“I’d let nothing happen to you, cara mia. Find a flaw, bring it down. Nothing more. I’ll not ask you to retrieve anything you discover, if you do crack it. Nothing to steal. Just find a weakness in the system.”
“Then why?”—the only question she’d even thought to ask.
“Let’s just say I have my eyes on the man who built it. I need to know if he’s as good as they say. Not a single hacker I’ve hired so far has been able to get through.”
And that had been his lure and she’d more than happily taken the bait.
She could’ve refused. He hadn’t insisted on it. He hadn’t called it as a return on all the favors he’d done for her and Frankie. He hadn’t once, in the ten years since they’d met, mentioned how he’d saved her from a bullying foster parent, or from a wretched future in the juvie system. He hadn’t mentioned not turning in Nat herself when he’d caught her stealing his wallet the first time they had met.
And yet, she’d done it.
Now she wondered at the questions she should’ve asked then.
What did Vincenzo have against Massimo?
Why this particular man?
Why his company?
Why had Vincenzo targeted the brainchild of tech genius Massimo Brunetti?
Instead, she’d thrown caution to the wind, given in to her one weakness and risked everything.
She hadn’t even been able to reach Frankie during the one call Massimo had allowed her. While he’d watched her like a hawk circling a carcass, Natalie had left a message that she was going out of the country for a friend’s sudden wedding, freeloading on the chance. That she would be out of coverage for a while but would call when she could. Her brother knew what a cheapskate she was.
“You’re quite the storyteller, Ms. Crosetto,” Massimo had said in his delicious Italian accent, all sleep mussed before he’d rushed her out of her apartment in the middle of the night, to collect their documents.
Nat pressed her fingers around the coffee cup in her hand—no rest-stop diesel-like coffee for Mr. Pretty Rich Boy. The dark roast felt like heaven on her tongue, anchoring her.
Her spine straightened against the limo as she heard Massimo step out on the other side. His security detail—one broad six-and-half-footer—and his two assistants: a thin man in his twenties with thick glasses and messed-up curly hair. What she’d expected the computer genius to look like—not the sleek, lean, sex-on-legs stud that was Massimo, shame on her prejudice... And the second one—a woman with a dark complexion, in her forties—followed him while he spoke into his cell phone.
Coffee forgotten, Nat watched him with wide eyes as he walked back and forth in front of her speaking in rapid Italian that she couldn’t understand a word of. After every other sentence, he paused, looked at her, and then started again.
Suit jacket gone, three buttons of the white dress shirt undone, that stylishly cut hair all rumpled up from his stint on her couch, he should’ve looked disheveled. At least a little tired. After all, he’d traveled across the Atlantic the previous day.
Instead, the stubble that coated his jaw and his upper lip, the V of his shirt glinting olive against the white of it, the snug fit of his trousers against lean hips—he was an erotic fantasy given form. The assault on her senses that had begun when she’d found him on her couch, trousers pulled up tight against powerful thighs, shirt equally snug against his shoulders, long lashes fanning against his sharp cheekbones... Her heart hadn’t still recovered from it.
And then while she’d stared at him like an enthralled idiot, he’d opened those gray eyes. For just a second, there had been something in his eyes. Something that made liquid desire float through her veins. Before he sat up with his ubiquitous cell phone attached to his ear.
“The jet is ready. Let’s go.”
That was all he’d said to her, before bundling her into the limo. Coffee had been acquired on the way.
When she’d refused, he’d frowned. “Drink up, Ms. Crosetto. I need you awake and alert.”
She’d tensed so hard her shoulders hurt. “Why?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to breach the security of another company.”
She’d immediately relaxed and then cursed herself when a shrewd light dawned in his eyes. Afraid he’d see even more, more than what she’d already betrayed, she’d looked away.
“I want to know exactly how you were able to create that tunnel through the firewall. Both the first and the second time. Each and every step. I want to also know of any other ways you can breach BCS’s security. All the truth, Ms. Crosetto. Not just the convenient parts.
“If I even get a sniff of duplicity from you, you’ll wish I had sent you to prison in your own country.”
Even the wonderful aroma of coffee had felt like poison then.
The threat still ringing in her ears, she swallowed when he beckoned her from the foot of the air stairs. The arrogance of the man scraped her raw. She’d survived the cruelty and negligence of a foster care system that was supposed to protect her, the heartbreak of knowing that she wasn’t good enough, just yet, to be her younger brother’s family.
No way was she going to let Massimo Brunetti control her with the threat of incarceration. No man was going to make her live in fear every day, not after everything she’d been through. Not this easily.
And just like that, an idea began to percolate in her mind. Her shoulders straight, she tilted her chin and walked toward him with confidence.
The narrowing of his eyes made her smile.
Yep, she’d do what he asked of her, but she’d do it on her terms.
* * *
“Call the cops if you’d like. But I’m not getting on that plane. Not until you hear me out.”
Massimo disconnected his call with Leo, Natalie’s husky voice filled with determination sliding over his skin like a sensuous whisper. That same voice whispering at his ear, after a night spent in bed together, limbs heavy around each other, those dark brown eyes languid with sated desire... His imagination fired up the picture faster than he could breathe.
Dios mio, of all the women to spur this insta-lust in him...she was the worst choice.
He wanted to blame the last six months of his self-imposed celibacy for it. But then, after the fiasco with Gisela, he’d been a little bit disgusted with himself. He should’ve known better than to play with a spoiled princess.
He’d been more than a little tired of playing the same old game of chasing a woman just for sex. He had nothing more to give right now. Not at this point in his life.
And now Leonardo had informed him that Greta had been pulled into the whole mess with Gisela. His nonni had decided that Gisela would make a suitable bride for the scion of the Brunetti dynasty, that she was rich enough, sophisticated enough and blue-blooded enough to spawn the next generation of Brunettis.
Which was happening...never. But it did mean handling Gisela and, now, his nonni without giving offense to the former and hurting the second.
Of all the messes...
“Mr. Brunetti? Did you hear me? I’m not—”
He turned slowly, bracing himself. Still, the up-tilted chin and the wide brown eyes packed a punch.
This morning, she’d dressed in a light green-and-black sweater dress that hugged her slender frame, pointing out curves he’d missed last night. The loose neckline kept sliding off her shoulder showing glimpses of silky skin that beckoned his touch.
The dress