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“Now that’s a goal I could get on board with.”

She laughed softly. “Seriously, though…”

“Right now? What do you think?” He gestured towards her feet, and she understood. He was her lover. The whole family feud thing was outside of this bubble they’d created.

“Then what I’m about to tell you stays between us. You have to promise not to use this against me.”

His brows narrowed. “Don’t tell me anything you’re not comfortable sharing.”

“Is that your way of saying I can’t trust you?”

Now it was Salvatore’s turn to consider that. “You can trust me.” His voice gruff, raw. Like he was betraying a part of himself to admit that.

How strange, though, that his answer didn’t come as a surprise to her. Even without his reassurance, shefeltthat she could trust him. Andhim,a Santoro! “It’s falling apart.” And suddenly, with that one admission, she felt the floodgates open, as she poured the entire debacle out to him, from the very beginning of the problems to the latest batch. “It’s like it’s cursed,” she said, finally. “I can’t get to my desk without there being a stack of messages for me about one problem or another, and it’s all so random. I’ve never had so many things go wrong onanything.”

The whole time she spoke, he sat there, face impassive but eyes intelligent and assessing, as though he was listening with every single part of himself. “None of that sounds insurmountable,” he said, finally.

“Easy for you to say.” She sighed heavily. “We’re hamstrung by having to hire at least eighty percent of the staff for the project from within Moricosia. It’s not a huge country, there aren’t that many companies with the skills and staff numbers to do what we need within the time frame.”

“Then talk to Ares. Explain.”

“I’ve been in meetings with his government all week.”

“Not his government. Him.”

She shook her head. “He’s taking a hands-off approach.”

Salvatore’s jaw tightened.

“I guess because of you guys,” she said, a little awkwardly, reminding him of something he no doubt had front and centre of his mind: that King Ares of Moricosia was a long-term familyfriend of the Santoros, and was in fact now married to Sofia—a Santoro in all but name.

“He’s a reasonable man. If you can get a meeting with him, explain your hold up, he’ll get approval for you to hire externally. The main thing is finishing on time and on budget.”

“I just wanted it to be perfect.”

“Nothing is ever perfect.”

She sighed again.

“I presume you’ve spoken to your family about this.”

She nodded once. “To Leandro.”

“What does he advise?”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t need him to clean up my mess.”

“It is not your mess,” Salvatore reminded her. “And you work in a family business. The whole point of that is to lean on each other. At least, that’s how it is for us.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not a competition. We all love each other too.”

He flicked her a quick glance. “Drink?”

She eyed the bottle of expensive French champagne, and nodded slowly. “Sure. I mean, I really should get back to work…”

He shrugged his shoulders. “You can work here.”

That was true. She’d come straight from the airport and so had her laptop with her, and suddenly, the temptation to stay in their little bubble was strong.