“Are you sure you want to know?”
No, she didn’t. This was dangerous. She had no business playing games with Raphael. So she sat down.
To her immense relief, he took the opposite seat. His long legs folded along the length of her own without touching. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been avoiding the entire male population of Milan. Unsuccessfully.”
His frown deepened, while his long fingers played with a paperweight. “So Gio is still determined to find a prince for his perfect princess. Tell me, is it because you’ve been thwarted in love that you’ve decided to let Gio buy you a nice, convenient husband instead?”
She stood up so fast her head whirled. “If all you’re going to do is mock me, I’ve—”
His arm shot out and caught hers, stalling her. “Mi dispiace, si?”
“You can’t say things with every intention of cutting me, and then expect to be let off by saying sorry. The last thing I want is to involve you. I came because I’ve no choice. And because, believe it or not, I trust you.”
His gaze flared, caught hers, compelling and dominant. But it was she who held it, letting him know she might quiver at his touch but it didn’t make her weak.
A muscle flicking under his jaw, he looked away first.
Pia felt as if she had won a minor battle. She took a drink of water and watched him over the rim of her glass.
Whatever had passed between them, it was gone. Smoothed away beneath his perfect featured mask. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“You were right. Giovanni hosted that ball with the intention of introducing me to eligible men. Introducing being a euphemism.
“I haven’t had a day to myself since that blasted night.
He’s dragging me to party after party, brunch after brunch as if I were...a mule he’s determined to be rid of.” Raphael’s mouth—that sensuous mouth, twitched, and Pia glared at him. “It’s not funny.
“I can’t turn around before there’s a grandson or a son or a twice removed cousin of one of Gio’s friends visiting. There’s so many of them I can’t even keep their names straight. If I refuse to go on an outing, Gio encourages my escort to walk around the estate with me. If I refuse to accompany one of them to a party, Gio takes me there anyway and then abandons me with them.
“I know and you know and the whole damned world knows that it’s not my infinite charms or my breathtaking personality that brings them to me in droves. But Gio refuses to acknowledge it. Pretends as if he can’t hear me when I say half of them are just plain...”
“Idiots?” Raphael offered unhelpfully.
“I’ve had enough of the false attention, the warm looks, the overdone praise of my nonexistent beauty. I’ve taken to packing a picnic lunch first thing in the morning, and escaping to remote corners of the estate to avoid them.”
“No one can stop Gio when he gets an idea into his head. Why do you think he’s estranged from not only three ex-wives but also his brothers and sisters?”
“He’ll listen to you. He thinks you walk on water.”
Raphael shook his head. “I already warned him this would happen. But he’s determined to find you a...” He raised his hands palms up. The defeated gesture didn’t suit him at all. “Don’t shoot the messenger.
Why don’t you tell him to back off?”
“Every time I bring it up, he gets all teary and sentimental, starts rambling about the mistakes he made with Nonni and about leaving me to face men like Frank alone. He works himself into quite a temper.
“He raves about going to his grave knowing that you and I are all alone in the world. He feels responsible for you too, you know.”
Raphael snorted. “You do realize that your grandfather is a manipulative bastard, si?”
“That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true. Giovanni will manipulate you until you agree the sun revolves around the earth.”
She rubbed her forehead, something clicking. “Wait...so you don’t think I’m an impostor anymore?”
“My PI informed me that you’re indeed Lucia’s granddaughter. And Giovanni’s.”
* * *
Which was why Raphael hadn’t visited Gio. But four days and a million thoughts hadn’t been enough for him to figure out how to handle the fact that Pia was Gio’s granddaughter. Or to convince himself not to handle her, in any way.
There were a hundred more beautiful, more sophisticated women among his acquaintances. Women who would suit him for any kind of arrangement he wanted. Women who didn’t look at him with barely hidden longing.
Women who were not his complicated godfather’s innocent granddaughters.
He’d been waiting it out. Telling himself that she was just a novelty with her honest admissions and her innocent looks.
That he’d always preferred experienced women—both in bed and when dealing out of it.
And yet, from the moment he’d seen her standing outside his office, awareness had hummed in his blood.
Today, she looked the part of an elementary teacher with her black-framed geeky glasses, her brown hair in a messy knot precariously held together with a wooden stick, he realized with a grin, and a frilly, floral blouse and worn-out denim shorts that clung to her nicely rounded buttocks and displayed her mile-long legs.
With no makeup on, she should have looked ordinary. But he’d already looked past the surface. Knew that beneath the plain facade was a woman who felt everything keenly. Knew that if he touched her, she would be as responsive and ravenous as he was.
The summery blouse made her look more fragile than usual. He wanted to trace the jut of her collarbone with his fingers. And then maybe his tongue. He wanted to pull that stick in her knot so that her hair tumbled down. He wanted to slowly peel those shorts down until he found the silky skin of her thighs so that he could...
Fingers at his temple, he forced the far too vivid, half-naked image of her from his eyes. Christ, even as a hormonal teenager he hadn’t indulged like that. For one thing, he’d never had a spare minute.
“You had a PI dig into my background?”
He shrugged, glad that he was sitting. “Gio has been hoodwinked by three ex-wives into not only marrying them but settling fat alimonies on them.”
She got up, walked around the coffee table that separated them and sat down at the other end of the sofa he was sitting on. Tilting her chin up, she gave him a haughty look. “I’m waiting, Raphael.”
He grinned. “For what?”
“An apology. What do you think?”
“Didn’t you just tell me you don’t want apologies for things I’m not really sorry about?”
“You’re the most arrogant, annoying man I’ve ever met.”
“Tell me what brought you here, despite that.”
“Last night we had a really bad argument. He was pushing me into a corner and I... I said something really awful.” Big fat tears filled up her eyes. And just like that Raphael went from mild irritation to a strange tenderness in his chest.
Raphael leaned forward and took her tightly clasped hands in his. Even as he fought it, awareness seeped through him from her hands. The rough calluses on her hands, the slender wrists, the blunt nails—everything about her enthralled him.
He looked up and