Defying Her Billionaire Protector
Angela Bissell
'You need me to keep you safe…'Marietta Vincenti is furious when her brother’s best friend—private security tycoon Nicolas César—takes her to his Mediterranean island to protect her from a stalker. Because Marietta isn’t weak. She survived the accident that cruelly stole the use of her legs and she’ll survive now.Battle-hardened and scarred, Marietta crashes against the impenetrable shield that surrounds this powerful magnate, sensing a kindred spirit beneath. But Nico unearths a passion in her that threatens to expose the hopes and dreams she buried long ago…Can she take a leap of faith with this man who might undo her completely?
“You need me to keep you safe...”
Marietta Vincenti is furious when her brother’s best friend—private security tycoon Nicolas César—takes her to his Mediterranean island to protect her from a stalker. Because Marietta isn’t weak. She survived the accident that cruelly stole the use of her legs and she’ll survive now.
Nico is battle-hardened and scarred, and Marietta crashes against the impenetrable shields that surround this powerful magnate, sensing a kindred spirit beneath. But Nico unearths a passion in her that threatens to expose hopes and dreams she’d buried long before...
Can she take a leap of faith with this man who could undo her completely?
“There are still things I’d like to do. Swimming in the ocean...” That little smile continued to play about Marietta’s mouth. “Naked.”
And just like that the steady, persistent hum of awareness in Nico’s blood intensified—until he felt as if a high-voltage current were arcing through his veins.
“Somewhere private, of course,” she said. “Your beach would be perfect!”
An image of Marietta naked in the clear water at the foot of his cliff flashed into his head. Heat and lust ignited in his belly—along with a stab of anger.
She did feel the pull of attraction, the crackle of awareness in the air between them. He could see it—the sudden hectic colour in her cheeks, the way her eyes glittered and held his in silent challenge.
She was provoking him.
Playing with fire.
He lunged up out of his chair, strode to her side and seized her chin. The dark, angry look he gave her should have intimidated. Instead her lips parted, soft and inviting, as though she were anticipating...a kiss.
Dieu.
He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to crush his mouth onto hers and let her feel the full unleashed power of the lust she was deliberately inciting. Wanted to punish her for dangling temptation in front of him like a treat he didn’t deserve.
He held himself rigid. Controlled.
“Be very careful what you wish for, Marietta.”
And then he released her and stalked into the house, back to the relative safety of his study—where he should have had the sense to stay in the first place.
Irresistible Mediterranean Tycoons
Impossibly arrogant, overwhelmingly sexy... Meet the men you can’t say no to!
Gorgeous, powerful and darkly brooding, Leo Vincenti and Nicolas César have dominated their fields–not only in their home countries of Italy and France, but across the globe.
Now it’s time for them to turn their unwavering focus on a different challenge: conquering two defiantly delectable heroines of their own!
But have these billionaires bitten off more than they can chew?
Find out in:
Surrendering to the Vengeful Italian
Defying Her Billionaire Protector
Available now!
Defying Her Billionaire Protector
Angela Bissell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ANGELA BISSELL lives with her husband and one crazy Ragdoll cat in the vibrant harbourside city of Wellington, New Zealand. In her twenties, with a wad of savings and a few meagre possessions, she took off for Europe, backpacking through Egypt, Israel, Turkey and the Greek islands before finding her way to London, where she settled and worked in a glamorous hotel for several years. Clearly the perfect grounding for her love of Mills & Boon Modern Romance! Visit her at angelabissell.com (http://www.angelabissell.com/).
Books by Angela Bissell
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
Irresistible Mediterranean Tycoons
Surrendering to the Vengeful Italian
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.
For my friend Lisa, a brave, beautiful and inspiring woman.
Thank you for your valuable insights—and for letting me have a spin in your wheels.
Here’s to many more Princess Days in the sun!
Contents
Cover (#u0c836e4a-3dd0-50c7-8eb2-e48be921f41a)
Back Cover Text (#u640959c6-30f3-5d38-b6fe-04ad8d562641)
Introduction (#ud5b7f136-1b2d-5037-9d3b-add58a6a701c)
Irresistible Mediterranean Tycoons (#uf7628032-58dc-51df-9d50-8ea58a4fec15)
Title Page (#u2387f9ac-0142-52da-bf9f-7d81817170b0)
About the Author (#u0425c6ba-0e36-5ba2-b235-3e84531e5dd7)
Dedication (#u972bc828-bceb-5311-b212-70ffa2ee24c5)
CHAPTER ONE (#u2e77e572-8c29-543d-b177-71525a78b51e)
CHAPTER TWO (#ued748aac-ee44-5add-96c7-cb6d5f5c27bf)
CHAPTER THREE (#u4c87bb69-1f22-58a7-bdd9-d6f82c7ee126)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u172a9d08-a38c-58ef-ad51-f8b222f16af4)
‘MAMMA MIA! HERE they come.’
Marietta’s hands stilled over the keys of her computer, her assistant’s warning—low-voiced yet laced with an unmistakable thread of anticipation—shattering her train of thought like crystal under a hammer. She looked up in time to see the courier pushing open the glass doors of the gallery she managed in the heart of Rome’s affluent Parioli district. In his arms he cradled a huge, hand-tied bouquet of roses.
‘Bellissimo.’ Lina moved from the storeroom doorway and stood by Marietta’s desk at the rear of the gallery. ‘They are the best yet!’
Marietta would have liked to disagree with that assessment, but Lina was right. The long-stemmed roses were beautiful, each head—at least two dozen of them—exquisite, the velvety petals a vivid red that in the whiteness of the gallery made Marietta think, perversely, of blood.
Her thoughts snapped to the elegant spray of white orchids that had been delivered earlier in the week—surprisingly, because until then the flowers had always arrived on a Friday. Pretty and delicate, the orchids, like the roses, had been lovely to look at, but their sweet, cloying scent had lingered in her nostrils and left her feeling faintly ill long after she had disposed of them.
Even the note that had come with them had been heavily perfumed, and she’d wanted to destroy that too. Had wanted to rip the card and its intimate typewritten message into tiny, indecipherable pieces and flush them down the toilet.
But she’d been told to keep the notes in case they held any clues, so she’d shoved the card into a drawer, along with all the others, and vowed that when this was over—when her secret-admirer-turned-stalker was caught or simply grew tired of his antics—she would set a match to those cards and enjoy watching them burn.
The courier strode over the polished concrete towards them, and Marietta felt her stomach doing a little surge and roll. She didn’t want to touch the roses. She definitely didn’t want them near enough for her to smell.
‘Ciao.’
The young courier’s broad smile did nothing to quell her dread. His gaze shifted sideways—drawn, unsurprisingly, to Lina’s tall, willowy form—and Marietta saw the predictable flare of male appreciation on his face give way to surprise—or maybe shock was a better word—the moment the man sitting behind her stood.
