Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
I’m busying myself with the stack of paperwork the lawyer gives me to look over, when I hear footsteps approaching again. I don’t look up when I hear them, but hear my mother stand and walk over to our new guest.
“Well aren’t you lovely,” she says. “Please, can you tell us how you knew my father?”
“I… I didn’t know your father,” a woman’s voice says, barely more than a mumble. Jesus.
I look up from my paperwork to see who this mumbling woman is and drop my pen on the table with a clatter.
No.
No.
It can’t be. There’s no fucking way. I rise to my feet just as her eyes meet mine. I open my mouth to berate her, to tell her I’m a man of my word, to remind her that she was told to never, ever come near me again, when I realize she’s staring at me with the same shocked expression that likely mirrors mine.
Vibrant auburn hair twisted into a thick bun. Large, hazel eyes with thick dark lashes, a slender nose, full lips and a dainty chin. I drop my gaze to the low-cut top she wears. Even her slouchy cardigan doesn’t hide her full, voluptuous breasts or ample hips.
“Are you… who are you… how can you…” Her words trail off. I’m aware that every eye in the room’s on us. Orlando’s body visibly tightens, and Tavi’s hand is on his gun.
“Rome…”
I take a step toward her. I can’t let anyone know that I’ve met her before. If my father knew what she knows, she’d be buried in the quarry by midnight.
“Why are you here?” my mother asks, oblivious to the flare of heat between us.
The woman of the night before who witnessed me killing a man with my own bare hands, who has the keys to lock me away with a whistle-blow, stands before me now in rumpled clothing as if she slept in them the night before.
Where was she? I narrow my eyes. Did she spend the night in a man’s bed? Did she put these clothes on and smooth out the wrinkles she got from tossing them to the floor, then slide into those shoes so she could come here and fool my family?
Why do I care?
She’s no one my grandfather knew, of that I’m sure.
“Where’s your ID?” I ask her. My words sound like the crack of an ax, and the people around me jump. Not Vittoria, though. No. She meets my eyes without flinching. Perhaps I’ve underestimated her.
I stare at her and curse the day I met her. Why does a woman who’s so obstinate have to be so damn sexy?
I imagine wrapping that silken hair around my fist, kissing the gentle slope of her neck, holding her against me as if she matters to me. I’ve never had a woman like her, one that comes without glamour and a high price tag.
And I want her. I fucking want her.
Frowning at me, she takes out a large bag and unzips it. She reaches in to take out her wallet and something wrapped in a paper napkin tumbles to the floor. Clumsily she picks it up. Is that food? Did she… steal a croissant? Take from the Family?
Why?
She shoves it back in her bag before I can ask any questions and yanks out an ID. I glare at it, as if somehow the little plastic card with her picture on it will tell me who she really is.
Why she’s here.
What she wants from me.
This woman is sitting on a bed of lies, and I mean to untangle those sheets.
I blow out a breath and give it back to her.
“You didn’t know my grandfather?” She’s lying. She has to be.
She shakes her head and sits down beside Marialena.
I take my place beside my father. “Let’s hear it, then,” I tell the lawyer. “Tell us why she’s here.”
“I got a letter,” she says, her voice loud and forthright in the small quiet of the room. “It came to my P.O. Box, which is publicly listed while my home address is not, so whoever got it looked me up. It said to arrive here today and when, but didn’t tell me anything about a will or why I was coming.”
“And where do you come from?” my father asks sternly.
“New York.”
My mother and father share a look I can’t decipher.
“Do you have anything at all to do with the Montavio family?”
The lawyer clears his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Rossi, but the instructions here explicitly state we aren’t to question the presence of Ms. DeSanto.”
Oh, really. Nonno had a few tricks up his sleeve.
I discreetly gesture to Tavi. Does he know who she is? He shakes his head. He didn’t get anywhere trying to find out her identity, I suppose.
“Go on, then,” I tell him. “Let’s get to why you’re here.”