Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Standing close enough to observe everything she was doing, but not too close that their bodies touched, Gino watched Francesca unlock the phone, click on recent calls, and press on her mother’s name. As the two phones connected, she put it on loud-speaker.
It was answered on the third ring. “Francesca? Is that you?”
“It is,” she said in the soft, cheerful, melodious voice he was becoming too damned used to.
“My kidnapper has given me only one minute to speak to you, so let me first assure you that I’m being treated very well.
As long as Mattia complies with all Mr Vicario’s demands, I will be home in six days. ”
“Is he listening?” her mother whispered. “How can I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I promise you, and you can tell Mattia the same, he’s treating me well…” She flicked her stare to Gino and grinned. “… although I have a very strong feeling he wishes he hadn’t given his word not to harm me.”
He raised an eyebrow, which made her grin widen. One day soon, Francesca was going to develop laughter lines around her eyes.
Still whispering, her mother plaintively said, “Please, Chicca, promise you won’t do anything to provoke him.”
An unexpected swell of laughter rose up Gino’s throat at this, forcing him to press his lips together to smother it.
“He won’t hurt me, I promise. My minute is nearly up, so I’d better go.
Tell Dad I love him, and tell Artu to take a shower, and please call Alessandro and tell him I’m ill or something and beg him not to sack me.
Oh, and when I’m safely back home, I’d be very grateful for an explanation as to why you’ve agreed to marry me off to some gangster. I love you, bye.”
She ended the call before her mother could say another word and handed the phone back to Gino. “All done.”
Bemused at a mostly one-way conversation that hadn’t gone at all in the way he’d expected, Gino shook his head.
When would he learn that where Francesca was concerned, nothing went as he expected?
“I said you had two minutes.”
Her eyes dancing, she pulled a rueful face and tucked a lock of her damp hair behind an ear. “I know, but have you heard my mother when she gets a headwind on her? She needed to hear my voice and know I was well, and now she’s heard it and knows it. Job done.”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t expect you to use your time to berate her.”
The faint line between her eyebrows appeared. “I didn’t berate her.”
“Then what do you call your demand for an explanation of the marriage plans?”
“A forewarning that I know about it?” The amusement faded from her face. “She shouldn’t be making plans behind my back for me like I’m some kind of camel to be traded.”
He felt his own forehead crease. “You seem angrier about the marriage plans than about being kidnapped.”
“Your abduction of me is business. Marrying me off is personal.”
“To your family, it’s business.”
“I’ve spent my life living in the middle of nowhere to keep us away from the family business, so it’s a bit rich to suddenly demand I become a part of it.
Besides, I hate being dictated to, and they know it.
If I had to choose between spending the rest of my life as your captive or being married off to a stranger, I’d choose you. ”
Of everything she had said and done in their short but exceedingly long time together, that one shocked him the most. “You cannot be serious.”
A spark came back into her eyes, her stare on him bold and unambiguous. “You’re a very sexy man, Mr Vicario.”
Before he could gather his wits for a response at this provocation, mischief flared on her beautiful face, and she added, “And at least I know you’re not going to beat me and that you’ll feed me, and on that subject, I’m starving, so can we get something to eat?”
For fuck’s sake, she threw in a provocative statement like that and then asked for food in the next breath?
You’re a very sexy man…
Using all his strength to control his responses, he held her bold stare and softly said, “You, Miss Marino, are the biggest pain in the ass I have encountered in my thirty-eight years, and I do not doubt that any man who takes you on will spend the rest of his life regretting it.”
Her smile at this was dreamy. “I do hope so.”
Gino’s apartment was busy with his domestic staff and guards going about their work.
He felt not a whisper of surprise when Francesca hailed a cheery hello to the maid vacuuming the corridor, or when they passed one of his armed guards on patrol, she gave an equally cheerful, “Good morning, arsehole helping to keep me here against my will.”
Ignoring her, Gino led her into the kitchen.
Carmita, his housekeeper, was in there. She smiled to see him, the smile fading into wariness at Francesca’s appearance.
After making quick introductions, he said, “My guest requires food. Are there any pastries to keep her going before lunch?”
“I’m not his guest, I’m his hostage,” Francesca interjected brightly. “But you must already know that.”
