Hired:The Italian's Bride

“Legions?” He smiled at that, too.

“Would you stop smiling? I read the magazines.”

He laughed then, a rich lazy chuckle that did things to her insides. She immediately hated him for it. She was trying to stay angry! It was easier than actually liking him. Watching him work the past week, she’d come dangerously close to admiring his enthusiasm and dedication.

“Oh, Mari, are you jealous?”

“Hardly.” She said with so much contempt she thought he must believe her. Her? Jealous of his women? Why on earth would she be? His eyes sparkled at her and she ground her teeth. It wasn’t fair that his shirt today matched the exact rich brown of his eyes. So what, she thought. He had nice eyes, he was sex-on-a-stick gorgeous. But he drove her crazy. She wasn’t in the market for a man, and even if she were, it wouldn’t be a dictatorial womanizer like Luca. She curled her lip. “Trust me, Luca. I have no desire to be a notch on your bedpost.”

Her heart trembled as the words echoed through the office. What did she think she was doing, challenging him!

His smile faded. “That’s clear enough. And let me be clear, Mari. If you have an idea, a problem with anything happening here, you need to speak up. My education did not include mind reading.”

But she wasn’t used to speaking up. She was used to order and routine. She’d gotten where she was by being good at her job, not by running over the top of people to get there. She knew what happened when you rocked the boat.

Slowly, in the silence, she felt her anger dissipate. “I don’t like arguing.”

“I love it.” He smiled suddenly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. She stared at him. He loved it? Her stomach tied in knots at the very thought of confrontation and she was completely stressed now that she seemed to be dealing with it nearly every day. And he claimed to enjoy it?

“How can you say that?”

“Don’t you feel better?”

“I don’t follow.”

He stood up, but leaned back against his desk, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle as he braced his hands on the edge of the wood. “Having an honest, open argument is much better than holding frustrations and resentments inside. Clears the air. It doesn’t fester. It’s healthy.”

“I’m sorry if I don’t quite get the concept of healthy confrontation. To me there’s nothing healthy about shouting at each other, hurling insults. In the end someone always ends up getting hurt because one person doesn’t know when to stop.” She said it all in one breath, but couldn’t look at him while she did it. And she steeled herself, willing away the shaking that happened every time she thought about Robert. Knowing he was out there somewhere, and free.

Something clicked in Luca’s head. A seed of an idea that was suddenly so clear he didn’t know why he hadn’t put two and two together before. Maybe because he’d been so focused on his job that he hadn’t given it priority.

Mari had been hurt. Someone had hurt her and now she was afraid.

It made sense. He’d missed the signs but he could see them now. Her aversion to touching, to arguing. The way she’d looked at him in the attic, the way she stood now, by the door, like she was ready to flee. The way her eyes wouldn’t meet his, keeping her distance. In his family, arguing was something done often and passionately, the same as loving. One didn’t negate the other. He couldn’t live life with his sister and father and not argue, it was part of who they were. But he’d been right about the loving, too. As much as he chafed at his father’s control of Fiori, it didn’t stop the love between them. It was the love that had made them safe. But he could see now that somehow, with Mari, someone had taught her differently. Someone had taught her that love hurt.

But he couldn’t broach the topic. They hardly knew each other. He was her boss, and it would be crossing a personal line. But he couldn’t help but wonder what—or who—had made her so afraid. The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid of him. He was no threat.

“Mari, I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to upset you. We’ve both been under some stress.” He decided a little insight into himself wouldn’t hurt, to put her at ease. He smiled at her. “I’m Italian. In my family we argue as passionately as we love each other. We know that we’ll be there for each other, no matter how much we disagree. I didn’t think that perhaps not everyone is the same way.”

She turned her eyes on him and he was caught for a brief moment. The same as that day in the attic, her eyes shone like gray dawn at him and he saw there was much more to Mari than he’d imagined. He could see the pain. The pain she thought she kept hidden inside behind the wall she’d built around herself. He’d seen that kind of ache before. In his father’s eyes, and in his sister Gina’s. It was, he realized, the look of the death of hope. As hard as he’d tried over the years, he’d never been able to make that look go away for them completely. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.