“Bellissima.” Teresina finished her fussing and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Shall we try it with the veil?”
The muted ping of the bell at the front silenced the squirrel-like chatter out there. It happened so abruptly, Teresina and Freja both looked toward the closed curtain. Freja’s stomach clenched with apprehension.
A male voice asked to see the manager.
The hair on the back of Freja’s neck stood up. She didn’t know that voice precisely, but she’d been on high alert since Giovanni’s “death.” The explosion had been reported as an accident, but she was convinced it had been a deliberate attempt to kill him. She understood that meant she could be a target, too.
Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe it was just a salesman. She had no reason to believe that authoritative voice was here for her. Any man who wanted to meet with her could make an appointment through her agent or Nels or any number of other channels. They wouldn’t hunt her down in a wedding boutique.
But as the clerk said, “I’ll see if she’s available,” and the silence remained absolute, a cold layer of perspiration burst onto Freja’s skin.
Teresina smiled an apology and started for the curtain.
Freja forced an unbothered smile as adrenaline poured into her extremities, clenching her lungs and tightening her hand on her phone.
As Teresina slipped past the curtain, Freja moved without second-guessing her instinct. She scooped up her miles of skirt and ran silently on the toes of her five-inch heels past the door into the changing room, where she’d left her clothes and purse, past the powder room, into the administration office, where she’d first met with Teresina and seen the—
Porta di emergenza allarmata.
That’s what this was. An emergency. She was alarmed.
She shoved against the lever and burst into the narrow cobblestone alley. A loud bell began to ring within the shop. The door clattered closed behind her, muffling the sound. It grew fainter as she raced toward the street, where traffic honked in its usual chaotic madness.
She was only thinking she needed witnesses. Getting arrested for stealing a dress she’d only half paid for was better than facing whatever that man had in store for her. She could call Nels from the police sta—
Behind her, she heard the door slam open again. Shouts sounded.
In front of her, a black SUV swerved into the sidewalk, forcing her to pull up short at the mouth of the alley. She started to pivot in hopes of squeezing past it and down the street, but the back door flung open.
“Get in,” Giovanni said.
The sight of him struck like a gong, leaving her quivering. He had a shaggy black beard and dark glasses, and his black hoodie was pulled up to hide all but his familiar cheekbones, but his legs stopped above the knees and she recognized the tense line of his mouth.
Alive. Her heart soared so high, it should have shattered the sky.
At the same time, a thousand furies invaded her like a swarm of killer bees. There was no triumph in learning she was right. There was only a crippling heartbreak that he had abandoned her. If he’d been truly dead, she would have been angry, but she wouldn’t have blamed him.
This, though? He had put her through horrifying hours of actually believing he was gone. She had endured his gut-wrenching funeral, convinced it was a sham. Then, two short weeks later, she’d suffered another unbearable loss that would never heal.
He’d forced her to go through all of that alone.
For every minute that had passed since that awful day, she had longed for him to reveal himself, but now her feet only carried her forward so she could bitterly hiss, “Go to hell.”
“Where do you think I’ve been?” he growled.
“I’m calling the police!” Teresina yelled from deep in the alley. Two of Teresina’s employees were recording everything on their phones.
A man in a suit was running toward her. She instinctively moved closer to Giovanni, heart jamming with fear.
Giovanni’s hard arm looped around her and he dragged her into the back of the car. He clutched the door frame for leverage, but his strength was as annoyingly effortless as always.
She didn’t fight him. In fact, once he grabbed her out of her stasis, she helped, kicking against the edge of the door to thrust herself inside, desperate for whatever sanctuary he offered.
They wound up in a heap on the back seat while the man who was chasing her came up to the open door and reached for her leg.
She screamed and kicked at him with her sharp heels. He dodged her shoes and threw the yards of silk in after her, then slammed the door before he leaped into the passenger seat in front of Giovanni.
“Go,” Giovanni said to the driver, and he pushed himself upright.
As the SUV sped into traffic, Freja rocked deeper into the seat, stunned to her toes.
CHAPTER ONE
Six months ago...
“ARE THOSE THE MUSHROOMS?” a woman asked, catching Freja’s attention as she circulated with a tray of canapés.
Freja paused at the clutch of guests perched on sectional benches in the reception hall, waiting for the ballroom doors to open. Everyone wore beaded gowns and tuxedos and one man was in a wheelchair—
“Oh, my God!”
The tray and its contents would have slipped right off her hand if he hadn’t caught it with an effortless reflex.
Giovanni Catalano. She’d checked up on him through the years, so she knew him instantly. His father had been an Italian ambassador, his mother a well-known heiress. Giovanni had been left in a wheelchair by the same car crash that had killed his parents and older brother. He’d become a Paralympic athlete, then later developed software apps that had earned him obscene amounts of money—as if what he’d inherited hadn’t been enough. He had since broadened his investments to become a billionaire at thirty-two.
His wealth and power cloaked him in authority and an air of earned arrogance, but she hadn’t expected him to project so much sheer magnetism.
He was ridiculously handsome and compelling. His tuxedo didn’t have to do any work, but its pleated shirt and white bow tie accentuated his tanned, clean-shaven jaw. His jacket was beautifully tailored to his wide shoulders, and the crisp trousers were neatly hemmed to drape a few inches past where his legs stopped above the knee.
His bone structure was to die for with his stern brow, sensual lips and heavy-lidded bedroom eyes. It was impossible to tell the color of his irises in the subdued lighting of the reception hall, but she knew them to be stormy gray.
She belatedly straightened while he continued to hold her dumbfounded stare, absently offering the tray to the group as he did.
Someone tittered about him missing his calling.