LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      “I’M AWARE THE terms of these sessions were set out in writing and forwarded to you by your board of directors, Mr. Combe, but I think it’s useful to go over them again in person. While you and I will be doing the talking, I must stress that you are not my client. I will be presenting my findings to the board rather than exploring therapeutic solutions with you. Do you understand what that means?”

      Matteo Combe stared at the woman seated across from him in the ancient library of the Venetian villa that had been in his mother’s family since the dawn of time, or thereabouts. The San Giacomos were aristocratic and noble, with blood so blue it sang its own aria. They could even claim a smattering of Italian princes, Matteo’s great-grandfather among them. That he had not passed along his title had been, as far as Matteo was aware, the greatest disappointment of his grandfather’s life.

      It would be a spot of luck indeed if Matteo could concern himself with such disappointments. Instead, he had to handle more pressing concerns at the moment, such as the preservation of the family business that his father’s decidedly working-class forebears had built from nothing in the north of England during the Industrial Revolution. That he was choosing to handle that situation here in this self-congratulatory aristocratic villa was for his own private satisfaction.

      And perhaps he’d thought he might cow the woman—the psychiatrist—sitting with him while he was at it.

      Dr. Sarina Fellows was, by his reckoning, the first American to set foot on the premises. Ever. Matteo was vaguely surprised the whole of the villa hadn’t sunk into the Grand Canal in genteel protest the moment she’d set foot on the premises.

      But then, villas in Venice were as renowned for their remarkable tenacity in the face of adverse conditions as he was.

      Sarina looked as brisk and efficient as her words had been, which boded ill. She was dressed entirely in funereal black, but was saved from dourness by the quiet excellence of the pieces she wore. Matteo knew artisanal Italian design when he saw it. Her hair was a dark black silk, bound up in a crisp chignon at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were a complicated brown shot through with amber, the irises ringed in black. And her lips were pure perfection, begging for a man to taste them, for all that, she had left them bare of any color.

      She looked like what she was, he supposed. The agent of his destruction, if his enemies had their way.

      Matteo had no intention of allowing anything to destroy him. Not this woman. Not his parents’ unexpected deaths within weeks of each other, leaving nothing in their wake but the fallout of the secrets they’d kept—and Matteo as the unwilling executor of the things they’d hidden while they lived. Not even his younger sister’s unfortunate life choices, which had led Matteo straight here, where the chairman of Combe Industries’ board—his late father’s best friend—now wished to take control.

      Nothing would destroy him. Matteo wouldn’t allow it.

      But he had to tolerate this farcical exercise first.

      Sarina aimed what he suspected was meant to be a sympathetic smile his way. It struck him as rather more challenging instead. And Matteo had never been one to back down from a challenge—especially when he really should have, to keep the peace.

      Lord, but he detested this process already. And it had only just begun.

      He recalled that she’d asked him a question. And he’d agreed, hadn’t he? He’d given his word. He would sit here and subject himself to this intrusion and he would, yes, answer her questions. Each and every one.

      Through gritted teeth, if necessary.

      “I’m perfectly aware of why you are here, Miss Fellows,” he managed to reply. What he did not manage to do was strip his voice of impatience. Frustration. And what his erstwhile personal assistant often dared to categorize, to his face, as sheer orneriness.

      “Doctor.”

      He didn’t follow. “Excuse me?”

      Her smile was all sharp edges. “It’s Dr. Fellows, Mr. Combe. Not Miss Fellows. I hope that critical distinction assures you that these conversations, while perhaps difficult, are wholly professional.”

      “I’m delighted to hear it,” he said, wondering if he’d done that deliberately. He’d always prided himself on being far less of a blunt instrument than his father, renowned far and wide for his bluster and the sucker punch to back it up. But then, he’d never been in a situation like this before. “I have not spent much time—or any time, if I am honest—in mandated therapy, but the professional nature of this experience was, of course, my foremost concern.”

      The late spring storm beat against the windows outside, rushing in from the lagoon and threatening to flood the Piazza San Marco the way it did more commonly in fall and winter. The threat of high water reflected Matteo’s mood perfectly. But the woman across from him only aimed that same smile at him as the rain slapped against the glass, wholly undeterred.

      “I understand that there is resistance to this kind of therapy. Or indeed, any kind of therapy. Perhaps it will be helpful to dive in straightaway.” She settled there in the high-backed, antique chair that he knew for a fact was excruciatingly uncomfortable as if it had been crafted to her precise ergonomic specifications. She made a show of checking her notes in the sleek leather folder she brandished before her like a weapon. “You are the president and CEO of Combe Industries, correct?”

      Matteo had dressed casually for this interview. Or session, as the woman had insisted upon calling it. Now he wished he hadn’t. He would have greatly preferred the comfort of one of his bespoke suits, the better to remind himself that he wasn’t simply any old ruffian in off the street. He was Matteo Combe, raised to be the eldest son and reluctant heir to the San Giacomo fortune and the sprawling, multinational corporation that his father’s gritty, determined Combe ancestors had built from nothing long ago in the stark mill towns of northern England.

      You need to humanize yourself, his assistant had insisted.

      That was the trouble, of course. Matteo had never been very good at being human. With his family—his careless, scandalous mother and his bullish, jealous father and all their theatrics—he’d never had much practice.

      He forced a smile now. Something else he didn’t have much practice with. “I was president of the corporation before my father’s death. He had been grooming me to take his place for some time.” Since birth, in fact, though he kept that to himself. “I became CEO after he passed.”

      “And you chose to mark the occasion of his passing by descending into a physical altercation with one of the funeral guests. A prince, no less.”

      The smile on his mouth felt strained. “I wasn’t concerned with what he was at the time. All I knew was that he was the one who impregnated and abandoned my sister.”

      Sarina checked her notes again, rustling through her papers in an officious manner that put Matteo’s teeth on edge. Or more on edge.

      “You’re referring to your sister, Pia, who is some years younger than you, but is, in point of fact, an adult woman. Capable of choosing to bear a child if she so wishes, presumably.”

      Matteo

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