Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Giancarlo
I awoke to the sound of the hotel phone loudly ringing next to my head.
Did I order a wake up call…?
Thanks to a late night spent watching movies with Rowen while enjoying rich food and far too much wine, my brain was operating slower than usual.
After groggily sitting up, I also registered one of our cell phones incessantly vibrating from the other room and realized there might actually be an emergency.
“H-hello?” I rasped into the hotel phone, reaching for a nearby robe since my clothes were nowhere to be found.
“I am sorry to bother you at this hour, Mr. Luxford,” the clerk stammered in my ear. “But there is a Signor Franzini and a Signor…” Multiple voices on the other end grew muffled before the clerk returned. “A Signor Mick here to see you. They say it is an urgent matter. Shall I send them up?”
“Yes, that would be fine,” I replied before carefully placing the phone receiver back on the base, willing myself to remain calm.
Everything's under control.
As I pulled on the robe and tied it closed, my gaze trailed over Rowen’s sleeping form, his deceptively innocent face peaceful and his naked body half-tangled in the sheets, covered in bite marks.
Mine.
I hated to wake him, especially after how little convincing it took for him to spend the night in my bed, but Franz and Mick would be arriving at any moment
“Ro…” I gently shook his shoulder and leaned down to kiss the skin behind his ear. “You need to get up.”
“Oh, I’m up, Moneybags, trust me…” he mumbled into the pillow, giving me a saucy wiggle of his tempting ass. “And if you come back to bed, I’ll let you make sweet, sweet looove to me again—just like you did last night.”
I wish.
“Rowen.” I used as firm a tone as possible considering how badly I wanted to bury myself inside him and never leave. “There’s a… problem.”
He cracked open an eye just as someone began banging on the door.
“What the…?” He shot up into a seated position, eyes wide and red hair sticking up in all directions. “Who the fuck is that?!”
“It’s just Franz and Mick,” I soothed, tossing him another robe which he hurriedly pulled on after stumbling off the bed. “But they said it’s urgent…”
The knocking intensified as he smoothed his hands through his wild hair and glanced around, clearly attempting to get his bearings. “Okay. Okay, I’ll just… grab my things and sneak into the adjoining suite, and you can pretend to come in and wake me up and—”
What?
“No,” I growled, advancing and grabbing his arm, pulling him closer, making him gasp. “I told you, I don’t want to hide anymore.”
Rowen rolled his eyes, even as he let me maneuver him. “You want to hard launch our relationship status in the middle of an urgent crisis, Giano? How very Bonnie and Clyde of us…”
My blood ran cold. “We’re not fugitives, Rowen.”
Right?!
He sighed and patted my chest before gesturing toward the sound of increasingly frantic knocking. “I guess we’ll see. Lead the way.”
I suddenly questioned the wisdom of telling the hotel clerk to send everyone up—and of not getting dressed beforehand—but my anxiety wouldn’t rest until I knew the facts. So I released Rowen’s arm, slid on my practiced impassive mask, and hurried to greet our visitors.
“Sorry about this, Giano,” a visibly flustered—and noticeably disheveled—Franz brushed past me the moment I opened the door. “But Agent Lowry called this morning as a courtesy and… what the hell happened here?!”
I turned and took in the full scope of the scene from Franz’s perspective.
Our discarded clothing was scattered across the floor, along with pillows from the couch and a lamp we must have knocked over in our initial haste to get to the bedroom.
The remains of our room service feast was spread over the coffee table, and I knew more could be found in the bedroom, where we’d continued our movie marathon during dessert.
Among other things…
It admittedly looked like there had been either a wild party or a brawl—or both—but as I followed Franz’s angry gaze to where Rowen leaned in the bedroom doorway, with his signature smirk and bruised evidence of my claiming on clear display, I knew the mess wasn’t the issue.
Too bad.
“We ordered in,” I coolly replied, allowing my gaze to pointedly drift to where Mick was lurking just inside the entrance with Franz’s carry-on in hand. “I trust you enjoyed your evening as well?”
Franz blushed as Mick tossed the luggage off to the side and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Sure did,” the other man snickered. Then he grabbed a pack of peanuts from the minibar before flopping onto the very chair his foster brother had occupied last night. “But now shit has hit the fan. Apparently.”
“What do you mean?” Rowen snapped, but Mick just tossed a handful of peanuts into his mouth and shrugged.
“It doesn’t look good, Giano.” Franz removed his fedora and fidgeted with the brim—a clear tell that he was upset.
