The Moretti Arrangement (3 page)

But as he paced around his home office he knew he couldn’t wait until morning to confront her. He needed a plan of action. He needed something to occupy his mind.

He stopped under the portrait of his
nono,
Lorenzo Moretti. The man who had the vision to make Moretti Motors what it was today. And Dominic shook his head.

His brothers and he had tried very hard to make sure that
Nono’
s problems weren’t theirs.

But being cursed with women…well, that was something that Dom seemed to share with his grandfather. Angelina’s betrayal cut deeper than he’d expected.

He walked to the bar and poured himself another drink. He tipped his head back and drained the glass. What was he going to do about Angelina?

He realized that he held all the cards. He could do whatever he wanted with Angelina. And he wanted
her.
He wanted her completely.

But what he really wanted, he realized, was to make her
pay.

Revenge wasn’t a noble trait, but she had stolen from him. All the while he’d been attracted to her and so trusting of her, and she’d been plotting with his enemy. The question was why?

He couldn’t stand to be alone with his thoughts anymore. He put his glass down, looked up Angelina’s address on his BlackBerry and called a cab. He’d had too much to drink to drive safely.

He had the cab take him to Angelina’s apartment building. She lived in a decent place and there was nothing about her lifestyle that indicated she needed more money. Certainly not the kind of money she’d earn by selling him out.

What did she need the money for?

He paid the driver and walked toward her building. It was chilly on this spring evening but not cold. He stood on the street looking up at the windows for a minute. He had no plan and that was odd for him. He was acting on an impulse and he had no idea how it would play out.

But he didn’t turn around. He went into her building. There was no doorman and he went to the elevator and pushed the button for her floor, pleased Ian had supplied him with so much of Angelina’s personal information.

The apartment building was less attractive from the inside than it had been from the street. The floors were dirty and showed signs of age. The building itself smelled faintly of onions and dust.

Was this it? Was living in this dismal place what had motivated her to try to get some extra cash?

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to sympathize with Angelina. She’d taken from him and she’d have to pay.

He rapped on her door. It was so late, he wondered if she’d even answer. He heard no sounds from inside her apartment and knocked again. This time he heard footsteps.

“Who is it?”

“Dominic.”

He heard the snick of the lock being disengaged and then the door opened inward. She leaned forward and glanced up and down the hall. “Are you alone?”

“
Sì.
May I come inside?”

She stepped back and let him in. Pivoting on her heel, she walked into her apartment. Dominic followed close on her heels right into the living room.

“Do you want to sit down?” she asked.

After he’d taken a seat in a large leather arm chair his anger got the better of him. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “Why?”

Angelina didn’t appear the least surprised that she’d been found out.

“It’s complicated,” she told him. “I’m not sure that I can explain it.”

“You’re a smart woman. Try.”

She took a deep breath and he thought he saw sadness in her eyes, but he refused to feel sympathy for her.

“I have a brother—”

“What does he have to do with you stealing from me?” Dominic asked.

“Everything,” she said. “He’s the reason why I got involved with ESP Motors.”

“Does he work for them?” Dominic asked, pushing to his feet.

“Not exactly. He’s a bit of a gambler,” Angelina said. She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Renni doesn’t have a sense of responsibility like you do.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“My brother is a weak man. He gambles, a lot. And when he gets into trouble he comes to me for help. He’s my little brother, so I do what I can.”

“Because your parents are gone?”

“Yes, we only have each other.”

“What kind of trouble is he in?”

“He gambles in illegal places because he really doesn’t have the funds for high-stakes poker in casinos.”

“So he owes criminals money?”

She nodded. “Yes. But this time I couldn’t cover his debts and he met a man in a London pub who offered him money in exchange for Moretti Motors’ secrets.”

“A man who works for ESP?” Dominic asked.

“He not only works for ESP, he’s an executive there. Renni got really drunk and ended up talking about me to this man.”

“Who is this man?”

“Barty Eastburn. Renni told him I was your assistant and Barty offered to help him out if I gave him information from your office.”

Dominic was torn by her revelations. He tried to tell himself he was motivated by the fact that she could give him Barty Eastburn to prosecute, but he knew deep inside that he wanted Angelina and this was a way to have her.

