Protecting His Defiant Innocent

by Michelle Smart

  But she couldn’t continue. The words wouldn’t come, not with Felipe’s nostrils flaring as he breathed deeply, staring at her as if she were a stranger.

  She’d heard many tones of voice from him but never had she heard such steely coldness as when he said, ‘My offer is the most I’m prepared to give. Take it or leave it.’

  The rip in her heart was so acute her knees almost buckled beneath her.

  Somehow she managed to hold on, to keep herself upright, to eye him squarely. ‘I choose to leave it.’

  Total silence filled the room.

  For a long time they did nothing but stare at each other.

  Felipe was the one to break it. He nodded curtly. ‘Then there is nothing left for us to say. I thank you for your hospitality. I will be in touch with instructions for tomorrow.’

  Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the armoury, leaving her with nothing but the shattered remains of her wineglass and her head spinning at how quickly everything had disintegrated between them.

  * * *

  Francesca woke on her bedroom’s sofa. The fire she’d lit had burnt to cinders, the room cold enough for her breath to mist.

  Swinging her legs round, a pain shot through her neck. Great. She’d cricked it.

  Her phone had fallen onto the floor. Holding a hand to her neck for support, she picked it up to check the time. Four o’clock in the morning.

  She hadn’t thought she would sleep. She’d curled up on the sofa unable to face getting in the bed that would have still been warm from their lovemaking, thinking she would wait it out until the sun came up.

  Then she noticed a text message had come through.

  She hesitated before swiping her thumb to open it.

  A driver will collect you at your apartment at one p.m. to take you to the airport. Change into your dress before landing. You will be flown directly to Caballeros from Aguadilla.

  It came from a number she didn’t recognise but she didn’t need to recognise it to know it came from Felipe. She’d shown him the dress she’d planned to wear to the Governor’s party, anxious that he approved, not from a fashion point of view but from a safety aspect. Whatever promises had been made to him regarding her safety, the Governor’s lecherous stares had given her the creeps. She wouldn’t give him an inch of flesh to leer at.

  She turned her phone off and staggered to the unmade bed.

  She closed her eyes and swayed, the spinning in her head returning with a vengeance.

  As she counted to ten, a pain, much like she imagined a punch in the stomach would feel, hit her, making her double over.

  It took a long time to pass.

  When she opened her eyes something black caught her eye, poking out from under her bed.

  It was Felipe’s black T-shirt with the punk band’s album printed on it.

  * * *

  Felipe checked his messages.

  Nothing new had come in since he’d last looked a minute ago. That was good.

  All his men were in position. They’d run through the drill for all eventualities enough times that if anything should happen their reactions would be automatic.

  He didn’t expect anything to happen now. The Governor had called him personally to apologise for what the men had been planning and given his assurances that Francesca’s safety and her entire project in Pieta’s memory was guaranteed.

  Felipe would not take anything for granted. The cash still needed to be handed over. Until that was done he knew he wouldn’t be able to breathe easily.

  A car appeared.

  He checked his watch.

  She was exactly on time.

  James, who’d been waiting with Felipe by the Cessna, for once keeping his mouth shut, opened the back passenger door.

  Francesca stepped out.

  She’d shown him the dress she intended to wear. On the hanger, he’d thought it imminently suitable for the occasion, with its high rounded neck and long sleeves. Professional and elegant was the look she wanted to achieve, dressing for a party that was, for her, purely business.

  She’d achieved it.

  The black dress had delicate embroidered colours running the length of it and fell to her knees, lightly caressing her body. On her feet she wore electric blue high heels and carried a matching clutch bag. Her hair gleamed and hung loose like a waterfall.

  His throat closed.

  She looked stunning.

  She met his eye. There was a moment of total stillness where not even the breeze stirred. He caught the briefest flash of emotion in her gaze before she inclined her head in greeting and walked the few paces towards him.

  He turned and extended a hand to the open door of the Cessna, indicating for her to get in.

  She obeyed the wordless gesture and climbed the stairs, her heels clanging on the metal steps, a cloud of her perfume trailing behind her.

  Felipe gritted his teeth and followed her on board.

  He had come close to bowing out of the whole operation and letting Seb take the lead on it. He’d got as close as calling Seb to tell him of the new plan but had found himself unable go through with it.

  Despite the dark bitterness that curdled his insides at their angry parting, he could not bring himself to put her safety in someone else’s hands.

  The accusations she’d thrown at him...

  He couldn’t think of that now. He never wanted to think of it or think of her again.

  When she was seated he showed her a tiny gold pin, no bigger than a centimetre in diameter.

  ‘Wear this as a brooch. It has a tracking device in it.’

