Bought by Her Italian Boss(27)

"I'm an adult," she asserted. "Perfectly capable of deciding when and with whom I want a relationship."

"Oh, tell yourself that, but this isn't a 'relationship.' It's an  arrangement. The most rudimentary kind. He's miles ahead of you and it's  all calculated for his best interests, not yours. You will come away  with some very pretty material items that I know will mean nothing to  you because you are a woman looking for love, not lucre. You're better  than this, Gwyn. Don't let him turn you into something you're not."

"You don't know anything about what we have," she said hotly, half  turning to snag Vito with her glance, urging him-insisting-he defend  himself. Them.

His jaw pulsed and he stared at Travis, not with heat, not with guilt. Blank.

It hurt. His silence gutted her and his refusal to appear insulted and furious shook her to the core.

"If you have any decency at all, you'll send her home with me," Travis said flatly. "She's better than this."

No, I'm not, Gwyn wanted to say. Maybe she even said it aloud. She knew  she argued, "That's a stupid ultimatum. He doesn't have to prove  anything to you. I decide whether I stay with him or not," she declared.

"Sign the papers when you're satisfied, not before," Vito said, more to  Travis than to her, reaching to square one of the folders against the  edge of the table, then sending a second look, this one blistering, back  to Travis again. "You're wrong about my interfering in this. It's all  been negotiated at arm's length, but I'll leave so I'm not a distraction  while you finalize it."

"Vito!" Panic edged into her voice as she watched him circle toward the  interior door. This wasn't really happening was it? "You're- This  isn't-" Over. Was it? She couldn't finish the question, afraid she  already knew the answer.

He paused, but he didn't turn around. "This was always going to happen, cara," he said gently. "You knew that."

She thought of the day when she'd been prepared to leave and had likened  it to tearing off a bandage. But genuinely facing The End was a kind of  pain she couldn't describe, like her soul was wrenched from her body.  Her heart beat outside her chest.                       
       
           



       

She did the only thing she could. She turned on Travis, the man who had  marched in here talking like he cared about her and was destroying her  life.

"Why would you do this to me? Do you resent me so much for taking some of your father's precious attention-"

"Gwyn," Vito said sharply, hand gripping the edge of the table with  white knuckles, face grim. "This was always going to happen. Go home  with your brother. Let him take care of you. I want to know you're safe  there, not being harassed by the press or anyone else."

"Oh, do you?" she jeered. "What am I now? Not just a pawn, but a marble  that gets picked up and taken home? I decide what happens to me!"

"Do whatever you want," he commanded. "But you're not coming home with me."

He might as well be throwing rocks at the dog that threatened to follow  him. His words landed like sharp stones in her throat and her eyes and  her glass heart, chipping and cracking it, leaving it in jagged broken  pieces as he disappeared through the door and closed it with finality  against her.

"Gwyn, I'm sorry," Travis said, touching her elbow.

She shook him off, distantly supposing she looked like someone had died in front of her because that's how she felt.

She had been miserable, absolutely devastated, when her nude photos had  appeared. Vito had questioned her like a criminal and she had thought  her life couldn't get any worse. Then he'd made everything better. He'd  charmed and soothed and ignited her. He had made her fall in love with  him. She had trusted him in ways she'd never let herself trust anyone,  especially a man. She had offered her heart on a platter, let herself  believe he cared for her at least a little...

But she meant nothing to him.

She hated him with everything in her. He was a bastard and she hated him.

At least, that's what she told herself.

* * *

The door he'd used to exit the conference room led into Paolo's office.  His cousin stood up from his desk. "They're ready for us?"

"All I could see was your father," Vito told him numbly, trying to laugh  it off, but ghosts were skimming across his skin, leaving it covered in  gooseflesh. His chuckle came off his heart like a dry leaf. A kind of  pain, the kind he would never let anyone, for any reason, inflict upon  him, coursed like poison through his veins. "I can't be like mine,  stealing something I'll end up destroying."

Incomprehension crystalized into understanding in Paolo's expression,  maybe even something that might have been a protest, but Vito was  already on the move again. If he didn't get out of here, he wouldn't be  able to leave her.

"Finish without me. Give her whatever she wants."





CHAPTER TEN

NOT LONG AFTER her mother had married Henry, he had said to Gwyn, "Travis can teach you to drive."

Already far behind her age group in getting her license, Gwyn had  declined, not wanting to look stupid in front of him, choosing instead  to spend her hard-earned tip money on a couple of private lessons. She  couldn't count the number of times Travis had offered to buy dinner over  the years, but she'd always insisted on cooking. When she tried, she  could think of four distinct times when he had asked whether she was  looking for work because he'd heard about a particular position and was  willing to recommend her. She'd always taken it as a criticism of the  work she was doing or a favor that would make her indebted to him.

Not once had it ever occurred to her that he might give one solid damn about her.

He did. He might have blown up her relationship-arrangement-with Vito,  but he was sorry. He was treating her like she was made of butterfly  wings and soap bubbles, barely touching her, moving her with the gentle  cadence of his voice. He told her that he shouldn't have waited for her  to ask for help, but that he knew how important her independence was to  her. He had wanted to respect her choices, but he couldn't watch her get  hurt. He told her she could do better.

"I thought he cared about me," she finally broke her silence to say, as they flew first class back to Charleston.

"I know," he said after a surprised pause. She hadn't spoken since Vito  had left the conference room, afraid her voice would crack and the rest  of her control would follow. "And there are times when an affair like  that is harmless. But you weren't coming into it as his equal. By that I  mean the position you were in at the time, life experience, money,  influence," he said with a glance from the corner of his eye. "You're a  helluva better person."

"You don't know him," she mumbled into the drink he'd ordered her.                       
       
           



       

"I know him," Travis snorted. "It's like looking in a mirror."

For some reason that made her laugh, jaggedly and with fraught emotion,  but as powerful and intimidating as she'd always found Travis, Vito was  so much more. Everything she felt about him was massive and angsty and  not the least bit brotherly.

Travis twisted his mouth and said, "Why is that funny? Shut up."

Which made her laugh more. Because the alternative was to cry and she'd wait to do that when she was alone.

He took her to Henry's and she really only meant to stay a week or so  while she sorted out her life and got a job, but Henry practically  begged her to stay. Then Travis walked her into an office a few blocks  away and told her she was the comptroller for his friend's chain of  high-end restaurants.

"Nepotism?" Her ego really needed to earn something on her own merit.

"Don't be like that. You're overqualified. But it's close, the money is  good and no one will bother you. It's an excellent stepping stone,"  Travis urged. "It reestablishes you in the field which is something you  need. He really needs someone who can upgrade his system and train the  team to use it. You'll be doing him a favor."

"Right," she mumbled, but took the job.

It was awkward at first. Not so much at work. Everyone there was quite  nice to her, but as she began moving around in public some people had  the audacity to stare. Sometimes they asked outright if she was that  woman. Usually if she replied, "Yes. Why?" it shut the interest down to a  startled, "Just wondering."

Then there was the one day when she was feeling really thin-skinned and  went off with the kind of fury that Vito had always warned her against.

It happened to be her mother's birthday. Her period had arrived that  morning, severing any crazy illusions she had been nursing that she'd  have a lifelong tie with Vito. Then a knock at the door had announced  her things from Italy. Not just the boxes from her flat that had gone  into storage. All her things. Gowns that had hung next to Vito's suits.  Scarves and scent and sandals.