Shadow Rider (A Shadow Riders Novel Book 1)
Shadow Rider: Chapter 8

Francesca drew the covers to her chin, snuggling down between the luxurious sheets. The mattress was pure heaven. The sheets felt even better. Sleeping in the street, in a shelter, or on the floor in a sleeping bag wasn’t conducive to a great night’s sleep. Worse, as a rule, she was afraid to close her eyes, but the bed was sheer bliss. The room was huge, much larger than the entire apartment she’d rented. She shivered, trying not to think about Bart Tidwell staring at her as she showered. It was such a violation.

She looked around the tastefully decorated room and wished she could stay. For the first time in three years she felt safe. She knew it was because of Stefano Ferraro. She had no idea why he made her feel safe, when she knew absolutely that he was a dangerous man, but he did. She wished she could stay right there in that wonderful room, in the even better bed, and just feel protected and cared for.

She crammed her fist into her mouth, closing her eyes, deeply embarrassed that she’d asked him if he was a member of organized crime. He’d been good to her–she couldn’t deny that. He might have used crude language, but he’d been decent, and she’d rewarded him with false accusations. She’d lost faith in everybody. In everything. The justice system. Her former friends. Her former boss.

There had only been Joanna, and now she’d gotten her in trouble through her own stubbornness and pride. If she was being entirely honest, she didn’t want to owe Joanna anything more because she couldn’t bear to be hurt again. She didn’t want to trust her more than she had to, and that was a very sorry thing to have to admit about herself. Joanna had proven to be a good friend. A better friend to her than she was to Joanna.

She felt herself drifting. Trying not to think about Stefano or his gorgeous, very hot, over-the-top masculine looks. She secretly liked that he was bossy. It made her feel as if he could really protect her from anything, although she knew better. Reality was far different from daydreams.

What woman in her right mind wouldn’t fantasize about Stefano? She could give herself that. He was wealthy, handsome, confident, everything a woman could possibly want in a man. She knew he wasn’t for her, so it wasn’t a good idea to think about him while falling asleep

, especially when she was in his home, in his bed.

She allowed her eyes to close and conjured up an image of her beloved sister, Cella. She was older by nine years and in Francesca’s mind, absolutely stunningly beautiful. That had been the trouble. Cella was so beautiful she could stop traffic. It was impossible for anyone not to notice her. Noticing led to temptation. Temptation led to murder.

Cella’s smile, as she stared back at Francesca, faltered. She opened her mouth to say something. To call out. To scream. She reached a hand toward Francesca, looking scared. Terrified. Pleading. Francesca reached for her, trying to connect, trying to hold on, to keep her sister with her. Blood spattered across Cella’s face. Down her body. She was naked, her clothes ripped from her. There were bruises marring her skin, and five puncture wounds on her body. Each wound had blood dripping from it. One spouted like a fountain.

Francesca dropped to her knees beside her sister and covered the spray with both hands, pressing deep, sobbing, calling her sister’s name, imploring her to stay. To not leave her alone. Her phone felt slippery as she called 911, and she dropped it twice, trying to punch in the numbers, Cella’s blood all over it. Cella coughed, bringing up blood. It bubbled all around her mouth. Her eyes widened as she stared at Francesca. One hand reached for her. She coughed. Gurgled. Then her head turned and only her eyes stared. Lifeless. Gone.

Francesca screamed, “No! No, Cella, don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.” Anguish was raw and terrible, ripping at her heart. Her screams tore at her throat. She lifted her horrified, grief-stricken gaze to stare up at the man framed in the doorway.

He sneered at her. “No one will believe you, Francesca. You’d better do what I say or you’ll replace yourself in trouble. You can end this anytime.”

She launched herself at him, trying to take him to the ground, thinking she could hold him there until the police arrived. She was crying and her tears nearly blinded her. She couldn’t see him clearly.

“Wake up, bambina,” a male voice commanded. It was a command. Nothing less. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

She fought hard, trying to punch and kick. Her eyes were open. He was there. Watching her. He was always watching her. Laughing when the police dismissed her claims, ignored all of the evidence because it was him. He’d warned Cella. And then he’d killed her. Now he was warning her.

“Francesca. Open. Your. Eyes. Look at me.”

