Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“So what did you think?” Gino asked casually as they set back off to his apartment in the same cavalcade they’d gone in. “Was it what you expected?”
Her gaze turned to the window, Francesca shrugged. She’d not spoken a word since he’d announced it was time to leave. He couldn’t remember her saying anything since their arrival.
He’d done the right thing taking her there, he told himself firmly.
Done the right thing letting things develop in the club as they always did.
His hostage had developed feelings for him, of that he was certain.
He supposed he’d developed feelings of a sort for her, too, but nothing could come of them.
They’d only formed because of the close proximity he’d forced them both into.
Much better for her to return home having witnessed the truth of who he was.
If she’d held any hope he would change his mind about marrying her, seeing him in his natural habitat, so to speak, would have made her see the truth behind what he’d said about destroying her emotionally.
Now she would return to her family without any lingering what-ifs.
She could forget about him as he was bound to quickly forget about her, and deal with the marriage she didn’t want.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said into the silence.
She didn’t respond.
“I don’t doubt you’ll be able to convince your family why it’s in no one’s interest for you to marry Elio, but if they threaten to cut you off financially, message me, and I’ll send you money. I’ll give you my number before you leave.”
“No thank you,” she said in the stiffest voice he’d ever heard from her.
“It would be a gift from me.” A gift he would give gladly. Whatever she wanted or needed to build a future for herself that was free. “There is no time limit for you to accept it.”
“I said no.” Francesca would rather starve than take a penny from him. She couldn’t even look at him. There was a tempest of emotion raging inside her, and it was taking all she had to keep it contained.
She barely managed to contain it until they were safely away from prying eyes and listening ears in Gino’s bedroom.
They faced each other. His dark eyes were watchful, as if he could sense her emotions were about to spill over and was bracing himself for what came next.
As much as she ached to punch her fist into his hateful face, she couldn’t bring herself to strike him.
“You took me there deliberately, didn’t you?” she eventually choked. “To humiliate me.”
Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. “No. There was no intention to humiliate you.”
“But that’s what you did. Flirting and groping those women. Letting them grope you. Taking their numbers.”
“I didn’t grope anyone. I was doing my job.”
“Flirting and letting women touch you up is doing your job?” Her voice shook from the force of the fury smashing through her heart. “Arranging potential hook-ups is doing your job?”
“Running nightclubs requires the personal touch.”
“There’s personal, and then there’s personal.”
“That’s the job, Francesca. I own nightclubs frequented by the rich and powerful. Power and wealth are natural aphrodisiacs, and my clubs allow members and their guests to indulge in all the hedonism they could wish for.”
“And all the hedonism you could wish for.”
There was still no emotion or apology on his face or in his tone. “I made that explicitly clear to you before we became lovers.”
“And made sure to reinforce it tonight. You might not have taken me there to humiliate me, but you took me there for a reason, and if it wasn’t to humiliate me, then what was it? Why such deliberate cruelty?”
“There was no deliberate cruelty. I was showing you the reality of me and the reality of my life.”
“But why? In a few hours, we’re never going to see each other again.”
For the first time, she caught the pulse of something in his eyes. “You asked me to marry you, Chicca. I needed you to see for yourself what my life is like so you would know I’m the last man you should ever offer yourself for marriage to.”
She shook her head. “Don’t give me that crap. You’d already turned me down. And I wasn’t offering myself to you; I was offering you a way to live beyond the next few weeks, and you repaid me by letting me think you were doing something for me when all you were doing was something for you.”
“I needed you to see the truth of me.”
“No, you didn’t!” She stopped herself from screaming in his face by the skin of her teeth.
What little dignity she had left would not let her give him the satisfaction.
“For whatever twisted reason, you wanted to make me hate you; that’s what you wanted.
There was no need for you to flirt and allow those women to grope you.
You’re perfectly capable of keeping a friendly distance.
And there was absolutely no need for you to arrange future hook-ups in front of me.
That was deliberately cruel. We could have spent our last hours together just being together, but you chose instead to make me hate you.
