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“Of course. Will cowboy Jack be along for the ride to the Caribbean?”
“If you’re referring to Daniel Williams, then yes, he is the other half of the final two.”
“Perfetto,” he drawled, sarcasm lacing his tone. He was sure he could find a way for the Australian to stick his mouth in it again. It would be his pleasure. “We can do Tuscany whenever you like. Name the time.”
“How about Friday? That way I don’t miss the working week.”
His lips twisted. God forbid the workaholic miss a day churning out money for Davis Investments. “Shall I send the De Campo jet for you?”
“Thank you but I’m mandated by Davis rules to fly commercial. Demonstrates good corporate governance.”
He shrugged. “The offer’s there.”
“Thank you.”
“I do have one, nonnegotiable condition to us moving forward.”
A pause. “Which is?”
“You need to start calling me Matteo.”
He could have sworn he heard her smile. “I want your top-ten list, Matteo.”
The Chagall he’d recently purchased at auction drew his eye, a vivid splash of color against the cream entryway wall. “Over a bottle of Brunello in Tuscany, Quinn. Bring a sweater for the castello. It gets chilly at night.”
“Have you forgotten?” Her low, sardonic tone dripped across the phone line. “I’m already ice-cold.”
Low laughter escaped him. “Why, Quinn Davis, I think you have a sense of humor.”
“Don’t go imagining things.... I’ll have our admins connect on the details.”
She disconnected the call. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and shook his head. As far as standoffish women went, it was his theory that some were cold and uninviting at their core, while others just pretended to be so for a whole variety of reasons. The latter category had always fascinated him. Often proved the biggest challenge and the sweetest reward. He’d bet his Chagall Quinn was one of them.
Too bad that particular challenge was off-limits. If his vow to swear off women wasn’t enough of a reason to put Quinn in that category, his ten-million-dollar one was.
He settled in and called Riccardo, an intense feeling of exhilaration moving through him. They had made it to the pitch. That’s all he needed. No one could beat him in a room. No one.
His cold beer on the patio that night tasted very sweet indeed.
* * *
I should have taken the De Campo jet. Quinn embarked her commercial flight in Florence stiff, sleep deprived and wanting to strangle the man who’d sat beside her on the London to Italy leg, humming incessantly in her ear. She could have used the luxury of Matteo’s flying spa to actually get some work done considering she was too much of a control freak to sleep on planes. Instead, she’d done an excellent impersonation of a Quinn sandwich lodged between two overweight men on the seven-hour overseas flight, unable to move and completely unproductive. Then had come the humming.
She pulled up the handle on her carry-on and wheeled it through to the arrivals area of the tiny airport. Unproductive was the sore point here with the amount of work she had on her plate. Luxe was in far worse condition than she and Warren had ever imagined. When they’d started peeling back the layers and taken a hard look at the real financials—it was clear Luxe’s former parent company had been hiding a multitude of sins, including the fact that the restaurant wing of the chain was bleeding money at light speed. The rosy glow of Luxe’s heyday had long since passed and things were definitely on a downward spiral.
Enter Quinn Davis. Miracle worker.
She sighed and sat down on a bench to wait for her suitcase. She could do this. One step at a time, her mother had always told her when she was a little girl, fretting over some issue or another. Even at six, Quinn had been the girl waiting for the hammer to drop. Waiting for the pin to prick the bubble of her happy existence. The only girl in her first-grade class who had refused to get a dog because it might get run over by a car like her friend Sally’s had.
As if, despite all of Warren’s and Sile’s efforts, she’d known at the core of her she was different. That her life wasn’t destined to be the gilded storybook it had been presented as.
She closed her eyes against the pressure starting to build in her head. Hadn’t she proven time and time again in her short career she could do the impossible? She just needed to get this whirlwind two-day trip to Italy over with and move on to solving her real headaches. Like the handful of her restaurants that were literally falling apart because they hadn’t been renovated in so long. The local strikes that were paralyzing her Mediterranean locations. Completely incompetent management in others.
Luxe had seen better days. Her dream assignment was turning into a nightmare. Fast.
The baggage belt finally coughed to life and spit out her suitcase. Pulling up the handle she wheeled it and her carry-on through the barely there customs checkpoint and out into the Tuscan sunshine. The heat of the summer day burned down on her head and shoulders. She stopped, stripped off her cardigan and wrapped it around her waist, pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and searched for a sign with her name on it. She found Matteo instead, leaning against an atrociously expensive-looking sports car. Dressed in an Oxford University T-shirt and jeans that molded his long legs into a work of art, he looked cool, elegant and very Italian. Also scorching, singe-yourself-on-him hot.
Quinn’s hand flew to her head and the French twist she hadn’t straightened since...when? London? She must look a sight. Her slacks were creased, her shirt had a coffee stain on it from where one of the men from her personal sandwich had dumped it on her and she was pretty sure she’d forgotten to wipe the breakfast cream cheese off her face. She reached up and swiped a palm across her mouth. What was it about the Italians that made you feel incredibly gauche just from your pure lack of style?
She had not expected her ride to be him.
He strolled toward her, his relaxed, indolent stride catching the eye of about twenty women around her. Her gaze dropped to the black lettering stretching across his biceps. The tattoo. Damn if it didn’t give the whole package some serious edge.
Exactly what it didn’t need. Her husband had been a pretty boy, the Ivy League son of a high-powered lawyer Warren had admired. Not Quinn’s choice. His ego had required the kind of massive stroking it was impossible for one woman to administer. Unlike Matteo De Campo. He had it all built in. She doubted he’d had an uncertain day in his entire life.
The glitter in his gray eyes as he stopped in front of her said he hadn’t missed her lustful look. She yanked in a breath of the fragrant, rose-scented Tuscan air. She needed to squash the physical attraction between them like a bug. Fast.
“You didn’t need to come yourself,” she murmured, caught off guard when he bent and pressed his lips first to one cheek, then the other. It was like being branded by a force she had no ability to cope with.
He drew back, his mocking glance sliding across her flushed face. “You’re in Italy now, Quinn. We don’t shake hands. We kiss.”
She stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself. “You’ll have to excuse my appearance. It’s been a long day. I’m a mess.”
“If that’s a bad day,” he murmured, his lazy gaze taking her in, “most women would kill to have more of them.”
Her breath jammed in her throat. “You just can’t help it, can you?”
“No,” he agreed, smoky eyes laughing at her. “That’s what playboys do, Quinn. Play. However,” he drawled, picking up her bags and tossing them into the pitifully small backseat of the car, “I will endeavor to keep it to a bare minimum, just for you.”
“You are too kind.”
He held his hands up in a typically Italian gesture, then opened the passenger door for her. She slid in, absorbing the butter-soft interior of the car. “Fits the bad-boy image don’t you think?”
The exotic car growled as he brought it roaring to life. She had to agree as he gunned it and they sped out of the airport that yes, it was sexy and so was the tattoo, which close-up, she could now see was in Latin, the beautifully scripted symbols set in a perfectly straight line across the hard muscles of his biceps. Unfortunately the Latin was mumbo jumbo to her. She was about to ask him what it meant when she clamped her jaw shut. Deciphering Matteo De Campo’s tattoo was an activity better left for those actresses and models who were happy to let themselves fall for that type of meaningless charisma. She, on the other hand, knew better.
Matteo flicked her a sideways glance. “The castello is about an hour’s drive. Feel free to relax and nap on the way. You look tired.”
She grimaced. “I don’t sleep on planes.”
His mouth curved. “Don’t tell me, you’d prefer to be flying it?”
“However did you know?”
“Just a wild guess. If you aren’t going to sleep I’ll pick your brain.”
