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‘You think my threats empty?’ he enquired softly. ‘Then do nothing. It’s after all your privilege and your right.’
Something of the lethal edge that rode him must have transmitted itself to her. Apprehension chased across her face before she firmed those impossibly sumptuous lips.
‘Do nothing, and watch me bury your family in the deepest, darkest, most demeaning pit you can dream of. Do nothing and watch me unleash a scandal the scale of which you can only imagine on your precious family name.’ He bared his teeth in a mirthless smile and her eyes widened in stunned disbelief. ‘It would be my privilege and pleasure to do so.’
Oscar Pennington inhaled sharply and Zaccheo’s gaze zeroed in on his enemy. The older man rose from the chair. Though he looked frail, his eyes reflected icy disdain. But Zaccheo also glimpsed the fear of a cornered man weighing all the options to see how to escape the noose dangling ever closer.
Zaccheo smiled inwardly. He had no intention of letting Pennington escape. Not now, not ever.
The flames of retribution intensifying within him, he unclasped his hands. It was time to bring this meeting to an end.
‘Your time’s up, Pennington.’
Eva answered instead of her father. ‘How do we know you’re not bluffing? You say you have something over us, prove it,’ she said defiantly.
He could’ve walked out and let them twist in the wind of uncertainty. Pennington would find out soon enough the length of Zaccheo’s ruthless reach. But the thought of leaving Eva here when he departed was suddenly unthinkable. So far he’d allowed himself a brief glimpse of her body wrapped in that obscenely revealing red dress. But that one glimpse had been enough. Quite apart from the rage boiling his blood, the steady hammer of his pulse proved that he still wanted her with a fever that spiked higher with each passing second.
He would take what he’d foolishly and piously denied himself two years ago. He would take and use, just as they’d done to him. Only when he’d achieved every goal he’d set himself would he feel avenged.
‘You can’t, can you?’ Oscar taunted with a sly smile, bringing Zaccheo back to the room and the three aristocratic faces staring at him with varying degrees of disdain and fear.
He smiled, almost amused by the older man’s growing confidence. ‘Harry Fairfield is providing you with a bridging loan of fifteen million pounds because the combined running costs of the Pennington Hotels and The Spire have you stretched so thin the banks won’t touch you. While you desperately drum up an adequate advertising budget to rent out all those overpriced but empty floors in The Spire, the interest owed to the Chinese consortium who own seventy-five per cent of the building is escalating. You have a meeting with them on Monday to request more time to pay the interest. In return for Fairfield’s investment, you’re handing him your daughter.’
Eva glared at him. ‘So you’ve asked a few questions about Penningtons’ business practices. That doesn’t empower you to make demands of any of us.’
Zaccheo took a moment to admire her newfound grit. During their initial association, she’d been a little more timid, and in her father’s shadow, but it looked as if the kitten had grown a few claws. He curbed the thrill at what was to come and answered.
‘Yes, it does. Would you be interested to know the Chinese consortium sold their seventy-five per cent of The Spire to me three days ago? So by my calculation you’re in excess of three months late on interest payments, correct?’
A rough sound, a cross between a cough and a wheeze, escaped Pennington’s throat. There was no class or grace in the way he gaped at Zaccheo. He dropped back into his chair, his face a mask of hatred.
‘I knew you were a worthless bet the moment I set eyes on you. I should’ve listened to my instincts.’
The red haze he’d been trying to hold back surged higher. ‘No, what you wanted was a spineless scapegoat, a capro espiatorio, who would make you rich and fat and content and even give up his life without question!’
‘Mr Giordano, surely we can discuss this like sensible business-minded individuals,’ Sophie Pennington advanced, her hands outstretched in benign sensibility. Zaccheo looked from the hands she willed not to tremble to the veiled disdain in her eyes. Then he looked past her to Eva, who’d returned to her father’s side, her face pale but her eyes shooting her displeasure at him.
Unexpectedly and very much unwelcome, a tiny hint of compassion tugged at him.
Basta!
He turned abruptly and reached for the door handle. ‘You have until I ready my chopper for take-off to come to me, Eva.’ He didn’t need to expand on that edict. The or else hung in the air like the deadly poison he intended it to be.
