VITTORIO'S LOVER (Vittorio Series) (8 page)

Of course, i
f Jillian was pregnant, he would probably try talking her into aborting it. And when that failed, he would offer to pay her off and do everything in his power to insure his perfect life wasn’t ruffled by her existence. Her baby would never know his father. Given the type of man he was, perhaps it was better that way. No, there wasn’t a thing she could do or say that would instill a shred of decency in Luca, but maybe in going with Raffaele for a few days, she could uncover a chink in his brother’s armor. It wasn’t revenge, Jenesa told herself, but a way to extract a little justice from both of them.

If Raffaele wanted her as much as the ravenous look in his eyes indicated, th
en she would give him what he wanted. But it would come at a price. She wasn’t beautiful in the ways her sister’s were; there were too many curves and
cushy areas
, as Linette called them, for Jenesa to be considered anything except average. She could only assume that Raffaele saw her through the eyes of his brother, who had obviously found Jillian too desirable to resist. It wasn’t important to know why he was attracted to her, but rather how she could use it to her advantage.

In theory, it was a pretty decent plan. In practice, it was riddled with holes. For one thing, she
had no control over her body’s reaction to Raffaele’s touch, as her trembling fingers proved when Jenesa took the hand he offered and let him help her out of the car. Her other senses graciously contributed to that particular weakness as well. Just looking at him made her insides quiver, while the mixture of sandalwood cologne and the masculine scent of his skin was like taking straight shots of tequila; the more she ingested, the dizzier she got.

Agreeing
to fly off with him to a private island where she would be at his mercy was undoubtedly the most insane part of all. Especially when her mind was such a jumbled mess of contradictions! One minute she was scared to death of being alone with Raffaele and the next minute she was excited by the prospect of having him all to herself. She despised him for pretending to be Luca and yet longed to be held in his arms and kissed again. She wanted to throttle him with her bare hands and at the same time, she wanted to run her hands across his massive chest, to feel his warm skin beneath her fingertips.
To hear him whisper her name as they made love
.

In other words, Jenesa was in big, big trouble.

“Watch your step,” he said as he guided her into an elevator.

Jenesa glanced around before entering the enclosure, unsettled to discover she’d been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed
when they entered the Vittorio Enterprises building. As the doors slid together, trapping her inside the small space with Raffaele, it hit her full force just how wealthy and powerful this man was. All the Vittorio men were, for that matter. She’d gotten a glimpse of the lobby and its rich interior, the marbled floors, the expensive furniture. He could crush her if he wanted to, put her and her sisters out of business, for Jenesa had no doubt the Vittorio influence could make or break a company like JLJ.

If you’re going to play with fire, be prepared to get burn
ed
, their father had always warned. Well, she was certainly doing that with Raffaele. She was out of her league and if Jenesa wasn’t careful, he would do more than just burn her. If he found out what she was up to, Raffaele would incinerate her and take pleasure in scattering her ashes to the wind!

Jenesa swallowed hard, a feeling of impending doom washing over her as they emerged from the elevator. The sharp click of her high heels on the polished marble echoed down the long corridor like a
bell tolling for the condemned criminal as he climbed the gallows. Morbid, yes, but Jenesa couldn’t help feeling she should find some place to kneel and confess her sins before entering the lair of the dark angel beside her.

“Jenesa? Are you coming inside?”

She blinked, suddenly conscious that she’d come to a halt just outside his office door. Raffaele had already entered and was holding the door open for her, obviously amused by her reluctance to follow him. If she was smart, she would run. She would calmly tell him that she had changed her mind, then turn away without further explanation and run as fast as her spiky heels and wobbly legs would let her. Instinct told her that crossing the threshold would alter her life forever, and that once she allowed Raffaele to become a part of her world, there would be no going back.

Run. Now. Before it’s too late.

A slow smile spread across his sinfully handsome face. “Trust me,
cara
, if it was my intention to seduce you, I would have chosen some place more conductive to setting the mood.”

“You think I’m being silly.”

“No, just overly cautious when there is no need to be.”

Oh, she had every reason to be cautious where Raffaele was concerned because she already knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to come out of this unscathed.
Jenesa highly doubted that anyone who came into contact with Raffaele Vittorio walked away untouched in one way or another. He had a powerful presence that demanded attention and an animal magnetism that made her pulse jump and her breath come up short whenever those dark eyes turned her way. She could almost hear the wall of resistance crumbling down around her when he held out his hand and urged her to take it.

