CHAPTER NINE
Michelle Douglas
The beauty and the billionaire
Socialite Alessandra Caracciolo has always lived in her glamorous twin’s shadow. When the love of her life chose her sister, the betrayal convinced shy Alessandra no man would truly fall for her...
Yet from the moment she meets Italian billionaire Rinieri Montanari, Alessandra feels an instant connection. And as she works alongside him, she discovers that beneath his playboy charm lies a deeply honorable heart. Alessandra dares to hope Rinieri is the first man to have eyes for only her—but can she be brave enough to believe in their love?
For Pa, with love.
“SIGNOR MONTANARI?”
Rini was just getting in the limo. He looked around in the direction of one of the reporters who’d followed him outside the doors of the fourteenth-century Palazzo Colonna in Rome. Dozens of them had assembled to cover the European Congress of Businessmen.
“A moment of your time, per favore—one piece of news I can use for my lead story in La Repubblica?”
Why not?
“Since Italy imports almost all of its hydrocarbon demand, a doubling of domestic production would help the country reduce its energy bill. I’m planning to find them in Italy.”
“Where?”
“That’s my secret for now.”
The reporter beamed for having been given a partial scoop. “Mille grazie, signor.”
He nodded and closed the door before his driver took him to the heliport for the flight to his mountaintop villa in Positano, on the Amalfi Coast. Now that the two-day September conference covering the economic problems facing Europe was over, Rini was eager to explore his latest project. On Monday he’d be leaving for the coast of Southern Italy, but tonight he had other plans.
Once the helicopter landed on the pad behind his villa, he jumped down and found his housekeeper, Bianca, out by the pool watering the tubs of flowers. She looked up when she saw him.