An Innocent To Tame The Italian

She rubbed her sweating palms on her hips, which only brought her attention to her own outfit. A thread of shame filled her chest and she chased it away with much needed anger. God, she’d worked hard for every small thing she owned. To make an honest living for herself and for Frankie.

She felt the heat of Massimo’s body next to her, before she heard the curse from his mouth. Frowning, she craned her neck to see him. Flashes of light revealed the tension in his brow, that perfectly carved jaw so tight that it almost seemed fragile. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was no more inclined to go in than she was.

The suavely sophisticated man who’d taunted her was nowhere to be seen. In his place was a stranger with tension thrumming tightly through his lean frame.

“Massimo?” she whispered, unable to stem the concern she heard in her voice. “Is something wrong?”

“My father is here,” he answered softly, before he blew out another soft curse and shook his head. “He is a bully of the worst kind.”

“Must run in the family, then,” she quipped.

“No.” His soft denial was emphatic enough that her head jerked to him. Glittering gray eyes held hers. “I’m nothing like my father.” He rubbed his jaw, a tell she was beginning to recognize he did when stressed. “Dios mio, I forgot it’s his birthday week. That means Greta checks him out of the rehabilitation clinic and parades him in front of our family and friends in an annual tradition. That means—” his gaze swung to the luxury vehicles “—everyone is here.”

“Your father lives at a clinic?” She’d gotten the sense from him that family was important to him. Yet, he stared at his family’s villa like it was a nest of vipers.

“He’s a recovering alcoholic. The recovery, if we can call it that, has been in progress for a decade now. Leonardo put him there years ago. My brother...he’s the best at eliminating anything that could damage our name, our business. Our legacy.”

The bitterness in his words was unmistakable. “What do you mean your grandmother parades him?”

“You didn’t get the sordid Brunetti history online before you attacked BCS?”

The man changed skins as easily as a chameleon—one minute a charming rogue, the next a cunning businessman determined to make her spill her secrets against her own best interests. “I told you, I knew nothing about who and what you are.”

Hesitation flickered in his eyes, before he cast another glance toward the villa. “If you’re to be exposed to them... My father, for most of my childhood, went on alcohol-fueled rampages. He embezzled funds from the company account for his personal use. Affairs with numerous women—both willing and unwilling—lavish parties at the villa... Think of it as a decades-long, out-of-control party that Greta turned away from.

“By the time his misuse of company funds and resources came to Leonardo’s notice, Brunetti Finances, which had once been the leading finance giant in all of Italy, had been on the verge of bankruptcy. A dynasty reduced to nothing but a deck of cards standing on quicksand.

“Leo had to use every inch of his business acumen to stop it from crumbling around our ears. He slogged night and day to get us out from under debt, took control of the board. I designed an e-commerce tool at the same time. He brought in millions in investors, persuaded me to build and release it myself instead of selling the design like I had planned to. I created Brunetti Cyber Securities under the family company’s umbrella and launched the tool. With the revenue from it, we stopped Brunetti Finances from going under.