Vittorio echoed his older brother’s sentiment. It was hard to forget their childhood and even harder to take Eloisa’s attacks on their women. Emmanuelle was the one to always try to soothe her, but more often than not, Eloisa seemed to revel in tearing strips off of her. She found every reason to complain, mock and ridicule her. Nothing Emmanuelle ever did was right or good enough and yet she always helped her mother. Her brothers held Eloisa’s treatment of their beloved younger sister against Eloisa more than almost anything else.
“Let’s circle back to Phillips. There’s no explanation for Eloisa or her treatment of her daughters-in-law. We know Phillips can’t get to Francesca or Stefano,” Vittorio said. “He won’t be able to get to Eloisa, all the precautions are in place as they are in all of our homes. What about Lucia, Amo and Nicoletta? He might not know our connection to them, but we can’t take any chances.”
“I sent them all to Italy,” Taviano said. “As soon as I knew our family might once again be under attack, I thought it best to remove them from danger. Amo and Lucia only know that we wanted them to take Nicoletta to Italy and Sicily. They were more than delighted to surprise her with a long vacation.”
“I’m making certain my staff is protected,” Vittorio said. “And also, Katie Branscomb. He’s been in her home already. I had Tomas and Cosimo talk to her last week and explain the danger. I offered to put her up in the Ferraro hotel and she agreed to move there until this is over. They’re with her now.”
Vittorio glanced at his sister. Tomas and Cosimo Abatangelo were Emmanuelle’s regular bodyguards, but lately they’d been used as roving guards, going to whoever needed them the most. Emmanuelle sent him a small smile as if she had it covered. Each member of his family present in his home had ridden the shadows to get there, which meant leaving their bodyguards behind.
“We’ll keep someone on her,” Stefano said.
“Thank you. Grace will be relieved to know she’s safe. If he can’t get to us through our homes, he’s likely to come at us another way,” Vittorio said.
“Grace’s apartment is being watched so hopefully we’ll know when he’s there,” Taviano said. “In the meantime, we’ve made it look as though Grace has been there on and off. Let’s put her phone in her apartment as soon as the Grecos have the photographs they need.”
“That’s done,” Vittorio said. “You can have the phone.”
Ricco flashed Vittorio a grin as he took the cell phone. “It will make him crazy that he missed her. He’ll need to camp there in the ducts, staring into her apartment.”
“Maybe,” Vittorio said. “He’s cunning. He’s been eluding the law for a very long time, which means he’s extremely intelligent.”
“True,” Stefano agreed, “but those text messages prove he’s unraveling. That means he’s going to make a mistake. We have to be there to nail him if he does.”
“What about the meeting with the Saldis?” Vittorio asked. “Is that still on?” He almost wished it wasn’t, although he knew they had to get it over with. If war between the two families was coming, they had to know.
“Absolutely. Be at the hotel tomorrow at four.”
“I’ll be bringing Grace with me. She’ll be able to meet Francesca if Francesca is up to it. It sounds like things have changed in the last few days.”
Stefano nodded. “Doc wants her to stay off her feet as much as possible. He says things are fine with the baby, but she’s had a little too much activity, meaning a few contractions. He’s had a room with all the equipment he needs set up in our home. If the contractions continue or get stronger, he’ll give her some medication to stop them. The meds would be hard on her.”
Vittorio could see why Stefano had banned Eloisa, with her abrasive personality, from seeing Francesca. He stood up. “I appreciate you all coming here. Doc says Grace is almost ready to start physical therapy, which means I won’t worry about her losing her arm.”
“She’s probably losing her mind being so helpless,” Giovanni said and got up as well. “I know that was the worst for me.”
“That’s right, Gee.” Vittorio said. “You don’t get to use the shadows like a normal person, you have to drive.”
“Normal people don’t ride shadows.” Ricco pointed out the obvious. “They drive. Guess what that makes you, brother.”
