Chapter 11 #2
“Good morning, Mr Vicario,” she said with all the brightness she could muster. “The bathroom’s all yours.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Surprise, maybe?
She didn’t stop to dissect it, speeding her way to the dressing room and praying her walk didn’t betray any of her internal feelings.
Under no circumstance would she let Gino know of the disconsolation weighing so heavily in her. It would all be gone soon, anyway. It had to be.
Gino shaved his neck, trying to block out the scent of toothpaste and shampoo that hung in the air. They were scents that were more than familiar to him. They were his own scents. But these weren’t his. The scents clinging to the bathroom’s air had been made by Francesca.
He’d brushed his teeth but could still taste her climax on his tongue.
Could still hear the tiny mews of pleasure she’d made as she’d come apart for him.
Not fully apart, though. Neither of them had let themselves go completely.
Him, because to have let himself go would have scared the life out of her.
For Francesca, it was because it had all been brand new.
For all that their night together had left him feeling untethered, he was glad it had been him. Elio Ranieri’s reputation with women was worse than his own. At least Gino liked his lovers to enjoy themselves too.
He’d never been so concentrated on a woman’s pleasure as he had for Francesca.
If he closed his eyes, he could feel the tight squeeze of her fingers knotted in his when he’d first driven himself into her. Feel, too, the loosening of them when the pleasure had overridden the fear.
Better for it to have been with him than with a man who cared only for his own gratification, a man who could easily have hurt her. Better that she go into marriage with Elio Ranieri or whoever she ended up marrying, with her hymen a thing of the past and the fear of the unknown erased.
Gino’s loss was paid in full, and while he could not bring himself to regret it, the lesson had been learnt.
Never gamble with beginners. Especially not virgin beginners.
She was curled up on the bedroom sofa reading when Gino left the bathroom, dressed in a pretty white summer dress with tiny pink roses embroidered on it.
The bed she hadn’t slept in had been ruffled, as if she’d got into it to give the illusion it had been slept in.
She looked up from her book and smiled at him, then gave her attention back to the words of the book in her pretty hands.
“Hungry?” he asked once he’d dressed. He would not look at the round cut of her dress and the way it skimmed her cleavage or let his gaze be drawn to the pretty feet he’d kissed only hours before, or remember how he’d had to take hold of his erection and grip it tightly enough to hurt himself to keep his ardour in check.
She jumped to her feet the way she always did, and beamed. “Starving.”
That was a good sign. Francesca was always starving.
Another good sign was her telling a passing guard that he was the spawn of the devil and would be going to hell for his part in holding her hostage.
Except, there seemed little sign of her appetite when they reached his office. Carmita brought their breakfast in to them, and Francesca sat herself on the sofa with her book and a chocolate croissant in hand.
From his desk, he watched her nibble at it, but everything else except her cappuccino and orange juice remained untouched. As he was having to force his own food down, he thought it best not to query this.
An hour passed. Even with the pace of work for the contracts between himself and the Espositos accelerating, it was the slowest hour of his life.
The hours spent in his office since kidnapping her had been interminable for the reason of Francesca’s annoying, amusing and sexy presence and the fact that he loathed being cooped up. Gino wanted to get outside and breathe the fresh air as much as she did.
Today, she was as quiet as a mouse and yet her presence felt more vibrant than ever.
She didn’t so much as glance up from her book at him.
“Coffee?” he asked casually when another snail-crawl hour had passed.
She barely flicked her eyes at him. “Please.”
He turned the machine on. “How’s your book?”
“Really good.”
“Another thriller?”
“Yes.”
“Not tempted to give me a run-down on it to annoy me?”
She turned the page. “Do you want me to?”
“I’d rather take an ice bath.”
“That sounds painful.”
“Very… Sugar in your coffee?”
“No thank you.”
“Cream?”
“No thank you.”
He put a cup on the tray and pressed the americano button. “The contracts between me and your cousins are making good progress. A draft is being couriered over.”
“That’s nice.” The beautiful cheeks he’d pressed his lips to every millimetre of suddenly flushed with colour, but she didn’t lift her gaze. “I mean, that’s good. For you.”
Her coffee made, he removed it from the tray and put his own cup beneath the dispenser. While the machine ground the beans for his coffee, he carried Francesca’s cup to her and placed it on the small table next to her.
