VIOLENT DAYLIGHT
THE HOT-BLOODED SEQUEL TO ‘NIGHT WANTS TO FORGET’
CAROLINE ANGUS BAKER
Bella Figura Publishing
Bella Figura Publishing
Auckland, New Zealand
No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The characters and situations in this book are purely fictional and are not based on any person, living or dead.
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Copyright © 2013 Caroline Angus Baker
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ALSO BY CAROLINE ANGUS BAKER
NIGHT WANTS TO FORGET
PART I OF THE CANNA MEDICI SERIES
Canna Medici is a hedonistic young woman who flees her home and an abusive relationship in Italy, and finds herself in a new life in London. She becomes the new assistant of Virtuosi, a small opera group who are about to embark on a tour of ten of Europe’s greatest opera houses. When Canna soon becomes romantically involved with English tenor Dane Porter, trouble comes in the form of fellow Virtuosi singer Claudio Ramos Ibáñez, the dark, brooding Spanish baritone. Canna and Claudio have crossed paths once before with vicious consequences, and each are desperate for the truth to remain hidden.
As Claudio becomes more and more entangled in Canna’s violent and addictive secrets, Dane is forced to re-evaluate his life – his morals and stereotypes are going to be tested in order to accept her dark past. Canna continues to pursue pleasure at any cost, exploiting the weaknesses of those around her in an effort to hide her demons. All of the men and women in Virtuosi are going to be hurt by Canna’s narcissism unless she can overcome her inner torment.
Canna is night and Dane is day, and while the night wants to forget, another night is calling to her in a form very close to home, and love holds on too tight…
CHAPTER 1
MILAN
Catherine Medici is not available. That summed up Canna in a sentence. Not available to anyone, for any reason. He stood at the reception desk of the sleek Caraceni building in central Milan and looked around the lobby. It was just how he imagined. A cold, stark building decorated in black marble and glass, with people that hurried around, thinking they were busy and influential. The gold lettering of the Caraceni name glittered overhead, and reminded him that he was out of his depth. He was just an opera singer, albeit a famous one – but nothing in this world.
“Please, I need to speak to Signora Savelli,” he tried again, this time with Canna’s married name, to the haughty young girl behind the desk. When he had asked the location of Canna’s office, the girl hadn’t even looked up to tell him that Canna was unavailable. Time to change his attitude. “Countess Catherine Savelli will be mad when she finds out who got left waiting at reception.”
Ms. Receptionist looked up at him. Got her attention. “Is the Countess expecting you?”
“The Countess is always expecting me.” He hated people who felt they were more valuable than everyone else. But here in Milan he seemed to be surrounded by them. “Perhaps I should call her private number to complain.”
“I will contact the Countess’ assistant.” The girl grabbed the phone, and he smiled. “What is your name, Signore?”
“Claudio Ramos Ibáñez.”
Claudio hurried in the direction of the elevators with a security pass in hand. He smoothed his jet-black hair in the mirrored glass on the way up and adjusted his leather jacket. Everyone else seemed so well presented, and Claudio was in jeans and a coat. His lack of personal appearance didn’t help his overwhelming sense of feeling lost in the surroundings.
When he got to the top floor, Claudio stepped out to find a woman waiting for him. Black marble and glass again. People full of self-importance walked at high speed around the head offices of Caraceni Industries.
“Signore Ramos, welcome. My name is Francesca,” the middle-aged woman said, and put out her hand to greet him. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. Is English an appropriate language for communication?”
“English is fine.” Claudio pondered what Francesca would have done if he wanted to speak his native Spanish. No point in teasing the woman; Claudio couldn’t speak any Italian.
“I’m terribly sorry for any confusion caused downstairs; the staff down there can be a little difficult at times.”
“No problem. I came to see Canna – Catherine Medici, without an appointment.”
“Not a problem,” she gushed. “Honestly, if there is anything we can do to help you, I will be here to ensure you get it.”
“Is there a sign somewhere that tells you to like me?”
“Signora Medici makes note of everyone who gains access to this floor, and when they can be present. You are top of the list for full access.”
Claudio raised his dark eyebrows. This woman didn’t seem aware that Claudio was Canna’s lover. Did it matter? “Is Catherine here?”
“Catherine is in a meeting. Perhaps you could wait in her office?”
“No problem.”
“Please come this way.” They started down a long wide hallway. Claudio wanted to see Canna’s office. It had been Giuseppe’s office, and now that Canna had killed him, she was enjoying the spoils of that victory. Claudio never saw Canna anymore.
“Would you like a peppermint tea?” Francesca asked.
“Peppermint tea?”
“Ah… I was under the impression that was your warm beverage of choice, sir,” Francesca stuttered. “But we have a selection of coffees, wines, anything you might enjoy.”
Claudio smiled. “That’s correct, I do like peppermint tea. But no, thank you.”
“Please excuse the boardroom,” she said as they walked along the corridor.
