I didn’t reply; I was already out the door.
Chapter 21
Alice:
There was a knock at the door, and I started with surprise. I hadn’t been in my room for fifteen minutes. Good for Paula. She normally took forever to get ready. I had resigned myself to waiting for her for at least ten minutes in the lobby. She must have been starving as well.
“Since when do you get ready this quickly?” I spoke as I opened the door.
But it wasn’t Paula at the door. It was my lawyer, Jeremy Reinhart.
“Jeremy,” I said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“There’s a conference in town,” he replied. “I was at the lobby, and I ran into Paula Mueller. She told me you were here, and I thought I’d come and say hello to my favourite client. Can I come in?”
“Of course,” I said, moving aside. He entered, eschewing the couch in the room to sit on my bed. He was eyeing me strangely, and for some reason, I was uncomfortable. I moved as far away as I could, leaning against a desk in the corner. There was something about this situation that was making me very, very uneasy.
“I’m so concerned for you, Alice,” he said softly. “When are you going to come back to Houston? It isn’t safe for you in Venice. People are trying to break into your apartment; the letters keep threatening you…”
“How did you know about the letters?” I interrupted. I had deliberately not told anyone in Houston that the letters had followed me in Venice. I hadn’t wanted to worry them. The only person who knew was Paula, and even so, I’d just told her, less than an hour ago.
He looked briefly disconcerted. “Paula mentioned it,” he said.
“No, she didn’t,” I said flatly. Paula hadn’t known.
The sense of prickling unease intensified. My instincts were telling me to run.
“Paula didn’t know,” I continued, sensing that something important was just out of reach. “How did you find out, Jeremy?”
The instant I asked that question, all the pieces clicked into place in my mind. Jeremy had hired the private detective firm that had been unable to identify who was sending me the letters. He’d handled the back and forth between the police in Houston. I’d signed the checks, but I was also a grieving widow, scared and terrified, and I’d relied on my lawyer to manage my affairs.
He leered at me. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Alice,” he said. But I could see the way his eyes darted about the room and I could hear the slight shake in his voice. He was lying.
“Why, Jeremy?” I asked. He’d been a friend. He had been my lawyer for many years. “Why would you do this to me?” I was astonished at how steady my voice was.
He exhaled. “I like the casinos, Alice,” he replied. He laughed, a slightly hysterical sound, and goose bumps rose on my skin. “They like to give the high rollers private accounts. No limits. High stakes poker.” He shrugged. “My life was so boring. Watching over your estate, setting up trust funds and tax shelters. So boring. But at the tables, night after night, with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line? For the first time, I felt alive.”
“How much are you in the hole for?” I asked tonelessly.
“Five million,” he replied. “A pittance for you, really. A rounding error for Ian Blackwell’s widow, don’t you think?”
I glanced at the door, but I would have to go past the bed to reach it. The desk didn’t have a phone on it; the phone was on the table by the side of the bed, well out of reach. I didn’t know what to do, except to keep stalling. My heart was racing. This wasn’t going to end well. “What’s your plan?”
He leered again. “Back in Houston, I thought I’d court you. There you were, relentlessly battered by the tabloids. So many anonymous quotes about how much of a gold digger you were. The letters keeping you isolated and alone. Who else would you turn to other than your closest confidants? Your lawyer, who was always there for you?”
“You are insane,” I said flatly.
He laughed. “And there you go, Alice, being foolish and wilful again,” he said. “I shouldn’t have ever let you leave for Venice. Still, what’s a two-month delay, in the long run?” He chuckled. “I thought we’d announce our engagement in the society pages of the Chronicle,” he said. “I even have it drafted up.”
He’d lost it. Fear clutched at me, but I pushed it back with determination. How was I going to get out of this? Jeremy was much larger than I was. A former football player gone to seed, he easily weighed two fifty pounds. I tried inching to the door, but his eyes followed my slight movement.
“Such a hard city to break into, Venice. It should have been easy to tap into your phone, but that wasn’t possible. The tabloids should have been itching to write about you, but your boyfriend had forbidden it. And I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to break into your place, after that first time. No one would accept the job, at any cost. All I could find was one person to keep sending the letters.” He shook his head. “Crazy city.”
Enzo had kept me out of the tabloids? He had leaned on the paparazzi so they’d leave me alone in peace? Even in my fear, my heart warmed at that bit of protectiveness.
“Let me go, Jeremy,” I tried. “This isn’t going to work.”
He laughed, another chilling sound. “Let you go?” He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door. “Alice?” a voice called. Enzo’s voice. Oh thank heavens.
I opened my mouth to call out to him, but Jeremy moved much faster than I could comprehend, and clamped a hand over my mouth. A knife had appeared in his other hand, and the cold steel of the blade was at my neck. “Keep quiet,” he said softly. “I’d hate for something to happen to you.”
He couldn’t kill me. I was his meal ticket. The only question was – was he sane enough to know that? I wasn’t sure, but I had to try to break free. I only needed seconds to get to Enzo and then he’d keep me safe.
