He opened the bottle and poured a double shot of cognac into each tumbler, put one in front of Marietta and settled in a cushioned seat beside her. ‘You do not consider Île de Lavande to be civilised?’ He swirled the cognac in his glass. ‘Or perhaps you are referring to the company?’
Colour crept into her cheeks but her chin stayed elevated. ‘I’m sure parts of Île de Lavande are very civilised—I’m simply yet to see most of the island. As for the company—so far it’s been...’ She shrugged minutely. ‘Satisfactory.’
Despite the tension in the air Nico felt his facial muscles twitch, and then his lips were stretching into a rare smile. Had a woman ever described him as ‘satisfactory’ before? No. He didn’t think so. On the infrequent occasions when he indulged in female company, he made damn sure the woman was a great deal more than satisfied when he was done with her.
He raised his glass. ‘Touché, Marietta.’ He swallowed a mouthful of the expensive cognac and noted she hadn’t touched hers. ‘You are angry,’ he observed.
‘No...’ she began, and then stopped, shook her head and puffed out a quiet sigh. ‘Si. A little,’ she confessed. ‘I made a mistake and you won’t accept my apology. I’m angry with myself and with you.’
He lifted his eyebrows. ‘That’s a candid statement,’ he said, which maybe shouldn’t have surprised him. Marietta had never struck him as a smoke-and-mirrors kind of woman. She was headstrong and honest. Unafraid to speak her mind.
She reached out suddenly, and curled her hand around his wrist. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude, Nico,’ she said softly. ‘And I truly am sorry—about your wife.’
Heat radiated from her touch—a sharp, unsettling contrast to the inevitable icy chill that swept through him whenever he thought about his wife—and then she was sliding her hand away, sitting back.
‘How long were you married?’
His chest grew uncomfortably tight. ‘Two years.’
‘She was very beautiful.’
So she had taken a good look at the photograph. He didn’t know how he felt about that. He took another generous sip of cognac, held the liquid in his mouth for a moment before letting it burn down his throat. He did know he wasn’t going to have this conversation.
‘Who did you call?’ he asked, and the abrupt change of subject elicited an immediate frown.
‘Scusi?’
‘You said you went into my study to use the phone,’ he reminded her. ‘Who did you call?’
‘My sister-in-law.’
‘Because...?’
Her shoulders stiffened. ‘Because I wanted to hear a friendly voice,’ she said, her tone turning defensive, faintly accusing.
Nico cursed himself silently. He’d come out here to make peace, to defuse the tension between them before it sprouted claws—not to pick a fight. He had no wish to speak of his late wife, no desire to dredge up the darkness that lurked too close to the surface, but he could have deflected Marietta’s curiosity in a less antagonistic manner.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, his voice gruff, the words alien on his tongue.
Rarely did he apologise or seek forgiveness. The last time had been ten years ago, the day of Julia’s funeral, and on that day his father-in-law had been disinclined to forgive.
‘You may call whomever you wish, whenever you wish,’ he said. ‘The house and its facilities are yours to use as you desire. However, I will ask one thing of you.’ He held her gaze, kept his voice low. Measured. ‘Please do not ever again speak of my wife.’
For a long moment Marietta’s gaze didn’t falter from his, then her lashes lowered, shielding her expressive eyes from him. She backed her chair away from the table.
‘Understood,’ she said, glancing up, her gaze reconnecting with his briefly. ‘Buona notte, Nico.’
And then she turned her chair around and wheeled into the house, leaving her drink sitting untouched on the table.
Nico watched her go and something pierced him. Something, he thought darkly, like regret. He reached for her glass, downed the double shot of cognac and scowled into the empty tumbler. That had not gone at all how he’d planned.
* * *
‘It’s not the ex-boyfriend, boss.’
Nico leaned back in his chair, his phone pressed to his ear. ‘Are you positive?’
‘Yes,’ Bruno said. ‘The guy was in Vienna on business all day Friday. And my gut says it’s not him. He’s settled, content. Devoted to his wife and kid. The wife’s a looker, too.’
