Captive in the SpotlightBlackmailed Bride, Innocent Wife

by Annie West

  She was just about to give up on the bus and move on when the crowd stirred. A flutter, like a sigh, rippled through it, leaving in its wake something that could almost pass for silence.

  The camera crews parted. There, striding towards her was the man she’d expected never to see again: Domenico Volpe, shouldering through the rabble, eyes locked on her. He seemed oblivious to the snapping shutters as the cameras went into overdrive and newsmen gabbled into microphones.

  He wore a grey suit with the slightest sheen, as if it were woven from black pearls. His shirt was pure white, his tie perfection in dark silk.

  He looked the epitome of Italian wealth and breeding. Not a wrinkle marred his clothes or the elegant lines of his face. Only his eyes, boring into hers, spoke of something less than cool control.

  A spike of heat plunged right through her belly as she held his eyes.

  He stopped before her and Lucy had to force herself not to crane her head to look up at him. Instead she focused on the hand he held out to her.

  The paper crackled as she took it.

  Come with me. The words were in slashing black ink on a page from a pocketbook. I can get you away from this. You’ll be safe.

  Her head jerked up.

  ‘Safe?’ With him?

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Around them journalists craned to hear. One tried to snatch the note from Lucy’s hand. She crumpled it in her fist.

  It was mad. Bizarre. He couldn’t want to help her. Yet she wasn’t fool enough to think she could stay here. Trouble was brewing and she’d be at the centre of it.

  Still she hesitated. This close, Lucy was aware of the strength in those broad shoulders, in that tall frame and his square olive-skinned hands. Once that blatant male power had left her breathless. Now it threatened.

  But if he’d wanted to harm her physically he’d have found a way long before this.

  He leaned forward. She stiffened as his whispered words caressed her cheek. ‘Word of a Volpe.’

  He withdrew, but only far enough to look her in the eye. He stood in her personal space, his lean body warming her and sending ripples of tension through her.

  She knew he was proud. Haughty. Loyal. A powerful man. A dangerously clever one. But everything she’d read, and she’d read plenty, indicated he was a man of his word. He wouldn’t sully his ancient family name or his pride by lying.

  She hoped.

  Jerkily she nodded.

  ‘Va bene.’ He eased the case from her white-knuckled grip and turned, propelling her through the crowd with his palm at her back, its heat searing through her clothes.

  Questions rang out but Domenico Volpe ignored them. With his support Lucy rallied and managed not to stumble. Then suddenly there was blissful space, a cordon of security men, the open limousine door.

  This time Lucy needed no urging. She scrambled in and settled herself on the far side of the wide rear seat.

  The door shut behind him and the car accelerated away before she’d gathered herself.

  ‘My bag!’

  ‘It’s in the boot. Quite safe.’

  Safe. There it was again. The word she’d never associated with Domenico Volpe.

  Slowly Lucy turned. She was exhausted, weary beyond imagining after less than an hour at the mercy of the paparazzi, but she couldn’t relax, even in this decadently luxurious vehicle.

  Deep-set grey eyes met hers. This time they looked stormy rather than glacial. Lucy was under no illusions that he wanted her here, with him. Despite the nonchalant stretch of his long legs, crossed at the ankles, there was tightness in his shoulders and jaw.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To rescue you from the press.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ One dark eyebrow shot up towards his hairline. ‘You call me a liar?’

  ‘If you’d been interested in rescuing me you’d have done it years ago when it mattered. But you dropped me like a hot potato.’

  Her words sucked the oxygen from the limousine, leaving a heavy, clogging atmosphere of raw emotion. Lucy drew a deep breath, uncaring that he noted the agitated rise and fall of her breasts as she struggled for air.

  ‘You’re talking about two different things.’ His tone was cool.

  ‘You think?’ She paused. ‘You’re playing semantics. The last thing you want is to rescue me.’

  ‘Then let us say merely that your interests and mine coincide this time.’

