Unnoticed and Untouched Read Free

had to be worked out or the bike would fail on the track.
    And Renzo refused to accept failure. He’d poured a great deal of money and time into the development of this motorcycle, and he needed it to succeed. Success was everything. He’d known that since he was a teenager, since he’d realized that he actually
had
a father but that his father had not wanted to know him.
    Because he wasn’t a blue blood like the Conte de Lucano, or like the
conte
’s children with his wife. Renzo was the outcast, the unfortunate product of a somewhat hasty affair with a waitress. He hadn’t been supposed to succeed—but he had, spectacularly, and he had every intention of continuing to do so.
    Lorenzo D’Angeli never backed down from a challenge. He lived for them, thrived on them.
    The limousine came to a halt in front of a plain concrete apartment building in a somewhat shabby neighborhood. Renzo winced as he moved his leg. It ached enough that he should allow his chauffeur to retrieve Faith, but he was just stubborn enough to refuse to permit even that small moment of vulnerability.
    The car door opened and Renzo stepped onto the pavement,looking right and left, surveying the street and the people. The area didn’t seem unsafe, yet it was worn. An unwanted memory tugged at his mind as he stood there. Another time, another place.
    Another life, when he’d had nothing and had to struggle to feed his mother and younger sister. He’d been angry then, terribly angry. He’d always thought that if his mother had been more forceful, more demanding, she could have at least gotten the
conte
to make sure they had food and shelter. But she was weak, his mother, though he loved her completely. Too weak to fight back when she should have done so.
    He ruthlessly squashed the feelings of helplessness the memory dredged up. Then he strode into the building and made his way to Faith’s apartment on the second floor. There was no elevator. Renzo took the stairs quickly, in spite of the sharp throb in his leg. When he reached Faith’s door, he took a moment to blank the pain from his mind before he rapped sharply.
    She answered right away, the door whipping open to reveal a woman who might have made his jaw drop had he not had better control of himself. Faith Black was … different. A small spike of
something
—he did not know quite what—ricocheted through him as he studied her. She had not transformed into a voluptuous goddess, but she had transformed. Somehow.
    The glasses were gone, and she was wearing makeup. He wasn’t certain she ever wore makeup at the office, though perhaps she did. If she did, it wasn’t quite like this, he was certain. Her lips were red, full and shiny from her lip gloss. Kissable.
    Kissable?
    “Mr. D’Angeli,” she said, blinking in surprise.
    “You were expecting someone else?” he asked mildly,and yet the thought of her doing so caused a twinge of irritation to stab into him. Odd.
    “I—well, yes. I had thought you were sending your car. I had thought I was meeting you at the event.”
    “As you see, this is not the case.” He let his gaze drop slowly before meeting her pretty eyes again. She seemed surprised—and somewhat annoyed. She’d never been anything but professional in all their interactions, but what he saw in her eyes now made him wonder if it was possible that she did not like him.
    Impossibile
. Of course she did. He’d yet to meet a woman who didn’t. He turned his best smile on her. “You look quite delightful, Miss Black.”
    And delectable, he was shocked to realize.
    Her hair was piled on her head, but it wasn’t quite as scraped back as usual; instead she’d pulled it into an elegant twist from which one disobedient tendril had escaped to lie against her cheek. Her pale lavender gown was demure, with a high neck, but it was also sleeveless and molded to her full breasts before falling away in ripples of fabric to the floor.
    It was disconcerting, to say the least, to realize