He strode around her desk, straight into the courier’s path, and she imagined she heard the young man’s jaw crack, his mouth dropped open so fast. His face lost its colour, paling several shades as he took in the large, imposing man before him. She felt a twinge of sympathy for the guy; Nicolas César, ex-legionnaire, head of the widely revered global conglomerate César Security and her brother’s good friend, could scare the wits out of most people—and that was on the days he didn’t look hell-bent on throttling someone.
He stared down at the courier from his massive height and extended a large, capable-looking hand. A hand that appeared elegant and bone-crushingly strong all at the same time. ‘Give them to me.’
Nico’s deep voice rumbled with the kind of natural authority only a fool with no thought for self-preservation would dare to challenge. Wisely, the younger man didn’t hesitate. He handed over the roses with a haste that might have amused Marietta had anything about this situation been remotely funny. His eyes darted back to Lina, but her attention was firmly fixed on the other man, and, as if understanding he couldn’t possibly compete with all that eye-popping masculinity, the courier shot Marietta a bemused look and hurried out of the gallery.
She gripped the titanium hand rims on the wheels of her custom-made chair and reversed a few feet from her desk. Although Nico stood on the other side, with a great slab of horizontal glass between them, she needed the comfort of the extra distance before she looked at him.
Not, she told herself, because she wasn’t used to looking up at people. Thirteen years in a wheelchair had accustomed her to seeing the world from a diminished height, and she’d long ago reconciled herself to that aspect of her disability. And although able-bodied people often thought of her as being confined to a wheelchair—as though the chair and not her paralysed legs were the prison—for Marietta the use of her modern, ultralight chair for mobility was a choice. One that gave her the freedom to work and travel. To live her life with a level of independence any single, career-focused woman of thirty would wish to enjoy.
But Nicolas César wasn’t anything like the people Marietta encountered on an ordinary day, and it wasn’t only his unique physicality that set him apart—wasn’t only the impressive breadth of his shoulders, the fact that he stood taller than most. On par with her six-foot-four brother—or the fact that his dark trousers and close-fitting black shirt moulded the kind of lean, hard-muscled physique that spoke of discipline and sweat and the good fortune of strong, resilient genes. Rather, it was the raw power he exuded from every inch of that undeniably masculine frame—the overriding impression that here was a man few others dared trifle with—that made Marietta’s hormones sit up and take notice.
Which irritated her enormously.
Sexual attraction was a complication she didn’t need in her life right now—or ever, for that matter. Especially to a man so far out of her physical league her pride smarted just to look at him.
‘Are you not going to interrogate him?’ she asked, and her annoyance with herself—with that hot, inescapable lick of feminine awareness—lent her words a much pithier edge than she’d intended.
Dark blue eyes thinned and settled on her, making her aware that her sarcasm wasn’t lost on Nico, and guilt instantly pricked her. He was here to help because her brother had asked him to. That Leo had done so without consulting her first was no fault of Nico’s. Unleashing her frustration on him was childish. Unfair.
He held her gaze, his silent, prolonged eye contact causing her skin to flush and her insides to squirm with something far more unsettling than guilt. She didn’t look away and wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to. His eyes were such a dark, mesmerising blue. Staring into them made her feel as if she’d been dragged beneath the surface of a vast, bottomless sea and could no longer breathe.
She opened her mouth to offer an apology—and drag some much-needed air into her lungs—but Nico spoke first.
‘Bruno has cleared the staff at the florist’s shop and vetted the couriers they use. There is no need for me to...’ he paused for a fraction of a beat ‘...interrogate him.’
That slight yet deliberate emphasis on the word interrogate elevated Marietta’s discomfort. Looking at him, it wasn’t at all difficult for her to visualise Nicolas César in the role of interrogator—nor did she have any trouble imagining that anyone on the wrong side of that arrangement would quickly find themselves either pleading for mercy or spilling their deepest, darkest secrets to him. Or both.
At the same time, she imagined any man who possessed that degree of dark, potent magnetism would rarely, if ever, want for female companionship. Women flocked to him wherever he went, no doubt, drawn like hummingbirds to nectar by his hard-edged looks and his big, powerful body.
And that would be before he opened his mouth.
Before that deep-timbre voice, with its French accent and slight North American inflection, poured over them like heated syrup and turned their insides all gooey.
Marietta suppressed a little shiver.
Did Nico make his lovers plead?
Did he make them scream?
The shiver turned into a hot flush that cascaded through Marietta’s body and scalded her from the inside out. Madre di Dio. What was wrong with her? She had no business allowing her thoughts to veer in that direction. No business entertaining hot, lurid fantasies about her brother’s friend. Life had taught her some harsh lessons—lessons that had moulded her into a realist—and realists like her did not waste their time fantasising about things they would never have.
And yet she wasn’t without aspirations. Cementing her place in the art world, achieving success and recognition as an artist in her own right, supporting herself independently of her brother’s wealth and generosity—those were her goals, the dreams that got her out of bed in the mornings.
Plus she had a wish list tucked away—a ‘bucket list’, some people called it. Everyone had one, didn’t they? Everyone wanted to see things and do things that breathed some excitement, some magic into their ordinary lives.
Marietta was no different. As an incomplete paraplegic she could no longer walk, but living with a spinal cord injury didn’t mean she couldn’t push her own boundaries, do things that were a little adventurous or wild.
Paraplegics around the world skydived and flew planes and competed in rigorous sports.
Every item on Marietta’s wish list was doable. Some more challenging than others, given her physical limitations, but all of them realistic. She certainly didn’t have her head in the clouds. She knew what was possible and what wasn’t. And there was no reason whatsoever that she couldn’t tandem skydive. Or float in a hot air balloon. Or travel to Egypt to see the pyramids.
But what were the chances of a man who could crook his finger and have any woman in the world—any able-bodied woman in the world—he wanted desiring her?
Now that was pure fantasy—a pointless, fanciful daydream she needn’t waste her time indulging.
What she did need to do was stay focused, remember what was important: her job, her independence, her art.
Especially her art.
But now all of that was under threat. In danger of being disrupted by some anonymous admirer who must be mentally unstable, or, if she were being less kind, completely deranged.
Six weeks. That was how long she’d been receiving the bunches of flowers and the notes she’d thought quaint and amusing—even flattering—at first. But over the weeks the messages had gone from sweet to intense, their content growing more personal, more intimate. More possessive.
It was the note that had come with a bouquet of thirteen crimson tulips on a Friday two weeks ago, however, that had for the first time left her truly spooked.
Such a beautiful dress you wore yesterday, amore mio. Red is perfect on you—and my favourite colour. You see? We were made for each other! S.
Those words had clamped a cold fist around her throat and squeezed hard as their import had slowly sunk in. And she had realised something she hadn’t considered before then—that he, whoever he was, was following her, watching her, stalking her.
Gooseflesh rose on Marietta’s forearms and she resisted the urge to rub them, to scrub away the sensation of something unpleasant crawling over her skin.