“I’m going to make you an offer, Angelina. And it is not negotiable. If you accept it I will keep you and your brother out of jail. If you do not, then you will be arrested tomorrow morning.” He wanted Angelina and knew he couldn’t let her go to prison. His desires in this moment were torn between Moretti Motors and a woman. Perhaps he had his grandfather’s curse. Dominic refused to make Lorenzo’s mistakes, though. Angelina wouldn’t be his downfall the way the women in Lorenzo’s life had been his.

By the look on her face he knew he had her exactly where he wanted her.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked. Her voice sounded wispy to her own ears. Obviously she wasn’t going to do a good job at hiding her nervousness.

Dominic stood and walked over to where she sat on the couch. Sitting down next to her, he touched her face with one finger as he had earlier today in the office. His touch was warm, exciting all of her nerve endings.

“I’m so glad you know the truth,” she said, the words coming out without her intention.

“Are you?” he asked, stroking her face.

She shivered with awareness her fear of jail time melting away under his touch. In fact, she thought of nothing but Dominic and how he felt next to her. “Yes. I hated lying and sneaking around. It was horrible.”

Dominic stared at her. “Then why did you do it?”

“He’s my brother, Dominic. I had to help him if I could,” she said. “Wouldn’t you do the same thing for Antonio or Marco?”

“You know I would. But I can’t just forgive this, Angelina.”

“I know. Moretti Motors is your life.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m an automaton.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, turning her head into his touch. He cupped her cheek, his fingers tunneling into her hair. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Attraction sprang to life between them.

She kissed his hand while watching his eyes. Saying no to him earlier had been hard. Harder than she’d thought it would be, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been attracted to Dominic from the first moment she’d met him.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked.

“Something very intimate.”

That made her pulse race. She shouldn’t be excited by his deep voice, but she was. “Like what?”

“Like an agreement between you and me.”

She felt a twinge of nervousness but quickly quelled it. This was Dominic. Being in his bed was a much better alternative than being in prison. “I’m listening.”

“I want you to become my mistress, Angelina.”

Hearing the words out loud was surprising though she’d known he was attracted to her. “Um…I’m not sure I’d really like that.”

“You’d prefer prison?”

“Of course not. Are there any other options?”

“No. You gave them up when you started stealing from me.”

“What choice did I have? They were going to kill my brother!”

Dominic looked at her. “Am I such a monster that you couldn’t come to me?”

“No,” she said. There was no way she was going to tell Dominic Moretti that her pride had kept her from opening up about Renni and his problems. She couldn’t stand the thought of the man who needed no one knowing that she couldn’t handle her own problems. One of the things he said he liked about her was her independence.

“Then what was it?”

She stood and walked around her very common little living space. There were two things she valued in the room: a picture of her parents in front of the Trevi Fountain on their honeymoon and a vase that her brother had painted for her when she’d left for college. The vase was silly and clearly amateurish, but he’d made it for her and it meant the world to her.

“You aren’t going to be able to understand,” she said, realizing that a man who lived in a house like Dominic’s wasn’t going to get why she’d sell secrets to save her brother. To a man who had more money than Midas, even if it was only recently, he wouldn’t get that sometimes if you were poor circumstances were out of her control.

He walked over to her, making the room seem smaller by his sheer physical presence. “That doesn’t really matter. We can’t go into the past and change it. We can only move forward.”

“There is one thing we can change. I am supposed to make another drop at the end of the week.”

“What information?”

“I don’t know. Um…Barty is going to call me tomorrow to confirm the details.”

“Haven’t you paid off your brother’s debts yet?”

More times than Dominic would appreciate hearing about. But as long as Renni stayed in London he was tempted into heavy play and she ended up bailing him out again. She knew she needed to be firmer with him, but hadn’t been able to. “No, not yet.”

He took her jaw in his hand, surprising her with his quick move. “Don’t lie to me anymore.”

He wasn’t hurting her at all, but the firmness of his grip kept her in place. “What do you want to hear?”

“The truth would be nice,” he said.

