Marco's Redemption

by Lynda Chance

  He continued to study her face and the emotional upheaval suddenly took a toll on Natalie and her will to continue fighting him disappeared. Her body trembled and her torso bent, her pelvis finding purchase against his thighs as she gave up and let her weight fall against him. His eyes flared in response, and he moved his hands from her shoulders, sliding one arm around her waist to bear the brunt of her weight, and the other sliding over her cheek, into her hair where he gripped her scalp, lifting her face to his.

  The difference in their height was disparate and Natalie felt completely eclipsed by his sheer size and the steely muscles surrounding her. Against her will, the sexual aura he possessed, and that she always tried to ignore, enveloped her senses. As his hand tightened in her hair and his scent washed over her, her heart jolted and a dizzying current of electricity washed over her. Suddenly, she understood exactly how vulnerable she was to him.

  He studied her for a moment before he began speaking. “I had a bad night—I’m having a bad morning.” His voice turned deeper and lost much of the anger. “I don’t usually drink so much—my head is killing me. Tanya’s a bitch—that’s over and I don’t want to think about her.” His hand around her waist began caressing her and he leaned down and put his lips on her forehead.

  He maintained that position for a moment while Natalie’s heart continued beating furiously in her chest. His lips moved slowly back and forth across her forehead, and it felt as if he were breathing in her scent. Shock and a tiny river of delight stealthily made their way through her veins.

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” he said against her skin. “I know you were only trying to help me.”

  Natalie’s breath hitched and a whirling began in her head as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. He never apologized? Granted, the words ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘I apologize,’ never came from his lips, but everything else he was saying sounded amazingly contrite and it confused her even more.

  Before she could think too much about it, he lifted his head and met her gaze once again. “I need to get to the bank—I’m late already.” His hand untangled from her hair and his knuckles grazed her cheek. “Will you be okay?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  “Will you be here when I get back?”

  The slight trace of vulnerability was so well hidden that Natalie almost missed it, but she knew by the sound of his voice the answer he wanted and she hesitated only momentarily before giving it to him. “Yes.”

  “I’ll be home for supper,” he added.

  “Okay.”

  His eyes swallowed her whole for few seconds as his gaze searched hers. Something intense flared between them and the tingling in the pit of her stomach slid downward and landed is a rush of heat between her thighs. “You’re so sweet,” his voice sounded agonized, but Natalie lost the ability to think completely when his mouth landed on hers and she experienced his kiss for the first time. It lasted only a second and his lips remained closed on hers, much as a parent’s would on a child. But the kiss didn’t feel parental in any way and it sent a cascade of new tremors down her spine.

  Her eyes were still closed when she felt him release her and walk away, allowing her to begin breathing again.

  ****

  Thirty minutes or so after he left, Natalie was still a bit dazed from the events of the morning. She walked around the penthouse aimlessly, and then wandered back to her bedroom where her eyes fell on the phone he had tossed on her bed earlier.

  Her mind running a mile a minute, she picked up both the phone and her purse, and stepped inside her bathroom. She sat down at the small vanity, and removed from her purse the pay-as-you-go phone that she had been using before she met him.

  She studied the two phones carefully while her mind raced. Marco was doing crazy things to her equilibrium, and there was absolutely no denying that he was gorgeous and made her heart race.

  And now he’d broken up with Tanya.

  Before this went even a day longer, she needed to know if she could trust him enough to stay here. She was already in danger of falling under his spell.

  She needed to know what technology he had monitoring her. She didn’t even know for sure if he was tracking her. The day he came to her rescue, could have been, as he claimed, a coincidence. But she damn sure didn’t think so. If it was just the GPS locator in her phone, she was going to write it off as him being careful with his investments, as he had intimated she was to him. After all, she did owe him a lot of money.

  But if the guy had cameras on her, or was monitoring her on the computer, then she was out of here.

  She looked around the small room. Surely, if he actually did have cameras around the apartment, then he wouldn’t have them in her bathroom. If he did, he was lower than low. She was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least for now.

  The question was, how did she find out what he might have done? How did she find out if she couldn’t use her own computer to do a search on the subject? She needed to get to a public library, where she knew she could use the computers with privacy. But she didn’t particularly want him to find out she had left the apartment, at least not while she was gone. Afterward—maybe it wouldn’t matter.

  What she knew about technology wasn’t anything to write home about. She knew nothing about computers or the intricacies of how they worked. All she knew were the basics, things she had learned in high school such as PowerPoint and Excel.

  But she did know several things about cell phones. Probably only enough to get her into trouble, but the small amount of knowledge she had was all she had to work with at the moment.

  Obviously, she knew the smart phone he’d given her had Internet access. She knew that when it was in the apartment, it picked up the wifi in the building. When she took it outside, it picked up the signal from the cellular carrier. And damn lucky for her, it was the same cellular carrier where she’d purchased her pay-as-you-go phone.