“Alice?” Enzo’s voice called again, and the door crashed open. A cop rushed into the room, his gun drawn, and Enzo followed, his eyes quickly assessed the situation. “Move away from her,” he said to Jeremy, his voice icy.
“You are the cop boyfriend, aren’t you?” Jeremy sneered, recovering. The knife never wavered from my throat. “Why don’t you leave? You have no jurisdiction here.”
Enzo smiled a smile that never reached his eyes. “Do you think I need jurisdiction to beat you to a pulp, Mr. Reinhart?” he asked.
The cop still had his gun drawn. “Put the knife down, Monsieur,” he said, in accented English. “And no one gets hurt.”
Jeremy laughed, a hysterical sound that sent chills of fear up my spine.
For three years, I had been victimized by this man, but my fear had been largely because I didn’t know who was doing this to me. It could have been anyone who knew me well and that thought, more than anything, had kept me isolated and alone, afraid to trust anyone. There were days where I’d even doubted Paula.
I’d been terrified because I hadn’t known who was responsible. But I wasn’t helpless; I’d never been helpless. I was always stronger than people gave me credit for. I’d survived Deena’s constant, hateful obsession with me, and her attempt at dragging me through the tabloids every single opportunity she got. I’d survived my step-children calling me a gold-digger, a slut and a home-wrecker. I’d survived the hatred of every woman in Ian’s social set and the leering attention of every man. I’d survived the battle in court over Ian’s estate that had become tabloid fodder all through Texas.
I’d even survived the letters. I’d found Enzo. I’d carved out my own little version of a life in Venice.
It was time I stepped up and claimed it all.
I silently struggled to break free, kicking out wildly with my legs, twisting and turning. Shocked at my sudden ferocity, Jeremy’s hold slackened for just a second, but that second was all I needed. I wriggled away, and my knee connected with his groin. Pain bloomed in his eyes,
and taking advantage of his momentary weakness, I writhed free of his grip.
The policeman fired, just one shot, as I darted into Enzo’s arms.
And just like that, it was all over.
***
Two days later, we were back in Venice.
Sadly, Jeremy wasn’t dead. The French cop had fired at the hand holding the knife, aiming to disarm, not to kill. But he was in jail. He was most likely going to get extradited back to Texas, where he’d face trial for assault, theft and a host of other charges relating to the letters in the mail.
At some point, I’d have to fly back to Houston to testify. I was ready.
The senior partner at Jeremy’s law firm called me and apologized profusely and groveled, and begged for me to hold off on changing lawyers. Needless to say, they had fired Jeremy the moment a whiff of the scandal had reached them.
I found myself unconcerned with what happened to Jeremy when the mob got hold of him to try and collect their five million. I found there was a vein of ruthlessness in me. For so many years, I had lived in fear because of this guy. Whatever happened to him, he had earned it.
Chapter 22
Alice:
“I thought I had to make the next move,” I said softly to Enzo, when we were finally alone in the privacy of my apartment.
He shrugged, though his eyes were wary. “I guess I lied,” he said.
“You had guards follow me around, and you forbid the tabloids from writing about me. Where does it end? At what point do I lose my freedom?” I wasn’t going to back down from this fight. I had to know how far his protectiveness went and where he drew the line.
He shook his head. “Come on, Alice,” he chided. “I keep you safe from external harm. That was never negotiable. But I’ve never stopped you from living your life.”
He hadn’t. He’d never once treated me with condescension, like everyone had in Houston. He’d always treated me like an adult. “No you haven’t,” I agreed softly.
“Can you agree to let me protect you?” he asked me. “Not because I think you cannot take care of yourself, or because I want to smother you, but because I love you and want to keep you from harm?
I looked at him. “It’s a two-way street, you know,” I said. I moved next to him, and I got down on my knees in front of him, putting my head in his lap. “I want to protect you as well. Because I love you.” I exhaled. “Also, if you are going to have guards follow me, you really should tell me.”
He pulled me onto his lap. “Fair enough,” he responded. “No more secrets, from either of us.”
I rested my head on his shoulder for a second, just savouring his touch. “Will you be my Dom?” I asked him. “Exclusively?”
He laughed. “I don’t know if you’ve been having sex with multiple partners in the last month, Alice,” he teased, “but I’ve only been with you since I met you.” He linked his fingers in mine, and looked at me. “Let me spell it out for you, Alice.” He tugged at my hair, and I felt arousal thread through me as my body responded to the hair pulling. “I don’t want anyone else,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “I want only you.”
“You have me, Sir,” I whispered. When his hand tightened in my hair, I wanted him with a painful need.
He looked at me levelly, but a ghost of a smile was playing about his lips. “Do I?” he asked. “Show me.”
Epilogue
Alice:
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew that my bakery would be only a curiosity to the Venetians. I’d been fully prepared for the comments I would get. Oh, that American woman who thinks she can bake. That kind of thing.
And that’s why my bakery was located smack-dab in the middle of the Piazza San Marco, where tourists jostled cheek-to-cheek, rivalling the ever-pervasive pigeons in sheer numbers. Because it was tourist money that was going to keep my little baby in the black.
