The Italian Billionaire’s Nubian Queen

And Matteo did not want to spend all his time watching his own back. He didn’t want to be worried about takeover attempts, about Gabriel scheming behind his back, because he knew that there were enough board members to give Gabriel support. There were always people who could be bought. Most people had a price. Gabriel might soon be willing to pay it.

Marriage, and an heir—that would change everything. He would have been willing to hold on for a few more years to find the right wife.

Two days ago, he wouldn’t have described the right wife in any way that would fit Alyssa Benjamin.

But now…

He hadn’t known that he’d been looking for her, but he’d recognized her the moment he’d seen her. She was the one who could be his mate. She was strong enough to be his mate, and he wanted that joy in his life.

Alyssa would need to be convinced, of course, and she would have to make quite a few changes, but it didn’t even occur to him that he might not be able to do that. He would need to prolong his time in the States, but he could do that. He would have to send Claudia back to make sure that he was kept up to speed, and he could rest assured that things would be fine if he did that, too.

He could stay long enough to convince Alyssa Benjamin that when he went back to Italy, she should marry him and go back with him.

He had absolutely no doubts about that. He was very confident.

Which was why when he found out that Alyssa had left, he got a bit of a shock.

***

Alyssa was awake and more than a little pissed off. It was seven in the morning. Yet again. She was not used to this and she had no intention of getting used to it. When she woke up early, usually, it was because she had a reason to wake up early. She liked sleeping.

Now, if she’d gone to bed early and then woken up early, maybe she would’ve appreciated the sunrise and the bright, beautiful new day. But no, she’d gone to sleep at two in the morning because she’d had orders to figure out, and paperwork that had gotten lost, and a rare bottle of wine to track down that she’d almost found but had had snatched away right from under her nose, or so it felt.

So after all of that, she’d been exhausted.

And she’d welcomed the exhaustion because, she thought, it would make her sleep like a rock.

But no, she’d been far too naïve in that hope. She’d been plagued, yes, plagued, by those damn dreams again. It was as if meeting that man had unlocked some part of her that she hadn’t even known existed, a part of her that seemed to like the idea of being in some gothic romance of the kind she’d never even liked. None of it made any sense.

Generally, she would shrug it off and she would tell herself that she could wait it out. But now she was going on three nights of very little sleep and it was beginning to annoy her.

She’d been up for an hour and a half and she’d tried all the things that usually relaxed her. She’d tried deep breathing. She’d tried yoga. She’d tried listening to calming music. She’d had an entire calming playlist on. She’d even given up and tried some of that herbal tea that Brianna had given her.

None of it had worked, and the tea was so bitter and tasted so horrible that she was even more annoyed than she’d been before she’d started. This was already shaping up to be a worse day than the day before and that had been a pretty bad day.

When her phone rang, Alyssa glared at it sourly.

She considered letting it go to voice mail.

But maybe it would be a distraction.

She grabbed it, and glared at the screen. She didn’t have that number saved in her contacts. Apparently it wasn’t in the database, either, because it came up as caller unknown.

Alyssa didn’t usually take calls from numbers she didn’t know, not on her personal phone. Her business line was another matter, of course. She couldn’t afford to be picky there.

But still… A distraction. If it was a telemarketer, maybe she would sing to them until they hung up. That would be a change of pace.

She took the call.

“Hello?”

“Alyssa.”

She froze.

Colombo.

Not Matteo.

“Yes?”

“This is Gabriel.”

“Oh. Hello, Gabriel.”

“You left without saying goodbye.”

“Well, I guess I did, but I wasn’t sure that we’d become… close enough to say goodbye? I had an emergency at work.”

“That’s a pity. Is everything all right? Is there any way I can help? You run a shop that sells wine, I hear. I do have a few contacts in the industry if you think it could help.”

Alyssa frowned.

“Thank you for the offer, it’s very kind. I’ll keep it in mind. But for right now, I handled it fine.”

“Well then, it is a pity that you left as suddenly as you did. I missed you, and so did Brianna.”

Alyssa had just begun to relax a little. She froze again.

“Brianna?”

“I drove her home last night. She wasn’t very happy with being left alone like that, but I suppose I should thank you, in a way. I had a wonderful time. Your sister is a lovely woman.”

“She is,” agreed Alyssa, but she didn’t like where this was headed. She didn’t like it at all.

“Well, I suppose I just wanted to check and see that you’re all right, and thank you for your company.”

“Oh.”

“And Brianna’s, of course.”

“Well, you should thank Bree for her company.”

“I did. I plan to, again. I feel we should get to know each other, you and I.”

Alyssa really, really didn’t think so. What had Brianna been thinking? Why had Naomi and Howie not driven her back as they’d said they would? Why had nobody told her any of this? Why was she finding all of this out from Gabriel?

None of it made any sense.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be going back to Italy soon. You must have a lot to do back there, with the business and everything.”