Forbidden Touch 1

PROLOGUE
THE MAN SHE MUST NEVER LOVE
Portofino, Italy — Midnight
The sea was black beneath the moonlight.
Luxury yachts rested along the harbor, their lights glittering like diamonds against the Italian Riviera. Music drifted from a private villa overlooking the water, where the most powerful men in Europe gathered to celebrate a business deal worth billion.
Annalisa Russo wanted nothing to do with them.
Especially not the man standing at the far end of the terrace. Domenico Strangio.
The billionaire CEO whose name could open every door in Italy—or close a coffin.
He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, a white shirt, and the expression of a man who had never heard the word no and accepted it. His dark eyes followed her through the crowd with unnerving patience.
Annalisa lifted her champagne glass.
She had spent three years learning how to hate him. Three years ago, his company had destroyed her family's business. Her father had lost everything, her family name had become a scandal, and Domenico Strangio had emerged richer than ever.
Tonight, she had come to make him pay.
She approached him with a smile sharp enough to draw blood.
“Signor Strangio.”
He turned slowly.
“Signorina Russo.”
“You remember me.”
His gaze traveled over her elegant black dress before returning to her eyes.
“I remember everything that belongs in my world.”
“Fortunately, I don't belong to you.”
Something resembling amusement touched his mouth.
“No,” he murmured. “That is precisely the problem.”
Annalisa stepped closer.
“Enjoy your empire while you can, Domenic. I’m going to destroy it.”
He leaned toward her, his voice low enough that only she could hear.
“Then you'll have to come closer, cara mia.”
Her smile faltered.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Domenico Strangio missed nothing.
“Be careful what you wish for, Annalisa,” he whispered. “Because if you enter my world, I may never let you leave it unchanged.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“Then I suggest you learn to live without me.”
For the first time that evening, his smile disappeared.
“Impossible.”
And that was when Annalisa Russo realized something terrifying.
The man she had come to destroy had already decided she was the one thing he could never surrender.