‘When she wakes up for the last time, this all ends. You’ll watch her die, Storm. You’ll watch me stab her over and over until she’s dead. But you won’t have to mourn her for long. You’ll be joining her very soon.’
The pressure of the gun lifted and Jules pulled up a chair between him and Jess. She stirred and Theo’s heart jumped in fear. The one small hope was this – Jess didn’t seem to be bound but he knew that was another one of Jules’ games. He wanted Jess to allow him to kill her in the hope he’d let Theo go.
Jules went to check her and as she opened her eyes, he pressed the muzzle of his gun again her bare skin. ‘Hello beauty.’
Jess’s eyes rolled, dazed; when they found Theo’s desperate ones, their gazes locked and she could see the devastation in them.
‘I love you,’ she whispered. Jules growled and cuffed her.
‘Shut up, whore.’
Theo roared, trying to get up from his chair. In one flash, Jules whipped behind Jess, hooking the hand holding the gun around her neck, and with the other, pulling his knife from his pocket. He kissed Jess. ‘Say goodbye, beautiful.’ And he raised the knife.
Jess bit down on his other hand hard, as hard as she could and Jules roared in pain. Jess pushed back with all her might, knocking Jules over and the gun out of his hand, under the couch. She threw her body on top of Jules, fighting, kicking punching, ripping his shirt. The keys to Theo’s cuffs fell out of his pocket and she grabbed them, throwing them in Theo’s direction as Jules lashed at her with his knife. She ducked and scrambled to her feet as Jules fought to grab her. Jess paused briefly, one second when she met Theo’s eyes.
He looked at her. Not understanding. Then realization. He shook his head. She winked at him. His face registered absolute horror.
‘No, no. Jess, don’t.’
Her gaze was intense. ‘I love you. I will always love you no matter what.’
He shook his head violently, never taking his eyes from hers. ‘Please don’t…
She had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Theo. It has to be like this. I love you.’
Theo broke down. ‘No, please… Jess…’
Her face was determined as Jules rose up between them. Her eyes alive with anger as she beckoned her killer towards her.
‘Come on, Jules. Wanna kill me? Come on then, motherfucker, come get me.’
‘No! Jess, please, no!’ Theo was screaming now.
Jules in his frenzy didn’t hesitate, he lunged for her, slashing the knife, catching her in a blow across her stomach.
‘No!’ Theo screamed as blood bloomed across her white dress, her honey skin. Jess ignored the searing pain and took off with Jules in pursuit. Theo, desperate, shuffled over to where Jess had thrown the keys.
‘What the fuck are you doing, Jess?’ But he knew. ‘You stupid, stupid, brave, beautiful girl.’ he sobbed as he managed to slide the key into the cuffs. She was leading Jules away from him, giving him time to free himself.
She was sacrificing herself to save him.
First, she went to the front door but even from a distance she could see that Jules had dead-bolted it. By the time she could get it open, Jules would be on her. He was close, close enough she could hear his frenzied breathing. She darted up the stairs and nearly made it to the safety of a bedroom before he grabbed her. They tumbled to the floor together, Jess fighting with every ounce of strength she had left. Jules was grinning now, knowing his size and strength would beat her now, despite her struggles.
‘I’m going to kill you now, Jess, nothing can stop me.’
He rammed his forearm against her throat and as she began to choke, he pulled a knife from his pocket. Jess, knowing that this was it, tried one last thing.
‘I’m pregnant, Jules. I’m pregnant.’
He smiled. ‘So I hear. Congratulations. But I don’t care. I’m going to kill you anyway.’
It was over. Jess struggled but as she felt Jules’s knife begin to slice into her belly, the searing pain nothing to the terror she felt for her unborn child. She could smell blood.
‘No, Jess, no!’
A frenzied cry, close, so close, Theo was dragging Jules from her. Jess rolled onto her stomach, clamping a hand over her wounds, pushing the thought of the baby away. Please, little bean, hang on.
