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Giorgio watched her paint from his study. He'd always loved to watch her. Jemima was a supremely talented artist. Back then he'd tried to convince her to exhibit. The get-together of local art connoisseurs he'd arranged had proven to be a disaster, however, because one of them had taken a far too personal interest in Giorgio's new wife. The pen he was holding in his hand broke, and Giorgio swore at his renewed loss of control.
It was no use raking up the past, even if the past had a habit of catching up with you. Luc Beauchamp had been a pain in his ass ever since, especially since Marco had entered into a business venture with the French vineyard owner. Giorgio narrowed his eyes and grew thoughtful. Luc had been remarkably quiet, ever since Jemima had been found in that hospital room. The French man was known for his dubious business practices, and rumors were rife about his personal depravities. Whether he would stoop as low as this remained to be seen, but the fine hair on Giorgio's arms rose. This would need further investigation, because if his suspicion proved true, than Marco's family was in danger, too.
Giorgio swiveled his chair round and smiled grimly at the scene he could see through his window. After several attempts, which had resulted in tantrums, swearing, and paint flying any which way, Jemima finally seemed to be getting somewhere. Eyes drawn together in a frown, one streak of paint on her cheek, tongue peeking out from her lips, she was a picture in concentration. The dungarees she always wore to paint in hung off her slight frame, and Giorgio swore under his breath. She was too thin, yet no matter how many of her favorite meals Clara prepared, Jemima had the appetite of a sparrow, and picked at everything.
He turned his back on her with a disgusted click of his tongue. He had no business obsessing over the way she looked, or worse still, remembering how she had felt pressed up against him. With her long legs wrapped around him, her scent had set him on fire, recalling the passions they had once shared. Even now images of her lush lips wrapped around his cock while she knelt at his feet had him harden in record time.
Clearly he had been too long without a woman's touch. Picking up his phone, he scrolled through the many beauties, who would only be too willing to accommodate him for a while, no strings attached, just the way he liked it. Too bad he didn't want any of them. Giorgio threw the phone across the room in disgust and shook his head at his maudlin thoughts.
He was not going to be ruled by his dick, no matter how easy it would be to claim the frail woman in his garden, and make her suffer, like he once had. He had a code of honor, damn it, and taking advantage of her, while she still was not fully aware of all the facts—he just couldn't do it— no matter how much she might deserve it. That wouldn't make him any better than the bastards who were after her.
He had tripled security since the night they had almost gotten to her. How dare they invade on his property? This had become personal on more levels then one. Don Luigi had been spitting fire down the phone when he'd found out and had sent some of his own soldiers to boost Giorgio's numbers.
"After all, I must protect my favorite wine maker. How is she, holding it together?"
"Sort of, don't worry about her. I've got it covered."
The Don's voice had been grave, the threat undeniable in his next words.
"Women are dispensable, Giorgio, remember that. Especially the likes of her. If she remembers anything, anything at all, I want to be informed immediately. You know what you need to do to protect the family."
"Va bene, capisco, Don."
Giorgio had hung up the phone with a heavy heart. What was that English expression? Caught between a rock and a hard place. Never a truer word spoken.
Choose between his Don, and his cousin's express wishes, not to mention his aunt's? How the hell was he supposed to do that, and did he have any choice at all? It was his duty to protect that woman out there, no matter what the cost. She was his wife after all. He grimaced anew, recalling the quiet ceremony in the hill side chapel. He'd told no one, especially not the Giovanni clan. That would have meant answering questions he had not been prepared to answer. There had been too many inconsistencies in Jemima, even back then. He'd found them charming at the time. They'd been less so when she'd betrayed him as easily, as though he'd meant nothing to her.
At least he'd spared his family, both his real and his adopted one, that particular agony.
His feet moved of their own accord, out of his study, out through the French doors, and into the garden. Jemima had stopped painting. Silent tears streamed down her face, and her trembling hands stretched out to the face she had just finished projecting onto the canvas.
Giorgio murmured to her bodyguard to make himself scarce, and Alfonso nodded and disappeared silently. One of the Don's best men, Luigi had assigned him personally to protect Jemima. Giorgio looked after him with a frown, uneasy all over again, that he didn't know the full story here.
The face looking back at him from the canvas gave him pause for thought. Brown eyes the same color as Jemima's were looking back at him. The brown hair she had drawn, he knew to be streaked with grey now, the grooves round the full mouth deeper. The man she had drawn was a good twenty years younger than the man he knew now.
She jumped at his carefully controlled question. "Who is that, cara?"
Tear-stained eyes fastened on his, and she shook her head. "I don't know. He just seems important to me, somehow. Oh God, this is so frustrating. Why can I not remember?" Her voice rose; her slender arms hugged herself, and color rose in her cheeks.
"I can't remember the things that I need to, and I'm trying, Giorgio, really, I am. I know I need to remember, to help you, to help me, but, God, I just can't. Now, this, this useless face from my past."
In her anger she kicked her art supplies box. It went flying, and Giorgio's next words died on his tongue at the little glint of gold caught in the midday sun, rolling between them.
