No Promises: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Michelle Love

  When he saw her, his already maddened eyes flashed with fury. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Sailor stood her ground. “I’ve come to talk to you.”

  Claudio gave a rough, mirthless laugh. “What makes you think I want to talk to you, whore? Not satisfied with fucking and killing my sister, you want a go at me? Is that it? You think you can make things better? You wanna fuck? Let’s fuck!”

  Too late, Sailor realized how drunk he was, and as he bore down on her, she saw the boxcutter was still in his hand and terror flooded through her. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain.

  Bodhi listened to his son trying to teach his daughter how to play chess. He grinned when he saw Tim rolling his eyes. “She’s a little young for that, yet, maybe?”

  Tim shook his head. “Evan taught me when I was three, Dad.”

  Bodhi hid a grin. He no longer felt any resentment towards Evan Teal when Tim regaled him of how the other man had brought him up; he just felt gratitude.

  “Yeah, but you’re a nerd,” Bodhi teased his son, who shrugged good-naturedly.

  “Yup, and proud of it.”

  Bodhi laughed and turned back to the computer. Internet access was sketchy at best out here in the countryside, but he’d finally managed to get online. He opened his emails and groaned. This wasn’t good—multiple emails from Emily Moore, his manager back in the States. All were titled ‘Urgent! Call me!’

  He grabbed his cell phone and went out into the garden. Whatever Emily had to say, it couldn’t be good. “Hey, Em, what’s up?”

  Emily sounded breathless. “God, Bodhi, I’m so glad you called. Look … there’s no easy way to say this. The press has new photos of you and Sailor.”

  Adrenaline coursed through Bodhi’s system. “What? What photos?”

  Emily cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Explicit photos. Of you and Sailor at your place in Italy. The tabloids are running them today. They’ll be international by later this afternoon. They’re using the excuse that it’s the anniversary of Tim’s abduction, and those videos of you, Sailor and Soleil—which, of course, they’re re-running. “

  “Fuck.” Bodhi rubbed his hand over his eyes. “How the hell did they get them?”

  Too late he remembered the mystery car. “Aw, shit.” He told Emily about it, and she hissed in frustration. Bodhi shook his head. Not this again.

  “How the hell did they find out about this place?”

  Emily sighed. “I honestly have no idea. We’ve questioned our staff, the few who knew about it, and only one is AWOL at the moment, so it could have been him. If it was him, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “It’s not your fault. Look,” he said after a few moments. “What is it they’ve got? Pictures of me having sex with my fiancée? Hardly salacious, and to drag up what happened five years ago … Jesus. Scumbags.”

  He had calmed down now. The invasion of privacy was disgusting, but nothing unusual in his line of work. He just felt bad for Sailor being dragged into it again. “Look, it’ll blow over. I’ll try and keep the kids off the Internet, and find someone here who can build a security fence around this place. Damn it, I was hoping to finally give Sailor a home without walls.”

  Emily apologized again, and after he’d ended the call, he went back in to tell his mother what had happened.

  Vittoria shrugged. “It’s happened before and you survived. So, what harm can it do now?”

  She felt the tip of the boxcutter against her throat and wondered if it would hurt much when Claudio sliced her open.

  “Open your eyes,” he said gruffly, and she did. “What the hell are you, of all people, doing in my home? Haven’t I made it abundantly clear you are not welcome?”

  He moved a step back and put the knife down. Sailor breathed again, but Claudio still looked enraged. She could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. “Today of all days,” he muttered to himself and with a shock, Sailor realized what a miscalculation she had made.

  It was Soleil’s birthday. Claudio’s brilliant, beautiful, wonderful sister would have been forty years old today. Sailor took a deep breath in.

  “I’m sorry, Claudio. I miss Soleil, too, very much.”

  He raised a hand and pointed at her, his anger volcanic. “You don’t get to say her name. You took everything from me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying you’re fucking sorry! Get out of here!”

