by Abby Green
He had not reacted the way she’d expected. She hadn’t really thought he would agree to pay her a dime, but she also hadn’t believed he would kidnap her in broad daylight after he’d ordered his goons to search the store.
Furious tears pressed at the backs of her eyelids. Gilles had moved as if to prevent it from happening, but she’d begged him not to put himself in harm’s way for her. He would have done so anyway, but one of Marcos’s men pointed a gun at him and effectively ended the attempt. Gilles had stood by helplessly, fists clenching at his sides in impotent fury. She only hoped Jacques had slept through the raised voices and rhythmically slamming drawers.
What would happen when she was gone? How could Gilles keep the shop open and take care of Jacques too? Someone had to pick up Jacques’s prescriptions, fix his favorite soup of clear broth and a little bit of egg noodles, and order the supplies for his bench. He didn’t work often these days, but he still sculpted new creations out of wax when he felt up to it. When he finished a design, Gilles would cast it and start the rigorous polishing of the metal that was required before any gemstones could be set.
Oh, Jacques.
She crammed her fist against her mouth to stop the flood before it could break.
“Did you cry so prettily for me when we parted, Francesca?”
She swung her head around to look at him. “I’m not crying,” she forced out between clenched teeth. The coolness on her cheeks betrayed the lie, but she refused to wipe the wetness away. She would not give him the satisfaction. “And I most definitely would never cry over you.”
“Ah,” he said. “How tragic for me then.”
“Where are you taking me?”
His gaze grew sharp. “Buenos Aires, mi amor.”
Her heart began a staccato rhythm against her ribs. “What? You can’t do that! This is my home, people need me—”
“I did warn you,” he said, his voice deceptively mild and completely at odds with the fire in his gaze. She had the distinct impression he was enjoying himself.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“I do. Remember those words, Frankie?” He smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in his expensive sleeve.
“Stop toying with me, Marcos. And don’t call me Frankie.”
His dark eyes pierced her. “I thought you liked it. Is this your lover’s pet name for you?”
Francesca wrapped her arms around her to ward off the chill creeping over her body. This man was nothing like the handsome young Argentinian who’d been so nice to her. But that had been a game, hadn’t it? He’d only been nice to her in order to win her affection, to fool her into thinking he cared for her.
Once he’d gotten what he wanted, he’d left her to face the shame alone. He’d never even kissed her for God’s sake! She’d been married to him for all of three hours and, aside from a peck on the cheek at the justice of the peace’s office, they’d never shared a single kiss.
“You have to let me go,” she said. “I can’t be gone very long. Jacques needs me—”
“Ah yes, the man who owns the shop. Is he your lover too?”
She gaped at him, too shocked to summon outrage. “You went to all this trouble to find me, to find out who I was, and you didn’t bother to learn that Jacques Fortier is seventy-five if he’s a day, or that he’ll die if I don’t go back?” He looked so cold and unfeeling that a sob burst from her in spite of her best effort to prevent it. She stuffed the rest of them down deep before they could escape. “I need that necklace, Marcos. It’s the only way to save Jacques. I need the money.”
His mouth twisted. “A very likely story, Francesca. You forget that I know you, that I know what you are capable of. This Jacques may be sick, but he is simply the excuse you use to try and make me feel pity for you. You were always very good at that.”
“No.” She leaned toward him, tried to convey her sincerity, her desperation. “I’ll go with you, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll sign a paper saying I gave the necklace to you and that my mother and sister can have no claim to it. But you must help Jacques. Please.”
He stared at her for so long she began to fear he hadn’t heard her. “I have a better idea,” he said, his voice so low she had to lean forward again. His gaze dropped and she realized that her baggy sweater was dipping perilously low, that he could see her bra and possibly the curve of her breasts.
As if her body could have any effect on him. No, she knew from experience that she did nothing for Marcos Navarre. She shifted position slightly, but only out of modesty. She could parade before him naked and he would not be affected.
“Anything,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Yes, I believe you would,” he replied after another moment of letting his gaze wander.
Heat sizzled in the air between them. Her heart thumped, but she reminded herself it was only anger that charged the air, nothing more. What else could it be?
“You will come to Buenos Aires. Willingly, querida.”
“I will,” she replied quickly, though the thought filled her with dread. So long as he used his resources to help Jacques, she would dance naked on a tight rope if he demanded it. And yet she was curious. “Wouldn’t a sworn statement to the authorities here be enough?”
“It might, but I prefer my solution. You will marry me—again—Francesca. Only this time, it will be a marriage in truth.”
Her breath refused to fill her lungs properly. The blood rushed from her head, making her feel suddenly weightless. Of all the things she’d thought he would say, of all the things she would actually do to save Jacques, he’d chosen the one thing that would surely destroy her.
Marriage to him. Again.
“That’s insane,” she gasped. “I won’t do it.”
“Yet it is my price.”
Francesca closed her eyes as she struggled to breathe normally. He had to be toying with her. This was part of his punishment for her, though she failed to see how it could possibly benefit him in any way. He was not attracted to her. Never had been. So what was the point?