He walked out and headed for the terrace, despite every nerve in his body straining to return to the room and forcibly drag Eva out.
True, he hadn’t bargained for the visceral reaction to seeing her again. And yes, he hadn’t quite been able to control his reaction to seeing another man’s ring on her finger, that vulgar symbol of ownership hollowing out his stomach. The knowledge that she’d most likely shared that hapless drunk’s bed, given the body he’d once believed to be his to another, ate through his blood like acid on metal. But he couldn’t afford to let his emotions show.
Every strategic move in this game of deadly retribution hinged on him maintaining his control; on not letting them see how affected he was by all this.
He stepped onto the terrace and all conversation ceased. Curious faces gaped and one or two bolder guests even tried to intercept him. Zaccheo cut through the crowd, his gaze on the chopper a few dozen yards away.
She would come to him. As an outcome of his first salvo, nothing else would be acceptable.
His pulse thudded loud and insistent in his ears as he strolled down the steps towards the aircraft. The fireworks amid which he’d landed had long since gone quiet, but the scent of sulphur lingered in the air, reminding him of the volatility that lingered beneath his own skin, ready to erupt at the smallest trigger.
He wouldn’t let it erupt. Not yet.
A murmur rose behind him, the fevered excitement that came with the anticipation of a spectacle. A scandal.
Zaccheo compelled himself to keep walking.
He ducked beneath the powerful rotors of his aircraft and reached for the door.
‘Wait!’
He stopped. Turned.
Three hundred pairs of eyes watched with unabashed interest as Eva paused several feet from him.
Behind her, her father and sister stood on the steps, wearing similar expressions of dread. Zaccheo wanted them to stew for a while longer, but he found his attention drawn to the woman striding towards him. Her face reflected more defiance than dread. It also held pride and not a small measure of bruised disdain. Zaccheo vowed in that moment to make her regret that latter look, make her take back every single moment she’d thought herself above him.
Swallowing, he looked down at her body.
She held the flimsy wrap around her like armour. As if that would protect her from him. With one ruthless tug, he pulled it away. It fluttered to the ground, revealing her luscious, heart-stopping figure to his gaze. Unable to stem the frantic need crashing through him, he stepped forward and speared his fingers into the wild tumble of her hair.
Another step and she was in his arms.
Where she belonged.
* * *
The small pocket of air Eva had been able to retain in her lungs during her desperate flight after Zaccheo evaporated when he yanked her against him. Her body went from shivering in the crisp January air to furnace-hot within seconds. The fingers in her hair tightened, his other arm sliding around her waist.
Eva wanted to remain unaffected, slam her hands against his chest and remove herself from that dangerous wall of masculinity. But she couldn’t move. So she fought with her words.
‘You may think you’ve won, that you own me, but you don’t,’ she snapped. ‘You never will!’
His eyes gleamed. ‘Such fire. Such determination. You’ve changed, cara mia, I’ll give you that. And yet here you are, barely one minute after I walked out of your father’s study. Mere hours after you promised yourself to another man, here you are, Eva Pennington, ready to promise yourself to me. Ready to become whatever I want you to be.’
Her snigger made his eyes narrow, but she didn’t care. ‘Keep telling yourself that. I look forward to your shock when I prove you wrong.’
That deadly smile she’d first seen in her father’s study reappeared, curling fear through her. It reeked with far too much gratification to kill that unshakeable sensation that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, and that, should she fall, there would be no saving her.
She realised the reason for the smile when he lifted her now bare fingers to his eye level. ‘You’ve proved me right already.’
‘Are you completely sure about that?’ The question was a bold but empty taunt.
The lack of fuss with which Harry had taken back his ring a few minutes ago had been a relief.
She might not have an immediate solution to her family’s problems, but Eva was glad she no longer had to pretend she was half of a sham couple.
Zaccheo brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed her ring finger, stunning her back to reality. Flashes erupted as his actions were recorded, no doubt to be streamed across the fastest mediums available.