  ‘How?’ She leaned forward, as if a closer view would reveal the secrets he kept behind that patrician façade of calm. ‘I can’t see what we have in common.’

  He shook his head, turning more fully. Lucy became intensely aware of the strength hidden behind that tailored suit as his shoulders blocked her view of the street.

  A jitter of curious sensation sped down her backbone and curled deep within. It disturbed her.

  ‘Then you have an enviably short memory, Ms Knight. Even you can’t deny we’re linked by a tie that binds us forever, however much I wish it otherwise.’

  ‘But that’s—’

  ‘In the past?’ His lip curled in a travesty of a smile. ‘Yet it’s a truth I live with every day.’ His eyes glowed, luminous with emotions she’d once thought him too cold to feel. His voice deepened to a low, bone-melting hum. ‘Nothing will ever take away the fact that you killed my brother.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  LUCY KNIGHT SHOOK her head emphatically and for one crazy moment Domenico found himself mourning the fact that her blonde tresses no longer swirled round her shoulders. Why had she cut her hair so brutally short?

  After five years he remembered how that curtain of silk had enticed him!

  Impossible. It wasn’t disappointment he felt.

  He’d spent long days in court focused on the woman who’d stolen Sandro’s life. He’d smothered grief, the urgent need for revenge and bone-deep disappointment that he’d got her so wrong. Domenico had forced himself to observe her every fleeting expression, every nuance. He’d imprinted her image in his mind.

  Learning his enemy.

  It wasn’t attraction he’d felt then for the gold-digger who’d sought to play both the Volpe brothers. It had been clear-headed acknowledgement of her beauty and calculation of whether her little girl lost impression might prejudice the prosecution case.

  ‘No. I was convicted of killing him. There’s a difference.’

  Domenico stared into her blazing eyes, alight with a passion that arrested logic. Then her words sank in, exploding into his consciousness like a grenade. His belly tightened as outrage flared.

  He should have expected it. Yet to hear her voice the lie strained even his steely control.

  ‘You’re still asserting your innocence?’

  Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. Was she going to blast him with a volley of abuse as she had Rocco?

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.’

  She held his gaze with a blatant challenge that made his hackles rise.

  How dare she sit in the comfort of his car, talking about his brother’s death, and deny all the evidence against her? Deny the testimony of Sandro’s family and staff and the fair judgement of the court?

  Bile surged in Domenico’s throat. The gall of this woman!

  ‘So you keep up the pretence. Why bother lying now?’ His words rang with the condemnation he could no longer hide.

  Meeting her outraged his sense of justice and sliced across his own inclinations. Only family duty compelled him to be here, conversing with his brother’s killer. It revolted every one of his senses.

  ‘This is no pretence, Signor Volpe. It’s the truth.’

  She leaned closer and he caught the scent of soap and warm female skin. His nostrils quivered, cataloguing a perfume that was more viscerally seductive than the lush designer scents of the women in his world.

  ‘I did not kill your brother.’

  She was some actress. Not even by a flicker did she betray her sho
w of innocence.

  That, above all, ignited his wrath. That she should continue this charade even now. Her dishonesty must run bone deep.

  Or was she scared if she confessed he’d take justice into his own hands?

  Domenico imagined his hands closing around that slim, pale throat, forcing her proud head back...but no. Rough justice held no appeal.

  He wouldn’t break the Volpe code of honour, even when provoked by this shameless liar.

  ‘Now who’s playing semantics? Sandro was off balance when you shoved him against the fireplace.’ The words bit out from between clamped teeth. ‘The knock to his head as he fell killed him.’ Domenico drew in a slow breath, clawing back control. The men of his family did not give in to emotion. It was unthinkable he’d reveal to this woman the grief still haunting him.

  ‘You were responsible. If he’d never met you he’d be alive today.’

  Her face tightened and she swallowed. Remarkably he saw a flicker of something that might have been pain in her eyes.

  Guilt? Regret for what she’d done?