  She was positive there was a SIM card in her old phone because she’d taken it out once when she thought her phone had gotten damp. She was fairly certain that most smart phones came with SIM cards—but not all of them. She knew that the smart phone itself was the little computer that allowed access to the Internet, much as a Tablet did but on a tinier scale. The SIM card was the little doohickey that allowed the phone to make calls.

  So what she was planning was simple in theory, but dangerous because that’s where her knowledge became completely sketchy. She thought that if there was a SIM card in the smart phone, she could just switch them, and then carry her original phone with her when she left the building—thereby, leaving his tracking device in her bedroom. That way, if he phoned or sent her a text, she could answer and respond—and he’d never know she wasn’t in the penthouse.

  What she wasn’t sure of were a couple of things. Well, many things but she didn’t need to borrow more trouble. She had no idea what kind of application or software Marco was using to track her. She couldn’t see an icon on the smart phone that indicated a simple application to track a missing phone. But that made sense, because if he was tracking her on the down-low, he wouldn’t want it to be openly visible to her. So, she had no idea what kind of system he was using, and even if she had known, that’s where her knowledge dried up.

  So that came to the other big problem. If she managed to switch the SIM cards, would the missing component disable the tracking device and thereby alert him to a problem immediately? Or would it, as she was hoping, continue tracking the phone at the apartment, never knowing the phone had been separated from the SIM card?

  She’d probably never know the answers without asking Marco, which obviously, she wasn’t prepared to do. At least not yet. And none of this would even be possible if she hadn’t watched her cousin ‘jailbreak’ a smart phone about a year ago so he could use the phone on a different carrier. He had assured her it was perfectly legal, as he’d bought the wildly popular phone for full price at the cellular store
. Yeah. If only he’d bought liability insurance instead.

  She steadied her nerves and took out a nail file and paperclip from her purse and set them aside.

  She got everything else ready to leave the apartment, herself included, because if she was successful, the very second she had the SIM cards switched, she was walking out the door.

  Ten minutes later, she had the answer she’d hoped for about the SIM card in the smart phone and she had the SIM cards switched. Of course, she still didn’t know if he would or wouldn’t know she’d left the building, but she was willing to take that chance.

  She already debated the best place to leave her smart phone and her first inclination was to hide it—but then she immediately blew off that idea because if it was being tracked, he’d know where to find it anyway. And if he did come home and come in search of her, her story would be she’d forgotten it. Of course that would only work if he hadn’t tried to contact her while she was out. Either way, she was going to have to take a chance. She walked from the bathroom, and as she didn’t know if she was being watched, she casually walked to her bed and began fluffing the pillows and putting the magazine on the bedside table. She dropped the phone back on the bed where he had originally thrown it and then headed out to find the public library.

  ****

  Natalie was determined to get back as quickly as she could—if she’d disabled the tracking device, which she absolutely hadn’t wanted to do and which she herself didn’t know, he would be pissed, that was for sure. She had a moment of high nervousness sitting in the library after the first thirty minutes had passed. The information on the Internet was all over the place about the cell phones. The technology was changing so rapidly that any of a number of things would have been available to him. She finished reading as quickly as she could, glancing up continuously from the table where she had her back against the wall—to the entrance of the library.

  She managed to get some decent information in under an hour, and when she walked back in the apartment, praying like hell he wouldn’t be waiting for her, she knew what to look for as far as cameras were concerned. She changed into a ragged pair of shorts that had seen better days, switched the SIM cards back again, and then prepared to act like she was dusting the house with a vengeance while she searched for the hidden items that might or might not be there.

  An hour later, she was ninety-eight percent sure she wasn’t being physically watched. As far as her computer was concerned, she knew with her limited abilities, she probably wouldn’t ever be sure if he’d tampered with it. She didn’t think he had, but again, she couldn’t be sure. Monitoring her keystrokes would have been done via the software that might have been installed, and other than having it completely wiped by someone who knew what he was doing, her hands were tied. And even then, it might not be a completely preventive measure. And—she couldn’t afford to do it.

  But it didn’t matter so much anymore, because she’d found out what she needed to know. Other than wanting to know what the shit he was capable of, she wasn’t keeping anything hidden from him, and for now, she’d just be careful while using the laptop. She breathed a massive sigh of relief. Even though she was pissed off about what he’d done to her phone, she didn’t believe he was a deranged, controlling freak. Take that back—she still thought he was controlling, but she was sure his main issue was the money she owed him.

  She’d applied for a library card and borrowed a stack of books while she was there, just to see what his reaction to them would be. Yeah, she’d be able to know for sure, unequivocally, if he was tracking her, by his reaction to the pile of books. A very satisfying feeling of evil vindictiveness slid through her. She would know soon enough.

  ****

  Natalie was sitting at the island in the center of the kitchen when Marco got home from work. A pot of spaghetti sauce was simmering on the stove and the pasta and French bread were already prepared as well.

  She flipped through a colorful cookbook, one she had gotten from the library, and another five books sat in a pile by the side of her, definitely hard for him to miss.

  She heard him walk in, but pretended to be absorbed in what she was reading while she absently reached out and took a sip of her Diet Coke.

