Chapter One – Grazia
“Well, that sounds ominous.” And doesn’t it just?
I’m standing in the office of a tech billionaire, a new mogul on Wall Street, and he, Marshall Levitt, has a proposition for little old me.
Considering I figured I was here to organize some kind of event for him, because duh, that’s what I do, I hadn’t really expected him to come to me with a proposition. Especially not in that low tone of voice that makes molasses look runny and golden. Instead, he’d rumbled the words at me, with a dark and sinful undertone that turned my knees to jelly.
I’m a grown woman. I live in one of the biggest cities in the world and have since I was a child—you can’t not be street smart in New York City. However, this man has me flustered, and to be honest, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.
That’s the problem with rich people. They all think they can do whatever the hell they want, and we plebs have no choice but to concur with their wishes. The bitch of it is, they’re not exactly wrong. Who in their right mind could turn their back on a billionaire’s offer of business?
No damn one, that’s who.
And yet, though his voice sounds like sex, though I find him utterly attractive, and though I have no idea what he’s about to suggest, I’m naturally predisposed to tell him to stick his proposition where the sun doesn’t shine.
But that wouldn’t be politic, would it? He’s one of the city’s newest scions, and I haven’t made this business what it is today by insulting potential clients.
So I bite back my irritation and plaster an ingratiating smile on my chops. It’s either that or ask him what the hell he’s deliberating over. It’s been at least a minute since I spoke, and all he’s doing is staring at me like a cat that has just caught sight of a canary. Either that or a toddler with a plate of cookies close to hand.
I can feel his eyes tracing over every part of me, and I won’t lie… parts of me are tingling. Parts that I’d prefer to stay tingle-free. Rather than let him look me over again like a choice piece of meat, I take a seat without waiting for his invitation and cross my legs. I can’t deny his arrogant assertion has irritated me, but as I look back at him, it doesn’t take away from the fact he’s a glorious specimen of manhood.
“Hardly ominous,” he tells me, pursing his lips as he crosses his arms over his chest, then his feet at the ankle. It’s a pose straight from Gordon Gekko, but still hot as hell. The bulge in his pants is more prominent than ever when he’s standing in that position, as is the fact he’s as lean as they come.
Considering he’s a desk jockey, that does come as a surprise.
“No? Well, what is it then?” I ask him, taking the bait.
When our eyes meet, I’m hard pressed to contain a little shiver of excitement. It’s been a long time since I’ve reacted to the animal magnetism of any man, and I have to wonder why it had to be this one who did the reawakening.
It couldn’t be the nice guy from the deli with the cute dreads, or the man who designed my website for me last month who had looked delicious when he rolled his shirtsleeves high up on his forearms… oh no, those two hotties did nothing to entice me, but this one, this power hungry shark, apparently knows how to get my juices flowing.
Damn my body to hell.
Rather than answer me, he reaches back and picks up a folder. “Two years ago, you requested planning permission to divert some pipes in a part of your apartment so you could open up the space.”
Blinking, because whatever I’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that, I shake my head. “Huh?” Hardly poetic, but I’m confused.
How the hell does he know that? And why would he seek that kind of information about me?
Narrowing my eyes in suspicion, I find my voice when it looks like he’s waiting for a reply more detailed than ‘huh’ and say, “Why do you know that?”
“You’d be surprised what I know about you, Grazia. I’ve made it my business to know who you are.”
That has me gulping. “What do you mean?” Again with the ominous statements.
Goddammit, the man is making me very nervous.
“I mean, I know you’re an events organizer with a very interesting and very well-to-do client list. But I also know that your organizational skills are what pays the bills… what nourishes your heart and soul is your fashion design business.”
I stare at him, wondering where the hell he’s coming from. How does he know? Why would he even be interested in what ‘nourishes my heart and soul’ as he so poetically phrased it?
This is starting to feel like some bizarre kind of ambush, and ambushes do nothing more than piss me off.
“Why have you gone to all this effort of trying to discern my tastes, Mr. Levitt?” I demand, my voice like cut glass.
“Marshall, please.”
Staring at him, I merely state, “Mr. Levitt.” Then I pause a second to let him process the fact I’m refusing to call him by his first name. “Please explain what’s going on here. In fact, I demand to know what right you think you have to investigate me or my past.”
He shakes his head at me, slowly, and somehow manages to imbue it with a reprimand. “Why have I been digging around in your past? Looking for ins and outs to your life, of course.”
“Now you’re digging your own grave, because you have no right to investigate me.”
“I have every right. If I’m to be your employer, I need to know what makes you tick.”