Claudio slowed as he walked past the room. He could see everything happening in there through its glass walls. Around a dozen or so men sat around a massive glass table, and yelled at one another. There was a graphic projected up on the wall. Several men gestured at it while they argued, while Canna sat at the head of the table. She sat back in her chair, pushed back from the table. She had her gorgeous legs crossed, her black skirt just covering her scarred knees. One elbow rested on the arm of the chair, with her chin nestled in her hand, and her lips pursed. Everyone was yelling, but she sat in silence, watching. Her blue eyes darted back and forth behind her black-framed glasses. She had an intense expression on her face, but she didn’t move a muscle, like a snake as it waited to pounce on its prey. Her hair intrigued him; her cascading black curls were there as always, falling around her perfect made-up face, complete with diamond nose stud, but the tips of her curls her blonde. It looked as if she had dipped them in dye by accident, around two inches of her long hair coloured. The Catherine of old, the bottle-blonde sugar-baby, the abused wife, had begun to seep back up into Canna’s real, more brutal, dark personality.
Claudio watched Canna glance up and see him, and he took his hands from the pockets of his jeans. They made eye contact, but she still didn’t flinch. Not the loving expression he had hoped for when he arrived. Canna held his gaze for a moment and then looked away again, like a snake distracted from its kill. A moment later he saw her rise from her seat at considerable speed, and she pounded her fist on the table. She hit it so hard that several glasses of chilled sparkling water toppled and fell onto the nearby men. “BASTA!” he heard Canna scream over them. Enough. Stop. Her hand gave them a dismissive wave. The long sleeve of her sheer pink blouse moved just enough that Claudio could see her forearm star tattoos through the lightweight fab
ric. She turned away from the men, whose eyes all followed her.
Look at her. Canna always walked with purpose, even with her slight limp. She took quick steps in her black high heels, and her tight skirt restricted how fast she could walk. Canna looked every bit the elegant Countess. That was his lover. Contessa di Caraceni was the love of his life.
“What the fuck at you looking at?” Canna asked as she emerged in the hallway.
Claudio just shook his head with a grin. Her acidic language had not calmed in the weeks he had been apart from Canna. “Nothing, Ms. Catherine,” he replied.
“Francesca, go away,” Canna said and the older woman scuttled back towards her desk.
“Am I allowed to kiss the Countess in public?” Claudio asked.
“No, but I left her in the meeting. Come into my office and let’s see if some opera superstar can kiss some cheap recovering drug addict.”
Claudio followed Canna down the hallway, her heels making a loud sound on the marble. She turned the gold handle of the door at the end of the hallway, which revealed the Count’s office. The late Count’s office.
“Wow,” he muttered. The view over Milan was incredible. The office was bigger than the apartments he had rented in the days of living job-to-job while singing on stage in Madrid. It had every luxury a person could need. It seemed no surprise that Giuseppe’s office, now Canna’s office, had been filled with antique furniture and state-of-the-art gear, but it reeked of over-indulgence.
“Welcome to my world.” Canna took off her glasses and tossed them on her wide desk.
Claudio took her hand and pulled Canna into him, and her little body fell into his embrace. He loved how she ran her arms under his leather jacket when she held him, and she buried herself into him. She felt so delicate in his arms, but her kiss reminded him how strong she was. The depth of the passion she had for life was evident in the way she kissed him, with sincerity and depth. Over and over he kissed her, inhaling her with every sense.
“I missed you,” she whispered against his lips, and opened her eyes to look up at his. He watched her blink a few times. He missed the crazy out-of-time blink she used to have before her corrective eye surgery.
“I was hoping you had.” His eyes were dark, clouded by the arousal he felt for her.
“Why are you in Milan?”
“It’s a long story. Was I wrong to come?”
“No! No, you weren’t. I’m just surprised. I’m in the middle of a quite pivotal meeting.”
“You can go back.”
“No, thank you for saving me.” Canna leaned away from him and sat on the edge of her gigantic oak desk. “The reality is that I will need to deal with it again at some point.”
“Doing what?”
“Changes in share ownership of the businesses. Since my psychotic husband died, everything has been up in the air. Being an instant billionaire isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. Being a billionaire’s sugar-baby was much easier. I’m sure he left me everything just to fuck with my head.”
“You did kill Giuseppe, so you still win.”
“I need to sort this shit out. Every time I’m in this office, I live in fear that Giuseppe will walk in here. He has been dead for months and yet I’m scared of him.”
“He can’t hurt you, Blinky.”
“If anyone can reach out from beyond the grave, it’s my husband, Giuseppe Savelli.”
“Maybe he needs to be purged from the place.”
“Suggestions?”
“We could have sex on his desk.”
“No, no. We can’t do that. Sex and work never mix well.” Just for the briefest of moments, a smile crossed Canna’s face.
“What?” he sniggered. “What did you remember?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
“I thought of me and Dane, having sex in his dressing room.”
