Chapter Eleven
Isla put on some music for when she started surfing the Internet. That always helped her to think, and to calm down, when there was something on in the background that she could listen to.
Ugh, as if she'd told off Sebastian Calendri, got all up in his space and everything like that.
Probably not the best idea if she was trying to impress Arturo enough that he'd sign over her grandfather's business.
But, if what Orlando said was true, then they didn't much get alone either.
Of course, that didn't discount the fact that they were still family, and it might not matter how much Arturo didn't get along with him. He might still be majorly angry that Isla had yelled at him.
She needed something to do to keep her mind occupied until Arturo decided to get his ass here. So, Isla spent the next couple of minutes refreshing her memory on the Calendri's, their pictures, mostly of them a couple of years ago when the paparazzi were going even more crazy than usual to get their photos.
The Calendri's were damn near American royalty. Their wealth wasn't the most extravagant in the country, but they were definitely in the top one percent of the population.
No, what made them so beloved by the media, was the fact that Vincenzio Calendri, and his late wife, had been known for throwing extravagant balls, and not the sort to raise money for their favorite politician.
It was all charity work. Money went to school libraries, children's hospitals, women's shelters and health clinics, and a number of other places that were either in desperate need, weren't popular to donate to, or even both.
The couple had been loved the whole country over, and hailed as the perfect couple.
All of that, until it had been discovered that Vincenzio was guilty of a number of affairs.
Which all came out during his trial for the murder of his wife.
The press hadn't just had a mild liking for the Calendri's then, they'd been like sharks that had scented blood.
It had turned into reality television that everyone in the country tuned in to watch. Vincenzio Calendri, accused and on trial for his wife's murder. When he'd been found guilty, Isla had been with Jane, watching on their television. She could still recall the sound of the people in the apartments next to hers as some of them cheered, and others roared.
Isla had heard there were parties and barbecues.
She'd felt bad for it, back then, but she'd also been kind of relieved that Vincenzio Calendri would be going away, because when she'd heard about that, she'd been so sure that it meant her grandfather, her mother, her aunts and uncles, would all get their jobs back because Baciami Boutique would be returned.
Not so. Though the Calendri sons had been teenagers when the murder happened, they hadn't been children when the trial finally came. They'd been grown men, even the youngest of them. More then grown men, their educations done with, they had experience in the world of business, and Arturo had immediately taken over for his father.
Isla swiped through the list of pictures. Some of them showed Arturo as very young when his mother was killed. Not a kid, but not yet a man either. She did the math on the dates, which meant that Arturo actually wasn't a teenager when his mother was killed, but just barely twenty years old. Not much better. There was nothing better, actually.
Many showed a wide-eyed, shell-shocked teenager, still reeling from the fact that his mother was gone, and realizing that death was not something that anyone could come back from.
Especially with the terrible way she'd been murdered.
Isla's heart ached for him, for the younger Arturo in those pictures. She could even see Orlando in some of them, and his face was already youthful without showing him as a boy of thirteen or so. Silvio had been seventeen when it happened. Children weren't supposed to have their pictures taken, but someone had snapped these, and once something was put on the Internet, everyone knew it stayed there forever.
The press hadn't given the boys much mercy whenever they'd dared to go out in public.
Sebastian, the only blond, hadn't been in any of the pictures.
The pictures of Arturo as the trial went on showed someone much different than the scared, stunned young man from the other photos. In these, he was a man with his shoulders filled out, his back straight, and his dark eyes hard and fearless as he watched his father answer questions, and deny, what he'd done.
The earbuds in her ears were so roughly yanked out, that the lack of any music was more of a shock than anything else.
Except for Arturo's irritated voice that was right next to her. "Doing a little research, I see."
Isla damn near jumped right off the bed, and her iPad certainly went flying. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Arturo reached his hand up and effortlessly caught the flying tablet before it could crash onto the floor and break.
Isla's heart was racing too damned much for her to be overly impressed by that.
Arturo's dark eyes stared at her. He wasn't glaring at her. He didn't look remotely angry considering what he'd just caught her doing, but his expressionless face did still give off a cold chill that made her freeze in place on the bed.
That chill was made only about a thousand times worse when Arturo looked at the tablet screen, and started scrolling through what she'd just been reading. Then his eyes glanced back to her.
This time, he did look a tiny bit irritated as he tossed the tablet onto the bed. "Find everything you were looking for?"
Isla stared at the screen in front of her. The picture of Arturo, still looking dazed and confused, was in front of her now.
"I'm sorry, I just...It's public information."
Fuck, she knew instantly that was a dumb thing to say the second it came out.
Arturo's brows lifted. He stared at her as though she was one of the biggest fools he'd ever laid eyes on. "How old are you?"
She blinked. "What?"
"Your age. I'd like to know it."
"Why?" She wanted to tell him that it wasn't polite to ask about a woman's age, but after what he'd just caught her doing, and what she'd said, she wisely managed to keep that to herself.
"I want to know, because you act like a little teenaged twit. You look like I'm about to ground you to your room."
Teenaged twit? Oh, screw him. Isla bristled. If she'd been a cat, her hair and tail would be spiking up right about now, though the noise that came out of her throat was damn near a catty growl. "I'm trying to apologize to you, you dickhead."
"And now I'm a dickhead, even though I caught you violating my privacy, and I don't care if that shit was on the Internet. If you wanted to do your research on me, you should have done it and looked everything up anywhere but in my house."
That got her feeling mighty guilty again, but Isla sucked that feeling back. He thought she was weak for apologizing, so she wasn't going to do it.