Jemima's anguished gasp cut through the frost around his heart, when he bent to pick up his mother's engagement ring. His fist closed around it in a white-knuckled grip, and he swore when her trembling one settled over his.
"I thought you'd sold this." He cleared his throat, and her grasp on his hand tightened.
"I couldn't do that to you as well. I know how important that ring was to you. I remember I hid it in here, because you were so angry, and, and I thought you'd find it in here."
The halting words carried with them a wealth of despair, and she put up no resistance when he grabbed her hair and pulled her head up, so that he could study her face. She flinched slightly at the harsh move, and tears rose in her eyes. He gentled his grip on her when he couldn't read an ounce of malice in her face. Like an open book, it showed every one of her emotions, and he let her go and stepped away from her. He didn't trust himself to not simply crush her to him. As it was, his cock throbbed its willingness, and he wanted nothing more than throw caution to the wind and make her his, again. She felt it, too, this primal connection between them. It was there in the way her eyes darkened, her breath hitched, and her heartbeat galloped, clearly visible at the pulse point in her neck. Whatever was and had been wrong between them, they'd always had this, but sexual attraction didn't make for a lasting marriage, no matter how explosive the sex was. Trust and mutual respect did that, and he didn't trust Jemima, not one little bit.
"Good. That means less expense of buying you a new one. I want you looking the part when we meet the Don."
He turned away from her and forced himself to keep walking, even though the sound of her crying almost brought him to his knees.
"He's the one that wants me dead, right, so why not just kill me now and get it over with?" Her eyes widened in dismay when he spun round. He was on top of her in seconds, crushing her mouth under his, his hands in her hair, the ring once again rolling along the ground. She trembled against him, and he deepened the kiss, putting all the emotions he couldn't name into the kiss, until his lungs were bursting and he came up for air.
She whimpered and clung to him
, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed to set her away from him again.
"No one is going to kill you, while you're under my protection. But I warn you, you cross me again, and I will personally pull the trigger."
Chapter Six
Jemima nervously twisted the heavy engagement ring 'round her finger. It looked beautiful next to the wide platinum band Giorgio had also given her. His expression had been unreadable, but he'd insisted on placing the rings on her fingers himself. The warmth of his hand had heated her frozen digits, and he'd simply stood looking down on her, until Alfonso's repeated throat clearing had broken the moment.
She shot another glance toward Giorgio's closed off profile now, grateful for the seat belt holding her in place. Giorgio was taking the twisting corners of the Tuscan countryside far too fast. The engine of his sports car screamed at the rough handling as yet mores stones kicked up underneath them. Tires screeched across the dusty ditch, missing it by mere inches.
"If you're trying to get us killed, keep driving like that." Jemima spat the words out with far more conviction then she felt. Her stomach once again hit her boots, as the sports car took flight over the crest of the hill. It came down on the other side with a bone-crunching jar. Jemima's still healing ribs protested at the rough handling, and she couldn't quite stop the moan escaping at the sharp pain shooting up her sides.
The soft Italian curse, followed by the large hand cupping her chin, caught her by surprise, as did the roughly uttered apology. "Scusi, I forgot. Are you okay?"
His slate-grey eyes drew together in concern, and his gaze rested on her for a heart-stopping few seconds, before he returned his attention back to the road. Jemima's heart beat an interesting staccato inside of her, and she struggled to draw air into her lungs. That look alone had been enough for her to soak the scrap of material masquerading as underwear. She squirmed a little at the thought of Giorgio having been the one to pick out her clothes. Back then he'd loved buying underwear for her, and she had been stunned to discover that the wardrobes in the guest room she was staying in had held all of her old clothes, and quite a few new ones. That he hadn't just thrown them out had reduced her to tears again. He'd always been a deeply complicated and passionate man. She'd had no chance of understanding him back then, and she wasn't sure she stood any chance of it now. Back then, his intensity had frightened her, and had driven her into the arms of one of his rivals. She shuddered and pressed her lips together to stop the moan from escaping. There was still a big black hole in her memories, but she remembered her betrayal in glorious Technicolor detail.
The fact that she hadn't been able to go through with it after all, had meant nothing in the end. Giorgio had caught her putting the family wine recipes back into the safe, and he hadn't listened to a word she had said in her defense. Luc had played them both. He'd black-mailed her into stealing from her husband, so he wouldn't tell Giorgio about the affair they'd had, but he'd told Giorgio anyway.
Maybe if she'd had confessed all back then, Giorgio might have believed her. At the time, all he could see had been her betrayal, and unable to deal with her guilt, she'd stolen away like a thief in the night, determined to put the whole business behind her. She'd thought that by never registering the marriage in the UK when she returned, it would have been null and void.
But as Giorgio had informed her only this morning, the marriage was very much valid. The tiny chapel they'd used had the authority to marry couples under the law as well as in the eyes of the church. Besides, even without that, she should have known that Giorgio would not push for a divorce. The Giovanni were steeped in tradition. One simply didn't divorce in the Giovanni. Giorgio's cousin Marco had been the remarkable exception, and she flinched anew as she remembered her part in that man's life. Posing as her sister Elise to get the job as a nanny to stay under the radar—of what or who exactly, she still couldn't remember—had not been one of her finest moments. Why had she done that? Had the old Jemima sought the family protection subconsciously? Whom had she been hiding from, even then?