Nico ignored that last comment. He ran his hand through his hair, across the back of his neck. A long, restless night had left him edgy. Irritable. ‘Forensics?’
‘Waiting on a DNA profile from the hair strand found in the bedroom.’
‘Chase it up. Today. Then contact those fools from the polizia and check their records for a match.’ He drummed his fingers on his desk, cast a brooding look out of the window. ‘And the neighbours?’
‘One left to interview. Female. In her fifties.’
‘Okay. Bien. Review that list of artists I emailed to you yesterday and get—’ Nico broke off, sat forward, then surged up out of his chair. What the hell? ‘Bruno, I’ll call you back.’
He slammed down the phone, strode through the house and out onto the limestone terrace. Raising a hand to shield his eyes against the midmorning sun, he stared beyond the pool to the cliff’s edge—and felt his heart punch into his throat.
He paused, drew a deep breath and loosed his voice on a furious bellow. ‘Marietta!’
She didn’t hear him—or chose to ignore him. The latter, most likely. Anger spiked and he spat out a curse.
He veered onto a little-used dirt path that meandered through tall grasses and clusters of wild lavender and rosemary. The wheels of her chair had left tracks in the dirt. Tracks that led directly to the edge of the plunging forty-foot cliff.
‘Marietta!’ he shouted again, and knew she’d heard him this time because her shoulders flinched. And yet she didn’t so much as turn her head.
Another few strides and the pump of adrenaline through his veins gave way to relief. She was sitting farther back from the edge than he’d thought. He reached her side, balled his hands lest he curl them over her slender shoulders and shake her.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
She looked up, her expression faintly astonished. ‘Enjoying the scenery,’ she said, her air of calm making his jaw clench.
He jammed his fists in his jeans pockets. ‘Is there something wrong with the view from the terrace?’
‘Of course not. But I sat on your terrace all day yesterday. I need a change or I’ll go mad. Besides...’
She rolled forward and he pulled his hands out of his jeans so fast he heard one of the pockets rip.
‘I’ve been dying to look at the beach down there.’
He stepped in front of her. ‘That’s far enough.’
She huffed out a breath. ‘Seriously, Nico. You’re as bad as my brother. What do you think I’m going to do? Push myself over the edge?’ She craned her neck to peek around him. ‘Are those steps cut into the cliff?’
He ground his molars together. ‘Oui. But they’re extremely old. Probably eroded. Unsafe.’
‘Probably? You mean...you don’t know?’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘As in...you’ve never been down there before?’
He folded his arms over his chest. ‘It’s just a beach.’
‘But it’s your beach...and it’s a beautiful beach. Why would you not go down there?’
A vein throbbed in his temple. Mon Dieu. Had he ever met a woman so infuriating? So unpredictable?
He let his gaze rake over her, from her high glossy ponytail to her sun-kissed shoulders, all the way down to the pink-painted toenails poking out of her strappy white sandals. Her white knee-length shorts left her pale, delicate shins visible and her stretchy pink spaghetti-strap top made her breasts look nothing short of magnificent.
How could a woman look so alluring and be so annoying all at
the same time?
He brought his gaze back to her face. Colour flared over those high cheekbones and a pulse flickered at the base of her throat. Their eyes met and hers widened a fraction—and he wondered if she felt it too. That pulse of heat in the air. That pull of attraction.
Belatedly he realised she’d spoken again. ‘Pardon?’
‘A prisoner,’ she repeated, frowning at him. ‘I feel like a prisoner, Nico.’
A prisoner.
His gut twisted hard, turning in on itself, and his mind descended instantly to a dark, savage place.
Julia’s final, terror-filled days on this earth had been as a prisoner, held captive by the kidnappers who’d extracted a hefty ransom from her father—then left her in a ditch to die.
‘Nico?’
Marietta’s voice penetrated the sudden thick haze in his head.
‘Are you all right?’