Did he know about her ex-fiance? About her poor baby who’d been taken from her too soon? She hadn’t been with a man since the miscarriage—was this his way of tormenting her? Did he really mean to marry her and bed her?
She’d said anything but she’d not considered this. The one thing that terrified her more than any other. She wasn’t the naïve girl who’d once loved him, she wasn’t in danger of losing her heart, but to be forced into intimacy with him when the act made her think of what she’d lost? Of what she could never have? Of the babies she would never, ever hold in her arms?
“You don’t want me,” she choked out. “You can’t.”
“Not permanently, no. I want you long enough to stop any claims to the Corazón del Diablo that your family might raise.”
She had to find her center of calm, had to disconnect from the swirling emotion and deal with this situation as cold-bloodedly as he did. Her fingers shook as she clasped them together in her lap. She’d learned how to adapt, how to disconnect. She would do it here and now, in spite of how he churned her emotions. “How long, Marcos?”
He shrugged. “Three months, perhaps six.”
Six months. Dear God.
She couldn’t.
“I’ll go with you. I’ll sign papers stating the Corazón del Diablo is irrevocably yours, and I’ll stay in Buenos Aires for three months if you’ll help Jacques. But I can’t marry you. There’s no reason for it.”
“There is every reason,” he said, his voice cracking like a whip against her senses. “I will have no more questions about who owns the stone. It is mine by right, by birth. Any questions of ownership will be dead once we marry.”
She felt like someone was squeezing her, sucking all the air from her space. “How do I know you’ll keep your word, that you’ll help Jacques?”
“I’ll put it in writing.”
He was boxing her in and the box was growing smaller by the second. How could she
refuse? How could she deny Jacques the same care he’d given her when she’d needed it? Comfort, care, and love. Francesca closed her eyes, swallowed.
“There would be no need for a marriage in anything more than name,” she said, the words like razor blades in her throat. “You can continue seeing other women. When the time is up, we can divorce and no one will be the wiser.”
The scar scissoring from one corner of his mouth made him look so dangerous, so sensual. When he smiled it made him look more predatory, not less. He truly was a devil.
“Ah, but I would know, Francesca.” He grasped her hand, pulling it to his mouth. His breath stole over her skin in the instant before his lips seared her.
Her body reacted. God help her, it reacted. Sensation spread outward from that one hot touch of his lips. Flooded her senses. Brought parts of her to life that she’d thought were permanently shut off.
No! This was precisely why she couldn’t do this.
You have to, Francesca. You have no choice.
“Stop touching me,” she managed, her heart fluttering like a moth trapped in a jar.
His smile was still so wolfish. “I am not willing to ‘see’ other women, as you put it. I intend to be true to our vows, for as long as we are married.”
He was torturing her. There was no other explanation. He didn’t really want her—couldn’t want her. But if she didn’t agree to his plan, he wouldn’t help Jacques. Uniting d’Oro and Navarre once more would cement his possession of the Corazón del Diablo in the eyes of the world. He would be satisfied with nothing less.
Once he’d done that, perhaps he would lose interest in punishing her. Perhaps he’d let her go.
Francesca pulled her hand away. “I want the contracts drawn up first. I want to see it in writing.”
Marcos took out his phone and punched in a number. Moments later, he was speaking in rapid-fire Spanish. When he finished, he put the phone away and smiled again. That devastatingly handsome smile that proclaimed his intention to win no matter the cost.
“The contracts will be ready when we arrive.”
“I’d rather see them before I leave New York.”
“This is too bad,” he said. “My plane is prepared and the flight plan has been filed.”
“Flight plans can be changed,” she insisted.
Marcos’s eyes were hard. “Not mine.”
“You can’t force me to go with you,” she said, throwing one last desperate statement into the air between them.
“I will carry you onboard myself, Francesca, if you insist on acting like a child.”
“I’ll scream until someone notices—”
“And sentence your Jacques to certain death? I think not.”
“I hate you,” she whispered, turning to watch the city slide by before he could see a tear fall.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was as soft as satin, as hard as the Corazón del Diablo. “Then perhaps we understand one another after all.”
Francesca closed her eyes. She understood all right. Understood that she’d just sold her soul to the devil.
And deals with the devil never ended well …
CHAPTER THREE
THE FLIGHT TO Buenos Aires took more than ten hours. Though they’d traveled in luxury aboard Navarre Industries’ corporate jet, Francesca was exhausted by the time they arrived. She hadn’t slept well since the night before when she’d stolen into Marcos’s hotel room and liberated the Corazón del Diablo.
Though it was dark when they landed, the city lights bathed the night sky in a pale pink glow. Francesca stumbled on the stairs leading from the jet, but Marcos caught her around the waist and kept her from tumbling down the gangway. His fingers burned into her back as he guided her the rest of the way down.
