Prologue
He had to find Maria. He… Micha could barely pull his thoughts together. They’d scattered like the marbles he’d seen other children play with on the streets. He couldn’t… He didn’t…
Gio Gallo, the man he’d had the temerity—and desperation—to try and steal from, the man who had plucked Micha and his mother from the streets, given him a job, an education, a place to live, a future, the man to whom he owed everything, had just broken his heart.
Ask her. Ask her and see what she says.
Micha was a few days from his eighteenth birthday. And he’d been happy. He’d been pinch-me-hard-because-this-didn’t-happen-to-people-like-me happy. Gio had been his fairy godfather far beyond the time when Micha had believed in fairytales—if he ever had.
He’d grown up hard and quick, forced to do and see things most adults never did.
Not that he’d ever lay the blame at his mother’s feet.
She’d done the best she could. She’d done whatever she could and he forced his thoughts away from the darkness that filled his mind when memories of the past came calling.
His father had run off before he was born, leaving his mother saddled with debts she had no hope of paying, and debtors who had plenty of ideas.
He’d been on edge, hovering between desperation and hopelessness when he’d run across Gio.
Gio, who had given him everything.
Gio, who wanted to send him away.
Gio had brought him into his business, his family and his sprawling family estate in Tuscany, and Micha had thrived.
As for the rest of his family? They were not all like Gio, who had seen in him what no money could have bought—an intelligence that matched his own and a determination that would achieve great things, given half the chance.
No, instead, most of the Gallos simply saw a half Italian and half Russian illegitimate street urchin who would never amount to anything.
Maria hadn’t thought that though. She and Antonio had never treated him as anything but an equal.
They had befriended him, and they became inseparable.
The Three Musketeers, that’s what they had been called.
He hadn’t understood the reference at first and had to look it up, but he liked it.
Three friends who would do anything for each other.
Ask her and see what she says.
Micha had genuinely thought he and Maria had been careful enough that no one had known about their relationship.
He stumbled over the word love. He felt it, but could still hardly believe that someone like Maria could feel that way for him.
But he adored her. She filled his every thought.
She made his heart ache just at the sight of her.
But Gio wanted to send him away.
Micha had always wanted to work for Gio. He’d wanted to repay the man who had changed his and his mother’s entire lives. He was going to work for Gio and so was Maria. Because Maria wanted to run Gallo Group—the international conglomerate that Gio ruled with an iron fist.
But the only way that Gio would allow that to happen was if she married Antonio—her adopted cousin. Gio Gallo was fixated on the union of his two grandchildren, having given up fully on his own, useless children.
Micha had thought that if he could just prove himself, if he could show the old man just how good he was, Gio might eventually change his mind. He’d thought he would have time.
‘I’m sending you to Paris,’ Gio had announced that morning.
‘That’s…kind of you, Mr Gallo, but I’d rather stay here. To be near—’ Maria ‘—my mother.’ The guilt at the lie twisted in his soul.
‘This is no problem. I will be providing you both with accommodation.’
‘I have—’ friends ‘—colleagues here. And I was just beginning to grow—’
From behind his desk, Gio had pulled up to his full height, the black-eyed glare stopping Micha’s words so much so that he nearly bit his tongue.
‘It’s just that—’ Micha had tried again.
‘No,’ Gio said. The word a bullet. ‘It’s not your mother, it’s not your friends or your career prospects. What it is,’ he said, stressing the word, ‘is an impossibility.’
‘Sir, I—’
‘She is not meant for you,’ Gio spat, the poison dropping into Micha’s skin. ‘You know my feelings on this.’
Micha clenched his jaw.
‘But, really, it’s not my feelings you have to worry about. You know how much she wants to lead this company. At seventeen, she already has a better business head than my children do at twice her age. She was born for this. She wants this. And she will choose this over you, Micha.’
Micha huffed out a disbelieving breath.
She wouldn’t.
‘Ask her, Micha. Ask her and see what she says.’
He couldn’t say it was sadness that he’d seen in the old man’s eyes. Pity and such things were far beyond Gio’s emotional capabilities. But it didn’t matter, Micha thought to himself. She would choose him.
Micha found her lounging on the large verdant lawn of Gio’s Tuscan villa laughing with Antonio and for a moment a vicious splinter of jealousy cut through his heart. They did look good together. Together they could run Gallo Group and life would be easy and rich and…
‘Micha!’ Maria called when she caught sight of him, her gaze happy and her face bright.
His heart shuddered and he forced a smile to his lips.
‘Ciao bella,’ Micha called as he drew closer.
Antonio raised a hand to clap him on the back when he arrived.
‘Good, take this one off my hands, please. She’s driving me round the bend. I have to go, Mama is waiting,’ he said easily, dropping a kiss to Maria’s cheek and another slap to Micha’s back. ‘Look after her,’ Antonio called as he loped back up to the estate.
Maria smiled up at him and patted the ground beside her, Micha dropping to his knees strangely out of breath.
‘I have to ask you something,’ he said, focusing on the tumble of dark curls that surrounded her like a halo.
‘Hello, how are you? Well, thank you, and you?’ Maria said on a laugh which petered out when she saw the look on his face. ‘Of course, you can ask me whatever you like,’ she said, placing a hand on his forearm.
‘What would…?’ Micha swallowed.
Tell her.
No.
Tell her why you’re asking.
‘What would you do to become head of this company? If Gio offered it to you? What would you do?’ The words rushed out of Micha’s mouth, his heart thudding painfully, as if already he was running from her answer, as if already he was rushing to pack his bags for Paris.
Would you do it? Would you marry Antonio if Gio asked?
Maria blinked at him, pulling a strand of her curls that the wind had blown across her face. Her smile bright and her eyes gleaming.
‘Anything,’ she said, enthusiastically. ‘Anything. You know that.’
And then she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips, not knowing that her declaration had broken him forever.