  She shook her head, terrified but determined. No matter what abuse Claudio subjected her to, she would not leave without exhausting every hope that she could of reconciling him with Bodhi, if not herself. Claudio stalked over to her and grabbed her wrist, tugging her out of the workshop and toward her car. But then he seemed to change his mind and dragged her into the house, locking the door behind him.

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  Sailor shook her head, and Claudio grinned nastily. “Then no one will come looking for you.”

  “Vittoria knows.” The look in his eyes was scaring her. “She knows I’m here.”

  Claudio chewed his lip. “So what? So what if they come for me? I could still kill you, Sailor King. I’ve nothing to lose by it.”

  “You’re not a murderer, Claudio.”

  Claudio grabbed the hair at the back of her head and forced her into the kitchen, throwing her onto a chair and looking around. “Who says? Who says I couldn’t kill you, you little bitch?”

  Sailor tried to keep her voice steady, but it was difficult. “You’re drunk, you’re hurting. You have every right to be angry at me, every right. But, please, don’t leave my little girl without a mother.” Her voice broke at the end of the sentence.

  Claudio remained unmoved. “Soleil never got the chance to be a mother,” he barked at her. “So why should you?”

  Sailor closed her eyes. She didn’t really believe he would kill her; he was just hurting so badly that he was lashing out. She studied him as he paced. His hair had grown wild; his handsome face marked and lined with grief; his hazel eyes stricken. So much pain. Sailor cursed Bartholomew Foy all over again. Claudio seemed to read her mind.

  “It was your father who ordered her murder,” he said, his voice calming now, almost cold. “An eye for an eye seems a good idea right now.”

  Sailor was silent. Maybe if she let him rant himself out … Then Claudio did something that made her stomach curl with terror. He grabbed a dish cloth, tore into strips, and bound her hands behind her, to the chair.

  “The police told me someone held her back while the killer stabbed her. She couldn’t defend herself … so why should you be able?”

  The feeling of being tied to chair made Sailor’s body tremble. Memories flooded back. Her father. The knife. The pain. She couldn’t help the whimper of fear that escaped her. Claudio pulled up a chair and sat in front of her. Sailor only reined in her screams because he wasn’t armed. Claudio studied her before he spoke, Sailor smelled whiskey and cigarettes on his breath.

  “You are beautiful. When I first met you, I admit, I had a crush. I know Soleil liked you … hell, there was proof all over the news that she liked you, wasn’t there? You fucked her … did you actually desire her too, or were you just using her to get your rocks off?”

  “I loved her,” Sailor said softly, figuring honesty was the only thing which could save her now. “I loved her. Maybe not in the same way I love Bodhi, but yes, I wanted her that day and she wanted me. It was one of the happiest days of my life, and when Soleil died, a part of me died too. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to bring her back, but I can’t. If I had known Bart Foy …”

  “Your father.”

  Sailor choked on the words. “My father—in biology only—if I had known he would kill her … I would have swapped places with her in a heartbeat. I loved her, Claudio.”

  Claudio got up suddenly, pacing around the room, and Sailor saw that she had gotten through to him—a little. After a few tense minutes, he sat down.

&nb
sp; “Tell me.”

  Sailor was confused. “Tell you what?”

  “Everything. From as far back as you can remember. Tell me everything about how you were raised, what Bartie Foy was like.”

  Sailor let out a shuddery breath. He was doing it to torture her. Okay, then, let him, she thought. She told him everything, about her mother, about Tilly, about her destiny to be his wife. “He wanted to fuck me, Claudio. My own father. And, as he always wanted to be seen as pure and a good man, I have no doubt that he would have murdered me eventually, to stop me talking about his incestuous violence.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” Claudio’s voice was like ice. Sailor shook her head.

  “No. You asked me to tell you, and I’m telling you. The day I met Bodie, I had escaped from Bart but was working for his agent, Maurice Winston. Winston tried to rape me, and Bodhi saved me. It seems so prosaic to say it, but we really did fall in love quickly. He wanted to protect me.”

  “Which is why he asked Solly to pose as his girlfriend? To protect your whereabouts?”

  Sailor nodded. “And she agreed without hesitation.”