She’d been so shaken she’d confided in her sister-in-law, Helena—which in hindsight had been a mistake. Helena, in spite of Marietta’s pleas for her not to, had told her husband—Marietta’s brother—who had, of course, flipped. Within minutes Leo had been on the phone, severely chastising her for not going directly to him and urging her to involve the police.
Advice she’d promptly ignored. She hadn’t wanted to create a fuss and her big brother was, as always, being over-protective. The fact he’d waited an entire forty-eight hours before calling on his friend Nico for assistance was, she reflected now, nothing short of astonishing.
That Nico, whom she’d last seen at Leo and Helena’s wedding two years before, had, in the first instance, sent his man Bruno rather than handle the matter himself, was something Marietta had not, she’d assured herself, been a little disappointed about.
Nicolas César was, after all, a busy man—CEO of a renowned global network that provided security and protection services to some of the world’s most powerful corporations and influential figureheads. Dealing with an overzealous admirer was never going to figure high on his priority list, no matter how solid his friendship with her brother.
And yet...here he stood. Or perhaps towered was the better word, she thought, conscious of a crick in her neck. Of the warm pulse of blood beneath her skin. Her heartbeat had not quite settled back into its normal rhythm since he’d walked, unannounced, into the gallery some forty minutes earlier.
After a brief, polite greeting he’d asked to see the cards Bruno had told her to keep, and then, despite the fact they were written in Italian, had proceeded to read every intimate word until Marietta’s face had burned with mortified heat. Then—since it was mid-afternoon on a Friday, and that meant another bouquet was likely on its way—he’d commandeered one of the soft chairs reserved for the gallery’s clientele and artists and waited for the flowers she had silently prayed wouldn’t come.
‘Where’s Bruno?’ she asked now. Not because she missed the rigid presence of the dark-suited man, but rather because she could see the small white envelope attached to the roses and wanted to delay, if only for a minute longer, having to open it.
‘Following up a lead.’
A lead. That sounded vague. ‘What sort of lead?’
He didn’t answer her. Instead he turned to Lina, as if he’d not heard the question or had simply chosen to ignore it.
Marietta tamped down her annoyance—only to feel it flare again when she glanced at her assistant. Santo cielo! Had the girl no pride? No sense of dignity? Marietta wanted to snap her fingers at her. Tell her to wipe that silly doe-eyed look off her face. To straighten up and pull her hip back in, instead of jutting it sideways in a come-hither pose she probably wasn’t even aware she’d adopted.
Nico detached the envelope from the roses, his strong fingers snapping the straw ribbon like a strand of cotton, and handed the bouquet to Lina. ‘Get rid of them.’
Lina—foolish girl—beamed at him as if he’d paid her a compliment rather than barked an order at her. Marietta bristled on her assistant’s behalf. Lina, however, was oblivious. Without so much as glancing at Marietta for confirmation, she took the roses and disappeared out to the back—heading, presumably, for the outdoor dumpster behind the building.
Marietta couldn’t help herself. ‘That was rude.’
Nico’s eyes narrowed on her again...so blue. So disconcerting. ‘Pardon?’
‘Lina,’ she clarified. ‘You could have asked nicely. Barking commands at people is rude.’
One heavy eyebrow arced, ever so slightly, towards his dark brown hairline. ‘She did not look upset.’
Of course she hadn’t looked upset. She’d looked smitten and flushed and...ravenous. As if she’d wanted to drag Nico into the storeroom, bolt the door shut and tear his clothes off—with her teeth.
Marietta was sure Nico knew it, too.
And yet, to his credit, he hadn’t encouraged her attentions. Hadn’t seemed to give out any inappropriate cues. In fact he’d seemed barely to notice her—unlike some of the male visitors to the gallery, who appeared more entranced by Lina’s legs than by the sculptures and paintings on display.
And the girl had good legs—long and shapely—and a good body that she dressed, or on occasion underdressed, to showcase. Why shouldn’t she? She was tall and graceful. Feminine, yet lithe.
Unbroken.
Everything Marietta might have been and wasn’t, thanks to one fateful split-second decision. One irreversible moment of teenage stupidity. A moment that had altered the course of her life and shattered what little had remained of her childhood innocence.
Still—as a few well-intentioned if slightly insensitive people had pointed out during the long, excruciating months of her rehabilitation—she’d been lucky.
She had survived.
The three teens in the car with her—including the alcohol-impaired driver—had not. Two had died on impact with the concrete median barrier, the third on a gurney surrounded by the trauma team trying desperately to save her.
For Marietta, the sole survivor of that tragic car crash, a long string of dark, torturous days had followed. Days when she’d lain unable or sometimes unwilling to move, staring at the ceiling of the hated rehab unit. Reliving those final moments with her friends and wishing, in her darkest moments, that she had died alongside them.
But she had not died.
She had fought her way back.
For the brother whom she knew had taken the burden of responsibility—and blame—upon himself. For the second chance at life she’d been given that her friends had not. For her mother—God rest her soul—who would have wanted Marietta to fight with the same courage and determination with which she’d battled the cancer that had, in the end, cruelly won. And—even though she’d stayed angry with him for a long time after he’d died—for her father, who’d fought his own grief-fuelled demons after his wife’s death and tragically lost.
Her chin went up a notch.
She had faced down every brutal obstacle the universe had thrown at her and she was still here. She would not let some stranger, some clearly unhinged individual, disrupt the life she’d worked so long and hard to rebuild. And she certainly wasn’t afraid of some pathetic words on a little white card.
She held out her hand for the envelope. Nico hesitated, then handed it over. Willing her hands not to shake, she tore open the flap and pulled out the card. She sucked in a deep breath and started to read—and felt the cold pasta salad she’d had for lunch threaten to vacate her stomach.
* * *
Marietta’s hands had started to shake.
She glanced up, her espresso-coloured eyes so dark Nico couldn’t differentiate between iris and pupil. They were glassy, enormous—larger than usual—and, he noted, unblinking. Combined with her sudden pallor, the tremor in her slim hands, they conveyed an emotion Nico had more than once in his life been intimately acquainted with.
Fear.
He cursed under his breath, reached over the glass-topped desk and whipped the card out of her hands.
His Italian wasn’t impeccable, like his native French or his English, but he had no trouble reading the typewritten words. His fingers tightened on the card but he took care to keep his face expressionless. Marietta was a strong woman—something he’d intuited the first time they’d met in passing at her brother’s office, and again at Leo’s wedding—but right now she was shaken and he needed her to be calm. Reassured. Safe.
Anything less would be a disservice to her brother, and Leo was a good friend—had been ever since their paths had crossed via a mutual client eight years ago. Nico had recognised in the Italian the qualities of a man he could like and respect. Leo’s company specialised in cyber security, and his people occasionally lent their technical expertise to Nico’s own. Outside of business the two men had become firm friends—and Nico did not intend to let his friend down.