  An instant later that hint of vulnerability vanished.

  Had he imagined it? Had his imagination supplied what he’d waited so long to see? Remorse over Sandro’s death?

  He catalogued the woman beside him. Rigid back, angled chin, hands folded neatly yet gripping too hard. Her eyes were different, he realised. After that first shocked expression of horror, now they were guarded.

  The difference from the supposed innocent he’d met all those years ago was astounding. She’d certainly given up playing the ingénue.

  She looked brittle. He sensed she directed all her energy into projecting that façade of calm.

  Domenico knew it was a façade. Years of experience in the cutthroat world of business had made him an expert in body language. There was no mistaking the tension drawing her muscles tight or the short, choppy breaths she couldn’t quite hide.

  How much would it take to smash through to the real Lucy Knight? What would it take to make her crack?

  ‘If you admitted the truth you’d find the future easier.’

  ‘Why?’ She tilted her head like a bright-eyed bird. ‘Because confession is good for the soul?’

  ‘So the experts say.’

  He shifted into a more comfortable position as he awaited her response. Not by a flicker did he reveal how important this was to him.

  Why, he didn’t know. She’d already been proven guilty in a fair trial. Her guilt had been proclaimed to the world. But seeing her so defiant, Domenico faced an unpalatable truth. He realised with a certainty that ran deep as the blood he’d shared with his brother that this would never be over till Lucy Knight confessed.

  Closure, truth, satisfaction, call it what you would. Only she could lay this to rest.

  He hated her for the power that gave her.

  ‘You think I’ll be swayed by your attempts at psychology?’ Her mouth curled in a hard little smile he’d never seen in all those weeks of the trial. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Signor Volpe. If the experts couldn’t extract a confession, you really think you will?’

  ‘Experts?’

  ‘Of course. You didn’t think I was living in splendid isolation all this time, did you?’ Her words sounded bitter but her expression remained unchanged. ‘There’s a whole industry around rehabilitating offenders. Didn’t you know? Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists.’ She turned and looked out of the window, her profile serene.

  Domenico fought the impulse to shake the truth from her.

  ‘Did you know they assessed me to find out if I was insane?’ She swung her head back around. Her face was blank but for the searing fire in her eyes. ‘In case I wasn’t fit to stand trial.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I was lucky. I can’t recommend jail as a positive experience but I suspect an asylum for the criminally insane is worse. Just.’

  Something passed between them. Some awareness, some connection, like a vibration in the taut air. Something that for a moment drew them together. It left Domenico unsettled.

  Any connection with Lucy Knight was a betrayal of Sandro.

  Anger snarled in his veins. ‘You’re alive to complain about your treatment. You didn’t give my brother that option, did you? What you did was irrevocable.’

  ‘And unpardonable. Is that why you spirited me away from the press? So you can berate me in private?’

  She lounged back in her corner and made a production of crossing her legs as if to reinforce her total lack of concern. Even in her drab navy skirt and jacket there was no hiding the fact she had stunning legs. He was honest enough to admit it was one of the things that had drawn him the day they met. That and her shy smile. No wonder she’d always worn a skirt in court, trying to attract the male sympathy vote.

  It hadn’t worked then and it didn’t work now.

  ‘What a ripe imagination you have.’ He let his teeth show in his slow smile and had the satisfaction of seeing her stiffen. ‘I have better things to do with my time than talk with you.’

  ‘In that case, you won’t mind if I enjoy the view.’ She turned to survey the street with an intense concentration he knew must be feigned.

  Until he realised she hadn’t seen anything like it for five years.

  * * *

  It was even harder than she’d expected being near Domenico Volpe. Sharing the same space. Talking with him.

  A lifetime ago they’d shared a magical day, perfect in every way. By the time they’d parted with a promise to meet again she’d drifted on a cloud of delicious anticipation. He’d made her feel alive for the first time.

  In a mere ten hours she’d fallen a little in love with her debonair stranger.