“Don’t say it,” Giovanni said, and gave his brother the finger.
Vittorio waited until his family left and then he went to find Grace. She was sitting in her favorite spot in the garden, looking out over the lake. She looked up when his shadow fell over her and then entwined with her shadow. The physical jolt of sexual awareness hit him hard, just as it did her.
She tipped her head back and smiled at him. Just that—she smiled, and his heart started tripping. Their joined shadows had already sent hot blood rushing through his veins. He had thought to hold a part of himself back until she made up her mind. Getting his heart broken wasn’t on his list of things he wanted to experience. But the effect of her welcoming smile told him it was too late. He’d already fallen.
“I think that was the longest I’ve been away from you in over four weeks,” she greeted. “It’s weird because I’ve spent a lifetime alone, but I found myself waiting for you. I even thought about going to look for you. Isn’t that strange?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t much like being away from you, either.” He crouched down beside her chair and framed her face with both hands. “I miss you when we’re not connected.”
Then he was kissing her. Her lips were soft, her mouth a hot spark igniting a stick of dynamite that seemed to explode, so the fire inside him raged out of control when everything else about him was always controlled. She took him to another realm where there was only pure feeling. Electricity snapped and crackled between them, sparking on his skin, while inside his body, blood turned to a molten stream, burning with need. His heartbeat pounded through his cock, until he was so thick and full he doubted anything could contain him if he continued.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “We have to stop.”
“I don’t especially want to.”
He smiled in spite of his body making painful, urgent demands. “Neither do I, but nevertheless. Doc hasn’t given permission for you to be doing anything but recovering.”
Her eyes went wide, and she drew away. “You asked him? Discussed with him whether or not we could have sex?”
“Naturally. Oral sex, physical sex, rough, games, toys, positions, every kind of sex. I don’t want you hurt.”
“I can never look at him again.” Her declaration was accompanied by that delicate rose color that swept up her neck to heighten the color in her cheeks.
He laughed softly, noticing she didn’t protest that he thought they would be having sex—and as soon as possible. “He’s a doctor, gattina. He knows men and women have sex.”
She let her breath out. “What did he say?”
He couldn’t help kissing her again, although it was dangerous to his fragmenting control. His woman was becoming a terrible temptress. She was learning fast, and every stroke of her tongue sent lightning strikes through his veins straight to his groin. Still, his role was to guard her health first, before his pleasure. He would have seen to her pleasure had the surgeon given the okay, but even that was forbidden for another week. Even after that, he would have to be careful.
“Is he still saying no?” she asked when he lifted his head. There was a note of teasing along with the deliberate seduction.
“I can see I’m going to have my hands full with you.” He loved that she was willing to try seduction even though he couldn’t allow her to succeed. It was becoming difficult to be with her and not think about sex.
He stood up to give himself a little reprieve, then instantly realized what a bad idea that was. His cock was at her eye level and her gaze went straight to the thick bulge. Her hand followed, fingertips sliding over the material covering his heavy erection.
“I could . . .”
Her tongue touched her top lip and then moistened her bottom one so that her lips glistened invitingly. He suppressed a groan.
“I’ve never actually had my mouth on a man’s . . .”
“Cock,” he supplied. “Never?”
“There was always Haydon to worry about. I never had the chance to see if I wanted to be that intimate with a man.”
Her fingers kept stroking. Once she stopped to toy with the tab at the top of his zipper and then began dancing her fingers up the woven steel again. She lifted her green gaze to his and it was all he could do not to groan aloud.
“I want to be that intimate with you.”
His Grace. She wasn’t shy. The more those mesmerizing fingers caressed him through his jeans, the more his heart felt as if a hand was squeezing it tightly. Hot blood pounded through his cock. Hunger for her burned through him at her confession. Discipline was the only thing he had that could save them.
“Grace, more than anything, I want you. Right now. This minute. But the doctor said no, so it’s no.”
