When he simply stared at her, she added, “You can come along and make sure I don’t secretly contact Matteo.” She couldn’t stop the shiver that shook her as she looked around the dark room. “I don’t like being cooped up inside.”
“I’m not available to you, Ms. Fischer.”
She’d expected some kind of pushback, but his bluntness made a dent in her confidence. “Assign me a bodyguard, then. I’m not staying locked up in here. Why should I be your prisoner when I can see all the art Milan has to offer?”
“There’s more to it,” he said stubbornly.
God, the man was infuriating. If she revealed that she hated being inside—after spending years in and out of hospitals between surgeries, in aftercare, during her parents’ work hours with paid nurses—she knew he’d grant her wish. Despite his ruthless exterior, there was kindness in him. But the last thing she wanted was his pity. “How about we make a deal, Mr. Ricci?”
“What kind of a deal?”
“You get me out of here and we can discuss why you’re so against Matteo and—”
“You want me to babysit you while you try to persuade me that Matteo, who’s even now probably—” his jaw tightened “—with Angelina, that you and he belong together?”
Sam growled. She’d meant they could talk about his relationship with Matteo. Which was clearly more resentful than she’d imagined. Not beg him to help her patch her and Matteo’s relationship. “That’s not what I meant at all. You’re a crude, arrogant—”
“Buona notte, Ms. Fischer,” he said, leaving and slamming the door behind him.
Sam sat back in the chair, staring at the closed door, his earlier words about Matteo with Angelina barely making a dent in her headspace.
Instead, Mr. Ricci occupied all of it: her awareness, her emotions, even her body’s suddenly volatile need for pleasure. At his hands and mouth and that lean, powerful body.
No. She was not going there. Not with a man who’d only mock her for her attraction to him. He’d probably say she was weak or immoral for lusting over her ex’s older brother.
She needed Alessandro Ricci in her life like she needed another hole in her heart.
Chapter Five
SAM SLEPT FORthirty-six hours straight.
Vague memories drifted through her head of opening the door to Mr. Ricci in the afternoon. The poor man had needed to fetch a change of clothes.
Cheeks heating, she remembered that—in a moment of homesickness—she’d worn her oldest, most threadbare T-shirt that barely covered her panties to bed.
This morning, she’d woken up near dawn, refreshed and her body clock reset to the new time zone, to find multiple texts from Matteo. Every single one raging at Alessandro.
Frustration made her movements jerky as she packed her knapsack for the day’s excursion. She was going to sneak out to an art museum in Milan. Following the list on her phone, she shoved in meds, protein bars and salted nuts, even as her mind whirled.
Why hadn’t Matteo apologized for two-timing her? How dare he question her about what she and his brother were up to?
Now that she’d met Alessandro, she went over everything that Matteo had ever told her about his brother.
Matteo hadn’t lied. The man was exacting, grumpy and crude but brutally honest. Ruthlessly realistic with not a hint of softness or vulnerability. But he had left out the steely core of integrity beneath.
What could dent the ironclad control of a man like that? she wondered with a feverish curiosity. What could disturb the infuriating untouchability he wore like an armor?
Sturdy sneakers in one hand, backpack in the other, she opened the door and came face-to-face with Mr. Ricci again. In a dark navy button down and black slacks, his jet-black hair slicked back, he looked austere. Even the shimmering sunlight couldn’t lighten the severity of his looks.
Her breath caught afresh, that wild heat slamming into her middle as he took him in. Unlike Matteo, who spent hours in the gym and even more on his appearance, Mr. Ricci wasn’t stocky or overly muscular. He was much taller than his brother and held a lean, wiry strength in his body that made her skin prickle.
A sliver of gray peeked out at one temple, but even that only added to the man’s appeal.
Sam stared, fingers itching to find her sketchbook, so that she could capture his aura on paper. To somehow constrain this ruthless, powerful man to two dimensions, to contain him for herself.
A soft gasp escaped her at the sheer folly of the thought.
His gray gaze, in turn, swept over her, taking in her loose braid over her shoulder and her collarbones exposed by the wide neckline of her jumpsuit. “Dare I hope that you’re leaving the country, Ms. Fischer?”