Theo was pounding on Jules, the two men locked in a death fight. ‘Jess, get away, get out now!’ Theo was screaming at her. Blood-loss was making her light-headed. Not again. She crawled to the stairs and almost tumbled down them. There was something she could do. Something Jules had missed in the fight. Something Theo had forgotten. Slowly, painfully, she crawled her way into the living room.
Theo, his immense strength almost leaving him when he saw Jules stab Jess – again – grappled with the other man, wanting more than anything to break this monster’s neck, pound him into the dust. Jules, his knife gripped in his hand, swiped at Theo, one, twice before making contact. The knife tore through Theo’s shirt, slicing into the skin of his chest and Theo jerked back, away from the knife. Jules caught him on the temple with the hilt of the knife, making Theo’s already concussed head swirl. Jules took him out by the knees and Theo was on the ground. Vulnerable.
Jules laughed, raising the knife to plunge it into Theo’s chest… then his head exploded, his eyes bulging with surprise. Jules’ body slumped to the side, blood gushing from the fatal head wound. Theo, still stunned, looked up to see his beautiful Jess, her hand clamped over the bloody wounds on her stomach, holding the gun she’d just used to kill Jules.
Dropping the gun, Jess stumbled towards Theo and he was up, grabbing her as she slumped into his arms. He scooped her up and went downstairs, cradling her in his arms.
‘I’m okay,’ she said weakly, ‘it’s not that deep, I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Theo reached over to grab the phone, called 911.
In the distance he could hear sirens and almost collapsed with relief.
Theo and Jess, blood-soaked, exhausted, gazed at each other and started to smile, despite their injuries.
‘It’s over, my Jessie. All over.’
She started to laugh, tears rolling down her face. ‘I know, my darling, I know.’
Theo grinned, kissing her tears away as the sirens got ever closer and now he could hear shouting. Max. His mom.
He heard them break down the door in their frenzy to get in.
‘In here,’ he hollered then pulled her lips to his again. ‘Jessie….we’re going to get out of here, and get all fixed up , and then it’s just you, me and the Bean. For all time, Jessie.’
‘For all time….’
Epilogue
Theo Storm gazed at his beautiful wife as she stood on the podium, addressing the graduating class of her alma mater. Her old boss Gerry stood proudly next to him and nudged him as Jess’s speech came to an end.
‘From research assistant to the CEO of the biggest charitable art foundation in the world. Girl done good.’
Theo grinned at him. ‘Yes, she has.’
His eyes didn’t leave the woman at the front of the gathering. Pregnancy had made her skin glow, the lustrous hair grow longer and healthier, her large brown eyes shining with happiness. The light summer dress she wore skimmed over her swollen belly, swollen with their child.
Jess finished her speech and flushed scarlet with pleasure as the audience leaped to their feet. Theo knew they had followed everything that had happened to Jess, knew every horror and knew every triumph. They had made it, and finally, she was safe.
Theo couldn’t imagine being happier and as he went to meet her as she stepped off the stage, he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.
‘I’m so proud that you chose me to love,’ He said, gazing into her eyes. Jess kissed him, her lips curving up into a smile against his.
‘I’m the lucky one, Mr. Storm,’ she replied then glanced down, ‘I’d suggest we go home and celebrate but I think someone else has other ideas…
She started to laugh as Theo look
ed panicked. ‘Come on, big guy,’ She took his hand started to lead him back to their car, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, ‘Let’s go meet our daughter…’
Lily ‘Little Bean’ Storm was born at a quarter after midnight and her mother and father, wilting with exhaustion, couldn’t stop staring at her, her perfect little fingers, her cherubic cheeks, the fine smattering of black hair on her tiny head.
‘I can’t get over how beautiful she is,’ whispered Jess, shaking her head. Theo smiled, kissing his exhausted wife’s temple.
‘I can. She looks like you. Jessie, you have given me the world.’
Jess’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You are my world, Theo. You and Bean.’
‘Forever.’
‘Forever.’ She agreed and they kissed until the sun came up on a new day, the first day, of their new life.
The End.
