That thought took his smile immediately. He was lonely. He wanted his own family. A wife. Children. Someone to come home to. Someone to care for, to take care of. He needed a purpose. His lifestyle had no balance. He needed someone to become his center, to anchor him. He recognized and owned every flaw he had. He worked to be a better man every day. He found, over time, it was getting more and more difficult to sustain who he was when he had no one of his own. No one to share his life with and to make him realize there was purpose to his work.
“Was Grace at any of the events, Emme?” Stefano asked.
Emmanuelle nodded. “KB Events put on nine of the fund-raisers he attended. Katie Branscomb’s reputation is impeccable. Everyone tries for her first, and she’s so busy, you have to book her over a year in advance. Grace worked behind the scenes at all nine, including the dinners. According to Katie, she couldn’t do what she does without Grace.”
Grace had been at nine events over the last year and half and he hadn’t seen her? Why hadn’t his sixth sense kicked in until last night? His radar should have gone off. At the very least, his shadow should have connected with hers. When there was a group, sometimes it was difficult to sort them out, but the sexual jolt was so strong when his shadow connected with Grace’s there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed.
“We can build off that,” Taviano said. “You met her at one of the events and you fell for her on the spot. She was leery—after all, you have a bad reputation as a playboy, bro, so you courted the old-fashioned way out of the spotlight.”
Francesca laughed. “What is old-fashioned, Taviano? Taking a woman out on a date without jumping her?”
“Jumping her?” Stefano echoed. He brought Francesca’s hand to his mouth and sucked on her fingers for a long moment. “You can’t say things like that, baby. It puts ideas in my head.”
“As if you don’t have those ideas twenty-four seven,” Francesca accused, laughing, leaning toward him.
“I do,” Stefano admitted. “Vittorio showed so much more restraint than I ever could have. He’s a saint.”
Again, his brothers and sisters laughed. The sound made Vittorio’s heart a little lighter. He knew he had a long way to go with Grace, but once he was set on a task, once he made up his mind, he was relentless. He wanted Grace, he wanted to give her all the things she’d never had, and buffer her from the worst the world had to offer. He was tough and knew there was little anyone could do to hurt him, other than those in his family. He didn’t want Grace to have to be like he was. She could be soft and sensitive. He’d provide the armor for her.
“I am a saint to sit here listening to this crap when I could be sitting with her,” Vittorio proclaimed, sitting back in his chair. “Was she seeing anyone?” If she had been, Rosina hadn’t sent him evidence or a name of a man who might be after her because she turned him down.
“Not that Rosina could find,” Emme said. “If she was, it was kept very quiet.”
“What about her relationship with Haydon Phillips?” Taviano asked.
Vittorio’s gut tightened. “What about it? They were in a foster home together. She clearly tried to get him off drugs and to quit gambling.”
“She paid his gambling debts twice, Vittorio,” Taviano pointed out. “It’s possible they had more of a relationship than being thrown together in a home.”
Vittorio shook his head. He knew absolutely the two of them hadn’t had an intimate relationship. “No way. It wasn’t there.”
“He locked her in the trunk of a car,” Ricco said. “He took that woman, ambushed her somehow—she didn’t just climb in for him—and he drove her to the club with the intention of selling her into slavery to pay his debts.”
“He kept saying he deserved a two-hundred-and-fiftythousand-dollar credit,” Vittorio said. “Who in the Saldi family loans money?” He shook his head. “Let’s narrow that down to Miceli’s crew. Ale Sarto and Lando Gori work for Miceli. I doubt that Giuseppi would have used either of them to deliver messages or even to pick up a potential prostitute for them.”
“I’m shocked Miceli used them to deliver his message,” Ricco said.
“No way was Phillips going to live through that,” Vittorio said. “They were there to kill him. If they wanted money from him, they wouldn’t have sent Sarto and Gori. They wanted him dead because they cared more about getting Grace than they did the money.”
