Page 1 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

SAVERINA PARISI HAD spent the past year proving her brother wrong. She loved her oldest brother, but that didn’t mean she didn’t celebrate this victory.

When she was fresh out of university, he had thought she should take a gap year. Spend time thinking about what she really wanted to do with her life. The only thing Saverina had wanted to do was belong in her billionaire brother’s company.

She had made him a deal. She would be his assistant, where he could keep an eye on her, for six months. If she did a good job and still wanted to work at Parisi, she could stay. If she hated it, or was terrible at it, she would have to go take that gap year.

Maybe she should have taken the gap year as so many people weren’t afforded that luxury, she knew, but all she could think was at this age her brother had been building empires—all to save the family. She wanted to be part of the material thing that had saved them from the awful poverty they’d grown up in. She wanted to help Lorenzo in some way that might be a little repayment for all he’d given her.

So for six months she had been an excellent assistant. Never afraid to take an angry phone call, to soothe ruffled feathers, to tell someone to wait. She had no problem working her way up in her brother’s company, any more than she had a problem with people whispering about how she got the job.

The Parisis had come from nothing, so she had no qualms about using all her brother’s considerable wealth and influence to do what needed doing. She owed it to Lorenzo and all he’d sacrificed for the family. She owed it to the sister they’d lost who’d never had a chance to succeed.

But mostly, she owed it to herself.

When her six months were up, even exacting Lorenzo couldn’t find fault with her effort. She was allowed to stay on. She would remain as Lorenzo’s assistant until the end of the year, then decide what direction she wanted to go in within Parisi Enterprises.

She’d planned to dive into the different sides of the business and decide where she wanted to put her talents to use. IT would have been the best fit for the skills she’d learned and honed at university, but it also had a lot of room for error.

Saverina Parisi didn’t do error.

Instead, she’d been distracted. And now Teo LaRosa was much more than a distraction. The handsome executive currently zooming up the ranks with no connections whatsoever had gone from an ill-advised date to a full-fledged relationship in the course of a few whirlwind months, even if they were still keeping it a secret.

Which was why she was purposefully ignoring the fluttering butterflies in her stomach and the way her pulse seemed to pound in her neck while she waited for Teo to give his assistant the go-ahead for her to be let into his office.

She needed to speak to him briefly for work. Her brother was on an extended holiday with his growing family, so Saverina’s duties took her to Teo’s office often. Each and every time, they behaved perfectly professionally...

But all the man needed to do was smile at her to have her knees going a little weak.

It was strange to be this woman. When she had flicked boys off at the slightest irritation all through university. She had never felt out of control of her own heart, let alone impulses.

Only Teo twisted her into a million knots she didn’t understand.

Saverina considered herself incredibly world-wise. She’d lost her mother and sister under tragic circumstances and had been nothing but relieved when her father had drunk himself to death. All before she’d hit her teens. Since then, she’d been raised by a workaholic brother. She thought she knew just about everything—or certainly enough—until Teo had kissed her.

Now the world was different, and she wasn’t quite so sure of her place in it. But she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wanted to be next to Teo.

“Ms. Parisi, Mr. LaRosa will see you now,” Teo’s stiff, stern assistant offered. Mrs. Caruso had been working for Parisi since its inception. Saverina had watched her be nothing but warm and kind to Teo, to Lorenzo, and a cold wall of ice to literally everyone else.

So she didn’t take the woman’s cool gaze—all the way through the door—as an offense. Mrs. Caruso was doing her job and wasn’t easily swayed by the Parisi last name.

Saverina much preferred that to the type of people who sidled up to her or sucked up to her simply because of her connection to Lorenzo. Besides, she’d learned how to live under scrutiny in a million different ways as the sister to a self-made billionaire, especially when his supposed bad deeds had been splashed across gossip sites years before.

Inside Teo’s large office, new in the past month thanks to all his hard work, the man in question sat at his desk, head slightly bowed as he finished typing something on his phone.

His dark hair was swept back, ruthlessly styled always—well, except after hours when she got her hands on it. His shoulders were broad, something that was evident even with him sitting down behind his desk. He glanced up, his dark eyes still half-distracted by whatever had been on his phone.

His face could have been sculpted out of marble. High, sharp cheekbones, an aristocratic nose. All edges and angles except for the sensual promise of his lips. She loved the way that mouth felt against her skin.

She kept waiting for that breathless, foolish feeling to go away in his presence, but it never did. And every time it didn’t, it caused her daydreams to get more out of hand. Trusting him enough to let him into her bed—well, his bed, since she still lived at Lorenzo’s estate—had been one thing, but now she was thinking toward things like love and forever.

She despaired of herself. But when he smiled at her and got to his feet, all despair was replaced with a warmth and longing so tangled and deep it threatened to make her forget everything, when she was a woman who always had her wits about her.

Or had been. Before him.

She cleared her throat and moved forward, taking the seat opposite him at his desk. She looked up at him, fixed her most businesslike expression on her face, and tapped the notebook she’d brought. “Lorenzo has extended his vacation, so we’ll have to discuss moving some of next week’s meetings further out.”

Teo stood there, staring down at her for a moment, before he said anything. A moment when she felt his eyes take a tour of her body—as she’d hoped.

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