Sneak Peak of Masquerade (A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance)
By Michelle Love
When award-winning writer Elliana Moretti is hired by billionaire philanthropist Aldo Costanza to write his biography, she travels to his secluded mansion outside Venice to interview him. Over the course of six weeks on intensive one-on-one collaborations, an attraction between them emerges and one night, that attraction develops into a full-blown fling, erotic and intense. The night leaves Elli feeling as if she has been unprofessional, and she tells Aldo that while she enjoyed the night, it can never happen again.
Aldo accepts this with seeming good grace, but one night, he asks her to escort him to a society party, where she is stunned to meet an old friend, Indio Navaro – her high school crush and noted bad boy billionaire. Indio and Aldo seem acquainted if a little reserved with each other, and Elli wonders what the story is between them. Aldo is more than happy to trash Indio to Elli later that night, telling her that Indio was responsible for breaking up one of Aldo’s relationships with a girl that later ended up murdered.
Elli is horrified, but Aldo’s story doesn’t seem to fit with how she remembers Indio from school.
Indio approaches Elli in a café in Venice, and curious, she agrees to have lunch with him. Elli’s old crush is charming and appears genuinely interested in her and Elli begins to doubt Aldo’s story. Soon, she and Indio are spending more time together, to Aldo’s great jealousy, and Elli finds herself giving her body, her trust and her heart to Indio. But when Elli finds she is being stalked, she has to wonder whether Indio is indeed more dangerous that she could ever expect. Has she fallen in love with a killer…or her savior?
Does she trust her client Aldo, or does she follow her heart and believe Indio when he tells her that Aldo is the one she should be afraid of?
Set in the swirling, colorful romance of Venice’s Carnival, Elli has to figure which one of her admirers plays the best game in an erotic but deadly Masquerade…
Venice, Italy
December
Elliana Moretti pulled her too-thin coat around her as she hurried over the bridges and through the small streets of Venice to work. An ice storm had blown through the city, and as usual, Elli had been completely unprepared for it, just like she was always coming home to an empty refrigerator.
At twenty-eight, Elli had made a name for herself as a tenacious investigative journalist and had focused on her career entirely. Her beauty was useful, getting her through the door of places she might otherwise have been refused, but once she had her prey on her hook, her intelligence and talent were what most people admired about her.
Looking in the mirror in her tiny bathroom, she could never quite see what beauty there was in her. Thick dark hair, usually piled up on top of her head with a pencil or pen sticking out of it, dark brown eyes, a face which she still thought chubby, golden skin from her mother’s half Indian ancestry. But men seemed to be attracted her to her, and indeed the women’s magazines here in Italy were always asking her to do a photo shoot or an interview for a puff piece about her.
It just didn’t interest Elli. She got annoyed when her physical attributes were all people saw. Vivienne, her American Editor-in-Chief, told her to suck it up. “It’s the way of the world, Elli. You’ve proved over and over again that you’re more than your looks. Don’t let it get to you.”
Elli was determined to do her part in changing that attitude.
Today, the magazine, a women-led political and social monthly, was hosting a lunch for Aldo Costanza, a philanthropist billionaire who had recently relocated to Venice from Rome. Vivienne had told Elli that the man was thinking of investing heavily in the magazine.
“It would mean the magazine could go international,” Vivienne was excited, Elli could see that. “It would mean I could send my top journalist abroad to dig out the stories she really wants to write,” Vivienne added, with a meaningful look at a grinning Elli.
“Well, in that case…” Elli chuckled, enthused by her boss’s excitement.
Now, as Elli walked briskly through the frozen Venice streets, she was trying to compile in her head a list of stories she had wanted to go deep into, the possibilities that lay ahead. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t see the car as she walked across the road. Someone shouted a warning, and she looked up to see the car bearing down on her. She jumped back and slipped, crashing to the cold, hard ground, and slamming her head against the stone. The car skimmed past her without stopping.
For a second, dazed, she lay there, head whirling, until she felt someone crouch down beside her. “Are you alright?”
