LITMIR.BIZ

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were like sleeping bears. All soft and cuddly until you awakened their inner beast. Which was precisely why you didn’t go there.

      He closed the folder. “Who’s going?”

      “You are.”

      He did a double take. “With you and Gabe?”

      “I need to be in San Francisco for the restaurant opening and Gabe is in way over his head with the harvest right now. I can’t pull him away.”

      A surge of anticipation fired through him. Finally he was back in the game. The deal was his to win.

      Riccardo kept his gaze steady on him. “This is the most important contract we’ve negotiated in the history of De Campo. We win this, we enter a different stratosphere. You need to bring it home, Matty.”

      “Done.”

      His brother’s eyes flickered at the belligerently confident note in his voice. Mistrust. It was still there.

      His shoulders shot to his ears, blood pumped so rapidly into his head he thought it would explode. “Do not say it,” he bit out. “Do not say it.”

      “What happened with Angelique Fontaine can’t happen again, Matty.”

      The liquid fire burning in his head became an all-consuming force that blurred his vision. He swung away and sucked in a deep breath. Then another. Fisted his hands by his sides until they numbed into a lifeless mass. “How long,” he demanded hoarsely, “are you going to crucify me with that?”

      “Bring me Luxe,” his brother said deliberately, “and we’re even.”

      Matteo bowed his head. Flexed his frozen appendages until the blood streamed back into his fingers. When he looked up, he sought, demanded an honest answer from his brother. “Why me? You could make time for this, Riccardo.”

      His brother rested that deadly sharp gaze of his on Matteo. “Because you are the only one who can win this. Quinn Davis is a man-hater. She will detest me on sight. Gabe could do it, but you are better. Not only do you have the charm but when you’re on, Matty, you light up a room. You are electric.”

      He exhaled the breath lodged deep inside his chest. “Luxe is ours. I promise you that.”

      Riccardo nodded. “Absorb what Paige has put together and let me know if you have any questions.”

      Matteo tucked the file under his arm and headed for the door. His brain was already formulating his approach when Riccardo’s low drawl reached him. “Matty?” He turned around. “I meant what I said. You are not, under any circumstances, to sleep with Quinn Davis.”

      All creativity fled. A muscle jumped in his jaw, his teeth clenching down so tight he thought they might shatter. “I heard you the first time. It can’t happen. It won’t happen. And I’m getting a little pissed you’d think I’d even go there.”

      Riccardo shrugged. “You’re a complete wild card lately, Matty. They could announce the next shuttle expedition to the moon and I wouldn’t be surprised to see your name on the list.”

      His insides tightened. “You know what I was going through. Why that happened with Angelique...”

      His brother’s gaze hardened into impenetrable steel. “It was a seven-million-dollar deal, Matty.”

      And he had brought it down like a house of cards.

      He gritted his teeth. “I will win this deal for De Campo. That’s all you need to be sure about.”

      His brother nodded.

      Matteo stalked to the door. Sure he was going to charm Quinn Davis. Riccardo wanted to win. How did he think he was going to win? But sleep with her? Did his brother really think he wanted another two years in purgatory?

      Damn. He needed a cold beer.

      * * *

      His mood hadn’t improved by the time he was home at his new Meatpacking District loft, a bottle of said cold beer in his hand on the patio. Kicking back in a lounge chair, he devoured the file Riccardo’s PA had compiled. Paige had been her usual ridiculously thorough self. It contained everything he ever needed to know about the Davis family and more. And photos. It did not escape him why his brother had warned him off Quinn Davis. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was knock-your-socks-off stunning.

      The photo Paige had included, taken at a charity event, hit him right where it would any libido-endowed male. Petite, curvy in a lush “take me to bed” kind of way, she had silky, thick, long dark brown hair and the most haunting green eyes he’d ever seen.

      Gorgeous. And, apparently, a man-hater. His mouth curved. He could work with that.

      He took a swig of his beer. Paige’s notes were a gold mine of cocktail party intelligence. Quinn Davis had worked at Warren Davis’s investment firm since graduating from Harvard and had earned progressively more responsibility at a pace that would have made most people’s heads spin. It was clear from the opinion pieces that although many would have liked to think nepotism had played a role in her success, she had done it on her own. One business columnist commented she had an “eerily sharp brain like her father.” Another that she was an “instant study.” But the description that captured his attention was the one that branded her a “gladiator in the boardroom.”

      This was getting more interesting by the minute.

      He flicked to a profile piece on her personal life. Or lack thereof. She either didn’t have one or she was the most ultraprivate person he’d ever encountered. Twenty-seven years old, resided in Chicago, divorced from Boston blue blood lawyer, Julian Edwards, after one year of marriage. One year? He lifted a brow. What in God’s name had happened there? And a graduate-level Krav Maga? The instructors he knew had attained that level but none of his buddies had gotten past an orange belt despite years of practice.

      Interesting was not the word. Fascinating was more like it. His mouth quirked. No wonder her marriage had fallen apart. Quinn Davis had probably emasculated her husband within the first three months of marriage.

      He scoured the file from top to bottom, then threw it on the concrete beside him. Resting his beer on his thigh he looked up at the lone star in the Manhattan sky that never seemed to get truly black. An image of all three De Campo brothers—Riccardo, Gabriele, Matteo—walking into the boardroom of the second largest airline in Europe flashed through his head. That day in Paris had been their chance to make their mark on a company ruled for forty years by their despotic father, Antonio. It was Riccardo’s first high-profile deal as CEO. They had been pumped, sky-high with adrenaline, the seven-million-dollar deal to supply the airline with its house wines firmly within their grasp.

      They’d nailed the presentation. Had gone out to celebrate that night at a local bar. But after the adrenaline had worn off, Matteo’s recent all-encompassing grief over the loss of his best friend, Giancarlo, had stormed back. Nothing had been enough to contain it—to make the guilt and pain go away. The effort to keep up a happy face with his brothers had been excruciating, ending with him seeking solace in the arms of a beautiful woman. Except that woman had been the daughter of Georges Fontaine, the CEO of the airline. She worked for Fontaine, had been on the executive team they’d pitched to. She’d also been throwing herself at Matteo the entire time they’d been in that boardroom.

      He had reasoned Angelique Fontaine was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. But when he’d made it clear the next morning he wasn’t interested in anything long-term, Angelique had gone straight to her father. And De Campo’s chance to put its wine on over half a million flights a year had gone with her.

      Angelique had branded him a callous son of a bitch. Georges Fontaine had been furious. It had been the worst mistake in judgment in Matteo’s thirty-two-year-old life.

      He shifted on the chair, the memory of his brothers’ faces when Georges Fontaine had called the deal off physically painful to remember. Burned so indelibly into his mind it was like a mental scar that never healed. Shock. Disbelief. Disappointment.

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