by Lucy Monroe
Salvatore gasped. ‘Elisa… ”
She’d looked down and then she’d screamed. The sound still echoed in his mind because it was a sound so full of torment it had gutted him, still gutted him every time he thought of it.
She had lost the baby before they left the apartment and had to be sedated to be moved. They had almost lost her from hemorrhaging.
She had ignored him when he went to see her the first few days out of the hospital. It had not mattered what he said, whether he kissed her or touched her. She’d pretended he was not there. He had gone on the fourth day, hoping she would be better only to discover she had checked herself out.
She hadn’t gone back to work, and with all his security training he still did not know where she spent the four weeks following her short stay in the hospital.
Elisa woke up to the sound of her own scream. Her heart was drumming against her chest her body was clammy with sweat.
She reached for the lamp beside the bed and encountered hairy, male skin.
‘Cara are you all right?” What was Salvatore doing in her bedroom? Then she remembered. Her new bodyguard. Until the auction was over.
‘lt was just a dream.” She shook with the shocking cold the dream always brought with it. ‘No need for you to come tearing to my rescue.”
‘lt sounded more like a nightmare.” His voice reflected not even a whisper of irritation with her short temper. ‘Were you dreaming about the baby?”
‘yes. What made you ask?” Surely he could not know about the dreams that haunted her.
‘you screamed the same way you did when you realized you had lost it.”
‘I didn’t know nightmare screams came with tonal indicators to tell you what event they harked back to ”
‘This is not a cry I am ever likely to forget.”
Her breath shuddered out of her along with any defiance. She hated the aftermath of the dream almost as much as the nightmare itself.
‘1 am sorry ” She didn’t ask what for. She didn’t need to. He’d told her in the hospital. He blamed himself for her losing her baby. If he had ever at any point have said their baby, she might have forgiven him.
Then because she so desperately wanted him to stay, she asked him to leave. ‘1‘11 be fine. You can go back to your room now.”
He got up and left without another word. Feeling bereft and knowing she had no right to, she huddled under the covers trying to rid herself of leftover feelings from her nightmare.
A few minutes later he was back. He left the door open to the suite’s living area, where he had turned on some lights. Reflected light spilled through the opening, dispelling some of the dark shadows in her room.
He stopped beside her and handed her a hot mug. She sipped at it and almost choked on the strong spirits.
‘lt is warmed brandy. It will help you sleep.”
She nodded her thanks, unable to talk, and drank the brandy.
‘Do you have these nightmares often?” Only for the first month after she had lost the baby. ‘No, but last night I remembered.”
‘I also ” That brought her head up to look at him, but his expression was shrouded in the darkness.
‘lt wasn’t your fault.”
‘Was it not?” He turned and went to the window, drawing back the drape, and looked out into the blackness beyond. ‘The doctor told me that emotional stress can cause miscarriage and you were definitely under emotional stress because of me.”
She couldn’t deny that, but neither could she blame him for something that was no one’s fault.
She blamed him for not believing her, for accusing her of trying to trick him and for rejecting their child, but she did not hold him accountable for the death of their baby.
‘Maybe it was for the best.”
He spun back to face her. ‘What?”
‘I know what it is like to grow up an accidental baby, unwanted.” She’d thought about it a lot and as much as she had wanted her baby, she could not ignore the problems inherent in the life of a child rejected by its father before birth.
‘But you wanted this baby.” His voice was thick, almost as if he was holding back some intolerable emotion.
‘yes but you didn’t. She would have grown up wondering what was wrong with her that she wasn’t worthy of her father’s love. I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty, but so you understand that sometimes tragedies like this happen for a reason.”
‘I would have wanted my child.”
Only he hadn’t believed the baby had been his. She didn’t labor the point. The brandy was having its effect, and right now she just did not want to fight with him any more.
He didn’t give her the chance.
‘Did you feel unloved by your father?”
She sighed, trying to untangle the mess of emotions she had felt about her father during her growing-up years.
‘No. Not unloved but not particularly wanted either. I was the symbol of his one big mistake. I wasn’t the kind of daughter he could understand, not like Annemarie. I was different, not traditional, not really Sicilian. I didn’t fit and I felt that. Every summer I came to stay and reminded him that his perfect little family had a cuckoo in it.”
Salvatore sat down on the bed. ‘This hurt you.”
What was the use in denying it? ‘Yes.”
‘And your mother?”
‘She hated the very word mother but she was too independent and proud to let Salvatore have custody of me. So I spent a lot of time in boarding-school or with nannies.”
‘That is terrible.”
She shrugged. ‘lt was all right really. I hated living at home.”
‘My mother surrounds herself with sycophants and neither she nor they have any concept of commitment and caring in a relationship. It was ugly and it hurt to see my own mother hopping from one man’s bed to another so easily.”
Salvatore wanted to ask why, if that was true, she had allowed herself to become like her mother, but he didn’t. She was talking to him more freely than she had since telling him about the baby.
