Page 54 of Saved by the CEO

“Well, like signor said, once we got to know you, we’d realize we shouldn’t believe everything we read. At least I don’t believe it.”

“Thank you.” She did her best to keep her voice calm and kind. The young man was being sincere. Besides, her annoyance wasn’t with him, it was with his boss.

“This reminds me...” Palms pressed to the desk top, she pushed herself to her feet, deliberately moving slowly so as to stay calm. “There’s something I wanted to ask Nico about today’s orders. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. I saw him and Vitale heading toward the wine cellar.”

Perfect. They could talk without being overheard.

* * *

Cool and dark, the wine cellar Nico had proudly told her about on her first day had changed little from when the Amatuccis first started making wine. The stone walls and floor were the same ones against which his great-grandfather had stacked his wine barrels. At the moment the tradition meant little as she stalked the floor-to-ceiling stacks looking for Nico.

She found him in the farthest room, clipboard in hand. Soon as he saw her, a smile broke across his face. “Now here is a pleasant coincidence. I was just imagining what it would be like to bring you down here and have my way with you.”

“You’ll have to keep imagining,” she replied, sidestepping his grasp.

Immediately his smile turned into a frown. “Is something wrong?”

“You tell me. Did you really tell your employees they had to be nice to me?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Mario told me about your staff meeting.” Not that it mattered who’d told her. The way he was avoiding looking her in the eyes told her it was true.

The irritation she’d been tamping down, quickly roared to life, making it a herculean effort for her not to snatch the clipboard from his hands and toss it on the ground then and there to make him look at her. She settled for spinning around and slamming the door shut. “I can’t believe you did that,” she hissed once she had his attention.

“Did what?”

“Forced your employees to be my friends. Who do you think you are?”

“Their boss,” he replied, sharply, eyes flashing. “And I did not force anyone. I told them to treat you with respect, something I thought you were sorely in need of at the time. Or don’t you remember how upset you were on that first day? When you told me about the trial?”

And broke down in his arms. “I remember,” she said. All too well. Like so many times, Nico had been the rock she so desperately needed.

“That doesn’t entitle you to go around speaking on my behalf.” Hearing the complaint aloud, it sounded a lot less egregious than it had when she came marching down here. Still, she pressed on. There was some merit to her grievance. “I needed to win people over on my own, not because of your influence.”

“And you did,” Nico replied. She rolled her eyes. “Look, I simply told people to give you a chance. That if they got to know you, they would see that what the newspapers were saying was nothing but a load of garbage.”

Exactly what Mario said.

“I assure you, bella mia, any goodwill you received you earned on your own.” With a duck of his head, he offered a small smile. “You are irresistible, you know.”

In spite her annoyance, Louisa’s stomach gave a little wobble. He wasn’t getting off that easily, though. “Regardless, you should have told me what you were planning. I don’t like the idea of everyone talking behind my back.”

“They were already talking; I wanted to make sure they talked correctly. Besides, if I had mentioned my plans, you would have told me not to, making your job twice as hard.”

He had a point, even if the logic didn’t sit completely well with her.

“What else did you tell them?” she asked.

“Nothing. I swear.”

She believed him. Knowing she could verify whatever he said, he had no reason not to answer truthfully.

His index finger hooked her chin. “My only intention was to make sure people treated you fairly,” he said, thumbing her lower lip. “When you told me how badly your ‘friends’ treated you in Boston, I... I swore I wouldn’t let you suffer like that again. I just wanted to erase the hurt from your eyes.”

He gazed at her from beneath lowered lids, the black of his eyes obscured by thick dark lashes. Louisa found herself lost in them anyway. He had the power to distract her with a single touch, no matter how slight. Being with Nico was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Not with Steven or any other man. It was as if she’d been stuck in darkness her entire life and had finally stepped into the light. Nico made her feel beautiful and smart and special and a thousand other adjectives she couldn’t name. The sensation scared her to death.

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