Page 51 of My Dark Fairy Tale

“You do know I am a busy man, correct? You know, running an empire to keep you in clothes and Diet Cokes.”

She laughed, turning to Leo to say, “Do you see who I found?”

“I think I found him first,” he countered, but he was smiling the kind of relaxed grin I hadn’t seen on his face since my father died.

“Technically, I found you,” I retorted. “And you were just about to tell me why you were not at the villa with the family.”

“We are not birds you can keep in a cage, Raffuccio,” she decreed, pulling out of my arms to fist her hands on her hips. “I wanted to speak with Mario about the satellite GPS system. Ours is on the fritz, and they have the same model.”

“Telephones have existed for decades now,” I reminded her, crossing my arms.

“That is not the best way to do business,” Leo chimed in, stepping closer to Delfina’s back to support her. “As you always say.”

“That is a different kind of business. One that requires discretion,” I told them both sternly.

“Hello.”

Leo and Delfina startled as Guinevere stepped up beside me, much the way Leo had just done with my sister. When her hand gently found the small of my back in a gesture of obvious support, I had to bite my grin.Mio dio, she was sweet.

“I’m Guinevere,” she continued into the silence with a small smile.

In tandem, Leo and Delfina looked from her to me for an explanation.

I sighed wearily, pulling Guinevere to my side with an arm around her waist and gesturing to my family. “This is Leonardo di Conte, my childhood friend, and my sister Delfina.”

“I forgot you have a sister,” she murmured, looking up at me. “Two, right?”

“Three,” Delfina supplied happily.

“You do not know me very well,” I reminded her, my voice cool. “It is understandable you would forget.”

I felt the tension settle into her bones and hated that I had made her feel other when we had just shared such an intimate morning. But this was not the time or place for the Raffa I could allow myself to be in the safety of her orbit.

I was Raffaele Romano here, standing in a place of business with my right-hand man and sister. The armor I donned was instinctual, camouflage as a matter of survival.

“How did you meet my brother?” Delfina asked to fill the awkward silence.

Leo was scrutinizing Guinevere with a curiosity that had my hackles rising. She was gorgeous, of course, but Leo was a playboy through and through.

He wasn’t getting within another foot of her if I could help it.

“Are you Italian?” he asked, before Guinevere could respond to my sister.

“Through my father,” she admitted.

“What is your last name?”

She frowned at his intensity, pressing her hip into me. “Stone.”

“And do you have any family in the region?” he pressed.

“Basta, Leo,” I ordered, because he was interrogating her without cause. “We met, if you must know, Delfi, when I hit her with my car.”

Delfina blinked and then burst into laughter. “You’re kidding?”

Guinevere lifted the hem of her short dress higher on one side to show the lingering yellow bruise on her hip. “No, we literally collided.”

“So you did not know who Raffa was before youraninto him?” Leo asked, his tone uncharacteristically hard.