At the Ruthless Billionaire's Command

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Otherwise?’ she echoed sharply.

  He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re grieving for your father... Not adapting well to your change of circumstances. People would understand if you were to take a bottle of pills and just fall asleep...’

  ‘You’re insane!’ Lia truly believed it at that moment: no man in his right mind would threaten to kill her so cold-bloodedly.

  ‘Desperate,’ David corrected grimly. ‘And you should know better than to threaten a desperate man, Lia.’

  Gregorio had tried to warn her. Had warned her. Lia just hadn’t listened.

  Gregorio...

  ‘You would never get away with killing me,’ she warned him as she struggled and failed to release herself from David’s painful grip. ‘Gregorio would know I hadn’t killed myself, and he would hound you until he caught you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t change the fact you were dead,’ David reasoned.

  There was no arguing with that logic.

  Lia let out a scream as David suddenly twisted her arm so viciously she thought she was going to pass out from the pain.

  ‘Stop fighting me and I’ll stop hurting you,’ he ground out harshly.

  Lia ceased her struggles. She slumped weakly forward the moment David reduced that painful pressure.

  * * *

  Gregorio tensed in the hallway when he heard Lia scream inside the apartment, not hesitating for so much as a second before he raised his booted foot and kicked the apartment door open.

  He stepped through the flying wood splinters from where the lock had been detached from the doorframe and carried on down the hallway, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene in front of him.

  David Richardson stood behind Lia, one of his arms about her waist as he held her against him, his face buried in her hair, his lips against her throat.

  Had Gregorio imagined that scream?

  Or perhaps the reason for it...?

  He knew from personal experience that Lia was a passionate lover. She was also a noisy one. She had screamed several times when they were in bed together yesterday afternoon. Usually when she had an orgasm...

  Richardson and Lia were both still fully dressed. But, again, that was no guarantee that Lia’s scream hadn’t been a pleasurable one: she’d still been wearing all her clothes the first time she’d had an orgasm in his arms. Had he interrupted Richardson while he was pleasuring Lia?

  Gregorio returned his narrowed gaze to Lia’s face. The wide and startled eyes. The pale cheeks. The trembling lips.

  The pale cheeks...

  Lia’s face was always flushed with pleasure when she orgasmed with him. Her eyes would glow. Her lips would be a deep rose colour.

  He took in her body language, noting her tension and the fact that one of her arms was behind her back. Held there by Richardson.

  Gregorio’s jaw tensed. ‘Let her go, Richardson.’

  The other man’s gaze was insolent as he looked at Gregorio over Lia’s shoulder. ‘She likes it here. Don’t you?’ he prompted Lia confidently as his arm tightened about her waist.

  ‘I—’ Lia broke off with an indrawn hiss as David gave her arm another painful twist.

  She had been completely shocked when the door to her apartment had been kicked or shouldered open—so savagely the lock had come out of the doorframe, wood splintering everywhere, the door itself crashing into the wall behind.

  And she had never been more pleased to see Gregorio as he stepped through that ruined doorway, looking for all the world like a dark avenging angel in a black T-shirt, black jeans and heavy black boots, the darkness of hair tousled into disarray.

  She had no idea what he was doing here after the way they had parted yesterday—she was just grateful that he was there.

  At least she would be if David hadn’t given her arm that warning and very painful twist.

  It was a threat that he intended to hurt her more than he already was if she attempted to alert Gregorio to the fact she was being held against her will.

  To hell with that!

  ‘He has my arm twisted behind my back—’

  Lia broke off with an agonised yelp of pain as David jerked her arm up even further, the movement accompanied by a snapping sound.

  Pain such as Lia had never known before radiated from her arm to the rest of her body. Black spots danced on the edge of her vision as she was thrust forward towards Gregorio, and then the blackness became all-consuming...

  * * *

  ‘Gently,’ Gregorio warned softly as Raphael lifted a still unconscious Lia into his waiting arms where he sat in the back of the SUV.

