“Then you will spend the next week with only bread and water as sustenance.”
She took her phone and bestowed him with her sweetest smile. “Do you want me to sound all scared and pathetic when I speak to her?”
He matched her smile. “If you want to frighten her, then go ahead. My only requirement is that you put it on loud speaker.” Still smiling, he added, “If I think you’re trying to speak in code, I will destroy the phone.”
She affected a shocked face. “Me?”
Biting back a rush of genuine amusement, he nodded at the phone. “Make the call, Miss Marino. Your two minutes start now.”
Chapter Five
Standing close enoughto observe everything she was doing, but not too close that their bodies touched, Gino watched Francesca unlock the phone, click on recent calls, and press on her mother’s name. As the two phones connected, she put it on loud-speaker.
It was answered on the third ring. “Francesca? Is that you?”
“It is,” she said in the soft, cheerful, melodious voice he was becoming too damned used to. “My kidnapper has given me only one minute to speak to you, so let me first assure you that I’m being treated very well. As long as Mattia complies with all Mr Vicario’s demands, I will be home in six days.”
“Is he listening?” her mother whispered. “How can I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I promise you, and you can tell Mattia the same, he’s treating me well…” She flicked her stare to Gino and grinned. “… although I have a very strong feeling he wishes he hadn’t given his word not to harm me.”
He raised an eyebrow, which made her grin widen. One day soon, Francesca was going to develop laughter lines around her eyes.
Still whispering, her mother plaintively said, “Please, Chicca, promise you won’t do anything to provoke him.”
An unexpected swell of laughter rose up Gino’s throat at this, forcing him to press his lips together to smother it.
“He won’t hurt me, I promise. My minute is nearly up, so I’d better go. Tell Dad I love him, and tell Artu to take a shower, and please call Alessandro and tell him I’m ill or something and beg him not to sack me. Oh, and when I’m safely back home, I’d be very grateful for an explanation as to why you’ve agreed to marry me off to some gangster. I love you, bye.”
She ended the call before her mother could say another word and handed the phone back to Gino. “All done.”
Bemused at a mostly one-way conversation that hadn’t gone at all in the way he’d expected, Gino shook his head.
When would he learn that where Francesca was concerned, nothing went as he expected?
“I said you had two minutes.”
Her eyes dancing, she pulled a rueful face and tucked a lock of her damp hair behind an ear. “I know, but have you heard my mother when she gets a headwind on her? She needed to hear my voice and know I was well, and now she’s heard it and knows it. Job done.”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t expect you to use your time to berate her.”
The faint line between her eyebrows appeared. “I didn’t berate her.”
“Then what do you call your demand for an explanation of the marriage plans?”
“A forewarning that I know about it?” The amusement faded from her face. “She shouldn’t be making plans behind my back for me like I’m some kind of camel to be traded.”
He felt his own forehead crease. “You seem angrier about the marriage plans than about being kidnapped.”
“Your abduction of me is business. Marrying me off is personal.”
“To your family, it’s business.”
“I’ve spent my life living in the middle of nowhere to keep us away from the family business, so it’s a bit rich to suddenly demand I become a part of it. Besides, I hate being dictated to, and they know it. If I had to choose between spending the rest of my life as your captive or being married off to a stranger, I’d choose you.”
Of everything she had said and done in their short but exceedingly long time together, that one shocked him the most. “You cannot be serious.”
A spark came back into her eyes, her stare on him bold and unambiguous. “You’re a very sexy man, Mr Vicario.”
