The Moretti Arrangement (9 page)

“Want to go out for a drink after work?” Marta asked while they were at lunch.

“I can’t.”

“Do you have a date?” Marta asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, me, too, but not until later,” Marta said.

“Still computer dating?”

“Yes. I know my Mr. Right is out there.”

“What do you mean your Mr. Right?”

“The one guy meant for me. Do you believe in that?” Marta asked.

Angelina shrugged. “I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve never dated a lot. But, with Renni relying on me I couldn’t.”

“But that’s not a problem anymore, is it? I meant to tell you your brother is one hot guy. I’d think about asking him out, except I know all his dirt from you.”

Angelina laughed at her friend. Marta didn’t know the half of what Renni had done and she never would. As far as Angelina was concerned, Renni’s troubles in London were a different lifetime. They’d both moved on and were in a much better place now.

“So who’s your date with, some hottie?”

“Yes, he’s a hottie.”

“And a mystery man? Is it someone from work?” Marta asked, glancing around the cafeteria. She leaned across the table. “I won’t tell a soul.”

For the first time Angelina was tempted to tell Marta her personal business. But she couldn’t break a lifetime of habits and she was used to keeping her own counsel. She’d never been a woman to share secrets with girlfiends even when she’d been younger.

“Yes, someone from work. But I don’t want to talk too much about it.”

“Is the relationship serious?” Marta asked.

Angelina glanced down at the salad she was eating. She had no idea. She looked at the charm bracelet Dominic had bought her back at the beginning of their relationship. It was laden with charms he’d given her over the last six months. He’d given her other jewelry, more expensive pieces that she suspected he’d given to his other mistresses as well. But this was the one piece that meant the most to her.

“Oh, no,” Marta said.

“What?”

“Your silence tells me two things.”

Angelina looked up, waiting to hear what her friend was going to say.

“Either he’s married—”

“He’s not. I wouldn’t get involved with a man who was married.”

Marta shrugged. “I wouldn’t judge you. Falling in love is something that happens when you least expect it. It’s the Mr. Right thing. Sometimes he’s already in a doomed relationship.”

She didn’t know that she agreed with Marta, but she did know that Dominic was hers. She shook her head. Was that really it? Of course it was. She loved Dominic. She wouldn’t have agreed to be the mistress of any other man.

Only Dominic Moretti because he was the only man who made her feel alive and…complete.

“What else do you think my silence means?” Angelina asked.

“That you care more for him than he does for you,” Marta said.

Angelina could only stare at her American friend.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Marta asked.

“Because you saw something that I was afraid to admit.”

“It’s not because I’m wise or anything—it’s just that I’ve been there before. Why do you think I came to Milan?”

“Why?”

“To escape. I was tired of seeing him every day and not being able to be with him. Even after I moved out of the neighborhood where we’d once lived and changed jobs…he haunted me.”

Angelina reached across the table and took Marta’s hand, squeezing it to offer some comfort for the pain she saw in the other woman’s eyes. But then Marta shook her head. “But that is all in the past. He wasn’t my Mr. Right, and moving on was the only sensible thing to do. So what about your guy?”

Angelina wasn’t sure she bought in to Marta’s little pep talk, but it was clear that her friend was trying to cheer her up. “What about him?”

“Is he a lost cause or do you think he will fall for you?”

Angelina thought about the way Dominic held her in bed every night. How he’d pull her close to his side and hold her until he drifted off. That felt like more than lust.

And he really did take care of her—and not just sexually or even financially. He was willing to hold her when PMS made her weepy or to listen to her talk about her dreams of living in a little house in the countryside instead of in the city center of Milan.

“There are times when I think…Well, yes, he is my man.”

Marta glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to work. I hope for your sake that he is the man you think he is.”

Angelina shared that hope. In fact, she was risking her heart on that hope. And tonight she was going to take a big risk and ask Dominic to continue their relationship after their agreement ended.

“Date? Are you sure you know what you are doing with her? I didn’t say anything when you completely ignored the fact that she was stealing from us and moved in with her, but are you really using your best judgment?”

