VITTORIO'S RUNAWAY BRIDE

by Kimberley Reeves

  All kinds of horrible scenarios began to play in his mind. Had she been forced to leave at gunpoint? Was she locked inside a dark room or had she been crammed into a small space that didn’t allow any movement? Was she bound and gagged, scarred half out of her mind because she thought he wouldn’t even be looking for her?

  The pain inside his chest was agonizing and it was only the belief that he would find Shelby and bring her home again that made it bearable. Somehow he had to get Alicia to tell him the truth about what had happened. She’d told nothing but lies from the moment he’d walked in and he had to wonder if she was even capable of distinguishing between reality and the fabrications she’d created.

  “You’re not still worrying about her, are you?” Alicia’s acidic tone broke into Logan’s thoughts.

  “Why should I concern myself about Shelby when she obviously doesn’t care about me? Actually,” he said, an idea beginning to form, “I was worried about you.”

  Alicia tipped her head back, a happy smile lighting her face. “You’re worried about me?”

  Logan smiled back, and the man who prided himself on his honesty let loose a string of lies that would have made him cringe if his and Shelby’s lives didn’t hinge on making Alicia believe every last word.

  “Of course I am worried about you. It must have taken quite a toll on your emotions to confront Shelby, not to mention what a strain it must have been to know you had done all of this for a man who might not even recognize the sacrifices you have made for him.”

  “You really do understand,” she said on a sigh.

  Logan reached up and caressed the side of her face with his fingertips. “You look tired,” he said softy. “It is my fault you have been under such tremendous stress. If only I had given into my desires and admitted how much I wanted you…”

  “Oh Logan,” she cried, “you don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

  “Forgive me for denying us both the pleasure of being together. Our union was inevitable and I can see now that I have only hurt us both by pretending otherwise, but I promise I will make it up to you.”

  She pressed her cheek into his palm. “Does that mean you’re going to make love to me now?”

  “You have no idea how much I want to take you to bed right now, mia bella, but I am afraid it will have to wait.”

  Alicia pulled away from him, her expression cold as ice. “What do mean we have to wait? You said you wanted me…”

  “I do want you. Listen to me, Alicia. I have an important business meeting in less than an hour that I cannot get out of. I only came home to change clothes and eat dinner.” Logan cupped her chin and leaned forward, brushing her lips with a brief kiss. “When I make love to you, I do not want to be rushed. Be patient, I promise you it will be worth the wait.”

  Alicia’s anger began to melt under his intense gaze. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I cannot be sure, but it may be pretty late. This is what I want you to do while I am gone. First, you will need to eat because you will need your strength for later. I will have Alba bring up something for dinner before sending her off to visit her daughter for the night. Then you will take a nice long bath, after which you will crawl into bed and sleep until I wake you with soft kisses.”

  “And after that?” Alicia asked in a breathless whisper.

  Logan smiled. “After that, I will make love to you until you are too exhausted to move.”

  ****

  Shelby stared blankly at the wall. Her head ached, but the dull throbbing was nothing compared to the raw pain that was tearing at her heart right now. If we cannot trust each other then we have nothing. Wasn’t that what he’d told her after Dante and Luca had skirted Alicia out of the Penthouse? And she had trusted him; she’d trusted him so much she’d mocked Alicia for believing he would even consider being unfaithful.

  She would have given anything to be able to press her hands to her ears and drown out the sound of their voices as they planned their night of adulterous activities, but of course she couldn’t. Alicia had been vicious when she’d taken the length of baling twine and bound Shelby’s wrist to each arm of the chair.

  The twine had been pulled so tight the circulation had been cut off and her fingers had started to turn blue by the time Alicia had roped her ankles to the legs of the chair. Shelby would have bitten off her own tongue before begging Alicia to loosen them, but as it turned out, Alicia must have had a brief twinge of conscious and loosened them herself.

  The woman had certainly come prepared. Even if Shelby had been willing to risk her own safety and tried to get past Alicia and her gun, she couldn’t endanger Alba’s life. Besides the gun, Alicia’s purse had also contained a ball of twine and duct tape. She’d lucked out, Alicia had told her; covering her mouth with the tape was unnecessary because the room was sound proof. Maybe she should take advantage of that and scream her lungs out because right now that’s what she really wanted to do.

  Shelby clenched her jaws to keep from crying out at the sharp stab of pain that shot through her when Logan told Alicia that being with her had been inevitable. Desperate to keep from hearing anymore, she started reciting the words to poems and songs, anything she could think of. And it worked for a few minutes…until she paused to take a breath of air.

  “After that, I will make love to you until you are too exhausted to move,” Logan’s voice came through the intercom, loud and clear.

