Screams. That’s what the voices were.
Her screams. Trapped in her head.
Who was he with? Here, in this moment, who was sharing his bed with him?
She squeezed her eyes tighter, fighting with everything she had to close off the screams and turn off her thoughts.
Was it that blonde woman? Or one of the women who’d given him their numbers? Or any of the others who’d flocked around him like bees to honey?
The screams were piercing her brain, pressing on it, begging for release, and in a swell of pain that wrenched through her heart and her guts, it ripped out of her. With a deep wail that came right from her soul, Francesca curled into a ball, buried her face in her pillow and set the screams free.
Crying harder than she’d known was possible, she sobbed until her chest was bruised from her gasps for breath and her pillow was soaked with her tears. And still they didn’t stop.
That early morning, while the rest of the world slept, it felt like the tears would never stop.
Chapter Fifteen
The first EspositoGroup board meeting with Gino in attendance took place in Naples five days after the contracts were signed. One of his non-negotiable conditions had been a place on the board.
It was all very pleasant and civil. The three Esposito siblings in attendance were very pleasant and civil. Any observer would be certain Gino’s place on the board had come with their enthusiastic blessing. There was even talk about them all going out for lunch together when it was done before they headed off their separate ways.
To his disconcertion, he found himself struggling to pay attention to the business talk. Division reports, finance reports… they were all just words and numbers, and when Tommaso arched an eyebrow and asked if Gino had anything to contribute to a discussion about one of their social media companies, he shook his head and said for that first board meeting, he was acting as an observer while he took all the dynamics in.
It was bullshit, of course. The reason he had nothing to contribute was because while the social media talk had been going on, he’d noticed Siena had her cousin’s plump, heart-shaped lips. This was off the back of noticing that Mattia’shair was the exact same shade as Francesca’s, and that when Tommaso frowned, there was a line low in his forehead, between his eyebrows.
These people wanted to kill him, but instead of keeping himself sharp in their presence, his mind was full of their cousin.
He kept waiting for her face to fade from his mind and for her presence to fade from his apartment. She haunted it like a ghost; the reason, he was certain, he’d spectacularly failed to sleep with another woman since she’d gone. He’d come close, that first night, had put his failure to find arousal down to the copious shots of tequila he’d consumed at his impromptu party.
Since that party, though, nothing. He’d visited his clubs in Athens and Paris, cities awash with beautiful women, and not one face had tempted him. Not one body had elicited even mild arousal. He might as well be dead from the waist down.
“Tell me,” he said casually, when the meeting had finished, and they were all gathering their things together. “How are the wedding plans going?”
Forgetting to put on a show of nicety, all three Esposito siblings glared at him.
He looked at their faces and grinned. “She’s proving resistant, yes?”
“Our cousin is none of your damned business,” Tommaso growled, his eyes dark with menace.
Gino laughed and reached into his pocket to feel for his gun. As he strode to the door, he called over his shoulder, “A word of advice from a man who has dealt with that woman’s stubbornness. Give up.”
There was absolutely no reason that confirmation Francesca was being defiant about the marriage they’d arranged for her should make him feel lighter, but he climbed into his waiting car with much less weight in his legs than he’d got out of it with.
“Wake up, Chicca.”
Francesca’s terrified eyes flew open.
Artu’s face hovered over hers. “You were screaming.”
She gulped for air and pulled her duvet tighter around her frozen body. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
He sat tentatively on her bed, and after a long silence, said, “That’s every night since you’ve been home. Did something happen when you were with that man?”
She couldn’t help it. The tears she’d thought dried up spilt out.
That awful, awful dream.
“Talk to me,” he said with a seriousness she’d never known her big brother possessed. “Let me help you. Did that man hurt you?”
