The Moretti Seduction (6 page)

“Shh,
cara mia,
” he said, helping her off the table. Her dress started to fall down her body, but Antonio caught it and drew it back up her body. “We will finish this later.”

She nodded. There was no way she’d deny herself an affair with this man now. She put herself to rights and turned to see he’d done the same. His shirt was buttoned and he had his tie back on.

“Antonio—”

“Shh. Say nothing now. We will talk later,” he said, shrugging into his suit jacket.

She sat down in her chair and drew her notes to her, staring down at the table as if it held some kind of answer, but all she saw was what she should be focused on. Her family and the board of directors at Vallerio Inc. were expecting her to beat Antonio Moretti at this game. They’d expected her to get him to agree to her terms.

Instead she’d just been writhing in his arms. Even now she could fall into a simpering puddle at his feet because that had been the best orgasm of her life.

“Nathalie?”

“Hmm?” she asked, looking up to see Angelina standing there.

“Your family insists we accompany them on the tour of the factory.”

“Very well. We had finished our discussion anyway,” Nathalie said. She gathered her folders and put them into her leather briefcase.

“I can hold that for you at my desk, Ms. Vallerio,” Angelina said.

The other woman was shorter than Nathalie with an hourglass figure that she showcased in her formfitting sweater and pencil skirt. Angelina had big brown eyes and thick curly hair and a hesitant smile as she took the case from Nathalie.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure. They are waiting for you in the lobby of the factory, Antonio.”

“
Grazie,
Angelina.”

They left the boardroom together and Nathalie tried to force her mind to accept that nothing had changed between the two of them, but it had. The awkward silence between them underscored that for her.

“Antonio?”

“
Sì,
Nathalie?”

“I don’t want this to interfere with our negotiations.”

“It won’t. I’m still going to be hard on you.”

She had no doubt about that. Had she meant her words more for herself? Did she really need a reminder that she had made a mistake?

Had she?

Antonio hadn’t been uninvolved and unless he was more of a playboy than his reputation indicated, she had to assume he felt something for her.

Did she use that to her advantage?

He paused to put on a pair of sunglasses and she wished she’d brought hers, for the midday sun in Milan was bright on this spring morning. He put his hand at the small of her back as they walked across the courtyard and she realized he’d fallen back into the mode that she needed to.

“I will send you an offer when I get back to Paris. It will expire in a week, Antonio. After that time we will no longer need to be in contact for the sake of our companies.”

“What if I accept the offer you send?”

“I’m assuming you will,” she said, not thinking about defeat. She had nothing to lose. But those words didn’t ring true for her anymore. She did have something very personal to lose.

“Good. Will you join me for dinner tonight?”

“Um…”

“Not to discuss anything about Vallerio Incorporated. As a date.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be dating.”

“Too bad. I don’t care what other people think and you didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d let that stop her either.”

“I’m not going to go out with you because you dared me to.”

“You’re not? What would it take?” he asked.

The sincerity in his voice made her stop walking and all she could was look up at him. “I guess if you promised we’d go somewhere private, then I’d say yes.”

“Consider it done. I’ll pick you up at the hotel—”

She shook her head. “That won’t work. I know we aren’t teenagers and sneaking around might not be what you want.”

“I like it,” he said. “Right now being seen in public isn’t in our best interest, for either of us. Tell me what you had in mind.”

“I’ll meet you in front of Duomo and we can go wherever you have planned.”

“Okay. Be there at nine,” he said. “Dress casual.”

“Fine,” she said, taking a step away from him. But his hand on the back of her neck stopped her. It was a light touch, a casual caress, but she shivered from it.

“If our families weren’t waiting behind that glass door,” he said softly, “I’d take you in my arms and kiss you again.”

“I might let you,” she said, just to let him know she wasn’t passive. She walked away, anticipating the coming night as she’d looked forward to nothing else in the last few years.

He was more interested in planning his total conquest of Nathalie. He knew he’d made a lot of headway this afternoon in breaking down barriers between them. Tonight he’d do the rest of what he needed to.

He felt a twinge of something that might be guilt as he thought about using her, but it was the only way he knew how to take control of his feelings for her. He had to make their relationship about the Moretti-Vallerio feud. Otherwise he’d never be able to keep himself on track.

And that was the one thing he had to do.