“What would it hurt if you helped me figure out how to please you, Vittorio? It isn’t like I’m going to be really great at this. You’ll have to give me step-by-step instructions.”
Her green gaze clung to his and a slow smile only added to the seduction in her eyes. “It’s not like I can YouTube on how to do it without my phone.”
She was beautiful. His. “I don’t deserve you, il mia bellissima gattina. You are fast becoming vita mia. I don’t know what will happen if you decide you can’t live with me.”
Her lashes lowered, and she shook her head. Very slowly, with obvious reluctance, she removed her hand. The lashes lifted so he was looking into her unwavering green eyes. “I’m not going to pretend it will always be easy, but I can’t imagine not being with you.” She made a little face at him. “It is a little annoying to be told no when I really, really want something.”
Relief was a fast current, running through him like a river. “What is it you want, gattina?” Her gaze began to shift, and he caught her chin. “Keep looking at me when you tell me, Grace. It pleases me to hear you say what you want, whether it’s sexual in nature or not. When you look at me while you tell me, the pleasure is so much more.”
“I wanted to taste your cock. To have it in my mouth.” There was no hesitation. Her chin went up and her eyes sparkled like twin gems, the hunger in them making him want to push the denim from his hips and give her anything she wanted. “I want to give you pleasure.”
“That’s exactly what I want at this very moment as well, Grace.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her lips. “A few more days, then we’ll both be satisfied.”
He sank into the chair next to her, much more gingerly than he would have ordinarily. Wanting Grace wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. He stretched his legs out in front of him to ease the ache in his cock. “There is a tracking program on your phone, Grace. We’re putting it in your apartment.”
She was horrified. “No, Vittorio. You should have asked me. I need it back for work. You can’t just decide to—” She broke off, her hand to her mouth as realization clearly dawned that he would be arbitrarily making some decisions based on what he felt was right for her safety or health. He’d warned her many times. Living with him wasn’t going to be easy.
He waited in silence.
She turned her head to stare out over the colorful flowers to the lake just beyond the garden and beach. “My notes for the upcoming event as well as several others were in my phone.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Vittorio said.
Grace twisted back toward him so fast, a small cry escaped and he saw her wince. He caught her arm to steady her.
“Don’t, Grace. You’re going to hurt your shoulder for no reason.”
“You copied it for me, didn’t you?”
“As well as your contacts. I had to be careful. I sent everything to my computer geniuses to make certain I wasn’t giving you anything that could infect a new phone.” He pulled the phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s set up for you and all your contacts and notes are right where they were in your old phone.”
“I’m sorry. I should have trusted that you would have done that.”
“Why? Trust isn’t given overnight, Grace, and I don’t expect you to just blindly give it to me. The notes were important. I didn’t find the tracking program. I’m not an expert in technology, but I have cousins who are. I took your phone to them, so they could get the photographs off your phone, the ones Haydon sent you of where he was living. We thought we might be able to figure out where he was by the various photographs. They’re the ones who discovered the tracking program. No way was I bringing that back to you, so I just got you a new one and told them to take off everything to do with your work and make certain it was clean.”
“Thank you. I should have known. More than once he took my phone from me and demanded to know my pass-code. I thought it was to see my schedule, so he could threaten me by hanging around.”
“He can’t get to you now, Grace,” he assured.
She stared down at the cell phone in her hand. “He gets very angry when he doesn’t know where I am. I got used to him demanding my schedule.”
Vittorio frowned. “I want you to really think back, cara. Even when you were children, was he always with you? Did he depend on you to do anything for him?”
She didn’t answer right away. His thoughtful Grace. He liked that trait in her. The stillness in her. She brought a sense of peace to her surroundings. She’d lived in a potentially violent world every minute of the day since she became aware of what Haydon truly was. From that, possibly because of it, she’d developed inner tranquility, a place inside her that she could depend on when everything around her turned to chaos.