He slipped the card into a plastic folder along with the others. Aside from an insight into their composer’s mind, the notes offered nothing of real value and no means by which they could track the original sender. The flowers were always ordered online, the cards printed by the florist, the words simply copied from the order’s electronic message field.
Bruno had been confident at first. Online orders meant a traceable digital trail to IP addresses and credit cards. But whoever Marietta’s stalker was he was careful—and clever. Their tech guys had chased their tails through a series of redirected addresses and discovered the account with the florist had been opened using bogus details. The invoices were sent to a rented mailbox and payments were received in cash via mail.
It all indicated a level of premeditation and intent neither Nico nor Bruno had anticipated. And Nico didn’t like it. Didn’t like it that he’d underestimated the threat—assuming, at first, that they’d be dealing with nothing more troublesome than a jilted boyfriend. It galled him now to accept that he’d been wrong because he knew better than to assume.
But he was here now, in Rome, with the meetings he’d had scheduled for today in New York cancelled after Bruno’s call twenty-four hours earlier.
And they would find this guy. They’d break some rules, sidestep some local bureaucracy, and they would find him.
He strode around the desk and dropped to his haunches in front of Marietta’s chair, bringing his eyes level with hers. She jerked back a little, as if she wasn’t used to such an action, and he wondered briefly if it were not the accepted thing to do. But he’d have done the same with any woman he sought to reassure, conscious that his height, his sheer size, might intimidate.
‘We will stop him, Marietta.’
Her eyes remained huge in her face, her olive complexion stripped of colour. ‘He’s been in my home...’
Nico ground his jaw. ‘Perhaps.’
‘But the note—’
‘Could be nothing more than a scare tactic,’ he cut in. Yet the tension in his gut, the premonitory prickle at his nape, told him the truth was something far less palatable. More sinister.
I have left you a gift, tesoro. On your bed. Think of me when you unwrap it. Sleep well, amore mio. S.
On impulse he took her hand—small compared to his, and yet strong rather than dainty or delicate. Her fingers were slender and long, her nails short and neat, manicured at home, he guessed, rather than by a professional.
Incredibly, Nico could still remember clasping her hand on their very first introduction—four, maybe five years ago at her brother’s office. Their handshake had been brief but he’d noted that her skin felt cool, pleasant to the touch, her palm soft and smooth in places, callused in others. He remembered, too, seeing her at Leo’s wedding a couple of years later. Remembered watching her, intrigued and impressed with the way she handled her wheelchair—as if it were a natural extension of her body.
In the church she’d glided down the aisle before the bride, composed and confident, unselfconscious—or at least that was the impression she’d given. Her sister-in-law, a beautiful English woman, had looked stunning in a simple white gown, but it was Marietta to whom Nico’s attention had been repeatedly drawn throughout the ceremony.
In his thirty-six years he’d attended two other weddings—his own, which he preferred not to dwell upon, and an equally lavish affair in the Bahamas to which he had, regrettably, allowed a former lover to drag him—but he could not recall a bridesmaid at either who might have outshone Marietta in looks or elegance.
With her thick mahogany hair piled high on her head, the golden skin of her shoulders and décolletage bare above the turquoise silk of her long bridesmaid’s sheath, the fact she was in a wheelchair had not diminished the impact of her beauty.
And then there were the shoes.
Nico could not forget the shoes.
Stilettos.
Sexy, feminine, four-inch stilettos in a bright turquoise to match the gown.
That Marietta could not walk in those shoes had made him admire her all the more for wearing them. It was a statement—a bold one—as though she were flipping the bird to her disability...or rather to anyone who thought a woman who couldn’t walk was wasting her time wearing sexy shoes, and it had made him want to smile.
Hell, it had made him want to grin.
And that was an urge he rarely experienced.
‘Nico?’
Marietta’s hand twitched in his, jerking his thoughts back to the present. He refocused, realised his thumb was stroking small circles over her skin. Abruptly he broke contact and stood. ‘Stay here. Keep Lina with you.’
She wheeled back and looked up at him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Your apartment.’
She frowned, a smudge of colour returning to her face. ‘Not without me, you’re not.’
‘It is better that you stay here,’ he said evenly.
‘Why?’
When he hesitated a fraction too long, her fine-boned features twisted into a look of horror.
‘Mio Dio. You think he might be there, don’t you?’ She stared at him accusingly. ‘But you said the note was just a scare tactic.’
‘Could be,’ he corrected. ‘I won’t know for certain until I’ve checked it out.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘I’d prefer you didn’t.’
Her shoulders snapped back, her eyes, wide with shock and fear only seconds before, now narrowing. ‘It’s my apartment. I’m coming whether you prefer it or not.’ Her delicate chin lifted. ‘Besides, you need me. You won’t get in without my security code and key.’
‘Both of which you are about to give to me,’ he told her, keeping his voice reasonable even as he felt his patience slipping. He was unaccustomed to people arguing with him—especially women.
Marietta folded her hands in her lap. The gesture combined with her conservative attire—a sleeveless high-necked lilac silk blouse, long black pants and, perhaps less conservative, a pair of purple high-heeled suede boots—made her look almost demure. Yet there was nothing demure in the set of her shoulders or the bright glint of defiance in her eyes.
‘Do people always jump when you bark?’
He crossed his arms over his chest. Outwardly he was calm. Inside, impatience heated his blood dangerously close to tipping point. ‘Oui,’ he said, injecting a low note of warning into his voice he hoped she had the wisdom to heed. ‘If they know what is good for them.’
Her eyebrows rose at that, but the shrug that rolled off her shoulders was careless. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you—’ she looked pointedly at her legs and then back at him ‘—but you might have noticed I can’t jump very high these days.’
Nico flattened his mouth, returned her stare. Channelled his trademark control—or tried to. ‘You are wasting time, Marietta.’
‘Me?’ Somehow she managed to look utterly innocent. ‘You’re the one holding us up, Nico. We could have been halfway there by now.’
He sucked in a breath and exhaled sharply. Leo had warned him that Marietta could be stubborn. Resolute. Headstrong. No doubt those qualities had served her well through some difficult times, helped her overcome the kind of obstacles most people, if they were fortunate, would never have to face in their lifetime. He respected those qualities, admired them, but right now he’d settle for a lot less lip and a great deal more acquiescence.
The determined glitter in those liquid brown eyes told him he had zero chance of getting it. Nico couldn’t decide if that surprised him, impressed him, or angered him.
People did not defy Nicolas César.
They obeyed him.
Fortunately for Marietta he had neither the time nor the patience to stand there and argue. He uncrossed his arms. Muttered an oath. ‘Wait here,’ he growled. ‘I’ll bring my car to the front of the gallery and collect you.’
A smile broke on her face that almost made the pain of his capitulation worth it. He blinked. Mon Dieu. Did she give that smile freely to everyone she met? If so, he wouldn’t be surprised to find a thousand infatuated admirers lurking in the wings.
