Chapter Eleven #2
Even if it hadn’t been for the armed guards patrolling the sea around the island, I’d already decided last night I wasn’t going anywhere. I laid my hand on my bump, aware of the flicker of movement I’d felt again that morning when I’d woken up.
My baby, our baby, would be safer here than anywhere else. But that didn’t mean I was going to give up any more of my autonomy.
My main order of business today was to get Vito to let me contact Evie.
She would be worried sick about where I was.
My sudden disappearance would no doubt bring back memories for her of the morning our mum had just buggered off and left us.
Would she guess who I was with? That I hadn’t had a choice?
Or would she think I’d abandoned her too, without even leaving a note?
The thought made guilt and regret twist in my gut.
And my anger with Vito’s high-handed behaviour returned.
Another wave slapped against my thighs, making me gasp, just as a shout rang out behind me.
‘Mia, fermati.’
I swung round to see Vito running across the sand, his saturnine features set in the same grim lines of fury I remembered from when he’d first spotted my pregnancy.
Before I had a chance to process what had made him so angry this time, he had splashed into the sea. Covering us both in sea water, he scooped me into his arms, forcing me to grab hold of his neck as he marched back towards the shore.
‘Vito, what are you doing?’ I said, my pulse charging into my throat.
‘You little fool, I will tie you to the bed again if I have to,’ he growled, his breathing ragged as he deposited me on the sand, then grasped my arms to drag me towards him until my belly was pressed against his flat abs.
He was soaked, and so was I, the water making our light clothing transparent.
I was suddenly brutally aware I had nothing but a pair of panties on under the negligée.
I hadn’t bothered to get dressed properly.
When I’d spotted the deserted, secluded beach below the suite’s terrace, I’d just wanted some time alone, a chance to get my wayward emotions in order and start figuring out how the hell I was going to contact my sister…
and convince Vito he couldn’t make me a prisoner here.
But all the arguments to persuade Vito to let me call Evie and get him to respect my autonomy, which I had been working on since waking up, got trapped in my throat now, because we were virtually naked on an empty beach in bright sunlight, and I was too aware of the way my nipples were throbbing incessantly.
I could see the outline of his cock through the soaked linen of his trousers.
Stop looking at that and start figuring out what has got him so furious.
‘Don’t you ever do that again,’ he shouted. I could see not just anger in his eyes now but fear.
‘Do what?’ I asked, deciding to ignore the threat to tie me up again because he didn’t seem rational. And he was tough enough to reason with when he was.
‘Swim away from me…’ he yelled at me, making no sense at all. ‘It is five miles to Capri in tidal waters. There is no way you can get off this island, but I will lock you in my bedroom if you will not keep yourself safe. If that is what you want, that is what you will get.’
I struggled out of his grasp, rubbed my arms where his fingers had gripped, and glared at him—hating that tone of voice, the way he spoke to me as if I was a disobedient child who he got to boss around for my own good.
‘What the hell are you talking about, Vito?’ I shouted, my voice breaking on the words as all the injustices he had heaped upon me in the last eighteen hours came flooding back—despite all my best intentions to placate him.
Sod that, he was just bullying me now because he was bigger and stronger than I was, and I wasn’t having it.
‘I should not have trusted you. I will not trust you again. From now on, you will remain where I can see you at all times.’ He grasped my arm again and began marching me back towards the steps cut into the rock face which led back to the villa.
I dug my heels into the sand, to no avail.
‘Are you nuts? I wasn’t trying to swim to Capri,’ I cried, but he just carried on walking, all but dragging me now.
‘And why should I believe this?’ he demanded. ‘When you have done nothing but defy me at every turn. And put yourself in unnecessary danger.’
‘Oh, sod off!’ I yelled back, managing to yank my arm from his grasp. ‘I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not.’ I could feel the hysteria rise up my chest.
The caustic, visceral fury was spurred on by a sense of injustice which I had been forced to keep under rigid control my whole life—so I didn’t piss off my useless mum, so I didn’t scare Evie, so I didn’t make a mistake and alert the landlord or the people at the social security office to the fact it was me signing my mum’s cheques.
So I didn’t get into any trouble at school that might make the teachers call my mum, and realise she wasn’t there, and hadn’t been for months.