“He’s older than I am by a couple of years, but he didn’t talk much. When I first went into the foster home, he was already there. He was thin, and very small. Back then, I was extremely small, and I think he liked that I was littler than he was. It made him feel big. My other foster brother, Dwayne, was a bully. He liked to push us both around. I stood up for Haydon when Dwayne kept tripping him. That’s where it started with us.”
“No one had probably ever stood up for him before.”
She put the phone on the table and reached for the pitcher of icy strawberry lemonade Merry had placed on the little table beside her glass. Vittorio’s hand got there first. He would have to talk to Merry about expecting Grace to pick up a full pitcher of ice and juice. It was too heavy. He poured a glass for her and then went to the small, freestanding bar to pull out a glass for himself.
“Mr. Ferraro?” Merry’s voice sounded strained, and he turned. She stood there wringing her hands, looking nervous. “Mrs. Ferraro is here.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grace stiffen. He wondered if she thought he was secretly married. The thought made him smile. The moment he saw the woman bearing down on them, her expression grim, her face a mask of anger, the smile disappeared. Instinctively, he put his body between his mother and Grace.
“This is ridiculous, making me stand waiting in the foyer like I’m some salesman. Your staff needs lessons on protocol. I’m talking to your mother, Merry, about your atrocious manners. When I come to my son’s home, I don’t expect to be told to sit and wait as if I’m some commoner visiting the king.”
“Hello, Eloisa,” Vittorio drawled. Deliberately he crossed the room, bent his head and brushed his mother’s cheek with a barely there kiss.
She jumped back, recovered and glared at him. Her hand went to her cheek and brushed at her skin, as if she could remove his mark on her. “Stop that, Vittorio. I know you do that to annoy me.”
“It’s a gesture of affection, Eloisa, which most mothers appreciate.”
She glared at him, hands on hips. “Well I don’t, so stop i
t.” She looked past him to Grace. “It wasn’t enough that you had Teodosiu Giordano panting after you, you had to go after my son. Vittorio does have a bigger bank account, but I think Giordano will suit a girl like you so much better.”
Vittorio swung around. “Teodosiu Giordano expressed an interest in you?”
Grace curled her fingers around the tall glass of strawberry lemonade. “He asked me out several times, yes. I refused to go out with him.”
“I’ll just bet you did. Are you pregnant? Did he knock you up and throw you out on your ear so that now you are going after my son?”
“Giordano was an enforcer for Miceli Saldi for years. He came into a great deal of money and ended up a loan shark,” Vittorio informed his woman. “This ties everything together so neatly.” Deliberately, he ignored his mother.
“He’s got to be the man Haydon owes the money to.” Grace took her cue from him, not looking at Eloisa, refusing to be intimidated by her.
Pride burst through him. She was magnificent. She looked regal, even with her shoulder completely immobile, bandages holding her arm in place. Her voice was soft, but definitely, she was a woman in charge, speaking to him as an equal.
“I should have thought of Giordano. He would have been the first one a man like Haydon would go to for money.” He turned his head and flashed a smile at his mother. “Thank you, Eloisa. You’ve solved part of the mystery. We needed to know who was supplying Haydon with cash.”
Eloisa frowned. “Vittorio.” Her voice was cautionary but cutting.
Vittorio ignored her and swung back to face Grace. “We’ve speculated for years over why Miceli would allow Giordano to leave his position as top enforcer and strike out on his own as a loan shark.”
“Don’t talk to her about our private family business.” Eloisa nearly shrieked it.
Vittorio indicated the glass of strawberry lemonade and when Grace didn’t pick it up right away, he did and held it to her lips. He brushed back her hair while she drank, his fingertips savoring the richness of the thick, silky strands. “This is all public knowledge,” he assured her. “Anyone can speculate on Miceli’s generosity to a former employee. The bottom line is, if you turned down a man like Giordano, he might think he could get you through a gambling debt. Did you know he was in the mob?”
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