An Innocent To Tame The Italian

She had no one to count on but herself. As always.

Still keeping her head down, she went over the jumble of thoughts in her head, unraveling each one.

She’d covered her tracks very well, the first time. This man...he’d have never tracked her by that. But then, she’d tunneled through the firewalls a second time. Albeit with utter reluctance at Vincenzo’s behest. That had been her mistake.

Still, the man on the other end had to be a genius to have tracked her. With unlimited resources. And not just online but all the way here. To show up right outside the cyber club, to taunt her with that text, to trap her so neatly...

She looked up and panic threatened to overwhelm her again.

A stranger in her apartment.

Her sanctuary. Her only safe place from the cruel world outside. She had never even invited Vincenzo here.

God, what a mess.

She pushed a hand through her hair and tugged at it. Her scalp tingled, the pain dispersing the remnants of panic. She’d survived worse situations. She’d find a way out of this, too.

First, she needed to protect herself from him. Needed to get him out of her home.

From the trench coat he’d discarded to the crisp black suit, the cuff links at his wrists, which she’d guess to be platinum, all the way to the handmade black leather shoes he was tapping on her cheap linoleum floor—he was expensively dressed. She might not know all of Vincenzo’s background but he had expensive tastes.

This man was no different.

Even his jet-black haircut, carefully piled artistically at the top of his head, looked expensive, catering to the high cheekbones and forehead, sharpening those features even more. He was no mere IT officer or a hound sent to track her down.

Even if she could get away from him, he or his higher-ups would come after her. Again. Neither could she be a fugitive for the rest of her life. And yet...the need to take control of the situation was overwhelming.

Keeping her eyes on his lean frame lounging against the opposite wall, Nat pushed herself to her feet. Shuffling her feet, she slowly reached for the baseball bat she kept next to the bookshelf. One of the numerous things she’d been collecting to make the tiny apartment a home for Frankie.

The wood felt solid in her hand as she lifted it.

“Drop it, Ms. Crosetto,” he said in a mildly bored tone.

She couldn’t. Not for the life of her.

For a man who topped a couple of inches over six feet, he moved with a grace and economy she couldn’t believe. In two seconds, his lean frame was crowding her. A gasp fell from her mouth when his fingers wrapped around her wrist, forcing her to drop the bat. The thunk of it hitting the floor reverberated in the small space. With a firm grip, he pushed her arm behind her until her upper body arched toward him. Her skin tingled where he held her tightly, but not hurting her.

Head falling back against the wall of his chest, she looked up at him.

And the impact of the man beneath the expensive clothes hit her hard. Hit her in places she didn’t want to think about in front of him.

Intelligence and something else glimmered in his gaze. Dark shadows hung under his penetrating gray eyes. His sharp nose had a small dent right in the middle. His mouth...wide, the bow of the upper lip carved, it was so...sexy.

Awareness rushed in through her blood, settling into a warm throb in her lower belly. A shocking heaviness in her breasts.

Her breaths became shallow. He stood so close that she could see the slight flare of his pupils, the harsh breath he pulled in before his fingers tightened on her wrist.

She wouldn’t be surprised to discover he was one of those male models that seemed to have been born with the perfect bone structure. To whom everything in life came easy. Women at their feet and millions in their bank account.

“Do not dig yourself a deeper hole, Ms. Crosetto.”

The arrogance in his tone banished the airy lethargy in her limbs. “You’re in my home. You cornered me and intruded into my apartment. You—”

He released her instantly. Stepped back, and Nat felt air rushing back into her lungs. “I mean you no harm. Not physically at least. Also, may I remind you that you invited me into your home. And I—” he cast a dismissive look around her living room, that upper lip turned up into a sneer “—expected to find you in something better than this hovel. Didn’t you get paid enough for the hacking job to upgrade from...this?”

She rubbed the sensitive skin at her wrist, more to rid herself of the warmth he left behind than because of any hurt. And to stop herself from smacking the distaste off his curling mouth. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sat back onto the couch, leaning his arms onto his long legs, every movement utterly masculine. And yet graceful. “How much did you get paid for taking down the firewalls at BCS?”

