An excellent question. For looking into her eyes, Benedetto knew how sick his need for vengeance truly was. He thrust into her, and stared at Kate, but he only had to look at those eyes to feel satisfaction at the man he was hurting. Each and every time he possessed her, each time her body yielded to his, was another fleck of insult to the manwho’d killed his father.
“Your eyes are why I feel this,” he said simply, and with complete truth.
Kate bit down on her lip. It didn’t completely make sense, but then, perhaps something was lost from Italian to English. Maybe he’d meant something else? She didn’t really care. Not when everything felt so good. The whole world seemed brighter and more sharply focused.
He pumped into her, and when they began to explode simultaneously, he cried out into the air. He had never known a satisfaction like it, for in exploring this intense pleasure, he was finally carrying out his act of revenge, and Benedetto relished that.
As her breath returned to normal and her eyes still hung on his, he lowered his face, so that their lips were only an inch apart.
“You will come home with me tonight.”
Her nod was slow. It was the right decision, and yet it filled her with fear. She knew with a degree of absolute certainty that she would come to regret it.
She just didn’t know how soon.
* * *
Augustine was getting old, but adrenalin made him feel youthful and alive. He jammed his phone into his pocket with a sense of fury that he was finding increasingly difficult to curb. The closer he got to his bitch of a daughter, the more it became a ground swell, threatening to engulf him.
So she’d fallen into bed – literally – with Arnaud. Did she know that he was using her?
Was his own daughter trying to hurt him, too?
He wouldn’t put it past her. And after all he’d done for her. Raising her on his own, paying a fortune for her education, giving her every advantage in life.
He’d known she would turn out like this, and he’d done his best to curb the worst in her. But she had proven unbreakable.
His fist clenched involuntarily by his side.
He had looked for her for a long time. He had searched and he had waited, certain that one day she would stumble and he would find her.
How she had evaded him he could not have said. But she would not evade him for much longer. The doors to the airport swished open automatically as he approached and he scanned the row of uniformed drivers waiting to meet their human cargo. His own name was emblazoned on a board. He moved towards it with purpose.
The waiting was about to come to an end.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She dreamed of him again that night.
Her heart raced in her chest; the dream coated her mouth with the bitter taste of metal. Adrenalin spiked in her blood, making her limbs heavy and her mind alert.
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at the ceiling without recognizing it. She flicked her gaze to one side, taking in the tasteful, modern furnishings cast in a soft glow. Then, she looked to the other side of the room.
Benedetto.
He was standing on his balcony, wearing only cotton boxers despite the coolness of the night.
But he was there.
And she was with him.
In his home.
She was safe.
Augustine was years in her past and thousands of miles from her person.
She sucked in a deep breath, waiting for her pulse to return to normal.