  He dropped it into her open hand and watched her pin it securely.

  James, who was sitting in front of them, watching his phone for the pin’s signal, gave the thumbs up.

  The Cessna rumbled down the runway and was soon in the air, flying high over the Caribbean Sea.

  During the short journey from Aguadilla to Caballeros, he once again ran through the game plan with Seb and James.

  Francesca didn’t join in with the conversation.

  If it wasn’t for her perfume, filling the small cabin with its heady scent, filling him, he could tune her out entirely.

  All he had to do was get this evening over with and then he could wash his hands of Francesca Pellegrini for ever.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TWINKLING FAIRY LIGHTS hung round the perimeter of the Governor’s residence. Francesca looked at them, distaste rising through her as she thought of how half the island’s electricity was still down almost three weeks on from the hurricane.

  Her disgust grew when they entered the residence and discovered hundreds of people dressed to the nines. Squeals of laughter and raucous laughs echoed throughout. In the centre of the first room they were taken through to, was an enormous champagne fountain.

  They found the Governor outside by his swimming pool wearing a white tuxedo, surrounded by a group of giggling women in bikinis young enough to be his granddaughters. The tall woman who’d first led her to him a week ago stood a short distance behind them, keeping guard, wearing a different white outfit than she’d worn then.

  The Governor saw them and excused himself from his eager sycophants.

  He greeted them like long-lost friends but with a wary eye at Felipe and asked about their journey, in English, polite talk that made Francesca think that whoever Felipe had got to put the screws on this man had tightened them like a vice.

  She had to bite her cheek to prevent laughter escaping. She didn’t doubt it would have a hysterical quality to it.

  She had to keep her focus.

  The Governor led them to his study, refusing even to let his all-in-white female shadow enter the room.

  ‘Before we get down to busines
s, a drink?’

  He produced a bottle of brandy from the cabinet behind his desk.

  ‘Why not?’ she said before Felipe could say anything.

  She might despise the Governor but she saw little point in antagonising him. The hospital still needed to be built and she would prefer his goodwill while it was being done.

  He poured three hefty measures and handed them round. ‘To new friends.’

  Without meaning to, she caught Felipe’s eye, then quickly looked away and took too big a sip of the brandy.

  It was easier to manage the entire situation if she kept him in the periphery of her vision rather than look at him directly.

  She’d discovered that when she’d stepped out of the car at the airfield. She’d taken one look at him and had wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to never let her go.

  She hadn’t allowed herself to think of him since she’d got back to her apartment soon after the sun had come up, his T-shirt chucked in a bag which she’d intended to give back to him. Then she’d set to work. She’d stripped the bedsheets and boil-washed them, cleaned and polished, vacuumed every inch of flooring, all the while refusing to allow the nausea and dizziness that kept racking her to derail her from her mission.

  Then she had packed her evening dress and some clean clothes to change into for the return flight home and waited to be collected.

  She hadn’t expected him to be the one to collect her but that hadn’t stopped her belly dropping with disappointment when she’d opened the door to find Seb there.

  She hadn’t expected him to be on the plane either but, again, unmistakable disappointment had punched her to find she would be making the flight with only Seb and the cabin crew for company.

  By the time they landed in Aguadilla, with no sign of Felipe at the main airport, she’d convinced herself that he wouldn’t be there at all, so to see him when they entered the airfield, standing in front of the Cessna, had hit her like another punch.

  At least she’d had a minute to compose herself before having to get out of the car and face him looking so sickeningly handsome in a black tuxedo. He could wear anything and he would still be sexiest man in a thousand mile radius.

  She didn’t know what she’d expected to see in his eyes when she faced him. Acrimony? Disgust? But apart from one brief flash of emotion, which she could quite easily have imagined, there had been nothing there. His eyes were blank.

  He’d reverted back to the authoritative, arrogant man she’d first met a whole lifetime of a week ago.

  The brandy burned then numbed her throat. She welcomed it. If she drank the whole glass it might numb the rest of her twisting insides too.

  ‘I wish to apologise for the behaviour of my staff member,’ the Governor said, settling on his captain’s chair. ‘I was very shocked when I heard.’

  I just bet you were.

  ‘I have your assurance it won’t happen again?’ she asked pleasantly.

  ‘You have my word.’ He said it as if his word should mean something. Then his left eye twitched. ‘You have the money?’

  She glanced at Felipe without fully looking at him.

  He placed the briefcase he’d been carrying since they left the Cessna on the desk. Only then did she notice the glint of metal around his wrist.

  She’d been avoiding looking directly at him so effectively that she’d failed to see he’d handcuffed the briefcase to his wrist.

  He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the cuffs.