“As I said, Lowry contacted me as a courtesy… so there wouldn’t need to be a scene…
” He blew out a shaky breath. “Someone called in an anonymous tip and la polizia are requesting both of you come down to the station until things get sorted.”
I glanced at Rowen in alarm, but he simply scoffed. “An anonymous tip? The FBI gets thousands of those a day and only about a hundred are considered ‘actionable.’ Hell, the only ones Lowry takes seriously are from eyewitnesses and people closest to the suspects…”
He trailed off and squinted at Mick, who immediately raised his hands in mock surrender. “It wasn’t me, bro! You couldn’t pay me enough to get in bed with the Feds, no matter what I did or didn’t know.”
I wasn’t sure I believed the art forger in our midst, but Rowen looked appeased, and I trusted him implicitly.
Even if I do wish he hadn’t brought his foster siblings into the fold—
“Well, that only leaves one potential snitch in this room.”
For one horrible moment, I thought Rowen was referring to me, but then I saw his stare was firmly fixed on Franz.
No.
Franz slapped his hat back on his head before crossing his arms. “What exactly makes you think I had anything to do with this?”
Rowen pushed off from the doorframe and crossed his arms as well. “Because you’ve made no secret of how much you dislike me being around your precious Giancarlo, and we both know you saw me at his art viewing party that night…”
My blood turned to ice in my veins for the second time that morning as I recalled Franz urging me to have Rowen questioned after the Art Crime Team left my apartment.
He wouldn’t…
Would he?
“Oh, I definitely noticed you there,” Franz scoffed. “But Giano was adamant that you couldn’t possibly be a suspect, so I let it drop. The only other person I mentioned it to was…”
I watched as he paled and turned to me with a horrified expression on his face. “Shit. This might actually be my fault.”
Oh no…
“Who. Did. You. Tell?” Rowen gritted out, fists now clenched at his sides, glaring daggers.
Mick stopped crunching on peanuts and set the bag aside before leaning forward, laser-focused on Franz. “Start talking, pretty boy.”
His tone was mild but the threat was clear, and I realized my loyalties were now worlds more complicated than they’d been only moments ago.
Please, start talking.
Franz swallowed hard. “While I was giving Agent Markel my statement on the value of your mother’s collection, I may have mentioned not only Rowen attending the party but the comment he made at The Skyline—about stolen art increasing in value.”
Nononono…
“YOU MOTHERFUCKING RAT!” Rowen bellowed, rolling up his robe sleeves and advancing on Franz so quickly, I had no time to react.
Luckily, Mick intercepted before fists could fly. “Easy, carrots…” He was suddenly on his feet and blocking his foster brother from reaching his new obsession. “I can’t have you messing up his pretty face before I paint him, right?”
“I swear, I didn’t mean to…” Franz muttered, collapsing into Mick’s abandoned chair, looking devastated. “I didn’t think Markel would—”
“Agent Markel has wanted to take me down since the agency hired me!” Rowen shouted, pointing an accusing finger in Franz’s direction around Mick’s broad shoulder. “And you went and gave him the ammunition to do exactly that!”
Along with me.
I closed my eyes, tamping down my rising panic and calling upon any ounce of my mother’s unshakable, brass balls confidence I’d inherited, no matter how unlikely it may be.
We can fix this.
I can fix this.
“What’s done is done, Franz,” I calmly interjected, instantly quieting the chaos. “But this is what's going to happen next. I’ll go with you to the police station, to appease Lowry and avoid a scene while Rowen goes home with Mick—”
“Not a chance, Giano,” Rowen snarled, shoving Mick away from him and turning that glorious anger on me. “I’m not running from the goddamn law when I already have a target on my back.”
I willed my face to remain neutral as I turned to the man I needed to protect more than anything.
“You’re not running. You were simply unavailable when Franz arrived at the hotel room to collect us—already somewhere outside of cell service as you checked in with your old contacts, just like you’d been approved to do by your boss. ”
Please, baby.
“No, Giano.” Rowen’s voice wavered, betraying his emotions. “I won’t let you take the fall for me.”
“Why would anyone need to take the fall for anyone?!” Franz threw his hands into the air, accidentally knocking his fedora off onto the floor. “It’s not as if you stole your own art, right?”
I didn’t reply, too focused on staring at Rowen’s perfect, furious face, in case I never saw it again.
“Right?” Franz repeated, and Mick buried a laugh beneath a cough.