Claudio froze for a moment. Canna had sex with his best friend, in Dane’s dressing room at London’s Royal Opera House, while Claudio was down the hall in his own room, pining for her. That stopped the conversation. Claudio, an opera superstar, had fallen in love with his then-assistant Canna, when she was in a hectic sexual relationship with his colleague, Dane Porter. The woman knew how to cause trouble within the opera group of Virtuosi while she hid from her violent husband. At least Dane was out of the picture now.
“Claudio,” Canna said to him, and he glanced at her. “Please remember that I’m fond of Dane, but I don’t love him. I love you.”
Claudio just nodded. Canna was always truthful, but a sincere emotion was rare.
“I don’t like sex and work together. Especially here.”
Claudio looked around the office. A picture of Giuseppe hung on the wall. He looked like a hard man. Canna and Giuseppe were the oddest couple you could imagine, and not just because of the 38-year age difference. Claudio hated the man; he wanted to pull the photo off the wall and stomp on it. The sight of the old man made his veins hot. “Did Giuseppe hurt you in this room?”
Canna ran her hand around the edge of the desk. “One time… we had a dinner event to attend, and I arrived here, escorted by my bodyguard, Giancarlo. I didn’t have ‘permission’ from my husband to travel anywhere alone. Giuseppe’s meeting didn’t go well…”
“Much like the meeting I just saw you enduring?”
“Yeah, just like that. I was in here, and Giuseppe came in looking so angry. Some deal had collapsed, and he needed a way to feel in control.”
“Did he hit you?”
“No, he made me take up my usual position, but it was the only time he did it to me in the office.”
“What was your usual position?” The moment Claudio said it he realised that he didn’t want the answer.
“He bent me over, face down on his desk, and held me by my hair, and he raped me. He said that until I bled on his erection, he wouldn’t be done with me. Luckily for me, it didn’t take long to suffer that fate.”
Claudio couldn’t imagine it; his mind wouldn’t let him. When he made love to Canna, it was passionate, but it was gentle. No wonder she was rough and sexual when she became upset, she knew it as a form of control. “Canna…”
“Don’t,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand and got off the edge of the desk. “It’s not an isolated case. When you’re raped by someone you should trust, you start to shut your mind off and let it happen. There was no sense in fighting. Giuseppe had exceptional strength. He was a foot taller than me. It was the price I paid to be married to a rich man.”
“No one has the right to treat you that way.”
“This isn’t news, Claudio. You know I’m broken. You know I’m a whore, a drug addict...”
“I also know you left Giuseppe to escape that life.”
“Hiding from him did no good.”
“It did, it meant that I could meet you. Giuseppe is dead, Canna.”
“Now, I have his ten billion Euro business.” Her greedy smile returned.
“You paid a high price for it.”
“Not really. I don’t think my soul was worth anywhere near that much money.” She looked up and down at him. “I’m sorry, I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
“No…I… I’m still coming to terms with who you are, Blinky. You came to me as my assistant, but you’re also the unnamed woman I got pregnant years ago. You were also nearly killed by Giuseppe, you became a drug addict after your car accident… you… you’re complicated.”
“You knew what I was like when I worked for Virtuosi. And those two weeks we spent in Madrid together, in your bed… that’s not life.”
“Neither is this. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I need to be here. I can’t abandon Caraceni Industries now that Giuseppe is dead. If the company goes down, I, as chairman… chairwoman… take the fall. Thousands of people across various industries will lose their jobs. The Italian Stock Exchange would collapse under the stress of losing a company as prominent as this one. I c
an’t get away from the Caraceni family. Giuseppe made sure I would suffer after his death, and he has done a bloody good job. I’m glad I overdosed him on morphine now, no matter how I felt at the time.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to work my ass off to try and untangle myself from everything and try to walk away as rich as I can.”
“Is that wise?”
“Why should I walk away with nothing? To go back to being… ordinary? Normal? Hell no, not going to happen.”
“There is nothing wrong with normal.”
“Says the famous guy.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not rich and I’m not that famous either. You are a Countess. A billionaire. In comparison to you, I’m nothing. Maybe I was a fool to think I could come here and take you away.”
“Did you fall and bump your pretty little head?” Canna asked. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going to Malta tomorrow; I have a regatta to sail.”
“Fuck, I forgot.”
“Come with me. I have spent enough time watching you be an opera singer, now it’s time for you to come with me and see what I do for a living.”
“I thought this was your living.” He gestured around the office.
“This isn’t life as we know it. This is all a dangerous game. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you expected.”
“I didn’t know what to expect in Milan.”
“I mean between you and me. You expected to run off into the sunset after our meeting at Erik’s wedding in Corsica. What comes after ‘happily ever after’ probably doesn’t meet your expectations.”
“Blinky, I love you, so much that it hurts. I’m feel weighed down by the fact that I’m addicted to you. You kissed me goodbye in Madrid so I could go back to work in London and I haven’t heard from you.”
“I thought that was the deal. No strong ties. We don’t have to be together all the time. Christ, it’s only been two weeks, not two years.”
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