LITMIR.BIZ

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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 cheeks flamed. “Of course,” she mumbled. “It’s on the house.”

      On the house. Oh, my God. Chiara unlocked her frozen knees as Lazzero strode off to find a table near the window. Chitchatting with Lazzero when he came in in the mornings was par for the course. Insulting the regulars and losing her job was not.

      * * *

      Amused rather than insulted by the normally composed barista’s diatribe, Lazzero ensconced himself at a table near the windows and pulled out his report. Given his cynical attitude of late, it was refreshing to discover not all women in Manhattan were bounty hunters intent on razing his pockets.

      It was also, he conceded, fascinating insight into the ultracool Chiara and what lay beneath those impenetrable layers of hers. He’d watched so many men crash and burn in their attempts to scale those defences over the past year he’d been coming here, he could have fashioned a graveyard out of their pitiful efforts. But now, it all made sense. She had been burned and burned badly by a man with power and influence and she wasn’t ever going there again.

      None of which, he admitted, flipping open the report on the Italian fashion market his team had prepared, was helping him nail his strategy for winning Gianni Casale over at La Coppa Estiva. The fifty-page report he needed to inhale might. As for a woman to take to Milan to satisfy Gianni’s territorial nature? He was coming up blank.

      He’d gone through his entire contact list last night in an effort to find a woman who would be appropriate for the business arrangement he had in mind, but none of them was right for the job. All of his ex-girlfriends would interpret the invitation in entirely the wrong light. Ask someone new and she would do the same. And since he had no interest of any kind in a relationship—summer shag or otherwise—that was out too.

      Chiara broke his train of thought as she arrived with his espresso. Bottom lip caught between her teeth, a frown pleating her brow, she seemed to be searching for something to say. Then, clearly changing her mind, she reached jerkily for one of the cups on her tray. The steaming dark brew sloshed precariously close to the sides, his expensive suit a potential target. Lazzero reached up to take it from her before she dumped it all over him, his fingers brushing against hers as he did.

      A sizzling electrical pulse traveled from her fingers through his, unfurling a curl of heat beneath his skin. Their gazes collided. Held. He watched her pupils flare in reaction—her beautiful eyes darkening to a deep, lagoon green.

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