“I see no other option.” He poured the champagne in the glasses. “As certain as I am that I got the message across to Silvio today that you are untouchable, I’m not about to set you loose on the streets of Capri like...an orphan searching for a home.”
She frowned.
He waved a hand at her. “The point is I need that ring to show my grandfather. You need to be protected. So we stay together for the year and, like our original plan, we both get what we need.”
Relief flooded through her. “I don’t want to be a burden. I could work for one of your hotels. Pay my way. I’m a very good chambermaid.”
“You’re smarter than that.” He handed her a glass of champagne. “You proved to me what an innovative thinker you are that day at the Giarruso. You have great ideas, Mina. I’m offering to take you on as my protégée for the year.”
“Protégée?” Her fingers tightened around the stem of the glass.
He nodded. “I own a chain of luxury hotels from one side of the globe to the other. The best of the best. If you want to learn about business I can teach you everything you need to know.”
She frowned. “Why would you do that? I mean, I know you said I had good ideas, but surely you must be too busy for something like that?”
He leaned back against the railing, champagne glass in hand. “I got my start in business from someone who took a chance on me. I believe in paying it forward.”
She thought about what few options she had—as in none without a cent to her name, without a home to go back to. She’d made a decision when she’d left with Nate: to stand on her own two feet; to not allow herself to be controlled by anyone anymore; to make her own way in the world. The only path left was forward.
Nate was offering her a chance to fulfill her dream—to follow in her father’s footsteps. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the best because he thought she was smart and had potential. Because he thought she was more than the pretty face her mother had always pegged her as.
A warm feeling spread through her, heat infusing her cheeks at the validation she had craved. To say the thought of becoming Nate’s protégée was intimidating vastly understated the apprehension snaking through her insides. The combined terror and exhilaration the thought inspired. And yet she trusted him. Had instinctively trusted him this entire, crazy day. He hadn’t blinked once at coming to her aid despite what she’d thrown at him. Yes, he wanted the ring, but there was more to it than that. He cared despite his tough exterior.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said finally. “You’re an honorable man, Nate Brunswick. Grazie.”
“Not so honorable, Mina.” A dark glitter entered his eyes. “You called me improper not so long ago. I can be that and more. I am a hard, ruthless businessman who does what it takes to make money. I will turn a hotel over in the flash of an eye if I don’t see the flesh on the bones I envisioned when I bought it. I will enjoy a woman one night and send her packing the next when I get bored of her company. Know what you’re getting into with me if you accept this. You will learn the dog-eat-dog approach to life, not the civilized one.”
Why did something that was intended to be a warning send a curious shudder through her? Mina drew the wrap closer around her shoulders, her gaze tangling with Nate’s. The glitter in his eyes stoked to a hot, velvet shimmer as he took a step forward and ran a finger along the line of her jaw. “Rule number one of this new arrangement, should you so choose to accept it, is to not look at me like that, wife. If we do this, we keep things strictly business so both of us walk away after the year with exactly what we want.”
Her gaze fell away from his, her blood hot and thick in her veins. “You’re misinterpreting me.”
“No, I’m not.” He brought his mouth to her ear, his warm breath caressing her cheek. “I have a hell of a lot more experience than you do, Mina. I can recognize the signs. They were loud and clear in my hotel room that day and they’re loud and clear now.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. To protest further would be futile when her skin felt like it was on fire, her knees like jelly. He watched her like a cat played with a mouse, all powerful and utterly sure of himself. “The only thing that would be more of a disaster than this day’s already been,” he drawled finally, apparently ready to have mercy on her, “would be for us to end up in bed together. So a partnership it is, Mina.” He lifted his glass. “What do you say?”
She seized hold of her senses. “So we have a marriage in name only and a business partnership. How are we positioning the marriage to others?”
“As if it’s a real marriage.” He shrugged. “I see no harm in that and there is the Silvio factor.”
“And what about—” A wave of heat sped to her cheeks. “I mean, if we’re not sleeping together, how will you—you know...?”
A wicked smile curved his mouth. “Relieve myself? There are ways. And if I choose to indulge, I’ll do it discreetly.”
Right. She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. Seized the moment. “Yes,” she said, lifting her glass. “Grazie, Nate. I accept.”
Her dark and apparently not so honorable husband pointed his glass at her. “Then tomorrow we begin. Get some good sleep tonight, Mina. You’re going to need it for the ride I’m going to take you on.”
MINA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. For hours she’d lain awake, terrified that despite Nate’s assurances she was safe, Silvio would come after her. That perhaps his declaration it was over between them had just been to lull Nate into a false sense of complacency before he came after her to seek revenge.
“Refuse me again and you’ll discover the depths to which my anger can sink. I will not tolerate you repeating any of your silly jitters to anyone, Mina.”
She had trumped that. She had married another man!
She had little time to nurse her coffee over breakfast with Nate, however, her brain barely awake when he hit her with his Business Rule Number One. “You only get one chance to make a first impression. Looking the part is the first step to realizing the role.”
She couldn’t disagree with that, because clad in a silver-gray suit with an ice-blue tie, handmade Italian shoes gleaming on his feet, Nate looked every bit the power broker that he was. So off she went with Susana, the manager of the hotel’s boutique, to outfit herself with a casual and business wardrobe.
Susana had opened the boutique early just for them. She installed Mina in a chair in the fitting area with a tablet and coffee while she and an assistant gathered clothes. Mina used the time to research her enigmatic husband, hoping for some clues as to what made him tick.
It turned out to be a rather useless activity, because none of the business profiles she pulled up on Nate delved into anything more personal than she already knew. The grandson of legendary shipping tycoon Giovanni Di Sione, he had worked his way up the ranks of Di Sione Shipping, eventually running various overseas branches of the company before leaving to start Brunswick Developments, his multibillion-dollar real-estate development firm.
A self-made man who has used his uncanny business acumen, aggressive street smarts and brutal negotiating tactics to land marquee deals that put him on the Forbes billionaires list at age thirty-four.
Giving in to an urge she couldn’t suppress, she typed in her husband’s name plus the word woman. A slew of photos came up. True to his word, the majority of his dates at the high-society events he frequented were brunettes, with a few blondes of late. All stunning. All vastly more sophisticated than her.
“Ready?” Susana bustled into the changing area with another armful