  Claudio looked down at his hands and was silent for a long time. All Sailor could hear was his ragged breathing and the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. When Claudio looked up again, there were tears in his angry eyes.

  “They stabbed her twenty-seven times. Twenty-seven. The medical examiner said twenty-two of those stab wounds were fatal in and of themselves. He gutted my sister. By the time the doctor officially declared her dead, she had bled out entirely. Solly didn’t stand a chance.”

  “I know,” Sailor said in a whisper. “I’m so sorry, Claudio.”

  His face hardened. “So, who could blame me for doing the same to you, Sailor?” And he got up and grabbed a lethal-looking bread knife.

  Sailor closed her eyes and waited to die. Somehow, in her heart, she knew this had been inevitable, that her happiness was temporary, that she was destined to die young. Oh my God, Bodhi, Solly, Tim … I love you, I love you … goodbye.

  She felt Claudio rip open the bodice of her dress …

  Bodhi tried Sailor’s cell phone again, his heart beating faster and faster. Why wasn’t she answering? He cursed, not seeing his mother behind him holding Solly.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” repeated Solly cheerfully until her grandmother shushed her. Vittoria studied her son. “What is it?”

  Bodhi took his daughter and hugged her before answering. Solly wriggled in his arms. “I can’t get hold of Sailor. I would have thought her phone would be on, especially in a city.”

  Vittoria looked guilty, and Bodhi squinted his eyes at her. “What? What’s going on?”

  Vittoria hesitated then sighed. “Look, I promised I wouldn’t tell, but Sailor’s not in the city.”

  A thrill of fear went through Bodhi. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  Vittoria cut her eyes at Solly, who was now singing “Hell, fuck, hell, fuck.” Bodhi took his daughter back inside and gave her to Tim. “Look after your sister for a minute, would you?”

  Going back outside, Bodhi glared at his mother. “What’s going on? And don’t lie. You have a terrible poker face.”

  Vittoria sighed. “She’s gone to see Claudio.”

  Bodhi paled, and for a moment, he thought he might collapse. “No. God, Mom, no … why?”

  “She wants to heal the friendship between you both.”

  Bodhi went cold. “Shit, Mom … no, Claudio isn’t in a good headspace right now … Jesus, I have to go.”

  Vittoria followed him in. “What is it, Bodhi? Why are you so scared?”

  “Don’t you know Claudio blames Sailor for Soleil’s murder?”

  “Yes, I know, but how do you know …?”

  “Because I’ve had a private investigator on him for these last years,” Bodhi said, almost panicking now. “And Maceo Bartoli called me after he went to see him. His paintings … he hasn’t shown in years and you know why? Because every single one of his paintings is him killing Sailor. All of them. Maceo Bartoli sounded sick to his stomach when he called me. I’ve had Claudio watched to protect my fiancée … and now she’s delivered herself straight to him.”

  Vittoria looked alarmed. “God, Bodhi … here, take my SUV. Go, go.”

  Bodhi nodded. “Keep trying her cell phone,” he said, “and if she answers, tell her to get the hell out of there. I hope to God we’re not too late.”

  Claudio ripped open Sailor’s dress, with every intention of plunging the knife he gripped into her, but then he was brought up cold. Shock. The pattern of jagged silver scars across her belly reminded him. Sailor had been stabbed too. She had given herself up for certain death to protect Tim, to make some good come out of a terrible situation. Claudio stared at her scarred belly, rising and falling as she took shallow breaths, obviously anticipating the pain.

  You are not a murderer. Claudio dropped the knife with a clang and sank onto the floor, resting his head on Sailor’s knees. “God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  He began to weep, reaching behind her to untie her hands. What the hell was he thinking? How did him killing Sailor help anything? He began to sob in earnest, throwing himself away from her, into the corner of the room, his head in his hands.

  Solly, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He’d never gotten over seeing her dead, pale, silent on the mortuary table. He’d ripped off the cloth covering her so he could see what Foy had done to her. Those patterns of wounds. he’d never forgotten. Now, seeing Sailor’s scars, he realized he’d been blaming the wrong person all along.