‘No need,’ she said, and rolled her chair forward to a small cabinet beside her desk. She pulled out an enormous leather handbag. ‘I have my car in the lane out back. I’ll drive myself and meet you there.’
Lina reappeared at that moment, minus the roses. She tossed her blonde hair over one too bony shoulder and gave him a smile that lacked even a fraction of the impact of Marietta’s.
‘Can you please close up tonight, Lina?’ Marietta said to the girl. ‘I doubt I’ll be back. Call me if you need anything. I’ll see you in the morning.’ She lifted her gaze to Nico’s. ‘I suppose you already know my address?’
‘Oui,’ he said, and noted with a small punch of satisfaction how her pretty mouth tightened at that.
‘Okay. Well, I’ll see you there, then.’ She wheeled past him, towards the rear of the gallery.
‘Marietta.’
She stopped, glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘Si?’
‘If you get there first, wait for me. Do not go in.’
Her mouth pursed. ‘Is that an order?’
‘You may consider it one.’
Only the flare of her fine nostrils betrayed her annoyance. ‘Very well,’ she said, then continued on her way.
For a moment Nico watched her go, her long dark hair swinging behind her, her olive-skinned arms, defined by muscle yet still slender and feminine, propelling the wheels of her chair forward with strong, confident movements.
She disappeared through a rear door and Nico spun away, making his own exit through the front of the gallery and down a short flight of stone steps. He strode along the wide tree-lined street to where he’d parked the silver sports car Bruno had had waiting at the airport for him this morning when his jet had landed.
He wrenched open the driver’s door and scowled.
He would very much enjoy giving Marietta a lesson in obedience, but he had no doubt her brother would kill him—slowly and painfully—if he knew the methods Nico had in mind.
CHAPTER TWO (#u172a9d08-a38c-58ef-ad51-f8b222f16af4)
MARIETTA DROVE HER bright yellow sedan into the basement of her apartment building and swung into her reserved space near the elevator. She cut the engine, pushed the door open and used her arms to shift herself around until her legs dangled out of the car.
She loved her modified car. In addition to its customised hand controls, the rear passenger door on the driver’s side had been altered to open in the reverse direction, so she could reach around from the driver’s seat, open the door and pull her wheelchair out of the back. She did so now, and with a little shuffling, some careful hand placements and a couple of well-executed manoeuvres she transferred herself out of the car and into her chair.
It was a routine refined and perfected through years of practice, and one she could probably perform in her sleep.
She put her handbag in her lap and took the elevator to the lobby, confident Nico couldn’t have beaten her there despite the extra minutes she’d needed to get in and out of her car. He probably had a faster, flashier set of wheels, but she knew the roads between here and the gallery like the back of her hand—not to mention half a dozen shortcuts only a local would know to use.
And yet when she rolled out of the elevator onto the lobby’s shiny sand-coloured marble, there he stood. She frowned, confused as much as miffed. The building, she knew, was secure, the double doors from the street controlled by keypad access day and night. ‘How did you get inside?’
‘One of your neighbours was on his way out and let me in.’ His voice was dark. His expression, too. ‘Imbécile.’
His deep scowl deterred her from jumping to the defence of whichever neighbour had earned his disapproval. The man had no doubt thought nothing of it, but even Marietta had to admit that giving entry to a stranger off the street showed a dreadful disregard for security.
‘I’m on the ground floor,’ she said, deciding to leave that subject well enough alone, and wheeled her chair around.
Silent, his big body radiating tension like ripples of heat from a furnace, Nico followed her through the lobby, across the quiet interior courtyard with its great pots of manicured topiaries and into a small vestibule housing the front doors of her apartment and one other. As soon as they stopped his hand appeared, palm up, in front of her face.
‘Key.’
For a second—just a second—Marietta contemplated ignoring his curt command, but this, she acknowledged, was not the time for bravado. Her stalker might have been in her home.
Her stalker might still be in her home.
Her stomach gave a sharp, sickening twist and she promptly handed over the key and watched, heart thumping, as Nico unlocked the door.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered, and she nodded, her mouth suddenly far too dry to protest. He went in, leaving the door an inch ajar behind him.
Marietta clutched her handbag in her lap and waited. Endless minutes ticked by, followed by more endless minutes. When Nico still hadn’t reappeared and she could no longer stand the suspense, she nudged the door open, inched forward and hovered on the threshold.
‘Nico?’ she called out, her voice echoing off the parquet wood flooring in the entry hall.
Nothing.
‘Nico!’ she tried again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
This was ridiculous. She wheeled down the hallway, a hot mix of impatience and adrenaline spurring her on.
‘I told you to stay put.’
Nico’s deep voice slammed into her from behind. She turned her chair around and blinked, her brain instantly grappling to interpret what her eyes were seeing. The sight of Nico standing in her bedroom doorway—which, in her haste, she’d sailed straight by—was easy enough to compute. The rest—the blue latex gloves sheathing his large hands, something red and lacy dangling from his fingers—was enough to send her senses into a floor-tilting spin.
She stared at the bizarre image before her a moment longer, until her breathing resumed some kind of normal rhythm, then gripped the hand rims of her chair and started forward—only to have Nico plant his feet firmly in the doorway and block her path.
She hiked up her chin, wishing there was a way to plough through that imposing wall of muscle. ‘Let me in,’ she demanded, and reached for the scrap of red lace.
He jerked it out of reach. ‘Marietta—’
‘No. This is my home, Nico. Whatever he’s done, whatever he’s left for me, I want to see.’
It took every shred of determination she possessed not to back down under the full force of Nico’s reprimanding stare. Finally, just as she began to think he wouldn’t budge, his rigid stance loosened.
He pointed a latex-clad finger at her. ‘Do not touch anything. There could be DNA and prints to lift.’ Then he stepped aside, allowing her to enter.
Marietta’s gaze went straight to the bed. To the crimson box lying open on her cream cotton coverlet and the items of luxury lingerie spilling haphazardly from between layers of soft white tissue. Scattered around the box and all across her bed were dozens upon dozens of red and white rose petals.
She moved closer, made out a red satin and black lace chemise, a sheer negligee and a pair of skimpy scarlet knickers. She closed her eyes, turned away, fighting a sudden stab of nausea. When she opened them again, her gaze landed on the item in Nico’s hand. A bra, she registered now. A lacy, see-through concoction designed to be sexy and revealing as opposed to any kind of practical.
Her gaze jerked up, collided with Nico’s, and for a fleeting moment it seemed as though something arced in the air between them. Something hot and bright and electric.
Which just went to prove how easily stress could affect the mind—because surely she had imagined that strange ripple of energy in the room that had felt almost like... What? Sexual awareness?
Heat flooded her face. Si, she was definitely stressed—not to mention embarrassed and horrified.
She yanked her gaze away from Nico’s and took one last look at her bed. Did her stalker think he would one day share it with her? Thick bile coated her throat and the heat drained from her face, leaving her cold and clammy.
‘Was there a card?’ she managed to ask.
