Baby By Accident: International Billionaires III: The Italians (4 page)

Amazingly, she didn’t feel anything except a bright new hope.

Jerk he might be and a total playboy, but Vico Mattare had done her a huge favor and yanked her off her pedestal. She might still be a lady, but underneath, she was all sexy siren.

She grinned at her image in the mirror.

Without a doubt, he’d make her life miserable at work and he’d try to use this to his advantage in the war raging between them. Who cared? She’d ignore him until he flitted off to another one of his millions of women.

Then she could focus on all the changes she wanted to make in her life.

Padding down the hall, she walked into the bedroom and flipped the blinds closed. The room turned into a warm, dark cocoon. Exactly what she needed right now. She groaned in relief as she slid under the cool covers. She would sleep this away, take the weekend to wallow in blissful nothingness, and then focus on banishing Vico Mattare from her memories and from her business.

By Monday, she’d be ready.

Ready to defeat him in the boardroom.

Already having forgotten him in the bedroom.

F
ury
.

Not an unfamiliar feeling. In fact, at one time in his life, it had been about the only feeling he ever experienced.

Fury at his teachers who labeled him stupid.

Fury at his family’s poverty.

Fury at his father for dying.

Vico tapped his fingers on the boardroom table in front of him. The room was empty. He’d come here to settle in, settle down. In a few moments, the major stockholders would file in for their weekly Monday-morning meeting. Major stockholders including one Ms. Lise Helton.

Who had treated him like a
puttana maschio
. A male whore.

Her behavior three nights ago could not have been any more insulting than if she’d left a pile of pound notes on his bedside table. She’d begged him—begged him!—to take her with a winsome smile that had almost stolen his heart. But then, she’d leapt out of his bed as soon as he slept without a word about what had passed between them.

Purposefully, he steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and breathed.

Slowly. In and out.

The red-hot fury simmered back into his control.

No woman had ever, ever walked out on him after sex. No woman had ever, ever treated him like an animal fit for only one thing. And no woman would ever, ever be allowed to get away with such behavior. The battle with Lise Helton was no longer professional. Now a very, very personal battle lay between them.

A vendetta.

He laughed softly under his breath. Just like old times.

Awakening to an empty bed, after the best sex he’d ever had, had been disorienting at first. He’d still smelled her quiet scent on the pillow, still inhaled the salty aroma of their lingering sex on the sheets. Aroused and aggravated, he’d leapt out of bed, intent on finding her and bringing her back to where he wanted her.

He’d prowled through his entire home, yet he’d known. Known in his gut as soon as he’d awakened.

She’d left.

Left him as if discarding a used toy. Left him before he could witness her defeat, witness her embarrassed realization she’d slept with a peasant.

Not only slept. Seduced.

Lise Helton had not only treated him like
puttana maschio
, she’d also deprived him of his victory. His rightful victory over her aristocratic disdain.

Now, in this silent boardroom, rage blinded him in a scarlet haze. It choked in his throat, burned in his gut exactly as it had at that moment two mornings ago. The rage cut into him like one of the many knife blades he’d used in his youth. It sliced and ripped at his pride.

She’d left him because she had her well-bred fiancé to go back to. She had no use for a dirty savage, no need for him other than the basic one of sex.

The woman was a lying cheat. No lady. No one a person could trust.

Not someone a man should obsess over.

Vico’s jaw tightened into a knot.

She didn’t know what she’d unleashed. The
Princesse
thought she dealt with a raw barbarian, a smiling gigolo. A man not fit to kiss her shoes, much less her mouth.

That. That of all the talons digging into his pride was the worst. The woman hadn’t even kissed him, had she? She’d taken him, used him, let him slake her thirst for sex, but not once had she touched his mouth with hers. Not once had he tasted the essence of her.

Because she thought he wasn’t worthy.

Vico grabbed the pen lying by his laptop. His fingers tightened around it until they went white. He sucked in another breath and tried to wrap his anger into his fist and forget everything else.

One thing, however, he could not forget or ignore. Beyond the rage billowing inside him lurked an agonizing guilt. He hated the feeling, rejected the shame. Except the guilt still beat, deep down. He’d taken her without protection; something he’d never done in his life. Plus, he’d taken her when she’d been semi-drunk. Had she known what she really wanted?