  The other man closed the door and got in behind the wheel to drive them to the hospital.

  It was probably as well Lia was still unconscious, because Gregorio had no doubt that her arm was broken. He had heard the distinctive sound of bone cracking as Richardson had pushed her towards him.

  Gregorio’s arms had moved up and caught her instinctively. All of his attention had been centred on Lia as she’d fainted in his arms—probably from the added pain he had caused by catching her as she fell.

  By the time Gregorio had lifted and cradled Lia carefully in his arms, and then looked around, Richardson had gone.

  Gregorio had wasted precious more seconds placing Lia gently down on the sofa, before taking out his cell phone and calling down to Raphael. The bodyguard had reported that Richardson had left the building and already driven away. Not Raphael’s fault: he couldn’t possibly have known that Richardson was fleeing the building rather than just leaving because Gregorio had arrived.

  It didn’t matter. Gregorio would find Richardson—wherever he ran to. There wasn’t a place on this earth where the other man would be safe from Gregorio’s wrath for his having dared to physically harm Lia.

  In the meantime they had to get Lia to hospital as quickly as possible. Her broken arm needed to be reset and immobilised.

  And Gregorio knew her well enough to know she was going to be one seriously angry Lia when she regained consciousness.

  * * *

  The voices were fading in and out of Lia’s consciousness, and the pain in her arm was making it impossible for her to make any sense of what was being said.

  But she did recognise the three voices speaking. Cathy. Rick. And Gregorio.

  Memory came rushing back to her.

  David waiting for her outside her apartment... His threats...

  Gregorio’s unexpected and physically violent arrival...

  The snapping sound in her arm as David had pushed her away from him.

  The pain.

  Blackness.

  And then the pain again, when she’d woken up in what she presumed was the A&E department at the local hospital, having her arm X-rayed. Despite the painkillers she had been given, she had passed out again when they’d reset the broken bone.

  And throughout all that Gregorio had been at her side. Not speaking. Just there. His face had been set in grimly austere lines. The only words he’d spoken had been to the doctor as the other man had reset her arm. Before she’d blacked out again.

  She had no idea when Cathy and Rick had arrived, but she realised Gregorio must have called them. There was no other way they could have known she was at the hospital.

  Talking of which...

  She opened her eyes to look at the three people sitting beside the gurney she was lying on, obviously all waiting for her to wake up. She seemed to be in some sort of curtained-off area—probably still in A&E. The cast felt like a heavy weight on her left arm.

  ‘At last the lady awakens.’ Cathy beamed her pleasure.

  ‘Thank goodness.’ Rick heaved a sigh of relief. ‘You had us worried for a while there, Lia.’

  Only Gregorio remained silent, and a quick glance in his direction showed her that his expression was as grim as it had been earlier, his eyes a glittering black.

  Lia turned away to moisten her lips before speaking. ‘Can I go home now?’

  ‘Of course.’

&nb
sp; ‘Yes.’

  ‘No!’

  She winced as all three of them answered her at once. ‘Conflicting answers there, guys.’

  ‘You can go home...’ Cathy shot Gregorio a puzzled glance—his had been the negative answer.

  ‘But you aren’t going to.’ He spoke up firmly. ‘Not to your own apartment, anyway.’ He stood up restlessly and began to pace the confined area behind the curtains. ‘I have arranged for the lock to be repaired, but Richardson is still out there somewhere,’ he added grimly.

  A nerve pulsed in Lia cheek before she spoke quietly. ‘He was threatening to kill me and make it look like suicide before you arrived,’ she told Gregorio.

  ‘God, no...’ Cathy gasped.

  ‘Bastard!’ Rick muttered furiously.

  Lia moistened the dryness of her lips. ‘I don’t think he would have done it—Okay, maybe he would,’ she conceded heavily when Cathy gave a sceptical snort.