“Thank you,” she murmured, turning another page of her book.
He had a very sudden, very strong urge to snatch the book from her hands and throw it out of the window.
Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth and drew a long breath into his lungs.
Back at his desk, he sipped his coffee moodily and tried to force his concentration.
What the hell had he been doing, trying to draw her into conversation like that? Trying to goad her into refiring that annoying gene that pissed him off so much?
She turned another page of her book, then placed it carefully on the table and got gracefully to her feet.
His breath stuck in his throat.
Not looking at him, she slipped through the door and into the adjoining bathroom.
Oh, God, this was awful, Francesca despaired as she sat on the closed toilet seat and held her head in her hands.
He’d warned her, and like a fool, she’d ignored him.
But he hadn’t warned her that having sex would make her awareness of him and her longing for him mushroom. If he’d told her that could happen, even she might have had second thoughts.
Everything felt so different from when the stupid idea to bet her virginity with him had first floated in her mind. Different in herself and different between them.
She kept imagining Gino’s stare on her, but didn’t dare look at him to see if it was just imagination or not. She was terrified to look at him. Terrified she would find only indifference in his stare. Even his efforts at small talk had tied her stomach into knots.
She should have gone back to her bed when she’d first said she would.
She should never have made the stupid bet in the first place.
It took all her courage to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom. Their lunch had been brought in. Gino was eating his bowl of gnocchi at his desk.
Guilt at wasting all the effort Carmita had put into making it spurred Francesca into forcing some of it down her tight throat and into her even tighter stomach.
The words of her book refused to put themselves in order. She could make as little sense of what she was reading as she could of her feelings.
Her throat dry, she went to the drinks sideboard. Carmita had replenished the jug of iced water. As Francesca poured herself a glass, she said in the steadiest voice she could manage, “Would you like a glass?”
“Please.”
God, even his voice sent ripples of longing through her.
Her heart was hammering, and she had to use all her concentration just to fill a glass for him.
All her concentration wasn’t enough to stop her clipping the glass with the lip of the jug when she pulled it away.
In a split-second, the glass had toppled, water pouring everywhere even before the glass landed on its side and shattered.
Close to tears, Francesca swore, except it came out as more of a wail.
She’d barely registered Gino rising from his seat before he was by her side, his fingers around her wrists, examining her hands. “Are you hurt?”
Feeling like she was being scalded by his touch, her cheeks burning, she turned her face away and tried to wrench her hands out of his strong hold. “I’m fine. Just clumsy.”
“You’re upset.”
“I said I’m fine.” This time, her attempt to wrench out of his burning grip was successful, but such was her desperation to be free of his hold that she lost her footing, would have gone sprawling if his reflexes weren’t so good, an arm whipping out to catch her, and then her eyes were caught too, in the lock of Gino’s dark brown stare.
The longing that flew through her veins smashed into her heart as her breath smashed out of her lungs, and in an instant all the air was sucked out of the room.
Time came to a complete standstill. Francesca found herself shackled in it, trapped in a stare that pulsed, as if the dark chocolate of his irises had melted into a living thing.
His firm, wide lips parted, just a little, and suddenly all she could think in the heated fog that was her brain was how badly she wanted those lips to kiss her again.
And then, in a blink, the moment was gone.
Gino’s jaw clenched, the pulsating heat in his stare vanishing as he unwound his arm from her and stepped back. His throat moved, but before he could speak, there was a knock on the office door.
He closed his eyes, took a visible deep breath, then called out, “Come in.”
It was one of his men carrying a thick package.
While Francesca pressed herself against the drinks sideboard and prayed for her legs to keep her upright, Gino took the package from him. She couldn’t even force her mouth to hurl abuse at the guard.
Gino had no such problem. His body language and voice perfectly normal, he said, “Tell Carmita she can clear our lunch away… Oh, and ask her to bring something to clean up glass. There has been an accident.”
The man nodded and bustled away.
Without looking back at her, Gino took the package to his desk. He was about to open it when his gaze suddenly landed back on her.
A rush of emotion like nothing she’d ever felt before swept through her.
Even with the distance now separating them, she could feel the intensity of his stare. “We can’t let it happen again, Chicca. It’s too dangerous. You know that, right?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. She did know. If her family heard so much as a whisper of intimacy between them…
He held her gaze for another long, lingering moment and then gave his attention back to the delivered package.