A bitter taste of self-disgust filled his mouth.

He’d thought himself so clever, so damnably in control of himself. He’d put her in his bed never thinking he’d act on the lust. Never contemplating that the perfect lady, the
Princesse
, would reach over and actually initiate the act herself. He’d thought he was playing a game, winning the war.

Instead, he’d been acting impulsively. Not thinking through the potential consequences. Only listening to his ego instead of his logic. Exactly as he had fifteen years ago.

You are an uncontrollable savage.

The memory of his brother, Giorgio’s, words bit deep. Exactly as they had fifteen long years ago.

Vico closed his eyes and closed his mind to the memories.

Focus on the present. Focus on your rage.

To hell with her. The woman could take care of herself. The cold-as-ice female surely had birth control handled and covered. Her rigid, organized brain would not have missed that important detail. He couldn’t imagine she’d want the messy task of raising children.

The chances of repercussions were slim to non-existent.

No way would he tamp down his temper and give her a pass because of his simmering guilt. No, no. His plans were already in place. Lise Helton would finally find out who she’d really been playing with these last two months. What kind of man she’d dallied with Friday night. What it meant to confront a ruthless man intent on bringing her to her knees.

The image of her, on her knees in front of him, flashed like a blinding arc across his mind. Just as quickly, the lust he’d banked behind his temper and guilt flared to potent life. His whole body broke out in a sweat. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth in need. His cock shot to attention as if her breath actually whispered over its length.

“
Maledizione
,” he cursed under his breath.

The door swept open. He glanced to the side.

Lise Helton’s icy, cool eyes met his straight on and then, they looked straight through him. As if he didn’t even exist. The flare of fury blasted back into his soul.

Sweeping by where he sat at the head of the table, she moved down the length of the boardroom toward the other end, ignoring him. So. That was how she meant to play it. He shouldn’t be surprised.

Why was he surprised?

The fury built, blurring the edges of his sight.

Dressed in one of her formidable power suits, a navy steel suit of armor, her whole presence screamed her distance and disdain. The temptation to rear up and throw her on the table, rip off the suit of armor while she protested, plunge into her until she pleaded, fired through Vico’s blood.

Too bad he was foiled by the stream of people who followed her entry.

The rustling and low murmurs as the stockholders took their seats around the long oblong table did not diminish the pulsing, pounding connection he felt toward the woman who’d calmly sat down at the other end. She ignored him, opening her laptop in front of her. But he could not, would not, believe she didn’t also feel the pull, the chain of tortured bonding tugging between them.

His pride demanded she must feel the same. She must.

Mr. Smithton, the nominal head of the stockholders, cleared his throat.

After picking him to deliver the news to the entire board, Vico had, at first, planned on merely standing back and lending his gravitas to the proceedings. Now, though, now after what had happened Friday night, everything was entirely different. Smithton would be allowed to make the initial announcement if only so Vico could watch her face. However, after the short speech, he himself would explain the changes coming to this company he’d purchased. A company he now would finally begin taking control of, imprinting it with his own personality over her worthless objections.

He wanted his voice, stating all the changes, echoing in her mind for a long, long time.

Smithton coughed. The man knew what lay ahead. The building tension in the room was a whispering harbinger of the fight to follow. The old man’s face flushed as he mopped his forehead.

Lise Helton raised one brow. Scenting trouble for the first time, no doubt.

“Get on with it,” Vico growled low.

Her other female blonde brow rose to meet its twin. He watched as her mouth firmed.
Si,
this was going to be far more pleasurable than what he'd dreamed of during the last few days.

Smithton cleared his throat once more and began to speak.

Dead silence stilled the air when he completed his short announcement.

Vico stared down the long table, watching her. Watching as her face paled, her eyes iced. Her mouth, the lush mouth she had withheld from him, tightened into a white line.

“You have got to be kidding.” Her quiet words bounced off the walls and then rained down on his head.

Her past supporters, the ones who'd never accepted him until he'd started his charm offensive, stared down at the papers in front of them. All of them knew, with one or two exceptions. All of them had been at the lunch meeting he'd held on Friday. Without notifying her of its timing and without notifying her of its agenda. All of them were traitors to their…

“
Princesse.
” The nickname came from his mouth, shooting across the table like a stiletto. “The time for kidding has long since passed.”