“I’d be organizing your events, not privy to personal or private details.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He steps forward and takes the seat next to mine. “What if I told you that you could dedicate all your working hours to your craft?”
I frown at him. “Then I’d know you were trying to bullshit me, because unfortunately, that’s not possible.”
“It would be if you came and worked for me.”
“As what? Even if I came onto your staff in events, I’d hardly have the time to work on my designs.”
“I wouldn’t want you on my corporate team.”
The way he’s looking at me has me clenching my jaw. There’s a banked heat at the back of his eyes, and when he lets his glance trace my shape, I’d have to be stupid to fail to recognize his attraction to me. “Look, if this is going where I think it’s going, then you’re out of order, Marshall.” I use his name this time because I twist the two syllables with a sneer. “I’m only interested in affairs of a corporate nature.”
He purses his lips. “Then you’re a fool. You could have everything you want, all at your fingertips.”
Shaking my head, I tell him, “No. You’re the fool, because if you’d have behaved like a normal man and just asked me out on a fucking date, I’d have said yes. No salary-for-sex required.”
“You’ve a sharp tongue.” And damned if there wasn’t admiration in his voice.
I get to my feet. “I think I should leave.”
When he reaches over to grab my hand, I don’t pull away; I simply stare at him like he’s grown two heads. “There’s no need to leave. I meant no offense.”
“Well, I certainly took offense. Who the hell do you think you are? I mean, for God’s sake, is this what you do? Proposition innocent women from your lofty ivory skyscraper? This isn’t the Dark Ages. This is very much the twenty-first century. You can’t go around making these kinds of…” I clench my teeth. “Deals.”
“It’s a far safer way of working, actually.” He eyes me. “When women see me in my ‘lofty ivory skyscraper’, what do you think their initial reaction is?”
I frown at him. “What do you mean?”
“What do they see? The man? A guy who loves Chopin and the New England Patriots? Or do you think they see the bank balance? The car and the suit?”
“Like you didn’t size me up the same way. Don’t try to twist this. I looked at you and saw an attractive man. I don’t care about the bank balance, and the suit is a nice finishing touch, but I don’t care if it’s Kohl’s or Savile Row.”
“Then you’re far more idealistic than I realized.” He squeezes my fingers, then tries to pull my arm, tugging me back down to the seat I just vacated. “Come to dinner with me.”
“Now who’s being idealistic? You’re obviously incapable of a normal relationship, Mr. Levitt, if you think the ideal way to begin any kind of…” I sputter, searching for the right word and failing, “…anything is by asking someone if they’ll work for you on their back!”
“Technically I never made such an offer.” His voice was cool, calm. I could tell he was analyzing the situation, trying to figure out a way to get this conversation back on track. A track where he was in control again, not me.
Somehow, the fact I knew that, that I was aware of what he was up to, sent shivers down my spine.
“But we both know it was going to go down that route.” I narrow my eyes at him. “If you do this frequently, it’s a wonder you don’t have sexual harassment suits thrown at you every day.”
He jerks a shoulder, looking supremely confident and supremely self-assured. His arrogance makes me want to hit him. I’m not unaccustomed to dealing with men like Levitt; I don’t know why I figured he’d be different. Stupid, stupid me.
More than anything, that’s what gets on my nerves. The fact that I was such an idiot. It doesn’t happen often, to be fair, but when it does, it’s a doozy.
“I feel like I’m being hanged here with very little justification.”
My eyes widen at that, agitation spinning through me—as well as the unusual desire to laugh! His audacity makes me gawk at him, speechless for countless seconds until I come to my senses and finally tug at his hold on my wrist. He lets me go, but I’d expected more of a fight so I barely brace myself as he releases his clasp on me. The motion has me wobbling on my too-high high heels, heels I’d worn out of a stupid need to pretty myself up for this asshat. Momentum has me falling backward, but he reaches up a split second later and changes my course. Instead of falling over, I tumble into his lap.
Stunned, because I sure as hell hadn’t expected to end up on his knee with his erection bumping my hip, it takes me a second to figure out what the heck happened. Once that’s processed, I try to scamper off his lap, but when I put my hand down, unfortunately for the king of propositions, it settles somewhere hard and solid but infinitely sensitive.
As I lever myself up, he lets out a loud and startled yell. The noise, so close to my ear, as well his own surprise, has me rocking back deeper into him. Despite my discomfort at my precarious position, I’m embarrassed as hell that my attempt to escape involved an unintentional effort to emasculate the man.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my cheeks burning. In the cold office, with its white walls, steel furnishings, and dark gray rugs, my face is undoubtedly the sole splash of color.