”So when you were an adult you settled in Italy, away from your mother.”
‘But also away from your father. Why didn’t you move to Sicily?”
‘papa is a traditional Sicilian father. If I lived near him, it would have to be with him and that would not be fair to either Therese or Annemarie.”
‘What do you mean?”
‘I would not want to disrupt their home life like that. They tolerate my visits in the summer. That’s enough ”
‘They are your family.”
‘No.” Resignation not sadness laced her voice.
‘I don’t belong.”
He felt as if he’d been kicked by a horse in the solar plexus. This woman, who had enough confidence to practically run Adamo’s business single-handedly, did not believe she had a place in her own family.
That knowledge was still haunting Salvatore the next day when he drove Elisa to work.
She was quiet, subdued, but the hostility that had marked her reaction to him the day before was missing and for that he was grateful.
‘Have you sent the invitations to the auction?” he asked her as he parked the car in front of Adamo Jewelers.
‘yes. Several people have already replied. It should be a good turn-out.”
‘I ‘ll need a copy of the guest list and those who have agreed to attend.”
‘You have stopped fighting me.”
She opened her door before he had a chance to come around and do so.
‘What’s the point? The auction is in less than two weeks. When it’s over you’ll be gone.”
She slid out of the car and did not hear his muttered,
‘Do not bet on it.”
Several hours later Elisa seriously questioned her assumption that there was no point in arguing with Salvatore. She had thought that her best defense against the feelings he engendered lay in ignoring him. It hadn’t worked. She felt as if her life had been taken ove
r by a steamroller and she was getting flattened in the process.
She and Salvatore were alone in the shop. It was close to closing time and di Adamo had already left. So had Salvatore’s men who were installing the new security system. It was not finished.
They’d run into a snafu with the old wiring and it would be tomorrow before it could be fixed.
Salvatore had been furious but there had been nothing anyone could do.
Which had given her a perverse, if silent satisfaction. He could not order the entire universe to suit his pleasure, no matter how much he might like to or what kind of kick he got out of bossing her around.
Keeping to her plan of least resistance therefore least interaction with him she had ignored or at least pretended to ignore, his constant presence. When he and di Adamo discussed her as if she were not there she acted as if that were the case. She refused to be drawn into his discussions with di Adamo regarding security measures.
She had kept her mouth shut when he dictated that he and she would stay behind to close the store. Alone. She had pretended not to notice him making reservations for dinner that night for the two of them at a restaurant they had frequented during their brief affair. Even though he’d made them right in front of her.
But this latest was just too much. She smacked the hand away that was offering her the small golden rose pin and glared up at him.
‘I am not wearing a tracking device.”
Salvatore’s brows rose but his mouth curved in satisfaction.
‘I thought you did not want to argue with me ” She felt like a tea kettle ready to boil over.
‘I don’t want to be with you at all. I thought if I didn’t argue with you, I could ignore you, but you’re determined to make that impossible aren’t you?” His dark brown eyes narrowed and his mouth set grimly. ‘Yes.”
That stopped her in the process of turning around and walking away. She spun back to face him frustration making her so tense her muscles ached.
‘Why, Salvatore? Why torment me?”
‘I have no desire to torment you. You belong to me. I will not allow you to pretend I do not exist in your life.”
She did not believe he had just said that. ‘You cannot be real. No way did you say that.”
‘I said it. Accept it.”
‘I don’t belong to you.” The very idea was obscene. ‘you rejected our child and now you want to lay claim to me.” No way. Not in a thousand years.
She hardly realized she’d been saying the words out loud until he responded.
‘I did not reject our child.”
‘How do you work that one out?” she asked, her voice ridiculing him. ‘ooh, I’ve got it.”
Then she touched her finger to her temple and pursed her lips, nodding.
‘you didn’t believe the baby was yours, therefore you did not reject your own child. How convenient for you.”
She hated the bitterness in her voice, but he had lanced the wound and now all the poison seemed to be flowing out of it regardless of what she wanted.
‘you tell me you are pregnant when we have been together four short weeks and what do you expect me to believe? Porca biserial Do you believe I wanted to think of your body welcoming the seed of another man?”
‘lf you found it so painful, why think it, then?” She’d done nothing to make him believe such a thing about her.
‘Admit it, Salvatore, I meant nothing to you and you didn’t want to believe the baby was yours.”
‘you do not know what I wanted” She stepped back at the volume of his voice. He was a passionate man but he’d never yelled at her, even that awful night when he rejected her and the baby.
‘l’m sorry but I do. Your actions speak for themselves. You had no reason to believe I slept around and yet you made that assumption because you wanted to ” she repeated.
‘your own father told me you were like your mother ” he said his voice so accusing she cringed.
‘That is right.” He nodded as if her reaction was his due.
‘Francesco Guiliano, a Sicilian man that would never make up tales about his own daughter. He said you were like Shawna Tyler famous actress even more legendary for her numerous love affairs than her beautiful face or acting ability.”
