Authors: Lynne Connolly
Jon felt the familiar pull of desire with disbelief. Surely five years should have been enough time for him to get over her? But it hadn’t. He still felt that kick in the groin, as if she’d reached out and grabbed his cock, palmed it, and—shit, he couldn’t go there. Mustn’t. Sex for him was a pleasant leisure activity conducted by two consenting and sophisticated adults. Not this savage yearning to throw her to the ground and just take her.
What was he, man or caveman? He had to get a grip. He stared at her, masking his baser self in a veneer of civilization, noting the parts of her that put him off, or should. The cheap, worn clothes, her T-shirt, streaked on one side with some brown stain, probably sauce, and so faded he wasn’t sure what the original pattern printed on it was meant to be. The tiny denim skirt, faded not by a designer but by repeated laundering, too tight even on her emaciated frame. The pale face, too pale for someone who should be tanned by the Neapolitan sun. And her figure. He blocked thoughts of spanning her waist with his hands. “Are you going to deny it? That you’re an addict?”
She opened her mouth, and the light of battle sparked in her eyes. Then she blinked and the expression disappeared, masked. “Why should I? You saw me in that club in New York, snorting a line of coke. You know they say that every bill in the States has a trace of cocaine. So what makes you so different, so superior?”
“Intelligence?” he suggested mildly.
“Fear.”
He liked her better this way. Defiant, angry. When he’d entered the café, he’d glanced around and not recognized the arrogant party girl in the quiet waitress. He’d thought his information another false lead and prepared to leave, not too disappointed. After all, he’d suffered a lot of red herrings in the past. But Byron was here somewhere. He had to be. Jon couldn’t take it much longer, the constant disappointments, the not knowing.
Now that he’d found Lina he knew he was on the right track. So he smiled, but didn’t let her break away, as he knew she wanted. Her restless gaze flickered here, there, as if looking for a way out. And if they stayed here much longer, she’d find one. He guessed people knew her around here. Naples or New York, neighborhoods had similar characteristics. Someone would be looking out for her.
“Come on. I want to talk to you on neutral territory.” He took her elbow and, ignoring her efforts to break free, took her around the corner, where, thankfully, his rental car was still parked. The guy he’d paid to mind it stood across the road. He touched his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. Jon assumed that meant he’d paid the guy enough. Or too much. He didn’t care. After pressing the button on the key ring that unlocked the doors, he turned abruptly.
Her body hit his. Jon had the tantalizing experience of feeling her pressed against him for a fleeting moment before she took a step back. That memory would remain seared into his brain until the day he died. Sometimes it happened that way, a moment out of time that remained apart, special. For some reason, this was one of those experiences. He could feel it as if she was still there, her breasts, beguilingly soft for all her skinny form, her pussy, nestled just below his balls, inviting and sweet. Fuck, he still wanted her. Or at least his body did.
She stared at the car. He thought he’d done well, hiring something comfortable but not ostentatious. He’d known he’d be venturing into difficult territory, places he’d rather avoid, so he’d gone for something boring. So he couldn’t see why she stared at it as if it were an eagle and she were a rabbit. “I’m not getting in that thing with you.”
“You won’t get in it without me. What do you think I’ll do? Kidnap you?”
She swung to face him and he realized that was exactly what she’d thought. Why would she think that? He’d never shown any propensity to violence or possessiveness. He had no right, and after she started dating Byron he’d done his best to avoid her. Who had treated her this way, to make her so wary? Anger rose in him, unwarranted and unwanted. “I would never do that, Lina. I promise.”
She smiled, but it looked forced. “No, of course not. But I want to know where you’re taking me. And I want your word that you’ll bring me back when I’ve told you what I know.”
Relief flooded him. He’d won a concession. “So you’ll talk to me?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“Gladly. How about I take you for lunch? You look as if you need some.”
She got in the car, ignoring his last remark. He took the driver’s seat and asked her, “Where to?”
She leaned back in her seat and frowned for a moment. Then she smiled. “Head for the bay. Let’s go tourist.” Where lots of people would be around, where she’d feel safe, he guessed.