Recalling the conversation she’d just had with her father, she tried to pull away. ‘This pound-of-flesh taking isn’t going to last very long, so I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts. I intend to return to my life before midnight—’
Her words dried up when his face closed in a mask of icy fury, and his hands sealed her body even closer to his.
‘Your first lesson is to stop speaking to me as if I’m the hired help. Refraining from doing so will put me in a much calmer frame of mind to deal with you than otherwise,’ he said with unmistakeable warning.
Eva doubted that anyone had dared to speak to Zaccheo Giordano in the way he referred, but she wasn’t about to debate that point with him with three hundred pairs of eyes watching. She was struggling enough to keep upright what with all the turbulent sensations firing through her at his touch. ‘Why, Zaccheo, you sound as if you’ve a great many lessons you intend to dole out...’ She tried to sound bored, but her voice emerged a little too breathless for her liking.
‘Patience, cara mia. You’ll be instructed as and when necessary.’ His gaze dropped to her mouth and her breath lodged in her sternum. ‘For now, I wish the talking to cease.’
He closed the final inch between them and slanted his mouth over hers. The world tilted and shook beneath her feet. Expertly sensual and demanding, he kissed her as if he owned her mouth, as if he owned her whole body. In all her adult years, Eva had never imagined the brush of a beard would infuse her with such spine-tingling sensations. Yet she shivered with fiery delight as Zaccheo’s silky facial hair caressed the corners of her mouth.
She groaned at the forceful breach of his tongue. Her arms drifted over his taut biceps as she became lost in the potent magic of his kiss. At the first touch of his tongue against hers, she shuddered. He made a rough sound and his sharp inhalation vibrated against her. His fingers convulsed in her hair and his other hand drifted to her bottom, moulding her as he stepped back against the aircraft and widened his stance to bring her closer.
Eva wasn’t sure how long she stood there, adrift in a swirl of sensation as he ravaged her mouth. It wasn’t until her lungs screamed and her heart jackhammered against her ribs did she recall where she was...what was happening.
And still she wanted to continue.
So much so she almost moaned in protest when firm hands set her back and she found herself staring into molten eyes dark with savage hunger.
‘I think we’ve given our audience enough to feed on. Get in.’
The calm words, spoken in direct counteraction to the frenzied look in his eyes, doused Eva with cold reality. That she’d made even more of a spectacle of herself hit home as wolf whistles ripped through the air.
‘This was all for show?’ she whispered numbly, shivering in the frigid air.
One sleek eyebrow lifted. ‘Of course. Did you think I wanted to kiss you because I was so desperate for you I just couldn’t help myself? You’ll find that I have more self-restraint than that. Get in,’ he repeated, holding the steel and glass door to the aircraft open.
Eva brushed cold hands over her arms, unable to move. She stared at him, perhaps hoping to find some humanity in the suddenly grim-faced block of stone in front of her. Or did she want a hint of the man who’d once framed her face in his hands and called her the most beautiful thing in his life?
Of course, that had been a lie. Everything about Zaccheo had been a lie. Still she probed for some softness beneath that formidable exterior.
His implacable stare told her she was grasping at straws, as she had from the very beginning, when she’d woven stupid dreams around him.
A gust of icy wind blew across the grass, straight into her exposed back. A flash of red caught her eye and she blindly stumbled towards the terrace. She’d barely taken two steps when he seized her arm.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Zaccheo enquired frostily.
‘I’m cold,’ she replied through chattering teeth. ‘My wrap...’ She pointed to where the material had drifted.
‘Leave it. This will keep you warm.’ With one smooth move, he unbuttoned, shrugged off his tuxedo and draped it around her shoulders. The sudden infusion of warmth was overwhelming. Eva didn’t want to drown in the distinctively heady scent of the man who was wrecking her world, didn’t welcome her body’s traitorous urge to burrow into the warm silk lining. And most of all, she didn’t want to be beholden to him in any way, or accept any hint of kindness from him.
Zaccheo Giordano had demonstrated a ruthless thirst to annihilate those he deemed enemies in her father’s study.
