Innocent in the Italian's Possession

The riffling of papers came over the line. Papers, when the company should be solely using computers!

“Sì, Cesare requested an expenditure.” Umberto noted the date.

Stefano set his teeth. It was the same time of month that his father and Gemma set aside for their jaunt to Milan.

“What was the purpose of this advance?”

“It wasn’t my place to ask,” Umberto said.

Stefano smoothed a thumb and forefinger over his brow, frustrated by the old-world attitude of his father’s employees. The misappropriation of funds should have thrown up red flags to the man in charge of finances.

Stefano gave a clipped thanks and ended the call.

He’d been able to launch a swift investigation on Friday, but he’d only been able to discern one damning thing. In the past nine months, his papa had taken monthly trips to Milan with Gemma Cardone. Each time a substantial amount of funds were removed from his personal account.

Clearly any money his father gave Gemma was for services rendered in her role as his mistress. Considering the staggering amount she’d gained, she must be very good in bed!

That was a thought he didn’t wish to dwell on.

Never mind that his body thrummed with sensual energy whenever she was near. She was a desirable woman and he was a red-blooded Italian who loved to love women.

That was all there was to it. That’s all there would ever be! He wouldn’t dally with his father’s leavings, nor would he fall under the charms of a scheming gold-digger again!

He would make her regret milking his father out of a fortune and causing his mamma such heartache. He could still hear the pain and fury in her voice when she’d phoned him just a week before she died.

“I have been publicly humiliated,” his mother had said. “I went shopping with your aunt Althea, only to be taken aside in the store and told that there was a block on my account!”

He could guess how her Sicilian blood must have boiled. “What did Papa say about this?”

“He told me that times were hard for the business. That he hadn’t said anything earlier because he didn’t wish to worry me,” she said. “But that was a lie. The old fool has taken a mistress. After thirty-three years of fidelity, he suddenly decides to take a lover.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Positive,” she’d said. “Ever since he hired that woman nine months ago, he pays little attention to me.”

The woman being Gemma Cardone with her innocent smile and seductive body. “You’ve based your suspicions on Papa hiring a new secretary?”

That heaped more coals on his mamma’s fiery temper. “They work together all day. They go away on business trips every month, yet Cesare denies he is branching out the shipping business. So I ask you what are they doing on these trips to Milan?”

Stefano hadn’t a clue, but his mother’s suspicions convinced him to look into his father’s affairs. It had been simple to follow his papa’s treks to Milan.

Each month he and Gemma drove the same route to Milan. They always lent the same suite in the hotel. They’d hole up there for three or four days. Stolen moments. A tryst de amore, he was sure.

Perhaps his father needed a young woman to fire his blood and make him feel virile again. These things happened. But Stefano wouldn’t tolerate his papa abusing his mother.

If Cesare Marinetti took a mistress to satisfy his lust, he must make concessions to his wife to soothe her pride.

As for Stefano, he damn sure couldn’t let a gold-digger bankrupt his father’s company! However, a car wreck one week ago had taken his mamma’s life and had nearly done the same to his papa. There had been no time to think about righting the wrong until now.

He splayed his hands on the desk and felt his blood pounding at his fingertips. Two things topped his agenda: Get Marinetti Shipping back on track and send Gemma Cardone packing.

His muscles clenched in anger—and desire—as he thought of her seducing his papa out of so much. Too much to let her get off easy.

His papa must have been over the moon for her. And why wouldn’t he?

She was more tempting than he’d imagined. Despite knowing what she was, he’d been powerless to stop the desire that had erupted inside him and flowed hotter than lava off volatile Mount Etna.

Hotter still than the Sicilian blood inherited from his mam-ma that demanded the satisfaction of vengeance and desire. He could hold a tight fist on his explosive anger, but he was powerless to control his desire for Gemma, and that admission angered him all the more.

No woman had ever had that much power over him. Not even the young gorgeous lover he’d brought home from college. He’d been unsure of the depth of his love for her. He’d questioned her profession of love for him.

But he hadn’t realized she’d been a gold-digger until she had seduced his brother. How ironic that she’d have had more wealth had she remained with Stefano.

It was a hard lesson learned. He’d not be duped again—especially by his father’s mistress!

Maledizionel She’d caused his mother untold grief, and made a fool of his papa. She’d not do the same to him.

But even as his heart thundered with the need for retribution, he knew a swift punishment wasn’t enough. No, Gemma Cardone should be made to suffer as his mamma has suffered the last few weeks of her life.

He strode to the window and stared out at the shipyard that had been in his family for generations. Marinettis had made their mark in quality ships, thanks to the seafaring men of Italy and the Mediterranean. Fishermen needed boats and ports needed ferries.

Like his papa and grandpapa before him, Cesare had embraced that simple prescription for success. He saw no reason to deviate or expand.

Stefano did. He had dreams of a bigger empire. A larger, cleaner international empire.

He’d wanted to build eco-friendly vessels. Sailboats, ferries, trawlers and d’elite superyachts. Ships that would rule the seas yet not destroy the fragile environment.

The superyacht would be the starship of his company. Floating pleasure palaces for the ultrarich, each custom made to suit discerning tastes.

His papa thought his idea was an adulteration of the principles of the company. They had butted heads. They had argued fiercely as only Italians do.

His papa insisted they were shipbuilders for Italians. Cesare was a millionaire and was content to move in that circle, refusing to cater to the whims of the ultrarich. He expected Stefano to fall into step with him just as his brother Davide had adhered to the niche Marinetti had carved for itself.

In fact, he and his brother had clashed the hardest. Over business, and the woman who’d come between them.

Stefano couldn’t or wouldn’t comply, not when he was nothing more than the second son in charge of menial tasks. Not when his papa refused to consider his ideas, preferring to adhere to the routine that he and Davide had hammered into place. Not when he had to watch his former lover’s belly grow with his brother’s child.

His heart hadn’t been broken, but his pride had surely been kicked hard.

Stefano didn’t regret leaving this old-world business mired in old-world attitudes. He’d made his fortune and continued to build on it. He’d made a name for himself. But it hurt his pride that his papa hadn’t praised his business sense or his daring once in the past five years.

He rested his fists on the windowsill, the wood as unyielding as his papa. Pride and honor ran deep in his veins.

One kept him away, even after the tragic death of his brother and his family.

One brought him back.

He flicked another impatient glance at the connecting door. Marinetti Shipyard had operated the same for years, making a profit that had allowed his papa to maintain his millionaire status. But all that had changed one year ago.