In the eleven years Carmita had worked for him, Gino had never seen her flustered. He sympathised.
“Bring the pastries to the office,” he said, taking a firm hold of Francesca’s elbow and steering her out of the kitchen.
“Did I touch another nerve?” she asked in that infuriatingly serene manner she had.
“Not at all. You have simply reinforced the fact that I can’t leave you unattended with any of my staff for even a minute – I’m quite certain you could drive even the sanest person to insanity.”
“Thank you!”
He ushered her through his office door and indicated the sofa. “Take a seat, Miss Marino.”
Bounding over, she sat with a flourish. Palms placed primly on either side of her thighs, she smiled. “And now what?”
Taking his seat at his desk across the room from her, he smiled back at her. “Now you sit there in silence while I get on with my work.”
“For how long?”
“Until late afternoon.”
“And when do I get my two hours to interrogate you?”
He turned his desktop on. “Later.”
“When later?”
“Some time after I have finished my work.”
“You said…”
“That I would give you a two-hour window to ask me any question today.” He opened his laptop. “There are many hours of today left for me to fulfil that.”
“So I am supposed to sit here for hours and hours doing nothing while you work?”
He entered his password on his desktop. “Exactly that.”
“Mr Vicario, it can’t have escaped your attention that I have a very low boredom threshold.”
“And it cannot have escaped your attention, Miss Marino,” he said as he entered his laptop’s password, “that you’re here as my hostage.”
“You called me your guest five minutes ago.”
“A polite euphemism you quickly – and rightly – corrected me on.”
There was a knock on the door, and then Carmita bustled in with a tray of pastries and fresh fruit.
“Lunch will be ready in two hours. Where would you like it served?”
“In here, please.”
“You don’t carve out time to eat your lunch at a table?” Francesca commented with mock surprise. “What kind of Italian are you?”
“A busy one.”
Alone with her again, Gino was aware of Francesca helping herself to an almond croissant and then bustling over with it to the coffee station where he kept a bean-to-cup machine. “Want one?” she asked.
“No… Yes. A double espresso. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You’ll need to show me how to use it.”
“Press the button on the left side of the machine to turn it on.”
“Which button?”
“On the left side.”
“Can’t see it.”
Swallowing a sigh of exasperation, he forged his lips into a smile and joined her at the station. “This button, Miss Marino.”
She closed the distance he’d deliberately created between them. “And then what do I do?”
Doing his damnedest to ignore her arm brushing against him, he pointed the buttons out in turn. “When the green light comes on, you press this for an espresso, this for a double, and this one for an americano.”
She lifted her face to him. “And if I want a cappuccino?”
“A cappuccino at this time of day?” he mocked. “What kind of Italian are you, Miss Marino?”
A suggestive gleam appearing in her light, translucent brown eyes, the tip of a very pink tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth to catch a small flake of pastry. “A hungry one.”
God damn her.
Inhaling sharply through his nose, it took everything he had to keep his voice moderate. “Then I suggest you finish your croissant.”
She laughed softly and raised the croissant to his mouth. “Want some?”
The temptation to sink his teeth into it was almost irresistible.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Sure about that?”
His fingers had wrapped around her wrist before he was even aware of his hand moving. Lungs tight, his heart thumping hard, he lowered her arm and released her wrist. “Very sure.”
He returned to his desk with tight loins and Francesca’s soft laughter ringing in his ears.
Barely had he started going through the overnight reports when she sashayed over to him. “Where shall I put this?”
She had his coffee in her hand.
“On the coaster,” he muttered.
Instead of moving around him, she leaned across him to place the cup on the coaster to the right of his keyboard.
He gritted his teeth. Damn it, she was so close he could feel the static of their bodies pulling together, just as he’d felt it moments ago when she’d tried to feed her croissant to him.
“What are you working on?”
“The overnight reports of my clubs. I need to concentrate.”
“Okay.”
But she didn’t move away. No, his tormentor pushed his laptop back and lifted herself onto his desk. The skirt of her ugly dress rose above her knees. Her bare legs and pretty feet dangled close…too close…to his thighs.
He didn’t move his stare from the screen of his desktop. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to stop myself from being bored and so stop myself from annoying you.”
“Stop yourself from being bored on the sofa.”
“Agree to take me shopping, and I’ll go to the sofa.”