But she was no longer the naive and trusting girl she’d been a year and a half ago. Zaccheo’s betrayal and her continued fraught relationship with her father and sister had hardened her heart. The pain was still there—would probably always be there—but so were the new fortifications against further hurt. She had no intention of laying her heart and soul bare to further damage from the people she’d once blithely believed would return the same love and devotion she offered freely.
She started to shrug off the jacket. ‘No, thanks. I’d prefer not to be stamped as your possession.’
He stopped her by placing both hands on her arms.
Dark grey eyes pinned her to the spot, the sharper, icier burst of wind whipping around them casting him in a deadlier, more dangerous light.
‘You’re already my possession. You became mine the moment you made the choice to follow me out here, Eva. You can kid yourself all you want, but this is your reality from here on in.’
CHAPTER FOUR
@Ladystclare OMG! Bragging rights=mine! Beheld fireworks w/in fireworks @P/Manor last night when LadyP eloped w/convict lover! #amazeballs
@Aristokitten Bet it was all a publicity stunt, but boy that kiss? Sign me up! #Ineedlatinlovelikethat
@Countrypile That wasn’t love. That was an obscene and shameless money-grabbing gambit at its worst! #Donotencouragerancidbehaviour
EVA FLINCHED, her stomach churning at each new message that flooded her social-media stream.
The hours had passed in a haze after Zaccheo flew them from Pennington Manor. In solid command of the helicopter, he’d soared over the City of London and landed on the vertiginous rooftop of The Spire.
The stunning split-level penthouse’s interior had barely registered in the early hours when Zaccheo’s enigmatic aide, Romeo, had directed the butler to show her to her room.
Zaccheo had stalked away without a word, leaving her in the middle of his marble-tiled hallway, clutching his jacket.
Sleep had been non-existent in the bleak hours that had followed. At five a.m., she’d given up and taken a quick shower before putting on that skin-baring dress again.
Wishing she’d asked for a blanket to cover the acres of flesh on display, she cringed as another salacious offering popped into her inbox displayed on Zaccheo’s tablet.
Like a spectator frozen on the fringes of an unfolding train wreck, she read the latest post.
@Uberwoman Hey ConvictLover, that flighty poor little rich girl is wasted on you. Real women exist. Let ME rock your world!
Eva curled her fist, refusing to entertain the image of any woman rocking Zaccheo’s world. She didn’t care one way or the other. If she had a choice, she would be ten thousand miles away from this place.
‘If you’re thinking of responding to any of that, consider yourself warned against doing so.’
She jumped at the deep voice a whisper from her ear. She’d thought she would be alone in the living room for at least another couple of hours before dealing with Zaccheo. Now she wished she’d stayed in her room.
She stood and faced him, the long black suede sofa between them no barrier to Zaccheo’s towering presence.
‘I’ve no intention of responding. And you really shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,’ she tagged on when the leisurely drift of those incisive eyes over her body made her feel like a specimen under a microscope.
‘I don’t sneak. Had you been less self-absorbed in your notoriety, you would’ve heard me enter the room.’
Anger welled up. ‘You accuse me of being notorious? All this is happening because you insisted on gatecrashing a private event and turning it into a public spectacle.’
‘And, of course, you were so eager to find out whether you’re trending that you woke up at dawn to follow the news.’
She wanted to ask how he’d known what time she’d left her room, but Eva suspected she wouldn’t like the answer. ‘You assume I slept at all when sleep was the last thing on my mind, having been blackmailed into coming here. And, FYI, I don’t read the gutter press. Not unless I want the worst kind of indigestion.’
He rounded the sofa and stopped within arm’s length. She stood her ground, but she couldn’t help herself ogling the breathtaking body filling her vision.
It was barely six o’clock and yet he looked as vitally masculine as if he’d been up and ready for hours. A film of sweat covered the hair-dusted arms beneath the pulled-up sleeves, and his damp white T-shirt moulded his chiselled torso. His black drawstring sweatpants did nothing to hide thick thighs and Eva struggled to avert her gaze from the virile outline of his manhood against the soft material. Dragging her gaze up, she stared in fascination at the hands and fingers wrapped in stained boxing gauze.
‘Do you intend to spend the rest of the morning ogling me, Eva?’ he asked mockingly.