Her wrists were pinned to the mattress on either side of her head. He was strong. Enormously strong. There was no way to break free. A sob escaped. Panic choked her. If she did, if she opened her eyes and it was him . . .

“Dolce cuore. You’re killing me here. Look at me.”

This time the voice was soft. Gentle. The tone found a path through the fear lodged so deep in her throat. In her belly. He held her wrists together with one hand, but he brought her body tight against his, holding her. His other hand pressed her face into his solid chest. She inhaled and brought a familiar scent into her lungs. Her body recognized it before she did. Stefano. She loved the spicy, masculine scent that seemed to seep into her body through her pores.

She pressed deeper into him, and he let go of her wrists to slide his arm around her back, locking her to him. “That’s my girl. Relax. You’re safe.” His fingers delved deep into her hair, massaging her scalp. She’d never felt so safe and the panic began to slowly subside.

Francesca became aware that she was crying. She heard the soft sobs first. Muffled. A little wild. Stefano murmured to her in Italian. She understood a few of the words. Not many, because her parents had spoken the language in her home and she’d lost them. Once they were gone, Cella spoke mostly English. Sometimes it was . . . Bella. Cara. Carissima. She could have sworn he brushed kisses in her hair.

“Bambina, you have to stop crying. Take a breath and talk to me. It was a nightmare. You’re here with me. Safe. Nothing can get to you here.”

“He can,” she said, the panic welling up again. Smothering her. “He’ll hurt you. Joanna. He’ll say terrible things and I’ll lose my job. I have to . . .”

His hand found her chin, prying her face from his chest. He tipped her face up and brought his down. Close. “Look at me, bella. I am not a man others fuck with. Not ever. You’re here. With me. That means you’re safe.” There was an edge to his voice.

She wanted to smile and the choking fear and panic slipped further away. She forced her lashes to cooperate. The moment she opened her eyes, he was there. Stefano. His face was close. That hard jaw. The masculine beauty. His eyes. The arrogant confidence and the aura of danger clinging to him. It was all there. She felt more protected than she’d felt for years. She wanted to stay right where she was, close to him. Feeling how solid he was. All muscle. He had a steel core. Truthfully, he was the first and only man she believed might be able to keep her safe.

It wasn’t fair to him. To stay with him, knowing he felt he had to defend everyone around him, was wrong. She should replace the strength to leave so she wouldn’t endanger him, but there was nowhere to go. She had no money. She had nothing at all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Hating herself. Knowing she was going to give him that burden. That danger. Because she could no longer do this alone. She wasn’t living. She was existing. Every second of every day, she was terrified. One could only live with terror for so long. Not just terror. Anger. Guilt.

Stefano Ferraro was an unexpected complication. Or savior. She had chemistry with him, intense and scary, but it was there and she’d never felt it before. Not like that. He’d said he was attracted to her. It was obvious that physically, he was. She knew if she let anything happen between them, he would be bossy and controlling. She didn’t believe in relationships where one person was needy, and yet she was. She was exactly that person, but that wasn’t the real her. It was circumstances.

“You’re back with me.” Relief tinged his voice. His arms slid around her again and he held her close, her ear over the steady beat of his heart. One hand stroked caresses in her hair. “Do you have nightmares often?”

She had to give him the truth if she was going to give him the worst of her. “Yes. All the time. I don’t sleep more than a few hours a night because they come often. Every time I close my eyes.”

She didn’t lift her head. She couldn’t tell him while she looked at him because the guilt would overwhelm her. She knew how a man like Stefano would react to her disclosure. He’d asked, but still, she knew he was off-the-charts protective. If he were really interested in her as a woman, he’d be even more so.

“I dream about Cella and the murder. Nearly every night. Again and again.”

There was silence while his hand moved in her hair. She wanted to look up at him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet. Not when she was throwing him into the pit where demons lived. She didn’t know when it had happened. Maybe when he’d been so angry over the DVDs he’d handed her. The tone in his voice, his abhorrence that any man could act that way toward a woman, for one brief moment she’d let down her guard and he’d slipped in.

