A yawn finally stole over her.
She needed to sleep, but couldn’t switch her brain off.
When the cold light of day struck and he woke up, what did he intend to do with her? Would she be kept barefoot and naked in this bedroom for the rest of her life? Would she ever taste fresh air again?
Her eyes were getting heavy.
She was alive, she reminded herself. He’d let her live. And while she had breath, she had fight, and it was with that thought that she finally slipped into oblivion, falling into such a deep sleep that when she started lifting out of it and into that blurry state between dream and consciousness, full consciousness took a long time to establish that her erotic Tommaso dream was no dream. The soft moans coming from her throat were real moans, a response to the pleasure of him moving deep inside her.
Her throat caught in horror, not at what he was doing to her, but that in her dream-like state, she’d been responsive. Keeping her eyes closed, she gritted her teeth tightly and made sure not to make another sound or allow her body to make any voluntary movement. It was a stillness she fought like hell to maintain when he upped his pace, thrusting harder and faster, and the fizzing flames of sensation deep in her pelvis began to throband burn in response. But no matter how desperate her fight, her orgasm came so shamefully quickly and powerfully that she damned near broke her jaw in a desperate attempt not to cry out at the pleasure rippling gloriously inside her that only deepened when Tommaso gave a stifled groan and locked his groin to hers with one final slam of his hips.
Tommaso tried to catch his breath. His face was burrowed in the crook of Gabriella’s delectable neck. The thrills from his powerful climax were still raging through him, the distant thud playing in his ears the echo of his heart.
There had been a split-second before his brain had fully woken, a solitary moment before the events of the day had risen to the surface. He’d been fully erect. The backside his erection had been straining against had made the lightest of movements just a beat before she’d made the lightest of moans. On some subconscious level, he’d known the figure pressed so tightly against him was Gabriella and when he’d rolled her onto her back and kissed her neck and she’d spread her legs welcomingly for him, he’d thrust himself inside her with such an explosion of emotion that to suddenly rememberwhyshe was in his bed had caused those emotions to twist into something rancid and ugly.
He'd sensed the exact moment she’d remembered why she was in his bed too.
That awareness hadn’t stopped her coming, he reminded himself with bitter-tasting satisfaction. Bitter tasting because all he wanted was to lock her back in his arms and go to sleep until he’d recovered enough to do it all again. Bitter tasting because he’d had the first deep sleep since the night she’d let him put his head on her lap and had stroked his hair to comfort him.
Bitter tasting because she was a treacherous rat, and he had no business feeling anything but hate for her.
Furious with himself, he pulled himself out of her and jumped out of bed. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, too sickened with the both of them to look at her. “Don’t go back to sleep.”
The bathroom door opened. Gabriella’s heart jumped, but she made sure to keep her features defiantly neutral.
Buck naked and smelling incredible, Tommaso emerged in a cloud of steam. Without looking at her or saying a word, he disappeared through the other door in the bedroom. She caught a glimpse of what had to be a dressing room. He reappeared quickly, wearing a pair of snug black cotton briefs. Still not acknowledging her, he stepped out onto the landing and vanished.
She closed her eyes and hugged her arms for the warmth Tommaso’s coldness had stolen and tried hard to stop herself remembering how it had felt to have his body-heat permeating her.
If she didn’t feel so sick, she would laugh. What was the point in trying not to remember when she could stillfeelhis skin on hers and her own skin was still fizzing from the sensation of the climax he’d given her?
She found her shirtdress on the bathroom floor in the same spot it had fallen when she’d stripped it off the second time. She slipped it on. It was the only item of clothing she now possessed. The onlythingshe possessed.
There was a long bench in the centre of the bathroom, and she slumped onto it and hung her pounding head.
What would become of her apartment, she wondered despairingly. It was the apartment her parents had made intoa home before she’d even been conceived. When her mother died, she’d been glad to move in with the Espositos. She’d been sixteen and would have rather drunk fresh blood from a rabies-infected bat than live with the family who’d murdered her father and killed her mother, but living under their roof would give her the evidence needed to bring the bastards down. She’d found nothing. At eighteen, she’d finished her education and moved back into her apartment, and even though her job with the Esposito Group meant she’d earned excellent money, certainly enough to buy something in one of Naples’ fancier districts, her little apartment was where all her good memories lived and where she felt safe.
She would never be safe again.
Working directly with Lorenzo had given her access to a treasure trove of documents, but very little actual evidence of criminality. Bit by bit, though, thatlittle actual evidenceadded up to something significant. But there had been no collective knockout blow. Nothing she could put in front of the judiciary and guarantee all the Espositos and their biggest enforcers spent the rest of their lives in prison. What she’d found barely skimmed the edges. Put what she’d amassed in front of the Court of Assizes, and she’d be lucky if any of them other than Tommaso spent a single night in a cell.
She dragged her nails over her head. Last summer, her luck had changed, and she’d obtained proof of Tommaso’s involvement in organised crime. Then, a few months later, she’d found and copied evidence of money laundering. Again, it had pointed in Tommaso’s direction. She’d agonised over what to do with it. Get the Esposito she hated the most put away, and so turn the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate’s spotlight onto the family as a whole and hope they found what was needed to send them all down? Or continue biding her time until she had enough incontrovertible evidence to put them all away in one fellswoop that no amount of bribes or more serious, deadlier efforts at tampering could stop?
All her agonising had been for nothing. If she’d acted when she’d first gathered all that proof, Tommaso would very likely already be locked up. Instead, he had the box she’d kept the evidence in, and she was the one imprisoned.
Sensing a presence watching her, Gabriella looked up and locked eyes with her jailor. A wave of emotion crashed through her.
With a jerk of his head, he beckoned her to follow him back into the bedroom.
The second she crossed the threshold, she saw the beautiful white dress Siena had been wearing when Niccolo escaped from the church laid on the bed. A handful of bags and boxes with designer labels were on the ottoman at the foot of it.
Her heart thrashing, Gabriella turned her horrified stare back to her jailor.
His wild black eyes glittered. “Siena’s idea. She thought it fitting, seeing as you’re the reason she was jilted before she could make her vows in it.”
“I hadnothingto do with Niccolo jilting Siena,” she choked. If she didn’t already know her marriage to Tommaso would be one of degradation and humiliation, this would have cinched it. Gabriella had helped Siena into that dress only six days ago. She’d been by her side when the news had come through that the groom had absconded from the church. She’d watched Siena throw her bouquet to the ground and stamp on it, and then minutes later watched her throw herself onto the cold stone floor of the church and sob over her father’s lifeless body.
It had been Gabriella who’d wrapped her arms around Siena and comforted her. As much as she hated all the Espositos, a residue of the love she’d felt for them for the first sixteen years of her life had stubbornly remained intact, and she’d been helplessto stop her heart aching for the woman she’d once thought of as a sister. It had ached for all of them.
