“Write a list, and I’ll have them delivered.”
“Thank you. Clothes that fit first!”
Closing his eyes again, Gino took a deep breath before fixing his stare back to his desktop.
This was all for the greater good, he told himself. He’d made a deal that would allow him to work in peace for the next six days. Get through the next thirty minutes of Francesca’s closeness and the awful awareness of her dainty hand working the mousepad of his laptop and of her every shoulder wriggle and absent kick of her feet, and then she would be on the sofa, and this awful, thrilling static dancing on his skin and pumping through his veins would vanish.
“Will you teach me to play poker?” she suddenly asked.
“In exchange for what?”
“Not in exchange for anything. I’d just like to learn.” She turned her face to him and flashed her mischievous smile. “You’re confining us to your apartment for the week. You can’t work twenty-four hours a day. We’ll need to find something to occupy our time in the long evenings.”
He wouldnotlet his mind roam to what else they could do to occupy their time.
“Can’t you spend the evenings cowering in a corner and pretending to be scared of me like a good little hostage should?”
Sniggering, she looked back at the screen and clicked the mousepad. “You need to work harder at being mean and threatening for that to happen.”
“It’s not something I usually need to work at. Most people find me mean and threatening as a matter of course.”
He felt her playful glance land back on him. “I thought we’d already established I’m not like most people, Mr Vicario.”
“You’re certainly one of a kind, Miss Marino.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment, now will you please stop talking – you’re distracting me from my shopping.”
This time, there was no stifling his laughter.
She’d fallen asleep. Gino couldn’t even blame it on her mouth exhausting her into sleep, not when Francesca had been as good as her word. Her thirty minutes up, she’d slid the laptop to him, telling him her chosen items were in the store’s basket, then asked for a pen and a piece of paper. After writing a quick list of the books she wanted, she’d taken herself to the sofa without being told. Lunch had been brought in for them, and she’d eaten hers in silence. Ten minutes after Carmita had cleared it all away, the chosen books had been delivered. Francesca had divedinto them with glee, selected one, popped a cushion beneath her head, stretched out, and started reading.
All this silence had allowed him to work at his usual speed. He’d read all the overnight reports from the general managers who ran his nightclubs across Europe, checked in on all his other investments, set up numerous meetings for the following week and answered his backlog of overnight messages. An hour earlier, a message had come through on a burner phone from one of his spies confirming that Mattia Esposito was putting everything in place to comply with Gino’s demands, with the caveat not to trust him. It was a caveat Gino did not need. He trusted no one, least of all an Esposito. Lorenzo had been a good man to do business and party with, but beneath his bonhomie and generosity had lived a man whose eye was always fixed firmly on the main chance and whose brain was always ten steps ahead of everyone else’s. Gino had learned a lot from him.
And yet for all the work he’d completed, he’d found his stare continually flickering over to the woman happily reading on his office sofa. Often, he’d found her stare already on him. Other times, his eyes had barely glanced at hers before her gaze blinked onto his. Every time their eyes connected, his heart pumped a little faster. He could still feel the tingle of the strange static on his skin and in his veins.
He’d noticed her falling asleep before she’d finally gone. Seen the growing heaviness of her eyes. Noticed the exaggerated blinks as she tried to keep them open. He’d been messaging his spy back when she’d pressed her open book to her chest and closed her eyes for the final time. The book was still there, just, sliding off in tiny increments as her chest rose and fell. Soon, it would slip off her. She would lose her page.
The sun was starting to set. He supposed he should wake her.
Rubbing the back of his tightening neck – he was a man always on the move; sitting for any length of time like this wasnot normal for him – he looked up at the ceiling and wondered how the hell he was going to make it through the next six nights with this woman in his bedroom.
“Are you still working?” a soft, sleepy voice asked.
He lowered his gaze.
She smiled, then covered her mouth and yawned. “How long have I been asleep?”
“About an hour.”
“I bet you’ve spent all that time silently celebrating.”
“Something like that.”
“So, are you still working?”
He shook his head. “I’ve just finished.”
Mischief flashed on her sleepy face. “Interrogation time?”
