by Sarah Morgan
Silvio Brianza.
Images exploded in her head. Images of the last time she’d seen him. Images she’d banished from her brain.
‘Hey—thanks for catching her.’ This was a different man from the one she’d injured with her shoe and Jessie wondered numbly whether his friend was still lying in the alley, clutching himself.
She didn’t even care.
She was no longer worried about them.
The air was suddenly choked with an entirely different sort of tension and her emotions were focused on the man whose powerful body was pressed against every contour of hers.
Jessie tested his hold but it was like being held in a vice and her attempt to free herself drew a hiss of anger from him. She wished it had been anyone but Silvio who had come to her rescue.
‘Let me go. I don’t want your help.’
‘Of course you don’t—you’re doing fine by yourself.’ His scathing tone brought the colour rushing to her cheeks and Jessie felt a flash of humiliation that he should find her in this state.
‘I can handle it,’ she muttered, but she knew there was no chance he was going to let her go. Silvio Brianza was too much a man to let a woman fight for him.
Thinking about him as a man was a mistake and the colour bloomed in her cheeks as she remembered how he’d felt against her hand.
Grateful for the darkness, Jessie gave a hysterical laugh.
She was about to be killed and she was thinking about sex again. Only this man could have that effect on her. He’d always made her think things she wasn’t supposed to be thinking.
‘You’re going to be killed, Silvio.’
‘I thought that was what you wanted.’
His reference to the last time they’d met made her shiver.
How many lonely nights had she spent planning his fate when the rest of the world had been sleeping? A thousand ways to kill Silvio Brianza.
Was that what she wanted? She couldn’t think straight with the dangerous thrill of awareness gripping her shivering body.
All she knew was that the terrible fear had gone. Locked against his muscular frame, she felt safe. Which was ridiculous. She’d never been less safe in her life.
‘Back off. She’s ours.’ The rough voice was thick with menace. ‘You can hand her over and get back in your fancy car. We’ve got no quarrel with you.’
Fancy car?
Jessie turned her head, saw the low, sleek Ferrari parked at the end of the seedy alleyway. It was like a portal to another life. A reminder of how far Silvio had come.
He’d left all this behind. This wasn’t his world any more.
So what was he doing here?
Why had he picked tonight to step back into his past?
The man she’d stabbed with her shoe finally joined the rest of his friends, his eyes burning with anger and resentment as he focused on Jessie.
She looked into those dull, drug glazed eyes and saw her own death.
Her thoughts were oddly detached as she prepared herself for the end. With Silvio by her side, there would be a fight, she knew that. But it was a fight they couldn’t possibly win.
Would the end be quick?
Would it be a knife? A gun?
Suddenly she realised that she didn’t want Silvio to die. Not for her.
She drew breath to speak but before she could utter a sound Silvio brought his mouth down on hers in a brief, scorching kiss.
Jessie was too shocked to protest, or perhaps her lack of resistance had something to do with the fact that her thoughts had skimmed perilously close to this exact scenario in the last few moments. Her lips parted beneath the pressure of his, hot, liquid pleasure diluting the fear. Far from resisting, she kissed him back passionately, her desperation as powerful as his, her demands every bit as urgent.
For most of her adolescence she’d fantasised about this. Even after that terrible night, when her world had darkened and her attitude towards him had irrevocably altered, perversely she’d still thought about it.
But of all the dreams she’d had, none of them had come close to the reality.
His mouth drove every thought from her head except one…
That if she had to choose a moment to die, this would be it.
Through a haze of desire she heard a snigger from the watching men. ‘Now, that’s just greedy,’ one of them complained.
Her head still spinning from the kiss, Jessie didn’t even realise Silvio had released her until he stepped forward out of the shadows. There was an air of menace attached to that simple, understated movement and she shivered as she watched, frightened and fascinated at the same time. He didn’t speak or bluster—instead, he was terrifyingly cold, his spectacularly handsome face displaying not a single flicker of emotion as he confronted the men. And that, Jessie thought numbly, said everything there was to be said about Silvio Brianza. A lone warrior.
Her legs were threatening to give way, although whether it was from desire or fear she was no longer sure. All she knew was that she wanted to shout a warning. She wanted to warn him not to die for her, but her lips had been paralysed by the touch of his mouth and she couldn’t think of anything except how it had felt to be kissed by him.
And then she realised that this scenario wasn’t playing out the way she’d anticipated. Instead of attacking Silvio, the group was falling back. They’d lost the fierce bravado of a pack intent on a kill and instead they were just staring at him.
Water dripped from the gutter down the back of her neck and Jessie shivered as she tried to work out what was happening.
Why would six men retreat from one?
Confused, she glanced at Silvio and realised that he was standing in the faint shaft of light created by the final flickers of an exposed bulb presumably intended to provide light to the dank corners of the filthy alleyway.
And suddenly she realised what they’d seen. The distinctive scar that ran down one cheek—the only blemish in a face so insanely perfect that if it hadn’t been for that one single flaw, his features could have been the work of Michelangelo.