She looked into his eyes and that potent, electric tug yanked hard at her. Reminding herself that she was immune from whatever spell he’d once cast on her, she raised her chin.
‘I intend to attempt a reasonable conversation with you in the cold light of day regarding last night’s events.’
‘That suggests you believe our previous interactions have been unreasonable?’
‘I did a quick search online. You were released yesterday morning. It stands to reason that you’re still a little affected by your incarceration—’
His harsh, embittered laugh bounced like bullets around the room. Eva folded her arms, refusing to cower at the sound.
He stepped towards her, the tension in his body barely leashed. ‘You think I’m a “little affected” by my incarceration? Tell me, bella,’ he invited softly, ‘do you know what it feels like to be locked in a six-by-ten, damp and rancid cage for over a year?’
A brief wave of torment overcame his features, and a different tug, one of sympathy, pulled at her. Then she reminded herself just who she was dealing with. ‘Of course not. I just don’t want you to do anything that you’ll regret.’
‘Your touching concern for my welfare is duly noted. But I suggest you save it for yourself. Last night was merely you and your family being herded into the eye of the storm. The real devastation is just getting started.’
As nightmarish promises went, Zaccheo’s chilled her to the bone. Before she could reply, several pings blared from the tablet. She glanced down and saw more lurid posts about what real women wanted to do to Zaccheo.
She shut the tablet and straightened to find him slowly unwinding the gauze from his right hand, his gaze pinned on her. Silence stretched as he freed both hands and tossed the balled cloth onto the glass-topped coffee table.
‘So, do I get any sort of itinerary for this impending apocalypse?’ she asked when it became clear he was content to let the silence linger.
One corner of his mouth lifted. ‘We’ll have breakfast in half an hour. After that, we’ll see whether your father has done what I demanded of him. If he has, we’ll take it from there.’
Recalling her father’s overly belligerent denial once Zaccheo had left the study last night, anxiety skewered her. ‘And if he hasn’t?’
‘Then his annihilation will come sooner rather than later.’
* * *
Half an hour later, Eva struggled to swallow a mouthful of buttered toast and quickly chased it down with a sip of tea before she choked.
A few minutes ago, a brooding Romeo had entered with the butler who’d delivered a stack of broadsheets. The other man had conversed in Italian with a freshly showered and even more visually devastating Zaccheo.
Zaccheo’s smile after the short exchange had incited her first panic-induced emotion. He’d said nothing after Romeo left. Instead he’d devoured a hearty plate of scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms and smoked pancetta served on Italian bread with unsettling gusto.
But as the silence spread thick and cloying across the room she finally set her cup down and glanced to where he stood now at the end of the cherrywood dining table, his hands braced on his hips, an inscrutable expression on his face.
Again, Eva was struck by the change in him. Even now he was dressed more formally in dark grey trousers and a navy shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her eyes were drawn to the gladiator-like ruggedness of his physique.
‘Eva.’ Her name was a deep command. One she desperately wanted to ignore. It held a quiet triumph she didn’t want to acknowledge. The implications were more than she could stomach. She wasn’t one for burying her head in the sand, but if her father had done what Zaccheo had demanded, then—
‘Eva,’ he repeated. Sharper. Controlled but demanding.
Heart hammering, she glanced at him. ‘What?’
He stared back without blinking, his body deathly still. ‘Come here.’
Refusing to show how rattled she was, she stood, teetered on the heels she’d had no choice but to wear again, and strode towards him.
He tracked her with chilling precision, his eyes dropping to her hips for a charged second before he looked back up. Eva hated her body for reacting to that look, even as her breasts tingled and a blaze lit between her thighs.
Silently she cursed herself. She had no business reacting to that look, or to any man on any plane of emotion whatsoever. She had proof that path only ended in eviscerating heartache.
She stopped a few feet from him, made sure to place a dining chair between them. But the solid wood couldn’t stop her senses from reacting to his scent, or her nipples from furling into tight, needy buds when her gaze fell on the golden gleam of his throat revealed by the gap in his shirt. Quickly crossing her arms, she looked down at the newspapers.