He wasn’t about to let all of the work he, Marco and Dom had done go by the wayside because of a woman. No matter how pretty she was. Or how much he liked her smile or even sparring with her in the boardroom. He and his brothers were the Morettis that would set the world on fire.

That wasn’t going to be easy to do if he was lusting after a Vallerio.

While the Vallerio family congregated around the model car and Genevieve got behind the wheel, Dom came over to him. “What were you two doing locked in the conference room?”

“Do you have a life outside of following me around?”

“No, I don’t. Moretti Motors is my life.”

Antonio clapped his brother on his shoulder. “It’s mine too.”

Dom looked him in the eye, his hard stare very reminiscent of their grandfather’s. “Good. I’m not sure what the Vallerio family is up to, but Emile is sitting on something big. He sounded very smug when we talked earlier.”

“Maybe it’s just his French attitude.”

“Or maybe he’s a bastard.”

“Dom. We have to work with them.
Nono
messed around with a woman in their family. How would you feel if the situation were reversed?”

“I’d be out for blood.”

“Exactly my point. Having Nathalie do the negotiation was probably the best thing Emile could do. I know that we will come to some sort of arrangement that works for all of us.”

“I wanted to give you more time alone, but—”

Antonio shook his head. “We will probably do the next phase of the negotiations via e-mail. I think you and I need to show them that they can’t walk away from this deal. I’ve given in on a few things, but they want the moon.”

“This car should make them want it.”

“I know that and you know that, but now we need to show them why,” Antonio said. Dom was a first-class salesman and if he could genuinely talk to the Vallerio family, Antonio knew he could win them over. And that really was the first step, because until they wanted to be a part of the new roadster they weren’t going to give in. They weren’t going to be willing to let Nathalie truly bargain with him. Without that, the Vallerio was never going to be more than a pipe dream.

“Why is there only a V on the hood and not the signature lion’s head emblem that Pierre-Henri used on his racing uniform?” Emile asked.

“We don’t have rights to that,” Dom said. “We wanted to use it and incorporate as much of the Vallerio legacy as we could, but we only own the rights to this new V we’ve created.”

“Well, if we are even going to be serious about talking of using my father’s name, you are going to have to use the lion’s head.”

“Perfect,” Antonio said. “I’ve asked Nathalie to go back to your board and send us an e-mail of the things you want. She knows how far we are able to go on some issues.”

Emile glanced at his daughter.
“Tres bien.
” Then he turned back to Dom. “I’m interested in seeing the rest of the factory. No sense in not knowing everything we’d be getting involved in.”

“We do have some proprietary areas that I’m afraid we can’t show you,” Dom said, moving to the front of the group. “But given our shared past in F1 racing, I think you’ll want to see this next area.”

Dom led the way into the showcase area for their F1 program. The open-wheel car that Marco had driven the last season in his final victory was on display there. On the wall were photos of his brother in Victory Circle, and Antonio felt a rush of pride as he looked at Marco. Their younger brother was really dynamite behind the wheel. When they had been younger and talking about who would do what in Moretti Motors when they grew up, they all knew that Marco would be the face of Moretti. He craved speed the way Antonio craved winning and the way that Dom craved power.

Everyone walked around the car, which was polished to perfection and looked showroom perfect. But Antonio smelled the oil and tire rubber that had been in the air in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when Marco had become the winningest driver in Grand Prix history.

“Will you be running the Vallerio Roadster in any rally races?” Emile asked.

“That is our hope. We’d like to use it at the 24 hours of Le Mans,” Dom said.

Emile stepped forward and ran his hand along the edge of the racing car. Antonio wondered if the other man had ever wanted to be a driver like Pierre-Henri. From his own perspective he knew that not everyone inherited the desire to drive at top speeds.

“This is a fine machine. Even my father could never find fault with your F1 program.”

“That is at the root of our company and something vital to Moretti Motors. We will always preserve this first, which is the main reason we are reissuing the Vallerio Roadster. We want to pay tribute to those who helped build the Moretti name to the heights it once enjoyed and will enjoy again.”

“We want the same thing for the Vallerio name. My father shouldn’t drop into obscurity,” Emile said.

“If you are reasonable,” Antonio said, “I’m sure that we will be able to come to an acceptable arrangement.”