Nico turned away from her to lay the bra on the bed. ‘No,’ he said, snapping the gloves off his hands. He turned back to look at her, his blue eyes dark and unreadable. ‘You’re pale, Marietta. Do you have anything to drink?’
She nodded. Si, a drink...something to wash the bile out of her throat, shave the edge off her nerves. She wheeled out of the room. She wouldn’t be able to sleep here tonight. Perhaps she could stay at Leo’s penthouse for the weekend? He’d be travelling to Tuscany this evening, back to Helena and their adorable baby boy Riccardo. Leo’s apartment building—a stunning renovated historic structure in the heart of the old city—wasn’t as wheelchair-friendly as this one, but there was an elevator at least. Or perhaps she could telephone a girlfriend?
Her mind spun in jerky circles until she reached her lounge and paused. She looked around the cosy, light-filled room. Had her stalker been in here, too? Had he snooped through every inch of her beloved home? Had he touched her things?
Angry and sickened, she dumped her handbag on her plum-coloured sofa and headed for the solid oak sideboard. The cabinet housed a small selection of spirits—brandy, limoncello, and a bottle of whisky for her brother when he visited.
She grabbed two cut-glass tumblers and, hearing footsteps on the hardwood floor behind her, twisted her chin round to look at Nico. ‘What will you have?’
He shrugged, the movement accentuating the breadth of his shoulders under his black open-necked shirt. ‘Whatever you’re having.’
She chose the brandy, unscrewed the cap and started to pour. But her hands shook and the liquid sloshed out too fast, hit the rim of the glass and splashed onto the sideboard. She cursed, the mishap pushing her to the verge of ridiculous tears, and then Nico’s hand was closing over hers. Without a word, he removed the bottle from her grip and poured a generous measure into each tumbler.
Feeling foolish, she took the glass he handed her and tried to ignore the lingering effect of his touch. It was the same hot, static-like sensation she’d experienced at the gallery, when he’d crouched in front of her and taken her hand in his. Except his touch then had lasted longer, she recalled, and his thumb had rubbed gentle, delicious circles on the back of her hand, setting off a chain reaction of tiny sparks under her skin.
She took a gulp of brandy and welcomed its distracting burn. ‘I don’t understand,’ she blurted when the heat had abated. ‘Why me?’ It was a question with no logical answer, she knew. She threw up a hand in helpless frustration. ‘Your company provides protection services to public figures,’ she said. ‘You must know something about this sort of thing. Why would he go to such lengths to get my attention and yet keep his identity a secret?’
Nico stood with one hand wrapped around his glass, the other shoved in his trouser pocket. He paused, as if carefully weighing his response. ‘In his mind, he’s courting you, and he wants total control over this stage of his fantasy,’ he said finally. ‘The longer he remains anonymous, the more time he has to build the perfect relationship with you in his head and avoid the risk of real-life rejection.’
Marietta grimaced. ‘That is totally twisted.’
Nico knocked back his brandy in a single swallow that made the muscles in his strong throat visibly work. ‘I agree,’ he said, then put the glass down and pulled his mobile phone from his pocket.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Bruno, the police—’ he tapped the screen and pressed the phone to his ear ‘—and your brother.’
Marietta sighed. Eccellente. An army of men was about to invade her beloved home. She chafed at the intrusion—at the very knowledge that she could no longer handle this situation by herself—but, loath as she was to admit it, she had no choice. She’d have to accept help.
Her brother arrived first, and he must have driven like a madman to complete the journey from his office in less than twenty minutes. He looked like a madman, too, with his tie skewed, his hair on end, his handsome face creased with worry—an expression that grew considerably darker the moment he looked in her bedroom.
‘I’m fine,’ she told him as he tipped up her chin and searched her face with dark, probing eyes. His jaw clenched, as if he didn’t trust himself to speak, then he simply dropped a kiss on her head and stalked across the room to Nico.
Shortly afterwards, Bruno turned up, with a thin middle-aged man he introduced as a private forensic specialist, and, surreal though it all seemed, her lovely peaceful home began to resemble an official crime scene.
Marietta reached again for the brandy bottle and refilled her glass. She’d suffered through countless indignities during the painstaking months of rehabilitation and therapy after her accident, but this was a violation beyond her experience—beyond anything she’d equipped herself to deal with.
And it was so unfair—even though she knew life was unfair. Life didn’t owe her anything. Which was why she had worked so hard for everything she had: her job at the gallery, which provided a steady income, the loft she’d bought and turned into a nice little earner by converting it into an art studio and hiring out the space to working artists, and her own art career—which, with a few exhibitions of her paintings and some lucrative commissions under her belt, was finally taking off.
Admittedly she’d accepted some help from Leo in the early days, but she’d repaid him every euro she’d borrowed—despite his vociferous protests. While her dear brother had never understood his little sister’s need to assert her independence, he had finally accepted it.
She looked around at her apartment, filled with strangers. For years she’d prided herself on her strength and resilience, but she didn’t feel at all strong and resilient today. She felt helpless and afraid and she hated it. Her gaze travelled across the room to where her brother and Nico stood by the window, deep in conversation, their dark heads bowed. Leo had already swooped in like a man possessed, bent on taking control. How long before he tried to smother her in a suffocating blanket of protectiveness?
And then there was Nico. A man so commanding, so authoritative, she imagined the world would stop on its axis if he so ordered it.
As though sensing her scrutiny, the men stopped talking and looked up, two sets of eyes—one midnight-dark, the other a startling blue—settling on her. At once unease bubbled up inside her. She didn’t like the looks on their faces. Didn’t like the determined set of Nico’s jaw or the hint of something too much like apology in Leo’s eyes.
Marietta lifted the brandy she’d poured without spilling a drop this time and took a large, fortifying gulp.
Those expressions told her the men had decided something—and she wasn’t going to like it.
* * *
Nico had lied. First to Marietta and then, by omission, to her brother. Her stalker had left a note, and it was now in the hands of the forensic technician who was under strict orders to keep it out of sight. Leo already looked white-lipped and murderous. If he saw the sexually explicit language in the card he would undoubtedly lose the tight rein he held on his temper.
And Marietta—well, she’d already seen more than Nico had intended her to, thanks to a stubborn streak as wide as the Atlantic. Why she couldn’t have simply obeyed him and stayed put, he couldn’t fathom. Most of the time women were eager to please him, not defy him, and yet Marietta seemed to have a unique talent for the latter.
He handed his friend a double shot of whisky and Leo tossed the liquid down his throat, then glared at the empty glass as if he’d like nothing more than to smash it against a wall.
‘How the hell did he get in?’
Guilt sliced through Nico’s gut like a jagged knife. He’d failed to anticipate this turn of events. Failed to predict accurately the threat to Marietta’s safety. Not least of all, he’d failed his friend.
And Nico didn’t do failure—not on any scale. He had tasted that bitter elixir ten years ago and his failure then had cost him his wife’s life.