  Shelby did scream then. She screamed out of anger and frustration, screamed because her husband was betraying her with a woman who was holding her captive in her own house. She screamed until her lungs burned and her throat was raw and the hot tears scalded her pale cheeks. When she finally stopped, her head fell forward in defeat. She was tired, so incredibly tired she couldn’t have moved even if she’d been able to. Shelby fought it for as long as she could but exhaustion overtook her and eventually she dozed off.

  She moved in and out of hazy dreams and nightmares, sometimes aware of where she was when she woke, and sometimes not. She dreamed of Logan and the way he’d looked at her after he’d discovered she was pregnant, and she dreamt of passionate kisses and warm caresses and love making that had sometimes lasted until dawn.

  The nightmares came sporadically, always with Alicia’s image intertwined, laughing at her, taunting her as she led Logan to the bedroom and stretched out on the bed. As soon as she’d reach for him, the nightmare would end and Shelby would wake up with tears in her eyes and her insides shaking.

  How long it went on, she wasn’t sure but the knotted muscles in her neck told her it had to have been quite some time. She was rotating her neck to try and work out some of the kinks when there was a soft click and the door eked open. If she’d been fully awake, she might have had the presence of mind to scream so Logan could hear her, but Alicia was already through the door and had closed it firmly behind her before Shelby could even open her mouth.

  “I brought you water and something to eat,” Alicia said pleasantly as she drew up another chair and sat down in front of her.

  “That’s my robe,” Shelby croaked, her voice so hoarse she could barely speak.

  “I just finished showering and didn’t want to put my clothes back on. Drink,” she ordered, holding the bottled water to Shelby’s lips.

  She gulped the water down greedily until nearly half of it was gone. “Why the sudden burst of compassion?”

  Alicia plucked a piece of pineapple from the small bowl of fruit she’d brought with her and popped it into Shelby’s mouth. “I don’t want you physically harmed,” she said with a shrug.

  “Just mentally beaten?”

  Alicia smiled and brought a ripe strawberry to Shelby’s lips. “Eat it,” she said harshly, then smiled again when Shelby obeyed. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do want you beaten down mentally. Having you here, knowing you’re listening to everything that’s going on in your bedroom has added a delicious excitement to my plan to extract revenge from both of you. Oh, I
know Logan loves you regardless of his attempt to make me think otherwise, but that just makes it so much sweeter.”

  Shelby swallowed down the strawberry. “Do you mean all those things you said about wanting to be with him was just more lies?”

  “Of course,” she laughed, thrusting another piece of fruit into Shelby’s mouth. “I told you, all I want is one night with him. One night with you listening to the sounds of us making wild, passionate love in your bed and I’ll have killed two birds with one stone. I’ll have conquered Logan and gotten him to have sex with me, and I’ll have destroyed your marriage in the process.”

  “Maybe not,” Shelby said with a defiant lift of her chin. “How do you know we won’t salvage our marriage once you’ve gone?”

  Alicia gave her another sip of water before replying. “You won’t, and I’ll tell you why. You love him so much you’ll want to forgive him, but you won’t be able to. Every time he reaches for you, the pain of knowing he’s been with me will stand between you. You’ll imagine your husband kissing me, running his hands over my body, and you’ll wonder…is he comparing the two of us? And Logan, the poor man…he’ll never be able to forgive himself for being so weak or for hurting you. The guilt will eat him alive and eventually you’ll both stop trying to pretend you’ve moved past it and the marriage will be over.”

  Shelby shook her head. “And you’ll go on with your life without feeling an ounce of remorse for what you’ve done.”

  “Guilt is a wasted emotion. I’ll join Richard in whatever country he happens to be in right now and I’ll find a new game to play. Oh don’t get me wrong, I imagine one night with Logan will leave me wanting more but I am much stronger than he is and I’ll be able to resist the temptation to stick around for a full blown affair.”

  “You’re a vile, evil person,” Shelby spit out. “Logan and I will get past this horrible night because our love for each other can’t be broken by you or anyone else.”

  She sat up straight as a warm glow began to spread from her chest outward. They would survive this, just as they’d survived the months of separation, and she’d help him see that guilt really was a wasted emotion. He’d been played, just as she had and together they could repair whatever damage this charade of Alicia’s had caused. This baby growing inside of her would have both a mother and a father and they’d love it as fiercely as they loved each other.

  Alicia leaned forward, her face contorting into an ugly mask of contempt. “We shall see how long those convictions hold once Logan returns tonight and slips into bed with me.”