“You’re mistaking me for someone else. I’m nothing but a low-level clerk at a cheap easy-loan company in Brooklyn.”

He rubbed a long finger over his left temple. “No more lies, per favore.” His accent sent shivers down her spine that had nothing to do with fear.

When he looked up at her, impatience swirled in his gaze. “Let’s cut through the innocent act. Now that I have your actual identity, it will take me no time at all to find your financials, every personal record, from your date of birth to how often you visit your ATM.”

In a bare, few words that sent all her assumptions of him grounding into dust, he rattled off, step by step, the date and time to the exact second when she had bypassed his security measures and brought down the firewalls at BCS. And not as if he had learned it by rote.

“So, you’re not just a pretty, rich boy?”

He stilled, except for raising a brow on that gorgeous face. She could swear his eyes twinkled but then she didn’t trust herself right now. “A pretty, rich boy, huh? Remind me to tell my older brother that, sì? He’ll find it amusing.”

Nat could only stare.

“I don’t think you comprehend the trouble you’re in.”

“I’m terrified at the trouble I’m in. You’ve no idea what...” She took a deep breath and pushed her shaking hands behind her. “But attacking even when you’re cornered is sometimes the only defense you’ve left in life.”

Something like interest dawned in his eyes before he went on to outline how he’d tracked her signature to the cyber club, made contact with her. How he’d triangulated her physical location. How when he’d given her a small opening in the guise of his latest tech, she’d all but opened herself to him.

Her foul curse rang like a gunshot.

“It was clever. No, not clever. It was sheer genius. But you made a mistake. You—”

“I came back a second time without masking my trail,” she finished, a knot of tension in her throat. He had her. Nicely trapped. Without doubt.

“Yes, that. But you also shouldn’t have returned to the scene of your crime—that cyber club. Why did you?”

She shrugged, refusing to give any more information. Like how every inch of her had been fascinated by his diabolical talent after he’d patched the tunnel she’d created. How she didn’t even really have the kind of technology on hand to pull off something like this, how even membership to the cyber club had been gained for her by Vincenzo.

“Why are you talking to me instead of turning me in, then?” she challenged boldly, even as fear coated her skin with cold sweat.

If only she could somehow contact Vincenzo...

“How and why.”

“What do you mean?” she said sharply, feeling as if she was a prisoner whose execution had been stayed.

He looked at his fingers and then up. Uncrossed his legs and then crossed them again. Pulling the material of his tailored trousers upward. She’d never realized how distracting a man’s powerful thighs could be. “I want to know how you did it. My firewalls, every bit of technology I design, is cutting edge, the best in the world. What you did should have been...impossible.”

“You’re dangling jail time over my neck as a sword because your ego got dented?” The words pushed out of her. “You and I both know I didn’t touch a single client’s financials. I...didn’t steal anything. I’m not a thief. In any sense of the word.”

“Which brings me to the second question. Why attack the security, bring down the firewalls...something that would have taken you days, if not to steal millions worth of financial info—”

“Five hours,” she chimed in, and could have kicked herself. Damn it, where the hell was her sense of self-preservation? What was it about this man that pushed all the wrong buttons in her?

A stillness came over him. He rotated his neck on his shoulders with that casual masculine elegance. But this time, Natalie saw through it. He was shocked. It was clear in the pinched look around his mouth when he cleared his throat and said, “You did it in five hours?”

“Yes.”

If she could trust her judgment right then, Nat would have called the expression in his eyes excited. No...fascinated. He sounded fascinated and thrilled, his body containing a violent energy. More than angry that someone had attacked his design.

This was personal to him, too, this security breach she’d caused. She had to use that to her benefit, to persuade him to be lenient with her.

But she didn’t trust herself right then, didn’t know if she could pull it off. Not when he distracted the wits out of her. Jesus, the man held her future in his palm.

“How long did it take you the second time?”

“Fourteen hours. I... You made it much more complicated and I was under...duress.”

