Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The security for Siena’s apartment was as extensive as that for Gino’s, and so when Francesca was left alone for the first time in the apartment that evening, her cousin went through the protocol for admitting visitors.
She wasn’t entirely sure why her cousin thought Francesca would have any visitors seeing as the only people she knew in Naples were her family, but she paid attention out of politeness and adoration of her, and also because once Siena married, she would be living alone here.
As a result, when the intercom buzzed an hour after Siena left, Francesca knew exactly what to do. The problem was, she didn’t want to do it. Despite all her mental preparations, seeing Gino again had shaken her to her core, and her inner turmoil had only grown.
She should be getting over him by now. She’d taken his words to heart about going out there and getting the life she did want, and it had been exciting and thrilling, but the pain in her heart just wouldn’t shift.
The intercom buzzed again. She sighed.
Rising lethargically from her seat, she pressed the button on the wall, readying herself to get rid of whoever the visitor was…but then a video image of the visitor came up on the display. It was an image that made her heart wobble and her legs turn to jelly.
It took so long for her to press the button to speak into that he buzzed again. She swallowed hard before pressing it and whispering, “Siena’s not here.”
His voice was nearly as quiet. “I know. It’s you I’ve come to see.”
“What do you want?”
“Just to…” He sighed. “Will you let me in? I need to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Something I would prefer to discuss in person and not through an intercom.”
She closed her eyes. After a long hesitation, she pressed the button that would set in motion all that was needed to let Gino reach the front door.
It gave her time to prepare herself. As much as she could. She couldn’t begin to guess what he wanted with her, but to get through it, she would ask herself what Siena would do and act accordingly. Siena didn’t take shit off anyone.
So intent was Francesca in preparing herself emotionally that she forgot to prepare herself physically, only remembering when she unlocked the front door in answer to his knock that she hadn’t run a brush through her hair since the morning and that the makeup Siena had used to try and hide the circles beneath her eyes had worn away.
She could only be grateful that she was wearing half-decent clothes in the form of snug, stylish three-quarter-length jeans and a loose-fitting silver top.
The first thing Siena had done when Francesca arrived in Naples was take her shopping.
If she hadn’t been so sick of heart, she would have called it the best day of her life.
Her legs trembling, she could hardly meet his eyes, darting away from his stare as she stepped aside to let him in.
Her legs shook even harder when he brushed past her and she found herself engulfed in the scent she’d grown to love so much.
Breathing it in now made her lungs hurt. It made all of her hurt.
But she wouldn’t show it. Siena never would, and neither would she.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked politely when they reached the living room.
“That would be good, thanks.” From the periphery of her vision, she saw him clock the book she’d been reading – trying to read – on the sofa. Saw the smile that played on his lips to see it.
Rubbing her arm, she went to the bar Siena kept fully stocked and poured him a neat bourbon.
For herself, she opened a bottle of red wine.
She’d hardly drunk any alcohol since he’d set her free.
It reminded her too much of him. She supposed it could hardly remind her of him for the short time she would be with him.
Instead of handing his glass to him, she put it on the coffee table and then sat herself with her wine on one of the armchairs, resisting the urge to down the whole glass in one swallow. Siena would act with dignity, and so would she.
He sat close to her, on the sofa that would still be warm from where she’d been sitting only minutes ago.
“How long have you been living here?” he asked. His tone was casual, as if she were someone he knew only distantly, not someone he’d been intimate with. But then, for Gino, intimacy meant nothing. Francesca meant nothing.
She drew her knees up to her chest and strove to match his casual tone. “A couple of weeks.”
“You’re working for Siena?”
“As her assistant.”
“How are you finding it?”
“I’m loving it.”
“And loving living in a city?”
“Very much.”
“How did your parents take it?”
“Better than I expected.” Once they’d realised they had no choice in the matter, they’d come around. She supposed, too, that their agreement to her marrying Elio meant they knew any real objection would ring hollow. “They’re staying this weekend for the wedding.”
“The wedding you were earmarked to be the bride for.”
