Chapter Three
ALESSANDRO RICCI WAS the last man she should allow familiarity, Sam reminded herself.
Not that he wanted to be anywhere near her. His austere features spoke eloquently to his distaste at being thrust with her responsibility.
But the corded weight of his arm around her waist, the press of his muscled body holding her up felt like heaven. Made her want to sink into him until her exhaustion fled. Until she felt safe again.
One stolen glance at his granite jawline made her spine straighten. This man was as safe as Matteo was trustworthy.
Matteo, who had got engaged to another woman the moment they had broken up, who had been seeing Angelina Bianchi while Sam had struggled with losing interest in him. Who had probably forgotten her the moment it was over while she had called herself weak, boring, and scared.
She even acknowledged that her hurt came from him doing all those exciting things that she couldn’t with Angelina, rather than from him falling in love with her.
Because she was a heart patient who still lived at home at the age of twenty-three, a dull woman among bold, risk-taking twentysomethings.
She hadn’t finished high school or gone to college or gone even on a sleepover unless it was with her cousin Kavi at her aunt’s place, with her mom in the next room.
Now she was in a foreign country where she didn’t know another soul. She’d hoped to repair their friendship after their breakup. The entire summer stretched in front of her, static, inert, directionless—the same as it had been for the past decade.
It had taken her so long to break away from the limitations placed on her by her body. From the rut that loneliness had placed her in. From the protective shell of her parents’ suffocating love.
Without Matteo’s company, where would she go?
Could she look after herself? Financially, yes.
Living with her parents meant she’d saved every dollar she’d earned from her summer jobs and her portrait commissions.
But what would she do in Italy alone? After all the planning and months of fighting her innate fears to get herself here, should she simply turn around and go back?
Her phone pinged.
She was sure it would be a text from her mother, checking she’d arrived safely.
Remembering her mother made her spiraling thoughts come to a screeching halt.
If her mom discovered that Matteo was engaged, that Sam’s trust in him had been misplaced—and that she herself had been right about him—she’d never let Sam live it down.
Would never let her forget. She’d jump on the next plane and make an unholy spectacle until Sam had no choice but to leave with her.
Fresh anger surged through her at Matteo.
Even now, with his fiancée on the other side of the door, he was glaring at his brother. Didn’t that woman deserve better?
She despised confrontations. She’d always hated being the reason for the constant, emotionally taxing fights her parents had engaged in for so long.
The guilt that they were fighting because of her, worried over her health and her future, over her long-term care, over the medical debts they’d accrued had hurt more than the pricks of the hundred needles she’d had to endure.
The thought of Matteo’s fiancée, the guests at the party and his family learning about her sent a fresh tremor down her spine.
Instantly, the arm around her waist tightened, long fingers pressing into her hip without hesitation. “You’ll be fine, Ms. Fischer,” Mr. Ricci whispered, despite his declaration that he didn’t do kindness.
Matteo flicked a dark glance at his brother’s arm around her waist before he opened the doors. Ms. Bianchi was petite and curvy and vivaciously beautiful in a way that couldn’t be achieved solely by designer clothes and expensive makeup. Her gaze immediately fastened on Matteo.
A large, lean man—clearly Vittorio Bianchi—surveyed them, his shrewd gaze not missing Alessandro’s arm around Sam’s waist. He barked something at Mr. Ricci in Italian.
Mr. Ricci shrugged in return, an arrogant smile ghosting across his lips.
Sam’s cheeks burned. No doubt it was about her. And nothing decent either.
Sam breathed out a sigh as the older man left.
“Matteo, what happened?” Angelina said, tangling her arm through his.
Matteo smiled tightly. “Nothing, cara mia,” he said, switching to English. “I wished to inquire about something with Alessandro.”
“And you were shocked to find him in here with a woman?” Angelina said with a tinkling laugh. Her gaze flicked to Sam and cut away. She clearly thought Sam wasn’t worth a second look.
Sam didn’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted. She didn’t know what to feel about anything right now. Least of all, her constant awareness of the man propping her up like a cardboard cutout.
“I know your mother wishes for Alessandro to bring a date to our wedding,” Angelina said, laying her palm on Matteo’s chest, “but you must trust his judgment, Matteo. If he’s hiding this woman, she is not suitable company for us.”