If only it were that simple. She had always wondered if she’d taken the action she had because she’d wanted to get Dominic’s attention. Had her desire to have him see her as more than just an ultraefficient secretary led to this?

He loosened his grip on her jaw, slid his hand down her neck to her shoulder. “Tell me what’s going on, Angelina.”

She swallowed hard. “I’ve paid off his original debt, but Barty keeps getting him into games that he can’t handle and when he loses…I have to get more information so Barty will keep paying off Renni’s debts.”

“So now you are stuck between me and your loyalty to your brother.”

“I don’t see that at all. I’m stuck between you and jail.”

“Either way you have a choice to make.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, quietly. “Why are you offering me this deal?”

Dominic didn’t say anything for a long minute. She felt the seconds ticking by slowly as she waited.

“Because I want you,” he said. “And I always get what I want.”

“Why do you want
me?
”

“You’re an attractive woman,” he said.

“Damned by faint praise.”

He liked her attitude and the fact that she wasn’t behaving like a victim. It was that spunkiness that had long drawn him to her in the first place.

“There’s a spark between us,” he added.

She tipped her head to the side. “Yes, there is.”

“I want you as my mistress for six months.”

“And at the end of that time will I still have a job?”

“If I feel I can trust you,” Dominic said.

“That’s fair enough. You’re being more than generous,” she said. “Um…what does your mistress do?”

“She denies me nothing. I will make love to you wherever I desire. You will live in an apartment that I have for you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. Telling her that keeping a separate apartment would make the ending of their relationship easier wasn’t going to go over well. He knew that from experience.

But he didn’t want to use either of their homes—that would make the relationship seem paramount.

“Dominic?”

“I like having a residence that will just be for our affair. And, your place is not in a convenient location.”

“So if I accept this…”

“Arrangement,” he supplied.

“Arrangement, then. If I accept it, you will not press charges against me or my brother?”

“Has your brother passed on information to ESP himself?”

“No, he hasn’t. Other than getting money from Barty, I don’t think he has any specific knowledge of what’s gone on.”

Dominic didn’t like her brother at all. The other man was taking terrible advantage of Angelina and she was letting him. A part of him knew it was that same trait in her that was going to allow her to accept his offer.

“Very well, but your brother must return to Milan. And if he has any further dealings with Eastburn, his immunity will be revoked.”

Angelina bit down hard on her lower lip. “I don’t know if he can do that, Dominic. He will promise you anything, but in the end he always breaks his word.”

“That won’t be your concern.”

“How do you figure?”

“You have bailed him out enough. It’s time to let him stand on his own.”

Dominic knew he wouldn’t back down on this point. Angelina’s days of selling her soul for her brother were over.

“If I don’t agree to this?”

“Then the both of you will be prosecuted and sent to jail.”

“I guess I always knew you would find me out and my whole life would change.”

Dominic looked around her apartment. It was small and cozy and from the arrangement of the furniture and the prints on the wall he could tell she’d done her best to make this place her home. “You are right. Your life is about to change. You can let it happen around you or you can take control.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, now you can stop lying. And stop keeping all your fears bottled inside you.”

“What’s in this for you?” she asked. “I know I’m not an unattractive woman, but I’m hardly the type of woman who inspires these kinds of gestures in men.”

Dominic thought about her question. “I can’t speak to their actions, but you are the woman I want. It’s turned into an obsession, Angelina. And I know that I don’t want to let you have that kind of control over me.”

She frowned at him. “That sounded like a compliment at first, but then not so much. Are you saying I’m some kind of devil you are trying to exorcise?”

He laughed and for the first time since he’d heard her name from Ian he felt an end to the relentless emotion of anger that had been blanketing him. “My attraction to you is powerful, but I don’t want to exorcise you from my life.”

“You don’t?”

“No, Angelina. I don’t. I want to take you to my bed and let the attraction between us run its course. I wanted you before I found out you were selling my secrets,” he said. “That hasn’t changed. Making you my mistress will give us both a chance to enjoy the physical attraction between us.”

“What if what we have turns out to be nothing but a spark and it dies out quickly?”

“Do you honestly think it will?” he asked, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.