Falling for Her Billionaire Boss

Never, not once in her life had anyone said those words to her. Never had anyone put her first. But Luca—driven, focused Luca—had just put off whoever had been on the other end of that call. She licked her lips, unsure of where to start.

“Today I forgot all the things I learned from counseling and only felt the fear, the responsibility. If only I’d done something differently it wouldn’t have happened. I—” She swallowed, having difficulty going on. “Oh Luca, I thought I was far beyond that. I worked so hard and all of a sudden it was like no time had passed at all. And then you were there. I was so glad to see you.”

“He put his hands on you. I couldn’t allow that.” He lifted his other hand and grazed her cheek with his fingers.

“In that moment I was trapped, back seven years ago. That day…” Her voice faded away for a moment. It was all in the police report. It was in her

medical files after she’d gone through intensive counseling. But she’d never willingly offered it to someone who hadn’t been paid to hear it.

“What happened that day, Mariella.”

His voice encouraged her, invited her. After all he’d done, telling him seemed the next logical, if difficult step.

“I had moved out and felt torn because on one hand I had left my mum behind. On the other I was away and safe. Mum had called and had said she was finally leaving him.” Mari realized her eyes were bone dry; she must have cried herself out earlier. She remembered being so relieved, so happy that her mum was getting away. Happy at the thought that maybe, just maybe, they could start building a relationship. “I said I’d come and help. But when I arrived, he’d gotten there first. Caught her packing her bags and when I found her, she was bleeding, unconscious on the floor, with a broken arm and a cracked skull. Her clothes were strewn everywhere, slashed to ribbons.”

“Dio Mio.” Luca’s low exclamation drew her out of the memory.

“It happens, Luca, far more often than it should.”

She put her other hand over his. Telling him was sapping her strength but it needed to be said. Perhaps she could finally be free of it. Perhaps with Luca beside her, she’d stop blaming herself. Perhaps Robert would lose his power over her for good.

“He found me there, grabbing the phone to call the police. He ripped it from my hand and started in on me. By the time it was over, my mum was still unconscious and I had a concussion, broken ribs and internal injuries from where he—” Her voice broke a little. “From where he kicked me over and over. He left us there, Luca. Left us to die. Except the postman noticed bloody handprints on the front door and the stair railing. He called the police, and the rest is history.”

“Only it’s not history.” He gently tipped up her chin with a finger. “Nothing like that can ever completely go away, can it? Oh Mari.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the backs, his eyes closing. She stared at the way his lashes lay on his cheeks, the tender way he cradled her fingers. Where had he come from? How was it that he was here, exactly what she needed, at exactly the time she needed him?

“I am so sorry. No one should ever go through something like that.” He whispered the words against her fingertips.

And then he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.

She went into his embrace willingly, their knees pressed together between the sofa and table. He was strong, and somehow a barrier between her and the ugliness of her past. When she was with him, she was the Mariella she’d always wanted to be, free of the hold Robert Langston had held over her for so many years.

The kiss was soft, tentative, sweet. She hadn’t known he was capable of sweet.

She hadn’t known she was capable of love, but here it was. She loved Luca. And being completely out of her depth, she had no idea what to do about it.

“And now he’s out of prison, are you afraid he’ll come after you? What about your mum?”

His voice drew her back into the present. “The authorities keep me up to date while he’s on probation. Of course I think of it, and wonder if he hates me for my part in sending him to jail. But I can’t let myself think of it too much or it becomes overwhelming. I spent too many years looking over my shoulder. And it’s not one of those things you ever really get used to.”

“And what about your mother?”

Mari shook her head. “I don’t speak to my mum that often…there seems to be a wall between us now. I don’t even know where she’s living. I—” Mari cleared her throat. “A part of me still wonders how she could have let it happen. How she could have stayed with a man who beat her. Who beat me. Why didn’t she try to get out?”

She looked up at Luca. “What kind of mother hurts her own child that way? What kind of mother doesn’t put the welfare of her child ahead of everything? There have been times I’ve thought about the home I want, the children I might have someday. Could I put them through that? I know I couldn’t. I’ve tried to understand it, but I just can’t. The only thing I can come up with is that she was too afraid to do anything else.”

Luca shook his head. “I don’t know either. I barely remember my mother myself.”

“You said she left you and Gina. That must have been difficult.”

“I only remember feeling like we never mattered.” Mari’s eyes widened at the loathing in his tone. “She left us when I was a boy. My papa raised Gina and me.”

He stood up and walked over to the window.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “That must have been horrible for you. Did your dad ever remarry?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s not important, Mari. It was a long time ago. And it was nothing compared to what you went through. Nothing.”

He spoke with such vehemence that she knew he was hiding his own hurts.