People in Naples drove as if the laws of the road applied to everyone except them. When he slowed for traffic lights, the car behind blared a warning that it had no intention of stopping. At one point Jon wondered if brake lights were disabled around here as, gaping in disbelief, he watched the car in front go around a corner on two wheels.
Despite the journey that took five years off his life, he enjoyed Lina’s chuckles when he swore or someone missed him by a hairbreadth. He still had difficulty thinking of her as Lina, but he understood only too well why she wanted to use that name. Bella Mazzanti Forde was too well-known to pass as a waitress in a café. Lina seemed someone different. Until he looked at her properly, and until she’d pressed her body against his. He’d know her in the dark, remembered a dance at a ball. One unforgettable dance when he’d imagined a future that never came to pass.
Fuck
.
A car zoomed across his path, making him shout something that surprised even him. He enjoyed driving—normally. But not this. “It’s hell here. A fucking inferno.”
“It’s fun. They drive like I used to.”
He glanced at her, which proved to be a mistake, as he took a slight blow from a car that wanted his space. “Ah shit, my hair would turn white if I lived here. What do you mean, used to drive?”
“I don’t need to drive here.” She snapped her mouth shut, as if she’d said too much.
She had. That meant she lived close to where she worked. At least he knew something more about her. Not that he planned to let her out of his sight until he found Byron.
She directed him into a parking space. He maneuvered in, determined not to show weakness. He compared driving in Naples to a battleground, perhaps one of those gladiatorial combats the ancient Romans had enjoyed so much.
But now he’d stopped, he had the time to notice where she was.
The Bay of Naples was beautiful. Dominated by a castle on a promontory, a castle with a peculiarly stark, modern look, not at all like the castles of his imagination or the one where Sleeping Beauty lived. The blue, blue sea merged into the blue, blue sky, with the twin peaks of Etna and Vesuvius a constant reminder of the power of nature to curtail lives in an instant.
People jostled each other, but the air here seemed cleaner than near the café, the individuals better dressed, most of them smiling or bearing contented expressions. Probably because most of them were tourists. At home, they’d probably have the careworn expressions everyone seemed to wear every day.
He got out of the car and waited for her, resisting the urge to sling his arm around her shoulders as every cell in his body told him to do. Claim her as his own. Heartily sick of the way his body wanted to control his mind, he decided he’d do this, then get rid of her. Once he had Byron back, she could go to hell. And by the look of her, that was where she was heading. Straight down.
Jon did his best to ignore the yearning to help her. He’d been down that road before and it didn’t do any good. The only one who could stop the downward spiral was her. She had to want to do it, really want to, and not for anyone else. Forcing her to give up whatever drug she used these days wouldn’t work. It never did. Unless he wanted chaos to enter his life again, he had to let go.
But not without talking to her first, doing his best to persuade her to give this life up and let him take her home.
She took him to a restaurant, touristy but pleasant, with gingham tablecloths and friendly waiters. They ordered pizza at her insistence. With a smile she said, “What else in Naples? You have to try some.”
“Does your café serve it?”
“Sure. It’s very popular, even with people who live here.”
And when it came, it proved very good. He had a pizza to himself, and she had a salad, which she picked at. He watched her carefully in between bites, relieved to see she ate something.
“Some of the best pizzerias in Naples are part of the association,” she told him. “Look for this symbol and you can’t go wrong.” She indicated a sign on the paper menu.
Interesting
.
“How long have you been here?”
She eyed him warily. “Two years.”
“Where were you before?”
“Rome.”
“With Byron?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
He persevered, though it was worse than getting information out of a man. “You split, or drifted apart?”
“Split, kinda.” She pushed her plate away. “Yeah, we split and he stayed in Rome and I came here.”
“Why?”
She met his gaze with a cool, hard stare. “None of your business.”
Stonewalled. He tried a different tack. “Marty Hanson died.”
That made her stare, and for a moment, unfettered terror showed in her eyes. Then it was gone. “Was it natural?”