His coat. The bane of her life. The money. The way he’d talked to the little boy. Ruffled his hair. So sweet. The older woman, Theresa Vitale, who had cried and moved him to help her. The way he talked about the people in his neighborhood. There was genuine caring there. Unreal to her when she’d never seen it or known it until him. He’d found a crack in her armor and he’d slipped right in so that she trusted him when she barely knew him. When she didn’t trust anyone.

“I’m sorry, dolce cuore. When did this happen?”

She couldn’t believe he could sound so gentle. Stefano didn’t strike her as a gentle man, yet he had been with Tonio, the little boy, and Theresa Vitale, the older woman. Even with Lucia and Amo Fausti. She moistened her lips and forced herself to look up, into his piercing blue eyes.

“A year ago. Almost eighteen months.”

“Like yesterday,” he murmured, still stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, blinking back more tears. The aftermath of a nightmare always left her wrung out and exhausted emotionally, yet wide awake, afraid to go back to sleep.

>

“Did they catch him?”

She stiffened. She couldn’t help herself. Her gaze started to slide from his but he caught her chin in an unbreakable grip.

“Answer me, Francesca. The truth.”

“Someone confessed.” That was strictly the truth. “He didn’t go to prison because he was terminally ill. He died six months ago.”

“But,” he coaxed gently, “you don’t believe he was guilty.”

She took a breath, wishing she could pull her gaze from his, but it was like being held captive. She was chained to him, body and soul, and she had no idea how, in the faint light from the open window, that had happened. There were shadows all over the room. Her shadow merged with his on the wall. That was how she felt when she was close to him like this. Merged. Connected. One skin instead of two. Wrapped in chains, so that they both were irrevocably tied together.

“No. It wasn’t him. I came in after and I saw him. I knew him. He spoke to me. Taunted me.”

His blue eyes darkened to pure steel. “He threatened you?”

She nodded slowly. “I told the police, but they didn’t believe me. He took away my job and my home and everything I had. Twice in the middle of the night he came with some others and tore up my apartment. Damaged the walls, ripped out the toilet, broke things, put horrible scratches in the floor . . .” She broke off, her hand going to her throat because she feared she’d choke to death on the large lump blocking her airway. “He could do that here,” she added in a small, gasping voice.

“Take a breath, Francesca. Look around you. I own this hotel. There’s security here. I’m here. He can’t get to you and neither can his friends.”

She drew in air and took the scent of him deep into her lungs. The nightmare was beginning to fade. and with clarity came horror at what she was doing. She wasn’t the type of woman to manipulate anyone into doing something dangerous, such as standing in front of her–as she knew Stefano would–to protect her from the likes of the man who had murdered her sister. It was a despicable thing to do, and no matter how terrible her circumstances, she had no right to drag anyone else into her personal nightmare.

She tried to shift subtly, to pull back, give herself a chance to rethink what she was doing. His arm, locked across her back, held her in place.

“Stefano, he can get to anyone. He has money. Power. Politicians and cops in his pocket. He has lunch regularly with the governor of California and the local district attorney. He plays golf with the senator. He runs in your . . .” She broke off, her gaze sliding from his. “Circle,” she finished lamely.

“His name.”

She hesitated. This was what she wanted, but it wasn’t right. She would be a terrible person for involving him more than she already had. “Stefano, I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t even be talking about this, especially to you.” She couldn’t look at him. Shame burned through her. “I can’t imagine your life, the way you have to live, always thinking you have to protect and take care of everyone around you. You make it easy to shift burdens your way. You don’t protest. You don’t ask for space. You just take control and no one has to worry but you.”

His thumb and finger gripped her chin, lifting her face so she once again had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Bambina, I am that man. Don’t make me out to be a saint, because I’m anything but. You aren’t going to replace me easy to live with, and I assure you, Francesca, we will be living together. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you what I wanted. You can turn over those burdens to me, and you won’t ever have to worry. With that comes the price of belonging to me. Above all things, I want you safe. So tell me his name.”

Her breath caught in her lungs at his declaration. The idea of belonging to him was both terrifying and exhilarating. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. She’d only just met him yet she felt that she’d known him forever. She knew he was dangerous, possibly more dangerous than Barry Anthon, but still, that connection between them was so strong, she couldn’t imagine not having him in her life in some capacity.

