Billionaires: The Hero

Nate released her, his hands lifting to his throat. “Nice job,” he rasped, half coughing, half speaking. “I expected you to go for the eyes.”

Mina stared at him, hands clenched by her sides, adrenaline racing through her. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” His gaze narrowed. “The kiss was necessary, Mina. It had to be real. To evoke the violent reaction it did in you so you could use your power.”

She nodded.

“And what did you do?”

“I got away.”

“What would you have done next?”

“Run.”

“Where?”

“Out the front door. The house was empty.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Move toward people. Help.”

She unclenched her fists. Took a deep breath as she attempted to calm her body down.

“You’ve just taken back your power, Mina.” Nate stepped toward her. “I knew the blow was coming and you still incapacitated me long enough for you to get away.”

She nodded. Instructed her pounding heart to relax because this was Nate in front of her, not Silvio.

“If you have that power,” he said, “you can choose who you trust. You can choose what situations you put yourself in. Not all men are violent. Some would only want to kiss you for pleasure—yours and their own.”

She knew that. But the way she’d felt when Nate had just kissed her...

“What?”

She put a hand to her heart. “This panic. I know I can trust you and still I felt terrified.”

“Like I said. Give yourself some time.”

She forced a smile. “You’re right. I just hate giving him that power over me.”

He was silent for a long moment. “Then don’t.”

She blinked. “Scusi?”

“You trust me?”

She nodded.

“Then get back on the wagon.” He took another step toward her, stopping just short of her personal space. “We’re attracted to each other, Mina. Intensely attracted to each other. But I am not Silvio. I can kiss a woman and walk away, no matter how hot and bothered I am, regardless of where my emotions lie, because I am in control of them. I would never hurt a woman. So,” he said deliberately, “kiss me right now. Replace that image of what happened with Silvio with a positive experience.”

She gaped at him. “We can’t do that. We made a rule.”

“So we break it for one kiss. The longer you let this eat away at you, the harder it’s going to be to leave behind.”

She had a feeling that was true. She didn’t want to carry this victim mentality with her. Didn’t want to give it a chance to take hold. Because this Mina Mastrantino she’d been tonight was not the real Mina. The Mina who had chased away her childish ghosts in boarding school because there’d been no one else to do it for her. The Mina who’d learned to survive without love when it seemed like everyone around her had it but her, by telling herself someday she would have it, too. The Mina who was stronger than this.

“Sì,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

“Come here.”

For a brief, heart-stopping moment, Mina thought she might actually be insane. Because this man was dangerous. Beautifully, undeniably, self-admittedly dangerous. Yet, she conceded, she trusted him implicitly.

He was letting her take control. He wouldn’t make the first move.

She took a step forward, then another, until she was almost touching him. There she stopped, her innate shyness kicking in. Nate’s gaze caught hers, pulled her in. She took the last step forward, sucking in a breath as he reached out, curved a hand around her waist and brought her to him in a loose hold that continued to give her every option.

She thought he would lean down and kiss her then. Instead, he focused on her lips, as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world. As if he had all the time in the world. Her breathing quickened, anticipation firing her blood. He brought his mouth down to hers without touching. Their breath mingled first, then the lush surfaces of their mouths. Oh, mio Dio. She was practically panting by the time he angled his head and took her mouth.

He brought his fingers up to capture her jaw, lightly, as if she might bolt at any minute. Explored the surface of her mouth with an exquisite thoroughness that just about brought her to her knees. Long and mesmerizing, the kiss went on and on, until she was boneless beneath his fingers, her blood moving through her veins in a hot, restless purr.

He moved his hands to her hips and brought her closer. About as close as their practice kiss. Except this time she didn’t feel any fear. She just wanted more.

His tongue traced her bottom lip, laving it. Then he nipped gently, taking the sensation to a whole other level. The moan that came from her throat was low, instinctive. He satisfied her demand, dipping his tongue inside her mouth and turning the kiss into a hot, uninhibited exploration.