“In a way. He partied too hard for a man of sixty-five. Had a heart attack after too many all-nighters. All day in the office, all night in clubs and whores’ beds. Why did you do it, Lina? Why did you get engaged to him?” He wanted an answer too badly to use any finesse. The news had shocked him at the time and reverberated around and around until he thought he’d go mad with wondering.
He’d even asked Hanson once. The bastard had laughed in his face. “Because I’m good in bed,” he’d said. “Better than you, that’s for damn sure.”
Jon wouldn’t know. He’d never slept with either of them. Now he could ask Lina. He waited for her answer.
“It got me away from home,” she told him. She picked up her fork and speared half a cherry tomato, staring at it as if she could find answers there. The tines of her fork caught the light and that moment of stillness reminded him of how beautiful she was. Even now, thin and pale, with shadows under her eyes, she had the clean lines of a lovely woman. With very little effort she could be stunning again. “My mother went through men like she went through silk stockings. And they meant about as much to her. Marrying Marty meant I wouldn’t have to watch that anymore.”
“It must have hurt to see that.”
Her soft mouth curled. “Especially when she stole my men, too. Except this time, I stole hers.”
“And you couldn’t go through with it?”
She shrugged.
Despite knowing her sordid history, he still wanted her. Jesus, she could be riddled with disease and he’d want her. But she looked so pure, so perfect. Angel in the face, devil underneath. “You couldn’t fuck an old man for his money, then?”
“If that’s what you want to think, you go ahead and think it.”
Until that last remark, that was exactly what he’d thought. What he’d trained himself to think after he’d woken up one morning and discovered that his brother had run away with the woman who’d haunted his dreams for years. He’d never completely believed it, not deep down, but nothing else made sense.
Now he changed his mind. Because she wouldn’t look at him and that wasn’t candlelight that reddened her cheeks.
“Was there another reason, Lina? Why you and Byron ran so fast and never came back? We’d just given Byron an ultimatum—get the cure or leave, so we were always pretty sure why he left. But you—why did you go with him, Lina? You could have said no to Marty and gone on as you were.”
She didn’t answer, didn’t look at him, but stared out the window at the breathtaking view.
She looked better with some color on her face, even if it was a blush. She probably spent her days serving in that sleazy café and her nights scoring junk.
Something else lay behind her engagement to a man almost three times her age, and then her decision to run so hard and so far they couldn’t find her.
Too wise to imagine he’d get any more out of her now, he changed the subject, guiding her to talk about Rome and Naples, and her life there. She was good, very good. She talked about St. Peter’s, about the Vatican, the Coliseum, Vesuvius and Pompeii. But not her life and how she related to them.
He let her talk while he lingered over his food. Let her gain some confidence, let her think he’d take her back to the café straightaway. But through the meal a conviction had grown on him. If he let her go, she’d run again, and she’d proved how good at that she could be. He wouldn’t let her. In five years, this was the closest he’d been to finding his brother. And he had to admit, he didn’t want to let her go.
After he’d paid and they left the café, he drove back to his hotel, a short distance from the bay.
She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I can walk back from here. Nice to see you, Jon. Sorry I couldn’t help you any more with Byron, but as I said, I haven’t seen him for two years.” She tried the door.
It didn’t work because he still had the central locking mechanism on.
“You really didn’t think I’d let you walk away, did you?”
She twisted around to face him. “Yes. You promised.”
“I promised I’d let you go when I found Byron. After you help me.”
“But I’ll lose my job!”
He didn’t want that. To take away any chance at recovery. He’d thought it encouraging that she had a job at all. “When are you next on duty?”
She bit her lip. “Tomorrow morning. I work shifts and I’m on days this week.”
His heart sank. “What do you do at nights?”
“Serve behind the bar.” She put up her chin. “Why, what did you think?”
He didn’t want to antagonize her any more than he had already. “Nothing.” Although plenty had flashed through his mind when he’d referred to night work. That confirmed his suspicion that she lived nearby. “I’ll get you back for tomorrow.” And hang around until she finished.