She wore a pair of slim-fitting jeans and a button-down white blouse that made her feel very American. She draped one of her favorite scarves over her head and took the stairs instead of the lift to the first floor. Instead of hailing a cab out front, she walked the short block to the Metro station and found the proper train to Duomo.

She couldn’t wait to see Antonio again. To be with him away from the pressures of their families. She rubbed the spot on her breast where Antonio had left his mark.

She felt she was doing something illicit and daring. And it was out of character for the straitlaced business-focused woman she’d always been.

She walked through the Piazza del Duomo. The crowds of people were a nice buffer and helped her to feel anonymous as she walked to the cathedral. She stood on the steps where she and Antonio had been the night before. Looking up at the wedding-cake perfection of the old stone church, she had a sense of how small her slice of time was. That her lifetime, like her grandfather’s, was going to be nothing more than a wrinkle in time. Legacies, especially one like this, were all that they’d have.

She realized she was going to do whatever she could to make sure that her father and the rest of the board came to an agreement with Moretti Motors. Sure, she wanted to win and it would be nice to get this deal sealed. But she also wanted her grandfather to be remembered for generations to come. She wanted the car named after him to be talked about the way the Shelby Cobra was to muscle-heads of the world.

“Are you ready?”

He’d come up behind her, startling her.

“
Oui.
I wasn’t sure where to meet you. Am I dressed okay?”

Antonio took her hand in his and led the way through the crowded piazza to a stand where motorcycles were parked. “You look perfect as always.”

“Flattering me won’t win you any points,” she said.

“Why not?”

She studied him for a moment. He wore casual jeans and a cashmere sweater. His hair was perfectly styled and his Italian leather boots were shined. The bike he stood next to was slim and sleek. “Because I don’t like lies, even the social kind, and I am very aware of what I look like in the mirror.”

He opened up the seat and took out a helmet, handing it to her. “You will never convince me you don’t know you are a beautiful woman.”

She shook her head. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I know that emotions can make a man see a woman in a different light, but you don’t feel anything for me, Antonio.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Do you?” she asked, because she was fairly confident he was still playing a game with her. A game he was desperate to win. After seeing the Moretti showroom and the hall of trophies, she understood why succeeding was important to him, but she still didn’t know exactly how she personally figured into his plans.

He set his helmet on the seat of the bike and then took the one from her hands. “Yes, I feel something for you. Didn’t this afternoon prove that?”

“Ah, lust.”

He laughed. “Women always treat that emotion with disdain, but it’s very important to the mating ritual.”

Mating ritual. Was he thinking of his time with her as more than just an affair? Or was he simply trying to throw her off her guard?

“Stop thinking so much,
cara mia.
Let’s enjoy the night and the time that we have together.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Lake Como. I have my yacht waiting for us.”

“Isn’t that a bit far for dinner?”

“Not at all. I wanted the evening with you and I want privacy. We won’t have that here in Milan.”

Still, driving two hours to the deepest lake in Italy didn’t sound practical. But Antonio wasn’t trying for practical. This was romance, she realized, looking into his dark blue eyes. He was going to a lot of trouble to seduce her; the least she could do was enjoy it.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ve never ridden on a motor-bike before.”

“I promise you are in good hands.”

She sensed that she was.

He put the helmet on her head and pulled her hair free of the back. There was a sincerity and a caring to all of Antonio’s moves that made her realize that he was thinking about her. Not about the Moretti-Vallerio feud or the deal that each was fighting tooth and nail to win at the other’s expense.

“Is this okay?” he asked. “We can go to my place and pick up my car. But I thought this mode of transportation was more autonomous.”

“It’s fine. I think. I mean I’ve never ridden on anything without doors before.”

“You’ll enjoy it,
cara mia.
Riding on the bike is a sensuous feast.”

She believed him. And when he helped her onto the bike and then put his own helmet on and climbed on in front of her, she realized how intimate the ride was going to be.

“Put your arms around me,” he said, but she heard it close to her ear in the helmet. His voice was strong and deep and sent a sensual shiver through her.

She scooted forward and wrapped her arms around his lean waist. He put his hand over hers for a moment and then the bike roared to life as he started it. The machine vibrated between her legs and Antonio pressed against her breasts.

This was going to be the most sensual night of her life. For once she was going to forget about being a Vallerio and just enjoy being a woman.