Her insides contracted. She’d never been kissed like this before. Like he wanted to devour her. Possess her. The kisses she’d received from the men she’d dated on her quest to find a husband had been tame. This was far from tame. It was toe-curlingly sensual, like an overture to an opera, slowly building to the main act.

She met the bold strokes of his tongue with tentative forays of her own. It was a poor attempt but Nate seemed to like it, stroking her, urging her on with a low husky voice. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt for balance, arching instinctively into him as her body caught fire. His hands shaped her against him, molded her to the hard contours of his powerful body as if he’d been expecting it, waiting for it. She tilted her head back to his demand as he consumed her more deeply.

The thick, powerful evidence of his arousal burned an imprint into her, shocking her, heating the blood in her veins to a whole new level. Her hands curled tighter in his shirt, but she didn’t let go. Not when his kiss, when he, felt this intoxicatingly good.

Lost in a universe that was all Nate, all about the feel of his hard, hot body against hers, it was a full second or two before she registered the fact that all that heat was gone. That Nate had set her away from him with firm hands that remained on her hips to steady her as her heart pounded near through her chest. As if he knew how completely unbalanced she was.

“One kiss,” he rasped, his eyes on her face. “And now I’m walking away, Mina. Just like I said I would.”

She stared at him. “I—that was—”

“What I hope will erase that other kiss from your memory.” His mouth twisted. “Never to happen again.”

She nodded. “Esattamente,” she agreed shakily. Exactly. Never to be experienced again, either, she was fairly sure.

He picked his jacket up off the chair. “Buonanotte.”

She watched him walk away, as if he regularly brought women to their knees...metaphorically. Now she knew why she hadn’t accepted any of the suitors her mother had tried to foist on her. Because none of them, not one of the eligible and some of them very good-looking bachelors that had been presented to her, had ever made her feel even one-tenth of what Nate had just done.

Pulling in a deep breath, she kicked off her shoes, picked them up and headed for her bedroom. That might have done the job and knocked everything else clean out of her head. Proved to her she could trust her instincts. The issue, she predicted, was going to be finding a way to think of anything but what had just happened.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MINA HAD BEEN RIGHT on her wedding day. A real kiss from Nate was unforgettable. She’d spent a sleepless night in her big, soft bed tossing and turning, imagining what it would be like to be in his arms. Wondering about all the things he would teach her.

Which would stay right there in her imagination, she told herself as she sat in on a marketing meeting with Giorgio and his team to discuss the repeat guests campaign. What Nate had given her was priceless—a chance to prove she was more than just a pretty face whose only opportunities lay in trading on her looks. A chance to prove she was capable of more than providing a graceful introduction at an afternoon tea or cleaning toilets at the Giarruso.

Nate had also given her something perhaps even more important. He’d reminded her last night that despite how overwhelmed she felt in her current situation, she was not simply a creature of God’s universe, being batted to and fro by the whims and mercies of the world around her. She was a woman who’d chosen her destiny, who was finally standing on her own two feet.

It was something Celia’s mother had taught her on the school holidays she’d spent with the Bettencourts in Nice while her mother jet-setted around the world. When the gaping hole inside of her at never belonging to anything, at being so lonely it ached, had gotten a bit much to take, the certainty she must somehow be defective to never warrant her mother’s attention overwhelming the fragile vision of herself she’d built.

“You are special,” Juliana Bettencourt had told her. “You are a bright light, Mina, inside and out. Never forget that. Choose a future for yourself that brings you everything you deserve.”

She was determined to do just that as the marketers around her in the meeting threw about foreign terms like CRM—customer relationship management—data and click-through rates. She couldn’t blow this opportunity over a kiss, no matter how incredible it had been. Not even if it had made her feel truly alive for the first time in her adult life. Not even if the magnetic, combustible attraction she and Nate shared seemed like the once-in-a-lifetime type.

Over the next few days, she sat in on meetings with Nate about the expansion of the Grand’s conventions and meetings program and on a conference call with the global marketing team. On Thursday, they met with the local public relations agency Giorgio and his team used to execute their marketing campaigns. She took the brainstorming ideas they’d generated back to Nate, who added his thoughts, told her they were solid and gave her feedback to take to Giorgio. Having her own project to own and manage put a glow in her cheeks and a spring in her step.

