Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Francesca had never seen so many boxes. Gino’s dressing room was filled with them, and they were all for her.
“I think even I can find something I like and that fits me in this lot,” she said happily.
Her kidnapper, who was standing at the threshold of the dressing room, backed away. “Take all the time you need to try them on. Keep whatever you like.”
“What if I like everything?” she joked. That would be impossible.
She’d ordered seventeen dresses for Siena’s engagement party and sent back every one of them.
The next batch she’d ordered had been just as bad, but she’d run out of time and had had to settle on an ill-shaped, black velvet monstrosity more fitting for a gothic funeral than a celebration. She didn’t know why she bothered.
“Keep whatever you like,” he repeated, wryly adding as he closed the door, “Consider it payment for your inconvenience.”
Smiling to herself, she gazed again at all the boxes. Her inconvenience? Is that what being kidnapped was now called? How would he repay her if he had to kill her? Buy her a gold coffin to make up for it?
He wouldn’t kill her. She already knew that.
She wasn’t quite sure if Gino knew it, but he’d know it if it ever came to it, and it would only come to it if her cousin failed to comply with his demands, and if Mattia did fail to comply…
Well, they would all cross that bridge if and when they came to it.
She wasn’t going to spend the next six nights worrying about something that was entirely out of her hands.
Look at her parents – her whole life, they’d worried; seen danger in every passing car and unfamiliar face.
They’d been so busy protecting themselves and their children, hiding from the shadows, that they’d stopped living.
Francesca had been the anomaly, the one who had wanted to live, the one who had grabbed every limited opportunity to feel alive, and it was beyond ironic that only now, as Gino Vicario’s hostage, did she feel herself coming to life, fully, in a way she’d never done before.
She couldn’t believe it. She loved every single item, and it all fit her as if it had been made for her. How was she going to decide what to keep?
Humming happily to herself, Francesca opened one of the last boxes and found herself gazing at a vast selection of bras and knickers.
Pretty bras and knickers. She lifted a bra out and examined it closely.
It was made of silk. She’d not put underwear in the online basket, hadn’t even considered it, but if she had, this is what she would have chosen.
She tried it on and almost cried. It fit perfectly and felt wonderful against her skin. Usually, she went for practicality, figuring that as the chances of anyone seeing her in underwear were zero, there was no point in bothering with anything nice.
She closed her eyes, a dizzying flush rushing through her body as she wondered if Gino had instructed the stylist to choose underwear for her. He must have done, surely?
Her heart beat even faster when she opened another box and found the most beautiful silk dress in it.
Unlike all the other dresses, which were pretty, floaty little numbers, this was a gorgeous taupe colour with spaghetti straps, the body of the dress plunging to a V to her midriff, showing more breast than she’d ever shown before, and clung to her waist before falling to mid-calf.
As it came with an inbuilt bra, she removed the one she’d been wearing so she could see the dress properly, then remembered the heeled shoes she’d already made a mental note to return – they were beautiful, but when would she ever have the chance to wear them?
Slipping them on, she looked at her reflection in the nearest full-length mirror.
Her heart caught in her throat, and she quickly looked away before she did cry.
When would she ever have the opportunity to wear a dress like this?
At one of the rare family parties her parents felt obliged for them all to attend?
No, this was not the slightest bit appropriate for one of those events, and forget wearing it for the man her family had negotiated for her to marry.
She’d made huge sacrifices to appease her parents through the years, but she wasn’t cattle to be traded.
With a deep sigh, she pulled herself together and opened the last box. When she saw what it contained, she burst out laughing, and without thinking of what she was doing, hurried out of the dressing room.
“You bought me a hairdryer!”
Gino, busy on a call, turned and immediately lost track of his conversation.
His beaming hostage waved the hairdryer he’d emailed the store on a whim to have added to the delivery, oblivious – she had to be oblivious – to how drop-dead gorgeous she looked in that dress. That her hair was still all tousled only added to the effect.
He’d known she had a killer body, but fuck….
Her stare dipped to the phone in his hand. “Sorry,” she mouthed, then disappeared back into the dressing room.
How he concentrated on the rest of his call, he would never know.