“I am not doing anything that would put the company in jeopardy. You and I both know it wasn’t her choice to pass that information to ESP. They are the ones we want to catch, not her. Trust me.”

“I do. If it wasn’t for you I don’t know where we would all be today. It was your vision to bring Moretti Motors back to the glory it experienced during
Nono’
s heyday.”

“What’s your point?”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt with this woman, Dom. You know she’s betrayed us once.”

“I do know that. But she was doing it to protect her brother.”

“What makes you so certain she won’t have to protect him again?”

“Because Renaldo is now owning up to his life,” Dominic said. He didn’t want to discuss his personal life with his brother. Antonio had done his own thing, gone against Dominic’s wishes and fallen in love with Nathalie Vallerio. A move that had almost cost them the rights to the Vallerio name.

“You weren’t exactly thinking with your brain when you fell for Nathalie.”

“My point exactly. That’s why I’m talking to you now.”

“What do you want from me?” Dominic asked.

“Just be careful, Dom. We don’t know if Angelina is completely trustworthy.”

“There hasn’t been a leak in over six months and Ian has been working closely to make sure that Barty Eastburn hasn’t recruited anyone else from our company.”

“Fair enough. I wanted to talk to you about the press release we are sending out for tomorrow. I know that you approved it, but we need to change the wording on the Vallerio Incorporated section.”

They discussed what needed to be changed. Press releases were normally handled through the publicity department. But because this was the big launch of a new type of engine that Moretti Motors had won exclusive rights to use from Vallerio Inc. both Dominic and Antonio had decided to vet the release.

By the time the meeting ended he realized he was going to be late for his date with Angelina. Antonio was almost out the door when Dominic stopped him.

“Do you think the curse is broken?” he asked.

“Yes. The way I feel about Nathalie has shown me that I can have it all. It didn’t make me not want Moretti Motors to succeed anymore. In fact, because of our joint ventures with Vallerio Incorporated, I’m even more determined to see that we continue to grow our business.”

Dominic nodded. “I wondered if
Nono
cursed himself because he gave up the woman he loved.”

“He might have. For him it was Moretti Motors or nothing. He would never have been able to make a relationship work while running this company,” Antonio said.

“I agree. It was in
Nono’
s nature never to put anyone before Moretti Motors,” Dominic said. “Though Dad is the opposite.”

“Yes, he is. Are you serious about Angelina?”

Dominic shrugged. “I think I am. We had an agreement…but I’m thinking of asking her to make it permanent.”

“Permanent as in marriage?”

“Not marriage but a long-term affair.” Dominic had thought of little else for the last two months. He couldn’t say for sure what it was that had made him start thinking of a future with Angelina, but something had. He only knew that when he’d started thinking about living without her, he’d felt hollow inside.

“Am I being a fool?” he asked his brother.

“Love is a tricky thing…”

“I’m not in love. She just makes my life comfortable away from work. She gives me companionship.”

Antonio watched him with those shrewd eyes of his. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. Nathalie added something to my life that I didn’t realize was missing until she was there. Is that how you feel about Angelina?”

Dominic shrugged. He shouldn’t have started this conversation. Whenever he discussed anything but Moretti Motors he felt as though he was out of his league. He loved his family, but women had always been a bit of a mystery to him. “I don’t know. I only feel that I want her by my side.”

“Then go for it. You know we focus a lot on being
Nono’
s grandsons, but we are also Papa’s sons. And that man is a romantic. A man who knows that passion for a woman is the greatest joy one can find.”

“
Grazie,
Tony.”

Antonio wraggled his eyebrows at Dominic, a goofy thing his brother had done since they were boys. “Don’t mention it. Everyone knows I’m the smooth lover in the family.”

Dominic punched his brother in the shoulder. “Everyone knows you are the goof-off.”

“Very true,” Antonio said. “It’s because I’m happy. Everything with Moretti Motors is going as we planned. I have a woman I love in my life…Who could ask for anything more?”