She gave a grim, tight smile of acknowledgement.
His voice quietened a touch. “I knew you could do it.”
She sipped her wine to stop herself looking at him. If she didn’t meet his eyes, she could get through this, whatever this was.
“Everything you wanted, you’ve got,” he said. “That must have taken some guts.”
“It helped that Siena was on my side. I don’t think it would have happened without her support.”
He laughed, a deep, forced rumble. “I would never bet against you, Chicca.”
She couldn’t stop her gaze from flying to him.
When their eyes locked together, it felt like her heart came to a stop. A tremor came into her voice. “Why are you here?”
His chest rose, nostrils flaring. Unable to bear seeing the circles beneath his eyes and what they represented, she cast her stare away again and tightened the hold on her glass.
“I think…” She heard him inhale, and then quietly he said, “Nothing has felt right since you left.”
“Since you released me as your hostage,” she corrected with equal quietness.
“Since I released you as my hostage,” he agreed, and then he laughed again, with as little humour as his first laugh. “May God forgive me for doing that to you, and may God forgive me for the way I let you go.”
“You let me go exactly as you promised you would.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“How am I supposed to know what you mean? If your conscience is playing on you, then it’s a priest you need to make your confession to, not me.”
“A priest can give me absolution, but he cannot…” Gino sucked in a long breath and tipped a large quantity of bourbon down his throat. He hadn’t imagined this would be easy, but he hadn’t thought it would be so hard. The ache to touch her was mutating, gaining in strength with each passing breath.
He needed to do it, though, because he couldn’t live like this anymore. Couldn’t live in denial of his feelings, not now that they’d punched him so hard and forced him to confront them.
How could he deny it any longer when one look at Francesca and one shake of her hand that morning had shifted the tectonic plates he stood upon? Siena had seen it, and if she’d seen it in him, he had to pray she’d said what she said because she’d seen it in her cousin, too.
He’d believed that kidnapping Francesca to force the Espositos to bring him into their fold would be the biggest gamble of his life, but he’d been wrong.
That game of poker with Francesca had been the biggest gamble, and he hadn’t even known it.
He knew it now though, and knew the gamble he was there to make would surpass it.
The gamble he was there to make was the gamble of his life. This was the gamble for his heart and his soul.
“Since you’ve been gone, I’ve become impotent.”
Her beautiful, slender frame froze.
“I’m impotent, and I live in a haunted apartment.
” He cast his stare steadily on her. She wasn’t looking at him, but if her feelings were anywhere as strong as his, she would feel it.
“You were with me for only one week, but your ghost won’t leave me.
I see you everywhere. I hear you everywhere.
I try to work in my office, but all I see is you stretched out on the sofa reading.
I try to sleep, but the bed is so empty without you that all I do is lie there and think of you and wonder where you are and what you’re doing.
I go in the kitchen and see you sitting on the counter with your legs dangling, and I see you at the breakfast bar eating and smiling and laughing, and so I eat in the dining room to escape you, but there’s no escape because all I can think is that I never let you eat in there.
“And it’s not just my apartment haunted by you.
It’s my clubs too. It doesn’t matter which one I visit, all I think when I walk into them is how beautiful you looked that last night, and all I see is the misery on your face that I caused.
I wanted to kill your feelings for me, but all I killed was the last of any peace of mind I will ever have.
I stole you from your family, and then I stole your virginity, and then I deliberately hurt you.
I am a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t deserve God’s forgiveness and I certainly don’t deserve yours, but still I am here to beg for it. ”
He was on his knees before her before he was even aware of his body moving.
Removing the wine glass from her frozen hand, he placed it on the floor, then clasped both her hands in his. “Please, look at me, Chicca.”
She closed her eyes. He could feel the tremble of her body.
“I don’t deserve a second chance, I know that, but still I beg you for it.
I beg you forgive me. The life I’ve created for myself is empty and meaningless, because without you, everything feels empty.
My parents never had much, but they had each other, and they still have each other.
They’re always there for each other, supporting each other and protecting each other, just as you protect me. ”