voice, with its French accent and slight North American inflection, poured over them like heated syrup and turned their insides all gooey.
Marietta suppressed a little shiver.
Did Nico make his lovers plead?
Did he make them scream?
The shiver turned into a hot flush that cascaded through Marietta’s body and scalded her from the inside out. Madre di Dio. What was wrong with her? She had no business allowing her thoughts to veer in that direction. No business entertaining hot, lurid fantasies about her brother’s friend. Life had taught her some harsh lessons—lessons that had moulded her into a realist—and realists like her did not waste their time fantasising about things they would never have.
And yet she wasn’t without aspirations. Cementing her place in the art world, achieving success and recognition as an artist in her own right, supporting herself independently of her brother’s wealth and generosity—those were her goals, the dreams that got her out of bed in the mornings.
Plus she had a wish list tucked away—a ‘bucket list’, some people called it. Everyone had one, didn’t they? Everyone wanted to see things and do things that breathed some excitement, some magic into their ordinary lives.
Marietta was no different. As an incomplete paraplegic she could no longer walk, but living with a spinal cord injury didn’t mean she couldn’t push her own boundaries, do things that were a little adventurous or wild.
Paraplegics around the world skydived and flew planes and competed in rigorous sports.
Every item on Marietta’s wish list was doable. Some more challenging than others, given her physical limitations, but all of them realistic. She certainly didn’t have her head in the clouds. She knew what was possible and what wasn’t. And there was no reason whatsoever that she couldn’t tandem skydive. Or float in a hot air balloon. Or travel to Egypt to see the pyramids.
But what were the chances of a man who could crook his finger and have any woman in the world—any able-bodied woman in the world—he wanted desiring her?
Now that was pure fantasy—a pointless, fanciful daydream she needn’t waste her time indulging.
What she did need to do was stay focused, remember what was important: her job, her independence, her art.
Especially her art.
But now all of that was under threat. In danger of being disrupted by some anonymous admirer who must be mentally unstable, or, if she were being less kind, completely deranged.
Six weeks. That was how long she’d been receiving the bunches of flowers and the notes she’d thought quaint and amusing—even flattering—at first. But over the weeks the messages had gone from sweet to intense, their content growing more personal, more intimate. More possessive.
It was the note that had come with a bouquet of thirteen crimson tulips on a Friday two weeks ago, however, that had for the first time left her truly spooked.
Such a beautiful dress you wore yesterday, amore mio. Red is perfect on you—and my favourite colour. You see? We were made for each other! S.
Those words had clamped a cold fist around her throat and squeezed hard as their import had slowly sunk in. And she had realised something she hadn’t considered before then—that he, whoever he was, was following her, watching her, stalking her.
Gooseflesh rose on Marietta’s forearms and she resisted the urge to rub them, to scrub away the sensation of something unpleasant crawling over her skin.
She’d been so shaken she’d confided in her sister-in-law, Helena—which in hindsight had been a mistake. Helena, in spite of Marietta’s pleas for her not to, had told her husband—Marietta’s brother—who had, of course, flipped. Within minutes Leo had been on the phone, severely chastising her for not going directly to him and urging her to involve the police.
Advice she’d promptly ignored. She hadn’t wanted to create a fuss and her big brother was, as always, being over-protective. The fact he’d waited an entire forty-eight hours before calling on his friend Nico for assistance was, she reflected now, nothing short of astonishing.
That Nico, whom she’d last seen at Leo and Helena’s wedding two years before, had, in the first instance, sent his man Bruno rather than handle the matter himself, was something Marietta had not, she’d assured herself, been a little disappointed about.
Nicolas César was, after all, a busy man—CEO of a renowned global network that provided security and protection services to some of the world’s most powerful corporations and influential figureheads. Dealing with an overzealous admirer was never going to figure high on his priority list, no matter how solid his friendship with her brother.
And yet...here he stood. Or perhaps towered was the better word, she thought, conscious of a crick in her neck. Of the warm pulse of blood beneath her skin. Her heartbeat had not quite settled back into its normal rhythm since he’d walked, unannounced, into the gallery some forty minutes earlier.
After a brief, polite greeting he’d asked to see the cards Bruno had told her to keep, and then, despite the fact they were written in Italian, had proceeded to read every intimate word until Marietta’s face had burned with mortified heat. Then—since it was mid-afternoon on a Friday, and that meant another bouquet was likely on its way—he’d commandeered one of the soft chairs reserved for the gallery’s clientele and artists and waited for the flowers she had silently prayed wouldn’t come.
‘Where’s Bruno?’ she asked now. Not because she missed the rigid presence of the dark-suited man, but rather because she could see the small white envelope attached to the roses and wanted to delay, if only for a minute longer, having to open it.
‘Following up a lead.’
A lead. That sounded vague. ‘What sort of lead?’
He didn’t answer her. Instead he turned to Lina, as if he’d not heard the question or had simply chosen to ignore it.
Marietta tamped down her annoyance—only to feel it flare again when she glanced at her assistant. Santo cielo! Had the girl no pride? No sense of dignity? Marietta wanted to snap her fingers at her. Tell her to wipe that silly doe-eyed look off her face. To straighten up and pull her hip back in, instead of jutting it sideways in a come-hither pose she probably wasn’t even aware she’d adopted.
Nico detached the envelope from the roses, his strong fingers snapping the straw ribbon like a strand of cotton, and handed the bouquet to Lina. ‘Get rid of them.’
Lina—foolish girl—beamed at him as if he’d paid her a compliment rather than barked an order at her. Marietta bristled on her assistant’s behalf. Lina, however, was oblivious. Without so much as glancing at Marietta for confirmation, she took the roses and disappeared out to the back—heading, presumably, for the outdoor dumpster behind the building.
Marietta couldn’t help herself. ‘That was rude.’
Nico’s eyes narrowed on her again...so blue. So disconcerting. ‘Pardon?’
‘Lina,’ she clarified. ‘You could have asked nicely. Barking commands at people is rude.’
One heavy eyebrow arced, ever so slightly, towards his dark brown hairline. ‘She did not look upset.’
Of course she hadn’t looked upset. She’d looked smitten and flushed and...ravenous. As if she’d wanted to drag Nico into the storeroom, bolt the door shut and tear his clothes off—with her teeth.
Marietta was sure Nico knew it, too.
And yet, to his credit, he hadn’t encouraged her attentions. Hadn’t seemed to give out any inappropriate cues. In fact he’d seemed barely to notice her—unlike some of the male visitors to the gallery, who appeared more entranced by Lina’s legs than by the sculptures and paintings on display.
And the girl had good legs—long and shapely—and a good body that she dressed, or on occasion underdressed,