Another smile, this one flashing his perfect white teeth, the warmth of it reaching his eyes. Nat blinked at the sheer beauty of the man. Dark skin at his throat contrasted against his white shirt. “Nice to know I’m not the only one who gives in to their ego. I had you penned right.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered, a sane defense for once.

“I knew enough to put a tracker on the malware you introduced when you came back the second time. I have bots scouring through every black market, in case you stole the financials. I’ll find out if you’re part of a hacking syndicate. Any money you took for the job, I’ll find the financial trail.”

“There won’t be any.” Thank God she’d refused Vincenzo’s financial offer. Thank God she’d retained some of her moral sensibilities. Her life had been too much of a bitch for her to afford them. But she’d refused. Because she hadn’t wanted to benefit from illegal activity. “You’ll see that I have two thousand and twenty-two dollars in my checking account and credit cards with over nine thousand dollars in debt. I live in this hovel, as you call it. I don’t own a car. And most weeks, I live on ramen. I didn’t make any money on this. It wasn’t a job. I’m not... My services aren’t for sale.”

“So why do it? If it had been just the one time, I’d have assumed you had chickened out at the sheer scope of what you’d done and its consequences. But to come back...” He raised a hand when she opened her mouth. “Think carefully before you decide on an answer, Ms. Crosetto. And stick to the truth, if you can, sì?

“I’m on a deadline to submit the security designs for a major project and I’m grouchy when I’m pulled away from my lab. Forget the fact that my older brother is breathing down my neck for not just having thrown you in jail when I first found you. One wrong word and I’ll take his advice.”

Sweat rolled down between her shoulder blades. A torrent of lies came and fell away from Nat’s mouth. “I...” She swiped her tongue over her lips. Truth, as much as she could afford, was her only option. “I had no intention of stealing anything. I...have been stupid but I’m not greedy. I’m not a thief...by profession,” she added at the last second.

His arrogant gaze bore through her. “I’m waiting, Ms. Crosetto.”

“I did it on a challenge.” It was the last answer he’d been expecting from his shocked expression. “I... Someone in the club issued a challenge.”

“Who?” he demanded instantly, clearly not buying it.

“I don’t know. All I gathered is that BCS’s security was unbeatable. That your security guy’s a genius. That he...no one could ever bring down his firewalls. I...

“I was foolish enough and egotistic enough to want to beat it. Not to prove anything to anyone. Just for myself.”

“And the second time?”

“Hubris.” This time, she was relieved to speak the truth. “You closed the tunnel minutes after I created it. It shouldn’t have been possible. What you did the second time to put them up—to try to bring it down—it was a high.” She’d constantly moaned about how wrong it was with Vincenzo, but it hadn’t stopped her. He’d known how much she’d wanted to do it.

How exhilarating she found it to pit her mind against the security expert at BCS.

“Once I started, I... I lost the little sense I seem to have been born with. I... I swear, I’ll never do it again. I... I’ve never done this before. Please, you’ve got to believe me.”

“It’s not that simple, Ms. Crosetto.”

“Why not? You said—”

“I don’t trust that brain of yours. I can’t just...let you walk free.”

She reached for the wall behind her, her knees giving out. Fear felt like shards of glass in her throat. “You’ll send me to jail?”

He looked at her with a thoughtful expression, as if she were a bug under a microscope he was wondering whether to crush or not. He studied the beads of sweat over her upper lip. The shivers spewing over her entire body. “No. But I’m not letting you go, either.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll accompany me to Milan.”

She shook her head, trying to swim through the emotions barreling through her. Fear and hope knotted painfully in her stomach. “I can’t leave the country. I have...responsibilities.”

“You should have thought of them before you decided to embrace the criminal life. Until I get to the bottom of this, until I decide what to do with you, you’ll be my...guest. If you give me your passport, I’ll arrange for travel immediately. I can’t let you out of my sight and I do not like the idea of—”

“That’s kidnapping!” Nat broke through his casual planning. “You’re kidnapping me.”

He didn’t even blink. “The alternative is jail, Ms. Crosetto. There’s too much at stake to magnanimously forgive you.” He turned to his tablet, as if the topic was done. “Pack your things. We leave as soon as possible.”

