How could a man her sister had spent such little time with have such a strong hold over her? She just couldn’t understand it. Did her sister love him? Fear him? A combination of both? Niccolo was one of the richest men in Europe and hugely powerful with it.
And Callie’s captor was equally rich and equally as powerful.
Shouldshe tell Dante about the baby? There had been a moment when she’d come close to doing so, but to act on it would feel too much like she was betraying Georgia. Just because Georgia had sunk so low as to betray her didn’t mean Callie could do the same. Callie was the only person other than the midwife team who knew about the pregnancy, and she only knew because she’d guessed. Georgia hadn’t confided the pregnancy to her, had been furious that Callie had put two and two together, had made her swear not to tell another soul.
It was making that promise that had stopped Callie from seeking Niccolo out sooner, that and the aching hope her twin would come to her senses and do the right thing and tell him herself. Time was running out. Niccolo needed to know, and if she could make her escape quickly, she’d find the means to get back to Accardiano and find him before it was too late. Dante hadn’t taken her bank cards, so she had the tools needed to get back there, would worry about replacing her passport at a later point, and if she ran out of money, she would swallow her pride and beg her parents for help… Or maybe not, she thought with an internal heavy sigh. She didn’t know her parents’ phone numbers off the top of her head.
Resolve stiffened her spine. Whatever it took, whatever it cost her, she would escape Dante’s clutches and get to Niccolo.
One of the bodyguards sat across the narrow aisle from them stood to do some stretches. She hoped his musclescramped, hoped all the hulking men surrounding her arrived at their destination with seized-up bodies, especially Dante. Not only would that mean they’d all be in pain, but she’d have an excellent chance of escaping them immediately. She could be back in Accardiano by morning.
“Where are we going?” she asked brusquely, not looking at him. It sickened her that she could find a monster so attractive, that she could sit in this helicopter as his captive and still feel those bubbles of awareness in her veins. Sickened her that she was having to physically stop her gaze from darting to him and soaking up that gorgeous face.
He answered as if they’d been in the midst of a conversation rather than having been sat in complete silence for at least an hour. “The Chianti region of Tuscany.”
Callie’s geography wasn’t great, but she was reasonably certain Florence was in Tuscany. She hoped The Chianti region had lots of large towns and cities in it. A city like the one they were currently flying over would give her a much better chance of escape.
She pressed her face to the glass, silently begging one of the many ant-like figures she could see going about their business to look up and intuit that she needed help.
Soon, though, the urban area was far behind them, the landscape changing to a sea of rolling hills in a variety of greens as far as the eye could see... she suddenly glimpsed a field of red. About to ask Dante what it was, she clamped her lips back together. This wasn’t a geography trip. The only questions she would ask would be necessary ones. Under no circumstances would she behave as if she were here willingly.
“Not much longer to travel,” he informed her.
They flew over a small, medieval-looking village, then a short while later an even smaller one. When they flew over yet another, and she was able to recognise an outdoormarket in a cobbled square, she realised they were now travelling closer to the ground.
“Almost there,” the kidnapping bastard murmured. “You should see a building jutting out on the top of a hillside at your two-o-clock.”
Despite not wanting to acknowledge a single word he said, she looked to where two-o-clock would be on a traditional clock face and saw a blob in the distance.
Pretending that she couldn’t feel Dante’s gaze on her, Callie kept her own gaze on the distant blob and the river snaking close to it that was coming into clearer focus until her mouth was open and she was unable to stop herself from locking eyes with him. “Thatis your home?”
Thatwas clearly a castle, an honest-to-goodness castle with multiple terracotta-coloured roofs and turrets set on the top of the hill, fully encircled by high trees and a driveway whose path their pilot was now following to reach it. Cultivated fields surrounded the castle in quadrants, the whole thing reminding her of a giant clockface with the castle itself being bang in the centre.
“It is,” he confirmed. “A home I imagine a history teacher would be delighted to spend a few days living in.” His eyes sparkled. “You can imagine yourself a princess in it.”
“Sure, I can imagine myself as Rapunzel locked away in the tower.” Locked away far from civilisation, too. She felt quite faint at what she was seeing. If there were any cities or large towns close by, they must be shielded by invisibility cloaks.
“WasRapunzel a princess?” he queried.
Her facial muscles aching from all the death stares she’d already thrown at him, she looked back out of the window and took in as much of the surrounding landscape as she could to aid her escape. In moments, they were flying over the top of the castle itself. She glimpsed sprawling lawns, a couple ofswimming pools and tennis courts before they vanished from her sight and the helicopter landed.
Dante stepped out first, then held out a hand to assist the spitfire out of the helicopter – it was a significant drop to the ground – but to his complete lack of surprise, she snubbed it and jumped, landing heavily.
“You okay?” he asked at her wince of pain.
“Not particularly. Want me to give you a rundown as to why?”
“Not particularly.”
As much as he’d rather be in Accardiano living it up with his closest friends and checking out the beautiful women he’d been assured formed a significant portion of the wedding party, there was something thrilling about introducing this spitfire of an English woman to Castello Coscarelli. He could see those large eyes… currently a pale blue, he noted… soaking everything in with the same sense of awe he’d experienced the first time he’d set eyes on it as a boy.
He could see, too, that she was already longing to ask questions about it, and knew her fury with him meant she’d rather bite her tongue off than ask any of them.
Usually, when a woman discovered who he was, her interest in him as a man magically accelerated. Dante had shown women around his castle displaying such clearly feigned interest in it that he’d come close to laughing in their faces. Did those women seriously believe that pretending to be interested in his ancestral home and business meant he would magically want more than a short-lived affair with them? Callie, though, had learned who he was and in a matter of seconds had gone from showing subtle signs of awareness to full-blown loathing. Dante suspected his initial deception, and the small matter of forcing her to travel hundreds of kilometres from where she wanted to be,mighthave contributed somewhat towards this.
Oh well, he thought philosophically as they treaded over the landing field to the rear of the castle. His deception had been necessary. The odds of Callie graciously complying with his plans if he’d politely introduced himself and asked her to abandon her plot to destroy his oldest friend, a plot that put her in the gravest danger, and accompany him to Tuscany had been roughly a million to one. While he accepted she hadn’t flown to Naples with Niccolo’s destruction in mind – he guessed her sister had told the lie she had known would force Niccolo to act – Dante suspected that whatever Calliedidwant to confide in him would be equally explosive. She would just have to wait until after the wedding to drop the bomb.
Watching her curvy figure in those tight blue jeans and flat black ankle boots angrily stomp through the guarded iron gate that was mostly hidden by the towering cypress trees encircling the castle in line with the driveway, he wondered if the awareness he’d sensed building in her before he’d confessed his true identity had been completely eradicated or if she’d merely smothered it. Either way, he’d bet she was furious with herself for having even felt it. If he didn’t have the pre-wedding celebrations to get back to, he’d be tempted to make an effort to find out because the more he looked at Callie Thomas, the more attractive she grew. Seriously attractive.
