Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
The first Esposito Group board meeting with Gino in attendance took place in Naples five days after the contracts were signed. One of his non-negotiable conditions had been a place on the board.
It was all very pleasant and civil. The three Esposito siblings in attendance were very pleasant and civil.
Any observer would be certain Gino’s place on the board had come with their enthusiastic blessing.
There was even talk about them all going out for lunch together when it was done before they headed off their separate ways.
To his disconcertion, he found himself struggling to pay attention to the business talk.
Division reports, finance reports… they were all just words and numbers, and when Tommaso arched an eyebrow and asked if Gino had anything to contribute to a discussion about one of their social media companies, he shook his head and said for that first board meeting, he was acting as an observer while he took all the dynamics in.
It was bullshit, of course. The reason he had nothing to contribute was because while the social media talk had been going on, he’d noticed Siena had her cousin’s plump, heart-shaped lips.
This was off the back of noticing that Mattia’s hair was the exact same shade as Francesca’s, and that when Tommaso frowned, there was a line low in his forehead, between his eyebrows.
These people wanted to kill him, but instead of keeping himself sharp in their presence, his mind was full of their cousin.
He kept waiting for her face to fade from his mind and for her presence to fade from his apartment.
She haunted it like a ghost; the reason, he was certain, he’d spectacularly failed to sleep with another woman since she’d gone.
He’d come close, that first night, had put his failure to find arousal down to the copious shots of tequila he’d consumed at his impromptu party.
Since that party, though, nothing. He’d visited his clubs in Athens and Paris, cities awash with beautiful women, and not one face had tempted him. Not one body had elicited even mild arousal. He might as well be dead from the waist down.
“Tell me,” he said casually, when the meeting had finished, and they were all gathering their things together. “How are the wedding plans going?”
Forgetting to put on a show of nicety, all three Esposito siblings glared at him.
He looked at their faces and grinned. “She’s proving resistant, yes?”
“Our cousin is none of your damned business,” Tommaso growled, his eyes dark with menace.
Gino laughed and reached into his pocket to feel for his gun. As he strode to the door, he called over his shoulder, “A word of advice from a man who has dealt with that woman’s stubbornness. Give up.”
There was absolutely no reason that confirmation Francesca was being defiant about the marriage they’d arranged for her should make him feel lighter, but he climbed into his waiting car with much less weight in his legs than he’d got out of it with.
“Wake up, Chicca.”
Francesca’s terrified eyes flew open.
Artu’s face hovered over hers. “You were screaming.”
She gulped for air and pulled her duvet tighter around her frozen body. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
He sat tentatively on her bed, and after a long silence, said, “That’s every night since you’ve been home. Did something happen when you were with that man?”
She couldn’t help it. The tears she’d thought dried up spilt out.
That awful, awful dream.
“Talk to me,” he said with a seriousness she’d never known her big brother possessed. “Let me help you. Did that man hurt you?”
“No,” she sobbed. “He would never.”
It was only her heart he’d hurt. And she couldn’t even blame him for it. He’d warned her of the kind of man he was, and still she’d gift-wrapped herself for him.
She’d never known it was possible to miss someone so desperately, and one day, maybe soon, she would get a call or a message from her cousin telling her Gino was dead.
She’d come close to calling him a hundred times just to hear his voice. The only thing that had stopped her had been the unbearable thought that she would hear a woman’s voice in the background.
“Do you think you need help?” Artu said. “As in professional help? You’ve not had nightmares since you were little. Something’s brought them out again.”
Gino’s words floated in her head. You know the future that you don’t want, so now you need to figure out the future you do want and go out there and get it.
She rubbed her eyes and sat up, swallowing back more tears. “I know what’s brought the nightmare out,” she whispered. “And I know how to make it stop.”
Gino’s lightness didn’t last. He’d decided to hang around Naples and pay a visit to his club there, then fly back to Milan.
The weight had been back in his limbs before he’d walked through the club’s front door.
Now, walking into his apartment as the sun was starting to rise, the weight had spread.