“I can’t just... I have to tell someone that I’m leaving the country.”

“A boyfriend? Perhaps the man who put you up to this?”

“No one did,” she repeated, biting away Vincenzo’s name at the last second.

This man was dangerous, in more than one way.

More than panic shimmied through her veins as his gaze touched her face. “My job, my... I don’t even know who you are. What if you were a serial killer? A human trafficker? A harvester of organs who’s salivating at the thought of getting his hands on my body?”

His hands on her body... What was wrong with her?

This time, there was no doubting the twinkle in his eyes. Or the languid heat flaring beneath.

Nat stepped back at the mere thought of what that meant. The last thing she needed was an...attraction between them. She knew squat about men. And less than squat about ambitious, ruthless, gorgeous men like her accuser. “Criminals, Ms. Crosetto, dead or alive, however diabolically clever—” his gaze raked her from top to toe and dismissed her in the same breath “—are not my type.” He couldn’t sound more upper class, refined and sophisticated, if he tried.

Everything she wasn’t.

“But since I do not want a hysterical female on my hands on a long transatlantic flight, I’ll tell you.” He looked around her tiny living room, frowned and then settled those broad shoulders onto the wall behind him. The action pushed his hips and thighs away from the wall, highlighting the lean masculinity of the man. Every gesture, every movement of his, called all her senses to attention.

“I’m Massimo Brunetti, the cyber security genius you took on with such ease. And since I won’t let you near an electronic device in the near future, I’ll also give you the Google version, sì?

“I founded Brunetti Cyber Securities a decade ago when I was nineteen. I’m also the CTO for Brunetti Finances, an international finance giant. My brother, Leonardo, is the CEO. That’s the one who wants you behind bars pronto.

“Our family, if you hadn’t realized already, is old power and wealth, the kind of European dynasty others try to emulate unsuccessfully,” he added, with nothing of the pride that was in his tone when he spoke of his security company. “So, yes, far more than your average pretty, rich boy who likes to have his way. Proceed with caution, sì?

“Also, I’ll allow you one single call and you’ll make it in front of me.”

CHAPTER THREE

LACK OF SLEEP made Nat grit her eyes as dawn painted the New York sky beautiful shades of pink and orange. Unlike the light pollution that dimmed its shine in the city, the sky here in the country that she’d been driven into at three a.m. in a tinted limo, her sad little bag in hand, was gorgeous. The private airstrip was a hubbub of activity.

Massimo Brunetti...that name and all the power, wealth and reach that came with it had kept Natalie up all night.

She had Googled him the moment Vincenzo had mentioned BCS to her. Him and his CEO brother, Leonardo Brunetti. If Massimo was the brains behind Brunetti Finances, Leonardo was the heart. Cut in the same cloth as Massimo, ruthless when wielding his power, but much more socially active among the glitterati of Milan. The face of their business, the man who flashed his teeth at his enemies, brought in investors, managed the funds, while Massimo built brilliant software that brought in billions of revenue.

“Powerful men make powerful friends or enemies,” Vincenzo had said, when she’d asked if he knew them. “A small favor,” he’d called it. Easy for her incisive mind.

“Can you bring down BCS’s security, Natalie?”

When she had argued that she couldn’t risk anything criminal, she could never go down that path again, he had clasped her hand.

“I’d let nothing happen to you, cara mia. Find a flaw, bring it down. Nothing more. I’ll not ask you to retrieve anything you discover, if you do crack it. Nothing to steal. Just find a weakness in the system.”

“Then why?”—the only question she’d even thought to ask.

“Let’s just say I have my eyes on the man who built it. I need to know if he’s as good as they say. Not a single hacker I’ve hired so far has been able to get through.”

And that had been his lure and she’d more than happily taken the bait.

She could’ve refused. He hadn’t insisted on it. He hadn’t called it as a return on all the favors he’d done for her and Frankie. He hadn’t once, in the ten years since they’d met, mentioned how he’d saved her from a bullying foster parent, or from a wretched future in the juvie system. He hadn’t mentioned not turning in Nat herself when he’d caught her stealing his wallet the first time they had met.