  The murderous rage Gregorio had been holding in check for the past two hours threatened to overflow like molten lava from the top of a volcano.

  If he could have got hold of Richardson during the past two hours...!

  He had debated long and hard as to whether or not to call the police immediately in regard to Richardson’s attack on Lia. He had finally decided not to do so—not this evening, at least. He would call the police once he had Lia safe. They would add assault to the rest of the charges he was going to ask the police to bring against David Richardson once they caught him.

  Raphael and Silvio were out looking for the other man now, but they had already reported back that Richardson wasn’t at his apartment or his parents’ house. Considering the amount of money the other man had embezzled from Fairbanks Industries, there was every possibility he had decided to leave the country. Richardson had to know that, having hurt Lia in front of Gregorio, he would now be being hunted.

  Gregorio had no intention of stopping that search until he had found the other man and eliminated any further danger to Lia.

  ‘You will stay at the hotel with me,’ he stated. He couldn’t concentrate his attention on the search for Richardson without knowing that Lia was completely safe.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there’s no need—’

  ‘We’d be more than happy—’

  ‘There will be no discussion on the subject. Lia is coming back to the hotel with me.’ Gregorio spoke over the protests of both Lia and Cathy. ‘She will be safer there,’ he said more gently to Cathy.

  Lia inwardly questioned whether she would be safer at the hotel.

  With Gregorio.

  Alone with him day and night in that sumptuous hotel suite.

  Not that she was in any condition for a seduction, and nor had Gregorio shown any signs of wanting to seduce her, but even so...

  She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of staying with him.

  ‘You and Rick both have jobs to go to.’ Gregorio continued to talk to Cathy in that soothing tone. ‘I can work from my hotel suite, and very often do. Lia will not be left alone at any time until Richardson has been apprehended.’

  Oh, great—now she was going to have a babysitter—no doubt Silvio or Raphael—whenever Gregorio had to go out.

  ‘I’d really rather not—’

  ‘The matter is settled,’ Gregorio rasped, and those glittering black eyes were challenging as he looked at her.

  When Gregorio announced that a matter was settled it was well and truly settled, Lia acknowledged a few minutes later as she sat beside him in the back of the SUV while Silvio drove them back to the hotel.

  She couldn’t deny there was a certain logic to her staying with Gregorio. David was obviously more dangerous than she had realised, and she didn’t doubt his threat to kill her had been very real. The penthouse floor of the Exemplar Hotel was completely private to Gregorio, and he already had his own security team in place.

  Besides, she accepted that going back to her apartment was a bad idea. Even though Gregorio had already had the lock and the door repaired, she didn’t trust David any more.

  She certainly didn’t want to put Cathy and Rick in any danger by accepting their offer to stay with them.

  Lia had never thought she would say it—even think it—but Gregorio’s hotel suite was the safest place for her to stay right now.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘YOU ARE GOING to need help undressing, and I will put something waterproof over the cast on your arm before you have a shower,’ Gregorio informed her evenly as he unpacked the bag of Lia’s clothes and toiletries that Cathy and Rick had just collected and brought over from Lia’s apartment.

  Lia gave a grimace as she sat on the side of the bed in what had turned out to be one of six spare bedrooms in Gregorio’s suite. Not that she had expected to be invited to share Gregorio’s bedroom, but this impersonal guest room told her exactly the place she occupied in his life.

  She really hadn’t thought things through enough when she had accepted that Gregorio’s suite was the safest and best place for her to be right now. She hadn’t thought about where she would actually sleep. Nor taken into account the mechanics of not being able to move her right arm properly, or the fact that she was going to be encumbered with a heavy plaster cast for the next six weeks, and a sling for two of them.

  Which meant she couldn’t undress herself without assistance, and showering was going to be a big problem. She would probably need to have her food cut up into tiny pieces too, so she could eat with one hand.

  But right now her thoughts sounded like those of a whiny, ungrateful brat. ‘I’ll take a bath instead of a shower,’ she announced brightly. ‘And I’m sure I’ll be able to take my own clothes off.’