  He felt Sailor sit beside him. At first, he wanted to move away, but when she wrapped her arms around his head and pulled it into her chest to comfort him, his own arms snaked around her waist, and he held her tightly as they both cried.

  After a while, they were both silent but carried on holding each other.

  “I’m so sorry, Claudio,” Sailor murmured, her lips against his hair. “I’m so, so sorry. I would do anything to bring her back, anything.”

  Claudio looked up, wiping the tears from his face, then sweeping a finger on Sailor’s cheek to wiped away the dampness there. “I know; me, too. I just get past it, Sailor. I can’t.”

  “I wish I could tell you a way of dealing with the grief, but the truth is I’ve never known either. When Tilly died … I thought I would spend the rest of my life screaming, it hurt so bad. Is that what you feel?”

  Claudio nodded. “Every waking moment—and I don’t think I’ve slept much in the last five years.” He sighed, closing his eyes, felt Sailor cup his cheek in her palm, leaning into it. “I’m sorry, Sailor.”

  “Don’t apologize; there’s no need. There isn’t a day since Soleil’s death when I haven’t felt responsible.”

  “But you’re not. I see that now. What he did to you … your own father … was monstrous.”

  “He was no more my father than he was a human being, Claudio,” she said fiercely. “I was dying, and yet when I saw Bodhi kill him, all I felt was relief. Relief that even if I died— and I was convinced I was already dead—that Bart Foy couldn’t do this to anyone else. If I’d had the chance, I would have done it myself. But sadly, I didn’t have much time to plan it.”

  “Bodhi said you broke your own arm to get to the hospital.”

  She nodded, half-smiling. “Not one of my best ideas, but it did the trick. I hid a scalpel and some scissors in the cast, but they found them.”

  Claudio smiled and brushed the hair away from her face. “You sacrificed yourself for Tim.”

  “What else could I have done? I had to end it one way or another.”

  He gazed at her for a long time. Sailor had become perhaps even more of a beautiful woman as she outgrew her puppy fat, although she still retained the curves that made men weep, Claudio thought. He felt ashamed. This young woman had been through hell, and he had just almost killed her for no reason. “You said you have a daughter?”

 
; She nodded. “I was two weeks pregnant when Bart stabbed me. She’s a little badass. She survived it, and now she’s four and running us ragged.”

  “She takes after her mom.”

  Sailor smiled a little hesitantly. “Her name is Soleil,” she said softly, and Claudio felt a thrill of pleasure rip through him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, tears on his cheeks again. He gathered himself. “Do you have a photograph?” Sailor nodded and got up to find her purse. She saw she had a raft of calls from Bodhi, but restrained herself from calling him. Talking to Claudio was the priority now. She found some photos of Solly and handed him her phone. Claudio smiled as he looked at her daughter.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said softly. Sailor stood next to him and put her head on his shoulder.

  “She would love to know you.”

  Claudio handed her the phone, his face stricken with grief. “I can’t …”

  “Just think about is all I ask,” Sailor said, and pressed her lips to his forehead.

  Claudio rubbed his face, looked deep in thought for a long moment. “Sailor … I would like your help with something.”

  “Anything.”

  He held up his hand. “It may shock you, or upset you, but I think it has to be done.”

  “Okay.” She had no idea where he was going with this. Claudio beckoned her.

  “Come with me.”

  He led her back to his workshop and shoved open the door wide. He motioned for her to follow him to the back of the room. A stack of canvas lay there, and Sailor saw that there were maybe fifteen or twenty, covered with a tarpaulin. Claudio hesitated, then removed the tarp.

  Sailor rocked back. The first canvas was unmistakably her, dead, butchered. She gave a small cry and backed off.

  Claudio raised his hand. “Please. Don’t be afraid. I’m not showing you to hurt you. These paintings … they are the result of my fear, my grief. I mean you no harm, Sailor, I swear. I would like you to help me burn these. I don’t want to be reminded of my … unjustified … feelings now. Let’s burn these and put an end to it.”