“I came here as my father’s emissary. He didn’t care how badly your father had screwed up, but I do.”
“Because you changed the rules,” Alessia said with indignation. “You decided to invest your own money, not your father’s. Why did you do that?”
It was, Nick thought, a good question. He’d tried finding an answer before but he kept coming up empty. All he knew was that instinct told him there was more going on here than met the eye and that it somehow involved the woman glaring at him.
His life had been ruled by logic, but he had to admit, there were times a man could do better by relying on instinct. It was instinct that had kept him alive more than once in the hellholes in which he’d served his country, and while this surely wasn’t a life-or-death situation, he had the sense that instinct was still the way to go.
“I changed my plans and decided to invest my own money because investing is what I do.”
She laughed, and Nick narrowed his eyes. “I know you find that hard to believe, but that is exactly what I do.”
“Right,” she said sarcastically. “You invest in vine yards.”
“In all kinds of properties, but not in ones that aren’t worth my time or resources.”
“Antoninni is very much worth your time and money!”
Her voice trembled; she’d been so caught up in watching him, watching how he dealt with her father’s impressionable lackeys, that she’d almost forgotten what the stakes were.
Her mother’s welfare.
That was what mattered, not her anger at having to deal with this man or the future of the vineyard. Mama was what counted, and what would happen to her if Nicolo didn’t put millions into her father’s hands. His unfettered hands, because the last thing her father would want would be Nicolo Orsini looking over his shoulder, telling him he could or could not spend ten million euros.
“Nicolo.” She drew a deep breath, smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. “Isn’t it enough to invest in Tuscan property? There’s no reason to own any. I mean, you are not Tuscan—”
She gasped as his fingers dug into her shoulders.
“No,” he growled, “I’m American. Sicilian-American, and that puts me on a different plane, or so you think.”
“No! I didn’t mean—”
“I am an Orsini, Alessia, but that doesn’t mean I am a fool.”
“I did not suggest—”
“Never lie to me, princess. It’s the one thing I won’t ever forgive.”
Her color rose; she could feel it in her face. “I am not a liar! I’m simply trying to figure out why you are so determined to take control of the vineyard from my father.”
“Because that’s the way I want it.”
“But if he won’t let you and if you walk away and don’t give him the money—”
“What?” His eyes searched hers. “What is the real reason this is so important to you?”
Alessia stared at him. He was so powerful. So capable of holding the world in his hands, and never mind how he had earned that power. He was a man who could do anything; she had known that from the moment she first saw him.
What if she told him everything? About why she had agreed to deal with him. About her father’s vicious threat. About her mother
and how only he, Nicolo Orsini, a stranger from another world, one she detested, could save her.
“Tell me the truth, Alessia. I know there’s more to this than you’re letting me see.”
His voice was low. His hands no longer bit into her shoulders, they cupped them instead. She looked up into his face, into his dark, deep eyes. She could tell him the truth….
And then what?
He was a ruthless thug. Forget his beautiful face and body. His manners. His ability to tell Donatello from Donald Duck. He was what he was, and she could never trust him.