He’d barely got a handle on his equilibrium when she bounded back into the bedroom, now wearing a dress much less revealing but no less stunning. Except it was just an ordinary summer dress, pretty rather than sexy. The effect was exactly the same.
“Those clothes are incredible,” she said, practically bouncing on her bare feet. “I can’t believe it – they all fit! Sorry it took me so long, but I was having real trouble deciding what to send back.”
He had to clear his throat to speak. It felt like he was treading on quicksand. “I told you, you don’t have to send any of it back.”
She laughed. “There’s a few dresses in there that are just gorgeous but will never be worn. What did you tell the stylist to do? Send enough clothes to see me out for a year?”
“Just to send a good selection over for you.”
“She certainly did that. Her eye is incredible. You’ll have to give me her number before you release me. Is it dinner time yet? I’m starving.”
“Soon.”
“Good.” Her beautiful eyes sparkled. “And then it will be interrogation time.”
The quicksand he was treading on dipped.
“Does your phone have a timer?”
“I assume so. Why?”
Gino’s hostage, sitting across from him at the breakfast bar they’d just finished eating their dinner, gave him a smile that could only be described as pure evil. “Because I want you to set it for two hours.”
“We’re both wearing watches.”
“I’m not letting you get out of even a second of your interrogation. More wine?”
He looked at the bottle separating them. It was empty. “If I’m going to be interrogated, I’m going to open the bourbon.”
“Can I have some?”
“Is it likely to make you fall asleep mid-interrogation?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? I’ve never drunk bourbon before.”
“We can but hope then. Come on, let’s go to the living room.”
While Francesca settled herself on one of the two-seaters arranged in a square closest to the bar, Gino fixed them both a drink.
When he carried them over, she patted the space next to her thigh.
In answer, he raised an unimpressed eyebrow, put her glass on the oak coffee table, and took the sofa facing hers.
“You’re no fun,” she pouted.
“Drink your bourbon.”
She had a sip of it and pulled a face. “Can I have more wine instead?”
“Sure.”
A new bottle of wine uncorked and poured for her, he retook his seat. “Ready?”
“Set the timer.”
Obliging, he placed his phone on the table between them so they could both see the countdown. “Go.”
Instead of asking her first question, she reached for her wine and curled up with it in her hand.
“Drink up,” he encouraged.
She grinned. “Do I unnerve you?”
“Is that your first question?”
“Yes, and you have to answer it. You have to answer everything truthfully. That’s the deal.”
“I know.”
“So? Do I unnerve you?”
“Yes.”
Her sparkling light brown eyes narrowed slightly, but rather than probe deeper, she said, “What are you asking of my cousin in exchange for my release?”
“The biggest of my demands is ten per cent of the Esposito Group.”
She whistled lowly. “That’s a big ask.” The Esposito Group, the family’s sprawling media business, was solely owned by her cousins, her Uncle Lorenzo’s children.
“It’s not an ask. I’m offering a fair market price for it.”
“Why? Do you have business interests in the media?”
“None. I want a share of it for leverage.” Relieved that she wanted to concentrate on the business, Gino relaxed and hooked an ankle over his thigh.
“Taking a share of the Esposito Group links my name to theirs. It makes us public business partners, meaning it will be much riskier to kill me when they bring me in on all their non-public interests.”
“You mean the shadowed world?” At his querying raised eyebrow, she explained, “That’s what it’s known as within my family – the shadowed world.
As you would put it, it’s a polite euphemism for the mobster world.
Or gangster world, or even mafia. It’s all the same thing. Why do you want to be a part of it?”
“I’m already a part of it. My clubs are used across Europe as neutral grounds to negotiate business.”
“Business like arms and drug deals?”
“What people negotiate is private. What I can tell you is that billions of euros worth of business is conducted within my clubs’ walls.
I facilitate this for them and pay a lot of money to ensure the discretion of every employee and to ensure the authorities in all the relevant jurisdictions keep turning a blind eye.
I have put a lot of business your family’s way over the years, and it is time I receive a fair cut of the remuneration from it. ”
“My family has resisted this?”
“They have. And in retaliation, I have disrupted their supply chains. But I don’t want a war, Miss Marino. I’m a businessman, and your family are business people. Your uncle’s death has opened up new possibilities, and now is the time to strike deals for them.”