  Shelby pressed her lips together, careful to keep her own face expressionless. Logan was gone? Her heart leapt to her throat. Was he out looking for her? Had he figured out what Alicia was up to? If so, then he must know Alicia couldn’t have taken her too far away, given the small amount of time that had passed between her departure from the Penthouse and the time he’d gotten home. The veil of pain began to lift and suddenly Shelby saw everything with perfect clarity.

  “He must not be as enamored of you as you’d like to believe,” Shelby smirked.

  “Just because he had a business meeting he couldn’t get out of? Apparently you weren’t listening very closely or you would have heard the concern in his voice when he told me to rest up while he was gone.”

  “You do look a bit…haggard,” she said agreeably.

  Alicia stood up. “I don’t blame you for wanting to lash out at me; after all I’ll be sleeping with your husband in a few hours.” Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. “Maybe sleeping wasn’t the right word to use for what we’ll be doing. This is going to be the longest night of my life…but then I imagine you were thinking the same thing about yourself.”

  Shelby didn’t say a word. She just sat there, stone faced and mutinously silent until Alicia finally turned around with a huff and stomped out of the room. Only then did she allow herself to smile.

  ****

  Logan checked his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. Even knowing how vital it was to remain patient, every second that ticked by grated on his already frayed nerves. He’d been on an emotional rollercoaster ever since he’d left the house earlier that evening so it wasn’t surprising that the light tap on his window nearly sent him over the edge. Logan climbed out of his car, his expression grim as he shook hands with the man before him.

  “You’re sure she’s still inside?”

  Logan nodded. “I found her car about a quarter of a mile down the road when I left the house. I stayed there until Simon arrived to keep an eye on it.”

  “My men are in position so it won’t be long now.” He handed Logan a square device that fit neatly in the palm of his hand. “It’s an electronic pager,” he explained. “When you’re ready for us, just press the button in the middle. It’s set to vibrate so you don’t have to worry that she’ll hear it beep if one of us happens to be close by.”

  “It will alert all of you at the same time?”

  “Everyone is on the same frequency so, yes, it’ll be simultaneous.”

  Logan pocketed the pager. “I am ready.”

  “You’re sure about this, Logan? My men can have every room in the house searched in less than fifteen minutes…”

  “No,” he said firmly, “I cannot take the chance that Alicia is roaming around and might see one of them. We will stick to the plan. My brothers will follow me in and wait until she is…distracted before they begin searching for Shelby.”

  “And if Shelby’s not in the house?”

  Logan wouldn’t even consider the possibility he was wrong. “She is in there. Just have your men ready to catch Alicia if she tries to get away.”

  ***

  Shelby had been staring at the panel on the wall for so long her vision was beginning to blur. The only noise she’d heard in the past few hours was the muffled sound of Alicia mumbling in her sleep now and then. She had no way of knowing what time it was or how long she’d been strapped to the chair but her muscles ached from remaining immobile for so long and she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

  Battling fatigue wasn’t the only problem. She’d been in dire need of the bathroom facilities for quite some time now and it hadn’t helped that she was so thirsty all she could think of was gulping down a gallon of ice water. She also worried about what the stress on her body was doing to her baby. To keep her mind off the terrifying idea that she could lose the child growing inside of her, Shelby tried to envision how she wanted to decorate the nursery.

  She’d gotten as far as choosing the color scheme and was thinking about the murals she’d like to paint on the walls when she heard the soft rustling of someone moving around in the bedroom filter through the intercom speaker. She held her breath, straining her ears and had almost convinced herself she’d only been imagining it when Alicia’s groggy voice confirmed Logan had finally come home.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” Alicia cooed.

  There was the unmistakable sound of clothing being removed then a soft sigh from Alicia followed by even softer moans of pleasure. The bitter taste of jealousy burned in the back of Shelby’s throat when a deeper masculine moan sifted through the speaker. Was this Logan’s plan; sleep with Alicia in the hopes she’d tell him where she’d stashed his wife?

  “Bella donna,” he murmured, “Io vogtio te…”

  Shelby squeezed her eyes shut. How many times had Logan whispered those same words to her? Beautiful woman, I want you. The string of Italian endearments were followed by the rustling of sheets and more throaty moans from the pair of them as things heated up in the bedroom. There was no way to block out the sounds and despite the bile that churned in her stomach from being forced to listen, Shelby slowly opened her eyes and focused on Logan’s voice.

  She tilted her head, intent on hearing every muttered word he spoke. Gradually, the anger and pain and jealousy began to ease just as the first giggle bubbled up her throat and caught for a moment before erupting. She imagined Logan would
think she’d lost her mind if he stepped into the room at that moment because that one rebellious giggle was followed by another and then another until she was laughing so hard her sides ached and tears streaked down her face.