She managed to ignore his provocation, his pointed label. Her eyes flashed with frozen fire, and still, she kept her composure and pride. Pressing her hands on the table, she rose like an offended royal. She stared at the bowed heads before her, then challenged him using a commanding glare. “This company will not descend into the unsound practices you propose.”

“No?” He twirled the pen in his long fingers. “Except I believe your subjects no longer agree with you.”

A low murmur came from the surrounding group. But it didn't penetrate the wall of conflict burning between him and her. Neither of them broke the contact of their eyes, the combat of their pride. Neither of them backed down. Vico gave her his begrudging admiration. The woman was a worthy opponent. Had been for two months. Also, damn her, she'd been a worthy bedmate. More than worthy.

But she did not accord him, had not accorded him, the same respect.

“Time to take the vote, Mr. Smithton.” His words were soft, yet confident.

She sensed his confidence immediately. Her eyes widened in dawning horror. “What have you done?”

Vico smiled. A smile he'd never given her. This was the smile he'd used as a kid when confronted with a challenge from another gang member. The smile he'd given questioning cops. The smile he gave those he hated. “I have won.”

She stiffened. He knew she believed him, believed his claim to victory. Like a blade, the realization pierced her through. He wasn't sure what it pierced.

Her heart? No. More likely, her pride.

The comprehension of her loss did pierce her, though. He sensed this in his gut. In his soul. This strange connection between them told him this had cut her right to the bone. He might have felt sorry for her if it had cut her heart.

But a woman like Lise Helton didn't have a heart. Of that, he was sure.

V
ico Mattare wouldn’t win
. He couldn’t win.

Lise marched into her office and slammed the door.

Hannah, her PA, glanced away from her computer screen, giving her a sharp look. “The meeting didn’t go well?”

“Ha!” Frustration and fury stormed inside her.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Pushing back from her desk, the older woman stood and walked to her side. Her PA had been assigned to Lise by her father the moment she’d strode through the front doors of HSF seven years ago. Initially, she had objected. She’d wanted to pick out her own staff. But Hannah had proven to be a stalwart ally through many a fight.

“You have to help me.”

“You don’t need to ask. You know that.” Hannah gently patted her shoulder. Twenty years older and twenty years wiser, the woman had become Lise’s keenest eyes and smartest advisor.

“He went behind my back.” Taking in a deep breath, she tried to calm down so she could think. “He talked to all the other stockholders and sold them his smarmy plans.”

“
He
being Mr. Mattare, I take it.” The older woman strode to small refrigerator they kept in the corner and pulled out two bottles. “Here.” She handed over one and twisted the top off the other. “Drink first. Then talk.”

She gulped down the cool water. “I can’t believe he did it.”

“Really?” Her PA leaned on her desk, her face quizzical. “Why would you think he wouldn’t?”

Because he had sex with me.

“I’m an idiot.” She held the bottle to her hot forehead. “Of course he’d do this. I should have seen this coming.”

Hannah took a swig of her water. “So they voted with him.”

“Yes.” The bottle of water squeaked as her hand squeezed. “I have to reverse this somehow.”

The older woman gave her a look. A look she’d seen several times before. Most of the time, her PA agreed with her on just about everything. But she wasn’t shy when she didn’t and Lise had come to value these disbelieving, discouraging looks when she got them.

“What?” She straightened her spine. “You don’t think I should?”

Hannah sighed. “You are both so smart.”

“Being sneaky isn’t smart.”

“You are both so smart and so savvy,” the older woman doggedly continued. “If you joined forces instead of fighting each other—”

“Join forces? With him?” She didn’t know why, but somehow the words made her heated in an entirely different way than the anger chugging in her system. The words brought back images of joinings that had nothing to do with work and everything to do with what she’d done with him a few nights ago.

“Don’t be so angry.” Hannah sighed again. “Goodness, Lise, you’re completely red with fury.”

“I’m not…” Well. She wasn’t going to tell her assistant why she was really blushing.

“Hear me out.”

Stomping over to the elegant settee they'd put in the corner of the room for the endless line of employees always waiting to have a word, she slumped into its comforting arms. “Okay. Fine. I’m listening.”

Her PA drank the last of her water. “I know you don’t like him and I know you don’t trust him, but I’ve been watching him for several months now.”