If there was ever a night not to hit an American girl stumbling into the middle of a country road on my way back to the house in Toscana, it was tonight.
My week in Rome had been arduous, to say the least.
I disliked being away from home, even though my best friend and soldiers were more than capable of protecting my mother and sisters. It didn’t seem to matter. Ever since I’d received the call that changed my life four years ago, I’d been on the knife’s edge of fear. I refused to let it conquer me, but in order to control it, I had to have my finger on the pulse of every aspect of our operations in the region.
If I knew what was coming, I could head it off at the pass.
I’d been successful at doing just that with the head of the Roman Mafia Capitale, yet unsuccessful in avoiding this slip of a girl who’d appeared like a deer frozen in the headlights of my speeding car.
The irritating truth was, I couldn’t just leave her there, as much as my cold, dark heart assured me it would be the easier option. The man I’d been before taking over my father’s criminal organization still lingered in my soft tissues, reminding me that she was just a girl like any of my three sisters.
Would I want a stranger to leave them alone to fend for themselves in a foreign land, without anything to their names?
The frustrating answer was, of course, no.
So I sighed heavily and walked toward the American girl, who flinched at my approach. I raised a brow as I slowly opened the passenger side door.
“Get in,” I ordered. “I will circle around to where you have left your car and see what can be done.”
She bit her lip, and I noticed for the first time that though she was young, she was fairly pretty for an American. Petite in a way that made me feel as if I towered over her, but with a femininity that cut through my annoyance like a knife, eviscerating it with a single look from those long-lashed eyes. In the harsh yellow light cast from the Ferrari, they seemed dark as ink and filled with feminine mystique.
“What’s your name?” she asked finally, as if knowing it was the key to lessening her fear.
I understood, in theory. It was much easier to trust a face with a name.
“Raffa,” I said, but offered no more.
She peered up through those lashes, a streak of dirt painted along her sharp cheekbone and a cut on her chin. “Guinevere,” she said, sticking her hand out between us. “It’s good to meet you.”
My other eyebrow joined the first high on my forehead, but I decided to indulge her silliness and clasped her delicate hand in my own. It was cold, the palm badly abraded from her fall. I could feel the wet smear of her blood against my skin.
Without thinking, I turned her hand over in my hold and retrieved my pocket square with my other hand so I could use it as a makeshift bandage for her wound. She gasped as I tightened it but otherwise didn’t protest.
“I think you just ruined your designer hankie,” she pointed out.
“It is a pocket square,” I corrected, because a grown man did not carry a . . . hankie. “Now, get in the car.”
She moved gently, face pale and tight with pain. A hiss streamed through her clenched teeth as she lowered herself sideways into the low car. Before she could spin forward, I crouched down and grabbed her slim ankle. She tried to jerk away, but I only hushed her as I slipped the broken sandal over her foot and deftly tied the leather pieces together.
“It will do for now,” I declared.
She swallowed thickly and whispered, “Okay.”
I straightened, nudging her to face forward so I could close the door before I crossed to the driver’s side. The damage to the Ferrari was nonexistent, but then, Guinevere could only have been 110 pounds soaking wet, so that wasn’t a surprise.
What was surprising was the little bubble of tenderness that had taken up residence in the hollow casing of my chest.
This girl was not my family.
She was not a friend.
She was an inconvenience I could barely afford, given the contents of my trunk.
Yet I felt moved to help her.
Not just that, I felt moved to avenge her.
Because what kind of bastardo would take advantage of a woman in trouble?
I was the last person to pretend at having a moral conscience, but Madonna santa, women and children were sacred.
My mouth watered at the idea of finding the man who’d chased her through the countryside, and my imagination took a merry romp through the dark, picturing exactly how I’d punish him.
Composing myself, I got into the Ferrari and immediately started the engine without looking her way. I figured in the tight enclosure she would enjoy some semblance of privacy.
“You said it was the other side of this field?” I confirmed, expertly spinning the car back onto the proper side of the road before taking off into the night.
“Yes, I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“I grew up in this region. Each vineyard and valley might look the same to you, but not to me.”
“How do you speak English so well?”
“We do have schools in Italia,” I pointed out dryly.
Her sigh was beleaguered, and despite everything, it made the edges of my mouth curl.
“I lived in London for some time,” I explained, though I usually didn’t allow myself to think about those years of my life.
“This is my first time out of the United States,” she admitted softly, gaze fixed outside the window as if she wanted to absorb the scenery even in the dark. Her fingertips touched the pane of glass separating her from the countryside almost reverently. “But I’ve dreamed of visiting since I was a girl.”
“I am sorry we have done little to meet your expectations.” I wasn’t sorry, but it seemed the thing to say. Part of me wanted to explain that the Italy of her dreams was a romanticized version.
For every lavish villa, there was a baraccopoli.