Elli pushed herself into a sitting position, still stunned. A man, a tall, broad-shouldered gorgeous man smiled down at her. “You’re bleeding, Bella.”
He pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to her forehead. “Should I call an ambulance?”
Elli was horrified and tried to get up. “No, I’m fine. Thank you for stopping to help me. It was just a fall…” She swallowed hard when she saw the amount of blood on the man’s handkerchief, and her head whirled. The man wasn’t smiling now.
“Sweet one, I think we should go get you checked out anyway…you might need stitches.”
In one swift movement, he had swept her up into his arms and was carrying her towards his huge black Mercedes. Elli wanted to protest, but she couldn’t form the words. God, her head was killing her…damn, what if she’d cracked her skull? Today, of all days? Of anyone, Elli would hate to let Vivienne down; her boss was like her big sister as well as her mentor, her heroine.
The man put her in the back of his car and got in beside her, calling an order to his driver. He cradled her in his arms. Elli felt her body get cold – was she in shock? It was just a fall, goddamn it…but her head whirled, and she felt faint and nauseous. Her savior stroked her hair back from the wound on her forehead.
“Sweetheart, you must stay awake for me…what’s your name?”
“Elliana.”
“A name as beautiful as its owner.”
She tried to focus on his face. Dark hazel eyes, stubble, light brown hair cropped close to his head. He looked vaguely familiar but now there were black spots in her vision, and her chest felt tight.
“Elli, don’t pass out on me now…”
But a few seconds later, she could not hold back the blackness anymore and fainted.
Elli woke on a gurney in a hospital room. She blinked a couple of times, felt pain sear through her skull. She moaned quietly then heard a scrape of a chair on linoleum.
“Elli? Welcome back.”
She tried to smile at him. “What happened?”
“You have a severe concussion, Bella, and they’ve stitched your head wound. You’ll be okay, but you’ll have to stay here for a day or two.”
Elli sat up in horror, ignoring the pull of the i.v. tube in her arm. “No…no, I can’t, I have to work. I have to be there today.” She could feel herself starting to panic, and he sat on the side of her bed and held her hands.
“Sweet one, let me call your workplace – where do you work?”
Elli tried to breathe deeply. “Il Mondo Italia. We’re a...”
“Magazine, yes I know,” he said, grinning. “I’m a subscriber.”
Elli was astonished. “You are?”
He laughed. “Of course. And as you are Elliana, you must be Elliana Moretti. Your work is the reason I subscribe.”
She gaped at him. “That’s not true.”
“Hand on my heart.” He stuck out his hand and, chuckling slightly, she shook it. “Hi, Elliana Moretti…I’m Aldo Constanza.”
Vivienne Marche’s eyes grew huge as she saw her best friend and top journalist Elli, complete with a head wound and a pale face, being escorted into the magazine’s offices by Aldo Constanza. Not only that but the way Aldo was looking at her young friend, Vivienne could see he was enchanted.
Aldo greeted her warmly. “Vivienne, how wonderful to see you again. This little one insisted on bringing me today, despite her little accident. Elli, please sit down before you fall down.”
Vivienne helped Elli into her seat as Aldo explained what had happened. Vivienne could see the embarrassment in Elli’s eyes, her lovely face bruised and bloodied. She took her friend’s hand as Aldo was telling her what the doctors had said. “She has a severe concussion, and I think she should have gone straight home, but she insisted on bringing me here.”
Vivienne’s heart warmed. That was just like Elli. She pressed her lips to Elli’s temple. “You are a peach,” she said, “but I’m sending you home right now, El. I’ll arrange a cab.”
“No, please, I insist my driver take her home.” Aldo was firm, and so in a few minutes, Vivienne was tucking Elli into the warm backseat of Aldo Constanza’s limousine.
“You take as long as you need, El. I don’t want you back until you’re well.”
Elli smiled gratefully at her. “I’m so sorry about this, Viv.”
“Don’t be silly.” Vivienne leaned in closer, “If anything, you’ve broken the ice with Constanza…it’s just a shame you had to do it with your head.”
Filthy Commitments: A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 131