“I think I manipulated you to this point. I didn’t start out that way, and then I did, and now I . . .” She broke off as his eyes glittered. “Stefano, you can be scary.”

“Tell. Me. His. Name.” He bit out each word separately. Enunciating them. Making them a command.

“Barry Anthon.” She blurted out his name, and then was shocked that she had.

There was a small silence. She knew he recognized the name. How could he not? When she said he ran in the same circles, she meant it. Anthon even had his own racing team, just as the Ferraro family did.

The silence stretched, and her belly knotted. Her fingers closed into fists on his thin tee, bunching the material. Of course. She should have known. Why would he take her word over that of the police? Over Anthon’s? She had been so fogged coming out of the nightmare and feeling so guilty for involving him that she hadn’t stopped to think about whether or not he would believe her. How stupid. No one else had believed her. Not the landlords who threw her out of the apartments she’d rented and supposedly damaged. Not the boss she’d worked for since her teenage years. Not the police who arrested her for destroying property. Not the judges or even the lawyers who defended her. No one believed her about Cella’s murder.

She strained away from him, against the hard bar of his arm, her hands going flat on his chest to push him away.

“Settle,” he commanded softly, his eyes on her, but he was clearly somewhere else. “Barry Anthon the third, I presume. He has somewhat of a reputation with women.”

So did the Ferraro brothers. She’d read all about them in the magazines Joanna had given her. She didn’t say a word. He would have to release her sometime, and then she’d replace a way to leave. She could stay in the street like Dina. The thought made her feel a little hysterical. She’d done that and it had been awful, worse than awful.

“I need to wash my face.” She needed distance. She had to put everything into perspective, and she couldn’t do that when he was so close to her.

His gaze searched hers for a long time. She felt as if he saw right inside of her, saw her deepest secrets, her shame for involving him, her fear that, like everyone else, he wouldn’t believe that a man like Anthon had systematically set about destroying her entire life until she had nothing left. No home. No friends. No money. No way to get a job. She crushed down the sob welling up.

Stefano ran the pad of his thumb down her face, tracing her high cheekbone and making his way slowly to her lips. He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip, his eyes darkening until her breath caught in her lungs and just stayed there. A strange throb began deep inside her, low and insistent.

“I’ll make you hot chocolate. If I don’t have any, I’ll call down to the kitchen.”

“It’s too late for room service,” she pointed out.

He shook his head. “What part of ‘I own the hotel’ don’t you understand? I call down, they get me what I want, even if they have to send out for it.”

“You’re spoiled, Stefano.”

“I suppose I am,” he agreed. “Don’t be long.”

He slid off the bed, standing in one fluid motion that was all grace and power. He was dressed in a thin pair of sweatpants she was certain he didn’t wear to bed. He’d pulled on a tight T-shirt, and he looked every bit as good as he did in his three-piece suits, although the look was entirely casual.

Francesca watched him walk out of the room, mesmerized by the way he moved. She could watch him for hours. Listen to the sound of his voice. Even when he was totally angry and scaring the crap out of her, she liked the pitch, but when he was being gentle, his voice stroked like the softest of caresses over her skin. Stefano was larger than life and he dominated a room as well as everyone in it. When he walked out, he took the warmth with him.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle, rocking gently to soothe herself. He was lethal to women in a way a man like Barry Anthon, for all his wealth, could never be. Stefano might snarl, he might even manhandle a woman, but he would never hurt her. Never. She knew instinctively, like that was written somewhere in stone.

She forced her stiff legs to straighten so she could scoot to the edge of the bed. After her nightmares, her body was always painful, as if she’d run a race uphill–or gotten in a physical fight and lost. She had done something so wrong, manipulating a good man into feeling responsible for her and then blurting out the name of one of his colleagues. How incredibly stupid was that? She was ashamed of herself and angry, too. She knew better. She was a better person than that. Cella had raised her, and she would have been ashamed of her.

Barefoot, she padded to the gleaming bathroom. It was large–larger than the kitchen and bedroom combined in her little apartment. The bathtub looked inviting, and she gazed at it longingly while she just stood there, trying to decide what to do. Stefano was probably calling Anthon right that moment. How could she have been so careless? Even Joanna didn’t know all the details, but Francesca had been so selfish telling Stefano the truth, needing to feel safe, wanting to stay in Ferraro territory because she liked the neighborhood, and secretly she was so attracted to him. It would serve her right if he was talking to Barry right that moment.