It was all deliberate, so screw your pathetic distortions of the truth and screw you.
You wanted me to hate you? You’ve succeeded. ”
Snatching her pyjamas off the pillow of the single bed she hadn’t slept in for four nights, Francesca would have stormed straight into the bathroom if Gino hadn’t caught her wrist.
Dark eyes blazing, he quietly said, “You should hate me, Chicca. This is who I am. I’m a man with no scruples and no conscience.
Despite giving my word, I took your virginity and have had you in my bed ever since, and tomorrow night, someone else will be in it.
Don’t ever forget that. I’m not worth even a portion of your heart. ”
“Then you’d better pray that I’m better at keeping my word than you are,” she hissed, bringing her face right to his. “Or you can expect a bullet in your head before you manage to replace me in your bed, and I can promise you now, my heart won’t feel a thing. Now take your hand off me.”
His jaw as tight as she had ever seen it, he released his fingers from her wrist.
She gave him one last look filled with all the contempt she could muster, then locked herself in the bathroom.
Gino sank onto his bed and clasped his head. Dragging his short nails through his cropped hair, he breathed deeply.
He’d done the right thing. He knew that.
Better that she hate him than have feelings that could linger.
Emotions had no place in his world. Those who allowed them were fools.
Look at Tommaso Esposito, Lorenzo’s second son.
He’d recently married and was obviously besotted with his bride, and now that bride would have a target on her for the rest of her life, an easy means of retribution or blackmail or any number of malevolent things from the people who littered their world.
At least Rico Esposito, Lorenzo’s youngest son and Mattia’s youngest brother, had had the sense to leave their world on falling in love, but even he would spend the rest of his life living as both a husband and a bodyguard to his wife…
And what was he even thinking any of this for?
It wasn’t like he’d fallen in love with Francesca.
Yes, he’d developed feelings for her, but as he’d already assured himself, those feelings would fade quickly.
He hadn’t been lying about his intention to replace her in his bed tomorrow night. That’s who he was. How he lived.
Francesca deserved better than him or Elio Ranieri or any single member of their damned world, and when she stalked out of the bathroom in those sexy pyjamas, her beautiful face a set mask of disdain, and swept past him to climb into the single bed without a glance at him, the twisting of his heart was nothing but regret that he didn’t get to enjoy one last night of spectacular sex with her.
Francesca slept in fits and spurts. Twice she had to pull herself out of the same nightmare from the night before, the nightmare that had stupidly made her suggest marriage.
The only thing she could be grateful for was that she hadn’t been so deep in sleep that she’d been unable to bring herself out of them.
When the sun came up, she got out of bed. She didn’t look at Gino. She was quite certain he was awake too. She wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t think about him. Wouldn’t acknowledge him in any way.
In a few hours, this would all be over.
From the dressing room, she removed her dress, shoes and underwear, and carried them to the bathroom. Time for her last shower. Then it would be time for her last breakfast.
She could only hope she didn’t have to suffer a last lunch with him, too.
After what had to constitute the worst sleep of his life, Gino gave up trying.
This was the day he became a partner in the Esposito Group and forced himself into what Francesca called their shadowed world.
He needed to be sharp, and while Francesca used the bathroom, he got on his phone and checked all the overnight messages.
No overnight hiccups. That was one mercy. Everything was proceeding exactly as he’d envisaged and planned.
The door handle of the bathroom turned. He pulled in a breath and braced himself.
The badly dressed nun he’d snatched off the street a week ago emerged.
Same drab, ugly black dress. Same clumpy shoes.
Same child-like white ankle socks. The only difference was her eyes.
The badly dressed nun’s fear had quickly turned to a glee she’d sustained practically every hour under his roof.
The light brown, almost translucent eyes that fixed on him now were cold. “Everything proceeding as it should?”
He had to clear his throat to speak. “Yes.”
Her smile was as cold as her eyes. “Good. I’m ready to go as soon as you say.”
He inclined his head. “I’ll get Carmita to pack your clothes for you.”
“No. I leave here with nothing more than what I came with.”