For every Romeo, there was someone like that man who wanted to harm her.
It was, like any other place on earth, a country of steep contrasts.
She sighed. “It’s my own fault, I guess. I probably should have taken the main route to Florence, but I was excited to see the famous Tuscan countryside.”
We turned onto the road lining the other side of the field, and after a moment, a Fiat appeared on the side of the pavement, its interior lights on because the doors were open wide.
“Dammit,” she muttered, leaning forward with a wince. “I hope the bastard left my passport at least.”
“Did he give you a name?” I asked as I pulled onto the shoulder behind the Fiat.
“Galasso.” Her pretty face screwed up with self-loathing. “He was a father, so I thought he’d be less likely to hurt me.”
“Even monsters procreate,” I quipped drolly, thinking of my own father as I got out of the car. “Stay here.”
I closed the door on her protest and walked around the Fiat, surveying the damage. Galasso had left her purse on the passenger seat, open and empty, and a quick look in the trunk showed he’d taken her suitcase as well.
Cazzo, this girl was entirely alone and without a penny to her name.
“What am I going to do?”
I startled at the quiet voice behind me and glowered as I turned to face Guinevere. “Did I not tell you to stay in the car?”
She ignored me to lean stiffly into the driver’s seat beside me. “What’s the point in even leaving my purse and wallet if he was just going to take everything inside it?”
I didn’t have an answer for her, even though I felt enraged on her behalf. I’d never heard of Galasso, but it shouldn’t be hard to find the man. I had contacts throughout the region, and it was a fairly uncommon name.
A sniffle drew my attention back to Guinevere, who had one hand braced against the side of the car, eyes squeezed shut and torso swaying.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered before collapsing to her knees and vomiting into the gravel.
Without thinking, I crouched beside her to hold back her hair as she emptied the contents of her stomach. When she was finished, she slumped heavily to the side, and I used my body to prop her up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking slightly. “I’m a mess. I promise I’m not usually a damsel in distress. I can hold my own. If you could just give me a ride to the nearest town, I can file a police report a-and call my dad to wire me some money to tide me over until I can get new credit cards. I-I just need . . .” She sucked in a huge, wet breath through her mouth to steady herself. “I just really need you to drive me to the next town, if that’s okay?”
The man I had spent the last four years honing myself into like the sharp edge of a blade shattered into pieces. The contrast of her chin-tipped, trembling-lip bravery against the dark, tear-glazed vulnerability was simply impossible to guard against. Some part of me wanted to think she was pathetic, crumpled on the ground beside her own sick, having lost everything because of girlish naivete. But I couldn’t force it.
I found myself admiring her gumption, moved by her tenacity.
I wanted to curl her tight into my side and use my body to shield her from all the horrors of her Italian dream turned nightmare.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to be someone’s knight in shining armor.
“No,” I found myself saying. My fist was still loosely wrapped in her hair, but she didn’t pull away, and I liked the silk texture against my palm.
She deflated slightly, and I paused to see if she would finally fall to pieces. Instead, she sucked in another bracing breath through her teeth and pulled her shoulders back like she was preparing for battle.
Something in the fallow soil of my heart germinated and threatened to take root.
“No,” I repeated, softer, my hand sliding from her hair so I could stand and offer her my hand. “You will come home with me and stay until you are on your feet again, capisci?”
She blinked up at me with those large dark eyes, and for a moment, I couldn’t push air through my lungs.
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” I said with a grin, the edges sharp enough to hurt my cheeks.
She didn’t seem intimidated by the offer, which made me irrationally furious with her. Where was her sense of self-preservation?
If she so much as looked in my trunk, she would know I was not the kind of man anyone should accept help from.
“I don’t think I could impose on you,” she said, worrying her lower lip as she took my offered hand and let me lift her from the ground. “You seem like a busy man.”
Her gesture encompassed my car and the three-piece suit that had become rumpled beyond belief.
I shrugged one shoulder. “I am. But no matter what I am, I refuse to be the kind of person who leaves a girl alone in the dark on the side of the road to fend for herself. Now, get in so we can get you cleaned up and checked out.”
“You’re sure?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is this an American tic? I have said I am sure, and each time you ask, it merely delays the inevitable. Now, are you coming with me, or am I leaving you here to enjoy the quiet countryside?”
Her answer was to move, haltingly because of her side, to the passenger door of the car.
“I thought so,” I muttered.
Before driving off, I decided it would be prudent to check the contents of my trunk, so I unlocked it and opened the hatch.
The man within was still knocked out cold, his hands and feet locked tight with zip ties, a black hood over his head and a gag in his mouth. I checked his pulse to make certain he was still alive and then gave his cheek a little tap.
“Not to worry,” I murmured to him. “As soon as I get the girl situated, you will have my full and undivided attention.”
