down if I see him ever.”

      “Just tell me one thing. Were you lying the other day at your sister’s house? Were you just protecting me and my tender feelings? Was it the fact that you haven’t been with anyone recently that made you lose control? Tell me that being with another woman while you want me doesn’t bother you, and my rose-tinted glasses will come off.”

      Raphael couldn’t answer her. He couldn’t say no. It didn’t matter that even the very idea of touching Ava felt like a betrayal of his own self.

      Damn it, even his overnight trip to Venice, his meeting with an old friend, which should have progressed from the restaurant to her hotel room, it had taken all his wits just to get through the dinner.

      All he could see in the woman who’d been a friend for years was the brittleness her two divorces had given her, the false warmth of her smile as she’d played footsie with Raphael’s leg under the table, the utter lack of connection between them.

      Because of the infuriating woman and her outdated ideas about affection and companionship and respect, all his old connections began to look cheap and tawdry.

      She was turning his life upside down.

      He owed her nothing. He needed her to see the true him. He needed her to realize that he was no hero and definitely not hers.

      And yet, the words wouldn’t rise to his lips.

      All he could see were her big eyes that saw too much. Her lush lips. Her chest falling and rising. The raw honesty of her emotions was written across her face. So was the desire that she couldn’t hide every time she looked at him. And the ease with which she was fitting into his very life. Her adoration of his child...

      The remembered taste of her was a siren’s call he couldn’t resist. Without warning, he suddenly kissed her. Hard and hungry with not a bit of his usual finesse. He devoured her mouth with bites and licks and nips until she was moaning and arching into his touch.

      “This is what you want, Pia?” he said, pulling her skirt up. Sending his hand on a foray for silky skin, even as he plunged his tongue into her sweet mouth and swallowed her yes.

      How he wanted her now, here. He wanted to thrust into her wet warmth and get rid of this madness.

      What magic had she woven around him?

      He cupped a barely covered buttock with one hand while his other met the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Mouths tangled, he pushed aside the silky thong she wore until he could find her core.

      Sweat dampened his brow. A current of electric desire pooled in his groin as he found her soft folds.

      Dio mio, she was ready for him. Silky and slick against his fingers.

      He swallowed her soft gasp, pressed her against the door. Pulled her leg up until she was wide-open for him.

      Without giving her a moment to breathe, he set a fast rhythm with his fingers. She sobbed, she moaned, she was like a spark plug touched by the fire.

      Madness filling his blood, Raphael snaked his tongue around hers and increased the pressure of his strokes.

      The moment he rubbed her swollen clit in concentric circles, she broke apart. Her spasms against his fingers sent his own blood rushing south. Her soft cries pelted against his skin.

      He wanted to push her hair from her damp forehead. He wanted to take her in a soft kiss. He wanted to tell her she was incredibly beautiful, that her passion would bring any man to his knees.

      He did nothing of the sort.

      If anything, tonight only proved how wrong they were for each other. How dangerous she was to his control. How easily he could break her spirit.

      He pushed away from her. Like the ruthless bastard that he was, he didn’t even try to hold her up when her knees shook beneath her. Her eyes were closed; her face was turned away.

      But he didn’t miss the lone tear that tracked a path down her cheek.

      “That is all I can give you, Pia. That is all I give any woman.”

      He walked out of that room and the house and went outside to wait for Emilio.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      “HOW DARE YOU go behind my back after everything I’ve done for you?”

      Raphael refused to look up before he finished perusing the design document as Giovanni walked into his office with all the force of a stomping elephant. The rush of affection welling up in his chest was a soothing balm against the guilt festering for the actions he’d taken.

      Giovanni meant the world to him.

      He had taught Raphael to aspire to bigger dreams, had spotted Raphael’s unusual talent for fixing cars of any kind, believed in his talent and hard work when even his mother hadn’t.

      He’d been expecting this siege for a week now. From the minute he’d set about buying more and more stock in the company. Getting the members to oust Gio from the board—whose proxy had rested with Raphael all this time anyway.

      If he succeeded, Gio wouldn’t ever be able to bring someone like Stefano onto the board. He’d never be able to manipulate Raphael again. He’d never put Raphael in a situation where he had to face Pia again.

      But of course Gio had his spies in the company just as Raphael had his at Gio’s house.

      Once he finished, he closed down the design software and leaned back in his seat.

      “Good afternoon to you too, Giovanni,” he said casually, and only then looked up to meet his gaze.

      A thread of unease wrapped itself around his chest, tugging hard.

      His eighty-four-year-old godfather had the stubbornness of a mule and the constitution of a boxer. And yet, his pallor was visible under the olive of his skin. Concern pushed Raphael out of his chair as Gio huffed into his office with short breaths and irately dismissed his chauffeur Emilio.

      Who cast a worried glance at Raphael.

      “You look like hell, Giovanni.” Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the concern seeping through. Emotion was

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