HIS POSSESSION

Matteo Is Mr Mortelli

"Hello?"

"Emma! Where are you?" She winced and pulled the phone away from her ear. "The people you're supposed to present to are here already. They came early. Get yourself here now."

The call ended.

"s**t. s**t. Shit." Emma hurried back toward the conference room. Now she knew why Lisa had dropped the project. But she(Emma) couldn't opt out anymore.

Not now. Not when the people she was supposed to convince were already sitting in the room.

She turned the corner and found her boss waiting outside the conference room. He was pacing. The moment he saw her, he stopped.

"Don't f**k this up." Emma nodded and took a step toward the door, but he grabbed her arm.

"Emma, look at me." She turned to him. Her nervousness must have been written all over her face for him to pull her back. "Please," he said, lowering his voice. "Whatever you do in there, don't f**k this up, or we lose our jobs."

Emma blinked rapidly. Her chest tightened. She hadn't known. For months, everyone had referred to the client as Party B. She'd never thought to find out who they were the way Lisa did.

Why would she? The project had been Lisa's responsibility. Emma had only been contributing ideas and doing the work Lisa happily took credit for.

Now, suddenly, Party B had a name: Mortelli empire, and everyone was terrified of it.

Mr Mortelli was a big name in the company. Every new person in the department, including Emma, had heard stories about him from the older employees and they weren't soothing stories.

He was the head of the Mortelli empire, the largest organization in the city and far beyond it. They owned buildings everywhere. They bought, renovated, demolished, and reconstructed properties constantly.

Interior design companies like Emma's, and construction companies wanted contracts with them. Everyone wanted to work with the Mortelli empire. And she was about to stand in front of Mortelli and convince him to choose them.

"Emma, are you listening to me?" Her boss shook her slightly.

"Yes, sir." She nodded quickly and drew in a breath.

"If you do well in there, I get promoted." He paused. "And you get promoted to my position. You know that, right?"

The reminder did nothing to calm her. It only made her stomach twist harder.

"How many are they?" she asked. "Are they four, like we planned?" She glanced at the files in her hands. They'd only prepared four.

"Yeah. Well, there's five of them, but I think one is just Mr Mortelli's assistant. Go in there and do your best, okay? Good luck."

"Thank you, sir." She forced a smile then exhaled sharply.

Her boss reached for the door.

Emma stood in front of it for one second longer, trying to convince herself she could do this.

She was Emma Kroner. She'd worked too hard for this. She wasn't going to let her nervousness ruin her career.

The door opened.

"Good luck." Her boss said again before she stepped inside.

"And my partner, Ms Kroner, will take it on from here." The man speaking in front of the conference table turned toward her as she entered.

"Good morning." Emma walked toward the front of the room looking at the walls behind them and not their faces. She had learnt that it helped online."My name is Emma Kroner, and I'll be the one showing you how..."

Her voice disappeared when she mistakenly looked at one of their faces. At the other end of the table sat Matteo, directly opposite her. He was sitting at the head of the table, one hand resting beside the documents in front of him, his dark gaze fixed calmly on her.

He looked at her the way he'd looked at her on the terrace the night before—as though there were no conference room, no employees, no multimillion-dollar contract between them. As though he could still feel her fingers tangled in his hair.

Emma stopped breathing.

Her fingers loosened around the files and they all slipped from her hands. They hit the floor. Her eyes moved behind him. Drew. The man with the glasses. His assistant. It all made sense now. Her gaze returned to Matteo.

Matteo was Mr Mortelli.

Matteo WAS Mr Mortelli.

She swallowed, but it did nothing to loosen the knot in her throat. The man sitting in front of her was the same man who had kissed her last night.

Every memory she had spent her entire bus ride to work this morning trying not to think about came rushing back at once—the wedding. The terrace. His hands on her. His mouth. His face between her legs. His breath in her ear.

"Oh, God. Emma?" Her boss's panicked voice came quietly from the doorway when he noticed she had frozen where she stood.

She didn't answer. She couldn't answer and couldn't move.

"Emma?" He walked closer, a strained smile fixed on his face as he reached for her arm. When she still didn't react, his fingers pinched sharply at the back of it.

Emma blinked.

The sting brought her back. Her boss was already crouching to gather the files from the floor, his smile never slipping as he whispered through clenched teeth.

"Pull yourself together."

Emma inhaled. Across the table, Matteo hadn't moved. His expression was unreadable. But his eyes were still fixed on her.

She remembered the man she had met at Derek's wedding, who was quiet, stern-looking, a little intimidating, maybe.

But not this.

Not the kind of man an entire company could lose sleep over pitching to. He had danced with her. He had stood beside her on a terrace and listened to her ramble about Derek's wedding. He had made her laugh. He had looked at the city with her as though there was nowhere else in the world he needed to be.

That man was now sitting at the head of a conference table while everyone waited for her to speak.

Her boss distributed the files before returning to her side. "Forgive Emma," he said with a nervous laugh. "She gets a little nervous, but she knows exactly what she's doing."

Emma glanced at him. His smile didn't reach his eyes but the quiet threat in his stare did. He stepped away, leaving her alone again.

Emma forced herself to breathe, "Good morning. My name is—"

She stopped. Her stomach turned with nervousness. She couldn't get last night out of her head. She couldn't get the sound of his breathless groans and moans out of her head.

"Ms Kroner." Matteo's voice cut through her thoughts.

All the noise in her head disappeared. He sounded formal and calm. It was almost like he had never met her. Like he didn't remember what she looked like beneath him. She envied his professionalism at the moment but also couldn't help but be annoyed that her presence wasn't unsettling him like his presence was unsettling her composure.

"Yes," she managed.

"Take a seat." Emma stared at him. He continued, "Take your time and start when you're ready."

She glanced toward her boss. He was standing by the door, shaking his head vigorously. His expression said it clearly enough that sitting could make things worse for them.