“Franz,” I turned to the other man I trusted with my life, despite his accidental misstep.
“I need you to grab my phone from the credenza by the door and call Bob Decatur at Decatur, Trent, and Fuller Associates. Explain what’s happening and he’ll get on the next plane here with a team of lawyers.
His firm has represented my family for generations and will ensure whoever thought it wise to go up against a Luxford will regret the day they did as well as the one they were born. ”
Mick whistled. “Okayyy… I see it now, carrots. Damn. That was hot as hell.”
Franz immediately sprang into action, grabbing my cell and disappearing into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. When I glanced at Rowen again, his freckled face was still flushed with rage, still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
More beautiful than an entire field of poppies painted by a master.
“Before you run off to be a hero,” he seethed, chest rising and falling beneath his robe. “Tell me one thing. What did you need the money for? Be specific.”
Mick grabbed another bag of nuts and reclaimed his seat, but as far as I was concerned, Rowen and I were the only two people in the room.
In the entire universe.
I blew out a slow breath, wishing I’d had the chance to tell him everything but sticking to the question at hand in the interest of time.
“At the last Luxford Holdings shareholder’s meeting, a property in dire straits was placed on the block.
It’s an… institution, in upstate New York that has fallen on hard times, and although they’ve run a series of fundraisers, it hasn’t been enough to save them from the threat of foreclosure.
Stanley Monmouth—who you had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting recently—and Abraham Divani were the two shareholders most adamant that we buy the property in a short sale, not to save it but to repurpose it for more… profitable ventures.”
Rowen’s brow furrowed. “Was that the luxury condo project Monmouth was whining about being held up with red tape?” When I nodded his eyes narrowed. “So you want to scrounge up enough money to buy it out from under them? Why?”
Just tell him the truth, Giano.
“Because it’s an institution worth saving.” I took a deep breath and slowly blew it out, bracing for his reaction. “St. Anthony’s Home for Lost Children.”
Mick hissed in a breath as Rowen reared back as if I’d slapped him. Then a fresh wave of fury colored his face. “Ohhhh… I get it. Giancarlo Luxford, regular savior of orphan trash. You got a hero fetish, huh, Moneybags?”
What?!
That was not what I’d expected, but before I could reply, he began stomping around the room, collecting his clothing.
“Well, don’t let me stop you from swooping in to save the day!
So much for wanting me by your side every waking hour, for all my expert consulting advice.
I’ll just go back to being a dirty little secret, like all your countless other charity cases. See ya around, partner…”
I could only watch, dumbfounded, as he flung open the bedroom door, nearly plowing over Franz as he passed him on his way inside.
What just happened?
Unfortunately, there was no time to go after him, as my appraiser exited, looking grim.
“All right. Decatur’s attorney army has been deployed and is currently en route to the company jet.
” Franz searched my face, no doubt still attempting to determine what I knew or didn’t know.
“His explicit instructions are not to say a thing to the police until they arrive.”
I wasn't planning on it.
Unless…
Despite my rising anxiety—and extensive publicity training—an idea began to form. A slightly rebellious idea, but one that could turn the tide in my favor if executed correctly.
And hopefully win back Rowen in the process…
“I need to shower and dress before we go,” I replied, gathering my scattered clothing and heading for the other bathroom, to give Rowen space and not make things worse.
“Please call Ana next to give her a heads up on what’s happening.
She will already know not to comment to the press, but I don’t want her ambushed with any news. ”
“Caprese…” Franz sighed but obeyed, leaving me alone with Mick.
“Don’t worry about Rowen, Luxford.” He tossed a nut into the air and caught it in his mouth. “He’s got that fiery Anne Shirley temper, ya know?”
Oh I do.
I love it…
“Never thought I’d meet a billionaire who wasn’t a complete asshole,” he added, rising to stand and throwing the empty bag of nuts over his shoulder before approaching. “But I’d say you’re one of us.”
“A Robin Hood type?” I joked, even as my heart was breaking.
“Nah… just crooked enough to be interesting.” He clapped me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me over. “Try to stay out of prison, yeah?”
I laughed humorlessly, glad Rowen would be in good hands. “I’ll do my best.”
“Cool.” He walked toward the bedroom. “And keep Franz outta jail while you’re at it. I can’t have some wolf stealing that pretty face out from under me.”
With that, he kicked open the bedroom door before slamming it shut behind him, and I forced myself to turn my back on where I wanted to go, knowing what I needed to do first.