Jemima suppressed a sigh. Thinking like this was futile. She couldn't change the past, only the future. A future marred by uncertainty, until the black holes in her memory slotted into place like the elusive last pieces of the puzzle you never could find, when you needed them.
Jemima told her silly heart to behave and willed her breathing to slow down, all too conscious of the man next to her, and she resumed twisting her rings. Tears rose at all the issues those beautiful rings represented—issues that created a divide as huge as the Grand Canyon between them.
When Giorgio had picked the ring up off the floor again after that astonishing kiss and statement, two days ago now, Jemima's heart had stopped for a few beats at the sheer pain she had glimpsed in his eyes. Then the shutters had come down so fast and so hard, she had not been able to reach him at all. Her murmured apology had bounced off his tightly set shoulders.
"Save the bull for someone who cares," had been his only response, and an icy hand had clamped itself around her heart. He'd kept himself away from her, pleading workload, and he'd certainly spent an extraordinary amount of time in heated, tense discussions on the phone to God only knew who.
Security had doubled again, and Alfonso literally had not left her side. Even now he was following them in his own car, trailing them far too closely for her liking. He wasn't the only one either. A car with Giorgio's men had left five minutes before them, and another one was following behind Alfonso. It all made Jemima feel very uneasy. Why all this trouble for her? What did she know that was so goddamn important?
She'd sought refuge in her painting. The pictures that emerged had made her cry and laugh in equal measures. Her mother and Elise had featured prominently in them, and more and more frequently, the mysterious man. Scenes of her childhood, long forgotten days of happiness, followed by depths of despair. But try as she might, the only more recent images her subconscious could muster had been approaching headlights, gunfire, and blood. Jumbled, terrifying images she could not make sense of, but which left her gasping for breath. Terror had overwhelmed her, until Alfonso had taken the paintbrush out of her hand with a murmured, "Enough." The imposing guard had frowned down on her.
"This is not doing you any good! Giorgio would not want you this upset."
His eyes had been almost kind when she'd shaken her head at him, all the misery apparent in that dejected whisper. "Giorgio doesn't care about me at all."
He'd shaken his head, murmured something in Italian that she hadn't quite caught, and he'd then gone back to his silent watch. His gaze had rested on the latest picture of the mystery man for just a little too long.
"Do you know him? You do, don't you?"
Jemima had felt a brief surge of hope, asking him, but it had been useless. She must have imagined his earlier concern. Alfonso's eyes had shown absolutely no reaction, and he'd been back to politely ignoring her.
Switching the television on had brought little relief. The news had grim reports about an organized crime war, seemingly happening right now in Tuscany. Only this morning a prominent member of the local government with suspected links to the Mafia had barely escaped a car bomb attack. Police presence was everywhere, and the police chief was urging for calm and for people to be vigilant and report anything unusual to the authorities. Yeah, as if. You had to have a death wish to inform on the Mafia. Though this did seem serious. The news reporter was shown trying to interview a member of the FBI team, which had flown in specifically on the hunt for the financial mastermind behind the scenes. An American national, believed to be in Tuscany under the protection of the Don.
A Don whom they had been summoned to see, apparently.
Giorgio had come to find her in the garden, after she had switched the news off in disgust. Worry had gnawed at her insides, and her head had thumped in pain with the useless effort to remember anything of worth at all. Why could she not shake the feeling that she was involved in all of this somehow? But that was cra
zy, surely?
Giorgio's strained voice had done little to reassure her.
"We are leaving in ten minutes. Clara has packed a bag for you."
Her startled eyes had been drawn to the rings he had been twirling around in his large hands. His whole manner had been tense, as though he was warring with himself.
"Why are we leaving? Where are we going?"
Her dread had increased, as he stood there, twirling his mother's ring around and around. It was the first time she had managed to get a good look at him, since that ring had landed between them. He hadn't shaved. The stubble made him look dangerous and sexy at the same time. The shadows under his eyes were testimony to him having slept about as well as she had lately. He was pale under his tan, and when he had finally looked up at her, the steel and determination in his eyes, had made her take a step away from him. Right then, he had indeed looked ready to murder her himself.
"We have been summoned by the Don. You knew this was coming." The gravelly tones had rasped across her consciousness like nails on a chalk board.
"Why? Why does he say jump, and you go how high? What are you involved in, Giorgio? Maybe the folks trying to kill me are after you, not me. Has that occurred to you at all?"
His smile had chilled her to the bone.
"You know why. Save the innocent act, cara. It doesn't wash."
In two long strides he had covered the distance between them, and with one quick movement had pushed the rings onto her left hand, his expression unreadable, as he cupped her chin to make her look at him. She had lost herself in the intensity of his gaze until Alfonso had cleared his throat.
Giorgio had released her and said, "Wear this for your own protection."
His gaze had dropped briefly to her mouth, when she'd whispered, "Why would I need protection?"
Too Devious to Tame (The Giovanni Clan) Page 4
