The Moretti Seduction Read Free

Vallerio name, you cannot release your new production car.”
    “Of course we can, Nathalie. We’d just have to rename it, which we are prepared to do if need be,” Antonio said. He wasn’t lying. It was a car that everyone talked about.
    And they wanted to recapture the magic that Nono had first discovered with Moretti Motors.
    “Then I suggest you start redesigning your car. As you know you can’t use the name or any likeness to the original Vallerio Roadster.”
    She pushed to her feet and reached for her designer leather briefcase and he knew that this woman wasn’t going to be an easy opponent. And damn if that didn’t excite the hell out of him.
    “Nathalie, we are just starting our talks. There is no need to get up from the table yet.”
    She shook her head, that beautiful red hair swinging gently around the shoulders of her conservative black Chanel suit that accented her curves. “Are you willing to meet our terms?”
    “No, I am not. We can talk about a small share of profits for your company, but it won’t be fifty percent.”
    “I’m afraid that our terms aren’t really negotiable,” Nathalie said.
    “Then why are you here? You know that we won’t agree to give you that kind of money.”
    “You asked for this meeting, Antonio. No one on the board at Vallerio Incorporated cares much for Moretti Motors. They would rather have Grandfather’s name drop into obscurity than license its use to your family.”
    Antonio leaned back in the leather chair and thought about Nathalie. He couldn’t keep just turning on the charm and hoping that would crack her composure.
    She was smart and willing to stand her ground, so that meant he was going to have to reevaluate how he dealt with her.
    “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked. She rubbed her fingers over her lips and then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
    “Am I staring?”
    She tipped her head to the side. “You know you are.”
    “Indeed I am. I am looking for a chink in your armor. Trying to figure out what makes you tick,” he said, knowing that honesty was a very powerful tool in the boardroom because so many of his opponents often felt the virtue overrated.
    She nibbled on her lower lip. “I don’t have any chinks.”
    He threw his head back and laughed at her bravado. Damn, but he liked this woman. If she wasn’t a Vallerio he’d even ask her out, but he knew that his family and hers had bad karma between them. And despite what he’d said to Dom earlier, he didn’t want to take the chance that Nono ’s bad woman mojo might touch him.
    “I like the way you laugh,” she said.
    “Really? Why is that?”
    “It makes you seem human.”
    He wanted to laugh again. “I am human, Nathalie. Do not ever doubt that.”
    “Well, your reputation would say otherwise.”
    “What does my reputation say about me?”
    She leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table. The movement caused her blouse to hang away from her skin and he saw the briefest hint of the curve of her breast. He wondered if he should follow Dom’s advice and seduce Nathalie—not to win the negotiation but because he wanted her.
    “Well, the gossip about is that you are cold-blooded when it comes to business.”
    “I’ve heard the same thing about you,” he said. And he had. She was known as the Ice Queen, and men that had dealt with Vallerio Incorporated spoke of her in unkind terms, often using words like bitch.
    “That simply isn’t true,” she said.
    “Then what is the truth about you?” he asked.
    “I just believe that all is fair in love and war,” she said.
    “Me too.”
    “Well, then we are evenly matched and I’d say let the war begin.”

Two
    N athalie knew exactly how she’d come to be sitting at Cracco Peck on Via Victor Hugo in the City Centre of Milan later that evening. She’d never met a man who was uniquely suited to her. But Antonio was.
    He was smart, savvy and sexy as hell and she knew that no matter what the outcome, she