By the time she and Nate stepped on the jet to fly to Hong Kong on Saturday, she was settling nicely into her new role and had lost a bit of her deer-in-the-headlights aura, as Nate liked to describe her as having.

If it hurt that her mother hadn’t bothered to call again, the fact that Silvio had also left her alone compensated for it. Apparently he really was done with her.

That worry behind her, all signs pointed straight ahead, no looking back. That’s where she was going.

* * *

Nate was getting good at this game. He’d spent the last week steadfastly ignoring the explosive chemistry between him and his wife. Putting his protégée through a ruthless schedule of work designed to wipe that kiss from her head.

For the most part, his strategy had worked. Mina had taken everything he’d thrown at her and dedicated herself to producing a thorough, well-thought-out result. The keen insight she’d shown in his suite that day at the Giarruso had proven his instincts about her right. It wouldn’t be long before she was an asset to his business.

Where his strategy wasn’t so effective, where he and Mina got into trouble, was in the in-between moments, such as this long flight from Capri to Hong Kong via London. Left alone together long enough, the attraction between them began to simmer, find its way through the cracks in their interaction until one of them had to consciously turn it off.

Mina would shoot him one of the sideways glances she’d been directing his way ever since that admittedly hot kiss, her curiosity about what it would be like between them utterly transparent. He, in turn, would deflect those looks with the ruthless efficiency of a man who knew trouble when he saw it.

He’d flicked a switch in his innocent wife’s head that night. Awakened her to what true chemistry looked like with a kiss that had gotten a lot more intense than he’d intended. And although he couldn’t deny he was curious, too, wouldn’t be human if he didn’t wonder what peeling back his beautiful wife’s layers would reveal, it wasn’t going to happen.

Theirs was a marriage of convenience. A business transaction, albeit a slightly more complex one than usual. If that wasn’t enough of a deterrent not to take her to bed, the fact that she was a virgin was. He would lay odds of a million to one that his wife was untouched. As such, she was off-limits to him. Virgins were, as a matter of policy, not to be played with.

As Franco had done the night of the Curious party.

A grimace twisted his mouth at the unfinished business he and the actor had. Franco had been like a big cat that night, swiping at Nate’s possession with a paw to rile him. The depths to which he had wanted to take him apart for scaring Mina so badly shocked him. It was another reason to stay away from his wife—this intense sense of protectiveness he had toward her. Had had from the beginning.

Mina was too unsullied to exist in his world where relationships were transactional. Where the women in his bed were those who knew their tenure there was temporary. Exceedingly temporary. A hot weekend in Rio...a night out at a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner in Manhattan in the name of a good deed...a chance for their name to end up in the society column... It was symbiotic at best. No false expectations; merely the pursuit of mutual pleasure.

Mina was a whole other story. A female of the most dangerous variety, whose innocence and vulnerability demanded everything from a man or nothing at all. He fell into the latter category because creating ties wasn’t in his DNA.

He wasn’t even willing to invest in his own family. In his half sister Natalia, whose intense vulnerability after she’d been kidnapped and held for ransom while on a gap year in South America had, until recently, kept her housebound. In Dario and Dante, his twin brothers, whose feud had torn the Di Sione family apart. In Matteo, his youngest brother, who had built his wildly successful hedge fund on calculated risks.

Investing in other people simply wasn’t part of his portfolio. It came with too much fine print.

Mina, curled up in the seat beside him asleep, stirred, her tousled dark hair and voluptuous curves drawing his eye. It was not a stretch to imagine what she’d look like in his bed as he lavished attention on her from the top of her beautiful head to her equally perfect feet with a long stop in between to idolize the sensational curve of her behind.

The predatory male in him liked the idea of being the first to touch all of that forbidden beauty. The realist knew he could never satisfy the clauses that came with it.

Mina opened her eyes, brown orbs fully alert, as if she’d just been catnapping. He wiped his face clean of his wayward thoughts, but wasn’t fast enough. A deep red stain spread across her sleep-flushed cheeks. “What time is it?”