There had been nothing of love in her mother’s frequent liaisons, but Elisa didn’t speak that truth aloud. She was reeling like a drunk on a Saturday night from Salvatore’s claim her father had said those things about her.
‘Papa told you I’m like Shawna?” That hurt. It hurt so much, she almost doubled over with the pain of it.
They weren’t close, but she thought her father knew her better than that. She thought he understood how much she had hated her mother’s lifestyle. She’d never actually told her father so.
Somehow saying it out loud had always felt like a disloyalty to her mother, but when had she ever done anything to justify his belief that she indulged in casual affairs? He would never think such a thing about Annemarie. His perfect, traditional Sicilian daughter.
Salvatore was watching her with an expression almost like compassion. On top of everything, it was just too much.
‘Don’t pity me! Papa is as wrong as you were, but I don’t care do you hear me? I don’t care ” she said uttering the lie with more desperation than conviction.
She was a grown woman. She did not need her father’s good opinion any more than she needed Salvatore’s. If the only two men in her life she had ever loved wanted to think she was some kind of slut, let them.
Salvatore opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it again with a snap. His head swiveled and he focused on something in the street outside the shop.
She started to say something, but he shook his head and put his forefinger to his lips.
Cocking his head slightly, he took a gliding step toward di Adamo’s apartment.
Her gaze skittered to the door. It was slightly open and she couldn’t remember if it had been left ajar when her boss took his leave. Shivers of apprehension shook her as all of Salvatore’s warnings replayed through her mind.
She should have moved the inventory to the vault over twenty minutes ago, but her argument with Salvatore had kept them in the store past closing time and she’d done none of her usual closing routines.
The door to her boss’s apartment slammed open. Salvatore leapt toward it. In that same moment two men wearing grotesque carnival-style masks came bursting through the front door.
The deadly-looking gun in the hands of the man coming in through the back entrance was more terrifying than the hideous images on the masks of the other men.
In a blur of movement Salvatore landed a kick against the one with the gun, sending him back through the doorway.
The other men rushed him and he shouted at her,
‘Get in the vault, and shut it.”
She ran for the vault, but she wasn’t shutting that big steel door with Salvatore on the outside.
He managed to send both men to the floor stunning them. She could see through the crack of the door to di Adamo’s apartment though and the gunman was already getting up. Another black shape moved and she realized the gunman was not alone.
‘Salvatorel” He heard her scream and spun around.
She waved frantically at him. there are more! Come on.”
‘I can handle it. Close the door, cara. Now.”
‘No. Not without you.”
Salvatore swore.
His eyes flicked to the men on the floor. One of them started moving.
Frantic with fear for his safety, she screamed
‘Salvatore come in” Then instinctively knowing he would not put her at risk she repeated her earlier warning.
‘l’m not shutting this door with you on the outside” She took a step outside the vault to prove to him she meant what she said.
He said a word she’d never heard him use even in the throes of passion. Then he kicked the door to the apartment with one powerful thrust of his leg, sending the men
behind it staggering into each other. Almost simultaneously, he spun on his heel and ran toward her.
Shoving her completely into the vault, but remaining on the outside, he went to shut the door. She cried out in rejection of that move and grabbed his arm, her grip so tight he’d have to hurt her to break the hold .
Gunshots sounded and the wall beside the vault exploded in a shower of plaster and splintered wood.
Cursing again he pushed inside the vault and yanking the heavy door shut he immediately spun the locking mechanism into place. The sound of heavy bolts shifting was accompanied by more gunfire, but none of the bullets penetrated the one-foot-thick door to the vault.
Soon, even the sound of the gunshots faded as the door sealed completely. She pressed the button for the emergency light and was relieved when the low-level glow penetrated the absolute darkness of the vault.
Salvatore yanked out his cell phone and swore.
‘lt’s a thick vault, but someone will have heard the gunshots and called the police.” More than one person no doubt. Gunshots were not the usual evening sounds in the small town.
‘Si” He turned to her, his eyes accusing. ‘Damn it, Elisa, why did you disobey me?” Typical arrogant macho male.
‘Even you aren’t impervious to a bullet Salvatore. They could have killed you.”
Just the thought had her teeth chattering in shock.
‘Why didn’t you come to the vault immediately?” Tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes.
‘You could have been shot. ” His expression was unreadable.
‘And this would have bothered you?” How could he ask such a stupid question?
‘Ye-es.” Her voice broke and the word ended up a terror-filled wail.
He shook his head and pulled her into his arms with tender savagery.
‘I am fine. This is what I am trained to do, no?”
‘you m-mean y-you risk your life like th-this all the time?”
she stuttered out past the tears. It was an aspect of his business that had never sunk in before disturbing her when it should not matter at all.
She knew what he was but to her he had always been the suave tycoon, not the dangerous security expert that could send three men flying in seconds.