Jessie strained her ears to hear what was being said but the relentless drip of water from the surrounding roofs all but drowned out the words he was speaking and the eerie darkness made it impossible to read his lips.
At one point Jessie thought she heard someone mutter something that sounded like ‘The Sicilian’, but she couldn’t be sure and they obviously had no interest in including her in the conversation.
Just when she was wondering whether she could slip away unnoticed, they all turned to look at her.
Jessie stood welded to the spot and for one crazy moment she wondered whether Silvio was going to join them. Strip away the expensive clothes and he had the credentials. He’d lived his early life among people like these. He’d led the most feared gang of all.
Those dangerous dark eyes fixed on her and for a fraction of a second he was a stranger to her. She saw what the others had seen. And what she saw was frightening.
Jessie sucked in a breath, reminding herself that, whatever their differences, this man would never hurt her physically.
Emotionally? Emotionally he’d achieved what a childhood lived rough hadn’t managed to accomplish.
He’d broken her into tiny pieces.
Her eyes slid to the scar, her breathing stopped and they stared at each other. The tension in the air shifted and morphed into something different, something a thousand times more dangerous.
Without breaking eye contact, Silvio strolled towards her.
He was frighteningly calm and Jessie wanted to warn him not to turn his back on the men, but she didn’t dare snap the tension that held them all immobile.
As he reached her he lifted a hand and stroked her hair away from her face, the gesture oddly out of place in such a tense situation. His touch was both deliberate and possessive, as if he was making a statement about their relationship, and she didn’t understand that because they didn’t have a relationship any more.
It had bee
n smashed in that grimy room exactly three years earlier, over her brother’s lifeless body.
Then his hand dropped. ‘Andiamo. Let’s go. Get in the car,’ he commanded, and Jessie obeyed, not because she wanted to get in the car, but because she was as mesmerised by his aura of authority as the gang members. He dominated this godless, lawless environment with the sheer force of his presence and Jessie slid into the sumptuous warmth of the Ferrari, feeling as though she were stepping into another world. Moments later he joined her and she wasn’t sure whether the deep growl came from the engine or the depths of his throat. All she knew was that she’d been wrong about his mood.
He wasn’t calm.
He wasn’t calm at all.
Forced into close proximity by the confines of the car she could tell that he was struggling with a raging anger and that knowledge unsettled her because in all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him like this. Never seen that icy control slide. Not once. Not even that night when their relationship had hit rock bottom.
‘Silvio—’
‘Don’t say a word.’ He cut her off before she could even begin her sentence, his voice strangely thickened, his knuckles white on the wheel. He didn’t glance in her direction. Instead he kept his eyes fixed on the road, speeding through the back streets of London as if he were competing for a Formula 1 title.
Jessie was tempted to point out that there wasn’t a lot of point in rescuing her from one threat only to kill them both in a car wreck, but she kept her mouth shut.
Why him?
Why did it have to be him who had rescued her?
Now that the immediate danger had passed, her thoughts were impossibly confused. The adrenaline rushing around her body had been diluted by another hormone and the only thing in her head was that kiss. Her body was still trembling from the pressure of his mouth against hers and the more she remembered of her wild, crazy response, the more appalled she was. Had he noticed her reaction? She shrank in her seat, hoping that he’d been too distracted to register just how enthusiastically she’d played her part.
Disgust slithered over her bones and settled in the core of her like a cold, hard stone.
Had she no shame?
How was it possible to respond like that to someone you’d spent three years hating? Her brain was like a slide show—one minute she was remembering the breath-stealing moment when his dark head had lowered to hers, the next she was seeing her brother’s face.
Shocked, confused and ripped apart with self-loathing, Jessie realised that the one thing she wasn’t thinking of was the six men who had just tried to kill her.
And that didn’t make sense, did it?
Her gaze slid to Silvio.
He was just one man.
Why did she feel safe?
She swallowed a hysterical laugh, wondering why she needed to ask herself that question.
The visible markers of success hadn’t changed who he was. The expensive watch on his wrist, the car he was driving—none of those things had shaped the man. Underneath the exterior of smooth sophistication that enabled him to blend with the upper echelons of society, Silvio was solid steel. Hard, tough and the very essence of what it meant to be a man.
She felt safe because she was safe. Physically. Any woman would be safe with him, although perhaps only she really understood who he really was.
Just looking at him made her feel guilty and Jessie tore her eyes away from him and looked behind her. Not that she thought for one moment anyone would be following the Ferrari. It would be like sending a donkey in pursuit of a racehorse.
‘They called you “the Sicilian”.’ Unable to help herself, she cast another look at his profile. Looking at him was an irresistible compulsion. ‘It’s so long since you had anything to do with that life but your reputation still frightens them. They knew you.’ She stared in fascination, wondering why she wasn’t more afraid of him herself.
Was it because she couldn’t see the scar?
From this angle the damaged skin was invisible, his features almost impossibly perfect.
Perfect, but cold.
Up until tonight she would have said he didn’t feel—but it was evident that he was feeling something.
Jessie wondered why he was so angry. ‘Why did you come here tonight?’