“Francesca, get a move on.”

He sounded impatient. Bossy. So like him. “Keep your panties on,” she called back, smiling at the exasperated sound of his voice. The minute the admonishment slipped out, she clapped a hand over her mouth. She didn’t need to make him angry by being her smart-mouthed self, or worse, have him think she was flirting. He might say he was attracted, and she definitely was, but he wasn’t the type of man for a woman like her, under any circumstances, let alone the one she found herself in.

Right now, she was the damsel in distress and he was the white knight riding to the rescue. She’d even helped to manipulate him into thinking she was just that. Until she had revealed the name of her enemy. She’d vowed to rebuild her life and replace a way to take Barry Anthon down. Her. Not someone else. Now that she was thinking clearly again, she wasn’t going to shove her fight onto anyone else. It was too dangerous. In any case, the chances that Stefano Ferraro and Barry Anthon were friends were extremely high.

She pulled her hair back, braided it and, without a hair tie, just left it braided and hoped it stayed long enough to wash her face. The soap was a gel and smelled like heaven. Beside the gel was a moisturizer and she lathered it on.

When she walked out of the bedroom, Stefano was right there, draped lazily against the hall wall opposite her door. “Did you just tell me to keep my panties on?” His voice was pitched very low. Quiet.

Her heart stuttered. “I might have. That depends,” she hedged.

“Hmm.” He straightened in one of his powerful, controlled, fluid movements that could rob a woman of breath for the next century, and held out his hand. “I think you’re feeling better. You sassed me. People don’t sass me, Francesca. Not. Ever.”

“They don’t?” She tried to look innocent, staring first up at his face and then at his hand. There was no reading his expression so she slipped her hand into his. Instantly his fingers closed around hers. Warm. Tight. Firm. He gave a little tug and started down the hall with her. “Not even your sister?”

“No. Not even my mother.”

“Why not? I think sass is just what you need. I think, from observation, that you tend to get everything your way.” Her heart beat too fast. She didn’t know why he was teasing her, but it was better than having him throw her out on the street. Much better. Still, it wasn’t true that he got everything his way. He hadn’t wanted to leave the pizza parlor. He was enjoying having dinner with her, but he left for Theresa Vitale. She supposed he was dragged away often from things he wanted so he could help others.

“I need instant obedience,” he said.

He smiled at her and her heart nearly stopped. She found it impossible to breathe. He had the sexiest smile she’d ever seen in her life. He could get just about anything from her with that smile. Staring at him, she nearly stopped moving because she couldn’t remember how to walk. Her brain short-circuited. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and followed him to the very spacious kitchen.

Francesca looked around her. “You live in a hotel. Why do you need a kitchen like this?” She touched the stove with reverent fingers. “This is state-of-the-art. I could do things in this kitchen.”

“You cook?” He let go of her hand and indicated the high-backed leather stool at the bar.

Francesca nodded as she climbed up onto the stool. “I love to cook. Growing up, Cella worked and I took care of the house. I spent a great deal of time watching cooking channels and trying out recipes until I understood the art of cooking–and it is an art if you love it, which I do. Even after I was old enough to work, I did the cooking.”

“I’ve never cooked,” he admitted. “Not anything that wasn’t packaged, and that doesn’t taste so good.”

“Growing up, you didn’t learn? Did you and your brothers think it was woman’s work? Some of the best chefs in the world are men.” She was a little disappointed that he might think that way. It didn’t surprise her, though.

“My brothers and my sister were too busy learning other things that were deemed necessary by the family. We didn’t have much of a childhood, and we certainly weren’t encouraged to learn how to cook. Although, saying that, Taviano is an excellent chef, but he learned in Europe, certainly not from our mother.”

“Other things?” Now she was curious. She couldn’t tell from his strictly neutral tone whether or not he was altogether happy with his childhood.