He jammed his fists in his pockets. Focused his thoughts with the same ruthless discipline that had seen him survive that brutal plunge into darkness and come out the other side—eventually.
‘The windows don’t appear to have been tampered with.’ He gestured with his chin to the secured latch on the window by which they stood. ‘My guess is he took an old-fashioned approach and picked the lock on the front door.’
‘And the building?’ Leo’s scowl darkened. ‘It should be secure twenty-four-seven.’
‘He could have talked his way in.’ Tension bit deep into Nico’s shoulders. He had gained access the same way; it had been appallingly easy. ‘Or waited and slipped in behind someone.’
‘Dio.’ Anger billowed from Leo in palpable waves. ‘This is insane. What did the polizia say?’
Nico balled his hands more tightly in his pockets. The attitude of the two plain-clothes officers who had turned up at the apartment had reeked of apathy. ‘They’ll file a report, but don’t expect too much action from that quarter,’ he warned. ‘They’re viewing it as a romantic prank, at worst.’
Nico hadn’t missed their exchange of lascivious grins over the lingerie and he’d wanted to knock the officers’ heads together, plant his boot firmly in the seats of their pants. Just as he’d wanted to kick himself earlier, when he and Marietta had been in her bedroom and his thoughts had gone to a dark, carnal place they’d had no right to go. Not with Marietta. She was a victim, he’d had to remind himself, a woman who needed his help—and wondering how her ample breasts would look encased in that barely there bra had been wrong on too many levels to count.
Leo swore now—a vicious expletive that drew not so much as a blink from Nico. Five years in the French Foreign Legion as a young man, followed by several stints as a private military contractor, working alongside war-hardened ex-soldiers, had broadened his vocabulary to include every filthy word and crude expression known to man in half a dozen languages.
‘Find him, Nico,’ Leo grated, his expression fierce. ‘Do whatever you have to to keep her safe.’
Do whatever you have to.
Those five words seemed to strike Nico in the gut one by one, like the consecutive blows of a steel mallet, and they left him savagely winded. He’d heard those same words before, ten years ago, from his former father-in-law’s mouth.
Do whatever you have to.
And Nico had.
He’d utilised every resource within his power. Called in every favour owed him. Employed every conceivable tactic within the law—and beyond—to get Senator Jack Lewisham’s daughter back.
But it wasn’t enough. It all went belly up. And Nico committed one critical, unforgivable sin: he underestimated the men who had taken her.
He failed. Failed to bring the senator’s daughter home. Failed to save his wife’s life.
Her father, who’d only grudgingly accepted Nico as a son-in-law in the first place, was inconsolable—a man irreparably broken by the loss of his only daughter.
He had not spoken to Nico since.
Do whatever you have to.
He glanced over at Marietta, nursing her brandy in her hand, quietly studying them. She was pale, but beautiful, those dark, intelligent eyes sizing him up. No doubt she was a little annoyed that she was not privy to his and Leo’s conversation. She was a woman of undeniable strength, yet the pallor of her skin, the obvious tension around her eyes and mouth, belied her show of composure. He could see it in the rigid set of her shoulders, her too-tight grip on the glass, the unblinking wideness of her eyes.
Marietta wasn’t afraid.
She was petrified.
Nico turned back to Leo, an idea seeding, taking shape in his mind. An extreme idea, perhaps, for it would mean sacrificing the sanctity of his personal space for a time, but extreme circumstances called for extreme measures. He clamped a hand over his friend’s shoulder. ‘Do you trust me, mon ami?’
Leo looked him in the eye. ‘Of course,’ he said at once, his voice gruff. ‘You do not need to ask me that, Nicolas.’
Nico nodded. It was the answer he’d hoped for. ‘Très bien,’ he said. ‘I have a suggestion.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u172a9d08-a38c-58ef-ad51-f8b222f16af4)
‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’
Marietta looked from her brother to Nico and back to Leo. They had to be joking. Yet neither man wore an expression she could describe as anything other than deadly serious. They both looked stern, formidable, standing side by side with their feet planted apart, their arms folded over their broad chests. Looking at them was akin to seeing double, and she wanted to slap them both.
‘Pazzo!’ she cried, gesturing with one hand in the air to emphasise just how crazy she found their proposal.
They had the gall to stare at her then, as if she were crazy. As if the idea of disappearing to some island off the coast of France until her stalker had been caught was the perfect solution and they couldn’t understand why she didn’t agree.
And not just any island.
Oh, no.
Nico’s island.
Nico’s home.
With Nico.
Heat that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the idea of being holed up on a remote island with Nicolas César scalded her insides.
Torture. That was what it would be. Exquisite torture of a kind she didn’t dare contemplate.
She swigged down her brandy, set the glass on the sideboard and wheeled towards her kitchen. Enough alcohol. Coffee. That was what she needed. An injection of caffeine to hone her senses—and her tongue—for the showdown she was about to have with her brother.
He followed, his dark mood like a gathering thundercloud at her back.
‘Marietta, just stop for a minute and think about this.’
‘I don’t need to stop in order to think.’ She yanked the lid off a tin of coffee beans, unleashing a rich, nutty aroma that failed to please her the way it normally did. ‘I’m a woman, so I can multitask, and I am thinking about it. I’m thinking what a stupid, stupid idea it is.’
She ignored his heavy sigh.
‘You can’t do this,’ she ploughed on, pouring a handful of dark beans into her cherished caffè machine—her first port of call in the mornings, when strong coffee was a prerequisite for coherent speech. ‘You can’t just sweep in here and go all Big Brother on me. I’m not a rebellious, out-of-control teenager any more. I’m thirty years old. You’re not responsible for me.’
An abrupt silence fell.
Marietta spun her chair around, regret, hot and instant, welling in her throat. ‘Leo, I... I’m sorry.’
His jaw tightened. ‘I will always feel responsible for you.’
‘I know.’
Instantly she hated herself for hitting that sensitive nerve—the one that had been flayed raw by her accident thirteen years ago and had never completely healed. Leo blamed himself. Believed he should have tried harder to keep her at home that night.
The truth was no one could have saved Marietta except herself. She was the one who had sneaked out of the tiny flat she and Leo had shared. She was the one who’d gone to the party he’d expressly forbidden her to attend. She was the one who’d climbed into the back seat of a car with an inebriated driver.
Her decisions that night had borne consequences she had no choice but to live with, but the hell she had put her brother through was a heavy cross she would always bear.
The last of her temper dissolved. Leo loved her...wanted to keep her safe. How could she stay angry with him over that?
‘I can’t just drop everything and disappear.’ She tried for a softer, more reasonable tone. ‘I have a job. Responsibilities. And Ricci’s party is a week from tomorrow. Helena’s had it planned for months. What if this guy hasn’t been caught by then?’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t stay away indefinitely—and I won’t miss my nephew’s first birthday.’
Leo crossed his arms, perched his lean frame on the edge of her low granite bench. ‘Your life could be in danger, Marietta. Have you considered that?’