"Wait," she said, frowning and looking at her door, which was open. The fact that Arturo was in here meant that he'd walked through it. It certainly wasn't a hologram in front of her, though she didn't doubt he could afford something like that.
"What are you talking about invading privacy? You just walked into my room unannounced. What if I'd been naked or getting dressed?"
"So? I'm going to see you anyway," Arturo said, crossing his arms. "And I knocked. Three times, and called your name, so I let myself in. This isn't your room either. I'm letting you use it while you stay here."
Isla glared at him, though she didn't have the energy to put much feeling into it. "Do you have to have a response to everything?"
He didn't respond to that. He just looked at her, and smiled.
Asshole. Total asshole. Even if he didn't have to have a response for everything, he certainly needed to be right about everything, and this definitely proved as much.
"Whatever," Isla said, ignoring Arturo's tsking sound at her immature choice of words. "Anyway, I'm sorry for loading that up in your house if it offends you. I already knew about a lot of it anyway, but I saw some of your brothers today, and I wanted to see their pictures again since I didn't recognize them."
"I was told Sebastian came to visit," Arturo said, and this time, his smile widened enough to show off a perfect row of white teeth. "How was he?"
Isla slid off the bed to stand. "Well, I didn't know him before today, so I don't have anything to compare him to, but he seemed pretty pissed off at you." Isla considered not asking, but she had to. "I'm guessing Angela was someone he cared about that you messed with?"
"A mutual agreement between us. Trust me, she didn't mind."
Isla barely held back her noise of disgust. Really? This was how he acted about sleeping with his brother's girlfriend? Or, at the very least, someone that his brother apparently cared for. A lot.
Isla hadn't read a Harlequin since she was a teenager and snuck them out of her mother's purse, but of all the billionaire romances she'd gobbled back when she was fourteen, none of them had acted this much like a cruel jerk. Arturo certainly didn't fit the bill for any charming man who was waiting to be healed by a good woman. He was certainly scarred and fucked up, but Isla knew that, even if she left this place with a little less dignity, she was still going to leave it with her heart intact. There was no chance of her developing unwanted feelings for this guy like Jane had worried about.
Arturo stepped closer, that predatory smile on his face as he went toe to toe with her, staring down at her.
"You want to say something to me."
"No, I don't," Isla said, clenching her fists as she glared up at him.
"Yes, you do. I can tell. Just say it. I disgust you, don't I?"
Like she was every about to tell the guy that. This man practically had her by the balls, if she had any balls to be had by. The absolute last thing she was going to do would be to push her luck by pissing him off.
"Your silence is very telling," Arturo said.
"I don't think you're disgusting."
Not completely disgusting, at any rate.
Arturo wouldn't stop with that half smile he had on his face. It looked like he really did think he had her, like he knew what was going through her mind.
Isla sighed. "Well, you're here now, I guess you want sex?"
"What?" Arturo's eyes widened. He jerked back a little, as though she'd hit him.
Isla didn't get it. "Isn't that why you're here?"
"In my house? I'm here because it's the end of the day, I'm tired, hungry, and I want to relax."
The way he glared at her when he said it unnerved her. "I just thought, considering our agreement..."
"You thought that I was sitting at my desk all day slobbering all over my paperwork imagining your sweet ass in my bed, did you?"
Isla's face heated. "What the hell? Why do you have to speak like that?"
"Why do you have to think like that?" Arturo shot back. "I'm going to fuck you eventually, and yes, it will be tonight, but I'm not a pervert who can't manage to go more than a few minutes without thinking about tits and ass and getting off. I do have self control, just so you know."
As he said it, his eyes moved up and down her body. Isla's skin heated from the bottom of her toes, all the way to the top of her head, having him look at her like that. The extra problem to add on top of it was the fact that he didn't look overly impressed with what he was seeing.
What the hell? And why did that bother her so much?
"Didn't seem so obvious when you had that blond come out of your back office the other day."
As if she just said that. Fuck my life.
Arturo shook his head. He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, but he didn't reprimand her for her choice of words.
"Get yourself ready and come down to dinner," Arturo said, moving back to her door.
It seemed a little late for dinner for her. She tried not to eat after seven, but she supposed a guy like Arturo was used to late dinners. He had the sort of body that meant his metabolism was able to keep up with eating late, at least.
"Get ready, right," Isla said.
"Something you don't understand?" Arturo said, stopping at her door.
She shook her head. "No, I get it," she said. He had said that he would fuck her after they ate, so she supposed she needed to get into a fresh pair of panties, the tiny lacey kind, and one of the sexier bras that she'd packed.
"Good. Dinner will be served in ten minutes. Don't be late," he said, then he was gone.
Isla exhaled, and she hadn't realized she'd been having trouble breathing until she did that.
Holy shit. That had been...a lot more intense than she'd thought it would be. She was going to have dinner with that man, and then they were going to get it on, probably in a king sized bed, or something bigger, whatever it was that angry billionaires slept in.
This hadn't made her blush so much before she came her. Was it only more real now that she was here? Now that she really did have to put up with his temper and snide comments?
Well, screw him. Regardless of his past, that was no reason for him to play these games with her. She was going to play along, only because she had to, but while she was at it, she was going to kill him with kindness.
Isla's new mission was to make this man, not love her, but like her. She was going to be so nice to him, that by the time this was all over and he was handing over her family's company, he would be down on his knees apologizing to her for being so rude and mean.
She wouldn't make him apologize for the sex bit, but only if it was good. Something told her that a guy like Arturo only ever had good sex, so Isla wasn't overly worried about that.
All right then, game on.
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~Mandy <3