  The briefcase sprang open. He twisted it around and pushed it to the Governor.

  The older man flicked through the case, nodding his approval, then pulled open a drawer and removed a stack of papers. He handed them to Francesca.

  ‘The deeds to the site. We both sign them.’

  Tempted though she was to read them quickly, she made herself sit down and read it through properly.

  Written in English, it was concise and unambiguous. When she put her name to it the site would belong to Pieta’s foundation.

  Thirty minutes after entering the Governor’s study the job was complete.

  Before they left his office, Felipe turned to him and fired off something in Spanish.

  She didn’t have a clue what he said but the Governor’s face went as white as his teeth.

  She had a feeling the hospital would be built without any problems whatsoever.

  * * *

  Felipe rode up front with James on the drive back to the airport, leaving Francesca in the back with Seb.

  The stars twinkling in the black sky reminded her of a purer version of the Governor’s fairy lights. Thank God she’d never have to see him again.

  Soon she would never see Felipe again either. Her part in the project was over.

  His jet waited on the runway exactly where they’d left it.

  She would travel back to Pisa alone. Felipe and the others had another plane coming to collect them in the morning, taking them on to whatever dangerous part of the world they were working in next.

  Fighting a closing throat, Francesca said, ‘Thank you, gentlemen, for everything you’ve done for me.’

  James turned his head to look at her.

  ‘No worries,’ he said. Was that sadness she saw in his grin? ‘It’s been fun.’

  She gave a hollow laugh. ‘I think that’s enough of that kind of fun for me. Keep safe.’

  With James and Seb’s farewells echoing in her ears, she got out of the car.

  Felipe, who hadn’t exchanged a direct word with her since giving her the tracking pin, got out with her and shut the door behind him.

  They stood by the car in a silence that grew tauter with every passing second.

  He was close enough for her to raise her hand and touch him but the distance between them was greater than it had ever been.

  She wished he’d never made his offer of a house. She wished she’d never had that leap of joy when she’d misinterpreted the offer as one of a home for them both. She wished she was still ignorant of the extent of her feelings for him.

  Felipe was a lone wolf without roots, roaming with his pack but apart, never breaching the distance he’d created with them. He would never settle down, not in one place and not with one person. His wounds from his past were too deep.

  She was more of a homing pigeon. She needed her roots and her family.

  Telling herself all this didn’t stop the crushing weight in her chest at all that could have been and all that had been lost.

  ‘I congratulate you on getting the deeds,’ he said stiffly. His eyes rested in the distance over her shoulder. ‘You did well.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She put her fingers to her neck and to the pulse beating frantically in it. It felt like her heart was crying.

  The door to the jet opened and one of the cabin crew put his put his head out. ‘Control’s been on the radio. We have ten minutes to get airborne.’

  Now Felipe did meet her eye, and in that glance she thought she saw a glimpse of all the misery and pain she felt inside herself.

  And then he turned and got back in the car.

  * * *

  Felipe wouldn’t allow James to drive away until the plane carrying Francesca was indistinguishable from the stars themselves.

  ‘We can go now,’ he said bleakly.

  In silence, James pulled away.

  Felipe rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. He could still feel her breath on his face.

  His heart had never felt heavier.

  Dios, he could still hear her laughter ringing in his ears, like an echo.

  He had to stop this. She’d made her choice. What he had to offer and what she wanted were worlds apart.

  ‘Are you okay, boss?’ James asked. F
or once his tone was serious.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘No reason. You look like you have something on your mind, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t.’

  ‘Funny job we do, isn’t it?’ James said, ignoring the ‘shut up’ warning tone Felipe had just given him. ‘Putting our bodies on the line every day for people we don’t know and half the time don’t even like, preparing to take a bullet for each other, but ask us to put our hearts on the line for someone special and we run away screaming like frightened schoolboys.’

  ‘James?’

  ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  * * *

  Two weeks later and Felipe could still hear James’s words as fresh and as painful as when he’d first uttered them.

  ‘Ask us to put our hearts on the line for someone special and we run away screaming like frightened schoolboys.’

  Is that what he was doing? Running away?

  He’d been upfront with Francesca from the start. She was the one who’d changed. He’d never lied about his feelings. He’d offered her an inch and she’d wanted a mile. She’d wanted more than he was capable of giving. Much more.

  He’d seen it in her eyes, a hope for something he could never give her.

  He wouldn’t even be thinking of her if Daniele hadn’t just called him to discuss protection for his men during the hospital’s construction.

  They’d come to the end of the conversation before he’d asked the question that had played on his lips since he’d first heard Daniele’s voice. ‘How’s Francesca? Keeping out of trouble?’