He poured chocolate from a pan on the stove, added whipped cream from a can and put the steaming mug of chocolate in front of her. “We began training from the time we were toddlers. Languages, arts, martial arts, boxing, wrestling, jujitsu, all sorts of weapons, horseback riding, eventually driving skills and of course we were expected to excel in every subject in the private schools we attended. It was top of the class or in trouble.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. His revelation was unexpected. It didn’t sound like much of a childhood to her, and she had to once again reassess what she thought. He might have all the money in the world, but her childhood had been just that–a childhood.

“You thought we spent all of our time playing polo and racing cars?”

“Chasing women,” she corrected, trying to make a joke.

His gaze jumped to her face. She took a breath. Let it out. She had to ask. Her stomach muscles were tied up in knots and she knew she was a heartbeat away from panic. “Did you call him? Barry Anthon?” Her hands tightened around the warmth of the mug, lifting it, but not taking a drink. “Did you call him and tell him I was here?”

His gaze drifted over her face. “You don’t think much of me, do you?”

She stilled; her heart jerked hard. She put the mug of chocolate down on the bar and forced herself to meet his eyes. “That’s not true.”

“Yes it is. You think I’m like Barry Anthon. That I have too much money and I don’t know what hard work is. You didn’t want to take my coat because of my money. You didn’t want to allow me to help you at all.”

His handsome features were stony, expressionless, his blue eyes glittering at her, but it was his tone that caught at her more than anything else. There was just the slightest hint of hurt there. If they hadn’t been so weirdly connected, she knew she would have missed it, but the awareness of every little nuance was there, because she was so conscious of him.

“You’re nothing at all like Barry Anthon,” she said. “Stefano, if I thought for one moment you were like him, I wouldn’t be here in this apartment with you. I’ll admit to some prejudice when I first met you, but that changed very quickly.”

“You don’t relax around me.”

“Well, that’s because you’re . . .” She trailed off with a little wave of her hand, color creeping into her face.

He tilted his head to one side, a slow smile softening the hard edge of his mouth, giving him that sexy tilt that sent heat scattering through her veins.

“I’m what?”

She pressed her lips together hard to keep from blurting out the truth. That he was gorgeous. Sexy. Dangerous. Hot. All those things. Everything she wasn’t. He was so far out of her league it wasn’t funny. He was nothing like Barry Anthon, but he ran in the same circles.

“It just stands to reason that you would want information about my situation, and as you know Barry, what better way to acquire it than by speaking to him personally?” It was prudent to change the subject.

“I definitely want the information about what happened, but you’re right here with me. Why wouldn’t I just ask you myself?”

She ducked her head. “Maybe you think I’d lie to you.”

“Would you?”

She shook her head. “I might be tempted to leave things out. Or just refuse to tell you. It’s all pretty far-fetched, and no one other than Joanna has believed me. They believe Barry.”

“Barry wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face. He’s been making shit up since the day he was born. He pays people to believe him, but that doesn’t make it true, Francesca.”

She lifted her chin, trying not to feel hope. “You should know, aside from being arrested for damaging property, I’ve also been in lockup for seventy-two hours in a hospital.” She didn’t take her eyes from his, waiting for condemnation. Everyone else thought she’d lost her mind, so why not him? Still, deep inside, where that strange connection was, she didn’t think he would believe the worst said about her, either.

He kept his gaze steady on hers. Unflinching. Expressionless. Her heart pounded. She clutched the chocolate mug so hard her knuckles turned white. His gaze dropped to her hands and he reached, gently prying her fingers from the mug. His thumb slid over her knuckles.

“When Barry does something, he’s thorough, but he’s repetitive. Once something works for him, he keeps using it.”

“You’re saying he’s done this before?” Hope blossomed.

“What do you have on him?”

Her breath left her lungs in a rush. “Why do you think I’ve got something on him?”

“Because you’re not dead. He would have killed you if he could have. If we look into the bank account of the man convicted of your sister’s murder, there will be a lot of money his family inherits when he dies. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened around Barry Anthon. Obviously, if you saw him at the murder scene and he’s worked so hard to discredit you, he’s afraid of you. He’s got money and power. He’s got cops and politicians in his pocket. He wouldn’t be afraid

unless whatever you have could ruin him and he can’t risk killing you until he gets it back.”

