Page 43 of Italian Weddings

“Because there is something to be said for the fun of a challenge. The adrenaline rush of needing to think outside the box, to find a solution.”

She pulled a face. “I’ll take your word for it.”

His laugh was deep and throaty. “You must be used to this sort of thing?”

She expelled a breath. “Sure. I’m used to something going wrong, but not everything going wrong, all at once.” She sucked in a breath, aware she’d come dangerously close to saying too much.

“What difference does it make if it’s one thing or ten?”

She rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a man who never has to clean up his own mess.”

“Ouch. And presumptuous.”

“Am I wrong?”

“I tend not to make mess,” he said, winking at her, so her stomach did another unpredictable little roll.

“Sure you don’t.”

“But I’m responsible for fixing other people’s mistakes.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “We don’t need to go into specifics. And specifics don’t matter. At the end of the day, you just have to roll up your sleeves and dive right in.”

She sipped her drink. “And you enjoy that?”

It was Salvatore’s turn to stall, as he took a bite of his own burger then placed it onto the plate as he finished chewing. “I enjoy the feeling of success that comes from having achieved my aim. I like results; I like knowing I’m responsible.”

“So what exactly do you do, anyway?” she pushed, even when she knew it was getting close to breaking one of their rules.

They weren’t really supposed to be getting to know each other on a personal level.

By the same token, there was no harm in it, so long as they both kept their focus on what they were doing.

She was more than capable of having conversations like this and still walking away in a month’s time.

“I’m in charge of group Business Development, and on the side, I run my own venture capital firm.”

Her brows raised. “So basically, you’ve got your hands more than full.”

“That’s what I was thinking an hour ago,” he teased, so her insides squelched with awareness and her heart thumped so hard it felt like a hammer throbbing against her ribs.

“I’m serious,” she said, even as a smile tugged at her lips. “You’re a busy boy.”

“ Cara, I left boyhood behind a long time ago.”

She laughed. “You’re hardly an old man.”

He grinned.

“Which do you prefer?”

He frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“Working with your family, or your own business?”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that.”

“Do you generally make a habit of sticking around long enough to be asked?”

“ Touché.”

“But true?”

He laughed. “Possibly.”

His laugh turned her fast-thumping heart into a tremble, and her pulse into a gushing tsunami.

“So?” she prompted, after he hadn’t answered. “Which one?”

“Both, for different reasons.”

“Such a diplomatic answer. What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’m going to sell whatever you say to the papers? Out you for being disloyal to your family if you say you like your own work better?”

“You and I crossed the line of disloyalty back in Moricosia. There’s nothing you could say about me that I couldn’t say back to you.

” It wasn’t a threat, so much as a statement of fact, and yet the hint of a shiver ran the length of her spine.

Because he’d so easily invoked the visage of what was at stake for them—of how necessary it was for them to keep this secret.

“I’m not interested because I want to sell your secrets. I’m interested because I’m interested.”

“In me?” he asked, teasing again, in that tongue in cheek way, so it was easy to roll her eyes and act like it was all some big joke. When the truth was, she was genuinely interested in him. By him.

“Could you think of any more elaborate ways to dodge the question?”

He finished his burger and wiped his hands on one of the napkins. “I like working with my family. Contrary to what you’ve been brainwashed into believing?—,”

“Brainwashed?” she said, brows arched.

He continued, but with a dip of his head to acknowledge her interjection.

“They’re some of the best people I’ve ever known, and we’re a good team.

You might think it would be hard, to have so many decision makers in the room, but there’s something about having grown up together, and the fact we’re working towards a common goal, that just makes it work. ”

“I can understand that. It’s the same with us.

I mean, sometimes my brothers drive me absolutely crazy, but at the same time, we spark off each other organically.

I know what they’re thinking and I know that they’re the two people on earth who would literally drop everything and come help me out, if I needed it. ”

His eyes narrowed, though, in a way that made her suspect he was far less comfortable hearing about her family than she was his.

“So why the venture capital firm then?”

“Why not?”

She rolled her eyes and he laughed in a way that made her warm all over.

“I had a sizeable trust fund I inherited when I turned twenty one, and an insane network of friends with money.”

“So you take from the rich and give to the poor?”

He grinned. “That’s me, a modern-day Robin Hood.”

“Except I’m guessing the companies you invest in aren’t actually poor.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes they’re startups.”

“Like what?”

