Italian Mavericks: A Deal With The Italian. Дженнифер Хейворд
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and mirrors.”
Rocco’s blood heated to a dangerous level. “You forget it was I who quadrupled the market value of Mondelli. I do have this company’s best interests at heart. Which is why I have executed a strategic merger that is pure brilliance.”
Renzo eyed him. “Olivia Fitzgerald is undeniably breathtaking, and I’m sure provides a wealth of distraction in the bedroom, but not necessarily what I intended when I suggested marriage. She is unpredictable given her recent past. A wild child.”
“It is a perfect union from every angle,” Rocco countered flatly. “A dynasty of two great brands.”
Renzo took a long, deliberate sip of his wine, set his glass down and sat back, arms folded across his chest. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
“The Mondelli men’s weakness when it comes to women. Pensare con quello che hai in mezzo alle gambe al posto della testa...”
Thinking with what’s between your legs and not your head... Rocco ground his back teeth together. “That...”
Renzo waved a hand at him. “Giovanni made a fool out of himself over Tatum Fitzgerald. He forgot his priorities, let his head get swelled by having her even though he was a happily married man, and the company stuttered. Your father’s career imploded over the love of a woman.” He shook his head. “Make a smart decision, Rocco, not one in which you’re thumbing your nose at all of us.”
Blood thudded through his head in a deafening rush. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and met the chairman’s gaze. “I am not my father, nor my grandfather, Renzo. I am the man who took a struggling company and raised it to a higher level. You need me. Don’t forget that important fact.”
“And you need me,” Renzo countered deliberately. “You have taken Mondelli to great heights, Rocco. No one can dispute that. I’m simply giving you some advice.”
Rocco sat back in his seat. “So you have. Are we done on this subject?”
“Set a date.”
Rocco frowned. “Mi scusi?”
“If you want to convince the board you are truly a changed man, set a wedding date.”
The blood thumping against his temples converged in a pool of disbelief. “You’re joking?”
Renzo’s mouth twisted. “It is my job to ensure control is turned over to you when you are well and truly ready. I am responsible to the shareholders, and in this day and age, perception is as important as reality. They think you are a question mark, Rocco—unpredictable at best. So if Olivia Fitzgerald is the choice, marry her. Show your intentions.”
Rocco thought he must be hallucinating. “Olivia and I are far too busy to plan a wedding right now.”
“Undoubtedly.” Renzo’s gaze narrowed on him. “But I suggest you do it. The sooner you prove to the board you can run Mondelli with the measured, mature perspective of a man who’s sown his wild oats, the quicker we will be to hand over control.”
Rocco absorbed the unyielding glint in the chairman’s eyes. “You are actually telling me to speed up my wedding date to pacify shareholder perception?”
The older man’s eyes glittered back at him with something like unmediated glee. “We all sacrifice things, Rocco. I don’t love my wife. I married her because she was the perfect partner for a CEO. Power comes with sacrifice, and if you don’t realize that by now, you will learn.”
He bit back the response that rose in his throat. He didn’t have to explain to Renzo he’d known sacrifice since he was a teenager bringing up his baby sister. Since he’d been fresh out of school, deep in over his head, running a company so vast he’d lain awake at night in the early days, his mind reeling on how to corral it. How to fix it.
He picked up his wine and took a long sip. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Renzo was right. At the end of the day what mattered was what the analysts said about him. And they thought he was a maverick.
He’d never intended on marrying for love—so why not marry Olivia? It didn’t do anything but cement the plan he’d already put into place.
His hand tightened around the glass as he set it down. Renzo was also right about Olivia. He might think he was in control, but she was a danger to him. He had thought and acted with what was between his legs and not his head. Just like Giovanni had done.
He would not repeat history. He would not be that weak.
* * *
Olivia was chatting over some designs with a gregarious Mario Masini when her fiancé deigned to make an appearance in the design studios. He had pretty much disappeared since they’d returned home from New York, thrown himself into his ridiculous fourteen-hour days and communicated with the short verbiage of a man too busy to converse when they eventually sat down at the dinner table together at the villa.
She was aware he was deliberately putting space between them after their close encounters in New York, and she got it. She was glad for it. So why did she feel barefoot and rejected? Because for one second there, a voice in her head jibed, she’d thought he actually cared. Some delusional part of her brain had conjured that up. When what she really was was an asset to be managed. That was all.
Mario moved to embrace Rocco, his lined old face softening. Her fiancé was drool worthy again today in a silver gray suit and blue tie that never seemed to wrinkle. Elegant and earthy all at the same time, he was a man with so much sex appeal he was drowning in it.
“Ciao,” she murmured as casually as she could, waving a hand to the designs spread out on the table. “Mario and I were just chatting over fabrics. Is it that time already?”
His mouth curved. “Thirty minutes past. It isn’t a problem. We’re eating in tonight. Take your time.”
She almost wished they were staying at Villa Mondelli, where she could put a literal and figurative distance between them at the formal dining room table. Instead, they were staying at the apartment so she could make her 7:00 a.m. photo shoot with Alessandra tomorrow without getting up obscenely early.
Mario pointed at the designs on the table. “She is brilliant, this woman of yours. It’s as if she brings the light inside with her.”
Rocco nodded. “That’s a very apt description.”
Mario smiled broadly. “We are going to make her a star of the design world.”
Olivia’s heart swelled. Instead of accepting her warily into the fold, Mario had seemed incredibly enthusiastic over her designs, as if he, too, welcomed the infusion of creativity as Giovanni had.
She couldn’t help the smile that stretched her lips. It was happening. Her dream was actually happening.
Rocco flicked a look at her. “Do what you need to do. I’ll answer some emails.”
But he didn’t. She tried to concentrate on her conversation with Mario, but with Rocco roaming the room, pulling her pieces off the rack, flicking sketches apart and staring at them with that trademark intensity of his, she was hopelessly distracted. A few minutes later, Mario made an amused comment about her attention span and “young lovers” and announced they were done for the day.
Rocco waited until the older man had left the studio before his gaze slid over her face. “Either your acting skills have kicked in, or my presence is making you nervous.”
She lifted her chin. “You’re looking at my designs properly for the first time. My future rests in your hands... Wouldn’t you expect me to be heart in mouth?”
His mouth twisted. “I thought that was just the general effect I had on you, bella.”
She rested her hands on her hips. “I’m not the one working until 1:00 a.m.