Now she wanted to roll her eyes, accuse him of being melodramatic—but was he? What had happened today felt serious, even if the polizia were inclined to view it as a prank. And after today’s performance who could predict what kind of sick encore her stalker had planned?
A dull throb started up behind her eyes and she pressed her thumb and forefinger against her lids.
‘When you cannot eliminate the source of danger your best defence is to remove yourself from its path.’
Nico’s deep voice rumbled into the room and she jerked her hand down from her face. He loomed in her kitchen doorway, his sheer presence so commanding, his physique so powerful, that for a moment she couldn’t help but feel a sense of reassurance—of safety—steal over her.
Still. That didn’t change anything.
She couldn’t put her life on hold indefinitely.
‘A week, Marietta,’ Leo urged. ‘Give Nico a week.’
She looked at Nico. ‘And how exactly are you going to catch my stalker if you’re on an island with me?’
‘I have faith in my people. He’s upped the ante and so will we.’
‘And if I insist on staying in Rome?’
‘Then I’ll appoint a bodyguard who’ll shadow you day and night, wherever you go.’
‘And I will stay,’ Leo said. ‘For as long as necessary.’
No. She gave an adamant shake of her head. ‘You can’t, Leo. It wouldn’t be fair to Helena—or Ricci. You should be in Tuscany with them this weekend, not babysitting me.’
He shrugged. ‘They’ll come to Rome.’
Marietta pressed her fingertips to her temples. She knew her sister-in-law well. Helena was a kind, capable woman who wouldn’t hesitate to uproot her domestic idyll for Marietta’s sake. But Marietta’s conscience wouldn’t allow it. This was her problem to handle. How could she justify disrupting their lives when she had an alternative?
A week. Could she forego her independence, abandon her life, for a week? She looked at her brother and saw the deep lines of worry etched into his face. Her safety would give him peace of mind and didn’t she owe him that much? He’d made so many sacrifices when they were younger, worked himself ragged to give them both a chance at a better life. Doing what he asked of her now seemed a small thing in return.
She pushed her hands through her hair. Released her breath on a long sigh. ‘Si. Okay,’ she said. ‘One week.’
* * *
Marietta sat in the front passenger seat of her brother’s car the next morning and chewed the inside of her cheek, fighting the powerful urge to blurt out that she’d changed her mind and all this was too sudden, too unexpected, and she couldn’t possibly travel at short notice like this. Travel—for her—required careful planning, special considerations, and they hadn’t given her a chance to plan a damned thing.
‘Quit fretting, carina.’ Leo glanced over, then returned his attention to negotiating the chaotic morning traffic. Even on a Saturday Rome’s roads were flat-out crazy. ‘Nico has everything under control.’
She cast him a sideways look. ‘Will you stop doing that?’
‘What?’
‘Reading my mind.’
He grinned. ‘If I knew the secret to reading women’s minds, I would be a very rich man indeed.’
Had Marietta been in the mood for banter she would have reminded her brother that he was a rich man. Instead she turned her gaze out through the side window and watched the blur of busy streets and piazze and sidewalk cafés go by. She believed Leo when he said his friend had everything under control—and that was the problem. Nico had all the control and she had none. It made her feel adrift, somehow. Alienated from her life. She didn’t even know where exactly in the Mediterranean they were going. Until yesterday she’d never heard of Île de Lavande.
She rested her head against the soft leather seat.
Island of Lavender.
At least the name was pretty.
Perhaps she’d find some inspiration there for her next series of paintings? The European summer was in its twilight, but Nico had said the island was still warm, so she’d gone light on clothes and made room for packing her brushes and a set of fast-drying acrylic paints, a sketchpad and a small canvas. She’d even squeezed in a collapsible easel.
She supposed a few quiet, uninterrupted days of sketching and painting wouldn’t be so bad—but only a few. She’d agreed to a week, no longer, and she still planned to be back in time for little Ricci’s party. Nico’s men would just have to pull out all the stops to find her stalker, because she wasn’t compromising on that.
As for the gallery—she’d made two phone calls from Leo’s apartment last night: one to her boss, the owner of the gallery, who’d expressed her support and understanding once apprised of the circumstances, and the other to Lina, who’d assured Marietta that everything would run smoothly in her absence.
Too soon, the powerful car decelerated and the runway of the Aeroporto dell’Urbe came into sight. They drove through a security checkpoint and then they were on the Tarmac, headed for a sleek silver and black jet with the circular logo of César Security emblazoned on its tail.
Nico appeared in the open hatchway and Marietta leaned forward in her seat for a better view of the aircraft—and him.
And, mamma mia, he looked good. Faded jeans clung to long, muscular legs, he wore an untucked, open-necked white shirt, and a pair of dark shades obscured those deep blue eyes. His dark brown hair was stylishly mussed and his angular jaw sported a layer of stubble that only exaggerated his masculine appeal. He looked less formidable than yesterday. More relaxed, despite the ever-serious expression he wore.
Edible, an inner voice whispered, and she felt her face flame. Santo cielo! Her mind was not going there.
He jogged down the steps with an easy masculine grace, and he was pulling open the car door before her cheeks had even had time to cool. He hunkered down beside her.
‘Bonjour, Marietta.’ He removed his sunglasses and the impact of that blue gaze arrowed all the way to her stomach. ‘Are you ready for our journey?’
The morning breeze ruffled his hair and carried into the car the scent of soap and lemons, along with something more earthy and rich. Marietta tried not to breathe in, but the need for air prevailed. She frowned, growing more irritable by the second. No man should smell that enticing. That delectable.
‘Do you have half-decent coffee on board?’
A muscle quirked at the side of his mouth—a mere flicker of movement that might have turned into a smile if he’d allowed it.
Had she ever seen Nico smile? It occurred to her that she hadn’t—not properly.
‘The coffee is exceptionnel,’ he said, and she wished he wouldn’t speak French.
It did squishy things to her insides and there was nothing good about squishy. Nothing.
He slid his shades back on. ‘There’s a lift on standby if you want it.’
She shook her head. ‘Grazie, but Leo will carry me on,’ she said, preferring that simple, no-fuss solution over the mechanical platform that could raise her, wheelchair and all, to the door of the plane. Besides the ground crew there were few people around, but all the same she hated anything that created a spectacle or shone a spotlight on her disability. People often stared without meaning to, and though she’d grown inured to the curiosity of others, occasionally the attention still bothered her.
Minutes later her luggage was stowed and she was settled in a large, soft leather seat, her wheelchair reassembled and within reach should she wish to move about the plane’s roomy interior once they were airborne. Out on the Tarmac, Nico and Leo exchanged final words. A moment before, when Leo had kissed her goodbye, silly tears had pricked the backs of her eyes, and she blinked now to clear her vision, annoyed because she rarely allowed herself to cry. She’d taught herself to be strong, to handle whatever challenges life threw at her, and all this—this was just another obstacle to overcome.
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