“So, whoever loaned the money would have had to sign off on that,” Stefano concluded. “That narrows things down, doesn’t it?”
There was a moment of silence. “Let’s get Rosina on it,” Stefano added.
“Someone who loans out large amounts of money, not penny-ante crap,” Vittorio said. “It has to be someone Miceli is indebted to, owes a favor, something of that nature.”
Stefano was already texting his cousin. “She’ll find them, Vittorio. You know she’s never missed yet.”
“Who runs the girls?” Emme asked. “That’s another lead right there. High-end, it sounds like. They aren’t going to trade that kind of debt and put someone like Grace into a stable. She’s special and they know it.”
“That would be Marco Simoncini,” Ricco said. “He runs all kinds of girls from street-level to very high escort girls. If you want to party, you call Marco.”
“How would you know that?” Mariko asked very softly. Her large eyes were fixed on her husband’s face.
“Yes, Ricco, how did you know that?” Giovanni asked.
Ricco threw a buttery pastry at his brother, who caught it before it hit him in the head. “Everyone knows Marco runs the girls for Miceli.”
“I didn’t know,” Mariko said. She turned to Sasha. “Did you?”
“No, I wasn’t informed. What about you, Francesca? Did you know?”
“No, but I’m betting Stefano knew.”
“That’s because almost everyone knows,” Stefano said, leaning in to steal the laughter from his wife with his kiss.
“Did you know, Emme?” Mariko persisted.
“I’m afraid I did,” Emmanuelle admitted, her lips twitching. “Marco is very loud about his girls. More, he tried to recruit me once. Ricco, Stefano and Vittorio paid him a visit. He quit harassing me. I didn’t need them to bail me out, but they insisted it would raise too many questions to have a girl beat up one of the Saldis.” She gave a little sniff.
“You could have done it, too,” Vittorio said, pride in his voice. He brushed a kiss on top of her head. “Marco’s ego would have insisted he try to retaliate. We would have gone to war.”
Emmanuelle shook her head. “Val would have taken care of it.” The moment the words left her mouth, she pressed two fingers over her lips as if she could have stopped them.
“Has anyone heard from Eloisa?” Vittorio asked, turning the attention away from his younger sister. His mother was notorious for her cold, cutting remarks. She had made things so uncomfortable for Francesca that Stefano had forbidden her to come to his home. “Does she know Francesca is pregnant?”
“No.” Stefano’s voice was clipped. “Francesca has to be as stress-free as possible, and we all know anytime Eloisa comes around, stress levels go through the roof. She’s still banned. I fear, since she can’t come at Francesca, she’s going to lose her mind when she hears you’re engaged to Grace Murphy—a girl raised in foster homes.”
Vittorio sighed. “I should tell her face-to-face, but I need to get back to the hospital.”
“You’re wiped, Vittorio,” Stefano said. “You need to sleep. In any case, the news has probably leaked.”
“I’ll tell Eloisa,” Emmanuelle volunteered. “You go see your fiancée and as soon as you give the word, I’ll come to meet her. We all need to look as if we’ve been around her quite often, so others believe you’ve been dating her. Others meaning the Saldis.”
That was so like Emme. Vittorio squeezed her hand. “Keep me informed, whatever any of you or Rosina and Rigina uncover. The cops are going to want to keep after us, so make certain y
ou’re seen and have alibis just in case Phillips or Gori and Sarto end up dead.”
Stefano gave him another one of his sharp looks but refrained from speaking. Vittorio sent him his cool smile, the one that meant he had everything under control. He’d been thrown finding Grace existed, but being with his family had settled him. His family would hopefully find Haydon before the Saldis did. They needed him alive to tell them who wanted Grace. No one was taking her from Vittorio, and Stefano and every one of his brothers and Emmanuelle knew that was a fact.