A sleek Mercedes waited for them nearby. Francesca sank into the interior and moved as far away from Marcos as she could get. He immediately took out his phone and made a call. She listened to the lyrical sound of his voice speaking Spanish as the car left the airport and headed into the city. She spoke tolerable French and German, could read Latin, but she’d never learned Spanish. She was certainly regretting that now.
Marcos eventually finished his call and they rode in silence. The city moved by at a quick pace, but a few things caught her attention.
The obelisk that looked like the Washington Monument, which sat at the center of the very wide street down which they’d been traveling, for instance. When she remarked on it, Marcos informed her it was called El Obelisco and had been built to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the city.
“There are concerts held here from time to time,” he said, and she realized there was actually a semi-circular swath of grass and concrete on one side of the monument that could accommodate many people.
In fact, though it was dark, there were people everywhere, lingering around the obelisk or crossing the wide street. She even spotted a couple doing the tango. There was a crowd gathered to watch, but the scene slid by before she could see much of the dance.
In spite of her exhaustion, in spite of the reason she was here, the color and movement of the big city excited her. She’d traveled quite a bit as a child, but she’d never been to South America. Her mother had loved to frequent Paris, Rome, and the Med. While she and Livia fidgeted inside hotel suites with their tutors, her mother attended fashion shows and shopped like there was no tomorrow.
Perhaps her mother had been onto something, since most of her father’s fortune died when he did. Penny Jameson d’Oro no longer took shopping trips abroad. A fact for which she firmly blamed Francesca.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a street so wide,” she said in a rush, pushing away the ugly, depressing thoughts that came whenever she thought of her mother.
“No, you are not likely to do so either. This is the Avenida 9 de Julio; it is the widest street in the world. There are twelve lanes of traffic.”
“Fast traffic.” Cars zipped along at Autobahn speed—or so it seemed.
“Sí, people are in a hurry to get where they are going.”
“And where are we going? Is it much farther?” As much as she feared reaching their final destination, she also wanted to collapse on a bed and sleep for the next twelve hours.
“We are nearly there,” he said. “My family home is in Recoleta.”
“I thought we were in Buenos Aires. Have we left it behind?” It was entirely possible, she supposed. As tired as she was, they could have driven to another city and she wouldn’t have really noticed.
“Recoleta is a barrio, a neighborhood.”
“Did you grow up there?”
The corners of his mouth tightened, the scar whitening. “No. When my parents were taken, I was sent to live with relatives.”
“Taken?” she said, zeroing in on that single word.
Not died, not left, not went away and never came back. Taken.
“It is a long story, Francesca, and more appropriate for another night. Suffice it to say I have reclaimed the family home and moved back into it.”
The car turned, and soon they were cruising along an avenue lined with ornate buildings that looked as if they’d been plucked from the streets of Paris and set down here. The architecture was ornate, beautiful, and decidedly French rather than Spanish. Soon they came to an iron gate that swung open on a mechanical hinge, then passed through and halted before an imposing white façade.
A lush collection of palm trees and flowering grasses grew in the little courtyard near the entrance. A man in a uniform hurried out to greet them as they stepped from the car.
“Señor Navarre, bienvenido.”
“Thank you, Miguel. It’s good to be home again.”
A phalanx of men moved to the rear of the car and began removing luggage. Marcos ushered Francesca inside a grand entry hall with a giant crystal chandelier, black and white marble floor tiles set on the diagonal, and a huge Venetian mirror on one wall.
The elegance made her stomach flip. She hadn�
�t been inside surroundings such as these in years. The weight of expectation threatened to crush her. Already she felt the walls closing in. She’d left deportment behind, left luxury and the expectation that went with it in the past. This place made her feel small, insignificant.
How could she do this now? How could she survive it? She would make mistakes, would fail where she should not. She wasn’t cut out for this life, couldn’t possibly masquerade as his wife for a single day, much less three—or six—months.
Marcos grasped her hand. Francesca uttered a little cry of surprise, then shivered when he lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on the tender skin of her wrist. They’d spent the last several hours barely speaking to each other, and now this. It disconcerted her, flustered her.
What was he up to?
He gazed down at her, his expression a mixture of heat and hatred. It confused her, but not as much as his touch did. Why did she react? Why did she feel as if every cell of her body was straining toward him, wanting more?
“Until morning, mi amor. Juanita will show you to your room.”
A young woman in a starched uniform stood nearby. She curtsied when Francesca looked over at her. Francesca gave her a weary smile, hoping she didn’t look too wild eyed, before turning back to Marcos.
“Please don’t call me that,” she said in a low voice. She had to keep a distance between them, had to keep him from addling her with his sleek words and expert touch. She was still far too vulnerable to him, and it shocked her. She’d thought she’d left that girl in the past.
One dark eyebrow arched. “You do not like it? You would prefer Frankie now?”
Francesca pulled her hand away the instant his grip lightened. “No, of course not. But I don’t want you calling me your love either. We both know I am not.”
“Sí, we do indeed. And yet there is an appearance to maintain. We are marrying soon.”
Francesca’s heart skipped a beat. Dear God, what had she agreed to? She hadn’t truly realized it until she’d walked into this … this palace.