And she did. Helplessly giving into the desire to touch him, to feel his warmth envelope her as his fingers curled around hers and gently tugged her inside the room. The door closed behind her,
ratting nerves that were already jittery and making her wonder what is was about this man that made all brain function cease. Thank God, Raffaele was true to his word and made no attempt to kiss her, although the sexy grin he leveled at her was more than enough to liquefy her bones.

“How much time do you need?” Raffaele asked as he led her to a sitting area where a plush leather sofa and matching chairs formed a horseshoe around an oval glass
-topped table.

“I…I’m not sure. Twenty minutes maybe?”

“Take as much time as you need. When I’m done checking in with my pilot, I’ll wait for you in the reception area we passed on the way.”

Jenesa watched him walk away with a mixture of relief and regret.
Did she really want to play this game of deception when everything inside of her longed for it to be genuine? With a heavy sigh, she kicked off her shoes and sank down onto the sofa, curling her legs beneath her. She wasn’t sure what she was going to tell Linette or how she was going to overcome the objections her sister would raise, but dialed the number anyway.

“Have you lost your mind?” Linette demanded several minutes later. “Hasn’t Luca
Vittorio done enough damage without you inviting his brother to follow suit?”

“There’s one big difference,” Jenesa argued. “I know I’m being played and I’m certainly not going to be foolish enough to fall for the
devious rat.”
Never mind that the devious rat was the most devastatingly handsome man she’d ever met, or that the sound of his voice sent shivers of excitement racing up her spine, or how divine he tasted.

“
Listen, Jen. I know you went there to sandblast Luca for the way he treated Jillian. I also know you were hoping he wasn’t the cold, unfeeling bastard we thought he was. I would have been thrilled if you’d told me he regretted leaving Jilli and wanted to see her again, but this charade he and his brother have concocted proves that our first impression was right.”

“Don’t you want to
why
they’re doing it?”

“Isn’
t it obvious? Luca thought you were Jilli so he sent his brother to get you out of there before his fiancé arrived. Raffaele was probably ecstatic when you mistook him for Luca and figured you would be more cooperative if he neglected to enlighten you.”

“But…why ask me to go away with him?
Even after I told Raffaele I was willing to meet with him again, he kept trying to persuade me to go to the island.”

“
I don’t know. Maybe he wants to keep you hidden away so there’s no chance you’ll run into Luca and his fiancé and realize they’re conning you. At any rate, I don’t like the idea of you being alone on that island with him. What if he tries to attack you or gets physically abusive? You won’t have any means of escaping from him.”

Jenesa closed her eyes, the memory of his gentle hand moving across her bare back still fresh in her mind. “He’s not going to hurt me, Linette. I think he just wants to find out what I’m up to – whether I’m out for blood
because of Luca’s shoddy treatment, a schemer with blackmail in mind, or simply a woman who fell head over heels and is hoping a relationship will develop.”

“If that’s the case, then what does Raffaele gain by spending time alone with you?”

“That’s what I intend to find out. For all we know, they’ve played this game before. Maybe they cover for each other when a situation gets sticky. After all, what woman is going to admit she slept with
both
brothers? And if I don’t stand up to them and hold them accountable for their actions, who will? Do we just let them walk away without any consequences so they’re free to keep hurting other women?”

“No, I guess not,” Linette replied with reluctance.

“Then it’s agreed. I’ll go with him for a few days, find out more about him and Luca, and hopefully come away with something we can sting them with.”

“Alright, but…be careful, Jen. One brokenhearted sister is all I can bear.”

“I will,” Jenesa promised. “This will actually work to our advantage. If Luca knows I’m safely tucked away on the island, he’ll let his guard down. If it turns out Jillian is pregnant, you’ll have a better shot at getting to him to deliver the news.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“As long as it takes.”

“And you’ll call every night?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” Linette sighed. “I just hope you know what you’re getting into.”

“I do,” she lied.

She decided against calling her parents in case they picked up on the strain in her voice and, a
fter extracting a promise from Linette to keep her visit to the island a secret from them, she quickly disconnected the call. Surprisingly, Linette hadn’t put up much of an argument and Jenesa didn’t want to press her luck.

