Kitabı oku: «Pregnancy Of Passion», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

SALVATORE waited for Elisa to come out of her office. She’d spent the remaining hours of the afternoon working on the auction while Salvatore and Signor di Adamo discussed new security features for the store and measures to keep both the old man and Elisa safe until the crown jewels were sold. Signor di Adamo handled customers as well, showing his grandson the ropes of the business, while Salvatore made phone calls on his mobile and ordered necessary equipment to be installed immediately.

It had been a pleasant afternoon, but the next few minutes did not promise to be so pleasant. He had to tell Elisa that he was going home with her. He had no choice, but he doubted very much she would see things that way.

She didn’t.

Five minutes later she was glaring at him as if he had suggested something obscene. “No way.” She shook her head so hard part of her hair slipped out of the French twist on the back of her head. It fell over one green eye and she impatiently shoved it aside. “You are not going home with me.”

“If anyone knows of the jewels’ whereabouts, neither you nor your employer will be safe. He will be staying with his daughter and son-in-law. You have no one.”

An expression came into her eyes when he said that, a bleakness of spirit he did not like and one he did not associate with the fiery woman who had been his lover. “I don’t have you either. Wouldn’t have you. Even as a misguided gift from my father. You aren’t going with me and that’s final.”

With that she marched past him and out the door, leaving Signor di Adamo to lock up. Salvatore cursed and followed her.

“At least allow me to drive you home.” He would take care of getting in the door of her apartment once they arrived.

“I’ll catch the bus.” And then she was running to do just that and Salvatore felt a wave of shock as he realized she’d thwarted him with less effort than it would have taken a five-year-old.

Furious, he rapped out orders to one of the men he’d brought in during the afternoon. He would see to Signor di Adamo and his grandson’s safe journey home.

Salvatore slung himself behind the wheel of his black four-wheel drive and followed that damn city bus all the way to Elisa’s apartment.

He was not in a good mood when he got there.

Elisa stepped off the bus and a very unpleasant word slipped past lips stiff with frustration.

Salvatore waited for her in front of her building with the look of a man ready to do violence. Only, if she knew anything about him, she knew he would not physically harm her. Even in the midst of his rage over the baby, he had kept his blows to the verbal variety.

All the same, she couldn’t help the shiver of apprehension that skittered down her spine.

She approached the entrance warily, her eyes fixed on the spot of the red-painted door visible to the left of Salvatore’s tall frame. If she could just get inside that door and away from the man in front of it, everything would be fine.

She stopped a foot away because he hadn’t moved.

Nor had he spoken, but his body language spoke volumes and all of it bad.

“Do not ever run from me again.”

She allowed herself to meet his gaze, pretending not to feel the shards of pain such a motion caused her deep inside. “Go take a hike. You don’t dictate to me.”

“Someone needs to. You have no concern for your own safety.”

Her eyes widened at that. “What could possibly happen to me on the city bus?”

“If you don’t know, you are more naïve than a woman of your age should be.” Then he proceeded to spell out in graphic detail what could have happened to her, covering the range from a sex fiend accosting her to being kidnapped and forced to give her kidnappers the crown jewels.

When he was done, she fought both nausea and irritation.

“And if you think you are any safer in your apartment, you are a fool,” he added when she remained silent.

“You’re assuming other people know the jewels are at Adamo Jewelers, but there’s nothing to indicate that is the case.”

“Assume the worst and plan accordingly.” He made no apologies for his cynicism and she hadn’t expected him to.

Even when she’d loved him she’d recognized that he had a very pessimistic view of the world.

“Even if someone does know and wants to steal the jewels, the vault is on a timed lock mechanism,” she said with satisfaction. “Signor di Adamo cannot open it before nine in the morning, no matter how much he might want to.”

“That will not prevent you from being used as a pawn in procurement of the jewels.”

She sighed, knowing that in the most extreme scenario he could be right, but she was unwilling to believe the risk was all that great. “Please move.” She dug for her door key in her purse. “I want to go inside.”

“Have you heard nothing I have said?”

“I heard. I just don’t believe.” Aha. She’d found it. She withdrew the key and looked pointedly at the door behind him.

“Tough.” Then in another one of those moves that always took her by surprise, he took her key. It was like the first time he’d kissed her. She hadn’t been expecting that either.