“Some guy in a basement who has a world-changing idea.”

“You can get people to put money into that?”

“Ideas are the best thing to trade in. They’re easy to sell.” He reached for a fry from her plate so she batted his hand away jokingly. “And it doesn’t cost much to take an idea to a prototype, or into the market. At least, not initially.”

“Would I have heard of anything you’ve invested in?”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“Are you being modest, Salvatore?”

“Me? Never.” His smile was the last word in sexy. She tried to swallow but her mouth felt all weird and non-cooperative.

“So? What kinds of things?”

He sipped his drink, then named a price comparison app for luxurious holidays.

“That was you?”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea, but the funding for it came from me, yes.”

She gaped. “That business must be worth a fortune.”

He nodded. “Seven other firms had passed on the idea before Shelton—that’s the founder—came to me.”

“Why did you invest, and they didn’t?”

“I liked the guy.”

“Seriously? That’s all it takes?”

“I liked his idea, I liked his work ethic, I liked the fact he believed in what he was pitching. And at the end of the day, his ask wasn’t huge. Low risk, potential high reward.”

“And in the end, you were right.”

“I’ve been wrong, sometimes, too.”

“Why do I suspect that’s not true?”

He laughed. “I have no idea.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to admit that.”

“My ego’s robust enough to face the truth.”

She glanced down at her burger, simply because she desperately, urgently needed a moment.

Her initial impulse had been that they shouldn’t get to know one another.

It had been a self-protective mechanism.

But she’d never imagined that getting to know him would feel like this.

She’d never imagined that he’d talk and she’d laugh, that he’d say something and she’d volley something back.

He zigged, she zagged, and that was perilous.

He was a Santoro. The enemy. The devil.

“Your turn.”

She pressed a fingertip to the edge of the table, and forced herself to glance up. Their eyes met and her insides zipped. She should leave…

“For what?”

“You work with your brothers. You were in Moricosia, so I presume business development falls in your remit, too?”

“Actually, no,” she said with a shake of her head. “Not generally.”

“Oh?”

“Both of my brothers were a little preoccupied,” she said, smiling softly. “Recently married, or engaged, babies, pregnancies, you know. Life.”

“So it fell to you to go and win the tender.”

“We worked together on the proposal, but yes. It was easier for me to travel.”

“And you clearly impressed the King.”

“The proposal impressed him,” she amended.

“Then when you aren’t doing your brothers’ bidding, what do you do?”

She reached across and flicked his hand for the subtle dig at her brothers. “It’s not like that.”

His grin showed that he’d intended it as a joke, to get a reaction from her.

“I actually run our charity.”

He was quiet, giving her the space and time to continue, but she was strangely self conscious suddenly.

“Go on,” he prompted, after a few moments of silence.

She pulled her lips to the side, thinking.

“It’s pretty self-explanatory. We have a set amount to donate each year—though I do supplement it, from time to time.

And like you, I have friends I can bring along to fundraisers with me, or who are willing to make donations for the right cause.

I guess you could say I do what you do, but instead of investing in businesses, I give the money away to worthy causes. ”

“Which is why you’re always at those events.”

“I could say the same for you.”

His eyes roamed her face and something twisted in her belly. “Actually, I don’t usually attend those things.”

“What a coincidence then to have seen you at two fundraisers in such a short space of time.”

“Oh, yes, definitely a coincidence,” he said, winking a little so something soared in her chest at the implication—and she was sure she wasn’t imagining it—that he’d started showing up at charity fundraisers specifically hoping to see her.

She didn’t want to feel warmth blossoming through her body.

She didn’t want to feel lightness and joy at the idea of him wanting to see her badly enough that he’d go to parties on the off chance she might be there, too.

But she felt it regardless. The best she could do was tell herself it didn’t mean anything, because there was no way she was going to let this thing—whatever it was—get out of hand.

To underscore that, and to prove to them both that this was not about conversation, emotion, or anything other than the physical, she stood up, eyes hooked to his, as she reached for the bottom of her shirt.

“Well, Salvatore, that’s enough talking for one night, don’t you agree?”

His jaw shifted, and he stared back at her silently for a moment, so in the back of her mind she wondered if he was going to disagree, to ask her another question, or reveal something else about himself.

But then, he was reaching for her, pulling her into his lap, and kissing her until all those silly concerns about finding him interesting as a man, not just someone she was sleeping with, fell right out of her head. This was just sex; everything was fine.