The Don's Stolen Heir

Chapter 7

Vivian Moretti

“After an hour in my room, my father had me thrown into one of his holding cells. I spent a week there, surviving on bread and water until I gave him the name of the man I had supposedly allowed to defile me.”

I grimaced at the memory. Even after six years, I could still remember the hunger and the humiliation of being treated like a criminal by my own family.

“Unfortunately for him, I had made sure there was no way to trace the man. I met him online, arranged everything through the internet, and made certain my father and his cronies couldn't interfere. It was a hookup, nothing more. I'm pretty good with computers, if I say so myself, and I had set everything up to erase my tracks as soon as I finished what I went there to do. Even my father's best computer expert couldn't trace my actions.”

I paused, remembering how furious Edgardo had been when his people failed to find the man.

“Dad wanted to kill him in front of me as punishment, but the joke was on him. I didn't even know the man's name.”

“You're lucky you didn't get a bullet in the back of your head for what you did.”

Matteo's voice came from much closer than before. I heard the bathroom door open, followed by his footsteps, but curiosity wasn't enough to make me turn around. I kept my eyes fixed on the city below, where people moved along the streets like tiny ants, unaware of the dangerous men occupying the building above them.

“It was worth it,” I said quietly. “If my father had put a bullet in my head, at least I would have died on my own terms instead of being forced to marry a man rumored to be an abusive barbarian who killed his last lover.”

“Ouch.” A trace of amusement entered Matteo's voice.

I suddenly remembered who I was talking to, and my eyes widened. “I'm sorry, Don De Luca. I didn't mean to—”

“It's fine. You're not wrong.” His casual response caught me off guard. “I did kill the woman I was involved with before I cancelled our engagement. She cheated on me with a stripper at a club, and I ended up needing enough penicillin to treat the consequences. I made sure she would never spread her disease—or her legs—to anyone else again.”

I flinched at his bluntness, but his explanation brought Adrian Vale to mind. He had given me a similar reason for purchasing my virginity, claiming he wanted to keep me for himself rather than let another man have me. The memory made me wonder how much of what either man said was truth and how much was an excuse to justify his actions.

Matteo's voice pulled me back to the present.

“When your father cast you out, did he simply throw you out of the house, or did he do something else?”

“He cut me off completely. No trust fund, no credit cards, no bank account, and no permission to contact my family for help. I'd graduated from college the week before, and fortunately, I already had a job lined up. I'd also saved some money before everything fell apart, which was enough to get me a place to live.”

I glanced over my shoulder and found Matteo searching through his suitcase on the sofa. His broad shoulders narrowed into a lean waist, and his legs seemed impossibly long. Even standing several feet away, he was intimidatingly tall. The only other man I'd ever met who matched his height was the man who had bought my virginity.

My stomach twisted, and I quickly turned back toward the window.

“I saw your employment file when we took over the company three years ago,” Matteo said. “I expected you to resign, or for your father to force you to leave. I didn't realize he had simply stopped caring what happened to you.”

I pressed my lips together, holding back the urge to tell him exactly what I thought of that observation.

“I also didn't understand the consequences my decision to cancel our engagement would have for you. Though, from what you've told me, you played a part in what happened, too. I could have made it clear to your father that cancelling the engagement had nothing to do with you personally, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. The truth is, I never gave you another thought after I ended things with your family.”

Asshole.

The word sat on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it and faced the city again. Insulting the Don of the De Luca family while standing in his office probably wouldn't improve my situation.

“Well, I've resigned now,” I reminded him.

“I'd prefer you didn't leave. It's clear you're not working here to serve your father's interests, and according to Tank and Marcus, you're worth your weight in gold. They tell me you keep the company's daily IT operations running and have helped with some of the more…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Delicate operations.”

“You mean they use my hacking skills. Yes, they do. I'm not as good as Tank, but we work well together on special projects.”

“Is there something going on between you and Tank?”

“No!” I grimaced. “Absolutely not.”

“Not your type?”

I shuddered at the memory. “I once watched him stuff half a sandwich into his mouth, chew it, and swallow it like a seagull.”

Matteo paused. “You judge potential lovers by how they eat?”

“I judge potential partners by whether I could live with them until death do us part. I have baggage, and I don't take relationships lightly. If I'm going to put myself out there, it will be with someone who doesn't make me gag from the very beginning.”

He chuckled, and the unexpected sound made me glance sideways at him. He was still facing away from me, fiddling with his tie, but even from that angle, his height was impossible to ignore.

Unfortunately, it also stirred memories I'd spent years trying to bury.

The first time I'd made love to Adrian Vale, he had been gentle enough to make me believe I had nothing to fear. Later, that gentleness had given way to hours of desperate passion, leaving me with memories that might once have been sweet if not for what followed. Now, whenever I thought of the man who had ruined me for every other lover, I saw him standing over a dead man, calmly unscrewing a silencer from his revolver.

I shook my head, forcing the image away. I had no intention of letting that night invade my thoughts while I stood in Matteo De Luca's office.

“Look, Marcus wants you to stay,” Matteo said. “Genevra has been warned to keep her mouth shut where you're concerned. You should stay.”

He headed back toward the bathroom, presumably to check his tie in the mirror. I kept my gaze on the window, but his reflection appeared in the glass as he passed.

My knees nearly gave way.

That face.

That height.

That man.

Adrian Vale.