She grabbed for the key ring, but he was already unlocking the door. Stepping back, he ushered her inside, her keys still firmly in his hand.

She stepped just over the threshold and then put her hand out. “Give it to me.”

He ignored her outstretched hand and followed her inside, forcing her to move backward or be in the unenviable position of touching him again.

“It’s a secured building, for goodness’ sake.”

“A locked entryway is not secure. Particularly one with a lock as old and easy to pick as that one.”

The whole building was old and she liked it. Her apartment had character and the rent was cheap. She refused to live off of either of her parents, and Signor di Adamo could not afford to pay her what she was worth.

“Stop showing off your security-guard skills and give me back my key. I’m hungry and tired. I want to get to my apartment, make my dinner and go to bed.”

“I am a security specialist, not a guard.”

Not to mention being heir apparent to the whole company when his father decided to abdicate the throne.

“Whatever.” She wasn’t going to ask for the key again.

It was a good thing she didn’t because it would have been wasting her breath. He started down the hall, his long-legged stride eating the distance to her apartment quickly.

When he stopped in front of her door, she looked at him askance. “How did you know my number?”

She had moved shortly after their breakup, unable to stand the memories the other apartment had elicited.

He rolled his dark brown eyes. “It’s not that hard to find your address. In fact, give me fifteen seconds on a computer and I can find pretty much anyone’s. However, in this case, I simply asked your father.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t told her father about her brief affair and its disastrous end.

He would have gone ballistic and she had not been emotionally prepared to deal with any more at the time.

“You did not tell him about us,” Salvatore said, mirroring her thoughts.

She shrugged and watched with a feeling of inevitability as he unlocked the apartment door with the other key on the ring.

“I didn’t tell him about the baby either.” She didn’t know why she admitted that.

“Neither did I.”

“I know.”

Her father was ignorant of her pregnancy and miscarriage. Just as he was ignorant of what a rat his best friend’s son really was. Her mother didn’t know either. In fact, the only other person in the world who knew about the precious baby she had lost was this man. And she could hardly expect compassionate understanding from her worst enemy.

He pushed into her apartment and she had no choice but to follow.

“This is nice.”

She looked around at the smallish apartment, which was almost a bedsit. It had its own bathroom, but the main area doubled as her daily living space and her bedroom when she pulled the ancient trundle bed down from the wall.

“It’s bright, like you.”

Like she used to be, maybe. She’d tried to make her home cheery and inviting with lots of yellow, white and rose-pink, but the décor had done little to improve her sense of loss and loneliness. Even the sunlight currently filtering through the window of the kitchenette seemed muted by the emotions that weighted her insides.

“Thank you,” she replied stiffly to his compliment when the silence had stretched on.

He made an impatient sound. “Change your clothes and I’ll take you to dinner.”

“What is the matter with what I’m wearing?” she demanded, immediately on the defensive.

“Nothing. Let’s go.” He took her arm and the contact seared her just as she knew touching him again would do.

“I didn’t say I was going with you,” she said, trying to pull her arm from his grasp.

“Would you prefer to fix me dinner here?” He smiled as he’d used to and she felt a twinge in the region of her heart. “It has been a long time since you cooked for me, but I remember what a wonderful cook you are. I would enjoy the experience.”

The sheer arrogance of that statement blew her away. “I would prefer you left.” She glared up at him, carefully avoiding actual eye contact. “You’ve seen me safely home. There’s no reason for us to prolong our time together.”

“You seem to be under a misapprehension.”

“What do you mean?” She gave up the struggle for possession of her arm. He wasn’t letting go and every movement, even infinitesimal, increased her awareness of his closeness.

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

Shards of fearful premonition sliced through her. “What exactly are you saying?”

“Until the auction is over, I am your faithful sidekick.”

“You, faithful?” she scoffed, trying very hard to come to terms with his grimly delivered assurance.

The grip on her arm tightened. “I was never unfaithful to you.”

She believed him, but she didn’t want to. Not when he’d refused to believe her similar claim when she told him about the baby. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying so, however. Instead she focused on the issue at hand.

“No.”

His fingers uncurled from her arm and began a light caress. “No, what, dolcezza?”

“You are not staying with me.” Her voice broke as his hand moved up to her collarbone. She felt like a bird being mesmerized by a snake. She couldn’t move, but she knew to let him touch her was disastrous.