A gasp escaped Sam’s mouth, a slow burn of anger humming beneath her skin.
But for her casually sexist attitude toward other women, Ms. Bianchi wasn’t to blame.
That Sam had to listen to it and not even offer a token protest…
the fault lay with Matteo for making her face his fiancée as if she were the other woman.
It also lay with Mr. Ricci, who let his friends and family talk in such a way about the women in his life.
She’d had enough. When she tried to step away, those fingers gripped the curve of her flesh tight, branding her. Tilting his head down, Mr. Ricci studied her, a mocking slant to his mouth. “Such outrage is not warranted, Ms. Fischer. Remember, you’re only pretending to be mine.”
Sam shivered as his words trickled down her spine like a lover’s caress. She placed her palm on his chest, goaded beyond common sense. He was hard and hot against her fingertips. His heart thundering away belied the mockery in his eyes. “You wish I were yours. I do have standards.”
His laughter enveloped her, a deep, sensual rumble, as arousing as the man’s physicality. This close, she could see the warming of the gray of his eyes. The small scar across his brow. The flare of interest as he said, “And what are those?”
“No liars. And no arrogant, judgmental men who mock others’ weaknesses.”
The cold frost of his eyes returned. “I never mocked you.”
“You aren’t as inscrutable as you’d like to believe.”
His gaze dipped to her mouth. It was as if one look, one word between them could generate an electric charge that surrounded them. “Or you read me better than anyone has in a long time.”
“Shall we join the party, caro?” Angelina’s loud voice cut across their murmurs.
Looking away from Mr. Ricci felt like fighting gravity.
“You shouldn’t keep Vittorio waiting,” Mr. Ricci said.
“You two should join us,” Matteo retorted.
Sam shook her head.
A glimmer of triumph touched Mr. Ricci’s mouth. “I couldn’t bear to part with her right now. Go back to your party.”
With a dark look at his brother, and not even a glance in her direction, Matteo left, taking his fiancée with him.
Sam jerked away from the man at her side. “I don’t appreciate being fought over like a bone between two dogs.”
Again those damned double doors closed. His hands tucked into pockets of his trousers, Mr. Ricci considered her. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me a dog before. Not even as a boy.”
“Probably because you terrified everyone around you.”
“You met Angelina, got a glimpse of her father. Do you truly think I bullied you or Matteo just then?”
The openness of his question halted Sam’s angry pacing.
However much she wanted to blame him, this infuriatingly arrogant man was not at fault.
“Fine. Don’t use me as a weapon in your ongoing battle with Matteo, then.
You knew that he didn’t want to leave me here with you, and you still needled him. ”
“And it is my fault that my brother does not trust you with me?” he asked with such a straight face that Sam wanted to slap the expression off it. “Or that he risks betraying his possessiveness over an ex to Angelina’s eyes?”
The discomfort Mr. Ricci caused her was of a different kind. There was something between her and this man. Something she’d never felt with Matteo or any other man.
Sam gathered her sweater, her movements clumsy. Hunger gnawed at her belly, and her head was beginning to pound too.
She threw her handbag over her shoulder and gripped it tightly to steady her fingers. By the time she turned to Mr. Ricci, sudden tears had bubbled up in her throat.
Exhaustion always made her cry. But she had to hold herself together. For some reason, it was paramount that she not show this man any weakness. She’d already betrayed her awareness of him. “If you can have my luggage located by your staff, you can be free of me.”
“Now you are twisting my words.”
“Why are you pulling your punches suddenly? Given the show you put on just now, I’m a problem for you. I need to get out of here. I need to—”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I have an extreme aversion to people telling me what I can or cannot do, Mr. Ricci.”
“I don’t care if you break out in hives.
You look like you’re ready to drop, you don’t know where you are, much less where to go, and this problem isn’t going to be solved by someone taking advantage of you on the streets tonight.
” His smooth as silk tone dissolved at the end.
“Unless you’re offering to leave Italy altogether. Right now.”
For a split second, Sam considered saying just that. But he wouldn’t believe it unless he handed her onto a flight himself. Unlike Matteo, the man was thorough. As for returning home, every inch of her rebelled at the thought.