I look up, see his stony expression and wince. Beneath his anger, I can see I really hurt him.
He doesn’t reply to my apology, just lets out a long, slow breath. It brushes my mouth with the scent of mint and evergreen fir. I look down at his lips, see the white skin around them that comes from his firming them, but slowly, as I watch, that color fluctuates back to normal.
“It’s okay,” he tells me, his voice a little hoarse.
Despite myself, and as inappropriate as it is, I laugh. Then immediately clap a hand to my lips to withhold the rest of the giggles that long to tumble out of me.
Expecting to be railed by his anger, I’m surprised as hell when a chuckle escapes him too. My gaze flashes up to his, and in the depths of his eyes, I can see genuine humor. In fact, it lights up his whole face. Making the stony jaw, the strong Roman nose with its kink from an earlier break, and the broad, scowling brow relax, enough to let me see what he must have been like before he was the formidable man who has the world’s business markets quaking at their knees.
“Why couldn’t you just have asked me out on a date?” I ask, my voice utterly wistful. I can’t help but lift my hand and trace it along the hard line of his jaw. My thumb sweeps across his smooth cheek, where not even the rasp of a five o’clock shadow blocks my path.
“Men like me don’t date, Miss Fabiola.”
I blink at him, then whisper, “Grazia.”
I’ve surprised him, I can tell. But then, I’ve surprised myself. When he murmurs my name, his mouth somehow caressing the Italian sounds, I gulp. His eyes flicker down the length of my face, from my own gaze that is captured by his, to my lips which I can feel tremble.
I’m not the sort of woman who trembles in the face of a strong man. Usually, arrogance pisses me off and has me flouncing away, unable to tolerate such an annoying and useless character trait. But Marshall is an anomaly.
And I don’t know why, but then, isn’t that what makes him unusual?
Of all the men who’ve watched me over the years, who’ve come on to me, who’ve made me aware of their positions of power… I can’t imagine accidentally falling onto their laps, nearly castrating them with a hand, and then sharing a laugh together at the absurdity of it all.
None of that takes away the farcical proposition he handed me earlier, but somehow, it fades to dust, enabled by his whisper of ‘men like me don’t date.’
There’s no self-pity there, only a varnished truth that gleams under the spotlight.
Men like him really don’t have a choice. Not that I pity him, or the rest of the world’s male elite who have to suffer the vagaries of gold diggers and the like, but still, I have to wonder what kind of universe puts me and him on the same sphere.
It’s a funny old world.
“What are you thinking?” he asks me in a low voice, one that I can tell is hesitant; he doesn’t want to spoil the odd mood that has settled between us. Mostly because I’ve stopped trying to run off and he has me exactly where he wants me.
I could lie. I could tell him I’m thinking of a way to get off his knee without hurting him, but instead, I tell the truth. “I’m thinking… I wish you’d kiss me.”
Chapter Two – Marshall
Whatever I’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.
In fact, none of this meeting has gone how I’d expected, which, in itself, is unusual. But then, the reason she came to my attention is because of that spark in her nature, that fireball that makes her illuminate whatever space she’s inhabiting.
Maybe it’s the Italian in her. Maybe that’s the source of the inferno within her. Wherever it comes from, I feel burned by it, and it’s the nicest burn I’ve ever experienced.
My glance drops down to her lips, plump morsels that are sheened with a gloss that has my mouth watering. Her eyes are like molten chocolate. A man could drown in them, and I know I’d love to give survival a shot. Her blue-black curls tumble into an artful cascade atop her head, the locks curling about her throat and making her tanned skin seem golden rather than just brown. I reach up and, mimicking her position, trail a finger along the sharp jut of her cheekbone. Staring at my digit, I trace it over the soft slope of her nose, the high, shaped brows, and the widow’s peak that also speaks of her Roman ancestry.
Her bottom lip pouts out at my touch, a soft gasp escaping her as I trail my finger down, along the sharp line of her neck, across her throat before sloping it down the quivering line of her cleavage. I tap there, once, and reach forward. As our mouths connect, another breathy sigh pops free, letting me taste the scent of a fruity breath freshener. I rub my mouth over hers, slowly at first, gently. The move has her throat arching, head falling back onto my shoulder as I move in deeper, letting my tongue slide over the soft, pouting curve of her bottom lip before slipping inside.
There’s a mesmerized quality to this interlude.
I’d never expected her to kiss me today. Whatever I’d expected to happen, certainly hadn’t. I kind of knew she’d reject my proposition. Any woman who starts a company as a means of supporting another venture doesn’t have it in her to let a man pay her way, let alone have that payment come at the expense of her body.