  How young she’d been. Not just in years but experience. Looking back it was almost inconceivable she’d ever been that naïve.

  When she’d seen him again it had been at her trial. Her heart had leapt, knowing he was there for her as she stood alone, battered by a world turned into nightmare. She’d waited day after day for him to break his silence, approach and offer a crumb of comfort. To look at her with warmth in his eyes again.

  Instead he’d been a frowning dark angel come to exact retribution. He’d looked at her with eyes like winter, chilling her to the bone and shrivelling her dreams.

  A shudder snaked through her but she repressed it. She was wrung out after facing the paparazzi and him, but refused to betray the fact that he got to her.

  She should demand to know where they were headed, but facing him took all her energy.

  Even his voice, low and liquid like rich dark chocolate laced with honey, affected her in ways she’d tried to suppress. It made her aware she was a healthy young woman programmed to respond to an attractive man. Despite his cold fury he made her aware of his masculinity.

  Was it the vibration of his deep voice along her bones? His powerful male body? Or the supremely confident way he’d faced down the press as if he didn’t give a damn what they printed? As if challenging them to take him on? All were too sexy for her peace of mind.

  The way he looked at her disturbed, his scrutiny so intense it seemed he searched to find the real Lucy Knight. The one she’d finally learned to hide.

  Lucy stifled a laugh. She’d been in prison too long. Maybe what she needed wasn’t peace and quiet but a quick affair with an attractive stranger to get her rioting hormones under control.

  The stranger filling her mind was Domenico Volpe.

  No! That was wrong on so many levels her brain atrophied before she could go further.

  She made herself concentrate on the street. No matter what pride said, it was a relief to be in the limo, whisked from the press in comfort.

  Yet there’d be a reckoning. She’d given up believing in the milk of human kindness. There was a reason Domenico Volpe had taken her side. Something he wanted.

  A confession?

  Lucy pressed her lips together. He’d have a long wait. She’d never been a liar.

  She
was so wrapped in memories it took a while to realise the streets looked familiar. They drove through a part of Rome she knew.

  Lucy straightened, tension trickling in a rivulet of ice water down her spine as she recognised landmarks. The shop where she’d found trinkets to send home to her dad and Sylvia, and especially the kids. The café that sold mouth-watering pastries to go with rich, aromatic coffee. The park where she’d taken little Taddeo under Bruno’s watchful eye.

  The trickle became a tide of foreboding as the limousine turned into an all too familiar street.

  She swung around. Domenico Volpe watched her beneath lowered lids, his expression speculative.

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Her voice was a harsh scrape of sound.

  ‘You wanted somewhere free from the press. They won’t bother you here.’

  ‘What do you call that?’ The pavement before the Palazzo Volpe teemed with reporters. Beyond them the building rose, splendid and imposing, a monument to extreme wealth and powerful bloodlines. A reminder of the disastrous past.

  Lucy’s heart plunged. She never wanted to see the place again.

  Was that his game? Retribution? Or did he think returning her to the scene of the crime would force a confession?

  Nausea swirled as she watched the massive palazzo grow closer. Horror drenched her, leaving her skin clammy as perspiration broke out beneath the cloth of her suit.

  ‘Stop the car!’

  ‘Why? I wouldn’t have thought you squeamish.’ His eyes were glacial again.

  She opened her mouth to argue, then realised there was no point. She’d been weak to go with him and she had to face the consequences. Hadn’t she known he’d demand payment for his help?

  Lucy lifted one shoulder in a shrug that cost her every ounce of energy. ‘I thought you wouldn’t like the press to know we were together. But on your head be it. I’ve got nothing more to lose.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ His tone told her he’d make it his business to find her soft spot and exploit it.

  Let him try. He had no notion how a few years in jail toughened a girl.

  He fixed his gaze on her, not turning away as the vehicle slowed to enter a well-guarded entrance. The crowd was held back by stony-faced security men. Anxiously Lucy scanned them but couldn’t recognise any familiar faces.