Chapter 13 #2
Francesca couldn’t hide her flinch at this. The memory of her nightmare flooded her mind again.
“You will be perfectly safe,” he assured her, perfectly reading her face if not her thoughts. “Trust me, until that press announcement is made, your life has a higher value than anyone or anything.”
She eyed him meditatively. She’d noticed Gino speaking like this today, like he had when he’d first kidnapped her and been determined to keep her pigeon-holed as his hostage and nothing more. She’d hoped it had been for the lawyers’ benefit, but clearly not.
He was making the emotional break from her, she realised, and with a cold wave of sadness tinged with panic, realised she would never be able to convince him to marry her. As frightening and as painful as it was, she had to trust his gamble would pay off for him.
Swallowing a breath, she told herself that all this being the case, it was right for him to begin the emotional break between them.
When all was said and done, he was her kidnapper, and she was his hostage, although she doubted there were many hostages in the history of kidnappings who had felt as entirely safe and secure as she had with their captor. Or as happy. Deliriously happy.
The whole thing had been a thrilling ride from start to almost-finish, and now it was almost at an end. Why not let it end with a bang that involved no explosives whatsoever?
Emotional break or not, Gino was inviting her to take a glimpse into his world before they parted for good. She could spend their last hours frightened of a future she had no control over, or she could embrace it as he was inviting her to do.
“Am I allowed to dress up?”
The strangest smile crossed over his face. “You can wear whatever you want, Chicca.”
She beamed. “Can you hurry up with your work, then? I really want to go through my wardrobe.”
Francesca had been shut away in Gino’s dressing room for over an hour.
She’d eaten her dinner in record-quick time and then impatiently glared at him with sparkling eyes until he, too, had finished eating.
He’d had to hold himself back, more than once, from telling her to go and get ready without him.
It didn’t matter that he knew perfectly well that she would bounce to the bedroom without even thinking of escape; he needed to keep the illusion of her being there against her will going for one more night.
Had she ever been an unwilling hostage, he wondered.
She’d played him so well, right from the start.
That very first bathroom break she’d insisted on, when they’d pulled over into that roadside restaurant.
She could have sought help in there, and yet he’d trusted his gut that she wouldn’t.
Knowing Francesca, she would have discarded the idea for fear of the situation turning into a blood bath, but even so, apart from when he’d first snatched her off the street, she’d never been afraid of him.
The only time he’d sensed fear had been for him. Never of him.
The dressing room door opened, and she appeared at the threshold.
At the first sight of her, his heart lodged in his throat.
She was wearing a black dress. The straps hooked behind her neck like a halter neck, the material skimming either side of her breasts to a band, giving the illusion of showing everything while showing nothing, the skirt flaring to the knee.
On her feet, high ankle boots with diamond studs.
His gaze drifted back up. She’d styled her dark chestnut hair in a loose side parting, the length a shimmering tumble over her bare shoulders.
Her only makeup was some mascara and a red lipstick he remembered seeing in her bag when he’d taken her phone from it.
There was a tint of colour on her pretty, rounded cheeks he thought might have been blended-in lipstick.
“Well?” she asked shyly. “Will I fit in at your club, or is this too much? Or too little?”
He had a sudden vision of handing her a jewellery box and removing a diamond necklace and placing it around her slender throat, lifting her hair to place a kiss on the nape of her neck…
He blinked the image away and breathed sharply. The only woman he’d bought jewellery for was his mother. “You look incredible.”
The little line low on her forehead appeared. “You’re sure? I know it must sound silly considering the circumstances, but I hate feeling out of place, and I’ve never been to a nightclub before, so…”
His hands were on her waist, and his mouth fastened to hers before she could say another word.
“Trust me, Chicca,” he said hoarsely when he broke the kiss. “If you see people looking at you tonight, it will only be because of how beautiful you are.”
Her cheeks darkened with pleasure. “Really?”
“Really.” He kissed her again. “Now, are you ready to play pissed-off hostage one more time?” Just in case there were any Esposito spies in his club that night, Gino would be carrying two guns, not because he thought he would have to use them but because it was the sort of detail that would be reported back to them.
One hour. That’s all he would allow. Make an appearance, keep his staff on their toes, give Francesca a tour that would let her see who he really was, and then go.
She needed to know the truth of him before they said goodbye.
“Sure.” She broke into a smile. “Although I don’t know how convincing we’ll be, seeing as you’ve got lipstick around your mouth.
” Eyes suddenly gleaming, she put her mouth to his ear, her hands moving to the waist of his trousers.
Unbuttoning him, she whispered, “Let me see if I can get it on a different part of your anatomy…”
He closed his eyes briefly, his loins tightening, and covered her hand to stop her going any further.
The line on her forehead appeared, confusion ringing from her eyes.
“Later,” he said gently, knowing there would very likely not be a later.
His conscience had finally found a line it wouldn’t cross, and letting Francesca pleasure him with her mouth when he was about to put in motion what was needed for her to leave her captivity with only hate in her heart for him was that line. “We need to go.”