My idea wasn’t unique, but it was rare in Venice. We would serve bread, of course, and the Italian pastries that melted in your mouth. But we also would serve cheese and olives, dips and pâté and fresh fruit. We would have takeout sandwiches, for those in a hurry. I added potato salad and macaroni and cheese for the Americans nostalgic for home cooking, stocked a selection of sausages for the Germans, and so on.
All week, I had been a bundle of nerves. Enzo had to take me over his lap and spank me several times as stress relief. I shivered, remembering the incredibly hot sex that followed. So good.
We opened Wednesday, giving ourselves some time to work out the kinks in our production before the rush of the weekend. This bakery was my baby. Jeremy had counted on the fact that I would fail. Nate Caldwell, the chief administrator of my trust fund had been disapproving, and had tried hard to steer me to safer investments. But right from the start, I’d been convinced I couldn’t be the heiress with nothing to do. I had to work, I would go crazy otherwise. Ian would have understood.
I didn’t fail. Not that day, at any rate. By mid-afternoon Wednesday, we had completely sold out of bread. Our sandwiches were long gone; our salad shelves were empty. A few lonesome pastries remained in the window, but we had had, for all intents and purposes, a massively successful opening.
Annalisa, Susan and I looked at each other, a little shell-shocked. Finally, Annalisa broke the silence. “I bake more bread tomorrow, Signora Blackwell,” she said, in her practical way. “But now, we close for the day?”
I looked at her in silence for a few moments. Then, I started laughing, unable to help myself, giddy with excitement at the way the day had gone. For a few seconds, both Annalisa and Susan looked at me like I was a little crazy, then they joined in.
We were all laughing and whooping with delight when the doorbell chimed. In walked the man that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Enzo Peron. My Dominant in the bedroom and at Casanova; my lover and boyfriend everywhere else.
“Gattina,” he smiled at me. “It looks like you had a very successful opening,” he said. “Congratulations.” He winked at me. “A pity though, I was hoping to check out some of your offerings.” He looked at me when he said that, and heat puddled in my body.
I grinned cheekily. “Perhaps you can check out my offerings later tonight, Enzo,” I giggled, and Susan burst out laughing. Crap. I’d forgotten she was there. Enzo tended to have that effect on me.
He grinned. “If you are closed, are you ready to leave?” He gave me a familiar look, and once again, lust sparkled throughout me.
I wasn’t a fool. Our relationship was only four months old, and the early days had been littered with secrets and misunderstandings. But then I saw the heat in his eyes when he looked at me. I felt his constant, unwavering support. I trusted him completely; he always had my back.
‘Let’s build moments of togetherness,’ he had said, when we got back from Paris, right after we’d made love.
I linked my fingers in his. The sun shone down on us as we walked back to the house we’d moved to last week. With proper security, to ease Enzo’s concerns, and space enough for the both of us.
“What are you thinking about, dolcezza?” he asked.
Dolcezza. Sweetheart. Every time he called me that, my heart melted. “I’m thinking that there are still some rooms in our house we haven’t had sex in,” I replied.
He laughed and kissed me, and I wound my arms around him, pulling him even closer. I was breathing heavily when he pulled away. “Let’s go rectify that problem, Alice,” he said.
“Yes Sir.”
Read Antonio’s story in A Thief in Venice, and Tia’s story in A Starlet in Venice!
A Thief in Venice
Two thieves. One painting. One very dangerous game.
For seven years, Lucia Petrucci has stolen a painting every year to keep the memory of her parents alive. But now she has made a mistake. She has crossed the most dangerous man in Venice. Antonio Moretti, Head of the Thieves Guild.
She has stolen from Antonio, and he wants retribution. Can Lucia pay his price?
Buy Links: Amazon US | Am
azon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon CA. Or borrow it on Kindle Unlimited.
A Starlet in Venice
Every single man who looks at me wants me. To them, I am merely a sexy body, there to play a leading role in their wet dreams. I am never anything more.
Except Liam. Liam Callahan wants only friendship from me, and I should be delighted. I certainly don’t want anything else from him. I don’t want to be bent over his lap and spanked. I don’t want to be tied up and flogged, and I definitely don’t want him to make love to me.
Do I?
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon CA. Or borrow it on Kindle Unlimited.
End Notes
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading ‘An Heiress in Venice’ as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also hope you’ll consider leaving a review. Reviews are one of the most important ways readers like you discover new books. Please take a moment to tell me what you thought – I’d really, really appreciate it.
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Cheers, and happy reading!
Tara Crescent
http://www.taracrescent.com
Books by Tara Crescent
FREE to the mailing list:
Storm: The Hottest Guy in Hollywood – A BDSM Romance (Storm Episode 1)
Storm: Kinky Valentine – A BDSM Romance (Storm Episode 2)
Storm: A Road to Forgiveness – A BDSM Romance (Storm Episode 3)
BDSM Romance:
Teaching Maya
The House of Pain
The Professor’s Pet & follow-up short The Professor’s Girlfriend
An Heiress in Venice Page 9