I had to ask, though. I had to. I wasn’t lying when I said earlier that men of my stature don’t date. We can’t. Gold diggers, fortune hunters, call them what you please, they’re all there, waiting in the wings. Looking for an opportunity to strike.
After I made my first couple of million and hit the press thanks to one of my first inventions, a girl I’d gone to college with, who I’d shared a computer science class with—nothing more, nothing less—had sold an expose into my life. Into her relationship with me.
All of it had been made up, a grand lie sold to a rapacious reporter who didn’t care whether it was fact or fiction, who just wanted to fill up the paper with something about Wall Street’s new golden guy. I could have handled an entirely fictional story, but there’d been little snippets of truth hidden among the lies. That’s what had pissed me off. Because, though the majority of it had been mythical, those snippets had revealed a lot about me. To discerning eyes, some of which belonged to my competitors in the field, they were telling.
Like my need for white, empty living spaces. Or my pathological need to use the staircase over the elevator unless I was alone in there. Small, informative tidbits about my behavior in class, as well as rumors that had spread about my hacking into the college server. It was the truth; I had successfully hacked into the server and had managed to sneak around in the database for a little while, but I sure as hell didn’t want the rest of the world knowing that.
Humans, be they female or male, have the nasty, irritating habit of turning the world upside down in the search for profit, and unfortunately, ever since my earliest inventions took flight, I’ve been a target.
As I let my tongue unfurl along the length of hers, teasingly taunting her with it, urging her into a breathless kiss that has her panting and reaching up to cup my face to hold me to her, I can’t help but wonder how this woman will betray me.
It’s only a matter of time. It always is. Someone will come along, because they always do. Be it the press or a competitor… they’ll slip sly words into her ear, make her offers she’d be a fool to turn down. Loyalty, in my world, has to be bought, because if it isn’t, it can’t be trusted. It’s a myth, more precious and more rare than a lost treasure. But I don’t want to think about that now. Not when she’s on my knee, compliant, and enjoying my touch.
I pull away from her lips, ignoring her moan of complaint, and dot kisses along the taut length of her jaw. Tracing the line with my tongue, I smile a little as she shivers at the sensation and withhold a sigh of my own when she wriggles in my lap.
My dick is still pounding out an angry message—it really didn’t appreciate being squashed beneath her palm, but with each throb of need, it seems to be easing some, and with each wiggle, I’m left wishing I could spread her out on the thick rug beneath us and take everything she’s offering.
Nibbling down her throat, enough to leave a faint mark, but not a semi-permanent one, I murmur, “Come to dinner with me.” I let the invitation be more of a statement than a request. I know from her file that Grazia is an independent little thing. I know she’s had to fight hard for the successes she’s earned, but the way she submitted to my kiss then also tells me a lot about her.
Those weaknesses I can use to my advantage, because though she might not be aware of it, she will be my mistress. Loyalty bought and paid for.
I let the thought flutter away and smile wider when she breathily tells me, “Yes, yes, thank you.”
I cup her left breast, weighing the heaviness in my palm as I squeeze it gently. She writhes on my lap at the barest caress and I know it’s been a while since someone touched her like that. Satisfaction floods me, making my cock pound urgently against the weight of her butt.
“When?” I ask, lifting my hips a little so she can feel exactly what it is she does to me. There’s power here between us, a power that I sensed the moment we first met. She’d be crazy to back away from it, to ignore it or to let it go to waste. I, for one, refuse to let that happen. Which is why we’re here. Which is why I won’t relent until I get exactly what I want.
Her.
In my bed.
For as long as we mutually need one another.
“When what?” she replies, asking a question with a question.
Amused that she doesn’t remember what we’re talking about, I murmur, “Your coming to dinner with me. When?”
She blinks up at me, those big chocolate-brown eyes of hers hitting me square in the gut with their power. She’s Italian. Every bit of her screams of her ancestry. And when she stares at me, with that languid look, I’m reminded of Naples. The scorching heat of summer, the clearest blue skies, the warm winds… she’s elemental in her beauty. Everything about her makes me think of us entwined on a bed. And I know I’ll have to take her to my house there, simply so I can make love on the four poster that had spawned a dynasty… before I bought the entire mansion from the poverty-stricken prince whose family had owned it for hundreds of years.
Just the idea of seeing her on that expanse of white linen, as the wind rushes into the room through the French doors, as the gauzy curtains around the bed flap in the breeze, makes me wish I was there with her now.
