My Billionaire Husband Looked Away While His Family Humiliated Me

Prologue

Mel

Nobody takes pigeons seriously. That’s the first mistake.

People laugh. They say it’s just a bird like I haven’t spent twenty-five years on this planet knowing exactly what pigeons are, which is winged rats with zero respect for personal space and an agenda I don’t trust. My therapist back in Austin called it an “irrational fear rooted in a childhood incident,” which, sure, but also?

I was four years old and a pigeon flew directly into my face at a street fair and I’m pretty sure I have the right to hold a grudge.

Three days into my harvest job at the Bianchi vineyard, I’ve gotten good at avoiding them.

The gravel path from the worker cottages to the main house has a few regular offenders who like to lurk near the old stone wall, so I’ve mapped out a route that keeps me at least fifteen feet from their territory.

It’s fine. It’s working. I’m a functional adult with a clipboard full of harvest notes and a dream of padding my savings account before grad school, and I refuse to let birds ruin this for me.

The October sun sits low and golden over the Tuscan hills, and I’m walking the path with my head up and my shoulders back, feeling almost confident about this whole international adventure thing.

The vineyard sprawls out in every direction, rows of vines heavy with grapes that smell like summer ending, and the main estate rises up ahead like a film set, all warm stone and green shutters and more money than I’ll ever see in my lifetime.

I’m mentally rehearsing the Italian phrase for “I have the yield reports” when the flutter happens.

It comes from the left. From the wall I specifically walked wide of. A gray blur of wings and cooing and movement right at my face level, and every rational thought in my brain evacuates like someone pulled a fire alarm.

I don’t think.

I run.

There is no dignity in it. It’s a full-on, arms-pumping, survival-instinct sprint down the gravel path like the building is on fire and I’m the only one who noticed.

My clipboard goes flying. My dignity goes with it.

I can hear the pigeon behind me, or maybe that’s my own heartbeat, or maybe I’m just catastrophizing, but it doesn’t matter because my legs have already committed to this escape plan and my brain is just along for the ride.

Which is why I don’t see him until I’m already airborne.

One second I’m running. The next second there’s a wall of human being directly in my path, and I hit him at full speed with a sound that’s somewhere between a tackle and a car crash.

We go down together in a tangle of limbs and gravel and Italian swearing that I definitely understand but will never admit to, and I land hard on top of him with my elbow in his ribs and my face approximately three inches from his.

He’s got dark wavy hair full of dust now, and eyes so pale blue they look almost silver in the afternoon light, and a jaw that could cut glass, and absolutely none of that matters because I just committed assault on a stranger in my boss’s vineyard.

“What the fuck,” he says.

“I’m so sorry,” I wheeze. “I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t see you, I was-”

“Running like someone lit you on fire?” His voice is deep with an Italian accent that curls around the English words, and he hasn’t moved to get up yet, just lies there in the dirt looking up at me like I’m the most confusing thing he’s encountered all week. “What exactly was chasing you?”

I scramble off him, brushing gravel from my knees and trying to locate what’s left of my professional reputation. “Nothing. It was nothing. Are you hurt? Can I get you something? Ice? A doctor? A written apology?”

He sits up slowly, and I realize with dawning horror that he’s enormous.

Not fat. Built. Tall and broad-shouldered in a way that makes the fact I knocked him down seem even more impressive and also way more mortifying.

His white button-down shirt is now a brown-and-gray button-down shirt, and there’s a smear of dirt across his cheekbone that would look attractive if I wasn’t currently hoping for a lightning strike to end my suffering.

“You’re dodging the question.” He brushes himself off without looking particularly concerned about the state of his clothes. “What were you running from?”

“I told you. Nothing.”

“You came around that corner like a bat out of hell. That’s not nothing.”

“It was - look, it doesn’t matter, I’m sorry I tackled you, I’ll pay for dry cleaning, can we just-”

“A dog? A snake?” His mouth twitches. “A particularly aggressive butterfly?”

“Oh my God, shut up.”

“A strong gust of wind, perhaps? A leaf that looked at you wrong?”

I plant my hands on my hips and glare at him, still kneeling in the dirt because getting up feels like admitting defeat.

“You know what, I don’t have to explain myself to you.

I said I was sorry. I meant it. Let’s just pretend this never happened and go about our days like normal humans who don’t interrogate assault victims.”