“I made a promise to your father. I will keep it.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“That is not what he believes.”

“My father does not dictate my life either.”

“This is true. Unlike your sister, you have a disconcerting tendency to go your own way, but I would have thought that even so, your love for your father would not allow you to put him in a place of constantly worrying for your safety.”

She wasn’t going to be manipulated with that line. “According to him, he does that anyway.”

“He had an episode with his heart last month. Did he tell you?”

She felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room. “No.” Her voice came out a whisper. “He said nothing.”

Why hadn’t he called her? Why hadn’t his wife, Therese, told her? As she thought it, she said it.

“I do not know, but perhaps he did not wish to worry you.”

“I should have known!” The anguish she felt reminded her what an outsider she was. She belonged intimately to no one.

Salvatore studied her in a way that made her feel exposed. “Now you do. Are you willing to risk putting his heart under further stress?”

A sense of impotency filled her. Despite the fact they were not exactly close, she loved her father very much. And he hadn’t looked well the last time she’d seen him. “No.”

“Then I stay.”

With a tremendous effort of will, she stepped back, away from that insidious touch. “No. If Papa is that worried, I’ll agree to a bodyguard, but not you.”

“It is too important an assignment for me to put it in the hands of another.”

“Me, important?” She couldn’t help deriding.

His jaw went taut and fire rained down on her from those dark chocolate eyes. “Keep pushing, Elisa.”

His tone implied that, for her own sake, she had better do anything but. Only she couldn’t make herself stop. There was too much pain inside her to govern everything that came out of her mouth when she was with him.

He’d hurt her and there was a terrible part of her that wanted to hurt him back, even if it was just with digs that did no more than annoy his sense of masculine pride.

“Get me a different bodyguard.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’ll call Papa and tell him I don’t want you around me.”

“And will you tell him why?”

Salvatore’s smooth question stopped her progress toward the phone on the small table beside the one armchair in her apartment.

“I don’t have to tell him why.”

“He wants the best for you and I’m the best. He will expect an explanation.”

The problem was, she knew he was right. Even though several of the Vitale Security operatives were ex-military, none of them had been trained as thoroughly as Salvatore. His father and grandfather had seen to that, going so far as sending him to spend his formative years’ schooling and training in an élite academy that taught a form of hand-to-hand combat second to none in the world.

It had been followed by a technical education at the university level that put him on a par with coordinators in the government’s secret service.

“Then I shall tell him.”

“And prompt a full-on heart attack? Does he mean so little to you?”

Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Why are you doing this to me?” She spun to face him, her body vibrating with emotions she would give anything not to feel. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

There it was. The truth laid bare between them. He had the power to hurt her and he had exercised it.

His face looked set in stone. “I am not doing this to hurt you. You need my protection.”

“Just being around you hurts!” she cried, not able to hide that from him any longer. Perhaps if she was honest, told him just how hard it was to be with him, he would withdraw from the fray and assign someone else to guard her. His Sicilian guilt should be good for something to her. “I can’t stand the memories, Salvatore. Can’t you see that? Not seeing you is the only way I can even begin to cope.”

Pain shot through his expression, but then it was gone. “Pretending it did not happen is not coping.”

Suddenly she knew. He wanted to force a confrontation. The man who found talking about his feelings right up there with Chinese water torture wanted to talk things out. She could see it in his eyes, in the stubborn set of his jaw.

She couldn’t bear it. Rehashing the past would only hurt more, not heal.

He didn’t realize that, of course. Because he was not hampered by the soul-destroying pain of a betrayed love. He had never felt anything more for her than sexual lust.

Desperate to avoid the confrontation she sensed was coming, she took the lesser of two evils. “You said you’d take me to dinner.”

“We need to talk, Elisa.”

She ignored that. “I’m really tired. I’d prefer not to cook tonight.”

His frown expressed his irritation with her refusal to talk, but in the end, and to her undying shock, he nodded. “All right. If you do not need to change clothes, we can go.”

“Just let me fix my hair and put on some lipstick.”

Again he agreed, giving her a much needed reprieve from his presence as she closed herself into the tiny cubicle that served as her bathroom.

Salvatore swore with frustration. He had believed it would be difficult to overcome her aversion to him, but had not been prepared for it to be almost impossible.

Elisa was not just angry with him. She hated him.