“Today? Tomorrow?” She shrugs a shoulder, then reaches up to brush her lips over mine. “I don’t care when.”
Her words empower me, and urge me down a path I shouldn’t necessarily take… “Be my mistress, Grazia. Come together with me.”
When she stiffens, I hold her on my lap, refusing to let go.
“Let me up,” she demands, her voice still husky, but this time, I can hear the hurt there, and I regret it.
“I can’t be with you without protecting myself, Grazia. You have to understand that.”
“Then be alone,” she retorts, eyes flashing with ire. “I don’t need you.”
“No, you might not yet, but you want me, and when was the last time you’ve wanted someone?”
I know the dig will hit home, mostly because my investigation into her background showed very little in the way of personal or intimate relationships with anyone—man or woman.
She has family in Brooklyn, family she rarely sees—odd enough for an Italian girl. She has a few friends, ones she barely visits or goes out with. Indeed, the only person she seems to be with on a regular basis is an assistant of hers. My investigator saw her go out for a meal with the younger woman, and it wasn’t on business.
She freezes on my lap, and I know she’s processing my words. I know it because I can almost see the cogs turning as she thinks back to the last time she allowed herself to be intimate with someone. To the last time she allowed herself to care.
It’s interesting watching her process the details. She blanches, then flushes, then, with eyes that spit fire at me, states, “Don’t ever call me your mistress.”
I frown at her. “It’s just a title.”
“A title I don’t appreciate. I’ll sign whatever clauses you need to protect yourself, even fill in a contract if I have to, but don’t have it state anywhere that I’m your mistress. Or that I’m a companion! Partner… that is all I’ll allow you to call me.”
For the first time, she’s surprised me. Her vehemence is unexpected. I know most women don’t necessarily appreciate the term ‘mistress’, but her anger is far more than just a feminist disapproval.
It burns her.
It scalds her.
She’s ashamed that I’ve asked this of her and that she’s conceding because she wants to be with me.
Slowly, I nod. “Don’t worry, there’s no real mention of anything in the contract. It’s simply a nondisclosure agreement.”
Her jaw works for a second, then she turns away. “Where is it? I’ll sign it now. We’ll get this damned thing over with.”
She hauls herself off my knee, and I let her, but the instant I let go, I miss her warmth, her heat. My fingers ache with the need to reach for her, to ask her to come back to me. And I don’t just mean physically.
I can tell she’s placed distance between us. A distance I have to span or it will drive me insane.
“You understand why I have to do this?”
Those beautiful eyes of hers are cold. Enough to make me shiver. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t sound like you do,” I counter, crossing over to my desk. In the drawer, there’s the standard contract I had one of my lawyers write up. It protects me, my name, and this company’s name, and ensures that if any of my ‘companions’ do decide to go to the press, they’ll be diving headfirst into legal battles the likes of which would make even an attorney wince.
“I get it,” she grits out. “What do you want? Blood?”
“No, but I don’t want you to be bitter.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you being serious? You’ve just used my desire for you against me. You’ve just twisted something honest and beautiful around, made it ugly and cheap.”
“Trust is costly, Grazia. I can’t afford to trust, not right at the beginning of a relationship. Surely you can understand that?”
“I can understand, but I don’t have to appreciate it. In fact, you can expect a similar contract from me. I’ll speak with my lawyer and have it sent over to you to handle.” When I just blink at her in, I admit, astonishment, she curls her top lip. “I have a reputation to protect too. The last thing I need is some spoiled billionaire wrecking my good name because things have ended poorly between us. This way, if I’m the one to dump you, you can’t get back at me by trying to ruin my business.”
“I understand your need for protection,” I snap, even though I’m pissed off. As if I’d ever try to discredit her, dammit. But the tit-for-tat nature of her comment makes me understand her own agitation with the NDA. “Don’t bother having it sent over. I’ll have one of my lawyers draft it for you and I’ll sign it and send it to your lawyer so you know it’s a solid contract and that you’re protected.” When her mouth pops open, I can sense her desire to argue. Shaking my head and holding up a hand, I tell her, “Look, I’m rich, you’re not. I can afford to get one of my lawyers to waste their time on petty things like NDAs. You can’t. I don’t mind handling this. If you simply get your legal representative to make sure you’re protected, then it won’t cost you as much.”
At my first remark about her relative poverty in comparison to me, she stiffened, but after I finish, she starts to loosen up. “Thank you,” she unbends enough to say.
“You’re welcome. Now, this is the agreement. It’s short. Check it through, and sign it, then we’ll discuss where we’re going for dinner.”