Читать книгу Modern Romance September 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 20

CHAPTER TEN

GREGORIO TRULY BELIEVED what he had told Lia: a man could no longer call himself a man if he ever raised his hand in anger to a woman. But right now he was very angry. With a red-hot, blinding anger.

Which meant he would have to punch a wall or something to alleviate his tension before seeing Lia. Or he could just punch David Richardson in his too-handsome face and kill two birds with one stone—or one punch.

But for now Gregorio had to concentrate on driving to Lia’s apartment so that he arrived in one piece.

He had deliberately avoided the reception area of the hotel today. Had avoided Lia. She had made it clear yesterday that she didn’t want to continue seeing him.

That was about to change—whether Lia liked it or not.

Raphael had telephoned him just fifteen minutes ago to report that as a routine precaution he had checked all the numberplates and owners of the cars parked in the street where Lia’s apartment was located. He had found Richardson’s sports car parked at the other end of the street, neatly—deliberately?—hidden between two SUVs.

Gregorio had left his hotel suite in such a hurry he had still been talking to Raphael on his cell phone when he’d stepped into the lift and impatiently punched the button for the basement car park.

If Lia had invited Richardson to her apartment, against all Gregorio’s advice for her to stay away from the man...

The thought had Gregorio pressing his foot down hard on the accelerator, his expression grim.

* * *

‘I’m still waiting,’ Lia challenged as David stood unmoving and silent in the sitting room of her apartment.

A mocking smile tilted his lips. ‘This place is a bit of a come-down for you, isn’t it?’

Her gaze remained fixed on him. ‘I like it.’

And she did. The apartment was compact and easy to keep clean. It was also her first very own space. She had enjoyed living with her father, but there had been a formality to it, with meals served at set times and an army of staff to cook for them and clean the house. And consequently very little privacy. Here she could do exactly as she pleased, when she pleased—including eating what and when she wanted. In the nude if she so chose.

‘If you say so,’ David derided sceptically.

‘Well?’ Lia’s impatience deepened.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee or something?’ He made himself comfortable on the sofa.

‘No.’

He chuckled. ‘I think I like this new, outspoken Lia after all. Very sexy.’ His gaze ran slowly over her, from her head to her toes and back again.

Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘Will you just tell me what happened the night my father died?’

David’s expression became guarded. ‘He invited me over. We talked. He had a heart attack. I left.’

Anger welled up, strong and unstoppable. ‘You already told me that much in the hallway.’

Had her father known David was responsible for the missing money? Had he confronted the other man and then David had simply let her father die when he collapsed?

Why hadn’t her father confided in her?

The answer came to Lia so suddenly and with such force she almost bent over from the pain.

David had been her fiancé. The man her father had believed she loved and intended to marry. At the time she had believed that too. She had no doubt her father had loved her enough to want to protect her from knowing the truth about her future husband.

‘My father confronted you about the embezzlement of Fairbanks Industries funds.’ It wasn’t a question but a statement.

David’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘He said that if I returned the money then no one else needed to know what I’d done.’

‘But you no longer have the money, do you?’

‘Not all of it, no.’

‘Because you’re addicted to gambling.’ Lia looked at him with disgust.

‘I’m not addicted!’ There was an ugly expression on David’s face. ‘I just enjoy the thrill...the excitement.’

Addiction.

‘Can’t you see how it’s ruining your life?’ Lia frowned. ‘How it’s turned you into a man who steals from his clients to feed his addiction?’

‘You sound just like your father,’ David scorned. ‘He said if I returned the money no one else need ever know about it and the two of us could live happily ever after. He withdrew from the de la Cruz negotiations to give me time to make the adjustments.’

Which proved Gregorio had been telling the truth when he’d told Lia her father had been the one to withdraw from the negotiations with De la Cruz Industries, even though the sale of the company would have saved her father and the people who worked for him.

Because he had hoped to resolve the situation of David’s embezzlement from the company without anyone being any the wiser. Certainly without Lia knowing what David had done.

My father confronted David alone that evening for the same reason—because he wanted to avoid hurting me.

And David—thief, liar and manipulator that he undoubtedly was—had no doubt used her in the same way to try and blackmail her father into silence. The strain had finally proved too much for her father and he’d had a heart attack.

Lia hadn’t been in her father’s study that evening, nor had she heard any of the conversation between the two men, but she knew with certainty that that was exactly what had happened.

‘Get out,’ she told David coldly.

His brows rose. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’

‘Oh, we’ve finished,’ Lia assured him evenly. ‘We’re way beyond finished,’ she added vehemently. ‘My father acted the way he did out of love for me, and now I’m going to do exactly the same out of my love for him. I am going to ruin you, David, as you ruined and eventually killed my father. I’ll expose you for the cheat and a liar you really are—Take your hand off me!’ she protested as David stood and moved across the room so quickly she was unable to avoid his painful grasp about her wrist.

Instead of releasing her David twisted her arm and held it at a painful level against her back, stepping behind her and bringing himself nauseatingly close to her.

‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured viciously as he bent his head close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you just agree to be a good girl, hmm? Otherwise...’

‘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.’

‘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.