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A chill ran down the length of his spine as he h the

He had no doubt about how much Gio would have talked about hié, he was Giovanni’s pride and joy Raphael had turned the small spare automobile parts cocompany

Giovanni had been his lifeline when he’d been sinking as a seventeen-year-old He’d been a light in a long, dark tunnel that Raphael’s weak father had plunged them all into

Not that it stopped Giovanni fro, he had stood on the periphery of the croatching, with a satisfied shted with the results of his string pulling

Whatever the old man was up to, it would eventually fall to Raphael to clean it up Just as he kept Giovanni’s hounding relatives at bay Just as he ensured that the leftovers from Gio’s time on the board—men ould stab Raphael in the back before he could blink—didn’t leach away the gains he had made

Just as he took care of the various and sundry branches of Mastrantino families without any expectations in return

And yet, as he questioned one of the staff members about Pia, Raphael was suddenly aware that this was unlike any other responsibility he shouldered

For no bickering ex-wife of Gio’s or grasping cousin of his mother had ever caused his blood to pound like this

No woman had ever called to his baser instincts like this supposedly innocent granddaughter of his godfather

CHAPTER TWO

COOL WATER SLUICED off her back and limbs as Pia swam lap after lap in the indoor pool on Gio’s estate as if the very devil were after her

Raphael Mastrantino was very much the devil

The ance!

She worked off her fury in the water

Of all the men to be attracted to