She had lost her baby because of him. She’d never said so, but their final argument, the stress of that confrontation had no doubt precipitated the miscarriage. It was a guilt he’d learned to live with, but he would not live with the knowledge he had done nothing to make it right.

However, it was patently obvious she was not prepared for talk of marriage yet.

He had to woo her. His mouth twisted cynically. He knew how he wanted to woo her. In bed. Seducing her would be far easier than talking the stubborn woman round to his way of seeing things. He would enjoy it more too.

She might not like it, but her body still reacted to him almost helplessly. Her pulse had increased with the barest touch of his hand on her neck. Given enough time and close proximity, it would simply be a matter of when they made it back into each other’s arms.

No matter what had gone before, back in her bed was a place he definitely wanted to be. Even marriage was not too high a price to pay to know that all her passion, all her fire would belong to him.

Elisa came out of the bathroom looking fragile, but lovely. She’d brushed out her hair and pulled it back with a clip. Her face had more color than it had earlier, but that was probably due to makeup rather than an improvement in her feelings. Not that her green eyes revealed anything. Their usually animated depths were blank of any emotion.

“Are you ready?” she asked, her voice as flat as her expression.

He detested that flatness, wanted to experience Elisa as she had been a year ago, not this buttoned-down stranger. But he had won one victory; he would consolidate his position before demanding more.

“I’m ready.”

Just those two words and her eyelids flinched. He wanted to curse. He’d been a stupid bastard a year ago. Even if she was like her mother, as her father had said, she’d been different in one key way. She’d wanted to marry him when she discovered she was pregnant.

He still wasn’t sure the baby was his. They’d only been together a month when she told him she was pregnant…What were the chances? But even so, he had decided to risk them because he had wanted her in his bed and in his life on a permanent basis. He’d made that decision too late and lived to regret his tardiness and stupidity.

“Let’s go.” He took her hand to lead her from the apartment.

She tried to pull away from him, the way she did from every single touch since they’d seen each other that morning in the jeweler’s. And just as before, he didn’t let go. She had to get used to his touch again. The prospect that she wouldn’t was not a circumstance he wanted to contemplate.

“Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“I did not think so.”

Two hours later, they were back in the apartment, dinner having been nothing short of a disaster. She’d avoided looking at him, touching him and talking to him if she could.

The strain of it was showing on both of them.

She yawned.

“You need to go to bed.”

She nodded.

He looked around the small apartment. The cozy and inviting undersized sofa didn’t look so cozy as a possible bed. It was several feet too short for his over-six-foot frame. The pull-down bed would have been a slight improvement, but he had no doubt she would refuse to share it with him.

He looked at the floor with even less pleasure. “I suppose you’ll expect me to bed down on the carpet.”

Her eyes grew wide and a flush suffused her face. “I don’t expect you to sleep here at all.”

“I thought we settled this before we left.” It was a blatant untruth. He’d known she would balk at him spending the night.

She stiffened in pure, independent female outrage. “You’re not sleeping in my apartment.”

“I am until the auction is over.” His voice was as grim as his mood after dinner as the undesirable pariah. It was not an experience he was used to. Usually women fawned over him, even ex-girlfriends—but not this woman.

The look of horror that came over her made no improvement on his deteriorating mood.

“I’m not going to attack you,” he ground out. “I’m here to protect you.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Do you have a better solution? I’m not leaving you alone,” he added before she could open her mouth to answer.

She gnawed at her lower lip in a gesture he remembered from before. It indicated she was in serious thought.

The look of horror turned to one of disgust. “If you insist on being my bodyguard, you can spring for a suite with two bedrooms at a hotel or sleep in the hall. You pick.”

He stared at her. It couldn’t be this easy. “A hotel.”

“Fine. Give me a minute to pack.”

Elisa threw clothes into a suitcase with little consideration for what she was packing. He’d looked shocked when she suggested the hotel, but she knew how intractable he could be. He would spend the night with her no matter what she wanted. Her apartment was out of the question. Just the thought of sharing such small living space with him made her cringe. She needed a door to shut between them, a room to call her own, a bed that would hold no memories.

Not that he’d ever shared her bed in this new apartment, but somehow, if he stayed, she knew it would feel tainted by his presence. She would have to move again.

She refused to consider why he had such a strong impact on her emotions still, or why hate sometimes felt like the other side of a bruised and bleeding love.