The Moretti Heir / Billionaire Extraordinaire: The Moretti Heir / Billionaire Extraordinaire

She suspected that her grandmother—who had only a rudimentary knowledge of the ancient strega witchcraft—hadn’t realized that when she’d cursed her lover, Lorenzo Moretti, and his family she was also cursing the Festa women. Virginia had spent a lifetime studying the curse her grandmother had used, trying to unravel the words so she could break it. There was no way to just take the curse back, since her grandmother had been the one who’d spoken the words and she was now deceased.

It totally ticked her off that she had panicked after coming this far. She was putting into action the plan she’d been thinking about since she was sixteen, since the moment she’d discovered the curse her grandmother had placed on the Moretti men and, by accident, the Festa women.

She wiped her damp hands on her classic Chanel gown. She was going to have to try to find Marco again—find him and charm him without giving away her plan. The key was to be vague. She had spent hours studying books on the strega spell her grandmother had used to curse the Morettis and looking for a way to break it. She’d determined through her research that to put the plan in action, she had to be anonymous.

She had only her grandmother’s memory of the words she’d spoken—words that Cassia had written in her journal and that Virginia had studied. Her grandmother had demanded retribution for her own broken heart, and in doing so, she’d doomed the Festa women to always have broken hearts.

There could be no joining of Festa and Moretti hearts. They had to stay forever apart. But their blood…As she’d studied curses, Virginia found a loophole. Separately, both families were doomed forever. But a child of Festa and Moretti blood could break the curse. A child given to her freely from a Moretti would repay the broken heart her grandmother had received from Lorenzo Moretti two generations ago and lift the curse on the Morettis and the Festas.

Now that the moment was here, she was really nervous. It was one thing to sit in her condo and make plans to seduce a man. It was something else entirely to actually fly around the world and put the plan into action.

She stepped out of the crowded room and onto the terrace that overlooked downtown Melbourne. Until now, the places she’d seen had been only the small town in Italy where her grandmother had grown up and her own home on Long Island.

Tonight, standing on this terrace looking out at the black sky dotted with stars, she felt like she was on the edge of starting something new. All the strega magic that her mother and grandmother had taught her had its basis in being outside. She looked up at the moon shining brightly down on her and took strength from it.

“It is a beautiful night, is it not?”

The deep, masculine voice sent a tingle down her spine and she wasn’t surprised when she turned around and saw Marco Moretti standing there.

The panic she’d felt inside the party didn’t return. Instead, as she looked over her shoulder at him, she felt a sense of power come over her.

“Yes it is,” she said.

“May I join you?”

She nodded.

“I’m Marco Moretti.”

“I know,” she said. “Congratulations on winning today.”

“That’s what I do, mi’ angela,” he said, grinning at her.

“I’m not your angel,” she said, though she loved the sound of him speaking in his native language.

“Tell me your name and I shall call you by it.”

“Virginia,” she said, very aware that her last name would give her away. So she kept it to herself.

“Virginia…very pretty. What are you doing here in Melbourne?”

“Watching you win,” she said.

He laughed out loud, the sound washing over her senses like the warm breeze that stirred around them.

“Will you join me for a drink?”

“Only if we can stay out here,” she said. She didn’t want to go back into the craziness of the party. Out here, she felt in control and better able to concentrate. Plus, she needed all the strega magic she could summon. The night sky filled with stars and the bright moon would help her.

“Certainly,” he said. He signaled one of the uniformed waiters and they placed their drink orders.

Once their drinks came, Marco took her elbow and led her farther away from the people lingering on the terrace. The terrace spanned the entire side of the building, and as they walked along, she became very aware of his hand on her arm, of the subtle brush of his fingers over her flesh.

When they reached a quiet area with no one around, he stopped walking and dropped her arm. Leaning back against the railing, he looked at her, his dark brown eyes intense. She wondered what he saw, she hoped she seemed mysterious, sexy, sultry. She was afraid she was going to give up the game she was playing by betraying her nervousness.

“Tell me about yourself, mi’ angela bella,” he said.

She hadn’t counted on her senses being engaged by Marco. She’d figured she’d come here, flash some leg and a hint of cleavage, and that he’d be turned on and take her to bed and she’d leave in the morning.

Instead she found that she liked listening to his voice. She loved his accent and the rhythm of his words as he spoke. Liked also the scent of his cologne, and the way that he made her feel like she was the only woman in the world. And of course, that fit what she’d learned about him—that his relationships, while short-lived, were very intense.

“What do you want to know, mi diavolo bello?”

He laughed again and she understood why he was considered so charming. Charm imbued every part of him. “So you think I am handsome?”

“I think you’re a devil,” she said.

“I love the sound of my native tongue on your lips,” he said. “Tell me about yourself in Italian.”

“I only know a few phrases,” she said, “What is it you want to know about me?”

“Everything,” he said.

She shook her head. “That would be a very boring tale. Nothing like the famed story of the Marco Moretti.”

“I bet that’s not true. What do you do?” he asked.

“Right now I’m on sabbatical,” she said, which was the truth. She had taken six months off from her teaching job at a small liberal arts college to follow the Formula One racing season and meet Marco.

“Why?”

“I’m going to be thirty next year and I decided it was time to see the world. I’ve always wanted to travel but never had the time.”

“So it’s just a happy coincidence that we are both in Melbourne?”

“Yes,” she said. A very happy coincidence, put in play by her own actions.

“Melbourne’s only the first stop. This is one of my favorite cities.”

“What do you like about it?” she asked. She knew little about the man beyond what she’d read on the Internet and in magazines.

“Tonight, I like that you and I are both here.”

She shook her head. “That’s a corny line.”

“It’s not a line, but the truth,” he said. “Come and dance with me.”

She took a sip of her Bellini. She’d caught his attention, diverted the conversation away from herself, and now…“Okay.”