He gave himself a mental shake, shoved a lid over that dark, bottomless hole before it sucked him into its destructive vortex. ‘I’m trying to keep you safe, Marietta. That’s all.’
‘I know. But my stalker’s in Rome—there’s no threat to me here.’
She edged her chair forward until her toes nearly touched his shins. When she tilted her head back the appeal in her huge brown eyes had a profound effect on him.
‘Nico... I spent six months of my life in a rehabilitation unit—two of those months flat on my back, staring at the same ceiling and walls, day in, day out. I had no control...no choice... I felt angry and scared and trapped—I guess that’s why I get a little stir-crazy when I’m cooped up in one place for too long.’
Guilt coiled inside him. He hadn’t considered that the isolation in which he found solace would, for Marietta, feel like captivity.
Silently cursing his thoughtlessness, he dropped to his haunches in front of her. ‘Tell me what you’d like to do today.’
Her face broke into a smile and for a second—just a second—Nico felt as if he’d stepped out of the darkness into the light.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘COFFEE TO FINISH?’
Nico’s question drew Marietta’s attention from the young couple sitting several tables away in the bistro’s outdoor courtyard. She looked across the table she and Nico shared, its surface crowded with empty platters and dishes from their delicious seafood lunch. ‘Si. Please.’
A moment later Josephine’s son, Luc, came to clear their table and take their coffee order. He was pleasant, relaxed and friendly—like the rest of his family, all of whom Marietta had met upon their arrival at the quaint seaside restaurant.
Nico’s presence had drawn the entire Bouchard clan out to greet them—Josephine and her husband Philippe from the kitchen, and her father, Henri, from the cool, shaded interior of the family-run bistro. The old man had smiled broadly and the two men had greeted each other with obvious warmth—surprising Marietta, until she’d reminded herself that people were multi-faceted and Nico was no different.
Until yesterday she would never have guessed he was a widower—a fact that stirred a pang of emotion every time she thought of it.
A burst of laughter from the young couple drew her gaze back to them. Tourists from the mainland, she guessed. The guy was good-looking, his girlfriend pretty—blonde and suntanned, her slender legs long and bare below a short summer skirt. Their faces were flushed, from the sun or maybe from the wine they were drinking, and they looked happy. Carefree. In love.
‘I spoke with Bruno this morning.’
She looked at Nico, so big and handsome here in the open-air courtyard, with its colourful potted flowers and its miniature citrus trees in terracotta planters dotted around the tables. Overhead an umbrella shaded them from the sun’s brilliance and beyond the broad span of his shoulders the water sparkled in the harbour. She couldn’t imagine him looking carefree—not with that constant air of alertness about him—but he did look more at ease than she’d ever seen him before. That rare smile—the one she’d caught her first glimpse of last night—had made a couple of stunning reappearances, and each time it had stopped the breath in her lungs.
‘Is there any news?’ she asked, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it before now, and yet grateful that he hadn’t. For a while over lunch she’d felt like just another tourist, enjoying the island.
‘Your ex is in the clear.’
Relief surged, even though she hadn’t for a moment suspected Davide. ‘So...what now? Are there other leads?’
‘A couple.’
She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she suppressed a flutter of annoyance. ‘I am going back in five days,’ she reminded him—because staying on the island beyond Friday and missing Ricci’s birthday was still a compromise too far.
Nico remained silent, evoking a frisson of disquiet. But then Luc arrived with their coffee and Josephine came out to ask if they’d enjoyed their meal.
‘Bellissimo!’ Marietta exclaimed.
Josephine beamed. ‘You will come and join us for dinner one evening before you leave, oui?’
‘Of course,’ she said, then, fearing she’d spoken out of turn, cast a quick glance at Nico.
But he simply murmured an assent that had Josephine looking pleased before she bustled back to the kitchen.
Marietta sipped her coffee and noticed the young couple get up to leave. The girl giggled and swayed, and her boyfriend caught her but he too was staggering. Grinning, he tossed some euros on the table and then guided the girl out onto the street towards a parked car—and Marietta’s belly clenched with alarm.
