“She’s my wife, Antonio. And I never gave Anna the idea that she meant anything more to me.”
“After all, you’re a man too,” Antonio added with a shrug. His gaze shifted back to Alessandra, who was now talking to Anna. “Ah…so the woman is as irresistible as she looks, then, si?”
Vincenzo shrugged. Even with Antonio, he didn’t want to admit to the complete truth.
Which was that he had completely lost his mind over Alessandra. Continued to, in fact. Her loyalty to the Brunettis amazed him. Her determination to do right by her half brother resonated deep inside him. Her vulnerability when it came to himself… Shook him. At a level he hadn’t thought possible.
“Her Brunetti connection is an unnecessary headache you don’t need right now. A distraction from your true purpose,” the older man insisted.
“It is a headache. She—” Vincenzo swallowed the word hates “—does not like what I intend to do to them. In fact, she’s waging a quiet campaign to shift me from my plans, I believe.”
The warm glint disappeared from Antonio’s dark eyes. “And? Do you think she will succeed?”
Vincenzo frowned at the quiet question. “You know me better than that, Antonio. She’s a small part of my life. An indulgence I allow myself.” He didn’t say she was fast becoming an obsession he craved. When she looked at him with that vulnerability in her eyes, he wanted to promise her the world. He wanted to promise her anything just to make her smile again. “Alessandra is a prize. A worthy wife for a man building an empire. She’s the final reward for all the fights I have won and for the ones I’m still waging.”
“And yet you watch her with such hunger in your eyes. As if you don’t already own her. As if you want…more.”
More… Did he want more from Alessandra? More of what?
Vincenzo refused to betray how accurate Antonio’s words were. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it is to look at a woman you want, Antonio. I do not deny that she’s got a hold over me.”
“That bothers me. About how powerful her hold is on you. About how much you will forgive her, how much you will forget in order to please her.”
“Speak your mind plainly, Antonio.”
“I’m not so old that I do not keep up with the news. She set you back a few steps with that leak about who you really are. The financial world is still wondering where you come from, how you’ve amassed your fortune and with what intentions. You lost the support of two men who were almost in your pocket. Now you have to begin the hunt anew to find other candidates who will stand against the combined might of Leonardo and Massimo Brunetti.”
“My PR team has been doing a lot of damage control since then. But it’s not Alessandra who leaked that information.”
“And you believe her?” The older man’s softly spoken words resonated with doubt and disbelief.
“Yes,” Vincenzo replied firmly.
“We’ve worked far too hard, for far too long to bring the Brunettis down. This marriage of yours could derail everything. Worse, it could—”
“I want to build what I have been denied all my life—a standing in society, a home to return to, a dynasty. What will stand in its place when the past is brought to its knees?” Vincenzo demanded, angry and tired and resentful in a way he’d never felt before. “For the first time in my life, I acted selfishly. It is neither a mistake nor a strategic move.”
Did Antonio see him as nothing but a device for vengeance? Was there anything left of him that wasn’t a weapon to fuel him toward his goal? This restlessness… He realized it had been growing in him for a while. A small crack that threatened to expand into a yawning void every time he visited his mother.
And then he had met Alessandra.
A breath of fresh air. A woman who had filled his days with laughter and warmth reminded him that he was a man who wanted more. A woman who made him think of the future.
“As long as it doesn’t distract you from your mission,” added Antonio, his expression implacable. That implacability had once been the backbone that had built Vincenzo’s confidence sky-high. Antonio’s belief had goaded him to the heights of success and through dark nights of self-doubt. And yet now, it felt like a painful echo from the past he couldn’t outrun.
“It does not mean that I’ve forgotten.” He ran a hand through his hair, tension swathing his frame. “I cannot, even if I wished it. Every time I see Mama…” He swallowed and looked away. His wound would never heal. Because every time he saw his mother, it was gouged afresh. “Keep your trust in me, Antonio.”
The old man gripped Vincenzo’s shoulder. “I do. Maybe this is not a bad move. Maybe you can use your wife to move even faster toward your goal.”
Everything in Vincenzo rebelled against the idea. “What do you mean?”
“You and Leonardo Brunetti are in a deadlock now for majority on the BFI board, si?”
“Si.”
“The matriarch, Greta Brunetti, still holds stock in BFI, doesn’t she? If your wife is truly important to her, maybe she could be persuaded to jump ship in your favor.”
Shock pulsed through Vincenzo. “I’ll be damned before I let you use me against them,” Alessandra had vowed.
“You want me to persuade Greta Brunetti to betray her own grandsons if she wants Alessandra’s happiness?”
“There must be some substance to your wife’s devotion to the old woman and that family. Test that connection. See how far you