Gino’s club was every bit as darkly glamorous as Francesca had imagined. Entering it, she felt like Cinderella at the ball. Except this ball was a cocktail of some of the most dangerous and powerful people in the city. Maybe in Europe.
She was penned in, Gino on one side of her, his hand possessively on her lower back, one of his guards on the other, another guard behind her.
Not smiling did not come naturally to Francesca, but as Gino had reminded her before they’d got out of the car – they’d driven in a cavalcade there – she needed to look neither happy nor excited to be there.
She’d imagined it would take hard work, but every minute spent on the drive over had been a reminder that the clock was ticking for them to part, and as excited as she was to visit his club, regret was already filling her that she had to share with others some of her last precious hours with him.
Oh well, she reminded herself stoically. He’d said they would only spend an hour there. When they got back to his apartment, they would be alone again. She would just have to find a way of ripping from her mind that the hours they spent alone together that night would be their last.
Although the weight in her heart was getting heavier by the minute, Francesca hadn’t expected to find looking neither happy nor excited coming very naturally within two minutes of entering the club.
She’d been swept through the reception and past the glamorous men and women who greeted the guests, whisked through the wide corridor most of the private business rooms came off, and had climbed the wide stairs to the first floor, finding herself in the glitziest room she’d ever seen.
Before she could take in all its decadent beauty, a gorgeous blonde woman wearing a figure-hugging sparkling dress snaked over to Gino and huskily purred, “Hello, stranger,” before placing a kiss full on his mouth.
Startled at the proprietorial nature of the woman’s greeting, Francesca saw him return the lascivious look. “Hello, beautiful,” he murmured back to her. “Please excuse me, but business calls.”
“Call me later?”
“Busy later.” He winked. “Maybe over the weekend.” Not breaking his stride, he carried on, leading Francesca past a huge central bar crowded with people dressed to the nines. Most held champagne flutes in their hands.
A man in a business suit that stuck out for looking like a business suit hurried over to them. “Gino! I didn’t know we were expecting you tonight.”
“A flying visit,” Gino assured him. “Everything under control?”
“All good.” The man Francesca assumed was the club’s manager leaned in and whispered something into Gino’s ear, which was received with a nod and a pat on the back, before they were off again, circulating the room, Gino shaking hands, kissing cheeks and whispering in the particularly beautiful women’s ears words that made them giggle coquettishly.
When they passed a group of dazzlingly glamorous women dining in a booth, he made an exaggerated stop.
“Ladies, great to have you here,” he said with a smile Francesca had a very sudden and very real urge to punch off his face. “I trust you’re being looked after?”
One of the women, a sultry redhead, looked him up and down with decidedly interested eyes. “You’re Gino?”
“The one and only. Can I get you ladies a drink? A bottle of champagne?” He didn’t even wait for an answer before making a signal to one of the passing waiters, who nodded and immediately bustled to the bar.
“I will catch you ladies later,” Gino said, before meeting the redhead’s eye.
“And if I don’t…” He raised a suggestive eyebrow. “I will be back in on Saturday.”
As they walked away, he murmured in Francesca’s ear, “You are doing an excellent job of looking like you want to kill me.”
“It isn’t hard,” she whispered.
She had no idea if he heard her because now she was being penned up another flight of stairs and into a cavernous, darkly lit space throbbing with pumping music.
It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. In her imagination, she’d pictured the nightclub proper to be like the hotel ballroom her cousin Siena’s engagement party had been held in, with chairs and tables encircling a central dance floor.
This place was a warren filled with hidden booths, people dancing wherever they wanted…
She had to fight to stop her jaw from dropping at the hidden human-sized cages she spotted.
Each had a semi-naked painted body in them – male in some, female in others – writhing to the music.
She thought of them as bodies as they wore animal masks to hide their faces.
It was like she’d entered a different world.
The whole place reeked of money and sensuality, but there was little time for her to properly take it all in, for another beautiful woman slinked over and kissed Gino proprietarily.
Whatever he whispered in the woman’s ear, the music was too loud for Francesca to hear, but the woman laughed and groped his backside.
Francesca’s heart now like a block of ice, they were moving again, past the woman still gazing at Gino as if he were Adonis come to life, past swaying bodies, screams of laughter, shots and champagne being consumed in vast quantities, to a spacious booth with its own hidden dance floor off it.
No sooner had she been forced to sit between two of the bodyguards than a flute of champagne was thrust in her hand.
Two more women and a man joined him. He slid his arms around both the women’s waists, drawing them into close conversation.
One of the women looked at her, and when Francesca cut her own stare away, she noticed lots of other people were looking at her, naked curiosity in their stares.
Probably wondering who the hell she was, she thought miserably.
Or wondering if her presence meant Gino was taken for the night.
She felt like telling the women staring at her not to worry, that from tomorrow, he would be free for them to all fight over.
Her wretchedness only deepened when one of the women Gino was talking to pulled her phone out of her clutch bag and clearly messaged her phone number to him. He swiped his phone to make sure it had been received with a knowing smile.
Francesca tried to drink her champagne. The bubbles stuck in her throat.