  “Hey.”

  She jumped and spun the chair in his direction. After the morning they had had, she wasn’t quite sure how she wanted to play this. “Hi,” she said softly, holding his eyes. “I hope you like spaghetti.”

  “I’m Italian.” He smiled at her as he took another step into the room.

  She smiled a half-smile in response and lifted herself from the chair and went to the stove. “Are you ready to eat?”

  “Yeah. Give me ten to grab a shower.”

  “Okay,” she said as sweetly as she could manage. Her emotions were everywhere. She was about to know for sure. And the fact that he’d broken up with Tanya was banging around loudly in her brain as well, refusing to be ignored.

  She felt him stall in the door instead of turning and leaving. She stopped stirring the sauce and turned with a questioning look.

  He was looking at the pile of books as if he had never seen one before. “Where did those come from?”

  “I found the public library today,” she said, trying to keep her tone as even as possible, and then smiled at him again, before stirring once more. “Don’t get excited yet,” she rambled, waiting for his reaction. “The spaghetti isn’t anything fancy—I don’t have the right ingredients yet to try any of those recipes.” She indicated the open book sitting out on the island.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly and a frown came between his brows. “I hope you remembered to take your phone with you. Downtown isn’t always a safe place.”

  She dropped her gaze from his just perfectly and stirred the sauce again.

  “Natalie—you remembered to take your phone, didn’t you?” His words were as controlled as she’d ever heard them.

  Bastard!! He was tracking her movements with that goddamn phone .She turned back around and met his eyes just briefly before dropping them once more. God, her acting abilities were fantastic! She’d never known that about herself before. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t even realize I didn’t have it until I got back in and found it on the bed.” She looked at him and bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Marco.”

  He studied her, his eyes penetrating, trying to delve deeply into her psyche. “It would make me feel better if you took the phone with you when you left the building, Natalie. I’m only thinking about your safety.” His eyes glittered harshly from across the room. “Do you think you can remember that?”

  “I’ll do better, I promise.” Asshole.

  ****

  Late that night as Natalie was getting ready for bed, a sharp knock rattled against her door, followed immediately by Marco opening it and coming to stand in the threshold.

  She gasped and turned around from her dresser, facing him, clutching the top of her pajama set to her naked chest. Thank God, she’d slipped the matching tap shorts on only seconds before.

  Breathing heavily, she retreated a step until she backed into the dresser. “What do you want?”

  He stood in the doorframe, sudden color highlighting his cheekbones, his nostrils flaring. “I need an escort tomorrow night. I was going to take Tanya, so you’re in.” He began walking toward her, and Natalie couldn’t get her throat to function enough to answer him—not when her brain was barely functioning.

  He stopped a few inches from her and lifted a black American Express card and showed it to her before reaching behind her and placing it on the dresser. Her eyes clung to his face, and she knew the instant his gaze left hers to land on the mirror behind her, where he could see her naked back.

  She clutched the shirt to her chest, trying not to hyperventilate. Awareness ran from her breasts to her tummy, and her thighs began trembling. “Can’t you find someone else?”

  “Where am I supposed to find someone on such short notice?” His eyes landed on her again before
sliding down to focus on her collarbone.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  His hand reached out and a single finger moved softly, back and forth, over her collarbone as he spoke. “There will be a car waiting for you at ten in the morning. Take the card and go buy whatever you need. It’s only a semi-formal event— a cocktail dress will be fine. Shoes, bag, make-up, hair—get whatever you want—spend whatever you want. Call Joy before you leave—she’s made the arrangements. She’ll know what you should do and where to go.”

  Her heart hammered and she barely understood a word he said. The single brain cell left inside her head was focused entirely on the finger that was stroking her. Her tongue reached out and dampened her dry lips and she felt his eyes drop to her mouth. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Marco—”

  “It’s just a small charity thing that the bank supports. You’ll be fine.” His hand reached out and lifted her chin and his eyes tangled with hers. “How could you not be? You’re beautiful.” His thumb swiped her bottom lip and she trembled and felt herself swaying toward him as her entire being flooded with desire. “So pretty.” His eyes left hers, running over her hair, down her body, all the way to her toes and then back to her face again. “So very, very pretty,” he whispered.

  Marco reined in the lust that clawed through his guts when Natalie gripped his shoulders with hands that trembled. He knew she didn’t realize the top she’d been covering herself with had slipped and fallen between them. Her naked breasts were pressed against his stomach, and the soft feel of them after weeks of wanting her and not being able to touch her was almost too much to bear. He should have ended it with Tanya the moment he’d met Natalie. He might as well have done it; he hadn’t slept with her since he’d set eyes on Natalie.

  Natalie disturbed him in every possible way a woman could disturb a man. He recognized that much; but didn’t intend to fight it any longer. He had to have her, and soon. He didn’t much care what it would take—getting her into his bed had become the number one goal in his mind. It was more important than anything else in his life at the moment; he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the bank or anything else for that matter, until it was accomplished.