He cursed himself inwardly at the slip. “We have another hour and a half left. I’ll brief you on the agenda when you’ve had a chance to freshen up.”

She nodded, rolled to her feet and headed for the bathroom with the haste of a woman who knew what was good for her.

* * *

Dio mio. Mina splashed water on her face in the tiny washroom, attempting to wake up her sluggish brain, which seemed to be caught in a time zone somewhere between here and Capri.

She had to stop fantasizing about what it would be like to be with her husband. It was never going to happen. Nate had made that clear. But then he went and did something like that. Looked at her like he wanted to inhale her, and all their rules went up in flames.

Grabbing a towel, she dried her face and applied a coat of lip gloss to her mouth, her only concession to makeup while traveling. Telling herself sternly to focus, she made her way back into the cabin, pulled a notepad and pen out of her bag and sat down beside Nate.

“We have two goals in Hong Kong.” he began. “The first is to meet with a Michelin-starred chef named Sheng Zhu about a potential in-house restaurant he’s proposing for the Grand. It would be a huge coup for the hotel to have him. Mingmei, my manager at the Grand, has been handling the negotiations, but wanted me in attendance to sign the final deal.”

Mingmei, his former lover. She ignored the twinge of jealousy that stirred. He had only kissed her to demonstrate a point, for heaven’s sake. Nothing more. “Didn’t he win one of those top chef shows?”

He nodded. “Unfortunately, he also has a big personality to go with the name. The question is—is he worth the risk? Mingmei thinks he is.”

“And the second goal?”

“We’ll meet with Mingmei and her team for some general updates on the business this afternoon. Present the global marketing and business plans to the executive team. I’m going to have lunch with a key investor who lives locally to discuss a project. I’ll have you take Mingmei through the marketing plan since you know it while I’m tied up. That’ll save some time.”

By the time Nate finished briefing her and walking her through Sheng Zhu’s proposal, they had landed at Hong Kong International Airport. The car Mingmei had sent for them was waiting at the exit, Mingmei herself standing on the sidewalk when the limousine pulled up in front of the red awning of the gold-accented Grand Hotel.

Tall and slim as a wand, the impossibly beautiful Mingmei Gao, as Nate’s manager introduced herself, pressed a warm kiss to both Nate’s cheeks. Her long, straight jet-black hair, her dark eyes with pencil-thin brows and perfectly shaped red-lipped mouth conspired to make Mina feel a bit lacking in comparison.

The thorough, unabashed appraisal Mingmei gave her cataloged her assets from head to foot. “Welcome to the Grand Hotel Hong Kong,” she murmured in impeccable, lightly accented English. “Congratulations on your and Nate’s marriage. I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

If Nate’s former lover felt any emotion at all toward her husband, as Susana had hinted was the case, she hid it behind her perfectly composed facade.

“Thank you,” Mina replied. “It’s been a bit of a...whirlwind.”

“So much of a whirlwind you haven’t taken the time to organize a honeymoon, according to Josephine.” Mingmei directed the chiding comment at Nate. “I took the liberty of planning something special for you the night before you leave.”

“Special?”

Mingmei’s mouth curved. “I have the honeymoon suite for you, of course. The occupants were more than happy to move to the presidential suite.”

“That really wasn’t necessary.”

“Of course it is. Let me show you up.”

Another glass elevator, a signature of the Grand, sent them swishing up to the fifty-second floor. Mingmei ushered them into the large, opulent suite, its muted, ambient lighting setting off the luxurious interior done in rich jewel tones. The view of Hong Kong through the floor-to-ceiling windows was breathtaking. But Mina’s gaze was fixed on the massive, king-size bed that dominated the adjoining room, rose petals strewn across its ruby-red silk coverlet.

There was only one bed.

Nate turned to Mingmei, a wry look on his face. “You’ve outdone yourself. Really you didn’t need to do this. We can have a regular suite.”

Mingmei gave him a pointed look. “You may not be a romantic, but I’m sure Mina appreciates the room.”

