Niccolo Gavretti of Gavretti Manufacturing was his biggest competitor, and Niccolo would love nothing more than to see Renzo lose not only the next world title but also D’Angeli’s domination of the market. Renzo frowned as he thought of Niccolo. They’d been friends once, or at least Renzo had thought they had.
He knew better now.
And he would not lose. He would be the one to take the D’Angeli Viper onto the track and prove that he’d created the greatest superbike the racing world had ever seen—once the kinks in the design were worked out—and he would win another world title in the process.
His investors would be happy, the money would keep flowing and the next production version would be a huge hit with the public. Then Renzo would gladly retire from racing and leave it to the D’Angeli team to continue to dominate the motorcycle Grand Prix circuit.
Dio, per favore, one last title—one last victory—and he would stop.
Tonight was critical to his success, and he hoped he had not made a mistake in asking his plain but efficient secretary to accompany him. Desperate times, however, called for desperate measures.
He could appear at Robert Stein’s party alone, of course. Perhaps everything would be fine if he did. But he had no desire to spend the evening avoiding Stein’s daughter. Lissa was too young, too spoiled and too obvious in her attention.
And Robert Stein did not seem to appreciate his daughter’s interest in Renzo one tiny bit. Though Renzo did not normally care what fathers thought, in this case he wanted it clear that he had no interest in Lissa Stein. For that, he’d needed a date, a woman who would stay close to his side and do his bidding when asked.
Everything had been perfect until this morning when he’d found himself saying the words to Katie Palmer that he usually said to a woman he’d grown tired of. He’d dated her for a month now, and she’d started to grow too clingy. The makeup bag tucked into one corner of his bathroom vanity wasn’t too bad, nor was the toothbrush. Yet it was the shiny pink ladies’ razor with several refills in his shower that, oddly enough, had been the last straw.
He had no problem with a woman spending the night when he invited her to do so. He was, however, quite irritated to find one starting to move herself in piece by piece after only a dozen nights together. Sex was an important and fulfilling aspect of his life, but he saw no need to confuse the issue with cohabitation. Renzo did not need to live with a woman to enjoy her, and he always made it clear in the beginning what his expectations were. Whenever someone crossed that line, they were summarily dismissed from his life.
Katie Palmer was a beautiful woman, an exciting woman, and yet she’d begun to leave him cold even before the pink razor and its endless refills had appeared. He wasn’t quite sure why. She was exactly the sort of woman he usually dated—beautiful, slightly superficial and intellectually undemanding.
Renzo picked up his laptop again and stared at the report he’d been working on. He should have perhaps taken Faith’s suggestion to invite a former girlfriend tonight instead of pressing her into service, but when the idea had first struck him as he’d sat at his desk and stared at a neatly typed memo with a helpful sticky note arrow pointing to the line for his signature, he’d had a sudden idea that taking his capable, mousy little PA with him would be far more productive than taking a woman who expected him to pay attention to her.
If he took Faith, it was business. She was a quiet, competent girl. She was not necessarily unattractive, he supposed, but he’d never really looked at her for signs of beauty. Why would he? She was his PA, and she was quite good at her job. His calendar had never been so orderly or his appointments so seamless.
Faith was perfect, even if she wasn’t much to look at. She wore severe suits in dark colors that hid whatever figure she might have and scraped her golden hair back into ponytails and buns. She looked, truth be told, like a box. She also wore dark-rimmed spectacles.
But her eyes were green. He’d noticed that before, whenever she’d looked up at him through her glasses, her gaze sparking with intelligence. They were not dark like an emerald, but golden green like a spring leaf. And she smelled nice. Like an early-morning rain mingled with exotic flowers. There was no sharp perfume, no stale smell of smoke or alcohol or tanning solution.
But when she’d looked up at him this afternoon, her eyes flashing and a blush spreading over her cheeks, he’d had one wild, inconceivable moment when he’d imagined pulling her across the desk and fitting his mouth to hers.
Which made no sense. Faith Black was neat and efficient and smelled nice, but she wasn’t the kind of woman he preferred. He liked her because she was professional and excellent at everything she did. He was not attracted to her.
It was, he supposed, an anomaly. A sign of the stress he’d been under for the past few months as his engineers worked to bring the Viper to top form. There were problems that had to be worked out or the bike would fail on the track.
And Renzo refused to accept failure. He’d poured a great deal of money and time into the development of this motorcycle, and he needed it to succeed. Success was everything. He’d known that since he was a teenager, since he’d realized that he actually had a father but that his father had not wanted to know him.
Because he wasn’t a blue blood like the Conte de Lucano, or like the conte’s children with his wife. Renzo was the outcast, the unfortunate product of a somewhat hasty affair with a waitress. He hadn’t been supposed to succeed—but he had, spectacularly, and he had every intention of continuing to do so.
Lorenzo D’Angeli never backed down from a challenge. He lived for them, thrived on them.
The limousine came to a halt in front of a plain concrete apartment building in a somewhat shabby neighborhood. Renzo winced as he moved his leg. It ached enough that he should allow his chauffeur to retrieve Faith, but he was just stubborn enough to refuse to permit even that small moment of vulnerability.
The car door opened and Renzo stepped onto the pavement, looking right and left, surveying the street and the people. The area didn’t seem unsafe, yet it was worn. An unwanted memory tugged at his mind as he stood there. Another time, another place.
Another life, when he’d had nothing and had to struggle to feed his mother and younger sister. He’d been angry then, terribly angry. He’d always thought that if his mother had been more forceful, more demanding, she could have at least gotten the conte to make sure they had food and shelter. But she was weak, his mother, though he loved her completely. Too weak to fight back when she should have done so.
He ruthlessly squashed the feelings of helplessness the memory dredged up. Then he strode into the building and made his way to Faith’s apartment on the second floor. There was no elevator. Renzo took the stairs quickly, in spite of the sharp throb in his leg. When he reached Faith’s door, he took a moment to blank the pain from his mind before he rapped sharply.
She answered right away, the door whipping open to reveal a woman who might have made his jaw drop had he not had better control of himself. Faith Black was … different. A small spike of something—he did not know quite what—ricocheted through him as he studied her. She had not transformed into a voluptuous goddess, but she had transformed. Somehow.
The glasses were gone, and she was wearing makeup. He wasn’t certain she ever wore makeup at the office, though perhaps she did. If she did, it wasn’t quite like this, he was certain. Her lips were red, full and shiny from her lip gloss. Kissable.
Kissable?
“Mr. D’Angeli,” she said, blinking in surprise.
“You were expecting someone else?” he asked mildly, and yet the thought of her doing so caused a twinge of irritation to stab into him. Odd.
“I—well, yes. I had thought you were sending your car. I had thought I was meeting you at the event.”
“As you see, this