  She knew the strong painkillers she had been given at the hospital were preventing her from feeling the worst of the pain. Luckily she had been prescribed a whole plastic container full of them!

  Gregorio arched a dark brow. ‘I have already seen you naked, Lia...’

  She shot him an irritated scowl. ‘Not under these circumstances, you haven’t!’ She sighed as she realised she sounded ungrateful. ‘I’m sorry, Gregorio. I haven’t even thanked you yet for coming to my rescue earlier.’

  ‘Luckily Raphael recognised Richardson’s car and called me immediately.’ Gregorio leaned back against the tall chest of drawers he had placed her clothes in, arms folded across his chest, his expression unreadable. ‘What exactly did Richardson threaten to do to you?’

  Lia wasn’t fooled for a moment by his relaxed posture, or the mildness of his tone. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t really have—No, I’m not.’ She admitted with a grimace. ‘He was... I had no idea he could be like that. I owe you an apology, Gregorio. Another one. Everything you said about David is true.’

  ‘He is responsible for embezzling the money from your father’s company?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘He admitted this to you?’

  ‘Amongst other things.’

  She related everything David had said to her earlier that evening.

  ‘He was with your father the night he died...?’ Gregorio frowned.

  Lia closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. ‘He said there was nothing to be done. That my father died almost instantly. But—’ She broke off, unable to say anything more on the subject without breaking down.

  ‘But,’ Gregorio acknowledged harshly, ‘you think he is responsible for killing your father?’

  ‘Only indirectly—in as much as he caused my father so much distress it brought on the heart attack.’

  His mouth thinned. ‘I will find him, Lia. No matter what rock Richardson hides under, I will find him.’

  ‘I know you will.’ She nodded. ‘Would you mind very much if I don’t take a bath or a shower tonight? I’m tired and aching and I just want to go to sleep.’

  ‘Of course. Whatever you are comfortable with,’ Gregorio reassured her as he straightened away from the chest of drawers and crossed the bedroom to her side. ‘But I am going to help
you undress.’

  Lia knew that tone only too well: it was one that told her Gregorio wasn’t going to be talked out of doing exactly what he said he would. And there was no arguing with the fact that he had already seen her naked.

  ‘Did Cathy pack something for me to sleep in?’ She stood up—only to have Gregorio reach out and grasp her uninjured arm to steady her as she tilted to one side. It was ridiculous how a little thing like a plaster cast and a sling could affect her balance.

  ‘Something that looks like an oversized T-shirt...?’

  ‘That’s it, yes.’

  Lia almost laughed at the look of disgust on Gregorio’s face. No doubt he was used to the women in his life wearing silk and satin to bed—if they bothered to wear anything at all. Even when she’d been able to afford those things Lia had always preferred practicality and warmth in bed over appearing sexy.

  ‘Thank you for calling Cathy and Rick for me earlier. I—They’re the closest thing to family I have.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’ Gregorio spoke softly. ‘And I have already left instructions that they are to be admitted at any time.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘You are very polite this evening.’

  ‘About time, hmm?’

  Gregorio shrugged. ‘You felt you had good reason to be...less than polite to me before.’

  ‘And I was wrong.’ She sighed. ‘About everything.’

  ‘Do not upset yourself. You know the truth now, and that is the important thing.’

  It was. And yet...

  She didn’t like it that Gregorio was treating her with the polite distance of a concerned acquaintance, rather than a lover. Not that she didn’t fully deserve it, but Lia missed the intensity of passion radiating from him. That had never been far from the surface when the two of them had been together in the past.

  She drew in a shaky breath. ‘Let’s get this over with, shall we?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Gregorio forced himself to remain detached and impersonal as he aided Lia in removing her clothes. He had never acted as nursemaid to anyone before—let alone a woman he had been in bed with all yesterday afternoon. But how difficult could it be?