Mina forced a smile to her frozen face. “Sì. It’s...amazing. Mille grazie.”

Mingmei smiled. “I’ll leave you to freshen up. I’ll meet you in the executive offices at noon, Mina. We can have some lunch and go over the marketing plan.”

Mina nodded. Stood staring at the giant, rose petal–covered bed as Nate walked Mingmei to the door.

He had taken a soul-searing possession of her with his kiss that night in Capri. She’d relinquished all common sense, all rational thought. Nate had been the one to call it off. What was going to happen when they shared a bed together?

The side of her she was desperately trying to avoid, the newly discovered part of her that clamored to feel more of that sensory overload Nate had evoked in her, knew it for a bad idea. But the desire to experience that kind of passion again—but this time more, all of it—was shockingly strong.

“We can’t share that bed,” she blurted out as Nate walked back into the room.

An amused smile twisted his lips as he came to stand in front of her. “I’m afraid we have no choice.”

She glanced around in desperation. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

His smile deepened. “No one is sleeping on the floor, Mina. But just for the record, is your adamant proclamation we can’t share that bed because you think you can’t restrain yourself? Because I have proven I can be a good boy.”

Her jaw dropped. “Do women actually find this...this arrogance appealing?”

“Yes,” he murmured, bending to bring his mouth to her ear. “You’re doing an admirable job of trying to hide your curiosity, Mina, but not quite good enough.”

Her heart leaped into her mouth. She stepped back, away from all that testosterone. “This is not solving our problem.”

He nodded toward the bed. “That problem I will solve by wearing boxers just for your benefit. Our other problem? We go with avoidance. It’s been marginally effective so far.”

That Nate ordinarily slept in the nude was disturbing enough to her senses. What he would look like in boxers more so.

“You’ve seen me in a towel,” he reminded her. “Same thing. Out of curiosity,” he ventured, tilting his head to the side, “what would you have done if the towel had fallen off?”

“Sued you for indecent exposure.” Spinning on her heel, she headed for the bathroom. Nate’s laughter followed her.

“I wouldn’t have been much good as your knight in shining armor sitting in jail now, would I?”

* * *

You couldn’t think of beds and boxer shorts when you were presenting the global marketing plan to your husband’s ex-lover. A respite it would have been if Mina hadn’t felt so intimidated in the other woman’s presence. Mingmei was as brilliant as she was exquisitely beautiful, asking probing, thoughtful questions about the marketing plan that never would have occurred to Mina. By the time they finished, she felt like a rank amateur.

Her mouth tightening, she clicked out of the presentation and sat back in her chair. “Any further questions?”

Mingmei crossed her arms over her chest. “None of my questions were a criticism, Mina. I wouldn’t have expected you to know the answers. They were discussion points to take back to the global team for further thought.”

Her chin dipped. She really needed to master that tightly schooled expression her social behavior coaches had failed to conjure up in her.

When Nate texted to say he was running late with his investor lunch, Mingmei’s executives had already started to show up for their scheduled meeting. “Why don’t you present the marketing plan?” Mingmei suggested. “Nate can do the rest when he comes.”

A wave of panic enveloped her. She knew the presentation. But to present it to a team of executives after being on the job for a week? Nate had made it clear she was to stay within her role.

“You want my advice?” Mingmei directed a pointed look at her. “Seize every opportunity you get. If you don’t feel comfortable doing something, do it, anyway. Fake the confidence until you have it.”

Mina swallowed past the tension climbing her throat. She knew the presentation inside out.

“Sì,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

Her knees knocked together as she stood at the front of the conference room, Mingmei introducing her to the half dozen executives who ran the sales, customer service and marketing teams. Her mouth like sawdust, her hands clammy, she clicked the remote to start the presentation. A gladiator, she told herself. She was a gladiator.

Her voice tight, her delivery far too rapid, she began. It was a friendly room, thank goodness, with the executives stopping her to ask a question when they wanted to explore a point further. She felt her shoulders and voice loosening as the session turned interactive. By the time Nate walked into the room fifteen minutes later, she was midway through the presentation and firmly in her groove.