did not think I was so disgusting when you married me, querida.” He sliced a hand through the air. What was done was done. “Enough of this reminiscing. You will bring me the Corazón del Diablo now or I will let my men tear this place apart looking for it. Decide.”
Her answer was not what he expected, though perhaps he should have done so knowing what he did about her character.
“It’s mine, Marcos. But I will sell it to you. For the right price.”
Francesca wedged herself against the Bentley door and jerked the handle for the millionth time. She knew the result would be no different than before, but as furious as she was, she needed something to do.
Something besides launch herself at the man inside the car with her.
She’d already screamed until she was blue in the face. Marcos had threatened to gag her if she continued, so she’d stopped. In truth, her raw throat was relieved to have an excuse.
He had not reacted the way she’d expected. She hadn’t really thought he would agree to pay her a dime, but she also hadn’t believed he would kidnap her in broad daylight after he’d ordered his goons to search the store.
Furious tears pressed at the backs of her eyelids. Gilles had moved as if to prevent it from happening, but she’d begged him not to put himself in harm’s way for her. He would have done so anyway, but one of Marcos’s men pointed a gun at him and effectively ended the attempt. Gilles had stood by helplessly, fists clenching at his sides in impotent fury. She only hoped Jacques had slept through the raised voices and rhythmically slamming drawers.
What would happen when she was gone? How could Gilles keep the shop open and take care of Jacques too? Someone had to pick up Jacques’s prescriptions, fix his favorite soup of clear broth and a little bit of egg noodles, and order the supplies for his bench. He didn’t work often these days, but he still sculpted new creations out of wax when he felt up to it. When he finished a design, Gilles would cast it and start the rigorous polishing of the metal that was required before any gemstones could be set.
Oh, Jacques.
She crammed her fist against her mouth to stop the flood before it could break.
“Did you cry so prettily for me when we parted, Francesca?”
She swung her head around to look at him. “I’m not crying,” she forced out between clenched teeth. The coolness on her cheeks betrayed the lie, but she refused to wipe the wetness away. She would not give him the satisfaction. “And I most definitely would never cry over you.”
“Ah,” he said. “How tragic for me then.”
“Where are you taking me?”
His gaze grew sharp. “Buenos Aires, mi amor.”
Her heart began a staccato rhythm against her ribs. “What? You can’t do that! This is my home, people need me—”
“I did warn you,” he said, his voice deceptively mild and completely at odds with the fire in his gaze. She had the distinct impression he was enjoying himself.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“I do. Remember those words, Frankie?” He smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in his expensive sleeve.
“Stop toying with me, Marcos. And don’t call me Frankie.”
His dark eyes pierced her. “I thought you liked it. Is this your lover’s pet name for you?”
Francesca wrapped her arms around her to ward off the chill creeping over her body. This man was nothing like the handsome young Argentinian who’d been so nice to her. But that had been a game, hadn’t it? He’d only been nice to her in order to win her affection, to fool her into thinking he cared for her.
Once he’d gotten what he wanted, he’d left her to face the shame alone. He’d never even kissed her for God’s sake! She’d been married to him for all of three hours and, aside from a peck on the cheek at the justice of the peace’s office, they’d never shared a single kiss.
“You have to let me go,” she said. “I can’t be gone very long. Jacques needs me—”
“Ah yes, the man who owns the shop. Is he your lover too?”
She gaped at him, too shocked to summon outrage. “You went to all this trouble to find me, to find out who I was, and you didn’t bother to learn that Jacques Fortier is seventy-five if he’s a day, or that he’ll die if I don’t go back?” He looked so cold and unfeeling that a sob burst from her in spite of her best effort to prevent it. She stuffed the rest of them down deep before they could escape. “I need that necklace, Marcos. It’s the only way to save Jacques. I need the money.”
His mouth twisted. “A very likely story, Francesca. You forget that I know you, that I know what you are capable of. This Jacques may be sick, but he is simply the excuse you use to try and make me feel pity for you. You were always very good at that.”
“No.” She leaned toward him, tried to convey her sincerity, her desperation. “I’ll go with you, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll sign a paper saying I gave the necklace to you and that my mother and sister can have no claim to it. But you must help Jacques. Please.”
He stared at her for so long she began to fear he hadn’t heard her. “I have a better idea,” he said, his voice so low she had to lean forward again. His gaze dropped and she realized that her baggy sweater was dipping perilously low, that he could see her bra and possibly the curve of her breasts.
As if her body could have any effect on him. No, she knew from experience that she did nothing for Marcos Navarre. She shifted position slightly, but only out of modesty. She could parade before him naked and he would not be affected.
“Anything,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Yes, I believe you would,” he replied after another moment of letting his gaze wander.
Heat sizzled in the air between them. Her heart thumped, but she reminded herself it was only anger that charged the air, nothing more. What else could it be?
“You will come to Buenos Aires. Willingly, querida.”
“I will,” she replied quickly, though the thought filled her with dread. So long as he used his resources to help Jacques, she would dance naked on a tight rope if he demanded it. And yet she was curious. “Wouldn’t a sworn statement to the authorities here be enough?”
“It might, but I prefer my solution. You will marry me—again—Francesca. Only this time, it will be a marriage in truth.”
Her breath refused to fill her lungs properly. The blood rushed from her head, making her feel suddenly weightless. Of all the things she’d thought he would say, of all the things she would actually do to save Jacques, he’d chosen the one thing that would surely destroy her.
Marriage to him. Again.
“That’s insane,” she gasped. “I won’t do it.”
“Yet it is my price.”
Francesca closed her eyes as she struggled to breathe normally. He had to be toying with her. This was part of his punishment for her, though she failed to see how it could possibly benefit him in any way. He was not attracted to her. Never had been. So what was the point?
Did he know about her ex-fiance? About her poor baby who’d been taken from her too soon? She hadn’t been with a man since the miscarriage—was this his way of tormenting her? Did he really mean to marry her and bed her?
She’d said anything but she’d not considered this. The one thing that terrified her more than any other. She wasn’t the naïve girl who’d once loved him, she wasn’t in danger of losing her heart, but to be forced into intimacy with him when the act made her think of what she’d lost? Of what she could never have? Of the babies