Page 43 of Resisting the Bossy Billionaire

His smile was soft. ‘I cannot pretend to understand the dynamics of your family but I know they love you.’

She returned the smile. ‘I know they do. I guess it’s all a continuation of how things were for me growing up. My voice always got lost.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I probably should have shouted louder to make myself heard. That’s what the others did.’

‘If you did not have your voice there, I would say that you have found it here.’

‘Do you think?’

‘There is not a person in the Guardiola Group who would dare ignore your voice.’

‘You make me sound like a dragon!’

Laughing, he shook his head and cut into his tuna. ‘No one thinks that. People listen to you because you have proven that you’re worth listening to. You organise your thinking the same way you organise my life.’

‘Thank you... I think.’

‘Bella, it is not just me who values and respects you. The whole workforce does.’

The tears she’d been fighting so hard to hold back suddenly brimmed as the life she’d enjoyed since arriving in New York flashed through her. The good friends she’d made. The great social life she’d enjoyed even if it had ground to a halt since working for Marcello. But that was her own fault too. She saw that now. She’d let him make outrageous demands on her personal time because, even when she was miffed with him, there was no one in the world in whose company she’d rather be.

Because of Marcello, she’d found a career to thrive in and was paid generously for it. For all that she’d often thought of herself as his glorified dogsbody, he’d taught her more about business than any number of degrees could have. He’d made it no secret that he was grooming her to one day take a seat on his board, a seat in her own right and not just as his Woman Friday.

At twenty-five, she’d built the life her bored, insecure teenage self would have thrilled for.

Tomorrow, she would take a sledgehammer to it.

Today she had everything. A great career. Disposable income. A decent apartment to live in. A love affair more fulfilling and consuming than she could ever have dreamed possible.

Tomorrow it would all be gone.

‘Bella?What is wrong?’

She looked back into the eyes she loved more than anyone’s in the whole world and knew that in the morning she would be taking a sledgehammer to Marcello’s world too, even if it was a much smaller one.

But tomorrow hadn’t arrived yet. They still had these last few hours together and she wouldn’t spoil them for anything.

With a soft sigh, she said, ‘I was just thinking my teenage self would approve of how my life has turned out.’

Shoulders relaxing, he raised his glass. ‘We should drink to that.’

‘As long as I don’t have to drink that evil stuff in your glass,’ she managed to quip.

His answering laugh helped smother the despondency back to where she could keep it hidden and contained from them both for their last few hours together.

Marcello’s eyes were wide open in the early morning darkness. He wasn’t sure if he’d slept at all. Too many thoughts crowding his head in the lulls between lovemaking.

Nestled beside him, her hand a deadweight on his abdomen, a strand of her long hair tickling his arm, Victoria.

The dream-like bubble of the past week was coming to an end. Soon, he would have to wake her. They needed to shower and then head to her apartment so she could change into her work clothes before they went into the office and reminded the staff of what they looked like.

He hadn’t had so much time off work since Tommaso.

It had been a difficult birth. Livia had suffered. But then their perfect baby had been born and happiness had suffused her. Suffused them both. The purest kind of love. The three of them, his little family. A whole life together to be lived.

In the blink of an eye it had all gone and the purity of his love had turned into a grief so unbearable the pain had made him want to die.

Work had been his salvation. He’d returned to the small building that had homed his then small empire the day after they’d laid Tommaso to rest. He’d taken only rare days off since. His annual visit to his parents’ home for Christmas was always calculated to last no more than four days, including travelling. Work hard. Play hard. Exhaust the mind and body. Leave no time for thoughts or feelings.

His thoughts now refused to switch off but, without any forethought, he slipped out of bed and headed silently to his dressing room, closing the door before switching the light on so the brightness didn’t wake Victoria.

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