Page 61 of One Filthy Kiss

Lost in my reverie, I didn’t even realize that he’d ended the call.

“What’s happened?” My voice has shrunk. It already knows what’s coming.

“A body has been discovered in LA.”

“A body?” I clamp both hands over my mouth while my mind instinctively tosses an image of Nikki’s naked body, bloody and broken, into the mix. “Nikki?”

“No, fiore.”

Gio wraps his arms around me, and I don’t fight it. My breathing is shallow, my brain playing catchup with the word no.

“A member of my security team at the film studio.” He doesn’t elaborate.

I hear his heart going thud-thud-thud through his shirt. I’ve no idea how well he knew the victim, but this has become personal now. We both know who’s responsible.

“I can’t let you go back to the UK, Meggie. You can’t go back home.”

I don’t hug him back. My time with him has an end date, and just for a short while, I want to remember how it feels to be loved by Giovanni Sabatelli.

Finally, I take a deep breath and stand back. “I can’t go with you to Sicily, Gio. He’ll find us there. He knows who you are.”

He must know. It’s the only explanation. How else would he have followed us from LA to New York and then tracked us down to a Central Park playground.

What scares me most is knowing that my fears were justified. Any estranged father who cared about their child would follow the legal process to arrange contact. They’d be patient. They’d prove that they had their offspring’s best interests at heart. But that isn’t the case with Amber’s father. He wants me to be afraid.

And it’s working.

“We’ll go somewhere else.” I can see the thought process behind Gio’s eyes. “Europe. Asia. India. Wherever you want to go, but I’m coming with you. I’m not letting you do this alone.”

I don’t want to do this alone, but I have no choice. “You have to, Gio.”

Reality sinks in slowly, and the energy seems to drain from him when he realizes that what I’m saying makes sense. But he doesn’t stay down for long. I guess this is one of the benefits of being a billionaire.

“I have a private cabin in Vermont. You and Amber can stay there for as long as you want, Meggie. Ric will travel with you, and I’ll send the rest of my team ahead of your arrival.” He looks at me, and I can see the glimmer of hope back in his eyes when I don’t refuse. “I can’t let you take my private jet, but I’ll arrange for you to use a friend’s aircraft.”

He must have reason to believe that Amber’s father is tracking his private jet.

“What about you? Where will you go?”

“Don’t worry about me. I have a plan.”

He figures out the details as he talks.

He’ll get someone else disguised as me to leave the apartment with him, Amber, and his security team, making sure that people notice them in the hotel lobby. Fake-me will board his private jet and travel to Europe with a couple of stopovers in different countries to lose anyone potentially trailing her, while Gio vanishes with Amber. Meanwhile, I’ll sneak into the car in the basement lot with Ric and hide in the footwell. We’ll reconvene in a secret location—he won’t even tell me where itis—and his team will travel onward to Vermont with me and Amber.

I’ve read books set during WW2 where people were smuggled across borders in the trunks of vehicles. Gio’s absolute conviction that his plan will work has gotten under my skin, and that glimmer of hope in his eyes has become something contagious.

I must believe that we’ll be safe in Vermont, or what’s the point?

“Should we hide in the trunk?”

“If hiding in the trunk will make you feel safe, then sure.”

“What about you, Gio? What if he follows you?”

He smiles. “He’ll wish that he’d never been born, fiore. No one threatens the people I love and gets away with it.”

There’s an edge to his voice that I’ve never heard before. It’s sinister, menacing, and a shudder runs down my spine and raises goosebumps on my arms.