CHAPTER THREE
It was just her luck to be in the worst possible circumstances when she met the hottest man in the entire world. Grace Murphy wished the earth would just open up and swallow her, hospital bed and all. The Ferraro family certainly had a strong sense of responsibility when it came to someone getting shot in their parking lot. Even that was embarrassing, having her own foster brother try to sell her into prostitution to pay his gambling debts.
She was like everyone else, following the life of the Ferraros in magazines bought at the grocery store or flipped through at the beauty parlor. She’d always been drawn to Vittorio, finding herself reading every single thing about him. Now, here he was in person, sprawled out in a chair, more beautiful than the photographs could capture, as big as life. Bigger even, the reality of him taking up an enormous amount of space, his wide shoulders and long legs keeping her attention riveted on him.
She groaned aloud and covered her red face with one hand. He’d been there every single day. Right there. In that chair. Pacing around the room. Talking on his cell. It didn’t matter what he was doing, he saw to her every need. He noticed before she did that her pain level was rising, and he took care of it. He didn’t like the food they were serving her, and she was given catered, very nutritious meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She hadn’t been able to feed herself those first few days and he had been the one to sit on the edge of her bed and feed her.
The first week after she’d been shot and operated on, there’d been so much pain she could barely breathe, and she hadn’t been able to fully comprehend who he was. Mostly, she’d slept and thought she was dreaming. One of the nurses had referred to him as her fiancé and she had been confused. She’d started to correct her, but then looked beyond her to see Vittorio Ferraro hovering behind the woman.
Their eyes had locked. Had she known that eyes like his existed in real life? She’d been captivated. Spellbound. Unable to think. Those eyes had turned her brain to mush. Her heart had leapt to her throat. Grace had felt as if he was willing her not to speak, not to contradict what the nurse was saying—and she hadn’t. Then the morphine had kicked in and the pain had gone enough for her to drift off.
“Grace?”
His voice. It was beautiful. Low. Soothing, yet at the same time, there was absolute command, as if he ruled the world and knew it. She’d heard that voice in the parking lot, stopping everyone, giving him the chance to act, to save her from the two men Haydon was selling her to for his debts.
Vittorio remained silent after just saying her name. She couldn’t help but look at him, that tone compelled her to raise her gaze to his no matter how reluctant she was. It took her a few moments to gather the courage to meet those eyes. Deep blue, like the deepest, clearest sea. She felt as if she were drowning when she looked into his eyes.
She touched her tongue to her lips—the lips he’d personally applied lip balm to—and lifted her lashes. At once she had the strange sensation of falling, of tumbling into those dark depths, and there was no saving herself. Her heart beat wildly and, in her veins, there was a rush of heat that spread through her body like a wildfire.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
She had no idea how he could make her want to tell him the truth, no matter that she wanted to hide it from him. She didn’t want to admit that he was the problem, that he was that fantasy she went to bed with every night, and now he was there, larger than life, and way more than she could ever handle. She’d watched him at every charity event, sometimes nearly forgetting her job, which was to stay behind the scenes and make certain everything ran smoothly.
“Grace.”
Again with the name. It sounded so different when he said it. She’d always thought her name plain. Old-fashioned. When Vittorio said it in that enthralling tone, she liked the way it sounded.
“I’m very confused,” she admitted.
He remained silent, his gaze holding her captive. How could she not answer him more fully when he was looking at her so directly? When the deep, commanding way he said her name made her feel that if she didn’t tell him the truth, he would be disappointed. The thought of disappointing him was worse than anything she could conceive of in that moment.
“I know I was shot in your parking lot, but you don’t have to be here. You’re a very busy man, but you’re here every day and the nurses and doctors discuss everything with you rather than me. They think—” She broke off, unable to say it aloud. Fiancé. Just the thought of the word in association with him sent the heat sweeping through her again.
“There’s no one more important to me than you, Grace,” Vittorio answered.
More heat. He sounded so sincere. She couldn’t talk, feeling as if she’d woken up in an alternate universe, maybe one of her dreams.
