Her stopped heart exploded…and then froze completely when she saw the pink cardboard boxes placed on the sofa beside him.
“Hello, Gabriella.” He tilted his head as he looked her up and down. It was only when he moved his right arm and pointed it at her that she noticed the gun in his hand. “Ready to beg for your life?”
Tommaso took great satisfaction in seeing the colour drain from Gabriella’s beautiful face. There was also satisfaction in witnessing her at a complete loss for words.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, his amiable tone not giving a hint of the fury burning beneath his skin.
It was a fury like nothing he’d experienced in all his thirty-four years, wrapped in so many layers of emotion that it sat inside him like a cobra pumped full of the most potent steroids. Only by exerting a control he’d never known he possessed did he stop the cobra from unleashing its deadly venom.
Her slender throat moved. There was more satisfaction in seeing the dark brown eyes frozen in fear rather than ringing with their usual contempt.
Gabriella Romana had the most expressive eyes he’d ever seen.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” he suggested, waving the gun at the armchair facing him. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”
Her movements to the armchair were disjointed. She lowered herself onto it without any of her usual grace.
Tommaso had known Gabriella all her life. His parents were her godparents, Gabriella family to them all. Where his babysister was the girliest of girls, Gabriella, the same age as Siena, had been one of the boys, skateboarding, playing football and climbing anything nature said shouldn’t be climbed. Except for her neck flushing whenever Tommaso spoke directly to her, adolescence didn’t change her, not even when she moved in with his family. By then, Tommaso was making his mark in the family empire and enjoying the perks that came with being a filthy-rich young man with a famous name, good looks and no ties. Women flocked to him like bees to pollen, and he gorged on all the beautiful honey they made together.
The first time he’d noticed Gabriella’s transformation from mouthy tomboy to elegant young woman was at his thirtieth birthday party. She’d worn a tight, velvet red dress to it. There had been a slit in its skirt, and when she’d walked, a supple, golden thigh had revealed itself that was as tantalising as the hint of cleavage that in itself hinted at pert, heavy breasts.
She’d been ravishing. Long, thick, dark chestnut hair, eyes like melted dark chocolate and plump lips that just begged to be kissed.
Their eyes had met. He’d looked her up and down without shame. Her neck had flushed in that old remembered way from when she was a teenager, but she hadn’t looked away. She might have matured from the tomboy she’d once been, but she hadn’t lost her fearlessness. He’d abandoned his date without a thought and gone over to her.
He could still feel the heat and tremble of her hot, slender body from when they’d danced and smell the sultry scent of her perfume.
And he could remember, as vividly as if it had only just happened, the way she’d stiffened when he’d seductively whispered in her ear, “Want to come up to my suite for a nightcap when this is over and celebrate my birthday properly?”
The arms that had been looped tightly around his neck had loosened, and she’d slowly pulled her head back. Something had pulsed in her eyes. She’d brought her mouth to his ear. The lips he’d ached to taste had brushed against his lobe. Her warm breath had danced over his skin as she’d whispered, “I’d rather die.”
Any assumption that she was joking was cast aside when she pulled her head back a second time. She’d smiled at him. Anyone watching them would have believed her happy in his company, but one look in her eyes would have told the truth. The contempt in them had been unmistakable. It was a contempt she’d rarely bothered to disguise since, not even bothering to hide it in his father’s presence.
Tommaso would have bet his last cent that she wished she could disguise the way her neck flushed whenever he addressed her directly. He took delight in it; delight in knowing that for all her contempt, Gabriella wanted him. For four years, they’d played a game of cat and mouse, tormenting and needling each other, the chemistry between them strong enough to taste. For four years, he’d fantasised about the day he broke down her defences and finally made her his.
He’d believed her disdain for him to be wrapped in his deserved reputation as an unfaithful womaniser; a mask she wore to hide her desire for him. He’d thought she looked at his family as her family. Gabriella’s father and Tommaso’s father had been the closest of friends since infant school, and when Fabio Romano was killed all those years ago, Lorenzo had taken care of his family. Lorenzo was the only father she had known. Gabriella had been only sixteen when her mother died of cancer, and it had been the most natural thing in the world to bring her into the Espositos’ home to live. When she’d finished her education, Lorenzo had taken her under his wing further andbrought her into his empire. Gabriella had been an Esposito in all but name.
Turned out her disdain for Tommaso hadn’t been a mask. It had been real, and it extended to all his family, and it ran much darker than contempt. The woman they’d treated like blood had been working from within to destroy them.
The moment Niccolo Martinelli uttered her name barely an hour earlier, Tommaso had known he was speaking the truth. Finding the evidence, though…
It had taken exactly two minutes to locate it. Instinct had sent him straight to her bedroom and into her wardrobe. Four large pink boxes neatly placed on a high interior shelf. The front two were filled with old photographs and childhood memorabilia. The two at the back were filled to the rim with documents.
A quick skim of the documents had made the room swim around him. Incontrovertible proof that Gabriella was gathering evidence to send his family to prison.
She hated them all. She wanted to destroy them all. It just happened that Tommaso was the one she hated the most.
What made her treachery harder to bear was remembering her slip of affection towards him only five nights ago, hours after his father had died. He’d staggered into his mother’s suite at the hotel. Siena and Gabriella had been there with her, all still white-faced from shock. He’d slumped onto the settee next to Gabriella and, unthinkingly, lay down with his head on her lap. Without saying a word, she’d stroked his hair with such tenderness that a sense of calm had stolen over him and he’d fallen asleep. He’d woken before the sun had risen to find himself alone in the suite’s living area with a blanket covering him.
He hadn’t felt a hint of calm or slept properly since.
With everything that had been happening since his father’s death, Tommaso had put that night to the back of his mind. There was just too much to deal with.
But though it had been relegated to the back of his mind, Gabriella’s gentle compassion had stayed with him. The woman who’d spent four years needling him and treating him with contempt at every available opportunity had dropped her defences the one time he’d needed her.
He’d gazed at her only that morning in his mother’s kitchen and thought there could be no more cat and mouse between them. There was something between them, something real, and it was time they both stopped hiding from it.
The irony that he’d finally admitted his feelings hours before learning the truth about her just added petrol to his rage.
