He ignored her suggestive tone. “Trust me, it counts, so put your chip in for the blind and deal the cards.”
There was only the faintest tremor in her hands as she straightened the deck into a neat pile and placed her poker chip. Keeping her voice steady, she dealt their two cards. “If you’re so confident you will beat me, then I have a deal for you.”
“Another deal?” he asked wryly.
“A bet, and as you’re such a pro at the game, it’s a bet you can’t lose.”
“Go on.”
She had a quick glance at the cards she’d dealt herself and added her second chip to the small pile. Then she looked backat him, willing herself to hold her nerve and not drop her stare. “When we’ve played enough dummy hands for me to hold my own against you, I want to play a proper game, like you play with your friends. But we don’t play for money. Instead, you think of something you want from me, such as me promising not to speak a word when we go to bed tonight, and if you beat me, I have to fulfil it.”
His eyes narrowed, but by the tilt of his head, she could see he was intrigued by her suggestion. “And if by chance you should win? You know I can’t let you go or agree to anything concerning your family, so what could you want from me?”
Her throat had gone bone dry. Huge butterflies were pounding their wings in her chest, but she held his stare with a boldness completely at odds with what was happening beneath her skin. “I want you to take my virginity.”
Francesca’s words shot around the room like a bullet. From the expression on Gino’s face, it was like the bullet had been fired into him.
“No.”
His one syllable flatly delivered refutation cracked at the same speed as the bullet she’d delivered.
Her hands now visibly shaking, she dealt the first three face-up cards.
She’d said it. Crossed the invisible line. Put a hand on the barrier he’d erected and pulled on it. “Why not?”
“Are you crazy?” he demanded tightly. The relaxed vibe he’d been giving off had blown away with the crack of her verbal bullet.
“Not at all.” She lifted her cards and waited for him to make his play. “I think I’m being completely rational.”
“It’s the most insane thing I have ever heard. End of discussion.”
“Afraid I will beat you?”
Jaw set, he glanced at his cards and the three on the table, and placed his chips on the small pile. “I said end of discussion, and when we have played this hand, end of game.”
She matched him and turned the fourth card. “Why be so afraid to take my bet? It’s not like I’m going to beat you. You’re a professional at the game and a gambler who never loses. This is my second hand. I’m virtually guaranteeing you a peaceful night’s sleep.”
His face dark with anger, he whipped his stare up to meet hers. “For fuck’s sake, Francesca. Your virginity is not a commodity to be traded or gambled.”
“You’re already trading in it. You and my family.” She turned the final card and looked at him. “It’s why you kidnapped me, isn’t it? Because of the value my virginity brings? And it’s why my family are planning to marry me off, supposedly to prevent a war. All of you, marketing my virginity and my future for your own purposes.”
Putting her playing cards down, she downed her bourbon and lemonade and grimaced, both at the taste and the control of her life everyone else exerted.
“What kind of man is this Elio Ranieri, anyway, if he prizes innocence in a woman above everything else?” she demanded to know, helping herself to the bottle of bourbon and refilling her glass as she finally vocalised thoughts that had been growing and swirling during her days with Gino. “Does he like to break women? Or does he just want a wife he can break and mould to suit himself? My fight with my family over this hasn’t even started yet, but I’m damned if my first experience with a man is going to be with a brute who sees me only as a prize. My body belongs tome, and so I’m choosing to trade it on my own terms.”
Gino listened to her little spiel with growing incredulity. She was serious. He could see it in her eyes and the steel emanating from them. “Do you forget that you’re my hostage?”
“You don’t have to keep asking me that – I never forget. You’ve kidnapped me, but you’re no better or worse than my family or the family they want to sell me into. At least I find you attractive, and with your vast experience of women, at least you know what you’re doing when it comes to sex. You can teach me.”
God help him. He’d never been more disarmed in his life. And she knew it. In Gino’s world, women played games with sex all the time, but in all his years, he’d never known one to play it like this, and God help him if his body wasn’t reacting to the temptation Francesca was offering.
“Mr Vicario, you never lose at gambling, remember? The odds of me beating you are infinitesimally small. So what are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said roughly. “But even if I didn’t think you were mad to even suggest this, you know it can’t happen.”
The steel in her eyes hardened. “Because you’re tooold and cynicalfor me? You’re not old, you just have more life experience, which is exactly what I’m seeking, and I couldn’t care less about your cynicism; you know your way around a woman’s body, and before you remind me that you gave your word not to touch me, you gave it to a bunch of gangsters who are planning to sell me off and who will kill you at the first opportunity.”
“They will certainly kill me if they suspect I’ve been anywhere near you.” The Espositos were hard-headed when it came to business, but when it came to family, they lost their heads; the whole reason he’d stressed from the start that he had no intention of laying a finger on Francesca. If he didn’t give herback to them exactly as he’d taken her, he could expect a swift visit to a grave, and Milan could expect its streets to be painted in blood.