And yet, she’d done it.

Now she wondered at the questions she should’ve asked then.

What did Vincenzo have against Massimo?

Why this particular man?

Why his company?

Why had Vincenzo targeted the brainchild of tech genius Massimo Brunetti?

Instead, she’d thrown caution to the wind, given in to her one weakness and risked everything.

She hadn’t even been able to reach Frankie during the one call Massimo had allowed her. While he’d watched her like a hawk circling a carcass, Natalie had left a message that she was going out of the country for a friend’s sudden wedding, freeloading on the chance. That she would be out of coverage for a while but would call when she could. Her brother knew what a cheapskate she was.

“You’re quite the storyteller, Ms. Crosetto,” Massimo had said in his delicious Italian accent, all sleep mussed before he’d rushed her out of her apartment in the middle of the night, to collect their documents.

Nat pressed her fingers around the coffee cup in her hand—no rest-stop diesel-like coffee for Mr. Pretty Rich Boy. The dark roast felt like heaven on her tongue, anchoring her.

Her spine straightened against the limo as she heard Massimo step out on the other side. His security detail—one broad six-and-half-footer—and his two assistants: a thin man in his twenties with thick glasses and messed-up curly hair. What she’d expected the computer genius to look like—not the sleek, lean, sex-on-legs stud that was Massimo, shame on her prejudice... And the second one—a woman with a dark complexion, in her forties—followed him while he spoke into his cell phone.

Coffee forgotten, Nat watched him with wide eyes as he walked back and forth in front of her speaking in rapid Italian that she couldn’t understand a word of. After every other sentence, he paused, looked at her, and then started again.

Suit jacket gone, three buttons of the white dress shirt undone, that stylishly cut hair all rumpled up from his stint on her couch, he should’ve looked disheveled. At least a little tired. After all, he’d traveled across the Atlantic the previous day.

Instead, the stubble that coated his jaw and his upper lip, the V of his shirt glinting olive against the white of it, the snug fit of his trousers against lean hips—he was an erotic fantasy given form. The assault on her senses that had begun when she’d found him on her couch, trousers pulled up tight against powerful thighs, shirt equally snug against his shoulders, long lashes fanning against his sharp cheekbones... Her heart hadn’t still recovered from it.

And then while she’d stared at him like an enthralled idiot, he’d opened those gray eyes. For just a second, there had been something in his eyes. Something that made liquid desire float through her veins. Before he sat up with his ubiquitous cell phone attached to his ear.

“The jet is ready. Let’s go.”

That was all he’d said to her, before bundling her into the limo. Coffee had been acquired on the way.

When she’d refused, he’d frowned. “Drink up, Ms. Crosetto. I need you awake and alert.”

She’d tensed so hard her shoulders hurt. “Why?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to breach the security of another company.”

She’d immediately relaxed and then cursed herself when a shrewd light dawned in his eyes. Afraid he’d see even more, more than what she’d already betrayed, she’d looked away.

“I want to know exactly how you were able to create that tunnel through the firewall. Both the first and the second time. Each and every step. I want to also know of any other ways you can breach BCS’s security. All the truth, Ms. Crosetto. Not just the convenient parts.

“If I even get a sniff of duplicity from you, you’ll wish I had sent you to prison in your own country.”

Even the wonderful aroma of coffee had felt like poison then.

The threat still ringing in her ears, she swallowed when he beckoned her from the foot of the air stairs. The arrogance of the man scraped her raw. She’d survived the cruelty and negligence of a foster care system that was supposed to protect her, the heartbreak of knowing that she wasn’t good enough, just yet, to be her younger brother’s family.

No way was she going to let Massimo Brunetti control her with the threat of incarceration. No man was going to make her live in fear every day, not after everything she’d been through. Not this easily.

And just like that, an idea began to percolate in her mind. Her shoulders straight, she tilted her chin and walked toward him with confidence.

The narrowing of his eyes made her smile.

Yep, she’d do what he asked of her, but she’d do it on her terms.