It was everywhere, in his guts, his brain, his heart…
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he breathed in deeply and opened a bottle of bourbon. Just the smell was enough to remind him of the way Francesca’s nose wrinkled whenever she took a sip of it.
Her clothes still hung in his dressing room.
Francesca looked at Mattia and Siena’s shocked faces, and blanked out her parents.
“Say that again?” Mattia demanded.
“I said I’ll do it. I’ll marry Elio. But I have two conditions. The first and most important one is that you have to let Gino live.”
They all reared back as if she’d slapped them all with one well-aimed flick of her wrist.
Siena looked at Mattia before leaning over to take Francesca’s hand. “Chicca, we came to see you because there’s been a change of plan.”
Now Francesca was the one to rear back.
After her nightmare, she’d spent the rest of the night working out details of the plan that had formed in her mind, then, when her mother was serving up breakfast, said she wanted to call a family meeting about the marriage.
She’d thought it was serendipity when her mother replied that Mattia and Siena were on their way to discuss the same thing.
The ice she’d woken from her nightmare with reformed in her chest. “What change of plan?”
“I’m going to marry him,” Siena said.
Her mouth dropped in horror. “You? But you can’t.”
“I can and I will. It’s all agreed.”
“But you hate him.” She’d seen it on Siena’s beautiful face whenever Elio’s name was mentioned.
“And he hates me too, so it’s a great match.
” With a guilty smile, Siena added, “It should have been me to begin with. I was being a stubborn bitch about it because I’d just dodged one marriage I didn’t want, but that’s how things are with us.
We do what’s best for the family, and this is for the best, and at least this time it’s my choice and not one being imposed on me, so it’s easier for me to live with… something I think you will understand.”
“But you’re throwing your life away,” she beseeched.
“Chicca, if I don’t marry him, there will be a war, and only God knows which of us will survive it. I can handle that arsehole much better than you can.”
Francesca closed her eyes. She would not cry.
Since she’d returned, the only one who’d seen her tears had been Artu.
The boy she’d spent her life happily annoying had proved her greatest ally and protector.
While Francesca understood why her parents had felt compelled to go along with Mattia’s plan for her to marry Elio, that Artu had been excluded from the talks was very telling.
In his own way, Artu had railed against the constraints of their lives as much as she had and could have been relied upon to fight her corner.
He understood her in a way none of the others could.
She wouldn’t let herself think that Gino knew and understood her better than anyone.
Siena squeezed her hand. “It was easy for us to forget that this isn’t your world – not your real world, which I am assuming is why you are suddenly bent on saving the man who kidnapped you?”
Francesca locked her eyes back to hers. “Don’t kill him. Please. I beg you.”
“We have to,” Mattia cut in impatiently.
She whipped her stare to him. “No. You don’t.
I don’t care that he kidnapped me – all of you would have done the same thing for the same gain if you’d thought it worth it.
He treated me well, and if you kill him, it will be for a vengeance I want no part in.
” Warming to her theme, she straightened.
“Save him and put me to work. That was going to be my other condition – put me to work and let me play my part in our family.”
“No!” That came from her father.
Francesca eyed him. “Siena says this isn’t my real world, but it is. Events over the past few weeks only prove that.”
“Our world is dangerous,” Siena said.
She raised an eyebrow. “No shit.” And then she laughed.
“What else is there for me? Hiding away here for the rest of my life, waiting for the next kidnapping? That’s not who I am or who I’ve ever wanted to be.
I don’t mean that I want to carry a gun and throw myself into the shadowy stuff, but I have a good brain and I speak fluent English.
I want to get out in the world and experience life.
I can be an asset to the family, and then the next time you need me to step up and do something for it, I’ll be ready. ”
Mattia looked at his sister and Francesca’s parents before looking back at her. There was a hardness in his stare. “The answer is no. That you are seeking mercy for our enemy means you have developed feelings for him, and your loyalties have been split. You can’t be trusted.”
“My feelings are irrelevant, and he doesn’t have to be your enemy.”
He slammed his fist on the table, making everyone except Francesca jump. “It is only that you’re my cousin stopping me from making you our enemy too.”