‘I heard a rumour about a pack of trouble and a girl with a golden voice.’ He shifted gears viciously, coaxed the car round a tight corner and accelerated away so fast that Jessie’s head thumped gently against the head rest.
‘I wasn’t looking for trouble.’
His eyes were fixed straight ahead of him. ‘How much did he owe them?’
Jessie gave a twisted smile, not at all surprised that he knew the truth.
She didn’t waste time pretending he’d misunderstood. Neither did she ask him how he knew. He knew everything. This man had contacts at every strata of society—a network that would have made both social climbers and the police force weep with envy.
‘Forty thousand,’ she said flatly, wishing the sum didn’t sound so terrifying. ‘It was twice that, but I’ve paid back half. I’m late with a payment. That’s why they came after me tonight.’ She gave him no details. Didn’t elaborate. But he knew. He was a man who’d known hunger, violence and deprivation and, in the fleeting second before he controlled his reaction, she saw the murderous flash of anger in his eyes.
‘You paid them?’ The question hissed through his lips and Jessie was reminded that this man was twice as dangerous as the men he’d rescued her from.
‘I didn’t exactly have a choice.’
He changed gears with a savage movement of his hand. ‘But you could have gone to the police.’
The dark streets flashed past and Jessie wondered if he even realised he’d just driven straight through a red light. ‘That would have made things worse.’
‘For whom? Law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be afraid of the police, Jessie. Or were you afraid you’d be arrested?’ The contempt in his tone baffled her until she saw his gaze flick briefly to her exposed thighs—saw the raw fury—and suddenly understood his meaning.
He thought she—
That was why he was so angry?
Jessie was so shocked that for a moment she couldn’t respond. ‘What sort of job do you think I’m doing?’
‘Presumably the same job as the rest of the girls in that club.’
He thought she was a prostitute.
She leaned her head back against the seat and started to laugh. It was that or cry and there was no way she was ever crying in front of this man. All her tears had been shed in private.
‘You think it’s funny?’ His tone savage, he drove the car harder still and Jessie wondered why it bothered her so much that he thought that of her.
‘I use what God gave me. What’s wrong with that?’ It was a stupid thing to say. Flippant, provocative—like dangling a piece of raw meat in front of a hungry wolf—and the moment the words left her mouth she wanted to suck them back in. But it was too late for that. Too late to wish that everything was different between them.
Too late to wish that the past hadn’t happened.
And perhaps it was safer this way. If his opinion of her was rock bottom then it would protect them both from the dangerous chemistry that had flickered round the edges of their relationship like a force field.
She didn’t want that.
He didn’t want that.
He brought the car to an abrupt halt and when he looked at her the red blaze of fury in his eyes made her shrink against the seat in instinctive retreat.
‘If you were that desperate for money,’ he said thickly, ‘you could have come to me. It didn’t matter what happened between us. None of that mattered. If you were in trouble, you should have contacted me.’
‘You are the last person on this earth I would ever ask for help.’ But the words came out as a whisper because she was too overwhelmed by her feelings to manage anything stronger or more convincing.
; Self-loathing mingled with a desperate yearning that frightened her.
She didn’t want to feel like this.
‘Pride can kill, Jessie.’
‘It isn’t about pride! Even if I’d wanted to contact you, I wouldn’t have known how. I don’t know you any more.’ Neither did she know herself. ‘You’re always surrounded by clever people and security staff. Although why you need the security staff, I don’t understand.’ She turned to look at him and then immediately looked away because one glance at his mouth made her think of that kiss. ‘Why do you employ security staff? You don’t exactly need help, do you? Or are you worried about dirtying your expensive suit?’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ he said harshly. ‘Were you really prepared to die rather than contact me? Is that the honest truth?’
Jessie stared in front of her, realising with a flash of surprise that they were parked on the pavement near her block of flats. ‘You know why I didn’t contact you.’
‘Sì, I know. You hate me.’ His tone was flat but his grip on the wheel didn’t relax. ‘You blame me for everything.’
‘Not everything—just that one thing. Do you know what tonight is?’ Her voice shook with emotion and his eyes flashed.
‘Do you think I’d forget this date? Does it help you to know I blame myself every bit as much as you do?’ The rain pelted onto the car, blurring their surroundings.
Like tears, Jessie thought as she stared at the water pouring over the windscreen. ‘No. It doesn’t help.’ Nothing helped.
The memory of that night hovered between them like a menacing storm cloud waiting to unleash something terrible and Jessie unclipped her seat belt and opened the car door, on the run from memories and a conversation she didn’t want to have.
‘Thanks for the lift.’ She didn’t say ‘home’ because she didn’t think of this place as home. It was just the place she slept—for now. Until she moved on—which she did regularly.
It was raining hard now, the litter-strewn pavements slick with it, the graffiti on the walls glistening under a glowing orange streetlamp.
Jessie felt ridiculous standing there, soaked to the skin in her cheap gold dress. Next to the sleek Ferrari and the equally sleek billionaire she felt appallingly self-conscious.