He came closer, looking taller and even more muscular as he approached the bed. His shoulders were very wide, his chest thick, and beneath that tightly stretched shirt, muscles went on forever. The paparazzi hadn’t captured the true commanding presence of the man, and they’d photographed him thousands of times.
“Do you remember everything that happened to you leading up to this point?”
She nodded. “I think so. Haydon came by my house and asked me to go to the club with him. I said no. He acted cool, but then he told me I’d left my sweater in his car and asked me to walk out with him, which I did.”
She shifted her gaze, afraid he would see she was misleading him—which she was. “When we reached the street, he went around to the back of the car. He was talking to me and I just followed him, thinking my sweater was in the trunk. He opened it, still talking, acting so casual. The next thing I know, he’d thrown me into the trunk and slammed it closed, trapping me.” She’d been terrified, but a part of her had gone calm, thinking the reign of terror for her was finally over.
He reached for her hand as if he knew her heart was beating out of control at the memory. His thumb slid over her knuckles and then began to sweep back and forth lightly over the back of her hand. Each stroke felt like a caress and she felt her pulse flutter wildly. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Grace. I know it wasn’t easy. You’re safe now.”
There was that strange rush of heat moving through her body she was coming to associate with him. He made her feel extraordinary just for answering his question. It was his voice when he complimented her, brushing over her nerve endings like black velvet.
Grace couldn’t let him think everything was all right. She was misleading him, and that might make him think there was no danger. “I’m not. You’re not. He aimed that gun at you, the person trying to save his life, not the two men he was trading me to. He’s that far gone.” She closed her mouth abruptly and pressed her lips together, feeling nearly faint.
That was more than she’d ever told anyone about Haydon, and she’d only blurted it out because he already knew her foster brother had wanted to kill him. How did she explain Haydon to a man like Vittorio? The differences between them were so wide, Vittorio couldn’t possibly understand.
“What is it, gattina bella?” He brought her hand to his mouth and nibbled on her knuckles. All the while his blue eyes held hers. She loved his eyes. The way they commanded. Compelled. Once he locked on to her, she was totally captivated and couldn’t look away. The connection was intense, sometimes to the point of being uncomfortable, but it was because looking into his eyes made her feel as if he saw everything about her. Knew everything about her, strengths and weakness
es.
She hesitated. As children, in a violent foster home, Haydon and she had protected each other. Then, it became very real self-preservation not to ever speak of him to anyone. Ever. For any reason. A little shiver went through her body. She wished the morphine would kick in and hopefully she’d just fall asleep, but they had been slowly decreasing the pain medications in an effort to get her out of the hospital. It was extremely hard to sleep when pain beat at her constantly.
“You have to trust someone, Grace.”
Grace was desperate to look away from him. To close her eyes and slip back into sleep where she felt safe. She’d been in a cocoon for days and she wanted to remain there. Clarity brought reality and that was too much for her when she could barely move, barely take care of herself.
Silence filled the room and she detested that. Disappointment didn’t show on his face, but she felt it. It was as if the very shadows connected them and she could feel his emotions. He was disappointed that she couldn’t trust him. Or maybe he wasn’t disappointed and she was projecting her own feelings about herself onto him.
“Haydon isn’t like most people.” She couldn’t keep the tremor from her hand and she tried to pull it away from him, so he wouldn’t feel her shaking.
She hated that she was appearing so weak in front of him. She had a demanding job, one she excelled at. She had no problems seeing to every detail and finding the right people to get things done, but her personal life was just the opposite. She was a complete mess, out of control, unable to find a way to fix it. Even when she’d taken a stand, that had backfired.
Vittorio’s long fingers tightened around hers and his thumb stroked over the back of her hand as he pressed her palm over his heart. “Tell me why you’re so afraid of this man.”
No one knew she was afraid of Haydon. No one. Her boss thought they were close, like brother and sister. Most people thought the same thing. No one else had ever seen through her careful mask, not the social workers, foster parents or cops.
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