“I’m the victim here. You’re the assailant.”

“Then press charges.” I wave a hand at the estate. “I’m sure there’s a lawyer somewhere in that giant house who’d love to handle the case of the tackled vineyard tourist.”

His eyebrows go up. “Tourist?”

“Isn’t that what you are? Rich guy wandering around taking pictures of the pretty Italian countryside?”

His expression shifts, amusement, maybe, or surprise. “And what makes you think I’m rich?”

“The watch, the shoes, the haircut, and the confidence of a man who’s never once been told no.

” I finally push myself to my feet, wincing at the gravel embedded in my palms. “Look, I need to find my clipboard and get back to work before someone notices I’m missing.

So unless you’re planning to report me to the owners-”

“The pigeon.”

I freeze. “What?”

“You were running from the pigeon.” He’s smiling now, the bastard, a slow spread of amusement across his stupidly handsome face. “The one on the wall. You ran into me because a pigeon startled you.”

“I didn’t-”

“You went white as a sheet just now. When I said the word.” He pushes himself up to standing, and God, he’s even taller than I thought, towering over me by at least six inches even with my work boots on. “You’re afraid of pigeons.”

“I have a healthy respect for them.”

“You sprinted forty feet and tackled a complete stranger because of a bird.”

“First of all, it was maybe twenty feet. Second of all, you were in my way. Third of all-” I point a finger at him, “-you don’t know my life.

You don’t know what pigeons have done to me.

You don’t get to stand there looking all smug and superior just because you’ve never had a traumatic avian experience. ”

He starts laughing.

It isn’t polite, and it isn’t sympathetic. It’s a full, head-back, shaking-with-it laugh that makes his whole face turn almost unbearably attractive, which only makes me angrier.

“It’s not funny!”

“It’s incredibly funny.”

“You’re a terrible person. I hope you know that.”

“I’ve been told.” He’s still grinning, dirt-streaked and rumpled and looking at me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s seen in months. “What other birds are on your hit list? Sparrows? Crows? Is this a general feathered creature issue or specifically-”

“I’m leaving now.”

“Wait-” He catches my arm as I turn to storm off, and a current zips up my skin at the contact. I yank free on instinct.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Fair.” He holds up both hands. “I apologize. But you forgot something.”

He bends down and retrieves my clipboard from where it landed in the gravel, holding it out like a peace offering. I snatch it from his hands.

“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“At the vineyard?”

“No, at the McDonald’s down the road. Yes, at the vineyard. I’m seasonal harvest staff.”

“Ah.” That amused look is back. “So you work here.”

“Which is why I really need to not be standing around covered in dirt explaining my psychological issues to tourists. So. Goodbye. Sorry again for the tackle.”

I turn and make it exactly four steps before I hear him call out behind me: “I’m not a tourist.”

His tone makes me look back.

He’s standing there in the golden afternoon light, dirt on his clothes and dust in his hair and a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, and he looks like trouble in human form.

“Then what are you?” I ask.

“I’m the owner’s son.”

The world tilts.

I think of every word I just said to him.

Rich guy. Confidence of a man who’s never been told no.

Terrible person. And I want to sink into the gravel and disappear.

My boss’s son. The heir to the whole Bianchi empire.

The billionaire whose family owns not just this vineyard but apparently half the wine production in Italy.

And I just tackled him into the dirt and yelled at him about pigeons.

“Oh,” I manage. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I didn’t - you should have said something - I thought-”

“You thought I was a tourist with too much money and not enough sense, I believe were the implications.”

“I’m so fired.” I can hear my own pulse.

“Probably.”

“This is the worst day of my life.”

“Really? I’m having a wonderful time.”

I stare at him, this infuriating gorgeous disaster of a man, and I can’t tell if he’s messing with me or genuinely enjoying my humiliation. Both, probably. “You could have stopped me. You could have said ‘hi, I’m the guy who signs your paychecks’ at any point in that conversation.”

“And miss the bit about traumatic avian experiences? Not a chance.”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.”

His smile widens. “Santino. Santino Bianchi. Now you know more.”

“Great. Fantastic. I’ll make sure to spell it right on my resignation letter.”

“You’re not going to resign.”

“I’m definitely going to resign. I can’t work here now. I assaulted my employer and called him a smug, superior-”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

I pause. “What?”

“I won’t tell anyone what happened.” He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Consider it professional courtesy.”