Dominic walked out of the building with his brother, realizing for the first time that he wanted what Antonio and Marco had found with their women. And that life was finally within his grasp with Angelina.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he fiddled with the radio, putting on a CD of her favorite artist. Angelina rested her head against the back of the seat trying not to read more into this moment, this night, than she should.

Because of the nature of their relationship they’d spent a lot of time going to private places for dates or just staying at the penthouse apartment.

“Lake Como. Is that okay?”

She nodded. “I love it there. When I was a child we used to go for holidays.”

“My family had a house there, as well. When we were boys we spent a lot of time on the lake.”

“What was it like growing up with two brothers?” Angelina asked. “I love Renni, but I would have liked a sister.”

“My brothers are the best friends that I have. From the time I was very young I was aware of our family’s legacy from Grandfather—”

“The curse?”

“
Sì.
And as I got older I realized that I didn’t want to take a chance on letting Moretti Motors slip further away from our family. It was important to me that Tony and Marco both realized what a gift our grandfather had left us,” Dominic said.

“I can see that. You did a good job of rebuilding the company. That was one of the things that drew me to Moretti Motors when I was job hunting.”

“It was?”

“
Sì.
I wanted to work for a company with corporate integrity and wasn’t just about money. Your organization has a sense of pride in everything that Moretti Motors does be it the retail luxury car market or your F1 team.”

Dominic glanced over at her. “Reputation is really all we have that we can call our own. Fortunes can be won or lost.”

She reached over and squeezed his thigh.

“What was that for?”

She rubbed her finger in a little circle pattern on his leg. “I’m sorry I almost ruined your reputation by stealing information.”

He put his hand over hers. His big fingers engulfed her smaller ones and he lifted her hand to his lips, brushing them against the center of her palm.

“We are past that now, aren’t we?” Dominic asked.

“I still feel…shame, I guess, about what I did.” It was more than that. She hated that the reason he’d noticed her as a woman and not just his assistant was tied to that act of betrayal. And no matter how much she tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter, a big part of her knew it did.

“You have to let it go. I did.”

“Did you?” she asked, trying not to be distracted by the movement of his thigh muscles under her hand.

“Yes. Though it was hard for me because your actions felt like disloyalty. And I’m also a bit jealous that you would go to another man,” he said. There was a bit of vehemence in his voice that suggested he might not be as forgiving as he’d said.

“I never had a loyalty to anyone but you and to my family.”

“And that is why I am letting it go. That and the fact that we can never have any kind of relationship if I didn’t.”

She caught her breath. “Relationship? Do you mean something beyond the six months we agreed to?”

He glanced over at her. “I do mean that, Angelina, but we will talk when we get to my villa.”

She felt a flutter in the pit of her stomach, and for the first time since her parents died that scared, lonely part of her relaxed. The feelings she had for Dominic were strong, and knowing that he wanted to continue the relationship with her made her realize that Marta had a point to something she’d said earlier.

There was a Mr. Right for each woman, and Dominic was hers.

“Tell me about your holidays at Lake Como,” he said.

“My grandparents brought us one summer. Only that once. Renni and I were eight and ten and
Nono
rented a boat and we spent all day on the lake. I pretended I was a princess and Renni was a pirate.”

He glanced over at her and smiled. “Sounds like it was fun.”

It had been. “It was. I haven’t thought of that time in years.”

“That’s natural. You’re not someone who looks back all the time.”

“True. Life is lived in the now, isn’t it? I learned that from working with you. When someone makes a mistake you don’t brush it aside, but you learn from it as you move on. I had never seen anyone do that before.”

“Given the nature of my family, it’s either learn and move on or wither and die talking about the glory days. And talking isn’t productive.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Not unless there’s a purpose to it.”

He continued talking to her about his life philosophy, and she listened, soaking up the sound of his voice and the feel of his leg under her hand. She liked the connection she felt to Dominic and realized that no matter what happened later in their relationship, he’d given her something that no one else had.

He’d given her the belief in herself that she was more than worthy of being his woman.