She dropped her cup into its saucer, reached across the table and grabbed Nico’s arm. ‘Stop them,’ she said urgently, and pointed with her other hand. ‘That couple—about to get into the red car. He’s drunk.’
Frowning, Nico glanced over his shoulder and then back at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Si. I was watching them.’ Panic tightened her grip on his arm. ‘Nico, please...’
He stood abruptly and strode out onto the street, calling something to the young man, who already had the driver’s door open. An exchange in French followed and the younger man’s demeanour morphed from jovial to belligerent—and then outright combative when Nico snatched his key away from him.
Nico, looking remarkably cool for a man who had just dodged a wildly thrown punch, pinned the tourist against the car, and then all of a sudden Luc and his father Philippe were there, helping to defuse the situation.
The tension eased from Marietta’s shoulders but an icy chill had gripped her and her hands shook. She curled them tight, closed her eyes for a minute.
‘Marietta?’
She looked up. Nico was crouched beside her chair, and she searched over his shoulder for the couple.
‘They’re inside,’ he told her. ‘Josephine’s encouraging them to stay, to drink some water and coffee, have something to eat.’
She nodded, grateful, and yet still the iciness inside her wouldn’t abate. She had been that girl once—young and beautiful, with her whole life ahead of her. If only someone had stopped her and her friends from getting into that car...
She shook her head. Dispelled the thought. She knew better than to dwell on if only. She picked up her cup, took a fortifying gulp of coffee, felt relieved when Nico stood. He returned to his chair but then studied her, and her skin heated and prickled despite the chill in her veins.
‘You did a good thing.’
‘We did a good thing,’ she corrected.
He shrugged. ‘You were the one who noticed them—and you were right. The kid’s way over the limit.’
Marietta wrapped her hands around her cup. Stared into the dark brew. ‘I couldn’t watch them get into that car.’
Nico was silent a moment. ‘Your accident?’
She looked up. ‘You know about that?’
‘Only what your brother told me—that your paralysis resulted from a car crash.’
Her stomach gave a hard, vicious twist. It always did when
she recalled her fragmented memories of that night. The mangled wreckage and broken glass. The whimpers of the girl dying beside her. Her own pain and then—worse—no pain at all. Nothing but numbness and fear.
Her grip on her cup tightened. ‘I was young and stupid...drinking at a party Leo hadn’t wanted me to attend. I knew my friend had had too much to drink when he offered me a ride.’ She grimaced. It was never easy to admit your own stupidity. ‘I still got into that car.’
‘And your friend...?’ Nico asked quietly.
‘He and the two girls in the car with us died.’ She pushed her cup aside, her mouth too bitter suddenly for coffee. ‘I was the only survivor.’
‘I’m sorry, Marietta.’
Nico’s voice was deep and sincere, but she told herself the warmth spreading through her belly was from the coffee, not the effect of that rich, soothing baritone. ‘I made a mistake and I live with the consequences of that mistake every day,’ she said. ‘If I can stop someone else from suffering a similar fate, I will.’
Because no one deserved to suffer what she had. To have their life so drastically altered by one foolish, split-second decision. To have to face up to the bitter realisation that their future was going to be vastly different from the one they’d envisaged. She’d always wanted a career in art, and she’d achieved that, but as a girl she had dreamed of other things, too—love, marriage, children—things she’d eventually had to accept were no longer in her future.
Nico’s blue eyes were unfathomable, as always, and suddenly she regretted opening up to him. This man knew so much about her already, and she knew next to nothing about him—especially his past. She’d known he’d served in the French Foreign Legion—that alone was fascinating—but knowing he was a widower... It touched something inside her. Made her want to see beneath that tough, formidable exterior. And yet she couldn’t imagine she ever would. Nico guarded his privacy like a fortress—and he’d made it clear two-way sharing wasn’t on the agenda.
Defying Her Billionaire Protector Page 7
