“Your clothes have been delivered. Don’t you want to try them on first?”
She considered this, then scrambled upright, swinging her feet to the floor. “Okay, clothes first, then interrogation.” Standing, she stretched her back and rolled her neck. Her hair had dried, the back of it fanning out as if the static he’d felt on his skin and veins had jumped to her and pulled it in all directions.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything sexier.
Chapter Six
Francesca had never seen somany boxes. Gino’s dressing room was filled with them, and they were all for her.
“I think even I can find something I like and that fits me in this lot,” she said happily.
Her kidnapper, who was standing at the threshold of the dressing room, backed away. “Take all the time you need to try them on. Keep whatever you like.”
“What if I like everything?” she joked. That would be impossible. She’d ordered seventeen dresses for Siena’s engagement party and sent back every one of them. The next batch she’d ordered had been just as bad, but she’d run out of time and had had to settle on an ill-shaped, black velvet monstrosity more fitting for a gothic funeral than a celebration. She didn’t know why she bothered.
“Keep whatever you like,” he repeated, wryly adding as he closed the door, “Consider it payment for your inconvenience.”
Smiling to herself, she gazed again at all the boxes. Her inconvenience? Is that what being kidnapped was now called? How would he repay her if hehadto kill her? Buy her a gold coffin to make up for it?
He wouldn’t kill her. She already knew that. She wasn’t quite sure if Gino knew it, but he’d know it if it ever came to it, and it would only come to it if her cousin failed to comply with his demands, and if Mattia did fail to comply… Well, they would all cross that bridge if and when they came to it. She wasn’t going to spend the next six nights worrying about something that was entirely out of her hands. Look at her parents – her whole life, they’d worried; seen danger in every passing car and unfamiliar face. They’d been so busy protecting themselves and their children, hiding from the shadows, that they’d stopped living. Francesca had been the anomaly, the one who hadwantedto live, the one who had grabbed every limited opportunity to feel alive, and it was beyond ironic that only now, as Gino Vicario’s hostage, did she feel herself coming to life, fully, in a way she’d never done before.
She couldn’t believe it. She loved every single item, and it all fit her as if it had been made for her. How was she going to decide what to keep?
Humming happily to herself, Francesca opened one of the last boxes and found herself gazing at a vast selection of bras and knickers.Prettybras and knickers. She lifted a bra out and examined it closely. It was made of silk. She’d not put underwear in the online basket, hadn’t even considered it, but if she had, this is what she would have chosen.
She tried it on and almost cried. It fit perfectly and felt wonderful against her skin. Usually, she went for practicality, figuring that as the chances of anyone seeing her in underwear were zero, there was no point in bothering with anything nice.
She closed her eyes, a dizzying flush rushing through her body as she wondered if Gino had instructed the stylist to choose underwear for her. He must have done, surely?
Her heart beat even faster when she opened another box and found the most beautiful silk dress in it. Unlike all the other dresses, which were pretty, floaty little numbers, this was a gorgeous taupe colour with spaghetti straps, the body of the dress plunging to a V to her midriff, showing more breast than she’d ever shown before, and clung to her waist before falling to mid-calf. As it came with an inbuilt bra, she removed the one she’d been wearing so she could see the dress properly, then remembered the heeled shoes she’d already made a mental note to return – they were beautiful, but when would she ever have the chance to wear them? Slipping them on, she looked at her reflection in the nearest full-length mirror.
Her heart caught in her throat, and she quickly looked away before she did cry.
When would she ever have the opportunity to wear a dress like this? At one of the rare family parties her parents felt obliged for them all to attend? No, this was not the slightest bit appropriate for one of those events, and forget wearing it for the man her family had negotiated for her to marry. She’d made huge sacrifices to appease her parents through the years, but she wasn’t cattle to be traded.
With a deep sigh, she pulled herself together and opened the last box. When she saw what it contained, she burst out laughing, and without thinking of what she was doing, hurried out of the dressing room.
“You bought me a hairdryer!”
Gino, busy on a call, turned and immediately lost track of his conversation.
His beaming hostage waved the hairdryer he’d emailed the store on a whim to have added to the delivery, oblivious – shehadto be oblivious – to how drop-dead gorgeous she looked in that dress. That her hair was still all tousled only added to the effect.
He’d known she had a killer body, butfuck….
Her stare dipped to the phone in his hand. “Sorry,” she mouthed, then disappeared back into the dressing room.
How he concentrated on the rest of his call, he would never know.
He’d barely got a handle on his equilibrium when she bounded back into the bedroom, now wearing a dress much less revealing but no less stunning. Except it was just an ordinary summer dress, pretty rather than sexy. The effect was exactly the same.
“Those clothes are incredible,” she said, practically bouncing on her bare feet. “I can’t believe it – they all fit! Sorry it took me so long, but I was having real trouble deciding what to send back.”
He had to clear his throat to speak. It felt like he was treading on quicksand. “I told you, you don’t have to send any of it back.”
She laughed. “There’s a few dresses in there that are just gorgeous but will never be worn. What did you tell the stylist to do? Send enough clothes to see me out for a year?”
“Just to send a good selection over for you.”