In all honesty, Jenesa
didn’t have a clue what she was doing. She wished she did. She also wished she could say her motives were a hundred percent pure, but they weren’t. Neither were her thoughts. Raffaele did something to her, made her feel more vibrant, more alive, more…feminine than she ever had before. He made her ache inside, deep down, to the bone, and made her long for things that she shouldn’t. She couldn’t control the way she felt, anymore than she could control the beating of her heart, but that didn’t mean she had to act on it.

“You
will
be a pillar of strength,” she told herself sternly.

Jenesa
repeated the words over and over as she slipped her shoes on and took a few minutes to steady her nerves. Framed pictures on a bookshelf caught her attention as she was heading for the door; a temptation she simply couldn’t resist. Until that moment, it hadn’t occur to her that Raffaele would be careless enough to leave her alone in Luca’s office, but if there were as many achievement awards on his wall as there were in here, he couldn’t risk leaving her in his own office.

The photos
gave nothing away. There were enough pictures depicting all of the Vittorio brothers, either alone or with other people, that it would have been difficult to say whether one featured in more of them than another. They all had that dark Vittorio masculine beauty and were similar in height and build, but in Jenesa’s eyes, it was Raffaele who captivated her attention like the proverbial moth to a flame. Some pillar of strength she was going to be when a mere photo of him had the power to make her heart race!

Disgusted with herself for being s
o feeble minded when it came to Raffaele, she cast a furtive glance towards the door before crossing the room to Luca’s massive, mahogany desk. There was nothing illegal about what she was doing, Jenesa justified. After all, it wasn’t as if she was looking to steal company secrets. As it turned out, her conscious was spared the guilt trip that would have inevitably followed pilfering through Luca’s desk drawers.

A leather bound notebook lay open on the desk top with the words
Daily Reminder
heading each page. It was sectioned off, running from Sunday of the previous week to Saturday of this week, with several entries neatly printed in Luca’s bold writing. Jenesa leaned over the notebook with her palms on each side, more to keep herself from collapsing than any need to get a closer look.

If there had been any doubt that Luca and Raffaele were planning to railroad Jillian into doing things their way, there were certainly no doubts now.
Jenesa could almost feel her blood begin to boil as her eyes moved across the entry jotted down on the Monday following Luca’s night with Jillian.

Get with
G. ~ RE: full report on JLJ

                                                    FOUR

A full report on JLJ
.

What did that mean? Was Luca planning on going after their business? Dear God, was he going to use that as leverage in case Jillian became unmanageable? To prevent him from bringing financial ruin down on her sisters, Jillian would fold to his demands
without a second thought. The ironic part was that Jillian had been adamant about
not
contacting him!

“I won’t chase after him,” she’d said with tears in her eyes. “If he c-cares anything at all about me, he’ll come for me.”
Those were her last words on the subject.  Jillian had refused to talk about it any further.

Jenesa waited until the first initial wave of fury subsided before moving away from the desk and that treacherous
note. Had Luca made the decision to investigate their company before or after she’d started leaving messages for him? Most likely, he’d done it afterwards because there wouldn’t have been any reason to do so beforehand. She wasn’t afraid of an investigation as far as their business dealings went; their work ethics were exemplary and their books in perfect order. But Luca wouldn’t be as interested in that as he would be in destroying what they’d built.

Most of their clients were extremely wealthy and had been obtained through word of mouth by other wealthy clients who
were pleased with their services. All Luca Vittorio had to do was spread the word that he was dissatisfied with JLJ Inc, possibly refuse to attend any functions her company was contracted to handle, and he could easily drive them out of business in no time. No matter how happy their clients were with the job they’d done, very few of them would be willing to alienate the Vittorio’s or their rich and influential friends by retaining JLJ’s services.

Jenesa’s eyes narrowed. If the almighty Vittorio’s thought she was going to idly stand by while they demolished everything she and her sisters had worked f
or, they were seriously deluded! They weren’t the only ones with friends in high places. Surely, someone in their circle could arm her with the ammunition necessary to fight back. And if they couldn’t…or wouldn’t? Well, she had some friends in
low
places, too.

It all seem
ed so…surreal. Things like this just didn’t happen in real life. Granted, it wasn’t difficult to believe Jillian made a judgment error by sleeping with a man who was all wrong for her. If Luca had half the inane sexuality Raffaele possessed, Jenesa understood why her sister had fallen so hard, so fast. But sending your brother to intercept your lover before your fiancé sees her and investigating her business so you have a blackmailing tool in place in case things don’t go your way? Who does that sort of thing?