But I was through being careful, being cautious, being amenable, because with Vito it meant he would simply flatten me like a steamroller and pound what little freedom and autonomy I had left into dust.
‘I’m five months pregnant, in case you haven’t noticed,’ I shouted at him and the look of disapproval on his face.
I cradled my bump. ‘I would never put my baby at risk like that. It’s bad enough he has a dangerous, dictatorial arsehole for a father.
He doesn’t need a reckless idiot for a mother to boot.
I happen to know what that’s like, and it’s not pretty. ’
He tensed, but to my surprise, the rigid muscle in his jaw softened, and his glare downgraded a notch.
He crossed his arms, making the soaked shirt stretch across his pecs.
The swirling ink on his chest was visible beneath the damp cloth—but so was the livid scar slashing across his shoulder.
The same shoulder he’d been shot in all those months ago.
I stared at the line of stiches, the sympathy welling in my throat again, the way it had that night.
How could that have been just a scratch?
‘You were not trying to swim to Capri?’ he asked, drawing my gaze from his ruined shoulder. The scepticism was still written all over his face, but his tone lacked that dictatorial edge I had come to resent so much.
‘Are you actually serious?’ I managed, my tone frigid with fury.
Because—what the hell? How much of an idiot did he think I was?
‘I’m not a good enough swimmer to get as far as the boats full of men with machine guns you’ve got patrolling the island.
Which—FYI—is an even bigger disincentive than the prospect of swimming across five miles of open water while I’m pregnant.
’ I sucked in a deep breath, let it out, trying to control my breathing, when his gaze drifted down to my breasts, which now felt swollen and tender against the negligée.
And far too exposed. My nipples pinched into tight peaks.
I glanced down, and heat climbed up my neck.
The areolas—already enlarged from my pregnancy—were a dark red, my rigid nipples practically poking through the transparent cloth.
That he had noticed too was obvious when his gaze met mine.
His pupils had dilated to black, his arousal as fierce as his temper had been moments before.
I folded my arms over my boobs and tried to squeeze them into submission, aware of that hot gaze branding my skin.
‘Plus, I realised last night trying to escape from you is probably counterproductive now anyway,’ I rasped, my mouth dry.
One dark eyebrow arched, but the fierce approval only made the heat blaze across my collarbones and sink into my needy sex.
‘So you have seen sense,’ he said in that arsey way he had that made me want to punch him.
I balled my fingers into a fist. Why, even when I was offering him an olive branch, did he have to be such a controlling jerk?
‘There’s nothing sensible about this situation,’ I said, my temper turbo-charging the heat, not to mention the infuriating thought he was never going to give me an inch…especially if I made the mistake of backing down.
Agreeing not to attempt another escape was one thing, letting him treat me like a prisoner quite another.
‘I know my options are limited,’ I pointed out, determined to make him see I was making a choice here, not just surrendering to his agenda.
‘And as I was with you that night five months ago, when I got a taste of the threats against you…’ My gaze dragged over the scar on his shoulder again, and I couldn’t help the shiver of horror.
‘I’ve decided the safest option for my baby and me right now is to remain here with you. ’
His eyes narrowed, and it was clear he wasn’t convinced by my sudden capitulation.
‘If you think to trick me, Mia, into trusting you again, so that you can escape, it will not work.’
For fuck’s sake…
I ground my teeth, his cynicism and arrogance starting to get on my last nerve.
‘Right now, I don’t give a crap whether you trust me or not,’ I said, wishing I could believe that.
Because it was already clear gaining his trust was going to be a very tall order—when he had no doubt spent his life never trusting anyone.
‘But if you tie me up again, I will make you pay, when you least expect it… You have been warned.’
His eyebrows shot up his forehead—but then he let out an incredulous laugh. And I wanted to scream, mostly because the threat I’d just issued sounded preposterous even to me.
What exactly was I planning to do, browbeat him to death? The only person I’d ever hit was him, and that was only because he’d tied me up and kidnapped me…and it hadn’t even slowed him down, let alone stopped him.
But as I went to march past him, planning to return to my bedroom and sulk for the rest of eternity, he snagged my wrist, tugging me to a stop.