His thumb rubbed gently at her knuckles. It felt–exquisite. Each time the pad of his thumb slid between her knuckles, she felt his touch melt through bare skin and sink into her bloodstream. She shivered. She couldn’t help it. Her body was tuned to his. Came alive for his. It didn’t make sense, but then chemistry never did.

She took a breath. “I don’t know you, Stefano.”

“You know me.”

He brought her hand to his mouth, his lips moving over her knuckles in the way his thumb had, only this was so much better. Way more intense. She felt an answer coiling hot at the junction of her legs.

“You don’t have to tell me . . . yet. Drink your chocolate.” He let go of her hand.

She curled her fingers around the mug again because when she wasn’t touching him she felt cold, and it was such a relief that he believed her–that he knew the real Barry. Deceitful, murderous Barry.

“He’s done this before? Destroying property and making it look like someone else did it?” Murder? She couldn’t bring herself to ask that.

“All of it, right down to the jail time and the hospital,” Stefano confirmed. “He likes to brag that no one can cross him. He threatened a couple of drivers. They ended up quitting. I didn’t get the story until a couple of years later, but they wouldn’t drive for anyone because they were so afraid of him. It ended their careers.”

“Has he ever threatened you?” Francesca asked cautiously.

“Bambina.”

One word. That said it all. His tone. Amused. Arrogant. Completely confident. She shivered again, but this time because she could see the danger in him. He wasn’t a man other men crossed. If Barry was too afraid to threaten Stefano, what did that make Stefano? The thought flitted through her mind unbidden.

She took a sip of chocolate to buy herself time. It was delicious. There was no way it was from a package. “You made this.”

Amusement crept into the deep blue of his eyes. “Yeah. I did.”

“How did you learn to make such great chocolate?”

“I have a younger sister. She often had a difficult time sleeping so she’d come into my room, wake me up and I’d make her chocolate.”

She thought it strange that his sister woke him up instead of her parents, but he didn’t enlighten her further so she took another sip of the delicious brew.

“I’ve been thinking about your living arrangements. I’ve come up with a great solution. John Balboni and his wife, Suzette, own the hardware store. They’ve wanted to travel for a while, but she’s nervous about leaving their home unattended and they got into a little trouble financially a couple of years ago. They have a little guest unit. I think it would be mutually beneficial if you could live in that unit. She’d be happy, they could use the money and she would feel they could comfortably leave home.”

It sounded perfect but . . . there was Barry. If he found out where she was staying, he would come after her. He’d destroy any property. The horrible apartment building where she’d lived didn’t much matter, but the Balbonis sounded like a nice couple who couldn’t afford to have their guest unit destroyed.

He nodded as if reading her mind. “You see the problem. Barry is probably searching for you right now. How did you pay for your bus ticket?”

“When I got out of the hospital, I knew I had to get away from Barry’s influence, so I stayed on the street and in shelters. I knew he had someone watching me. Street people stick together and they helped me evade the watcher. Joanna had sent me money and I used it to buy a bus ticket. I got rid of all my clothes, selling them, or trading in the thrift store so they couldn’t recognize anything I wore. I boarded the bus and came here.”

“But you know he’ll replace you.” He made it a statement.

Francesca nodded. “Eventually. I was hoping I had the chance to get back on my feet before he did. He left me too afraid and too exhausted.”

“So we’ll have to change plans. This hotel is secure. You’ll have to stay here. With me. He won’t get his crew past security and there’s no way he can destroy where you’re staying.”

Francesca held her breath. Her eyes met his. Temptation was a man who was so beautiful he looked like sin. “Stefano . . . Thank you, but I can’t accept.”

“I wasn’t asking, bella. It’s the only solution. It keeps you and everyone else safe. Besides. I’ve wanted to take on Barry Anthon for a long time. You’ll stay here and we’ll put a plan together to draw him out. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. He won’t get close to you. With you under my protection, he’s going to have to change his game. He’s comfortable with that game, and he’s going to start making mistakes.”

“But I can’t let you . . .”

“Did you not fucking hear me? You’re staying here. With me.”

He was back to swearing, impatience in his voice. She let her breath out. She wasn’t as afraid of Barry as she was of staying with Stefano. She might not just lose her body to him; she would definitely lose her heart. Still, even with knowing that, she couldn’t resist temptation. Or safety. Or that bed. She nodded slowly.